Yea. Candie's the big boss. I don't think it's fair to say Stephen is more evil than Candie, because that let's Candie off the hook, as if he couldn't help doing the things he did. Woe is him. He's just a produce of his environment. ********.
Candie is a
patently American monster. Capitalism as a cause and validation for inhumanity. And using his privilege and education to make excuses for the way he is. He's a hypocrite and a phony. And like the Nazis in Inglourious, he can put on fancy clothes, speak a little differently and leave the past in the past when he's done inflicting himself on others.
You can see what's underneath when they flash his bad teeth. He's a Francophile, but he speaks not a lick of French. He's affluent and worldly enough to build this lush, European mansion in Mississippi but he still has to convince himself that the ugly slavery he inherited was natural. It wasn't his fault and didn't make him less intelligent or a monster, because blacks are biologically meant for this. He can take a black bride...**** his sister, whatever. It's alright, because he's white and rich and that's all that matters.
Being white in America is having the freedom to take on any identity you want and being allowed to discard it whenever you please. That's the racial free market. And money is the motivator like any good free market. Everyone shuts up and swallows whatever ******** they get fed when money's involved. That's the side of Candie, that Schultz and Django try to appeal towards.
There
is something deeper there, though.
...Now, I wish Django would've been the one to kill Candie, because that would've been more iconic than "you sure do die good, boy." But I can take a step back and look at what's there instead of what isn't. A different filmmaker might've been fixed on having that moment, but you can see where the meaning would get lost in it. People are pathological and they bend towards the path of least resistance. You have that moment and it boils down to "angry black slave gets revenge." But having Schultz be the one...he's not some hick. He's not some "count my teeth," born into this, slave-owning bigot. And Candie knows that. And he's not American...and Candie loves that. He doesn't have a dog in this fight. (no pun)
That's why Candie has the big show and tell with the skull. He wants Schultz to think he's intelligent and cultured and that this little slave thing is just a part of natural culture.
That's why he wants Schultz to come shake his hand. Because to Candie, Schultz is trying to con him in a business deal and he got caught redhanded, but it's alls well that ends well. Candie could've had Django, Schultz and Broomhilda killed and all that, but he's a gentleman and a businessman. And Schultz's validation means something. That's what he wants from him and that's why Schultz would rather die than give it to him.
What does it mean that the big slave empowerment film has such a big important centerpiece between two white people? I don't know.
But people are pathological, and the choices Quentin made...to have the white foreigner kill the big bad white slaver and the black hero to kill the black sellout make us think more deeply about them. Stephen could've just stayed the comic relief, but he amounted to much more...in the kitchen scene and when he dropped the cane.
It means more, because we're having this conversation.