Django was a spectacular and well-told story, but it's brilliance extends beyond it's face-value.
Slavery existed in this country 150 years ago. That's within my generation's great and great-great grandparent's lifetimes. We as a country tend to have an inflated picture of ourselves, and since slavery is such a recent happening, it has been taboo in cinema. Sure, there have been some works about slavery, but no one did a war movie until the gritty realism of Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. The same holds for slavery: there have been no hollywood blockbusters on the scale of Django Unchained that display slavery for what it truly is, unfiltered.
History textbooks do little to evoke the emotions of school kids. We students of history read statistics all the time about mass casualties, but no one breaks down in tears seeing that. We see old drawings of people wearing klan outfits, but that does not come close to evoking the fear and awe I felt watching the scene in which the klan crested a hill, wearing the masks out of the Strangers (http://www.impawards.com/2008/posters/strangers_ver4.jpg), on horseback waving flaming torches. I felt the same fear I felt when I watched the strangers, both because of their similar masks but also because of both villains had the same malevolent intent. That one brief scene brought the klan alive for me. For the first time, I felt something of what it means to fear them.
Sure, we read about slavery in our textbooks, but nobody feels the revulsion or the disgust like they do when they actually see the people get whipped or see them hunted and torn apart by dogs. Nobody feels the hatred and contempt of slave-owners until they see how they treated their fellow man.
Now, why is this important? It is important because we as a nation have to face our demons. A people that ignores portions of their past learn nothing from it, and are doomed to be poorly prepared for the future. A similar story is of the Japanese, who to this day ignore the vast suffering they created in the WWI and WWII era's when they systematically raped and pillaged virtually all of east Asia. This is why till the day he died my grandfather held a grudge against the japanese. Ask anyone of korean, chinese, or vietnamese descent, and I'll bet you they have at least one family member who still hates the Japanese.
Django takes our past as it was and shoves it in your face. You can't ignore what slavery and the south actually were having seen this movie, it's wound up too closely to the plot. This is important because it shows all those southern pride, confederate flag-waving motherfuckers what they're proud of. Being proud of who you are as a person and where you come from is fine, everyone has a hometown, but is a problem when these people glorify a history full of brutality and oppression. It is a problem when they yell about the 'south rising again', it is a problem when they're still racist. Know who you're channeling.
We have racial problems in this country, and who knows if they'll ever be completely solved. But we cannot face them as a prepared people if we are too embarrassed about our history to learn from it. And if you can still be immersed in our history of slavery as Django Unchained does and you can still yell about your southern pride, then from the bottom of my heart GO FUCK YOURSELF
Also, Tarantino's directing was on point, but his acting could use some work.
EDIT: by the way, it's 'to john gillen with love' because he suggested I write something about movies. Well, here you go.
Been reading your blog for a while and I have to say, I really enjoy it! Very though provoking to say the least.
ReplyDeletethanks, glad you like it
ReplyDeleteOkay so I am an economic mind like yourself, and recently I have been seeing a lot of postings on twitter bashing on Obama (and though I voted for him, I typically lean conservatively in my views. On facebook and other social media sites, there have been many postings about how "Obama would have given some of Alabama's points to Notre Dame in the national championship game. And I think there is a misconception about how "socialist" liberals truly are. Liberals and conservatives both practice a redistribution of wealth, but go about it differently. Liberals attempt to achieve this by prog tax which takes a greater % of wealth from rich and gives it back to poor through numerous social programs. Conservatives do the same, but they do this by lowering taxes for the rich, in an attempt that their saved money will be put back into their companies, which will result in presumably a more profitable company that can employ more workers. HOWEVER, there is a marginal propensity to save which means that given this sum of money, not all of it will be reinvested back into the rich's corporations because a portion of it is saved or spent by the owner. Thus, this money is redistributed likewise to a liberal plan, but just does it differently. So for all you who post something on twitter like "oh well if Obama was here, he'd give the candy of the kid who did go trick or treating to the kid who didn't go trick or treating at all," the conservative solution sounds like this "20 kids go trick or treating, but one kid has way more than the others. All the others have candy taken evenly, but the "rich" has hardly any candy taken at all. And is told 'Here's some additional candy...go give it out to the others as you seem fit.' Well, obviously he's only going to give away part of his candy, and keep the rest for himself.
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to get your opinion on this. Btw, this is Danny. Forgot my name wasn't on my profile haha.
Btw, this is a GROSSSSSS simplification of the economic system, and completely an overstatement. But fun to think about to say the least
ReplyDeleteHey Danny, I like your username haha. I'm not sure what I think about this, since I can't really speak for liberals or conservatives, though I do think your presentation of them is somewhat accurate. First off though, I'd say for the most part those kids tweeting things about Obama like you mentioned are usually ill-informed and generally stupid. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize him, but reducing those arguments down to tweets and name calling is certainly not productive. That being said, I love making those kinds of statements (I gotta walk up all these flights of stairs for my first class at 9 AM in the rain? THANKS OBAMA).
ReplyDeleteI think the difference in ideologies between liberals and conservatives really boils down to everyone acting in their own self interest. If you have nothing, than pure leftism (communism) is really appealing to you. Thats how it spread so fast during the Cold War- people around the world were really poor. If you have ownership of something like a company, then pure, unfettered capitalism would be to your liking. The problem is that both of these extremes are problematic, and thus most people exist on a scale somewhere between the two. The end result is that we have two political parties representing each side of the spectrum, and we as a country usually end up somewhere in the middle.
And I agree with you in saying that there is a vast difference between actual socialists/communists and American liberals. I think the reason that moniker is thrown around a lot is because the words 'communism' and 'socialism' carry such a heavy negative connotation in the US, and because liberals and socialists/communists are at least on the same side of the spectrum. It's just another tool that politicians and pollsters use to manipulate public opinion.