The success of Quentin Tarantino’s Django: Unchained has sparked, what some movie critics are calling, “slave movie fever.” There seems to be a new trend of slave-themed films that are popping up left and right — seven more are scheduled to premiere this year.

After the releases Case départ, Django, and Lincoln, our nation engaged in many conversations about one of its darkest times in history. Some people argued this dialogue was needed and positive, while others strongly believed this was Hollywood’s way of exploiting the ancestors of African-Americans.

The upcoming films include:

1. Twelve Years A Slave, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt, Alfre Woodard, Quvenzhané Wallis, and Michael Kenneth Williams. Directed by Steve McQueen, the movie centers around a free Black man living in New York in the mid-1800s. He is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the deep south.

2. Savannah, starring James Caviezel and Chiwetel Ejiofor, is a movie loosely based on John Eugene Cay, Jr’s Ducks, Dogs and Friends. The book-turned movie tells the story of a well-educated hunter who develops a friendship with a freed slave.

3. Something Whispered stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and centers on a man who attempts to free his family from slavery on a tobacco plantation in 1850.

4. The North Star is an independent film starring former NFL linebacker Jeremiah Trotter and Keith David. The movie tells the real story of Big Ben Jones, a slave who escaped form a Virgina plantation in 1848 and gets help from local Quakers.

5. The Keeping Room is a Civil War drama about 3 southern women living during the war who are forced to protect their home against a group of Union Army solders.

6. Belle is a film written and produced by Britsh actress Amma Asante. It is set in the 1700s and tells the story of a mixed-race girl, raised as an aristocrat in 18th-century England, who falls in love with a man who is an advocate for slave emancipation.

7. Tula: The Revolt, starring Danny Glover, is a movie based on the slave uprising on the island and Dutch colony of Curacao in 1795.

According to one Indiewire writer, Hollywood seems to be in a celebratory mode, recognizing the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

In 1863, President Lincoln signed the law into order that freed all slaves in the Confederate territory. Many of the forthcoming movies tell the stories of slaves fighting for their freedom, or adjusting to life as free people after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Slavery was a painful time for both Black Americans and Whites. Do you think Hollywood should stay away from slave-themed productions?

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Looks like controversy has struck the film Django Unchained yet again. After a few celebs like Spike Lee spoke out against the portrayal of slavery in the film, things seemed to quiet down for a bit. That was until the Weinstein Company decided to produce Django Unchained dolls featuring the main characters of the film.

Personally, I like the film and would’ve jumped at the chance to buy one of the dolls, but Brother Al Sharpton and his team from the National Action Network, along with Project Islamic Hope, were having none of it!

After making their voices heard loud and clear, their pleas were finally answered when the Weinstein Company made the decision to pull the toys from store shelves.

According to the company they have stopped production and only 1,000 dolls, made pre shutdown, are currently on the market. While the move squashes the outrage of some, other will surely be hunched over an eBay screen to buy what has now become a limited edition item.

What are your thoughts on the issue? Should the dolls have been pulled from shelves? Did you find them offensive?

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Filmmaker Spike Lee made national headlines when he decided to publicly boycott fellow director Quentin Tarantino’s latest film Django Unchained. Lee called the slavery revenge flick disrespectful to his ancestors and said he refused to watch it.

However, Lee’s comments are clearly not the view of all Black America as civil rights activist Dick Gregory has spoken out in favor of the film. Gregory, who wrote the 1964 autobiography “Nigger,” said some of Lee’s work has been more disrespectful to his ancestors than Django Unchained.

“That lil thug ain’t even seen the movie, he’s acting like he’s white…so it must be something personal, because when I looked at all those black entertainers, that know Spike Lee, how are you going to attack this man and don’t be attacking them,” Gregory said in an interview with YouTube channel, W.E. A.L.L. B.E. T.V.

“You’re saying, ‘everybody’s a fool but me?’ [Talking about] ‘it offended my ancestors,’ but when you did ‘She’s Got To Have It’ and some of those other thug movies you did… when you took Malcolm X and put a Zoot suit on him, red hat…did that offend your ancestors, punk?”

Gregory went on to say that it’s all a game and he’s glad Lee’s comments didn’t affect the movie’s success. “Whatever he’s mad about, it’s something that happened way, way a long time ago,” he said. “Thank God it didn’t work, that movie has made up close to $400 million.’

