Alright..I done seen this shit...now for my observations:
As a story it holds up and has entertainment value but that was never the issue. The issue was using plantation life and the horrors of slavery in a story thats purely for entertainment purposes.
Could a Black Django story have been told without getting into plantation life specifically? Yes..the first half hour or so of the movie proves that. And while I still have my issues with it the horse has left the barn so to speak so in that light I (and you all as well) should be on the look out for that Concentration Camp Jewish action story and The Trail Of Tears Indian thriller. Clearly its okay to use real life horrors in human history as fodder for fantasy fiction so lets use them all.
Or are terrible events in black history the only things open for dramatic licence use?
Observations specifically about the movie and
moments:
Django is the ONLY self actualized black man in the whole damn film.
Tarantino literally illustrates Candie's 1 in 10,000 theory by not showing any other black man doing anything but being a broken slave. In fact Django himself is a broken slave until he bought by a well meaning white man. King Schultz..note the GOOD white man's name is KING
. All the good things that happen to Django is solely because of the auspices of a white man who is literally white guilt personified. Hell we should have seen a Star Wars type crawl at the end of the movie that said THANK YOU MR WHITE MAN FOR WITHOUT YOU ALL OF THIS WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE! LUV DJANGO
King Schultz is a bleeding heart liberals wetdream.
Here's a guy who when we meet him is all business. But he hates slavery. He buys Django simply because he can aid him in bounty hunting thats it. The original deal:in exchange for helping locate the Brittle brothers, Schultz will free Django from slavery and give him $75 plus a horse. Then Django tells him about his wife and suddenly Schultz is smitten with this quest that takes him waaay out of his way for no real reason. Which brings me to...
AFTER 2 AND HALF HOURS WE REALLY DIDN'T LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT ANY OF THESE PEOPLE!
Django, beyond being a slave whats his background? How is he so naturally accurate at shooting a gun if he's never handled a weapon before? How's he and Broomhilda meet? How long were they married?
King Schultz was dentist before becoming a bounty hunter why'd that happen? Does or did he have a family? Why is he in america?
Other than being a cruel slaver owner and a dandy whats Candie's background or Stephen? All of these people were what they did..they weren't so much real people as representatives of vocations or emotions.
Broomhilda was to Django what the jewelry store robbery was to the thieves in Reservoir Dogs or the briefcase was Jules and Vince in Pulp Fiction or guns were to Ordell in Jackie Brown or Bill was to the Bride in Kill Bill. She and they were just a reason for the protagonists to be doing shit (thats called a MacGuffin). Hell you really didn't need her..its possible to write a story where she gets killed and Django goes on a mission to avenge her that would have worked just as effectively.
Django never stopped being a slave.
Legally speaking Django was a slave when Schultz bought him. Schultz gets a receipt for him then tells him that for the purposes of bounty hunting only Django must "pose" as his servant. But legally Django IS his servant. Schultz calls him Django Freeman but he never gave him his freedom papers. Even after calling him his partner and they make all this money Django could have bought himself out of slavery with Schultz for a dollar or so just for the papers but that never happens. He goes back for Hildies papers and its important if theyre going to be travelling in the south but Django himself doesn't have papers so legally he's still a slave by the end of the movie.
Portraying white people as evil, ignorant bumblefucks undercuts the seriousness and reality of slavery and the KKK
While the scene with the hoods/eyeholes was funny there was nothing funny about the ku klux klan. Even tho those guys may have been the precursors to the actual klan those lynch mobs and terrorist groups were very effective in terrorizing people in general and blacks in particular. And it begs the question that QT asks thru Candie in the film which is "HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GUYS ALLOW YOURSELVES TO BE RULED BY THESE HILLBILLY ASSHOLES FOR SO LONG?"
And thats a real question. QT raises a number of points about blacks and slavery make you go hmmm? 1 in 10,000 (which is totally not enough to make a resistance in any real way) - subservient brains - whites are evil but ultimately stupid yet still rule over blacks so what does that say about them? So sticking funny bits around it and wrapping it up in a fantasy where one black guy is the "fastest draw in the south" seriously undercuts the very real issues and horrors of forced bondage that real black people had to endure.
My position on Django Unchained and its use of plantation life hasn't changed and if anything it makes me have more questions about tarantino.
Thats just off the top of my head...Its late but I have more observations tomorrow.
they chould hav edited out atleast 5-mins of footage and got to the sure point..
