Today, an hour before the due time of this blog post, I googled a rather unsavory pair of words. The first links for “slave movies” provided me with a dozen more links to movies like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 12 Years a Slave, and unfortunately The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia. After continued searching and several laughable results, I amassed a list of adjectives and descriptions of Django Unchained. Action and comedy, Tarantino’s trademark features, were recognized by all. However some reviews and sites only grasped this. Could people really translate this movie as action and comedy and nothing but? Would I, watching this film outside of History class, think only that? Though Tarantino’s boldness (and love of viscera) drives his legacy in film making, was the jabbing texture of Django’s life and struggles as a slave shadowed by it?

Then I thought, “probably”. The fact is that Django  depicted as a bad-ass gunslingin’ slave out for revenge in the 1800’s provided a great character and plot. A setting and theme left much untouched, slavery as depicted by Tarantino was a western film where the issues of “slaves” were dulled to sharpen Django’s individual odyssey. As much as I enjoyed Django Unchained and love Quentin Tarantino’s films, I can see why so much of the population missed the “slave movie” of our time and watched an action flick instead. It’s a damn shame really. Oh and Django was originally to be played by Will Smith, but Jamie Foxx was great too.