Django Unchained

Django Unchained is set in 19th century America, a time and place where black people had next to no rights and were slaves bought and sold by the upper class white people as if they were objects, due to this people are represented in a much different way than they would be in a film set in the present.

In the opening scene of “Django Unchained” the two ethnicities that are being focused on are white people and black people, in the scene the black people are shown to be slaves and the white people are slave traders and bounty hunters. In the eyes of the slave trader, the black people in the scene are just a way for him to make money, they are wearing rags and have no personal belongings or anything of any meaning, their whole life revolves around being bought and sold by white people and working for them. In the scene black people are represented in a negative way however this is to make the film historically accurate and to fit in with the theme of the film, which is all about slavery at the time of the films setting. This clip really shows black people as being a minority as they are being controlled entirely by the white people, once the person that was transporting them got shot they don’t do anything until they are told what to do, its as if they are waiting for instructions as they have spent their whole life doing what white people tell them to do. Even thought the film is fictional it is about things that actually happened (slavery) therefore I think the hypodermic needle theory can be applied to it especially in the powerful opening scene, two people are shot at the start of the scene grabbing the audience’s attention, after the action the audience is shown what slavery was really like, this means there is a passive audience.

The Brittle brothers scene of “Django Unchained” also focuses on white people and black people however it portrays black people completely differently, Django arrives at a plantation as one of the Brittle brothers is about to whip one of the slaves, he is wearing an upper class outfit and is walking on his own. This shows his independence compared to the black people in the previous scene, his upper class outfit really contrasts from how every other black person in the scene is shown, they are still slaves in rags whereas he looks more upper class than the white people in the scene which makes him seem powerful. When he begins whipping the slave owner he is represented really differently, he is the minority standing up against the majority, I feel like the audience wouldn’t expect him to be represented like this in a film where black people are slaves and in general controlled by white people.