Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (a Spaghetti Western) scheduled for release Christmas 2012

[gllahone84]

100 Black Coffins is

 

[216301baller]

Great movie...I'm definitely buying on dvd

 

[mronegative]

The Django Moment; or, When Should White People Laugh in Django Unchained?
http://gawker.com/5971346/the-django-moment-or-when-should-white-people-laugh-in-django-unchained

Great, great article.

[h1]The Django Moment; or, When Should White People Laugh in Django Unchained?[/h1]Cord Jefferson

Beware some SPOILERS in this piece.

Spoiler: FULL ARTICLE

To paraphrase Oprah, call it a "Django Moment." This is the moment when, while watching Quentin Tarantino's campy new slave-revenge movie, a person of color begins to feel uncomfortable with the way white people around them are laughing at the horrors onscreen. Though the film from which it stems has only been in wide release for less than 48 hours, if what I've heard in private conversations is correct, the Django Moment is already a fairly widespread phenomenon.

My personal Django Moment came when an Australian slaver, played by Tarantino himself, haphazardly threw a bag full of dynamite into a cage of captive blacks before mocking their very real fear that they might be exploded to nothingness. A white man behind me let out a quick trumpet blast of a guffaw, and then fell silent. My face got hot, and my nephew, who was sitting at my right, shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Throughout the film, I'd laughed along with everyone in the theater as a lynch mob of bumbling rednecks planned to slaughter the "fancypants ******" Django, and when the villainous house slave Stephen, played pitch perfectly by Samuel L. Jackson, limped dumbly around his master's plantation, kowtowing to every absurd demand with an acerbic and foulmouthed loyalty. But for whatever reason, the dynamite in the slave cage was a bridge too far for me. What the **** is he laughing at? I thought, and just like that, the theater went from a place of communal revelry to a battleground.

Just so we're clear, I really liked Django Unchained, and there's probably no other movie I'll discuss more with my friends—and friends of friends—over dinner in the coming months. I also don't think it's important for everyone in the world to have the same opinions about what is and isn't funny. God forbid, for instance, that Seth MacFarlane were forever allowed to be the one and only arbiter of comedy in the United States. Nevertheless, as Tarantino's latest continues making its bloody cultural ascent, it seems more important to recognize the difference in audience reactions to Django Unchained more so than, say, the difference in audience reactions to Love Actually.

Dave Chappelle once said that the impetus for him walking away from his hugely successful Comedy Central show was an incident in which he felt like a white employee was laughing maliciously at one of his more racially steeped sketches. "(S)omebody on the set [who] was white laughed in such a way—I know the difference of people laughing with me and people laughing at me—and it was the first time I had ever gotten a laugh that I was uncomfortable with," Chappelle told Oprah months after he'd quit the show. "Not just uncomfortable, but like, should I fire this person?"

Today, Django Unchained has me considering, like Chappelle did years ago, what exactly white people are taking away from a film in which a subject like slavery is treated with such whimsy and humor. Was my Django Moment just me being too touchy? And beyond that, did my tittering at some of Django's brutality or Samuel L. Jackson's pathetic moaning cause someone else, black or white, to feel awkward?

Relentless and over-the-top violence is a hallmark in most of Tarantino's work, but in Django Unchained, the gore seems different from the director's previous efforts. There is a wide gulf, for instance, between the ultra-bloody kung-fu fights from Kill Bill and the Django scene in which a pack of wild dogs tears apart a defenseless runaway slave. Also difficult to watch is Django's wife, Broomhilda, being whipped for attempting to escape her plantation, and then being branded on the face. Even Tarantino's other recent take on monstrous ethnic oppression, the WWII drama Inglorious Basterds, had but one scene—the tense opener—that rivaled the hideousness of Django's ugliest moments, made all the uglier because they actually happened.

Considering that some of the real-life, well-documented tortures inflicted upon nonfictional slaves were much worse than the ones shown in Django Unchained, it's almost impossible to not feel self-conscious when Tarantino asks you to rapidly fluctuate between laughing at the ridiculousness of Django's characters and falling silent with shame at the film's authentic historical traumas. It's in this disunity that the Django Moments arise. One moment you're laughing at Mr. Stonesipher's unintelligible bumpkin drawl; next you're wincing as Stonesipher's hounds shred a man limb from limb. (In my theater, one man in front of me scrambled out during this scene and only returned when it was over.) You smile as plantation owner Big Daddy attempts to figure out how to treat a free black man better than a slave but worse than a white person, but then you grimace while watching the vicious slave master Calvin Candie exalt phrenology, the ******** pseudoscience many racists continue to cite as "proof" that blacks are biologically inferior to whites. And since Django runs close to three hours long, at a certain point you start to catch yourself laughing where you shouldn't or—worse, even—hearing others laughing at something you don't find funny at all. Eventually, you begin to wonder if you're being too sensitive, or if the movie and everyone else around you are insensitive. Then you start to consider whether any of that even matters.

