Django Unchained: My thoughts
Jan. 22nd, 2013 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
transemacabreSaw Django Unchained last night, and I was blown away! I knew I would like it going in, as I've liked almost all Tarantino's stuff and this sort of over-the-top historical revenge fantasy is the sort of thing I live for. Inevitably, there's a fair amount of controversy surrounding the movie (some of which from people who haven't actually seen it). Below, you will find my thoughts and opinions on Django Unchained, along with some shippy thoughts because, well, that's me.
SPOILERS!
Warning for slavery-related horror and language!
There were definitely some scenes that had me cringing, covering my eyes, and plugging my ears. Holy shit is this movie gruesome. It is not Tarantino's prerogative to spare us ANY of the horror he's laying out in front of us. The action scenes are intensely satisfying, perhaps the greatest Tarantino has ever given us, and there's some genuinely beautiful and artistic shots amongst all the gore -- my favorite must be the overseer's blood splattering on the white cotton. If there's any justice in this world, that will be an iconic movie moment in 50 years.
The villains are some of the most utterly despicable in recent cinema history. Aside from their blatant racism and brutality, there's all these little underlying themes that disturb you throughout the movie -- can I say its even subtly done? -- such as how Calvin Candie pits his slaves one against the other, making them destroy their own kind for his amusement. Stephen, the evil house slave of m'sieu Candie, is right there alongside the Emperor from Star Wars in turns of the most totally hateful villains ever, all the more disturbing because its obvious he's the brains behind Candie and, if he'd wanted to, he could probably have curbed some of Candie's most sadistic tendencies. I don't think it's ever stated outright, but I got the impression he'd basically raised Candie, and his grief over Candie's death pinged me as bizarrely paternal.
Quick note on the "mandingo fighting": I was totally confused by this, and it appears to be something Tarantino made up for the film. I'm a white/Mestee Southerner, and although I've heard a lot of stories about the slavery times from older relatives (who in turn were repeating stories told to them by their parents and grandparents), I'd never heard of anything like that. It's not that's some moral line no slaveowner would've crossed, its more that, financially, it doesn't make a lot of sense to kill your slaves: they're worth too much money. Some slaveowners were violent sadists above and beyond the 'usual' beatings and rapes (I heard a story about one who would drive nails into a barrel, force a slave in the barrel, and then roll it down a hill), and while it wouldn't surprise me if there were one or two individual slaveowners who did force their slaves to fight one another, it wasn't like there were gentleman's clubs for "mandingo fighting" aficionados scattered about the South. Even ancient Romans didn't usually make gladiators fight to the death.
On the criticism: some of it is surely warranted, and others make me wonder what movie that person saw. Let's address a few of the more oft-repeated ones, shall we?
Criticism 1) The movie is racist because they say "nigger" all the time.
Rebuttal) They say "nigger" all the time because that's what black folks were called back then by practically everyone. It don't do anybody any favors to whitewash this part of history.
Criticism 2) The movie is racist to white people.
Rebuttal) The movie portrays 1850s Southern whites as the casually brutal racists they were. Not all of them were violent or sadistic, but all of them except for Schultz either happily benefited from slavery or aided and abetted it. I ain't a 1850s Southern white plantation owner, and I can't imagine being offended unless I was. Once again, it don't do any of us any favors to pretend that our ancestors were better than they were.
Criticism 3) Django isn't even the protagonist of his own movie; Schultz is.
Rebuttal) Schultz is a race-flipped version of the old and venerable Magical Negro character -- Tarantino is so meta that I'm sure this is intentional -- he shows up out of nowhere to help the hero. He's a Magical Whitey, not the hero. It's Django who has the hero's goal -- save his wife -- and its Django who goes through the trials and tribulations to do so, and who takes out the bad guys at the end and burns the fucking plantation down.
Okay, now onto the SHIPPING. Of course, Django/Broomhilda is the canon ship, and a very worthy one. I almost had a stroke when I checked out A03 and ff.net and found that there are already Candie/Mary Sue fics. Dear God, why. There was some FoeYay in the movie between Django and Billy Crash, but that pairing is so loaded with badwrong that I feel like I'm stepping on a mine just mentioning it. Really, the only non-canon ship I'd feel comfortable with is Django/Broomhilda/Schultz. I demand lots of fixit fic where they all survive and ride off into the sunset and find a nice cabin somewhere and make beautiful love.
SPOILERS!
Warning for slavery-related horror and language!
There were definitely some scenes that had me cringing, covering my eyes, and plugging my ears. Holy shit is this movie gruesome. It is not Tarantino's prerogative to spare us ANY of the horror he's laying out in front of us. The action scenes are intensely satisfying, perhaps the greatest Tarantino has ever given us, and there's some genuinely beautiful and artistic shots amongst all the gore -- my favorite must be the overseer's blood splattering on the white cotton. If there's any justice in this world, that will be an iconic movie moment in 50 years.
