I found many thought provoking ideas and sociological readings of Taratino's Oscar award winning film.
Fagan's perceptive analysis of Django Unchained incorporates the view of the Lacanian Gaze and Zizek's application of the symbolic, real and imaginary. At the heart of Fagan's essay are the issues of violence and racist ideology both two reoccurring themes in the millennial spaghetti western.
The characters of the film most deeply concentrated in Fagan's critique are Schutlz an eccentric German bounty hunter oblivious to racism, Big Daddy and Calvin Candie both rampant racist slave owners and of course Django an emancipated black slave. In this article I want to offer a brief overview of the essay's main points and what I found most interesting while also offering a differing view to Fagan's conclusion that Tarintino's wild west movie is in fact not racist!
To begin with lets identify what the theory of 'the real' means in the context of Django Unchained,;
"Lacan teaches us that human experience takes place in three orders, the real, the symbolic and the imaginary. While the symbolic order is the primary focus and venue for Django Unchained, Django's rise to the triumphant hero of the film is predicated on his internal and therefore imaginary-images of himself, just as Schultz's fall is predicated on his inability to symbolize his experience of the real. Indeed it is Tarantino's allowance for the real to destabilize the symbolic order or law that governs his film that makes the film so engaging."
From this extract specifically the the last sentence one sees how director Tarantino deliberately unbalances the 'symbolic order' of the film's lifeworld coded in excessive racism through the introduction of the Lacanian 'stain' which is Django. As a free black slave Django the acted by Jamie Fox disturbs the ideological world of the inhabitants this is because he is situated in the place of the real, outside of the symbolic chains of racism championed by the white majority. The later who believe black people have a fundamental lack in character and intellect. The racists argue that blacks are naturally subservient and therefore should serve as the slaves of society. Hence there is an antagonism between the symbolic order and physical reality with racist ideology as the intermediary between both upholding racism for the symbolic and keeping the real; black people and their normality at bay and hidden from view..
The 'imaginary Lacanian stage' comes into play in Tarantino's work when the symbolic is fractured by the truth conveyed by Django. His mere existent is and characteristics of excellent behavior and 'street smarts' convey how black people are in no way deficient. The realization of black equality in relation to the hegemony of the white oppressors in the film conveys how the symbolic order can quickly become besieged in a state of emergency. For how can one maintain a universal and claim that African Amercian's are stupid if individual particulars like Django exist who are strong fit smart and black and more than able to do a white mans work. Hence, the 'imaginary' needs to be drawn into knit the symbolic order back together with physical reality saving the meaning and foundation of societies racism. This is done by cheating and circumnavigating the holes in the theory of societies racist ideology namely the inferiority of black people by creating new imaginative and racist claims to reinforce weakness and deficiency in their character. What must be maintained is the privileging of white people in society renewed again on a fresh false pretense of the 'imaginary' allowing the maintenance and grapple-hold of oppression over the personal freedoms of 'black people', the most significant being the power over black peoples bodies divorcing them from their autonomy.
The German bounty hunter Schultz how has no concept of racism in Django Unchained. From my point
of view I find this character to be the most complex and multi layered in the film. I would argue Schultz is a subtly oppressive force in the film. Although he frees Django and agrees to help him win back his wife Broomhilda, I can't quite avoid the feeling that Schultz is a carrying out a deception of character even perhaps unwittingly to himself on a sub-conscious level. In a pseudo sense Django is freed by Schultz given
a gun a horse and fine clothes and even allowed to hunt white men alongside him but there seems an underlining form of exploitation occurring through their seemingly beneficial relationship. It is as if Schultz wishes to turn Django into the mirror of himself; a white man. This is evident in the scene were he takes Django to a tailor and buys him european clothes, allowing Django to exhude a sense of European class. It seems clear that Schultz acting as the 'Lacanian screen' identified by Fagan helps immerse the viewer in the racist times and ideologies of Django Unchained. Schultz filters out the racism in the film in a way that avoids confronting the issue, he seems to think there is no real racist issue and by doing so helps us forget the elephant in the room that all the black people in the film are slaves. Indeed it is Schultz lack of racism that helps the viewer to solely concentrate on Django an object of desire above everyone else. Which is strange considering Django is only interested in his own self-preservation and life of his partner Broomhilda a seeming extension of himself. In contrast there is no real dialogue or talk between Django and Schultz of freeing other people other than the ones they know. In my reading it seems that Schultz only seeks to reinforce capitalist individuality and privileging of the self in Django Unchained in direct conflict with
real collective struggles of black people. Schultz weakness of character is embedded in his preference to sustain himself over others resulting in his own death because of his inability to place others before himself. He risks Django and Broomhilda's own deaths in exchange for a selfish act of murder against Calvin Candie because of his excessive subjective pride in face of the racist oppressor and in doing so becomes one himself. He is indoctrinated into the violent and racist ideology of the film by sacrificing himself and his black friends who are very lucky to escape his engagement in murder in the end spells out his own destruction for his due to his latent character of corruption. Schultz is a figure that makes his money of others by killing them and doesn't not transcend this urge to kill, in my view he is a psychopathic enabler.
Section on the racism in the film coming soon
of view I find this character to be the most complex and multi layered in the film. I would argue Schultz is a subtly oppressive force in the film. Although he frees Django and agrees to help him win back his wife Broomhilda, I can't quite avoid the feeling that Schultz is a carrying out a deception of character even perhaps unwittingly to himself on a sub-conscious level. In a pseudo sense Django is freed by Schultz given
a gun a horse and fine clothes and even allowed to hunt white men alongside him but there seems an underlining form of exploitation occurring through their seemingly beneficial relationship. It is as if Schultz wishes to turn Django into the mirror of himself; a white man. This is evident in the scene were he takes Django to a tailor and buys him european clothes, allowing Django to exhude a sense of European class. It seems clear that Schultz acting as the 'Lacanian screen' identified by Fagan helps immerse the viewer in the racist times and ideologies of Django Unchained. Schultz filters out the racism in the film in a way that avoids confronting the issue, he seems to think there is no real racist issue and by doing so helps us forget the elephant in the room that all the black people in the film are slaves. Indeed it is Schultz lack of racism that helps the viewer to solely concentrate on Django an object of desire above everyone else. Which is strange considering Django is only interested in his own self-preservation and life of his partner Broomhilda a seeming extension of himself. In contrast there is no real dialogue or talk between Django and Schultz of freeing other people other than the ones they know. In my reading it seems that Schultz only seeks to reinforce capitalist individuality and privileging of the self in Django Unchained in direct conflict with
real collective struggles of black people. Schultz weakness of character is embedded in his preference to sustain himself over others resulting in his own death because of his inability to place others before himself. He risks Django and Broomhilda's own deaths in exchange for a selfish act of murder against Calvin Candie because of his excessive subjective pride in face of the racist oppressor and in doing so becomes one himself. He is indoctrinated into the violent and racist ideology of the film by sacrificing himself and his black friends who are very lucky to escape his engagement in murder in the end spells out his own destruction for his due to his latent character of corruption. Schultz is a figure that makes his money of others by killing them and doesn't not transcend this urge to kill, in my view he is a psychopathic enabler.
Section on the racism in the film coming soon
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