Film's Political Economy and Django Unchained

Author(s): Roslyn Satchel

Source: Black Camera, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring 2016), pp. 88-93
Published by: Indiana University Press
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Close-Up: Django Unchained

Films Political Economy and Django Unchained

Roslyn Satchel

Abstract
Never before has a film earned blockbuster status while presenting a formerly enslaved
African as a heroic lead, as in Django Unchained. Using a political economy analysis,1
this commentary addresses Django Unchaineds complex counterhegemonic media
representations and production and distribution system. For the first time, box office
revenues indicate the global market appeal of a defiant Black hero with appropriate production and distribution budgets and strategies. Django Unchaineds 425 percent return on a $100 million investment suggests that audiences are ready to explore
high-quality counterhegemonic narratives that challenge conventional media representations of cultural minorities. Such staggering popularity warrants a historical reception study of this film and its context; for analyzing media industries texts within
their political economy calls attention to the fact that the production, distribution, and
reception of culture take place within a specific economic and political system, constituted by relations between the state, the economy, social institutions and practices, culture, and the media.

jango Unchained (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2012) often leaves audiences

conflicted. A spaghetti western about slavery seems sacrilegiouseven
blasphemous. Yet, for once, the joke is on the enslavernot the enslaved.
This framing decision is a significant shift from earlier movies about slavery.
Indeed, media framing2 involves a process of invoking and deciphering representations that cue particular ideologieshegemonic codesespecially
regarding race and gender. Mediated communication is a complex process
wherein producers construct messages for audiences to recognize and receive
as appropriate.3 Appropriate, in this context, means normative, familiar, or
common sense. Here, I examine this process in relation to Django and argue
that studios should recognize the profit potential in investing larger budgets
in counterhegemonic narratives that challenge conventional media representations of cultural minorities.

Roslyn Satchel, Close-Up: Django Unchained: Films Political Economy and Django
Unchained. Black Camera: An International Film Journal 7, no. 2 (Spring 2016): 8893.
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Roslyn Satchel / Films Political Economy and Django Unchained

89

Traditionally, American history and, in particular, cinematic representations, deny heroism to its conquered people. As a deterrent, those who
defy, resist, run away, or revolt face severe punishment, criminalization, and
murder through the most dehumanizing means. Heroism seems to be reserved for Whites, and suffering for all others. That is the hegemonic code.
Historically, movies perpetuate these traditions. Black men, when visible,
usually are compliant, non-threatening, and subordinate to the White hero;
and relatedly, Black women often are relegated to fewer and more stereotyped
roles. Studies suggest that these practices continue because media producers attempt to ensure films are appealing enough to draw audiences and reap
profits.4 To do so, they offer familiar content that audiences have a history of
purchasing5even if doing so means playing to stereotypes. For example,
Entman and Rojecki argue that movies such as Jerry Maguire (dir. Cameron
Crowe, 1996), A Time to Kill (dir. Joel Schumacher, 1996), and Independence
Day (dir. Roland Emmerich, 1996) sacrifice realism to connect with stereotypes by using poor diction, profane language, and an iconography of racism.6 In Jerry Maguire, for example, viewers saw a college-educated Black
man repeatedly cavorting around in uncomfortable resemblance to the cakewalking, dancing coon stereotype of old as he chanted phrases like I love
Black people and Show me the money!7 They also highlight portrayals of
children in ways that recall the pickaninny stereotype by using the Black
child as comic relief.
Studios have amassed millions on movies romanticizing slavery since
the mediums inception with The Birth of a Nation (dir. D. W. Griffith, 1915).
From Uncle Toms Cabin (dir. Harry A. Pollard, 1927) to Gone with the Wind
(dir. Victor Fleming, 1939), Mandingo (dir. Richard Fleischer, 1975), Drum
(dir. Steve Carver, 1976), Amistad (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1997) to Django
Unchained (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2012), Lincoln (dir. Steven Spielberg,
2012), and 12 Years a Slave (dir. Steve McQueen, 2013), studios have found
telling slaverys stories lucrative. However, films with White savior figures
enjoyed much larger budgets than those that exalted the enslaved as heroic
until Django Unchained. Furthermore, Django defies stereotypes like the
slave, clown, and native, which Stuart Hall identified as essential elements
of racist ideologies in medias hegemonic code.8 Yet, audiences went to see
Django in droves. So, what has shifted so drastically in our culture to welcome such a subversive and new representative Black hero in cinema in this
era? Why does Quentin Tarantinos subversive film experience such tremendous success?
Quentin Tarantino may be the answer. His persona has seemingly created space for his transgressive approach to storytelling; an approach that
appeals to his general target audience of eighteen- to thirty-five-year-olds,

