Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Revolting

On Saturday I saw Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained and, to be honest, I am still not really sure what to think about it.  The movie revolves around a slave named Django (played by Jamie Foxx) and his quest, with the help of the German bounty Hunter Dr. King Schultz, to rescue his wife from the grips of the evil plantation owner Calvin Candie.  The movie is, as usual for Tarantino, ultra violent (this is probably his most gory movie, which is saying something), but it does have some very entertaining moments.

Samuel L. Jackson, a veteran of Tarantino's movies, plays probably one of the worst characters I've ever seen portrayed in a movie.  His character, Stephen, who is the head slave at Candie's mansion, happily proceeds to help Candie in any endeavor, be it even against the other slaves themselves.  I bring up Jackon's character because of a review of the movie I read in The Boston Globe.  Here is the relevant (and revolting) portion:

[Tarantino] knows what the stakes are and keeps finding clever ways to raise them. They don’t get much higher — or lower, perhaps — than Stephen, the head servant at the Candie mansion. He gets a load of Django, turns defensive, then smells a rat. Samuel L. Jackson plays crusty, waxen Stephen as a vision of depraved loyalty and bombastic jive that cuts right past the obvious association with Uncle Tom. The movie is too modern for what Jackson is doing to be limited to 1853. He’s conjuring the house Negro, yes, but playing him as though he were Clarence Thomas or Alan Keyes or Herman Cain or Michael Steele, men whom some black people find embarrassing.

And I'm sure the reviewer includes himself as part of the group who find those men embarrassing.  It's truly amazing the kind of racial determinism and animus that still exists in parts of this country.  (Nevermind the fact that the people voicing these opinions without irony call themselves "progressive.")

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