What do you think of Dick Gregory’s comments? Do you agree with his point of view or do you support Spike Lee?

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It’s that time of year again! Awards season brings much excitement to the entertainment world and this year’s Oscars nominations has everyone buzzing.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has recognized the work of Denzel Washington, Quentin Tarantino, and Quvenzhané Wallis for the 2013 ceremony.

Washington is nominated for best actor in a leading role for his work as Whip Whitaker in Flight. He’s no stranger to the Oscar world — this is his sixth career Academy Award nomination and his fourth for best actor. He’s won a golden statuette twice before for best supporting actor in Glory and best actor in Training Day.

Django Unchained received five nominations, including best picture, cinematography, and best supporting actor for Christoph Waltz’s performance as Dr. King Schultz. Surprisingly, Quentin Tarantino did not receive a best director nod, nor did Jamie Foxx for his leading role as slave-turned-bounty hunter Django.

Child actress Quvenzhané Wallis made history this year. At the tender age of 9, she is the Academy’s youngest best actress nominee. Her breakout role in the independent hit Beasts of the Southern Wild has received major recognition and critical acclaim. And to really prove how amazing she is, she auditioned for the role when she was just five years old! She shares the category with the Academy’s eldest nominee, 85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva for Amour.

Lincoln leads the Academy Awards with 12 nominations, including best picture, best director, and best actor. For a complete list of the nominees click here, and be sure to check out the show when it airs on Sunday, February 24.

Did all of your favorite stars receive Oscar nominations? Tell us your shockers of the year.

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My mouth dropped open when I read on the Daily Beast that the co-stars from box office hit Django Unchained — Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and others — have been immortalized as eight-inch dolls that are currently on sale at Amazon.com. I think I was supposed to be upset about this. The Beast called the release “audacious,” and they quoted Bethann Hardison, heroine to Black womankind, saying, “This doll shit is crazy.”

But um … “I know Spike Lee gonna kill me/ but let me finish …”

I kinda want one, actually two.

I clearly don’t get the fuss. It’s not like buying an action figure of an enslaved African descendant will make the purchaser a slave owner. Or as Eric D. Snider (hilariously) pointed out on Film.com, “It’s not like the box says, ‘BUY A SLAVE! TRADE WITH YOUR FRIENDS! START OUR OWN PLANTATION!’” There’s a whole riled up segment complaining that Jews never would have stood for Nazi action figures associated with Inglorious Basterds, but um, that happened. That’s not to say, “Well they put up with it too, so it’s okay. It is to say, ‘hey, Black people aren’t being singled out on this one.’

Look, I loved Django Unchained. I went through hell to see it on opening day, trekking from Brooklyn to Harlem (the time equivalent of traveling from New York to Philly via Amtrak) because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and to watch it with a Black audience. And it was worth the trip to see Samuel Jackson’s self-depreciating ranting about a “n**** on that nag” and Jamie Foxx going all Nat-Turner-HAM to rescue his lady.

We don’t get too many movies with Black princesses, and that’s really what Kerry Washington is in Django. She’s been taken from her man, then trapped in a hot box, which is the far worse version of Rapunzel up in the dang tower or Cinderella at the mercy of her oppressive step-mother. Now usually, a Black woman up shit’s creek would stay there. White guys rescue the girl. Black girls rescue themselves (and often from Black men). But not this time. Broomhilda’s may-ann is going all Mario-like to save Princess Peach from big bad Bowser, or in this case, to free his beloved wife from a sadistic slave owner.

Of course, my feminist radar has picked up on all sorts of … paternalism. Being a damsel in distress and relying on a male savior wreaks of a God-complex. The 7-year-old in me, however, who wondered why all Disney princesses were White, and the 30-year-old who wondered why when we finally got a Black princess she was a frog for most of the movie and an ethnically ambiguous man had to come for her, doesn’t really care. Broomhilda is my Black princess. Django is my Black knight who kicked ass without shining armor but with a whole lot of artillery. I would be thrilled to put the couple on my mantel.

