Django Unchained is a flick that I can't pass up writing about because it does the one thing I look for most most in life: It reaffirms my faith in human stupidity. The things in modern society that make people almost reflexively dumb have always been my favorite and always will be. That's, as the kids say, just how I roll.
When I heard that Quentin Tarantino's next project would be a spaghetti western set in the antebellum slavery era, I knew that the world's worst people would be set of into fits of apoplectic shitheadery. The buzz in the week or so prior to the movie's release confirmed that. All the right people were getting powerfully indignant, which made Django Unchained a "must see" for me.
Much has been written about Django Unchained and almost all of it misses the point. Instead of critiquing the film like a normal human being would, every half-wit in Christendom has used it to espouse their own moronic political perspectives, which goes a long way in proving that people who see politics in everything should probably be buried alive.
I chose to focus on Ari Melber's thoughts in the Atlantic, if only because he managed to stuff so much stupid into such a small space. Once you read the whole thing, you won't be at all surprised to learn that Melber's primary gig is writing for The Nation.
The problems begin with the script. The n-word is not a bug here. It's a feature. It is the connective tissue of the screenplay. It is the epithet setting the opening scene. It is the relentless insult that follows Django, played with abiding intensity by Jamie Foxx, from slavery to freedom. And it is the recurring personification of the antebellum South's racist hierarchy, as white and black characters alike say they've never seen a (black man) on a horse.
That alone will leave many people cold, even if audiences recall the n-word's ostentatious use in classics like Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and, most chillingly, as the trigger of the climactic hostage scene in True Romance, when Dennis Hopper used the word to bait Christopher Walken into a rash murder.
Tarantino, of course, has long argued that his dialogue simply reflects reality. (The Gangsta Rapper Defense.) It is one thing to reflect a tragedy, however, and another to revel in it. And that tick goes way beyond the rhetoric in this movie.
It's difficult to be properly outraged by Django Unchained without citing Tarantino's liberal use of the "n-word." For that reason, that's the main thrust of the criticism against it. Besides which, just using the phrase "the n-word" automatically makes readers use the word "nigger" in their own heads. Editors of course know this, which is why they like devoting as many column inches to using "the n-word" as they can possibly get away with.
Look, if Django Unchained was set in a modern Connecticut country club, you'd probably be right to condemn using the word 109 times in 165 minutes. But it's set in the pre-Civil War American South, where not using it would probably be noteworthy. I get that the fact that people used to speak that way raises endless hackles in people's liberal sensitivities, but that doesn't change the fact that people actually did speak that way.
Melber then goes on to opine about Tarantino's almost tantric levels of violence.
While Django Unchained presents a morally stark universe, where people do and say evil things with no remorse, it also luxuriates in the license that such evil provides.
We are invited to cheer on the slavish killing of men and women, black and white, because they are implicated in an evil institution.
The comparisons to Inglourious Basterds here are unavoidable. Who could begrudge an uprising for freedom, or a squadron of Jewish soldiers seeking justice against Nazis?
Initially, Inglourious Basterds faced a suspicion that the Nazis were used for the same reason they figure prominently in so many video games—they make for "easy" killing. (Many popular American video games are premised on gruesome Nazi hunting, such as Wolfenstein, Battlefield 1942, and the Call of Duty franchise, which has sold over 100 million copies.) In other words, if you want to peddle violence, just find people worth killing.
Back in Germany, however, Tarantino found a way to dodge that bullet.
In a memorable twist, Inglorious Bastards ultimately presented the banality—and even plasticity—of evil. As a villain, Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) turned out to be just a sick operator, not an ideologue. He would do the bidding of anyone in power. That is why Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) famously carved a swastika into Landa's forehead. If Landa wasn't branded with his identity, he would have easily discarded it, and become something else.
Ah yes, where would we be without including the confusing mush of liberal views about violence in a movie review? I'd have been disappointed if our pal Ari didn't go there.
Liberals are strange people when it comes to the use of violence. Stopping the genocide of Saddam Hussein was morally wrong, but we apparently can't put an end to Bashar Assad's by force quickly enough. That Mr. Melber seems to oppose glorying in the murder of even Nazis tells you everything you need to know about where his head is at.
Also, the Landa character in Inglorious Basterds was much more common in Nazi Germany than Melber would have you believe. Most of those who carried out the Hitler's unspeakable evil, even those in the SS, weren't ideological. They were opportunistically evil. Liberals don't seem to understand this, but history teaches us that humans are far more likely to be Hans Landa than they are, say, Mohandas Gandhi. While we properly celebrate the Gandhis among us (when of course we aren't shooting them to death,) we shouldn't ever shirk from branding the Landas, if only as a reminder of what most of us could be at any given moment.
His depiction of that in Inglorious Basterds proved that Christoph Waltz is the greatest underappreciated actor of his generation. All too often, movies fall down in presenting evil as wild-eyed and unknowable, which it isn't. Far too often, evil is bureaucratic and entirely too civilized. The reality of Hans Landa, much like Gus Fring on Breaking Bad, is much more chilling than the marauding psychopaths presented in popular media.
Outside of the Great Liberals Parlours, where shitheads and cowards run free, evil isn't often reasoned with or debated away. It is instead taken out with violence, but only because that is the only language evil understands.
Django is fighting for his life against slavery, torture, rape, and murder, arming him with a moral clearance to go on a killing spree that would make those video game manufacturers blush. This is one freed slave against an army— "Slavery Scarface," as The Daily Show writer Travon Free put it. The spectacle is more like pornographic violence than a dénouement, and even if the corpses are not total innocents, the nation's tolerance for wanton, mass shootings is quite low right now.
