Django Unchained: Perpetual Slavery
Implicit messages, although sometimes difficult to notice, are a big part of today’s media. Whether it be film, literature, art, or radio, implicit messages are hiding and waiting to be found by the audience. One such example is the 2012 movie Django Unchained. Although it is a fairly bloody action movie, a predominant implicit message from this film is that slavery is sugarcoated most of the time and not shown for what it truly was, among other messages. Django Unchained is a dramatized film showing a slave as he goes through a gory search for his wife. As for a basic rundown of the film, it is as follows: A bounty hunter, Dr. Schultz, needs Django’s help to find the Brittle Brothers. He partners
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Now, the specifics of the scene also present the implicit message of the film. The overarching theme that comes from the institution of slavery is that white people are superior. One way in which this is shown in the scene is through camera angles. Overall, when the camera is focusing on Schultz, Broomhilda, or Django, it is high-angle, or eye-level, implying that slaves and those that help them are lesser people. Since the camera is looking down on them, it’s as if the audience is looking down on them as Candie is. In the opposite sense, the camera angle on Candie is typically low-angle, showing that he is greater and higher than others around him. When the audience sees the camera angle on Candie, they experience the same patronizing attitude Candie has towards everyone else in the room. Personally, these angles make it seem as if I’m in the scene and I’m being belittled and judged just as Candie is doing to everyone else. The camera angle effectively imposes on the audience the fear and anger that the characters feel.
Another specific of the scene is how the camera is held. One example is when Broomhilda is first brought into the room with everyone else. One of Candie’s other slaves pushes her into the room and she appears terrified. The camera increases this feeling by zooming in on her face and doing a close up. The camera angle is eye-level, but just
Though slavery is taught throughout ones education, the severeness of it isn’t usually explained how the documentary Africans in America: The Terrible Transformation explains it. Throughout school, students typically don’t examine how the racial prejudice that was associated with slavery was horrific in so many different ways. This documentary allows viewers to be
Slavery has been around for a very long time. However, it is not always how it seems or put out to be. Like the Barbarians, a Greek slave, for example. Their inability to speak Greek indicated their slave status because it kept them from talking back to their masters. This has lead the Greeks to consider otherness a characteristic of slaves. And in the 18th century, slave trade is just another trade for merchants and people involved, like the fact Europeans actually obtained African slaves by trading for them in exchange for goods; usually like guns or metal tools; and for those Africans, slaves were a form of property and a very valuable one.
Implicit ideologies are seen in film dialogue, music, and content. Through a deeper level of interpretation, viewers can understand what is implicitly implied through a films messaging. Pocahontas, a classic Disney movie, is based on a legend that surrounds a Native American woman. Pocahontas reinforces the normative ideologies of interracial relationships, the misinterpretation of Native Americans, and gender stereotypes in an effort to appeal to children of all ages and teach them morals.
During the time prior to the twentieth century our world accepted slavery as a normal part of life. Aphra Behn and Phillis Wheatley, both female authors born about 100 years apart, had their own views of slavery and wrote poems and stories about the subject. These women were physically different, Aphra was a Caucasian, and Phillis was an African American, and their lives were rather different as well. Aphra was a spy and playwright, who lived the middle class life and Phillis, was a slave who was taken from her homeland, brought to America, sold into slavery, then later freed. I believe that both writers’ views were difficult to figure out, especially by just reading their works.
Ophelia Settle Egypt, informally known as Ophie, was an African American woman ahead of her time. She attained the educational status of less than one percent of the American population, was liberal and accepting of others despite the criticism around her, fought to end racism, worked independently of her husband, and believed in limiting family growth. All of Egypt’s beliefs and lifetime achievements represent a new type of woman: a woman who refuses to assimilate to her gender stereotype of weak, inferior, and domestic. Egypt dedicated her life to social work through various activities. She worked as a sociologist, researcher, teacher, director of organizations, and social worker at different times in her life. Egypt’s book, The Unwritten History of Slavery (1968), and the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Southeast Washington D.C. named after her represent Egypt’s legacy and how one person is capable of social change.
[1] Before I start this essay, I feel the need to remind the reader that I find slavery in all its forms to be an oppressive and terrible institution, and I firmly believe that for centuries (including this one) bigotry is one of the most terrible stains on our civilization. The views I intend to express in the following essay are in no way meant to condone the practices of slavery or racism; they are meant only to evaluate and interpret the construction of slavery in film.