And that’s where the action figures are going. It’s not like parents are buying these for these for their kids so the wee ones can play slave master and slave, which a mildly imaginative (or disturbed) kid could do with Barbie and Ken anyway, if they really wanted to get historical and evil. That said, there’s a part of me that would be mildly amused to see Black children playing rescue the princess by rising up and killing the oppressor. A recent study found that instilling Black children with racial pride does wonders for their learning capabilities. Go (action) figure.

Demetria L. Lucas is the author of “A Belle in Brooklyn: The Go-to Girl for Advice on Living Your Best Single Life” (Atria) in stores now. Follow her on Twitter @abelleinbk

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Though “Django Unchained” is doing extraordinary well at the box office, not everyone took kindly to Director Quentin Tarantino’s decision to turn slavery into a Western film. Many thought the movie’s witty dialogue, comic relief by way of chatty Ku Klux Klan members and sensationalist ending trivialized one the most traumatic period in American history. But even the harshest critics of the film didn’t see this coming.

Tarantino is now selling slave action figures from the movie, including slave characters “Django” (Jamie Foxx) and “Stephen” (Samuel L. Jackson).

According to The Daily Beast:

Last fall, the National Entertainment Collectibles Association, Inc. (NECA), in tandem with the Weinstein Company, announced a full line of consumer products based on characters from the movie. First up are pose-able eight-inch action figures with tailored clothing, weaponry, and accessories in the likeness of characters played by Foxx, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio, James Remar and Christoph Waltz. The dolls are currently on sale via Amazon.com.

The slave action figures have drawn ire among people who feel it’s offensive and morally reprehensible to imagine slaves as toys for children to play with. To be fair, there were action figures for the “Kill Bill” films but as The Daily Beast‘s Karu Daniels writes: “those seem better suited for commercial pursuits.” These toys desensitize people and more specifically, children to the horrific institution of slavery much like Tarantino’s comedic film did, some will argue.

What do you think of “Django Unchained” slave action figures, Clutchettes?

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Quentin Tarantino’s Western epic Django Unchained opened to impressive box-office numbers despite what many called a controversial abuse of the n-word. The repeated use of the contentious word threatened to derail the slave redemption/love story, as respected African-American director Spike Lee called for a full-scale boycott of Tarantino’s passion project, claiming the film was disrespectful to his ancestors (he expressed his sentiment although he has yet to view the film).

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Django Unchained, which stars Oscar award-winning actor Jamie Fox, grossed impressive numbers across demographics, but especially strong with African-American audiences, with over 42 percent of tickets sold in the first week went to African-Americans.

“Django is playing well to African-Americans and to audiences across the board. You can’t have these kind of numbers otherwise. It’s getting everybody,” The Weinstein Co. president of distribution Erik Lomis said.

And those numbers have translated into what may turn out to be Quentin Taratino’s biggest movie ever, in terms of sales.

Django has grossed $77.8 million so far in North America and has a strong shot at becoming Tarantino’s most successful film at the domestic box office, eclipsing the $120 million earned by Inglourious Basterds in 2009. Sony is TWC’s partner on Django and will handle the movie internationally.

It looks as if black audiences have embraced Tarantino’s masterful storytelling ability, and looked past the word that too many, black and white, take out context.

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Quentin Tarantino’s much-talked about film “Django Unchained” starring Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio, opened on Christmas day. While the movie has its supporters, several have spoken out in criticism of the slavery-inspired film.

Spike Lee is the latest to add his voice to the conversation around “Django” in a recent interview with Vibe. He told the magazine:

“I cant speak on it ’cause I’m not gonna see it… All I’m going to say is that it’s disrespectful to my ancestors. That’s just me… I’m not speaking on behalf of anybody else.”

Lee didn’t expound on why he felt it was disrespectful, but others have taken issue with its excessive use of the N-word. Also, many feel its an entertainment-focused exercise in revisionist history that turns slavery into a Western movie. The most controversial viewpoint sees “Django” as a tool to assuage white guilt.

Toure wrote an opinion piece on the movie for MSNBC, calling it a heroic love story and claiming: “He gives us masters dying at the hands of a freed slave on a mission to liberate his wife. I wonder if our ancestors would find that disrespectful.”

What do you think of the film, Clutchettes? Will you go see it?

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Last year when the script for Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained was leaked, many black bloggers and writers were concerned. The film was called a “dark buddy comedy” and a “slavery revenge epic” and most folks just weren’t sure how Tarantino would handle a script that dealt with the horrors of pre-civil war America.

