Keepin' It Real: Django Unchained, Why the movie and the word nigger stings so bad

KEEPIN’ IT REAL: DJANGO UNCHAINED, WHY THE MOVIE AND THE WORD NIGGER STINGS SO BAD




I have to admit, as a scholar who has extensively researched the presentation of African Americans in mainstream film, after seeing Django Unchained twice, I have yet to reasonably see what all of the anger and criticism from the Black community is about. So, the term nigger was utilized in excess of one hundred times, it is a term that was specific and common as a reference to enslaved African American people during the Antebellum era. It is the most common way racist white folks referred to our Ancestors. The term represented the hate, disrespect, stereotypical ideologies, and oppression that White people, who had been given social dominance over our Ancestors-through the promotion of the fallacy of white supremacy, had for our race and our Ancestors. Therefore, to write or create a historic piece wherein the principle theme is dealing with the “reality” (hatred and ill) of such a tragic institution, and not use the terminology that was common to that time would not be authentic. So, my question is threefold. Did we expect Tarrantino to write a piece about slavery and use the term African American or some other term that did not exist during that era? Did we simply expect him to stay away from enslavement and fail to write and bring the piece to life because he is a white man? And, why such pain?

I can honestly say that I strongly believe that if a Black man had written, directed, and produced Django, I do not believe that there would be any problems or criticisms. I believe that we would have been able to embrace the movie in the spirit that it was created and would have left the theater empowered by its many powerful symbolisms. So, I wish Black people would just say what it really is, instead of attempting to find some superficial reasons why they believe the movie was a “disrespect” to the race or the Ancestors. They didn’t like the movie because a white man made it. And they are angry at the number of times the term nigger was used because a white man wrote. And the term nigger caused so much pain in the film, because white people were saying it….period. There I said it. Now we must get to the root of the pain.

The pain stems from the fact that in spite of the way in which some of our people have attempted to reassign the meaning, usage, and even the spelling of the term nigger. None of what we have attempted to do, or the means in which we have attempted to “reshape” or “redefine” the word has changed a thing. In spite of the fact that many middle class and thriving African Americans believe in this concept of a “post racial” America, and many of us allow the fact that we have a Black President to fool us into believing that racism no longer exists in America, we are shocked and hurt because this film, put racism and the term nigger into their original contexts. The film did not glamorize or romanticize the brutal institution of enslavement to make it palatable for those of us who would choose to forget the struggle of our Ancestors. The excessive usage of the term nigger spoken from white lips, reminded us of where the word came from and the disdain that it was always spoken with, diluting the fallacy that we have overcome or somehow changed its meaning by our embrace of a term that represented nothing less than our oppression, even when the Black folks said it too. And the fact that a White man created the film, is uncomfortable to us, because even he had to be in touch with the hatred and buffoonery of his people in the 21st century, which means that white folks, who we would hope forgot with us, didn’t, or would perhaps be reminded by watching this film. And just maybe this film may give them permission to say in public what Mos Def argues they say behind closed doors anyway.

Those of us who read slave narratives and truly studied the institution of enslavement, understand the fallacy of movies that glorify enslavement by: maternalizing or paternalizing the slave master/enslaved relationships, romanticizing the sexual exploitation of enslaved women, who did not have a choice to resist, as something that was desired, created some sort of status, or placed it in the context of a “love relationship,” or creating the notion that enslavement represented the saving the already civilized, educated, acculturated, spiritual people of Africa from a life of savagery and heathenism. We understand that enslavement was not this passive and docile institution where there was absolutely no resistance. We celebrate the Denmark Vesseys, the Toussaint L’Overtures, the Nat Turners, and even the John Browns, and the countless unnamed who fought, while simultaneously understanding the undermining of those who, in their effort to stay or be in the graces of the slave masters, sold out the resistance, revolutions, and escapes. But even more importantly, those of us who understand that contemporary racism still exists understand the complexity of the way in which in manifests in society and in film. And frankly, we have tired of films that always seem to only be able to make a Black hero out of our of sacrificing black bodies to save white people. So, we appreciate the truth that there were Black folks who gave their lives to save people who looked like them. We appreciate the truth, that contrary to the assertions found in the Moynihan Report (1965) , enslavement DID NOT destroy the Black family- that when able, and after Emancipation, most people’s first order of business was to reestablish family bonds or build new ones, and that there were folks who would rather kill their captors than to live in bondage.

So, let’s keep it real about why we are disturbed…we are disturbed because we weren’t ready for the “white man” to tell the story, to bring the truth to the screen, and to call us on the way in which we have either attempted to forget or minimize the brutal institution of enslavement and the racial epithets associated with it. Otherwise, we would be celebrating the fact that for a change we walked out of the theater where a Black hero killed every last slave master, mistress, and overseer…the white man sacrificed his life for Black love and gave his riches and his respect to the Black woman, and in the end the Black hero fought and conquered for nothing less than love, burned down the “big house,” and rode off into the moonlight with “HIS WIFE.” So, let’s not let the race of the messenger “throw shade” on the message. The only other thing I could ask is that the Weinstein Brothers let Black writers who have created such films in the door and finance and promote it to the mainstream in the same manner that Tarrantino’s Django was. Because while I celebrate him for bringing the film to life, I know that he was not the first person to write a great story about a “real” Black hero.