Sometimes I really struggle to understand typical human minds. Django Unchained is supposedly offensive, we are told it is Blaxploitation. Spike Lee claims it's disrespectful to his ancestors, while eBay has banned dolls of characters in the film.
According to salon.com an eBay representative stated the dolls were "in violation of our Offensive Materials
policy.” Apparently eBay forbids products portraying victims of violence, so maybe this means Luke Skywalker dolls are banned because Luke's hand was chopped off by a lightsbare? Star Wars is violent if you ask me but eBay has no problem selling Luke dolls.
If eBay is against profiting via products relating to historic suffering, then perhaps they will stop selling Anne Frank DVDs or Anne Frank books? Maybe eBay will stop selling Roots? The Roots TV series could easily fit into eBay's prohibited items via a classification of being "racially or ethnically offensive." Racism and slavery are unpleasant but we should not shy away from the truth.
Within the realm of fiction, despite the inherent unreality of fiction, Django Unchained is a reasonably accurate film, it nicely portrays the horrors of slavery; it also portrays the occasional decency of White people. The film is not Blaxploitation. Personally I thought Django Unchained was a good anti-racism and anti-slavery movie. Likewise the violence wasn't shocking because it is only fiction, it is not real life, it is a film. Fictional films are inherently untrue-to-life, despite art drawing upon aspects of life for inspiration.
Should we be shocked by the distorted Cubist heads of Picasso or the tortured deformed images of Francis Bacon, are these artworks offensive regarding the true human form? Perhaps eBay would ban Guernica if they could. If you consider the PayPal WikiLeaks financial blockade, via the the financial connection of eBay to PayPal, we see how perhaps eBay has a penchant for censorship.
I think many people are unwilling to recognize the horrific past regarding Black slavery thus Django Unchained makes them feel uncomfortable because they are forced to confront things they would prefer to deny. I myself don't judge humans differently based on the color of their skin, therefore I am perfectly comfortable watching humans of any color in any role regarding any film. I am not offended regarding an accurate, or not, fictional portrayal of slavery.
We need the intelligence explosion sooner instead of later. Leave your comments via G+.
