Tag: Rue

Geekscape Movie Reviews: Django Unchained

by Molly Mahan

First, some background.

Django Unchained was the most anticipated film for me after the summer, and even during parts of it. I was rather bummed that I was unable to finish the bounty hunter game that was going on during San Diego Comic Con this year. But I digress. Not only is it a Quentin Tarantino film, but it was a western—which, if you haven’t learned by now, is my favorite genre of all time. I knew he was going to pull from spaghetti westerns and the usual late 60s, early 70s trash, including the 1966 Django, from which this movie gets its name (and the greatest theme song of all time). So, like a good fangirl, I decided–for once–I would try and prepare myself for the movie, and do some research. Over the summer and fall, I saw nearly three dozen westerns—mostly revenge and bounty killer plots—some for the first time, some for the thousandth. When I walked into Django Unchained, I was certain I was going to know every crook and cranny of this film and it was going to love me the way I was bound to love it.

I was wrong about those things. Django Unchained came at me in ways I never could have expected. It was the anti-thesis of everything I thought I wanted and expected. Granted, there was some patent Tarantino sensationalized violence and blood ridden carnage; there was also some parts that were so brutal I found myself on the verge of tears (Franco Nero‘s cameo in the parlor scene was just enough winking at the camera to help my emotional jets cool and feel safe in my seat again). While many people have and will just write this off as another pastiche, a modern day blaxploitation film, I will go on record as saying this is Tarantino’s most ideologically mature work, because for the first time he seems to actually be saying something about society rather than just waxing poetic on popular culture.

When Tarantino called it a Southern, I will admit that I did not understand what he meant. I doubt many of us going in could really understand, because that part of US history is rarely talked about with any kind of depth or maturity. When talking about the 1850-60’s, Americans can go on at length about the western expansion and the Civil War, but we always view the latter through the eyes of the North. The rare exception being if you’re from one of those rebellion States in the South (and therefore aren’t over it), but even then you tread very softly on the topic of slavery. “It’s about State’s rights.” And while that may indeed be the case, it is ignorant to suggest that the latter did not go in line with why a person might have fought so hard for those rights. Additionally, since the war was fought and won by the North, it will be impossible to prove if slavery was truly “on the way out” thanks to Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin, as so many claim. Which brings me back to Django Unchained.

The review in brief.:

The film is set in the south just prior to the Civil War. Django (played by Jamie Foxx) is a slave on his way to auction, after having recently attempted to runaway from his former owner. He is soon purchased by a German dentist and bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), who offers him his freedom in exchange for some information on a couple of bounties. Django agrees, and soon has his freedom. When asked what he plans to do with his freedom, Django says he plans to purchase his bride, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), give her her freedom and live happily ever-after. The name “Broomhilda” has personal significance to Schultz, who vows—as  a German—to aid Django on his quest, which eventually takes him to Candieland, the plantation run by Leonardo DiCaprio‘s character Calvin Candie.

As a movie, it serves. This is Tarantino’s first film since editor Sally Menke passed in 2010, and her presence is dearly missed. The out-of-sequence, chapter storytelling is gone, and the third act in long and out of place from the rest of the film, although it is 100% Tarantino. As usual per Tarantino, everyone is a villain, except for Broomhilda who is less a character than a prize. The violence is great, some of it shocking; between the Mandingo fight and a man being torn apart by dogs, you may want to save your Christmas Chinese for after the movie. Every actor is at the top of his and her game her. Despite the shock in casting, Jamie Foxx is fit to play the cowboy, even riding his personal horse, Cheetah, in the movie. Leonardo Di Caprio’s is exceptionally disturbing in his role as Calvin Candie, the pleasure he takes in his slaves’ plight is unnerving, and the ease in which DiCaprio seems to play him is frightening.

It is a movie I recommend, as to be expected; but I do so for its social commentary rather than it being the cream of the grindhouse crop.

