Spike Lee 'Not Gonna See' Tarantino's 'Django Unchained'
Django Unchained will not be making filmmaker Spike Lee's year-end top 10 list nor any other list for that matter because he says he won't see it. The outspoken Red Hook Summer director said the slavery-centered feature by Quentin Tarantino may deal with the topic in a manner that is less than respectful.
In an interview with Vibe magazine, Lee said: "I can't speak on it 'cause I'm not gonna see it. I'm not seeing it. All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors to see that film…"
[Related: Quentin Tarantino Wants You To Feel The Inhumanity Of Slavery In 'Django Unchained']
Lee was quick to add that he is only speaking on his own behalf and stopped short at a full condemnation, but said America's dark history in slavery was not akin to the story portrayed in a film like Django Unchained.
"I can't disrespect my ancestors," he said. "I can't do it. Now, that's me, I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody but myself." Lee had commented earlier via Twitter alluding to the film, according to Yahoo U.K.: "American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them."
Lee took on Tarantino when Jackie Brown hit screens, criticizing the plentiful use of the n-word, which also is uttered throughout Django Unchained/
"I'm not against the word. And some people speak that way,” he said. “But Quentin is infatuated with that word. What does he want to be made - an honorary black man? I want Quentin to know that all African Americans do not think that word is trendy or slick."
[Sources: Vibe via Yahoo U.K.]
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Spike's comments come from a place of profound ignorance. The exploitation of Africans in slavery is part of our history. Refusing to understand QT's approach, which is to stylize the history and make the very inhumane into a morality tale is precisely what is needed to reach a majority of young people in the country for whom the horror of slavery is bogged down by antiquated narratives. I mean, "Roots" looks so ridiculous to today's youth. And it has to. Down the line someone will make a movie that deals with slavery that will make Django look dated. The important thing is to keep fresh the core issue, the inhumanity of it. QT never pretends to be making a documentary. He is simply plating the historical truth of slavery against his life long love of spaghetti westerns and making a quasi western with a the kind of flair only he can accomplish.
Spike Lee is irrelevent...at least Tyler Perry is semi-entertaining.
Really, who cares what "Spike the weasel" has to say about anyone or anything? Have you ever seen any of the garbage this little weasel put on the screen? He's just bitter because he's a wanna-be has-been who never was. Spike, just go sit in your seat at Madison Square Garden and watch the big boys
play. Have you ever thought of applying for the towel boy job for the Knicks.
just ignorant but I bet your not man enough to say it to a black mans face.
talk about ignorance, it's you're as in you are. Pot calling the kettle black - LOL
Agree 100%. What appears to be the problem with this movie, is that it portrays the slave as competent heros. Just not realistic for that time period.
Bigdot = Bigot, I assume? What have YOU done that's exceptional???
Sold by Africa, not stolen from Africa. Get your histroy straight.
stolen from africa neal get your facts straight nobody own africans they were independent people and as a black man don't offend me when you are part of the problem of justification of slavery. Punk
I always thought "Courtney" was a feminine name anyway, and judging from your comments you have proven me right! Africans sold captured enemies to ship captains on their way back to the states, so "SOLD" not stole is the correct description!
Sold? Kidnapped? Is anyone suggesting one is less repugnant than the other? Hello???
sold and stolen from Africa get your history straight
"Sold" vs. "Stolen." We can easily get lost in the weeds over this one.
All I know is, if I stole your watch, then I sell it to a pawn shop -- it's still a stolen watch.
Histroy? Get your spelling straight. lol.
Spike says "My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa" really? they were sold by africans, need to rea
d your history books, may have been some of his relatives that sold them! As for the n word...listen to rap music, black people have no problems saying it, unless your white!
I personally have a problem with anyone using that word...I don't listen to rap music or expose myself to anything else that is degrading to my race and gender. They were indeed stolen...they were not all the subject of being sold. Focus on stringing together coherent sentences...it would be worth it.
No, read a history book before they were re-written by the politically correct police. They were sold by conquering tribal leaders of other villages and Arabs, first. The stolen part is a fantasy.
Who wrote these history book that you are referring to? Because modern historians would say they were stolen and only a few were sold. To generalize that all were sold is idiotic.