The tradition of gleaning strength from self-deprecation and gallows humor is prevalent in oppressed cultures. Be it Jews or blacks or gays, there is comfort to be found in picking at your own failings and defeats before others get the chance. But Django Unchained inverts the tradition throughout the film: Tarantino is white, and there are few laughs to be had from seeing slaves tortured over and over again. Beyond that, black viewers are themselves offered times to provide their own Django Moments, such as when I cracked up after Django blasts Calvin Candie's feeble, widowed sister in the guts with a revolver, sending her flying out of the frame, or when, directly in earshot of my nephew's white high school classmate, I giggled at Django saying his dream job was to get paid to kill white people.

After watching Django slaughter every white person in sight, I felt strange as I exited the theater alongside the rest of the mostly white audience. I wanted to pick out the dude who had laughed at the dynamite in the slave cage, but I also hoped nobody had been too put-off by my delight at an unarmed white woman getting more or less executed. Still, the unease I felt walking out was probably my favorite part of Django Unchained: On the one hand, you're unsettled by the behavior of the characters in the film; on the other, you're also unsettled by how you and everyone else in the theater reacted to those characters. Were you laughing with the movie, or was the movie laughing at you?

 

[tychalla]

Really enjoyed this movie. Jonah hills scene had me cryin laughing.
Had a friend of mine tell me that he thought the depiction of slavery in this movie was farcical.... Smh

 

[Hahahaha]

Just saw it, thought it was amazing. I'm a huge fan of Leo, Waltz and Foxx so I had to see this. Very pleased with this film. There was some interesting comical scenes that I didn't expect but it was well done.


As for the audience, there were mad white people in the sold out show. Some of the stuff that these white people were laughing at weren't funny and were straight up racist. I'm cool about racist jokes and talking some **** but to hear 50-100 white people laugh at scenes that weren't meant to be funny was mad offensive. Me and my girl were not happy but what can you do?

 

[powerballin]

Just saw it, thought it was amazing. I'm a huge fan of Leo, Waltz and Foxx so I had to see this. Very pleased with this film. There was some interesting comical scenes that I didn't expect but it was well done.

As for the audience, there were mad white people in the sold out show. Some of the stuff that these white people were laughing at weren't funny and were straight up racist. I'm cool about racist jokes and talking some **** but to hear 50-100 white people laugh at scenes that weren't meant to be funny was mad offensive. Me and my girl were not happy but what can you do?

That's the thing about this movie. It's not as "smart" as it should be when dealing with a topic like this. Boondocks and even south park deliver a better product with the level smart comedy and satire.

We deserved a better final product.

 

[ninjahood]

**** was fire, whoever thinks otherwise hating hard or your sphincter too tight.

 

[domc03]

i went tonight and thought it was great.
one of the other patrons got up out of his seat and shouted "ain't s... funny about this movie" and stormed out.

 

[iamjusayn]

For those who may be interested in the script. I enjoyed it and cannot put it down myself

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

http://twcguilds.com/assets/screenplay/django/screenplay.pdf

 

[TheGodFresco]

LOVED the movie. The hooded scence with the small holes had me dying LMAO

 

[kix4kix]

I can't front though....there were certain parts in the movie where I felt Spike's comments hit home.
A group of c__s were cackling loudly at every single "N-bomb" in the theater and people were cracking up at "Big Daddy" and his plantation, the allusion of rape and forced sexual encounters clearly going over their heads.
I didn't feel right having the literal rape of my real life ancestors being depicted in that comical type of manner, that paradigm should have been depicted just as darkly as the dog scene.
QT tip-toed around a lot of stuff not to offend the audience, mostly using Dr. Shultz as a filter. But no matter how softly he tried to walk, the subject matter and the comedic style of the film were guaranteed to clash at some point.

I see your point, but I fail to see the relation to spike lees ignorant comments.

 

[kix4kix]

Did you just crap on every black film producer in Hollywood?

I mean are you saying miracle at st Anna and red tails weren't absolutely horrible?

 

[xtapolapacetl]

And when you really look at it...anyone could make a good case for any of Quentin's 8 movies being their favorites. He's that good.

No, you can't. It's amazing how better Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are than anything he has made since. His movies are becoming increasingly cartoonish and comic booky. It's cool if you're into that, I just can't see how a case can be made that Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are not head and shoulders above the rest.

 

[calikev34]

Yaa. good eye, boys
Peeped a few allusions to Kill Bill in that final scene in the main house


So, all these little connection between his films. We know this. The Tarantino universe

I've seen Django twice, and I can't get over the girl with the red bandana.
At the house where dude gets ripped apart by dogs.
Multiple shots are composed with her being the focal point.
The ***** is blonde. With bright blue eyes. And her face is hidden (don't wanna hit the audience over the head with it)
But it's Uma. I mean not the actress, but this character in Django has GOT to "be" The Bride
When Jamie comes back and shoots up the house (where the rednecks are/dude taking a bath/all that)-> she gets away
Jamie shoots everyone in that mug, but she gets untouched and slyly escapes out the back
Cinematographers masturbate to this flick. Like the shots are so amazing and thought-out, to me there's no way there's an alternative


But as far as the connections in his little world go, this one felt like it was done just because. Just so he could day there's connections between all of his films
Like chronologically, ***** a reach to begin with, idk I just felt like it was dong too much

 

[mronegative]

And when you really look at it...anyone could make a good case for any of Quentin's 8 movies being their favorites. He's that good.