The review at length (plus some unexpected soapbox).:

There is an element lacking among the characters here that is present in the rest of Tarantino’s films and that is respect. Usually in his movies, the parties involved respect each other; those who don’t typically die unnecessarily (I am looking at you, Vince Vega). In this movie, no one respects anyone (with the exception of Schultz—who may very well be Tarantino’s apology to the Germans for Waltz’s character in Inglourious Basterds) and that lack of respect is very important to the story telling and also what makes me believe there is more to this flick than just grindhouse, blaxploitation “fun.”

“Nigger” is said 115 times (plus or minus 5, as I did not have a pen or paper ready while I was tallying). Many will say and have said that this is offensive and only done to piss off Spike Lee or defend it as being historically accurate. I will do neither. What I will say (and why I brought up the number to begin with) is this: Tarantino has used the word liberally in his other works, but there is something about it this time that makes it different. The source from which it is said.

In Pulp Fiction, for example, it is said either by a person of color or a person very close to a person of color (you may or may not recall that Tarantino makes a point to show that Bonnie, the wife of his character Jimmie, is black), and therefore may be able to have a “pass” at using the word. Here, however, the word is only used with hatred. To hurt and belittle; show ones place of superiority over another. Truth be told, I cringe and cower like a child every time I hear the word, no matter the context, but this time I felt it was being delivered at me rather than to a character. And this is why I believe this may be Tarantino’s most mature work in terms of social commentary. I may be giving Tarantino too much credit, but since Obama’s election (and re-election), the United States has become increasingly racist (the reactions to Rue in Hunger Games or the introduction of Miles Morales as Ultimate Spider-Man should be proof enough) and Django Unchained pretty much just lays it out for you in a way that can be pretty hard to watch. It’s like rubbing a dog’s nose in its own shit to try and teach it to stop crapping on the floor, or forcing a child to smoke an entire carton of cigarette when caught smoking one. If you want to do something, know what the hell it is you think you’re doing, and know what it’s like to do it all the time before you allow yourself to build a tolerance. But for the betterment of yourself and society, just don’t do it. This doesn’t apply just to Whitey McSlaveowner Candie, but also to head slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) and our hero Django.

Racism is a theme present in the original Django, as well. Like Foxx’s character,  Nero’s Django finds himself fighting the KKK and dealing with racists. In that film non-KKK members comment on the silliness of how a person can be judged by the color of his skin (that movie was made towards the end of the African-American Civil Rights Movement, two years before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from whom Schultz no doubt gets his name, was shot), while here we actually have a plantation owner explain how it is a white man evolutionary superiority that allows him to rule over another person, especially a negroid. The latter would seem laughable and out of place in the 21st century, if I didn’t recall someone telling me a similar tale four or five years ago while I was a college student in Texas.

Django Unchained is the movie America deserves, if not the one we want. While I do not believe it is the role of the son to pay for the sins of his father, it is his job to learn from them. If we continue to perpetuate the kind of racial hatred that forces the Master of Trash to momentarily grow up and put out a movie as painful and soul crushing as this, then we have a lot of growing as a nation.

Amos ‘N’ Anakin: Sci-Fi and Racism in the 21st Century

by Matt Blackwood

The sci-fi genre (including science fiction, fantasy, and horror) has a long history of unofficial equal rights advocacy. As far back as the 18th and 19th century, sci-fi stories like Gulliver’s Travels and The Time Machine subtly touched on topics of racial intolerance and class disparity. The 1950s brought us The Twilight Zone, an anthology of morality plays, many of which dealt with racial injustice. In the 1960s, Star Trek repeatedly championed the civil rights movement, airing television’s first multiracial kiss and producing episodes like “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”, a deft allegory of the consequences of racism. In the late 60s and 70s, George A. Romero put strong black characters in leading roles in his socially conscious zombie films.

A member of the noble race of aliens from "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", seen here next to one of the dirty, inferior race.

So how is it that after two centuries of progressive, forward-thinking literature, racism has begun to pervade sci-fi? Since the turn of the millennium, there have been a few prominent examples of bald racism in the sci-fi world. These may be isolated incidents, but they do have one glaring common aspect: they were all defended by fans. Rather than a public consensus shaming the offenders into apology, which has become the protocol in these situations (see: Michael Richards), in each of these cases fans mounted a counter-argument denying any existence of racism. These have not been good arguments, but they have, like creation “science”, been enough to muddy the waters for those who don’t want to see the truth.

