Django Unchained hit theaters across the country on December 25th. Since then, a lot has been said about Quentin Tarantino's latest opus. There have been complaints from black filmmakers (Spike Lee), complaints about the use of the N-word (Over 100 times!), and complaints about the violence (Gratuitous, even for Tarantino standards). Having heard their complaints, I'd like to say emphatically that every single one of those people is wrong.
On the issue of slavery in the United States, Tarantino argues that being a product of the times was not an excuse. The enslavement of another human being is inhumane. Here, finally, is a movie that treats the Slavery-era Southern oppressors with the same level of vitriol with which they treated their slaves. It's a similar to what Tarantino did with the Nazi's in Inglorious Basterds. (In fact one could take Brad Pitt's "We will be cruel to the German" monologue from that movie and implant it here and the context would largely fit.)
The violence is necessary. The curse words are necessary. To truly paint an unflinching portrait of the South, circa 1958, these are necessary evils. It seems at times like Tarantino has seen every movie ever made. He has taken the image of nobel Southern dignity displayed in movies like Gone With The Wind and Birth of a Nation, and replaced it with a correct, soon to be iconic image of a society and culture that was inhuman. And to that I say, in the words of Colonel Hans Landa, "Bravo."
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