Merry Christmas!
Having enjoyed 60 degree weather since arriving in Texas, waking to snow on Christmas was a surprise. The roads were dicey so we proceeded (slowly) to IHOP for breakfast.
A delicious and warm breakfast justified all the slipping and sliding getting there. After enjoying the heater at McDonald's for lunch, we began the day.
Isaiah had a master plan full of fun and access to toilets. Being Christmas, and everything being closed, we would go to the theatre. We had mapped out our plan-Django, then Lincoln, Flight, followed by Life of Pi. We had disguises, we were ready to go.
After Django Unchained we were attempting to sneak into a screening of Lincoln. We ran into three guards. There went our plan.
Thankfully Django was three hours long and awesome, so we had a nice time and got to use the bathroom before settling into the eerily closed Walmart parking lot.
Yes, we liked Django. A lot. Even with all the discomfort. The criticism I've heard about the movie seems to find offense with either its intent or its influence.
I don't think Tarantino is a racist.* Yes, the N word was omnipresent in the movie. The word, of course, was used at the time, though I'm not so sure it had been adapted by the slaves NWA style.
It was odd watching the movie in Texas and yes, some people were laughing at inappropriate parts-not the inappropriate parts you were supposed to laugh at, but basically anytime a white guy said the N word followed by something belittling.
Speaking of the N word, doesn't it seem like something has to change here in order to move forward? It's still a word that divides and excludes, but in a new way. It's remarkable. A word used to denigrate a group was embraced by the group to steal its sting. And this worked so astoundingly well that not only is it no longer appropriate to say the word, but the group the word denegrated has risen in social status to such a degree that now middle class white youth want desperately to use the word to be cool and can't. (This is not to suggest, at all, that inequality doesn't still exist).
I don't like the word. But it is weird to not be able to type out a word when I have no ill intent, but am merely repeating a word that others use, also with no ill intent.
I guess my questions are:
Is a white man writing about slavery somehow different than a white man writing a female character or a Japanese one? Can he not write a character that would say something that he the author is not supposed to say? Could he write a character who is a murderous slave owner, as long as he doesn't say the N word? Can we laugh at racists, if they are funny and the joke not racist? Can we laugh at slaves, if they are funny? If racists in the audience laugh for racists reasons, is the filmaker to be blamed for presenting racial subject matter? Are there differerent answers to these questions depending on your race?
Can there be any treatment of a horrible subject in a fantastical way? Do the people that condemn Django also condemn "Life is Beautiful," on the grounds there should be nothing funny about the Holocaust?
Can a character not be allowed to be evil (Sam Jackson) because he's a slave? Can, because of all this heaviness, a film not also be allowed to be exciting and entertaining, (which is, after all, why most people go to the movies) that to do so is demeaning to its subject?
Is it enough that the movie brings blacks and whites together to root for a black superhero and root for him to kill racists? Is it enough that a movie get us uncomfortable, gets us in some way considering, even confronting disgusting aspects of our past (which few films tackle and none that I can think of in this demographic-and a western to boot). I think some assume Tarantino did not consider these matters. Or at least not enough, that he should approach writing a story and character differently because of a character's race.
*Why I don't think Tarantino is racist. Quotes from an interview with Henry Louis Gates.
"One of my American Western heroes is not John Ford, obviously. To say the least, I hate him. Forget about faceless Indians he killed like zombies. It really is people like that that kept alive this idea of Anglo-Saxon humanity compared to everybody else's humanity."
"I think it ("The Birth of a Nation") gave rebirth to the Klan and all the blood that that was spilled throughout -- until the early '60s, practically. I think that both Rev. Thomas Dixon Jr. and D.W. Griffith, if they were held by Nuremberg Laws, they would be guilty of war crimes for making that movie."
"I think America is one of the only countries that has not been forced, sometimes by the rest of the world, to look their own past sins completely in the face. And it's only by looking them in the face that you can possibly work past them."
Our Christmas Tree
