Yeah sure Candie's death scene was overblown. If you ask me Tarantino's films have been a bit weird tonally as far back as Kill Bill: Vol.1 (I mean, Beatrix donning those crazy shades right after her realization of what she went through while comatose? From tragedy to farce.). I enjoy the guy's writing for the most part but his direction? Eh semi-realistic more often that not.

@NeoLosman said:

Yeah; Black Dynamite is a far more grounded and believable film

It's a fun film. But some of the over the top stuff takes away from it, IMO. Like the over the top squibs. Every time someone gets shot, a friggin' gallon of blood spurts into the air. 🙄

It's hard for me to dismiss his reaction as "over the top" when, more than a century hence, there are still Stephens wailing "There'll always be a Candyland!" as if that's a good thing, like that's the only way it could and should ever possibly be. Do whatever it takes to keep Black people in their place, don't trouble massa now, even if it meant sending uppity Djangos to die working, slaving away, in service to the system.

Stephen just couldn't, wouldn't... wake up.

In my opinion, perhaps his reaction - as an illustration of the shackles in Stephens' minds - may not have been vivid enough to wake up so many Stephens still out there.

And if he's right, if there has remained the Candyland value system, the Candyland mindset, it may be in part because Stephens after him continued to support the Calvins to maintain it, rather than to put their efforts more towards dismantling it.

@NeoLosman said:

Dunno that Django, Stephen(as embodied by the likes of Candace Owens, here in '23), and today's Woke Warriors are all that different from one another.

Interesting. Yes, debatable. I could argue in support that, ultimately, Shultz' breakdown caused more trouble than help and almost undid everything they tried to do. But, the truth about why that sequence works is beyond the scope of this thead. I'm sure I've commented on that elsewhere. We can revisit this another time.

In the meantime, I'll take you at face value and engage this, for just a bit, because I already know it will derail. But, for the record...

And just as Django's devotion was only to freeing Brunhilda(he wasn't especially interested in a strategy to free all enslaved people in The US + giving them the legal protections and skills necessary to be full citizens afterwards),

When Django told Coco to say goodbye to Lara-Lee, and then told her to leave, she up and left. She clearly saw the opportunity that Django offered her, and she seized it.

Yeah, of course, without "papers", she was now to cast her hopes on the Underground Railroad to survive - burning down Candyland didn't end slavery, it was just one plantation. But, Django's uprising that night gave Coco a chance, a window of opportunity, a sliver of hope. As much as she was good at setting a fine table, she wasn't sticking around to try to save Candyland. That, in the artsy symbolism of a Hollywood movie, represents to me that Django wasn't entirely self-centred. Preventing uprisings is well-documented as one of the chief fears of plantation owners and slave traders. So much of the social landscape of the time that would live on in policing and law enforcement was tracking Black people's movement, documentation to be anywhere, outlawing reading and scuttling education so they could not conspire and plan to rise up...this story is of one uprising, and it wasn't much of one, because it was just one man, but that happened. Black human beings fought against slavery every step of the way, from the castles on the shores of Ghana, in the boats, on the auction blocks, in the barns, in the fields...

Remember also how, when Django dusted up Tarantino's gang, he left those boys to their own devices, left them to be free; he showed them that they could fight, that they could create a chance. It wouldn't be easy but, if they were willing to pay the price, the chance of failing, of dying in the fight, they might win their freedom. And they saw it; they went from seething loathing when they were approaching Candyland together, to awe and admiration that this fool was still alive, and still focused on his goal.

Django was no intellectual statesman looking for diplomatic gradual disarmament and de-escalation. Glass half-emtpy?

No, he was just one man, and did what he could within the scope of his own capacity. Glass half-full. No one has the perfect solution. I'm less inclined to be critical of those who are just trying, and more inclined to support their trying.

today's Woke Warriors aren't terribly gung ho for discussing

In my opinion, that's complete and utter balderdash. From where I sit, it's the conservative snowflakes and their protective Stephens who just are too fragile to engage that conversation in good faith, intent to ever conflate white supremacy with whiteness, as if we don't know the difference, and then defend to the death whiteness as if that's what really is under attack. Discussing concrete ways seems to ever derail into rhetoric, logical fallacies (strawman, false equivalence, sealioning around and around in circles), tone policing...MLK wrote about it in Letters from Birmingham jail, the observation isn't new. When people were burning things down, folks would say "protest peacefully"; when Colin Kaepernick sat down for the anthem, an ex-military guy said "if you want to show respect to vets, instead of sitting, you should kneel"; Kaepernick, willing to listen, thoughtful and intentional about protesting respectfully, listened and changed his approach, he kneeled; and all those people saying "don't loot, protest peacefully" lost their collective minds. It's never the right way for them; it's too loud, it's too quiet...as long as they keep dictating HOW we try to engage, they can avoiding actually having to engage.

concrete ways of uplifting those who are in need.

