Quentin Tarantino's latest [genius] cinematic endeavor
Django Unchained left audiences, regardless of their ethnic background and racial politics, 'feeling some kind of way' as they exited the theater. Some movie goers (including Oprah) called it cathartic as they made their way through halls choked with folk who weren't studdin' no Bilbo Baggins, and could give less of a damn [no disrespect to Peter Jackson] about his Unexpected Journey. Picture if you can a United States where violence, sexual abuse, and enslavement of Black people was not only typical but essentially American. No, I'm not talking about right now, I'm talking about 1858. Anyway, here you have the primary ingredients of a movie about slavery. But that is where all would be comparisons end, because as opposed to your typical slave flick, the victim-turned-freedman gets the 'get back' most disenfranchised people of color can only dream of.
Moving from cathartic,
Django Unchained has been called racist and disrespectful due to it's gratuitous use of the N-word. Now let's be real--the movie takes place two years before the Civil War officially begins, and at the time there were no American words to describe people of African descent. We were neither Africans nor Americans, and we certainly were not human. We were property and that's what "living" property was called. For the sake of time, I'm going to write them off as haters. But there's more still to this film...
If you went to see Django Unchained and got little more out of it than the killing, and a chance to glimpse any uncomfortable shifting of White audience members you think might be closet racists or simply on a guilt trip, it could be that you've missed the point entirely. It's a love story. No, that's too simple. Django Unchained is a well crafted (though Quentin might not have realized it) weapon against the train wrecked images that come to mind when you think of relationships between Black men and Black women. And yes, the media is in some ways apart of the problem, but we're too smart to blame it all on them. We can't even blame most of it on the media, so let's not go there.
You don't need to look far, or too hard for that matter, to see the less than desirable position we find ourselves in. Simply flip the channel to BET, turn on a movie, surf the web, watch YouTube videos, and you'll see the wreckage. We live in a time in which it's cool to date our tri-joint smoking abusers and be "Unapologetic" about it, and where we happily straighten out "ratchet hoes" one upper cut at a time. The sad thing is that this is not even the tip of the iceberg's tip.
But there's hope. Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington's characters give a glimpse of a very real and enduring love that need not slip through our fingers. The kind of love that makes you search for you family after chattel slavery has broken it apart on the auction block. Foxx transforms into our very own Black Siegfried and walks through hellfire for his Broomhilde-- and all because knew in his heart that she was worth it. Broomhilde [Kerry Washington] spared no expense giving back that love; she was even with him as he day-dreamed. I suppose, somewhere along the way too many of us had forgotten that we worthy it? Well, thank God for reminders like Tarantino's. There's an authenticity to Foxx's tenderness towards Washington and, more importantly, a sense of duty and purpose [to love his woman] that hasn't been seen in mainstream cinema featuring Black main characters for a decade. That might even be generous of me. There was no room for Tyler Perry-esque cookie cutter "love", no room for the guessing games in the Gangsta flicks. Django lifted my spirits and blasted rounds into my cynicism. The real question is what can we do to obtain that real and devoted love? I reckon we can start within. If that's too cryptic and leaves you completely lost, go see the movie. Hopefully some part of you somewhere will say, "I wanna be loved just like that." I know I do.
Cheers
