fakeagainstthemachine:

tl;dr: Roots wasn’t a Tarantino movie. Your Django mileage may vary: there are some objective realities worth considering, great conversations to start, and yeah, revenge fantasy. I loved it, 110 “nigger” count notwithstanding.

If there are 44 million Black Americans, there are 44 million ways to be Black*. There are going to be a plenitude of responses to Django. For many reasons, not all of which I know, I received the film very well. The unrepentant, unnecessary, gratuitous N-wording bothered me less than it has in other media.

(I mean, there are so many rich and interesting racial slurs from that time period, which would also have been more historically accurate, since the N-word wasn’t as “popular” - or incendiary - at the time. But I digress.)

The revenge fantasy didn’t thrill me nearly as much as the incisive, blink-and-you-missed it commentary on modern-day race relations. Schultz’s “I abhor slavery; but since it serves my purposes, I’ll take advantage of it” is part of that commentary. Django’s uncertain reception at Big Daddy’s plantation is part of that commentary (“Do not treat him like a slave.” “Do we treat him like we treat White People?” “No”). And if you hadn’t been allowed to dress yourself for your entire life, what would you pick out of a fancy store when given a chance? (Which gave Tarantino the chance, once again, to dress up a protagonist as a super-hero. He really is a little kid.) Those are the things in my viewing experience that gave me joy.

44 million ways to be Black. That means I have no right to challenge or criticize what emotions this movie touched off in any of my brothers or sisters - hell, I’m just grateful that my best friend and I had similar reactions. Our ‘little brother’, the third member of our trio for many years, refused outright to see Django. And that’s every bit as valid as our enjoyment of same.

But irrespective of your emotional response, I offer you this truth: Black people are not wholly incidental in Django. The main villain of the film is Black. Without Stephen, there is little conflict in the second half of the movie. Without Stephen, Django and Schultz pull off their con successfully; Broomhilda is freed; Django doesn’t kill an entire plantation’s worth of Whitefolk and house slaves. Stephen is the villain of the piece, which can start a great discussion about the lasting tension between those perceived as house slaves and those who self-identify as field slaves - and vice versa.

44 million ways to be Black, 44 million ways to see Django. But the nature and import of Stephen’s role in the narrative is an objective reality. Django’s own importance may be more subjective. We can look at Schultz’s patronage of Django, and have another discussion about the difference between emancipation, enfranchisement, and true agency - and how much of Black America has anything more than the first. Or we could just grimace and say “Can’t Django do anything for himself? Why does he need a White man to save him?” (Answer: because it was 1858 in the South.) To me, Django is not incidental; he is, however, powerless in a way that reflects the reality of the time.

I don’t dispute that Tarantino has, with Django, done - dubiously - “for” Black America what he did “for” Jewish America with Basterds, and Lady America with Kill Bill. I appreciate it for what it is, and that means acknowledging its limitations. But that doesn’t mean it was nothing more than exploitative. It was, as my friend put it, a love letter to Black folk.

I felt the love. (I also felt Tarantino’s childish glee at “getting” to say a bad word.)

*sentiment courtesy of Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

(Source: BuzzFeed, via fakeagainstthemachine)