To aim only at "uplifting those in need" without throwing wrenches in systems that perpetually put people in need, is stupid.

If you come home to water on the kitchen floor, you'll mop it up. Come home tomorrow to the same thing, you'll mop it up. Come home next day to more water, and you MIGHT think "Hmmm...I guess I'll need a bigger mop." Or, you might get smart and think, "I should find and fix the damned leak. Then, I won't need the mop at all."

If you have a headache, take a pain reliever. Ahhhh, pain subsides. Problem solved? Well, what if the headache is not the problem, it's only a symptom? You go see a doctor, she tells you "You have a tumor." Would you then be happy with her prescribing just more pain reliever? Of course not. At this stage, now that you know the problem, you want that solved. Pain reliever is not enough.

They're enthusiasm is pretty much confined

IF it's confined, it's primarily because racism in Western society is created and maintained by white supremacy. It's not Black people's problem to solve. If you've got a leak in the kitchen, we confine the solution to the pipe in the kitchen, we're not fiddling with the garden spigot. Got a tumor in your head? Then that's where we must confine our health care efforts.

to vague

Again, we can be specific. We are specific. Conservatives who benefit from status quo only want to preserve the systems. It's only vague as a defense mechanism, it's vague because, for them, it's soooo hard to figure out. No, it isn't. They just don't want to. So, keep us running around in circles, keep sealioning, keep avoiding, just keep. it. all. going. There must always be a Candyland.

specious delusions

That people can learn and change is already proof that it is neither specious nor delusional. Sliding that rhetoric in as if it were fact is part of the problem.

of making Whites aware of their complicity

Those who can grasp that do become allies. White people have fought for, and died in, the struggle against white supremacist oppression and aggression. They are smart enough to see clearly that white supremacy hurts white people, too.

in an irredeemably racist system

If it is irredeemable, that's why it's gotta burn down. To throw up our hands in surrender and join Stephen in yelling out "There'll always be a Candyland!", to just accept it, and keep mopping up, keep "trying to uplift those in need" under a system that keeps leaking, that keeps putting people in need, is what perpetuates it. And, BTW, "irredeemable" is precisely why people advocate for abolishing the police - in their opinion, it cannot be redeemed, it cannot be reformed. It is, inherently, a racist system.

If you're right, and racist systems can't be redeemed, then our choices are: accept them, try to live within them, uplift those in need while that system keeps putting people in need; or, dismantle them.

So, let's do that, let's dismantle all the racist systems that cannot be redeemed. Oh, wait, but what is racist, right? As long as we can't agree, we'll just keep going around and around and around.

There'll always be a Candyland.

@NeoLosman said:

"I should find and fix the damned leak. Then, I won't need the mop at all."

All the more incentive for us to get focused on things like ending The Drug War,

I agree.

Yes, I do.

Wholeheartedly.

Richard Nixon started the war on drugs to specifically target what he referred to as two of his main enemies - antiwar left (affluent woke white kids in university getting educated, going all hippie and make love not war, until he attacked Kent State with militarized police) and Black folks ("VC never called me ni66er"). John Ehrlichman admitted "if we could associate the hippies with marijuana and the Blacks with heroin, we could then vilify their leaders in the nightly news, disrupt their meetings, raid their homes...did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

PS. I don't like/use the term "marijuana" anymore, either. It's cannabis. Marijuana was invented to associate the stuff with Mexicans to vilify and stigmatize them.

abolishing most forms of welfare in favor of putting all but those who really are physically and cognitively incapable of work of any kind into steady, legit employment,

Well, yeah, except, you know, capitalism. But, again, no surprise, capitalism is based on exploitation. While real wages have stagnated since the Nixon era, the wage gap has grown exponentially, CEO pay has enjoyed over 1,500% raise. Manufacturing jobs have been outsourced, resulting in the Rust Belt that was once full of jobs and hope until Black folks showed up for work. And, of course, conservatives hate taxes, so even jobs in infrastructure (which is crumbling all around us) are dwindling. And then there's automation...

and making vocational training more readily available than it currently is, so that several million of this nation's poor can transition into the middle class-all points above.

Again, the economics that once, long ago, allowed a vocational worker to buy a house on that single income are long gone. Most of the money that used to be available for average Joes to live with dignity have been sponged up by out-of-control CEO pay, and the rise of billionaires. We idolize that third yacht while being told there's no money to afford minimum wage or health care or benefits, and any suggestion of more equitable ways to distribute wealth is drowned out in cries of "communism!"

These aren't problems that are confined to anyone ethnic group, and they haven't been for a long time now

I agree again. I'll maintain that these problems are disproportionately disadvantaging Black people, but yes, others get caught in that crossfire as collateral damage.

