a2 postmodernism - Django Unchained

1. Postmodernism Analysis
Django Unchained

2. Questions
 How is this episode postmodern (pomo features)
 How can you apply/relate Baurillard theory
 How can you apply/relate Focault theory
 How does it differ or challenge other media (could compare to other current media
or traditional media)
 How is it similar to other media? (could be other platforms)
 What type of audience is this episode made for? What sort of impact does Charlie
Brooker want on this audience? Why?
 What types of technology and media are explored in black mirror?

3. How is this film postmodern?
 Addition = slavery, humour, black lead character, white antagonist, extreme violence,
contemporary music, costume designs
 Deletion = Native Americans, ‘The West’, cowboys, traditional western music
 Substitution = Location (the south), modern music (Rick Ross)
 Transposition = Link to the German myth of Brunhilde (purpose of the narrative), Stephen
(‘Uncle Tom’ = Behaves in a subservient manner to white people)
 Homage = Title ‘Django Unchained’ derived from:
Django (1966)
Hercules Unchained (1959)
 Intertextuality = Django’s blue suit (Thomas Gainsborough – The Blue Boy)
Dr Schultz’s gun (Taxi Driver (1976))
Django’s cowboy outfit (Little Joe Bonanza)
Candieland shootout (Inglourious Basterds shootout)
KKK raid (Birth Of A Nation (1915))
 Hybridisation = Western, action, blaxploitation, comedy

4. How can you apply/relate Baurdillard
theory?
 Hyper reality = Division between ‘real’ and simulation has collapsed, therefore an
illusion of an object is no longer possible because the real object is no longer their.
Viewers are removed from reality and inserted into a past full of hyperreality and
spinning every representation of the Spaghetti Western genre and films about
slavery on their heads. Django is freed by a white bounty hunter and seen as (an
almost) equal in society as the two ride their horses together through the
stereotypical scenery of Western towns (and into the sunset), even though the
majority of the locations visited are towards the south such as Mississippi.

5. How can you apply Foucault’s
theory?
 Panopticism = Originally a concept of a hypothetical prison proposed by Jeremy Bentham,
having circular tiers of cells surrounding a central observation tower. In Django Unchained,
Django is always watched upon because in the narrative, it is unusual for black person to be
free and ride horses. This therefore generates a reaction from people that include anger as well
as fear. Anger is shown through a reaction provided from Stephen when the audience are first
introduced to him, but also fear is shown as when Django and Schultz ride through Mississippi,
people avoided the two because they are interpreted as trouble.
 Voyeurism = The voyeuristic fulfillment at work here is comparable to the castration anxiety of
Freudian psychoanalytic theory and Mulvey feminist theory. Traditionally, it is an anxiety
invoked by the woman’s image in symbolizing the castration through her lack of a phallus,
which in a gender biased patriarchal system symbolizes the power and authority to define
meaning. This idea can be more broadly applied to the relationship between high and low social
status groups in general: in this case, blacks and whites. Tarantino take advantage of this
power complex in the context of a spaghetti western slave narrative, best illustrated in the
scene that calls into action both this figurative lack along with Django’s more literal threat of
actual castration through extreme close ups, shifting point of views, and play with social
blocking in the character arrangement of the scene’s mise en scène.

6. How does it differ or challenge
other media?
 This film challenges other media, especially from the western genre because the
Blaxploitation genre of Django Unchained targets and uses content that specifically
appeal across racial and ethnic lines. Django takes to the bounty hunting business
with no small enthusiasm (“Kill white folks and they pay you for it? What’s not to
like?”), although he eventually does discover a pain of conscience along the way.
Although as a result of this, Spike Lee refused to watch the film due to the
excessive violence and racism that the film contained.
 Furthermore, the excessive violence is an addition made that challenges other
media. The various shootouts and bloody scenes shown in the film challenge other
media texts due to the sheer graphic visuals as well as the inclusion of humour.
This takes away the seriousness of a situation similar to other western movies. For
example in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), standoffs are taken seriously
and create a tense atmosphere, whereas in Django, the gunfights add the element
of humour due to the reaction of the character’s to the situation.

7. How is it similar to other media?
 Intertextual References that have been included in the text:
 Schultz’s gun = Taxi Driver reference
 Django’s green cowboy suit = Little Joe Bonanza costume
 KKK raid scene – Birth of a Nation
 Multiple texts feature narratives that base a character trying to save their partner or
family from evil, similar to Django as he tries to free his wife from a slave plantation
owner.
 Other western films show similar characteristics to Django such as the outfits of the
‘cowboys’ in the film and the treatment towards black people. Also, small elements such
as the bar fights, types of characters are similar as well. For example, Django’s sturn
attitude is similar to The Man With No Name in A Fistful Of Dollars (1964)

8. What type of audience is this film made for?
What sort of impact does Quentin Tarantino want on
this audience? Why?
 The films targets a Blaxploitation audience. These types of texts were originally made
specifically for an urban black audience, but the genre's audience appeal soon
broadened across racial and ethnic lines. However, viewers of the certified age for the
film can view this text without being fans of the blaxploitation genre because the
implication of historical deafness allows for any viewer to be able to enjoy the aesthetics
that make the film appeal to the audience.
 The impact that Quentin Tarantino has on the viewer is to show the effects of slavery.
Tarantino says "What happened during slavery times is a thousand times worse than
[what] I show," he says. "So if I were to show it a thousand times worse, to me, that
wouldn't be exploitative, that would just be how it is. If you can't take it, you can't take it.
He goes on to say "Now, I wasn't trying to do a Schindler's List you-are-there-under-the-
barbed-wire-of-Auschwitz. I wanted the film to be more entertaining than that. ... But
there's two types of violence in this film: There's the brutal reality that slaves lived under
for ... 245 years, and then there's the violence of Django's retribution. And that's movie
violence, and that's fun and that's cool, and that's really enjoyable and kind of what
you're waiting for."

9. What types of technology and media
are explored in Django Unchained?
 The text has used technology to portray references that have been taken or
influenced by past media texts. See Intertexutal references on the previous slide
and on the postmodern slide.
 Media themes
 Slavery narrative – Django began as a slave, slaves shown throughout
 ‘Getting what you want’ – Django wanting to free his wife from being a slave
 ‘Cowboy’ – Django acts and dresses like a ‘cowboy’ later in the narrative
 Capitalist oppression – Django and Schultz try to free Broomhilda from Calvin
Candie

10. Discuss the concept of narrative in Django
Unchained, does it challenge or reinforce?
 Fairly linear = shows Django and Schultz’s journey through the bounty hunting job
to free Broomhilda
 Although, the narrative is also non-linear because there are multiple inclusions of
flashbacks of Broomhilda’s capture and visual representation of her pain which
does hinder the progression of the narrative.
 The narrative in the film reinforces to common conventions in film because the film
follows the linear style of narrative to show the journey of Django and Schultz trying
to search for and rescue Broomhilda from the plantation. Though the short
flashbacks reverse the narrative to allow the audience to learn of Broomhilda’s
past, the narrative is secured by seeing the journey take place and see the result of
what happens when she is ‘bought’ by Schultz.