No, you can't. It's amazing how better Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are than anything he has made since. His movies are becoming increasingly cartoonish and comic booky. It's cool if you're into that, I just can't see how a case can be made that Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are not head and shoulders above the rest.

And when you really look at it...anyone could make a good case for any of Quentin's 8 movies being their favorites. He's that good.

anyone could make a good case for any of Quentin's 8 movies being their favorites

good case for any of Quentin's 8 movies being their favorites

Quentin's 8 movies being their favorites

being their favorites

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

 

[macbk]

For those who may be interested in the script. I enjoyed it and cannot put it down myself

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

http://twcguilds.com/assets/screenplay/django/screenplay.pdf

Dope, thanks for posting. However, I skimmed through it, and I believe this is the original script that leaked months ago, and not the final draft. Nonetheless, still an awesome find.

 

[shogun]

As for the audience, there were mad white people in the sold out show. Some of the stuff that these white people were laughing at weren't funny and were straight up racist. I'm cool about racist jokes and talking some **** but to hear 50-100 white people laugh at scenes that weren't meant to be funny was mad offensive. Me and my girl were not happy but what can you do?

I always laugh at inappropriate or offensive stuff . I'm a minority though, don't know if it makes it better. If people laugh, then people laugh. It's difficult to be politically correct when you find something funny.

 

[KingParappa]

Yaa. good eye, boys
Peeped a few allusions to Kill Bill in that final scene in the main house


So, all these little connection between his films. We know this. The Tarantino universe

I've seen Django twice, and I can't get over the girl with the red bandana.
At the house where dude gets ripped apart by dogs.
Multiple shots are composed with her being the focal point.
The ***** is blonde. With bright blue eyes. And her face is hidden (don't wanna hit the audience over the head with it)
But it's Uma. I mean not the actress, but this character in Django has GOT to "be" The Bride
When Jamie comes back and shoots up the house (where the rednecks are/dude taking a bath/all that)-> she gets away
Jamie shoots everyone in that mug, but she gets untouched and slyly escapes out the back
Cinematographers masturbate to this flick. Like the shots are so amazing and thought-out, to me there's no way there's an alternative


But as far as the connections in his little world go, this one felt like it was done just because. Just so he could day there's connections between all of his films
Like chronologically, ***** a reach to begin with, idk I just felt like it was dong too much

uhhh other than the fact that it was played byh Uma's stunt double in Kill Bill could it be the Bride? This movie takes place almost 100 years before Kill Bill.
And if the rumors are true this isn't in the Tarantinoverse.

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

there's a rumor going around that Django and Broomhilda are John Shaft's ancestors

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/14/django-unchained-shaft-comic-con_n_1673659.html

 

[powerballin]

As for the audience, there were mad white people in the sold out show. Some of the stuff that these white people were laughing at weren't funny and were straight up racist. I'm cool about racist jokes and talking some **** but to hear 50-100 white people laugh at scenes that weren't meant to be funny was mad offensive. Me and my girl were not happy but what can you do?

I always laugh at inappropriate or offensive stuff . I'm a minority though, don't know if it makes it better. If people laugh, then people laugh. It's difficult to be politically correct when you find something funny.

Say that to Dave chappelle. Some scenes just aren't funny and this movie allows dummies the excuse to get off to really sensitive subjects.

 

[cashbanks]

Just saw it, thought it was amazing. I'm a huge fan of Leo, Waltz and Foxx so I had to see this. Very pleased with this film. There was some interesting comical scenes that I didn't expect but it was well done.
As for the audience, there were mad white people in the sold out show. Some of the stuff that these white people were laughing at weren't funny and were straight up racist. I'm cool about racist jokes and talking some **** but to hear 50-100 white people laugh at scenes that weren't meant to be funny was mad offensive. Me and my girl were not happy but what can you do?

Exactly why I wont go sit in a theatre and watch this **** I feel like I'm being baited into a confrontation

 

[harlemtothebronx]

That just made me think twice about seeing this in theaters.

 

[scotthallwithapick]

No one is gonna fight yall. Calm down. But I did feel a way when people were laughing at ol girl calling the slave owner Big Daddy.

 

[harlemtothebronx]

Yeah there will be no fights, but I know that would take away from the experience for me. I'm really uneasy about that kind of thing, and I feel like it would be distracting.

 

[mronegative]

That just made me think twice about seeing this in theaters.

I'll say this much. When Django gets to ******g people up near the end, the white people in the crowd started getting a little anxious. Literally and figuratively, the tables turned in the film and on the audience.

It's an experience. Not everyone will have the same one, regardless of their race or background. There will be moments you love, moments you feel anxious and moments that you know aren't hitting you or the people around you the right way. This is the realest audience film I've ever seen, and I think you should at least go and see it to find that out for yourself, instead of taking other people's experiences to heart.

 

[powerballin]

If I see this again it will be in my home. The humor could be "smarter" but the average dummy in the theater doesn't make it easier. Imagine watching chappelle in front of 100 strangers majority white. When I went it was mostly black and Latino