The Energon Pub

I won't go into a super in depth review of the movie but I will say that it's a movie I thoroughly enjoyed. It's a wonderful marriage of blaxpoitation and spaghetti western genres.

The following portion of my post contains SPOILERS so be warned!

As a fan of the original Django film, I wasn't perturbed at all by how different Django Unchained is from Django...the reason for this is that I see Django Unchained as a sort of prequel to Tarantino's Django. Django Unchained is the origin of QT's Django. A "Django: Year One", if you will.

A second story/film would take place when Django joins the Union Army during the Civil War(note that Django Unchained takes place 2 years before the American Civil War). It is during this second story that Django's wife is murdered. Then in the third story/film, we get the remake/re-imagining of the original Django using QT's version who would be on a quest of vengeance.

I liked it as well, but mostly because I didn't have high expectations. I honestly thought it was gonna be a racist piece of ****, and considering how idiotic Inglorious Basterds was, I was also skeptical of Tarantino. But I was bored, so I gave it a shot. It was actually fairly entertaining, and it was basically a story of 2 friends looking for one's wife. With the n-word thrown in every 2 or 3 minutes, along with gallons of blood. If it has really good extras, I might actually buy the Blu Ray.

With respect to the controversy of the frequent use of the "n-word" in the movie, I think most, if not all, the people who are offended and view the movie in a racist light are missing the point.

The audience is meant to feel uncomfortable and cringe with disgust and repulsion when the n-word is used with such regularity. That is the point! The movie doesn't glorify the use of such a word nor does it glorify the plight of African(and black as well, we can't assume every slave character in the movie is from Africa) slaves. When we see the inhumanity of the antagonists in the movie, we are meant to experience a negative reaction.

While the movie is not meant to be a historical documentary, it is set in the late 1850s in the south of the United States. Slavery existed and the n-word was used regularly. Violence and cruelty against slaves was, unfortunately, a reality. The context of the movie's story demands that Quentin Tarantino does not pussyfoot around the n-word.

QT is in a "damned if he doesn't and damned if he does" situation. If he plays nice and doesn't mention the n-word at all or very little, people will say the story's adherence to historical accuracy with respect to the setting is lacking. If he uses the n-word with anywhere near the frequency it was used in history, as we hear in the movie, then people get offended and have a knee jerk reaction rather than understanding that it's meant to be a repugnant thing.

I had no problem with the n-word being used as much as it was. At least half the time it was Sam Jackson using it anyway. I agree, it was a more correct portrayal of how things were, along with the violence against slaves. Actually, I was undecided about the movie, until I heard that hypocrite Spike Lee complained about it. I was 1 of about 6 or 7 white people in the theater full of black people watching it. I wasn't uncomfortable at any time, and even laughed just as much as they did, especially at the scene with the eye holes in the bags. That's another thing about the movie, it was very funny. The 2 actors portraying the main characters did really well, and even though Leo DiCaprio did a hell of a job as a vicious Southern plantation owner, my favorite was still Don Johnson's "Big Daddy." I honestly was waiting for Philip Michael Thomas to walk out of his house as his head house slave. I would have laughed my ass off. For those too young, that was a Miami Vice reference.