Many argue that the current state of race relations in the U.S. qualifies the country as a post-racial society. These optimists happily point to Obama as evidence that the ugly vestiges of racism have finally dissipated and remain only as unfortunate artifacts of an embarrassing past.
Often, these delusional idealists languish in their adherence to an unrealized ideal. They ignore the subtle forms of racism that persist and cling to the comfort of their conjecture. Fortunately, others remain who are genuinely striving to achieve a vision of racial awareness.
The recent film “Django Unchained,” directed by Quentin Tarantino, is one such example of art that examines and overcomes many of the complex forces that impede social enlightenment. On the surface “Django Unchained” may appear crude and insensitive. However, this shallow estimation ignores the underlying nuances that provide the film with tremendous cinematic and social magnitude.
The film illuminates many of the sensitive issues involved in the horrors of chattel slavery, including the rape and sexual exploitation of slave women, the violent whippings and innumerable other unthinkable cruelties. Yet, the film is not limited to the flagrant injustices of slavery. It also exposes the social hierarchy imposed upon enslaved individuals, including the contention that existed between field slaves and house slaves.
In the midst of these atrocities, Tarantino implements some contemporary revisions, using comedy and gratuity to soften an otherwise hideous period of American history.
He disrupts the social order of the antebellum South and offers viewers the comfort of an unlikely hero. This hero, Django, is the enslaved protagonist who rises from the mire of this horrific past and gives viewers the satisfaction of 21st century justice, which he delivers coolly from the barrel of a six shooter.
The film seeks not to dismiss the cruelty of slavery—it simply offers a version of this story that confronts viewers with the viciousness of slavery and then appeases them with a welcomed revenge fantasy. James Baldwin writes in his essay “The Fire Next Time” of the need for a certain awareness and recognition that are necessary for America to finally and genuinely unshackle the fetters of racism. He describes this approach as follows: “In order to change a situation, one must first to see it for what it is.”
Through his film rendition, Tarantino allows America to see its past for what it is. He employs comedy and role revisions that make the film accessible to a broad range of audiences. For an entire generation that will never read “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,”“Django Unchained” potentially initiates important dialogues and reflections that may have otherwise remained unspoken or unexamined.
In an NPR interview, Tarantino describes the difference between his dramatized adaptation of the slave narrative versus the traditional documentary wversions: “For the most part they keep you at arm’s length dramatically. Because also there is this kind of level of good taste that they’re trying to deal with … and frankly oftentimes they just feel like dusty textbooks.”
“Django Unchained” engages audiences intimately and without antiquities such as documentary style voiceovers and black and white photos.
However, Tarantino does not ignore his duty to historical accuracies. Instead, he creates a new truth that looks backwards and forwards simultaneously.
In In his essay “Criteria of Negro Art,”W.E.B. Du Bois offers the following expectation for the artist’s obligation to the truth: “He has used the Truth—not for the sake of truth, not as a scientist seeking truth, but as one upon whom Truth eternally thrusts itself as the highest handmaid of imagination…”
Tarantino meets Du Bois’s expectation, using his film to penetrate the previously restricted areas of America’s consciousness. Art succeeds where political discourse and blind optimism can only hope. Tarantino’s balance between fortitude and vision allows an admittedly gratuitous film to venture into the vast unexplored possibilities of a post-racial society—a society that, while scarred by its history, is no longer controlled by it.
Jon is a junior and an English major.
