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Dec. 31st, 2012 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretMore on Django
It occurred to me at some point in the third act that while I understand Tarantino's reasons for making Schultz German- the kinship with Broomhilda, the Siegfried legend, the odd contrast with Candie's francophilism, etc., I thought Tarantino could have set up a different and to me more interesting set of contrasts if he'd made Schultz a Frenchman. This is particularly because it seems to me that Schultz is acting out a twisted sort of de Tocqueville narrative, as the European democrat come to America to learn how democracy works in the wild.
The traditional American interpretation of Democracy in America is to accept it in the spirit offered, as an outsider's perspective teaching us the things we risk doing wrong that we might miss because we're living too close to the source. The revisionist American interpretation reads de Tocqueville as a European aristocrat trying to nudge us away from going too far in our grand experiment.
Reading Schultz as Tarantino's de Tocqueville, though, reads de Tocqueville as a man transformed by his visit to America, as a man who thought he understood what egalitarianism and freedom were until he confronted them 'in the wild' and learned that true freedom requires us to exercise our ability to make choices rather than stand as an outsider and watch.
The peculiar thing about civil rights abuses is that in most cases, the aggrieved minority party is powerless to rectify them without enlisting the majority. Women couldn't vote until they persuaded men to let them. Slavery wasn't abolished in America until white men fought against white men over the issue. Tarantino is asking, Schultz is asking, what does Freedom mean when it is handed to you? What does *America* mean if it is forced upon you instead of taken?
Meanwhile, Django is not interested in that question at all. He just wants his wife. It's interesting, I've seen a few defenses of SLJ's brilliant performance as Stephen, even though an interview with SLJ I've seen says that Tarantino actually filmed such a defense and then removed it from the film. These arguments suggest that Stephen has drawn such comfort from 'the System' that he has been grown into a staunch and clever defender of it. I think it was actually an interview with SLJ where he said that Stephen understands that outside the fifteen mile radius of Candyland Stephen is a powerless slave, but within the confines he is the most powerful man around, able to order around white men.
But Django's McGuffin is not actually Broomhilda- Tarantino is too generous a humanist to turn a woman into a McGuffin- but Broomhilda's emancipation paperwork. Schultz develops toward an appreciation of White Abolitionism, toward radical change in American society, but Django is working within the system, just as Stephen is.
That's also why bounty hunting is such a potent metaphor within the film. Django learns instantly from Schultz that it's not murder if you do it with a license from the government, just as slavery is not kidnapping if you do it with a license from the government. He loves getting paid to shoot white men for bounties because it legitimizes what he would want to do without the System but would never dare. And again, Schultz moves away from the System in the end when he shoots Candie without a license, breaking the plan, breaking down civilization, breaking Django's hopes of an easy ending. But Django recovers the paperwork from his dead partner's pockets and as he rides off into the sunset I felt convinced that his next move is to head North to a place that holds comparative safety for two Black freepersons, rather than to head South and continue his Tarantino-esque march of vengeance. Because that's the choice that situates him within a system that at least attempts to protect his rights, and unlike **Dr. King** Schultz, Django has no interest in trying to change the system.
It occurred to me at some point in the third act that while I understand Tarantino's reasons for making Schultz German- the kinship with Broomhilda, the Siegfried legend, the odd contrast with Candie's francophilism, etc., I thought Tarantino could have set up a different and to me more interesting set of contrasts if he'd made Schultz a Frenchman. This is particularly because it seems to me that Schultz is acting out a twisted sort of de Tocqueville narrative, as the European democrat come to America to learn how democracy works in the wild.
The traditional American interpretation of Democracy in America is to accept it in the spirit offered, as an outsider's perspective teaching us the things we risk doing wrong that we might miss because we're living too close to the source. The revisionist American interpretation reads de Tocqueville as a European aristocrat trying to nudge us away from going too far in our grand experiment.
Reading Schultz as Tarantino's de Tocqueville, though, reads de Tocqueville as a man transformed by his visit to America, as a man who thought he understood what egalitarianism and freedom were until he confronted them 'in the wild' and learned that true freedom requires us to exercise our ability to make choices rather than stand as an outsider and watch.
The peculiar thing about civil rights abuses is that in most cases, the aggrieved minority party is powerless to rectify them without enlisting the majority. Women couldn't vote until they persuaded men to let them. Slavery wasn't abolished in America until white men fought against white men over the issue. Tarantino is asking, Schultz is asking, what does Freedom mean when it is handed to you? What does *America* mean if it is forced upon you instead of taken?
Meanwhile, Django is not interested in that question at all. He just wants his wife. It's interesting, I've seen a few defenses of SLJ's brilliant performance as Stephen, even though an interview with SLJ I've seen says that Tarantino actually filmed such a defense and then removed it from the film. These arguments suggest that Stephen has drawn such comfort from 'the System' that he has been grown into a staunch and clever defender of it. I think it was actually an interview with SLJ where he said that Stephen understands that outside the fifteen mile radius of Candyland Stephen is a powerless slave, but within the confines he is the most powerful man around, able to order around white men.
But Django's McGuffin is not actually Broomhilda- Tarantino is too generous a humanist to turn a woman into a McGuffin- but Broomhilda's emancipation paperwork. Schultz develops toward an appreciation of White Abolitionism, toward radical change in American society, but Django is working within the system, just as Stephen is.
That's also why bounty hunting is such a potent metaphor within the film. Django learns instantly from Schultz that it's not murder if you do it with a license from the government, just as slavery is not kidnapping if you do it with a license from the government. He loves getting paid to shoot white men for bounties because it legitimizes what he would want to do without the System but would never dare. And again, Schultz moves away from the System in the end when he shoots Candie without a license, breaking the plan, breaking down civilization, breaking Django's hopes of an easy ending. But Django recovers the paperwork from his dead partner's pockets and as he rides off into the sunset I felt convinced that his next move is to head North to a place that holds comparative safety for two Black freepersons, rather than to head South and continue his Tarantino-esque march of vengeance. Because that's the choice that situates him within a system that at least attempts to protect his rights, and unlike **Dr. King** Schultz, Django has no interest in trying to change the system.