The viewpoint that “Africans” enslaved “Africans” is obfuscating if not troubling. The deployment of “African” in African history tends to coalesce into obscurantist constructions of identities that allow scholars, for instance, to subtly call into question the humanity of “all” Africans. Whenever Asante rulers sold non-Asantes into slavery, they did not construct it in terms of Africans selling fellow Africans. They saw the victims for what they were, for instance, as Akuapems, without categorizing them as fellow Africans. Equally, when Christian Scandinavians and Russians sold war captives to the Islamic people of the Abbasid Empire, they didn’t think that they were placing fellow Europeans into slavery. This lazy categorizing homogenizes Africans and has become a part of the methodology of African history; not surprisingly, the Western media’s cottage industry on Africa has tapped into it to frame Africans in inchoate generalities allowing the media to describe local crisis in one African state as “African” problem.[138]
— Dr. Akurang-Parry, Ending the Slavery Blame
That's also on Wikipedia if you need a source.
Have a nice day.
Good history lesson, well said.
The history books read "Africans were sold" so it is ok to bond them in chains, whip and degrade them to no end. It's the same as sex slaves; once another human being sells them it's ok to do whatever you please with the merchandise. Stealing a person and making him or her a slave is unconceivable; however, purchasing one somehow makes their pain and misery invalid…
It appears many of you spend a lot of time reading history books and not enough time applying common sense.
I don't like Spike Lee he is ivery well spoken about being a racist himself ! His movies are aimed at black audiences only !! What has he done lately ??? Oh yea gave out the address online to vigilanties of the wrong people! Oh yea he is just like Sharpton ignorant and never fully informed before he speaks !! How do you critic a movie you haven't seen ??? Ghetto thug with a little knowledge hmmm do I hear a friend of Mike Vicks too !! 2 fools the planet could do without a crap stirrer and a dog abuser !!
Spike should do a movie about Jews with "KIKE" being used in every other sentence and see what happens.
Tarantino has GOT to be cra**ing himself with all the free pub on this movie! First Jamie Foxx going Big Hypocrite on Sandy Hook fresh from his gun-heavy movie...then uproar from the Little Generic on the use of THAT WORD in the film...and then some yahoo thinks that Spock Lee making a film that drenches the dialogue with "kike" would teach QT a lesson?
Somewhere, Mel Brooks is laughing as he plots his direction on how to navigate "Blazing Saddles 2". Seriously...how could movies like that and stuff like "Airplane", "History of the World Part I", and so forth be made 30-35 years ago...but NO chance of being made now? Now Spike Lee is going to bitch-slap Tarantino? I weep for the future of American cinema :p
Klied you hit the proverbial nail on the head, I could not have said it better
spike lee is a joke. Jealous of QT
Yes, Spike Lee is jealous of Q.T.
Spike Lee is a little bitch
No, he is an ugly, dark vitch!
I think everyone has touched on every side that needs to be touched on. All I see is idiot director who used the N word in all of his movies is just salty that a white male director can do the same thing and make more money. Oh, by the way - I am black, but color is not the issue. It was a fine piece of movie making and Jamie Fox was brilliant.
History can be a be-atch, but it is factual, even if it hurts to watch.
Thanks for the free PR. - JFoxx
jamie , you did a fantastic job. loved the quirkiness, bloodiness and badassness.
How does he know what the film is about if he doesn't watch it.
Lol, I was thinking the EXACTY same thing one line in ....
get over yourself spike. the movie was just as it should be...entertainment. quit crying the blues.
SPIKE WHO?????
WHO IS HE...?
Spike Lee is a self-righteous and way overly self-impressed little prick. Always has been and apparently always will be. I well remember when he ranted and raved about how disrespectful it was to black people that Steven Spielberg filmed "The Color Purple". The point of that tirade was that it was not possible for a white Jewish director to do justice to the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by the black writer Alice Walker. Good ol' Spike insisted that only a black director should have been allowed to make a film about the "black experience in America". Could you have been just a little pissed off that you didn't get the job Spike? Nahhhh...that couldn't have been it. Of course, since then Spike has directed movie adaptions of novels by award-winning white authors with all-white casts, so apparently that's a one-way racial street. The hard cold truths that Spike simply didn't have the necessary directorial chops to adapt "Purple" and that most black people loved the movie were both apparently irrelevant to him. Maybe some day Spike will grow up and get over himself. But don't bet the farm on it.
Isn't Spike Lee the one who said he would bitch-slap Tarantino several years ago? How is that respectful to Lee's ancestors?
Saw this movie on Christmas. Loved it. I'm Mulatto and my ancestors were slaves in Chickasaw County Mississippi. Thought I was gonna die when that was where Django had to rescue his wife. Tarentino picks Chickasaw County, MS. Really touched an emotional nerve when I thought of what my ancestors endured. Still, this movie shows the ignorance of the white man. Makes the white man look insecure and fearful.Yet it wasn't preachy. Just very obvious. Loved the Django character and Christoph Walz's character the bounty hunter (man of great wisdom! (my opinion). They were fabulous. Great film in my opinion. I do close my eyes during the excessive violence but that's just me. Happy New year and love one another.
