For lovers of the Blaxploitation genre, Django [“the ‘D’ is silent”] — played with unrepentant swagger (because “swagga” wasn’t yet part of the vernacular in the slave era) by Jamie Foxx as he shoots and cusses his way through Django Unchained, which hits theaters on Dec. 24 — may remind audiences of that throwback era when black leading men had testosterone in spades, and weren’t afraid to show it.
Take Richard Roundtree’s Shaft, add in Alan Ladd’s gunslinging Shane and throw in a dash of Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey in for good measure, and you’ll have an idea of what to expect from the slave turned bounty-hunting freeman at the center of Quentin Tarantino’s award nominated vehicle.
Django is one cool character, the bad mother…”shut your mouth” all the dudes want to be and all the women want to be with. Alas, ladies: he’s only got eyes for his missing wife.
In fact, it’s Django’s bold manner that prompts one of the characters to declare that he “ain’t never seen a ni**er like [him] before”. This being a Tarantino joint, the n-word factors very prominently into our story, and carries with it grave cultural implications. But more on that in a moment.
Foxx’s character is an anti-hero on a mission in this homage to the spaghetti western, and like most cowboys he is singularly focused on vengeance. This involves finding his wife Broomhilda (played by Kerry Washington), who has been traded away after an escape attempt. Along the way, he is offered manumission from King Schultz, an erudite German bounty hunter with a fondness for florid, polysyllabic phrases.
Posing as an itinerant dentist, Schultz rescues Django from slave traders, where the two forge a bond as they make their way across pre- Civil War America to find Schultz’s bounties.
Schultz, however, is far less interested apprehending his marks than he is in eliminating them, which is both more lucrative and expedient.
Through a series of hilarious and cringeworthy events, the unlikely odd couple leave a profusion of gore and bullets in their wake.
All of this makes for great fun, but hardly Golden Globe worthy. The mega-watt presence of the versatile Foxx, the brilliant Christoph Waltz, and the ageless Leonardo DiCaprio – all of them either past nominees or outright winners of Hollywood’s top accolade – makes the movie shine with talent.
What it doesn’t do, though, is convince you the movie is anything other than what it is: an action packed, semi-parodic revenge flick that playfully diverts but never mesmerizes.
One thing Django Unchained is not, however, is what Ms. Washington ludicrously proffered in a recent interview as an “opportunity” to talk about a touchy subject. Viewers should disabuse themselves of this disingenuous idea immediately. If an education on slavery is what you seek, best rent Roots, the most transcendent picture about slavery ever to grace the cinema. Perhaps the only person Ms. Washington is fooling with that nonsensical argument is herself.
This being a Tarantino production, be prepared for a bloody good time – literally. With Django the reining king of gore and profanity appears to go further than he ever has.
The scene introducing viewers to DiCaprio’s smarmy Calvin Candie involves a display of brutality so raw it crosses a pulsating line into sadism. By the end of the film, one man has been horse-whipped, ripped apart by rabid dogs, and various bodies lay riddled with bullets. All in a day’s work for Mr. Tarantino, who is always willing to push the boundaries of decorum.
Yet here’s the part everyone knew was coming, but for which one still feels unprepared: the movie’s torrential downpour of the worst racial epithet on the books. Like freezing rain or an ice storm over bare skin, the unrelenting and unrepentant use of the n-word leaves you numb.
An unscientific count yielded at least 95 separate instances of the word’s use throughout the movie’s 160 minutes (which come to think of it, is a self-indulgent running time that really ought to be reserved solely for Hobbits or boy wizards, especially for a holiday movie).
Arguably the most jarring part was the lack of reaction it triggered at a recent screening of the movie. The overwhelmingly black audience whooped and cheered without the slightest bit of compunction every time the word was used.
The broad takeaway of Django Unchained appears to be this: whether you love the movie or hate it, it’s clear the movie represents a cultural inflection point. When the movie is released, the n-word will have come full circle as a mainstream term, with little negative connotation left. When a director of any color can use the word nearly 100 times, it’s time to hoist the white flag of surrender in a linguistic battle that’s been raging for decades.
Years of relativism and equivalence that often grants permission to some to use the word, while selectively shaming others for the same indignity has drained the argument of any moral authority. When standards that, in theory, would apply for Clint Eastwood – and does anyone actually believe a similarly nonchalant reaction would have greeted him had he done the same thing in a movie production? – are relaxed for Tarantino, and when an overwhelmingly Caucasian press corps goes gaga over said film with nary a peep of protest (and nominates it for one of the industry’s highest awards!), its time to admit the obvious.
The Rubicon is now in the rear view mirror. Let’s face it: the war against the n-word has been irretrievably lost