“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Vengeance.”

It is an interesting marketing campaign that can take the iconic words of the American Declaration of Independence and change the word “happiness” to “vengeance.”  It is an explicitly political move.  Thus it would appear that in 2012 and 2013 that race-based political advocacy is now about the pursuit of racial vengeance, not racial justice.  This in a country where fools have guns and the general population possesses the historical literacy of troglodytes.

That, dear reader, sums up my biggest problem with Quentin Tarantino’s most recent motion picture.  It strives to entertain where it should educate, it indulges in hipster cliche’ when it should simply let the historical truth, inherently dramatic, speak for itself, and most disconcertingly, the film’s androcentricity—a holdover of the 60’s and 70’s films Tarantino admires—crucially omits what is perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect of the horrors of American slavery:  the institution’s impact on children and families.  Tellingly, there are no slave children depicted in Django Unchained, even in supporting roles. 

Let me state at the outset that I am no ordinary observer of this film.  I am a scholar of Texas slavery and the Texas slave trade.  My 2000 dissertation on the subject, entitled “The Black Crop:  Slavery and Slave Trading in Nineteenth Century Texas,” was one of the first modern studies of the institution written by an African-American (the first, as far as I am aware).  Moreover, as readers of this blog should readily ascertain, I am also German.  So as I was sitting at the Alamo South Lamar watching this movie, I sat in my seat drinking coffee (it was a late show), not eating popcorn.  That said, as someone who writes and lectures about slavery, I try to remain open to the idea of Hollywood productions about touchy historical matters such as slavery, the Holocaust, or the extermination of indigenous populations as entertainment.  I do recognize and defend the right for people like Tarantino to have the artistic freedom to make the films they want.

Let me also say that I do commend Tarantino for making a film about American slavery, even if, as it appears, one of his primary points of departure in making Django Unchained was the creation of a part for Christoph Waltz to play, not necessarily a profound artistic compulsion grounded in deep historical knowledge and understanding (not just familiarity) with the American black experience.  Although it appears that Hollywood is  beginning to once again feel safe with these sorts of films (a dramatization of Twelve Years a Slave is in the works), a cursory review of previous films in this genre made by black filmmakers suggests that it still takes courage to make a film such as this.

Tarantino is to be commended for focusing on the importance of the slave trade (otherwise known as “negro speculation”) in the system of American slavery.  In starting off his film with a slave coffle being marched in chains from Mississippi to Texas in 1858, Tarantino establishes a powerful dramatic opening for his film that is grounded in fact.  As my work and the work of others has shown, the majority of nineteenth century African Americans who settled in Texas either came with their owners, who had come west for cheap land or to escape things such as debt, divorce or the law, or were speculated into the state via ports such as Galveston or Indianola or overland in a manner not too unlike the scenario dramatized in Django Unchained.

“Mandingo Fighting” and the “N-Word”

Mainstream internet media reaction (If you define the Huffington Post and TMZ as “media”) to Tarantino’s film has largely focused on Spike Lee’s displeasure with the film and on Tarantino’s supposedly excessive use of the word Nigger in this and previous films.  There was also reaction concerning the veracity of the “Mandingo Fighting” at the Candieland plantation depicted in the film.  Here is where I come down on that manufactured nonsense.

People can fixate on these things all they wish, but to the extent that they do they are focusing on a distraction.  The primary themes raised by Django Unchained do not concern themselves with such relatively minor details.  As usual, the noise about these trivial matters is designed to obscure some of the serious and disturbing scenes of white supremacy depicted in the film.  The noise also is meant to keep people from reflecting too deeply about ongoing racism in American society and its roots in the institution (let me emphasize that in case you overlooked it:  INSTITUTION) of slavery.

Thin as Gruel, not Thick Like Gumbo

It is here where I think Django Unchained fails most.  The mandate to entertain, it appears, overshadows the necessity to educate viewers about the horrors and foundations of slavery as an institution in American society.  I know better than to expect political economy from a filmmaker like Tarantino.  But if he seriously believes that his movie is “empowering” [especially] for young black men (and will be “in future generations”), it just goes to show that having an encyclopedic understanding of blaxploitation films and black popular culture cannot substitute for serious study and understanding of black history and culture, particularly its spiritual, familial and musical foundations. 

There’s a reason why Django Unchained does not feel like a film made by a black filmmaker; why it does not display the rhythms, flavors, and feelings of ordinary black life.  Because it wasn’t. 

Ask Jonathan Demme, whose 1998 filming of Toni Morrison’s Beloved deals with these concerns with far greater skill and delicacy, or Haile Gerima, whose 1993 film Sankofa about the African Slave Trade seems almost Afrocentric compared to Django Unchained.  But that’s alright if you agree that Tarantino’s film is mainly directed at a white audience.  Now that slavery movies are back in vogue, I suppose it falls to Tyler Perry (there are reasons why Spike Lee hasn’t made a slavery movie yet) to produce a movie directed at black audiences.  Somehow I don’t think Perry would make romance a centerpiece of his film in the way Tarantino has chosen to; Perry’s movie would have family, especially children, in it.  And it would probably graphically depict slave auctions, with babies literally “torn from their Mama’s breast” and gang rape of young black girls.  Just as importantly, it would probably also show the crucial role of  spirituality and religion in helping black folks navigate such unspeakable barbarism.

Tarantino and his fans emphasize that both Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained are “historical fantasies” not documentaries.  Apparently, therefore, Tarantino has no real obligation to ensure at least some measure of historical fidelity—even though these films obviously rely on powerful historical associations and conceptions.

Suggestions for a Tarantino Period Piece

Fair enough.  If Tarantino can engage in artistic fantasizing, so can reviewers (and don’t give me that “you review the movie that’s there, not the one that isn’t” crap.  Black filmmakers from Oscar Micheaux onward have understood that that bullshit doesn’t apply to movies about race; unless they’re movies white people like, like Traffic).  So if Tarantino wishes to make more movies about race, slavery, and the rest of it, I look forward to him making a grand film about the Haitian Revolution, an actual historical event that would be the ultimate slave revenge movie.  (Wait, that screenplay already exists....it was first written for the stage by C.L.R. James and starred Paul Robeson, two guys that Tarantino, given his comprehensive knowledge of all things black surely knows a lot about)  I trust that Tarantino’s powers of individual dialogue and hard boiled scenario can keep pace with such a complicated historical event, so infused with social, historical and economic meaning.

To deflect anticipated critique of his Haitian Revolution film as more macho man “revenge” slaughter (what’s next, an Eskimo revenge movie?), Tarantino can insert a version of his “Bride” character from the Kill Bill movies into the drama.  A black woman kicking major French plantation ass on an early nineteenth century Caribbean island to save her children would certainly be a more interesting (and challenging) piece of historical revisionism than the facile plot of Django Unchained.

There’s no need to focus on fantasy filmmaking, Quentin.  If revenge continues to be your thing but the Mother of all Slave Revolts seems a bit too much and you want to stay closer to home,  blow the dust off of your copy of Herbert Aptheker’s classic work American Negro Slave Revolts, which was first published in 1943.

An enduring historical lesson of the Haitian revolution, indeed of the black freedom struggle in the United States as well as anti-colonial struggles, is that the “empowerment” and liberation of a people is about more, lots more, than individuated acts of revenge.

That is just one heritage and culture lesson I am teaching my children, Quentin.  And I could use your help.