Back then, Tambay Obenson of the film blog Shadow & Act, criticized the script for its “superficial and gratuitous” look at slavery, which included several scenes where Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) was naked for no real reason expect to flash some skin, and Django (Jamie Foxx), the film’s title character, relied heavily on the guidance of a white man.

To say that many, including myself, were extremely skeptical at how the film would turn out would be an understatement. I was prepared to hate Django Unchained before the first clip had even been released, but after seeing the film last week, I can now admit I was wrong.

The plot of Django Unchained is simple. Through a twist of fate, a German bounty hunter, Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz), purchases Django because he is one of the few people who have seen a trio of brothers Dr. Schultz is trying to capture. While they hunt down the brothers, Django and Dr. Schultz form a friendship and hatch a plan to locate Broomhilda and free her from captivity.

Though it doesn’t seem like enough of a plot to stretch into a two-hour-and-forty-five minute film, somehow Tarantino manages to keep audiences engaged throughout.

Let’s get a few things straight, though. If you dislike Tarantino films, you will not like Django. The film is bloody, there are several long and gory shoot-outs, the dialogue is fraught with expletives, and if you cringe at the thought of the n-word tumbling from nearly every character’s mouth (remember, this was the Antebellum period), then you might want to keep your money in your pocket.

But if you want to see a film in which the black lead character doesn’t need to be “saved” by some well-meaning white person (ehem, The Help), but is a complete badass who takes fate into his own hands, then you just might enjoy Django.

Speaking of being saved, while the film is set in the pre-Civil War South and slavery is interwoven throughout the story, the film is not about slavery. If you head into Django Unchained, thinking you’re going to learn something new or enlightening or see a film akin to Roots or Nat Turner’s revenge, you won’t. Slavery is a part of the story; it is not the whole story.

And while I wasn’t sure I was ready to see the horrors and inhumanities of slavery depicted on the big screen (or being interpreted by Tarantino), I was pleased to see that many of the scenes from the original script (i.e. Broomhilda being repeatedly raped) were absent from the film. However, when the atrocities of slavery are shown, the scenes are brief but searing.

From Foxx’s commanding performance as Django, to Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson’s scene-stealing portrayals of Calvin Candie and his loyal house slave/confidant Stephen, Django Unchanged takes viewers on a hyper-violent, oft times riveting, sometimes comical, gloriously entertaining romp through the South.

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There is no exclusivity to the term in the film. No weathered sentiments of endearment, no warm daps to accompany it. The N-word is spit back and forth by both white and black characters like fresh cans of tobacco. Some critics of the film, two weeks before it hits theaters, have come to defend the use of the word in the film, claiming that its profound presence in Tarantino’s movie is not meant to mock, but simply represent what’s real: the crucial way in which race once divided a now “democratic” society.

“In the deep south, if we hadn’t heard that word as much as we did, it would have been a-historical. The language in that way was precise,” Toure, an author and MSNBC co-host said, The Hollywood Reporter reports. “It’s so embedded into their society, it’s not pejorative, it’s ‘this is how we talk.’ They’re not even conscious of the racism or gravity. To make a big deal out of it, and if you watch that film and that’s what you get out of it, that’s just an incredibly unintelligent knee jerk reaction to the whole thing.”

Other film critics like Dwight Brown told The Hollywood Reporter that Tarantino’s usage of the word in the film seems to be an exaggerated take on America’s historical past.

“Lots of the violence in the movie feels more like a caricature than a re-enactment,” Brown wrote in an email. “The kind of bloodshed and brutality you’d see in a horror film or a superficial action movie, versus what you might find in a real drama (Saving Private Ryan). Does it minimize the horrors of slavery? That’s up for debate. Maybe ‘cloud’ or ‘dilute’ are better words.”

Beyond the N-word, slavery is brutally depicted, and the actors feel it to the core. Actress Kerry Washington opted out of having a stunt double to feel the hot whippings against her back, to feel how her ancestors once felt. Chain gangs and brutally close enactments of castration are amongst the images that remain in the mind after seeing the film, momentarily stalling the viewer in a hot flash of blood-rushing pain. The N-word can be found in tons of urban movies, it’s usage, some believe, rightfully reserved for blacks. What seems to be stirring some viewer’s soul is the idea that Tarantino as a white man, has boldly sought out to remove the happy make-up that the black community has painted over the word and remind us of its roots: Amistad, slave revolts, lynchings — pure oppression. The N-word’s usage in movies cannot be restricted by race, but should be delicately placed for its effectiveness. What matters is the scenes and memorandum that stands around it. In Django Unchained that message is “Look here now, people. See what we have done.” It’s usage 110 times is jarring, yes, but representative of our truths, an aspect that should not be denied in cultural analysis.

