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Charlotte Hull
it this far. I believe that the audience identifies with the duo until Dr. Schultz is killed.
Django does not immediately come to his aid but instead acts solely on revenge for his
wife, enslaved by the Candyland household, as well as the people then trying to kill him.
Throughout the film it continues to mock the genre not only as Broomhilda faints when
greeted with hey little trouble maker from her long lost hero, an over-reacted happily
ever after seen within this genre, but likewise through the fact that there are no actual
cowboys within this cowboy film.
There were many criticisms for this film, mostly revolving around the issue of side-lining
slavery as a result of historical deafness. Donald Trump said the film was totally racist
and Spike Lee refused to even watch the film as he already knew it was racist. These
critiques may be as a result of the chosen genre/style of mixing Blaxploitation with overexaggeration of violence taken from Tarantinos basic formula or through Quentin
Tarantinos postmodern choice of film. Frederick Jameson describes postmodernism as
vacuous and trapped in circular referencing which may justify Tarantinos choice of
using the word nigger and other racial links as they were not to be read into but instead
just a fact of that time. Although using the word nigger may be justified as being
historically accurate there is no real evidence to suggest Mandingo fighting actually
happened so instead suggests this is a fictitious fantasy created by Tarantino under the
influence of the film Mandingo and so questions the reasoning behind his other choices.
Schultz and Django use the oppressors racist values against them by bargaining flesh for
cash in order to buy the freedom of his wife. Nevertheless, the film does not try to
produce a powerful message of overcoming slavery as, towards the end, Django has the
opportunity to unite with the other black slaves in order to seek revenge on their captures
but, goes back to the plantation alone. Tarantinos choice to leave Stephan as the last
man standing shows the unconditional love Stephan feels towards his white master as he
plots against his true family representing his inability and refusal to recognise his own
identity. Therefore the use of parody in the film demonstrates the harsh reality of the
situation during this time. Although Django is now a free man he is mocked as a black hero
through his use of stance and cheesy grin as the plantation explodes which is heighted by
Broomhildas reaction of clapping. His horse then dances before they ride off, once again
referring to him as a clown rather than the powerful man that has just overruled Calvin
Candie.
As postmodernism develops I believe there will remain an endless loop of intertexual
references as this is one of the most common features of this style of film. However, there
will be issues regarding the references chosen as if the same ones are used over and over
it will mean films then have to rely on the bricolage created by a postmodern film to use
as the source of a new film. If films are carried on to be made this way there will be a lack
of original ideas as all postmodern films are a bricolage of other postmodern, bricolage
films. Not only will this lead to disjointed storylines as a result of the dependency on
selected intertexual references but it will also mean they are reliant on self-referential
jokes.