Django

[firecat]

http://whiteseducatingwhites.tumblr.com/post/39365279657/whiteness-unchained-when-a-national-shame-becomes-camp

This article makes Django look like The Help with extra torture scenes. (I haven't seen it, but I'm OK with spoilers in the comments.)

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'd say it isn't a particularly fair review.

Contemporary black Americans don't have the experience of chattel slavery any more than I've experienced the holocaust. "It would have been me" adds an emotional connection, but it's not the same thing.

I regret that the first major movie about slavery in the south was a fantasy rather than a more realistic handling, but it wasn't that bad. Django and Schulz are both using each other for their own agendas-- Schulz helps Django first because Django has information and later because he thinks Django will be a good partner as a bounty hunter.

I'm not sure why Schulz shot Candie-- there's a weird interaction before that where Candie absolutely insists on Schulz shaking his hand and Schulz won't do it. Then Schulz shoots Candie. Candie is a bully, but it seems as though there's something else going on like some sort of trick that would get Schulz killed (Schulz and Django tried to trick Candie into selling Broomhilda). I'm writing that stuff off as a reference to westerns I haven't seen.

Broomhilda? This is annoying-- her name was originally Brunhilde. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be an example of white southerners getting things humorously wrong or what.

I give Tarantino credit for a description of industrial slavery, the kind that killed in a few years. I don't think it's part of most people's vision of slavery.

I would say that Django is absolutely the central character of the movie, even though Schulz and Candie have major parts. He's not as talkative as the white characters, but what he says is focused and intelligent.

Part of the problem with that sort of review is that it's guessing about how black people will take the movie. Steve Barnes (a black sf author) liked it a lot. I saw a review (will track it down if you want) by someone black who talked about black audiences being uncomfortable at laughing at the many funny bits, something I wouldn't have guessed.

I didn't realize that Mandingo fighting was invented. So far as I know, the Klan was started after the Civil War.

I do think there are some problematic aspects to the movie-- it's got relatively little from slave viewpoints. For practical purposes, Django is semi-free through most of the movie. It's bad about women. I'm not sure that the sub-plot about Steve (the house slave who reveals Django's scheme to Candie and is torturously killed by Django) makes sense.

Another problematic aspect is that Django is so extraordinary that he makes (male?) slaves who made practical compromises to stay alive (I don't think he'd have survived the happy ending of the movie for very long, either) just look weak.

[firecat]

He didn't guess how black people will take the movie, IMO ("I could never imagine the diverse experiences Black folks might have when/if they see this movie"), but I certainly agree it's not an objective review.