Django Unchained: Mixed Feelings

Have you ever been disappointed in yourself for being caught off-guard by something? As my logical mind takes back over now that my initial impulsive reaction has faded, that's how I feel about the movie Django: Unchained. From the previews, I fully believed this to be a revenge, shoot em up Western where the protagonist happens to be a former slave rather than an cowboy who goes to rescue the girl; all Tarantino style action (think Kill Bill and Shoot 'Em Up) with just enough flashbacks and vignettes to establish a bit of a storyline. What I wasn't ready for were the lengths that Tarantino would go to establishing the setting of 1850's Mississippi. Setting the movie slave backdrop in movies typically includes some whipping, some fierce talk, maybe inhumane working conditions, etc. A lot of Americans - black, white, and other - don't want to face the true degree of savagery that took place and furthermore it's hard to decipher exactly how graphic you can be about in the cinema for the masses to see. Well, Quentin Tarantino has never had that trepidation about finding the line of political correctness/appropriateness. He seems himself as an artist unbounded by societal standards of political correctness or decency. I'm told that me made a remark saying that "Roots" wasn't realistic enough about how heinous slavery was; I found this out since seeing the movie of course. So he kicked his depiction of slavery up a notch from what you're used to. I'm talking slaves getting eaten by dogs on camera. I'm talking a smiling slave master (Leo DiCaprio) instructing slave fighter to kill his opponent with a hammer simply to stay in the master's good graces. I'm talking a white man with Jamie Foxx's genitalia in one hand and a heated hunting knife in the other preparing to castrate him as he hangs in a device which appeared designed for that very purpose. I'm talking slaves put into a cast iron chest in the middle of a field in the middle of Mississippi summer and left there for 10 days as punishment for disappointing the improvised authority on the plantation. I'm talking a slave master explaining that he doesn't understand why the slaves don't rise up and kill the white people before threatening to bash Kerry Washington's beautiful skull in simply to prove his point that Blacks are dumb and subservient. And more. Then on another note, you had the actors' performances themselves. I recently watched Robert De Niro on "Inside the Actor's Studio" when he said it's not an actor's job to judge the character, just to understand him and portray him. But that didn't make it any easier to see DiCaprio, Don Johnson, and other contemporary actors very comfortably and casually throwing around the N word and cracking offensive jokes. The worst part was seeing Samuel L. Jackson as the ultimate House Nigga, he's the old, surly, foul-mouthed representation of Black self hatred itself. At one point he goes so far as to brag to Django about the different horrendous things that he and his masters have done to Blacks in the past. It was even more uncomfortable when you notice just how hard some of the White people in the theater laughed at some of the jokes I couldn't bear to laugh at. Although I have to admit it was a very well made movie, it was difficult to watch at times; my date that night is still offended by it over a week later. I will admit, there are times were Tarantino strikes comedic genius despite the grotesque periodical backdrop (a scene with the Klan complaining that the eye holes on their hood bags aren't adequate). It is also nice in the midst of that backdrop to see a former slave hero who shoots (and at one point whips) slave masters and will do anything to get his girl back. I had to marinate on this movie, watch some video of the actors speaking about it, and sleep on it and now I've arrived at this: I have to get over it or be labeled a hypocrite. I always say that the first step for America to move past racism is be honest about it, which will involve some uneasy moments; although this wasn't an activist call to face the realities of slavery, this is an example. Although I know that slavery is much worse than portrayed in any film we've ever seen (including this one), something about seeing new atrocities depicted or being taken away into a movie which recreates that period is still unsettling at the time. Tarantino has never been shy about controversial subjects (Nazi Germany, etc) or the even N-word, so it would do no good to try to reprimand him for the controversial nature of the film. But maybe we needed this. It gets people talking. Slavery was similar to a holocaust which lasted 500 years instead of 5; we - particularly white people - must escape the misconception that this was just Africans forced to do volunteer work. Our country was largely built on the backs of a population who were stripped from their homeland and forced through torture, castration, murder, rape, and more to do the dirty work for the businessmen that claim to have made our country great. the sooner we see these things and start being honest about them and their unmistakable effect on our country ever since, the sooner we can move past our taboos and start to build understanding.