All this theater we're engaged in today around delusions of "Throwing A Wrench Into Systems Of Power" is just a rehash of the sort of hare brained fantasies espoused by The New Left back in The 70s. Delusions which ultimately not only bore little fruit, but undercut the gains of the pre-67 civil rights movement. It's remarkable that so many of us moderns think we're doing anything original, when we regurgitate such psedorejvloutionary fever dreams here in '23, on those rare occasions that we're not glued to The X Box or binge watching Game Of Thrones for the billionth time

I don't espouse this rhetoric. Efforts to normalize opposition to the status quo are not all theatre. BUT, if/when they are, I'll still take that theatre over the theatrical rhetoric that is determined not to upset the status quo. It's been documented that people at Fox did not believe the Big Lie...yet, they maintained the theatrical rhetoric that has millions of people saying "see!" That is more of a problem, in my opinion, than efforts to challenge the status quo.

However, I'm glad we could have some kind of constructive conversation across our differences.

And, thanks to Tarantino for this movie in general, this character, and this sequence of scenes specifically, for being art that spurs discourse.

@DRDMovieMusings Wow, dude. Great points. I guess you know by now I generally agree with everything you said. I wasn't aware that the term "marijuana" originated a a way to vilify Mexicans but at this point I don't think anyone knows that or uses it for that. I personally just use the slangs bud, weed, dank because that is what I grew up with. I couldn't agree more about "woke" being a misdirection red herring by the right so that people do not pay attention to the real issues.

@NeoLosman Man, I about lost it when you compared Candice Owens to Stephen 🤣. An apt comparison indeed! Somehow I find her more vile. I think its because at least Stephen was intelligent while she just comes off as a complete moron. Her propaganda is just so sloppy that only an extremely uneducated person would fall for it.

But yes indeed. Tarantino did in fact spark a great conversation on this board. As over the top Django Unchained is, I have to say it is probably my second favorite film of his behind Pulp Fiction and then followed by Reservoir Dogs and then Inglourious Basterds.

And thanks to you too, @movie_nazi, for getting this thread rolling! I wanted to start one entitled "There'll always be a Candyland" but you beat me to it :-) (I know they're not in the same scene, but they are both expressions of Stephen's absolute, to-the-death fealty to the status quo; which is to say, a dramatic representation of the curious phenomenon of Black people defending the cruelest of white supremacists and their systems, and feeing Black people as fodder into it including, ultimately, themselves, devoted to their dying breaths).

@DRDMovieMusings said:

Shultz' breakdown ....the truth about why that sequence works is beyond the scope of this thead. I'm sure I've commented on that elsewhere. We can revisit this another time.

Found it - another thoughtful thread started by @movie_nazi!

See "Don't break character and yet, this is what Shultz did."

@NeoLosman said:

Anyone who still clings to the Old Wives Tale that is "The Drug War is all the result of racists in The Nixon Administration"

And there you go off the rails. As you are wont to do.

I did note write that the drug war is ALL THE RESULT OF"; I wrote that "Nixon started the war on drugs." Hoisting a strawman to shred it contributes nothing material to any conversation beyond helping those reading along to get a better sense of the likelihood of merit that may or may not follow which, in this case as in most, is none.

Did Democrats breathe life into it themselves? They sure did.

Did Democrats add to it with the 3 strikes thing? They sure did. Reality must indeed be a part of the conversation. No worries there.

Why, then, did I start by mentioning Nixon? For all those who don't realize where it "all began" (at least, in this modern era), and the purpose of it, to help guide the conversation on not just the fact of it, itself, but the function of it, it's purpose in a wider context. To understand better where we are, it helps to understand how we got here, which may better help us appreciate what mechanisms (SYSTEMS) are perpetuating it.

All this yapping

I'm not yapping any more than you are.

about alleged wage stagnation

Alleged? You know, there is math that shows it, right?

Oy. It takes a lot of energy trying to have a conversation with you. When I run out of that energy and block you all together, or even just need to a break from bothering to acknowledge your attempts to contribute, don't begrudge me without owning some responsibility yourself — that fact is, I'm not the one who's been suspended across multiple profiles; that's you, mate, and there's no one to lash out on that but the cobber in your mirror.

Stephen's reaction when Candy got shot was hilariously over the top. I know it was to show the level of sycophancy and belly up dog Stephen was but I can't help but think that it was just a bit too hammed up. I mean, I know Sam Jackson was never known for having much emotional range but com'on now.

Gentle reminder that what's in the Subject line, and the above passage, is the actual topic of this thread.

@NeoLosman said:

@genplant29 said:

Stephen's reaction when Candy got shot was hilariously over the top. I know it was to show the level of sycophancy and belly up dog Stephen was but I can't help but think that it was just a bit too hammed up. I mean, I know Sam Jackson was never known for having much emotional range but com'on now.