POD RACE WARS

In 1999, the lifetime of anticipation millions of Star Wars fans had built up waiting for Episode I finally ended. And it ended the way every lifetime does: with death. The pristene sense of wonder and joy that was born out of seeing Star Wars for the first time died that day. And out of its ashes grew a bitter cynicism from which society will not recover until the only ones left are the kids who saw the prequels first, carefree and ignorant without a frame of reference for what should have been.

I believe the children are our future. At least, I used to...

On a laundry list of complaints about The Phantom Menace, the use of racism as a storytelling device certainly takes priority. At least three different alien races in the film, in voice, dress, and manner, are indistinguishable from specific racial stereotypes. The Neimoidians, leaders of the Trade Federation, with their large-sleeved robes, bowing, and thick Asian “r” and “l” switching accents are clear corollaries for the Japanese. Watto, a hairy, big-nosed, money-obsessed junk dealer is an overt Semitic caricature. And then there’s Jar Jar Binks and the Gungans, with their definitive Porgy and Bess accents are obviously stand-ins for native Caribbeans. All of these characters are depictions of racial stereotypes, and all of them are bad. The Trade Federation are in league with the Sith, Watto is an unscrupulous slave owner, and Jar Jar is a rude, lazy fool.

"Meesa ashamed of reinforcing negative racial preconceptions."

Some fans refuse to believe these characters are the product of racism. These fans contend that the alien races are original compilations of traits, and racially sensitive people pick out specific traits they associate with races and extrapolate racism that isn’t there. But it isn’t just one trait; it’s the whole package. There’s a reason the Anti-Defamation League hasn’t ever voiced serious concerns about the anti-Semitic undertones of gold-hoarding dragons. Because that is extrapolating association from a single trait. That’s not what they do. No one came to Star Wars looking for racism. They saw it because it smacked them in the face.

There were several offensive characters in Phantom Menace, but this one wins by a nose.

Another common defense is simply to ask why Lucas would put in racist stereotypes. In other words, these fans are demanding the prosecution show motive. Well, the motive is simple and sad: lazy writing. A thoughtful, creative writer will spend time developing characters, but a lazy writer can import easily recognized stereotypes in place of unique characters. Essentially it’s like stealing a stock character from another work of fiction, only this time the fiction is the magical world that racists live in.

Compare the races of Episode I with those of the Lord of the Rings series. J.R.R. Tolkien practically invented what we think of as elves and dwarves not by recontextualizing pre-existing stereotypes but by creating a world and considering how that world’s history and landscape would affect how societies developed. Each race has a specific set of culturally inherent traits, but even if they share any history with or bear any resemblance to real peoples, they don’t stick out as identical with persistent stereotypes. And Tolkien was part of the tradition of promoting racial unity as Gimli the dwarf found friendship with elf Legolas. Of course their common ground was the hunting and killing of a third race, but hey, Orcs are jerks. Even Dr. King said we could judge people by the content of their character.

The ACLU isn't goin' anywhere near this one.

You don’t even have to leave the Star Wars universe to find an example of well-done race introduction. A New Hope‘s Mos Eisley Cantina is full of many different alien races, all distinct and imaginative variations on basic animal features. Their manner and clothing tell us immediately that these creatures are sentient despite reminding no one in any way of any human race or even the human race.

Scum? Sure. Villainy? You bet. Stereotypes? No.

The “shorthand” of racial stereotypes is unnecessary to convey an individual’s personality or even the cultural identity of a recently introduced alien race; good storytellers are able to give us this information through good writing. Lucas clearly used to be a good storyteller, but he got old, tired, and lazy.

