A few minutes ago I published my review of Django Unchained. A movie that some have condemned as being "insensitive", "racist", "offensive", and too many other epithets that are wildly, wildly wrong.
I will not only stand by what I've written about Django Unchained - that it's not a film about slavery or even race at all but instead an epic quest to find one's lost love - but I dare say that those who want to be upset about this movie... well, they don't know what the hell they're talking about.
I thought we as a people were beyond this already. Apparently not and Django Unchained is proving it. That there are some who apparently can't be happy unless they've something to unfairly harp-on about being "racist" or whatever. Spike Lee comes to mind (he said he'd never watch Django Unchained because of how he claims it portrays people of African descent).
These are the kind of people that Booker T. Washington, that venerable educator and orator, wrote about...
"There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well."
I'll eagerly contend that Quentin Tarantino has produced the most poignant, the most endearing and the most accurate film portraying slavery in the South in an unwholesomely long time. Heck, I could even see this movie shown in high school history classes.
This is a movie that is NOT defined along racial lines. It is a film that defies those. And I absolutely believe that this is at the heart of why some people want to be offended by it.
You wanna know how a movie about slavery can truly be disturbing, even downright sickening to watch? Because what you're about to see (if you've the patience and the stomach for the next two hours) makes Django Unchained seem downright puny so far as human bondage goes. I've been thinking about Goodbye Uncle Tom since coming out of seeing Django Unchained and what have I realized from the juxtaposition?
Again: that those condemning Django Unchained don't know what the hell they're talking about.
So here it is, from 1971, a movie that I first saw at Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9 a little over five years ago. The movie that to date is still the only X-rated film that I've watched in my entire life: Goodbye Uncle Tom...
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