Django Unchained and 12 Years a Slave amassed condemnation regarding their misuse of gratuitous brutality. Labelled as ‘torture porn’, both films focused immensely on the physical inhumane treatment of slaves, but that’s not to say they omitted the true dehumanisation of slaves during that time. They may have been set during the civil war and slavery era, and they may have recognised slavery in 19th century America, but, they do not depict slavery in a way that teaches or gives new insight to the viewers.
Django can be considered ‘torture porn’ in the sense that it is preoccupied with showing the violence component of slavery through ‘justified revenge’ due to slavery as amusement, more than it informs us of the past. Whereby it is justified when Django kills the white antagonists, the Brittle brothers or Candie, because he had faced such hardships of being a slave and having his wife kidnapped. …show more content…
Critics like Geoffrey O’Brien and Jenny McCartney suggest that Tarantino overlooks the history of slavery, “unless it’s the history of cinema.” This doesn’t imply that these types of actions weren’t around during that era, yet, Tarantino takes it out of proportion. The use of the merciless “Mandingo” fighting in the film is a key aspect as to why Django received such label and censure of being too engrossed in cinema. As historically there is no concrete evidence of Mandingo fighting during that period, indicating that the film indeed is only interested in showing violence as entertainment rather than showing slavery as a serious
Django can be considered ‘torture porn’ in the sense that it is preoccupied with showing the violence component of slavery through ‘justified revenge’ due to slavery as amusement, more than it informs us of the past. Whereby it is justified when Django kills the white antagonists, the Brittle brothers or Candie, because he had faced such hardships of being a slave and having his wife kidnapped. …show more content…
Critics like Geoffrey O’Brien and Jenny McCartney suggest that Tarantino overlooks the history of slavery, “unless it’s the history of cinema.” This doesn’t imply that these types of actions weren’t around during that era, yet, Tarantino takes it out of proportion. The use of the merciless “Mandingo” fighting in the film is a key aspect as to why Django received such label and censure of being too engrossed in cinema. As historically there is no concrete evidence of Mandingo fighting during that period, indicating that the film indeed is only interested in showing violence as entertainment rather than showing slavery as a serious