Quentin Tarantino's Western movie "Django Unchained"

Given the prominence of the word in “Pulp Fiction” and “Jackie Brown”—neither of which remotely touch on slavery—its usage in “Django” starts to seem like racial ventriloquism, a kind of camouflage that allows Tarantino to use the word without recrimination.

I'm curious what kind of recriminations Cobb has in mind. If anything, the words use in "Pulp Fiction" and "Jackie Brown" suggest that QT doesn't feel compelled to disguise his use of the word in a historically appropriate context.

Tarantino’s attempt to craft a hero who stands apart from the other men—black and white—of his time is not a riff on history, it’s a riff on the mythology we’ve mistaken for history. Were the film aware of that distinction, “Django” would be far less troubling

yeah, i'm sure that's totally not the kind of terms tarantino thinks in at all --

that piece was really good I think

Tarantino’s attempt to craft a hero who stands apart from the other men—black and white—of his time is not a riff on history, it’s a riff on the mythology we’ve mistaken for history. Were the film aware of that distinction...

dude Tarantino is totally aware of this distinction, if this wasn't obvious from IB. his films are about film (and the history of film), not history itself.

x[

i don't think it's my place to judge whether a particular piece of media or art is racist or not, but i have not yet found persuasive any of the arguments that claim django unchained is racist.

this is a cool read (steven boone and odie henderson): http://bigmediavandal.blogspot.com/2013/01/unchained-melody-two-troublemakin.html

i dont think cobb is arguing that the film is "racist" nor do i think thats a particularly productive framework to be using

I thought the movie was okay and largely because I agree with the last two sentences: "The primary sin of “Django Unchained” is not the desire to create an alternative history. It’s in the idea that an enslaved black man willing to kill in order to protect those he loves could constitute one."

max, we can use words other than 'racist,' but i think that's the most honest way to characterize the charge cobb is making in statements like "There are moments, however, when ironies cancel each other out, and we’re left with a stark truth—at its most basic, this is an instance in which a white director holds an obsequious black slave up for ridicule. The use of this character as a comic foil seems essentially disrespectful to the history of slavery."

idk I found samuel l jackson's character to be supremely uncomfortable to watch and I think that maybe that gets at why

Alfred do you have the link for that piece -- that was really good

prob the response I would give to cobb's piece is to echo shakey, i.e. well django is maybe not a historical film or even a film about alternate histories?

i think jelani cobb feels comfortable enough in that venue to use the word 'racist' if that's what he thinks the movie is

i too am not persuaded that django unchained is 'racist' but i am sympathetic to argts that it's 'disrespectful to the history of slavery,' even as i think there are good counter-readings of the movie

the movie gets sooo many of the little things right (as detailed in the convo i just linked) that im not gonna hold it against it if the stephen character is handled too indulgently

you can't be 'disrespectful' to history. you can only be disrespectful to people. i don't know what cobb does or doesn't feel comfortable saying but i'm a savvy enough reader to understand his argument even when it's been weaseled around.

I think using the word 'history' at all in discussing this film is kinda massively wrongheaded.

why would he "weasel around" calling the movie racist?

I think using the word 'history' at all in discussing this film is kinda massively wrongheaded.

why?

Because I don't know how seriously interested Tarantino is in engaging with actual history. I should say: wrongheaded wrt his intentions.

It doesn't matter whether he is -- the movie does.

I suppose this is the point in this thread where it and the Zero Dark Thirty one shake hands.

there are a lot of different ways to engage with history. through the lens of film is one. it doesn't have much to do with versimilitude. IB was the same way. (I haven't seen this yet fwiw)

tbh I'm reluctant to rewatch IB these days because I suspect I'll have problems with the wish fulfillment (which I didn't in 2009).

why would he "weasel around" calling the movie racist?

I don't know what motivates him but critiquing this film for not being true to history is about as sophisticated an argument as complaining that the plot of Iron Man 2 diverged from the comic book.

If the problem is just a disrespect for history (whatever that means), why does it matter that it's specifically a "white director" holding "an obsequious black slave up for ridicule?"

p sure that question doesn't make sense

i think perhaps it's entirely to the point because it's insisting that the movie can't escape from history (from the very oppressive circumstance which make it and the "mythology" it is about possible!) even if it claims to. there are consequences for making that claim--for making a "movie about movies." that's not to say that it's necessarily a dodge to make it about mythology, but that it's not free of history and cannot be.

otm -- and you can believe those statements without faulting a film for its verisimilitude.

which is to say, even if the movie wants us to walk out thinking about 70s blaxploitation films and "representations" of slavery--there's a bigger context for that, and a much hardier one to deal with and think about.

unsophisticated notions of what constitutes 'history' itt

harder, not hardier! haha. (x-post)

this is a cool read (steven boone and odie henderson): http://bigmediavandal.blogspot.com/2013/01/unchained-melody-two-troublemakin.html

― turds (Hungry4Ass), Wednesday, January 2, 2013 5:38 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is great

yeah that boone/henderson piece is excellent, great read

I want to see it again, I feel like I missed half the movie now

it's racist

lol

you motherfuckers never whinged like this over 'far and away'

<3 irl lol

Would honestly be interested in Mel Gibson's take.

Not on film, just running into him at the mall and asking him.

ha, important distinction

Because I like the film and because I think at a core level Tarantino knows what he's doing, I'm more sympathetic to and persuaded by Boone and Odie than by Cobb. The idea repeated in several reviews that Django is somehow not attuned to its numerous tripwires seems ridiculous to me. I really can't think of another movie more attuned to racial/historical tripwires. Its awareness is what makes it ballsy. If he didn't know what he was doing, it wouldn't seem so risky. Which does not give anyone involved a free pass, but it does in my mind give all of them the benefit of some doubts.

I don't think concerns or criticisms are misplaced -- I can't imagine a movie like this without them. But for several intents and purposes, "a movie like this" didn't really exist until a month ago.

yeah I was thinking about this - okay maybe the 'background' of how it was made is problematic or w/e, but on its own terms, considered in and of itself, django stands as a pretty great accomplishment, and Im willing to accept its problems for what it achieved

boone's piece for indiewire (linked upthread) is very much worth reading too

yeah that boone convo kinda solidified a lot of what I liked abt it

esp the way QT used that Croce song, which i can't love enough

w/ Taylor Hackford

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/tarantino-talks-django-unchained

Christoph knew I was writing the script, he'd come into town, read what we had so far, then we'd go out to dinner. They were having this big wonderful production of The Ring in LA, he wanted to take me to it, I wasn't able to go the first one. Before we went to the second opera, he took me out to dinner and told me the story of the first opera. I'd seen the Fritz Lang "Die Niebelungen." I was fairly familiar with the legend, but there was nothing like Christoph telling you the story of Siegfried and Brunhilde, he was born to do that, he was terrific, there's no way the opera will be as good. While I was watching the second opera, I realized the stories were parallel. She's already named Broomhilda, a coincidence. As I was watching the story I'm realizing how similar it was actually, when I was breaking it down to the story told in the movie. The daughter of Wotan is the daughter of all the gods, that's Bruce Dern, the mountain is Candyland, Candie is the dragon, the circle of hellfire is around her and Django is Siegfreid. It would be wonderful to see Christoph telling the story. I like bringing a fairytale aspect to the story anyway.

http://jacobinmag.com/2013/01/why-django-cant-revolt/

he kinda lost me with his take on billy crash

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-kerry-washington-django-unchained-20130101,0,7246461.story