Introduction: Django Unchained—Disrupting Classical Hollywood Historical Realism?

Big Daddy:

Django isn’t a slave. Django is a free man. You understand? You can’t treat him like any of the other N—s around here because he ain’t like any of the other N—s around here. You got that?

Betina:

You want I should treat him like white folks?

Big Daddy:

No. That’s not what I said.

Betina:

Then I don’t know what you want, Big Daddy.

Big Daddy:

Yes, I can see that.

—Django Unchained

A man who possesses a language possesses an indirect consequence of the world expressed and implied by this language. You can see what we are driving at: there is an extraordinary power in the possession of language.

—Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks

Django (Jamie Foxx) and Dr. King Shultz’s (Christoph Waltz) arrival on their first plantation together is a telling moment in the film’s fictive world. They cloak their status as bounty hunters under the guise of a business proposition. Big Daddy (Don Johnson) dismisses Betina to show Django around the plantation while he discusses business matters with Shultz. However, before they leave, Shultz requests that Django be treated as “an extension” of himself, since he is free. “You want I should treat him like white folks?”¹ Betina (Miriam F. Grover) asks Big Daddy in befuddlement. Her question is central to Django’s identity as a free man. Big Daddy does not quite know how to answer Betina’s question. He has a hard time thinking beyond his white privilege to search his mind for an example that he might provide parameters to follow that does not violate his colonial mind-set. He finally suggests that she treats Django the same way she treats that little “pecker” boy in town, “Well that’s it then. You just treat him like you would Jerry.” With this directive in mind, Betina escorts Django around the property. Big Daddy’s conundrum sets the stage for Django Unchained (2012): How does one treat a free black male body in a white supremacist environment (Fig. 1)? Consider the following scenario to situate the framing for this Close-Up.

When filmmakers create a film steeped in history, they do so knowing that negotiating spectators’ complex attitudes related to particular events and time periods can be a daunting task. Yet, Oscar award-winning writer and director, Quentin Tarantino seems to have welcomed the challenge and strategically approached Django. He considered carefully his choice to use elements of historical realism while simultaneously subverting that reality with fantasy elements from the western genre for a greater purpose: one that involves critiquing black masculinity and classical Hollywood black cinematic stereotypes.² Tarantino’s success in this endeavor is up for close scrutiny.

Tarantino’s aggressive and deft hand with the cinematic apparatus posits a clear point of view (Fig. 2). A master class in operationalizing cinematic language, the film lends credibility to the power of cinematic language and its evocative nature. It also demonstrates that the cinematic gaze is deeply tethered to the acculturation of the filmmaker, rendering the story subject to her/ his imaginative volition. Frantz Fanon explains in the epigraph above, “A man who possesses a language possesses an indirect consequence of the world expressed and implied by this language. You can see what we are driving at: there is an extraordinary power in the possession of language.”³ I would argue Tarantino’s project is to challenge the pernicious imagery of black inferiority.

His genre-bending choices are stunning, scandalous even, and creates a paradigm shift for slave narratives. Tarantino does not take the easy route to explore his story. Meaning, a film that functions in ordinary fictional realism invites a viewer into its world and creates its own reality (and rules). As such, viewers are more willing to suspend disbelief and explore the narrative in a new or different way. However, creating a film that engages with historical realism is much more complicated and risky because it invites and constitutes a revisionist history. Tarantino states, “I wasn...