Oh good, a Sandy Hook reference. Life just isn't going to life for the next three months unless we collectively absolve Adam Lanza of his sins by blaming everything around us for them. Supposed intellectuals on both the left and right can't bring themselves to admit that having readily available artillery around the mentally ill usually has less than ideal consequences, so they have to think of clever ways to inhibit everybody's freedom, starting with Quentin Tarantino's.
Besides, who in the fuck is Ari Melber to be deciding what "the nation's tolerance" for anything is right now. Tarantino isn't exactly celebrated for filming tea parties. His flicks are orgies of cartoonish violence. If indeed the nation's tolerance for that is quite low, Django Unchained would have failed at the box office, which it hasn't. In fact, the R-rated film is running closely behind Anne Hathaway as a singing French whore, which I'll remind you she came up with new and exciting ways of promoting. Is an R-rated gorefest that clocks in at nearly three hours ever going to defeat the glorious promise of Anne's transformative cooter? I would suggest to you that it is not. But with a domestic box office gross of over $68 million in a week, it appears that Django Unchained is being tolerated just fine.
And it should be. Django Unchained is a superb flick with a great cast. Despite everything else that you may or may not like about him, Tarantino makes incredibly interesting casting choices and makes them work. God knows that he's done more with Samuel L. Jackson than any other three directors Jackson has worked with in the last twenty years.
As I mentioned earlier, if Hollywood had any decency or brains, Christoph Waltz would be in every movie, including porn. The fact that he's not the biggest star in the world is all the evidence I need that society is well and truly fucking doomed. He is what all actors should be, which is all the more impressive when you consider that English is his third language.
Every decade or so, Jamie Foxx has to prove that he can do something worthwhile before sadly returning to make unwatchable shit for a huge paycheck. The last time he did that was in Ray. While his Django isn't nearly as impressive as his performance as Ray Charles, it's still better than anything he's done since then.
I spent endless years avoiding Leonardo DiCaprio as thoroughly as I could. I gave him a chance when he played the late, great Jim Carroll in The Basketball Diaries, and he fucked it up horribly. But he impressed me far more than I thought possible in J. Edgar and he did it again in Django Unchained. Also, I'm wondering if I get away with having a beard like Calvin Candie's. It rocks you like a goddamned hurricane.
Then there's Kerry Washington, who I've spent the last eight months, since the premiere of Scandal, trying to figure out how to devote my life more fully to. Not only is she a damn fine actress, she might very well be the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. She's certainly healthy competition for Aishwarya Rai, who appears to have dropped off of the face of the earth. Given the limitations of her role, I understand why Tarantino didn't use her more in Django, but that doesn't make me any less sad. Even Don Johnson was impressive. Don Johnson, I say! While I'm at it, I'd respectfully ask you all to refer to me only as Big Daddy from here on out. On second thought, maybe I'll wait until I get a white suit and a bolo tie. And I know that some of you will understand better than others why I should be called Big Daddy, but it'll be fun for the rest of you to figure out. One at a time. Or in groups. I'll leave that for you to decide.
In the last several years, movies have mostly sucked. Practically everything out there is a sequel, a reboot, a comic book movie, a friggin' cartoon or all four. The world needs more writer-directors like Quentin Tarantino, if only because very few other people are producing anything that's original and worthwhile.
Say what what you will about it, and I happen to think it's an incredible movie, but Django Unchained is certainly an original. If anybody that didn't have Tarantino's track record went to a studio with the idea of building a spaghetti western around slavery, it never would have been made because it looks dumb on paper and seems almost guaranteed to lose a ton of money. Modern studios aren't exactly famous for celebrating originality, which is too bad. But if Hollywood is only going to let Quentin Tarantino make movies like Django Unchained, he should make more of them.
If I were to find fault with the movie at all, it would be length. A good editor could have cut it down to two hours and twenty minutes of cinematic majesty. The last half hour alone could have been cut down by a third without anyone noticing. As a nearly three hour movie, the length will also cut into the box office, since theatres can't run as many showings in a day as they can with a standard length film. But that would be the only fault I find in Django Unchained.
I'm not going to lie to you, even if it was a lesser film, I'd still love it because it so upsets loathsome race-hustling assholes like Spike Lee and Tavis Smiley. Neither of those dickheads actually come out and say so (and neither has actually done anything crazy, like see it,) but I suspect that if a black director made Django Unchained exactly the same way Tarantino did, they would be demanding a fucking parade for it and insisting that it be shown in grade schools. Their problem with the movie isn't so much the depiction of slavery as much as it is that Tarantino is insufficiently dusky.
Look, I'd get it if you see Django Unchained and don't like it. Tarantino flicks certainly aren't for everybody. You probably didn't take your mom to Reservoir Dogs for Mother's Day and you shouldn't give her a ticket to Django Unchained for her birthday, either. I'm not going on a hunger strike for you to love Tarantino generally or this film in particular.
What I take issue with is the fact that nobody who is criticising Django Unchained is criticising it as a movie. Idiots everywhere are using it as nothing more than a vehicle to talk about how wonderful they are and to make semi-retarded political statements, often without going to the trouble of actually seeing it. Morons are making it political because they're compelled to make everything political. And people who make everything political are universally stupid.
The irony in that is that Quentin Tarantino's movies are stylistic throwbacks to the 60s and 70s, an era when absolutely everything wasn't inherently political.
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