Movies and entertainment outlets speak volumes about the current state of a nation’s culture. Cinematic creations in the United States allow small voices to be heard and controversial issues to be addressed. However, a repetitive and monumental issue continues to be addressed, yet continues to persist in our 21st century culture, racial inequalities. Since the inception of the United States, black men and women alike have been disenfranchised at the hands of the “white man” in America. Instead of continuing the conversation today, the issue is continually silenced referencing the successes and achievements of the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century. Nonetheless, an unfortunate reality looms upon this great land; racially based systems and structures continue to exist in 2015 the in United States. This paper synthesizes three films focused on racial inequalities in different time periods. Separate but Equal (1991), Selma (2015), and Crash (2005) illustrate how influential the Civil War amendments are, while serving as an uncanny reminder of how the racial prejudices during the 20th century continue to exist in our great nation today. Needless to say our nation has made great strides, but still has a long way to go.
“The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible.” - OSCAR WILDE, The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Of course, Django arrives at Candie’s plantation in order to rescue his wife, Broomhilda, and to also free her from slavery. Tarantino presents the traditional patriarchal characterization of Django as a masculine hero saving a submissive and powerless woman from danger. This gender approach defines traditional gender divisions in America society, which have been fund to be an issue in regards to a study done by Meyer and Wood (2013) on the negative perception of queer identity by male viewers of the teen show, “Glee”: “In day-to-day life, they keep their fandom secret in order to avoid a perceived stigma by non-gay (or masculine) viewers” (443). In this study, Meyer and Wood (2013) confirm male fears of being identified as “gay” by watching Glee, which is reinforced in the hyper-masculinity of Django’s personality as an aggressive male seeking to save his submissive wife from slavery. In this manner, Tarantino's film provides an extremely conservative view of gender roles, which depicts Django as the patriarchal hero in contrast to the submissive female role of Broomhilda as a captive of an evil plantation owner. These are the important characteristics of Django and Broomhilda’s gender orientation in Django Unchained by Quentin
The movement to eliminate slavery in the United States during the antebellum years was difficult and did not go unchallenged as there were many people who were pro-slavery while others were anti-slavery. Before the Civil War there was debate over the issue of slavery. Slaves were considered property, and were property because they were black. Many people in the South were strong advocates of slavery, while people in the North were opposed to it. In the South, slavery was a social and powerful economic institution. During this period in the south Pro-Slavery activists did not empathize with the system and conditions the
To conclude, the movie is full of suspense, violence, racism, and good humor to forget about all the bad things about it. Based on my analysis, Many of the social concepts, and theories regarding the movie Django Unchained
The dynamic of the relationships between slaves and their master was one which was designed to undermine and demean the slave. The master exercised complete authority and dominion over his slaves and
Django Unchained is a film that follows the story of Django, who was a slave turned bounty hunter, and Dr. King Schultz, who is a bounty hunter. Schultz purchases Django in order to make him a freeman, due to the information he has about his bounty for Schultz. In return, the only goal Django sets out to achieve is finding and rescuing his wife, Broomhida, after they were separated in a slave deal. Schultz and Django come to find that Broomhida is located at the location of the famous Calvin Candie, who is a cotton-field owner. Schultz and Django then come up with a plan to rescue his wife from Candie.
“SLAVERY was abolished 150 years ago, right? While it is true that slavery is illegal almost everywhere on earth, the fact is there are more slaves today than there ever were…” Despite the grim reality described in this quote, I believe Robert Alan successfully undermines a common misconception held by Americans, both young and old. Although we are brought up thinking that Abraham Lincoln with his Emancipation Proclamation along with the Civil War Amendments brought an end to the enemy known as slavery, in today’s society, however, that is sadly not the case. The harsh reality is that this problem never truly
The film set in the deep South in 1858, about a slave who gains his freedom with the help of Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a German bounty hunter, and sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner is an intriguing story with very graphic action scenes. The plot of the story begins as Dr. Shultz buys Django (Jamie Foxx), a black slave, from some traveling slave owners. He buys Django because he is chasing a pair of outlaws known as the Brittle Brothers and Django is the only person who knows what they look like. As the plot develops, Dr. Schultz and Django become allies and work together to achieve each other’s personal goals; Dr. Schultz wants to track down and