The villains are some of the most utterly despicable in recent cinema history. Aside from their blatant racism and brutality, there's all these little underlying themes that disturb you throughout the movie -- can I say its even subtly done? -- such as how Calvin Candie pits his slaves one against the other, making them destroy their own kind for his amusement. Stephen, the evil house slave of m'sieu Candie, is right there alongside the Emperor from Star Wars in turns of the most totally hateful villains ever, all the more disturbing because its obvious he's the brains behind Candie and, if he'd wanted to, he could probably have curbed some of Candie's most sadistic tendencies. I don't think it's ever stated outright, but I got the impression he'd basically raised Candie, and his grief over Candie's death pinged me as bizarrely paternal.
Quick note on the "mandingo fighting": I was totally confused by this, and it appears to be something Tarantino made up for the film. I'm a white/Mestee Southerner, and although I've heard a lot of stories about the slavery times from older relatives (who in turn were repeating stories told to them by their parents and grandparents), I'd never heard of anything like that. It's not that's some moral line no slaveowner would've crossed, its more that, financially, it doesn't make a lot of sense to kill your slaves: they're worth too much money. Some slaveowners were violent sadists above and beyond the 'usual' beatings and rapes (I heard a story about one who would drive nails into a barrel, force a slave in the barrel, and then roll it down a hill), and while it wouldn't surprise me if there were one or two individual slaveowners who did force their slaves to fight one another, it wasn't like there were gentleman's clubs for "mandingo fighting" aficionados scattered about the South. Even ancient Romans didn't usually make gladiators fight to the death.
On the criticism: some of it is surely warranted, and others make me wonder what movie that person saw. Let's address a few of the more oft-repeated ones, shall we?
Criticism 1) The movie is racist because they say "nigger" all the time.
Rebuttal) They say "nigger" all the time because that's what black folks were called back then by practically everyone. It don't do anybody any favors to whitewash this part of history.
Criticism 2) The movie is racist to white people.
Rebuttal) The movie portrays 1850s Southern whites as the casually brutal racists they were. Not all of them were violent or sadistic, but all of them except for Schultz either happily benefited from slavery or aided and abetted it. I ain't a 1850s Southern white plantation owner, and I can't imagine being offended unless I was. Once again, it don't do any of us any favors to pretend that our ancestors were better than they were.
Criticism 3) Django isn't even the protagonist of his own movie; Schultz is.
Rebuttal) Schultz is a race-flipped version of the old and venerable Magical Negro character -- Tarantino is so meta that I'm sure this is intentional -- he shows up out of nowhere to help the hero. He's a Magical Whitey, not the hero. It's Django who has the hero's goal -- save his wife -- and its Django who goes through the trials and tribulations to do so, and who takes out the bad guys at the end and burns the fucking plantation down.
Okay, now onto the SHIPPING. Of course, Django/Broomhilda is the canon ship, and a very worthy one. I almost had a stroke when I checked out A03 and ff.net and found that there are already Candie/Mary Sue fics. Dear God, why. There was some FoeYay in the movie between Django and Billy Crash, but that pairing is so loaded with badwrong that I feel like I'm stepping on a mine just mentioning it. Really, the only non-canon ship I'd feel comfortable with is Django/Broomhilda/Schultz. I demand lots of fixit fic where they all survive and ride off into the sunset and find a nice cabin somewhere and make beautiful love.
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Date: 2013-02-03 09:32 pm (UTC)A few thoughts:
Rebuttal) Schultz is a race-flipped version of the old and venerable Magical Negro character
Schultz is the traditional Hero's Mentor, who trains and teaches him, but has to die in order for him to become his own man.
Okay, now onto the SHIPPING. Of course, Django/Broomhilda is the canon ship, and a very worthy one.
Absolutely! Everyone in the cinema was, I think, thrilled to bits that after all the mayhem and suffering, the dashing hero and beautiful heroine got their proper Happy Ending! (There were other women there who said the movie "Had everything: action-adventure, humour, romance and a happy ending," as we were leaving.)
I almost had a stroke when I checked out A03 and ff.net and found that there are already Candie/Mary Sue fics. Dear God, why.
Seriously?! I feel sick that anyone could... Candie is just so disgusting...
Really, the only non-canon ship I'd feel comfortable with is Django/Broomhilda/Schultz. I demand lots of fixit fic where they all survive
Yes! Schultz is a great character! Saving him would be nice – so he knows they do save Broomhilda!
And on that subject:
For me, the key line, and key to the film, is Schultz's brilliant:
"Alexandre Dumas is Black."
Schultz = Abbé Faria
Django = Edmond Dantès, adopting various guises to get his revenge.
The blood on the cotton is as significant as the blood on the walls of the elegant interior of Candieland. Revenge on the 'moonlight and magnolias' depictions of plantation culture in Hollywood and retribution for the fact these houses were built on blood – that of the slaves.
The scene with Big Daddy's hooded raiders, with choral music, which collapsed into farce over the eye-holes, is a brilliant piss-take of the Klan charge in D W Griffiths' Birth of a Nation (the original orchestral score of which was Ride of the Valkyries – another Brünnhilde reference). Griffith wanted his audiences to cheer the Klan for rescuing his imperilled beautiful damsel from a mixed-race villain... The film fuelled a resurgence of the KKK in the 1910s.