Gentle reminder that what's in the Subject line, and the above passage, is the actual topic of this thread.

I'll take this to be an indirect way of saying "Neo and DRRD, you fellas need to take the conversation you're having elsewhere". I'll acquiesce, albeit with considerable sorrow. Things where just starting to get interesting

I read it not necessarily as take it elsewhere, just stay on topic and tone down :-) and yes, I'm acquiescing, too.

Cheers to all.

Yeah, the discussion had gone decidely far afield. 😉

@DRDMovieMusings said:

So, let's do that, let's dismantle all the racist systems that cannot be redeemed. Oh, wait, but what is racist, right? As long as we can't agree, we'll just keep going around and around and around.

Excuse me, I don't mean to "derail" the thread, but if I may? How important is this agreement that you prioritize? Does it mean that individual non-white (and that includes black) people's rights and agencies be trampled on and/or annihilated? At what price should we all reach an agreement?

There'll always be a Candyland.

Tsk, tsk.

@CelluloidFan said:

@DRDMovieMusings said:

So, let's do that, let's dismantle all the racist systems that cannot be redeemed. Oh, wait, but what is racist, right? As long as we can't agree, we'll just keep going around and around and around.

Excuse me, I don't mean to "derail" the thread, but if I may? How important is this agreement that you prioritize?

All good! Good question!

I don't know how to quantify "how important" agreement is, but, the point I'm making here is, as long as progressive efforts identify targets that should change, and conservatives distract and obfuscate and avoid and sealion and avoid and pivot and do everything but agree "yes, we need to change this", they won't help change it, and it won't change.

Does it mean that individual non-white (and that includes black) people's rights and agencies be trampled and/or annihilated?

Others may have to add their two cents, but I've always argued in support of non-white people's rights and agencies, and that conservative rhetoric defends the systems that trample on them.

At what price should we all reach an agreement?

Hey, this kinda brings us back to Django Unchained. Shultz and Calvin had struck a deal, but Calvin made one more demand, one more posture of control that struck at the heart of the issue, that showed not equity but a renewed effort to dominate, and it messed with Shultz' head.

From a wider perspective, it suggests that what we're looking for are not platitudes, not band-aid solutions, not patronization - we're not looking to "uplift those who need it" within a system that remains unchanged. We do not want to make a deal to survive within a racist system. If that's all the conservatives will entertain, we will not pay that price to superficially agree.

Let me give an example that should be crystal clear. J. W. Milam, one of the men who murdered Emmitt Till was interviewed after they were acquitted. Here's part of what he said (direct quote of his words, not mine):

"I never hurt a nigger in my life. I like niggers - in their place. I know how to work'em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are gonna stay in their place. Niggers ain't gonna vote where I live. If they did, they'd control the government. They ain't gonna go to school with my kids. And when a nigger gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's tired o' livin'. I'm likely to kill him." (source: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/till/confession.html))

There's a difference between living in peace and living in equality. This man had no problem living in peace with Black people - as long as they stayed in their place. That is Jim Crow America. That's not a deal. A deal is struck between equals who both agree on what each other mutually give and get.

Maintaining a tenuous peace based on inequality at the expense of equality is the band-aid, is trying to find ways to get along within the system.

There'll always be a Candyland.

Tsk, tsk.

I'm arguing that I'd like to see Candyland burn down, but conservative rhetoric from white supremacists of every color keeps us going around and around so that, in effect, sadly, there will always be a Candyland.

@NeoLosman said:

Let's everyone note that had Calvin handed Hildy over to Django for the asking, he would've let Candyland stand, ridden off into the sunset with his woman, and not given any further thought to those who were still in chains.

Noted.

Django's thinking is similar to today's Woke Warriors.... He was able to put together a scheme to burn down Candyland, but didn't find it necessary to contemplate more serious questions like "What do we do after that? We've still got several million people on our hands who need well-paying employment, solid housing in pristine neighborhoods, first-rate health care, etc etc"

I've spoken to this already (scroll up, something about glass half full and moving targets).

But, in addition to what I've mentioned before, I'll add, who says he didn't contemplate it? You can't prove he didn't, so I can just as easily say he did.

The movie was long enough. Maybe a sequel was in the works to explore what happened afterwards. Maybe he was going back to Don Johnson's plantation to follow up on showing them how to drop licks on scumbag slave runners. Maybe he was an unknown cousin of Harriet Tubman and they came up with idea together but he died before becoming famous for it. Maybe he was going to teach others how to uprise but he was caught and lynched. Maybe, while on his way after leaving Candyland, he was bitten by a rattlesnake and never got to implement order 66.

Or, maybe he was just, in your words, "uplifting those who most needed it", from what he could see in front of him, and there's no need to do any more than that. Maybe he's your type of guy after all.