Gail I almost fell out my seat when they told Djanjo that he would be taken to the Lamount Dickey mining company (my last name) so now I'm doing research on that mining company.
I'm a black female and Spike Lee is being a hypocrite and definitely wrong for trying to throw QT "under the bus". First the movie is set in the 1800's...of course the N-word was used...Spike certainly has used it enough in his movies. Spike, why not see the movie...afraid you might like it.
Mr. Lee makes some very good points. In a time when nothing is "out of line" ...that is out of line. I grew up in a neighborhood in Houston where the "N" word was used all the time. That did not make it correct, nor should it be glorified. I live today in a community that was "burned out" and folks were killed because they refused to fight on the side of slavery. No glory in slavery...I agree Mr. Lee, it was a holocaust and to treat it any differently would be an affront to anyone that had relatives that lived through it. I did not have any...but I respect your feelings in this regard.
Africans started out being sold by other Africans, Blacks check your history I'm African I know mine, then buyers got smart and started stealing slaves instead of paying for them. Point is get over it no one on this chat was actually born when all that was going on so get over it.
Alex, it’s good thing we have you on this blog to make sure blacks know their history. Who the f@*K are you to conclude no one on this “chat was actually born when all that was going on so get over it”. What is the “that” you are referring to? In addition, no one cares about your ethic background; in my opinion, it only makes your statement sounds more moronic.
By his facial features, Mr. Lee is not black, he's a mulatto, or half breed, as most in the planet. Therefore, why be so itchy with his black roots? How about his white roots?
'I haven't seen it, I won't see it - but I can tell you what it's about' talk about being willingly ignorant...
Spike is just being a hater! It's so obvious and sad!
Here is what I don't understand. We are the biggest hypocrites that walk the face of the earth. Listen to the music that the black artist are putting out today. It's full of sex and disrespect for our people. The language that we use is not even considered a language, We call each other Hoe's and Bitches, gangsta and players, Thug and niggas, Dogg and any other demeaning name we can think of.
The average 8 year old can tell you the lyrics to any hip hop rap song,but if you asked them the reasoning behind the struggle of the 1960 and what did our people fight for during that time. They are clueless.
All of you have made valid points, but we must keep in mind that we live in a country that was founded on a lie from the begining. When the constituttion was being signed not one single blackmans name went on it.
Yes we did have our own people to sell us out to be captured as well as other races, but it doesn't make it right. The movie was not made to demean us but to bring a awareness to a forgotten era. Djanjo was no hero. He was fighting to save his wife. The characters played in the movie told the true meaning of a country that was full of hate towards anyone that was not of thier ethnic background. It's funny how soon we forget that the same thing happen in the 60's, 70's and parts of the 80's. Most of you don't know what it was like to have the water hoses turned on you, or dogs released on you. Put in jail because you refused to be treated inhuman. You don't understand the things that your grandmothers and grandfathers went through just so you can get to where you are today. All you hear is the stories that they tell you. You were to young or not even born.
But here is what I do know, we have more black on black crime now than we have ever had in our entire llfe. So Mr. Lee you do not have to go see the movie it's your choice. This movie is going to do fine. We would rather make a movie about some stupid looking troll people and a wizard the number 1 movie in the box office verses a movie reality about a still divided union.
This movie is not to teach you to hate white people or to start pulling out your six shooters and blasting away anybody that offends you. The movie is designed to help you understand the country that we live in and the stages of progression that we have achieved. You can marry who you want to now. If you want a white woman got get you one, if you want a white man go get you one.
All I am saying is don't bury you heritage and forget your roots, this is who you are, when you loose your roots then you are a person that doesn't exist.
Spike needs to grow up and act his age and not his IQ. The guy should know by now he's an has-been and get over it. He's an anti-social person with a prosecution personality that is very prevalent in his actions.
I'm not going to degrade Spike that way John. Spike is a very smart intellegent director, actor, and activist. However I will challenge him, since he feels the way he does about the movie, then top what Mr. Tarantino did concerning that time period and era. He is very well able to. Let's us see the creative artist that Spike Lee is known for and make a movie about his perception of that subject matter. Name the move Heritage and go from there.
I think most blacks got offended because of the word nigga being used. It didn't bother me because I know the true meaning of the word. What does bother me is when our own people is ready to go to battle if someone from another race say it, but laugh and joke when we say it to each other.
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