REVENGE OF THE APPALLIN’

About a decade after Episode I, sci-fi race relations suffered a very similar setback with episode 2 of the Transformers franchise. We’ll just call Jazz’s breakdancing in the first Transformers a misguided homage. But he was replaced in the second film by the duo of Mudflap and Skids, robots that used rap slang and sounded “street”- one of them even had a gold tooth (I’m not sure which one- the movie Transformers all look alike to me). Once again, we’re talking about lazy writers using offensive stereotypes in place of original characters, but this goes even further. These obvious black analogues are rude, gross, craven, and even, despite presumably having advanced alien CPUs for brains, illiterate. And even this was not universally acknowledged as racism.

Robo-jangles of Cybertron

The defense here was similar to that of The Phantom Menace. Fans who jumped to the film’s defense said, “They’re not black men, they’re robots! They’re not even black robots! How can it be racist?” But racism is more than meets the eye. It doesn’t have to be a black man to be a depiction of a black man. Amos ‘N’ Andy were two white guys in minstrel makeup. The caricature already exists in our culture and can be depicted via cartoon bird, CG robot, cave etching- it’s still making fun of black people.

Note: THIS is blackface. That Billy Crystal Oscars thing was simply using makeup to enhance an unfunny, outdated impersonation. Completely different thing.

FAN BLACKLASH

So are fans racist? Well, yes and no. Obviously there’s nothing inherently racist in sci-fi to promote extra intolerance, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some fans who bring their racism with them. You might think sci-fi’s myriad fables against discrimination would discourage ethnocentrists’ interest, but even in their religions people hear what they want to hear. Sci-fi’s biggest deterrent to racism is its innate intelligence; the often complex rules and sophisticated storylines of new universes tend to naturally repel those of lower intelligence, whom studies have shown are more likely to hold racist beliefs. So sci-fi fandom probably has a slightly lower proportion of racists than the rest of society, but they are there.

Unfortunately, in the Venn diagram of society, the circles of racial intolerance and genre enthusiasm do have some overlap. Two recent examples made me ashamed of my people. The first is the rejection of a black Spider-man. When Sony announced in 2010 that it would reboot the Spidey franchise with a new Peter Parker, a sharp-eyed fan suggested writer/actor Donald Glover for the role. Glover is a smart, funny young actor with a slim, muscular build; he would have been a strong choice for the iconic character. As an excited fan himself, Glover retweeted the idea, causing a flurry of Internet excitement. But not all of the buzz was positive. Hundreds of fans denounced the idea, saying they would never see a movie with a black Spider-man.

Fear of a Black Daily Planet. What? It's Bugle? Crap. That was such a good joke. OK, how about "Parker Brother"?

Some argue that this was not a racially motivated disgust. They argue that die hard fans’ ire is notoriously easy to provoke by adaptations straying from the source material, and that’s a fair point. Fans were also annoyed that John Constantine was played by a brunette American instead of a blond Brit. However, those that tweeted death threats and epithets at Glover were not pre-occupied with comic accuracy, but were clearly a different kind of purist altogether.

The more recent example is also in casting, but this one isn’t merely hypothetical. The Hunger Games movie adaptation broke box office records, but a vocal minority soured the occasion. These readers apparently missed the indication to beloved character Rue’s dark skin in the book and were shocked and disgusted by the decision to cast a young black actress. Naturally, these fans vehemently denied that their outcry was in any way racist. All they said was that they couldn’t see a little black girl as innocent or be upset when a little black girl’s life was in peril, because she’s black. Nothing racist about that.

Where's Kanga, am I right? But no, in all seriousness, this totally made me cry like a baby.

For the most part, I don’t think all that many sci-fi fans out there are racist. The Hunger Games and Spider-man franchises have much larger audiences than most genre works, and a bigger crowd always means a bigger, louder fringe. I don’t even think those who denied the racist elements of Star Wars Episode I and Transformers 2 are themselves racist. I just think they’re in denial. they’re choosing to believe that the things they love so much could not possibly be so flawed. They’re like abused housewives attacking the cops who are trying to protect them. The reality is just too hard to face.

But we have to face it if we are going to move forward. Sweeping this under the rug is not acceptable. The only way we will ever remove racism from sci-fi in specific and society in general is to stop denying that it exists. The first step in recovery is admitting that you have a problem. And right now we do.