Melat Tesema
Prof. Clarke
CAS 272
01/27/15
Django Unchained
In my opinion, I'd describe my reaction to Django Unchained as an intense movie with a lot of great moments, some funny, and some satisfying in the way that a good action movie is satisfying: sudden, climactic, and cathartic. Ultimately, Django Unchained is a very precise and a clever movie that is entirely consistent with its playfulness. When we watch the movie, of course the first thing that comes to mind is race, the subject that never fails to provoke, and antagonize us. Although there are some humorous parts to it, it has taught me a lot of things I was not aware of. The true story of slavery. I choose to give Tarantino, the director, the benefit of the doubt and theorize that he is aiming to trouble around certain identity politics. As this relates to my major, that held my attention long enough for me to keep watching. In doing so, I came across what I believe to be the movie’s most fascinating inquiry. Plantation owner Calvin Candy, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, essentially asks, “Why don’t they kill us?” He asks this question as he goes on to use some rather eugenic logic to explain that it is simply a matter of the "Negro’s naturally are submissive in nature." It is a puzzling question, and is becoming an increasingly relevant one. During slavery, what I have realized is that slaves outnumbered their white owners drastically yet the system remained intact for generations. As we discussed in the classroom, the U.S. is a very diverse country and that it is shifting to a country where whites are no longer a majority, but will this solve the problems of racism and systematic oppression? If it doesn’t, it is important to ask why not. Also relating to this note, Monsieur Calvin mentioned a theory, according to the science of Analogy, he pulled out a dead slave's skull and stated that the skulls of an Afrikaans area associated with submissiveness is larger than any other species found on the planet earth. And that if he had pulled out the skulls of Galileo, or Isaac Newton, these dimples would have been most associated with creativity. I believe people in the past believed this because of