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Kerry Washington made history as the first black woman to play the lead in a prime time drama in 38 years. Her character on ABC’s “Scandal,” Olivia Pope, has been criticized by some, but many laud Pope’s sense of independence, poise, professional success and even her vulnerability. As Kerry Washington prepares to play a decidedly different character, “Broomhilda” in Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” she spoke with Elle Magazine about how both roles speak to preconceived notions about black femininity.

Here’s an excerpt:

On playing Olivia Pope: She’s phenomenally successful, able to control her world and makes things happen with clarity and force in her profession.

On Olivia’s style: I chose pale pastels and earth tones – no black or navy suits. She spends her days saying things people don’t want to hear. She has to balance that by wearing things that make people safe and comfortable.

On playing a slave in Django Unchained: Without Olivia as my day job, I don’t know if I would have been able to play Broomhilda. She has strength I knew nothing about. Tarantino is a director who’s not intimidated by blood and gore and violence and the darker side of the human soul.

On being chained in stocks and whipped: That day on set broke all our hearts. To find the strength in that circumstance was mind-bending.

On playing the damsel in distress: Look I can see how it’s not particularly feminist to play the princess in the tower, waiting to be saved. But as a black woman – we’ve never been afforded that luxury. There was no man coming to save you; it wasn’t part of the story. In some ways, this telling is a statement of empowerment.

We’ve seen black women occupy stereotypical roles such as the asexual Mammy or hypersexual vixen, but rarely do our actresses play the damsel in distress. Though the “princess in the tower” role isn’t prevalent for black actresses, is it empowering? What are your thoughts, Clutchettes?

Source

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After nearly a year of conversations about Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming film, Django Unchained, which follows a former slave who sets about getting revenge on slave masters in an effort to find his wife, we now we can really start talking.

While many wondered how (and why) Tarantino would pull off a film that is billed as a revenge story (with a little comedy thrown in) about slavery, others were willing to just wait and see. The discussions were fierce, however. After black film blog Shadow & Act let it be known that they’d seen the original screenplay and it wasn’t “funny” or inspiring and basically called it “contrived”, many were up in arms about Tarantino tackling such a serious issue in such a light-hearted way.

Last year, Tambay of Shadow & Act wrote:

Yes, I know it’s essentially a parody of spaghetti westerns, with a  little blaxploitation elements thrown into the mix. In fact, you’ll find pieces of films like Drum and Mandingo in it. I believe Tarantino once previously referenced the latter as an influence of sorts. But I found this to be maybe his most contrived work…It’s exploitation cinema, and, I think it would have worked much better, and been an easier pill to swallow 40 years ago.

Django isn’t quite the hero here – not the way you’re probably expecting. For a good 2/3 of the script, he’s pretty much playing second fiddle to Christoph Waltz’s character who is essentially Django’s mentor, and the man responsible for his freedom, later providing him with the necessary skills Django needs to eventually challenge the plantation owner who holds his wife captive…

In fact, I’d say that Django doesn’t really, fully, come alive until about the last 25 minutes of this almost 3-hour script/movie…Suffice it to say that just as it takes the assist of a white man to set Django free and on course towards saving his damsel in distress, it also takes the assist (however unintentional) of a white man to finally allow Django his moment to really shine, and get out of the white man’s shadow…

I was also skeptical about premise of the film and became even more concerned after Tambay’s review of the script hit the web. But now the trailer is here, and it is most certainly a slick piece of advertising. James Brown, guns, and Jamie Foxx looking like he’s ready to avenge all 500 years black folks have been oppressed in this country? Oh my!

I’m still not convinced, though. But my interest is piqued just enough that I’ll probably pop into a screening to see if it’s as bad (or as good) as folks think it will be.

What do you think? Will you be seeing ‘Django Unchained’ this Christmas?

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