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plus diverse demographic groups attracted to Djangos unique plot and cast.9
Studios and distributors, and more importantly his evocative reputation,
enabled Tarantino to unapologetically provoke Americas rage in addressing slaverys scourge. He uses Django as an opportunity to instigate a fight
incite a riotagainst all that is left uninterrogated in Americas racist history.
Tarantino may as well walk into a bar and pick a fight with everyone in the
place. He pisses off people by using the n-word over one hundred times in
the film. He angers audiences with sexist representations of masculinity and
femininity. He infuriates viewers by invoking humor and satire irreverently.
Tarantino even sickens spectators by depicting the vilest barbarism against a
defenseless people. And, worst of all, he dares to present a formerly enslaved
Black man as the hero who kill[s] White people and get[s] paid for it by
blasting enslavers and overseers into pieces. Still, his movie recoups astounding revenue.
In his 2012 interview with Henry Louis GatesJr., Tarantino suggests
that slaverys history must be a part of the conversation that people are beginning as cultural dynamics are changing in the United States. When questioned on his use of the n-word he defended his choices partly through
claims to historical accuracy, but even more strongly through his relationship to present-day audiences, by stating that he uses racial slurs as a tool to
trouble the public: Well, you know, if youre going to make a movie about
slavery and are taking a twenty-first-century viewer and putting them in that
time period, youre going to hear some things that are going to be ugly . . . I
dont want it to be easy to digest. I want it to be a big gigantic boulder, a jagged pill and you have no water.10 Tarantino admits to intending to reverse
the depiction of slavery in The Birth of a Nation. He also states that he aimed
to empower African American audiences. Tarantino talks about his idea
for Django coming from African American coproducer Reginald Hudlin,
who highlighted problems with Hollywoods best intentioned slave movies.
From Hudlin, he gained the inspiration to signify on the low-budget blaxploitation film The Legend of Nigger Charley (dir. Martin Goldman, 1972). He
created Django because he wanted to make a movie that emboldened Black
audiences like Charley did.
Earlier filmmakers failed to consider as Tarantino has their effect on the
audience. For example, The Legend of Nigger Charley depicts the pursuit of
an enslaved African man who killed a White man in self-defense. This film
suffered with such a minute budget that its production quality was laughable. In turn, the western enjoyed only a small cult following. Others, such
as Roots (1977), A Woman Called Moses (dir. Paul Wendkos, 1978), Queen
(1993) and Sankofa (dir. Haile Gerima, 1993), never made it out of the television mini-series or independent distribution arena for similar reasons.
Steven Spielbergs low returns on investment (ROIs) with Amistad (1997)

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Roslyn Satchel / Films Political Economy and Django Unchained

91

further complicated this history because studios were more reluctant to pick
up slavery movies. What they failed to consider is that audiences were simply
tired of idealized depictions of the enslaveds noble suffering until yet another
White Messiah freed them.
Django stands out as a potential game changer. While Spielbergs production budget for Lincoln (2012) was $65 million, Tarantino secured $100 million for the production of Django. This is significant, not only in light of the
plotline and cast, but also because Tarantino also yielded astronomical ROIs.
Considering Hollywoods typical ROI per movie is 30 to 40 percent, Djangos
lofty profitability is remarkablea 425 percent ROI. Topping all competition, Django (2012) grossed $425 million globally and won two Oscars: one
for Best Original Screenplay and another for Best Performance by an Actor
in a Supporting Role. In turn, studios should make larger investments in future films with African American heroic protagonists.
The added variable of the directors race may complicate such optimism,
however. Steve McQueen, a director of African descent, also made a film
with an enslaved African as hero within a year of Django and Lincoln. While
Tarantino and Spielberg enjoyed heightened budgets, McQueens production budget for 12 Years a Slave was only $20 million. When a director of
African descent gets a production budget that is only 25 to 33 percent that of
White counterparts, one must ask why resourcing occurs so disproportionately when movies involve similar contexts, plotlines, and markets. Surely,
experience and prior ROIs play a part, but films political economy requires
additional scrutiny.
Nevertheless, McQueen won the Best Picture Oscar and grossed nearly
$188 million worldwide. On its budget, thats a ninefold ROI that tops most
blockbusters. Such successes should make African American heroes, casts,
and directors more appealingas well as counterhegemonic narratives such
as slaverys truths.

Conclusion
Distributors decide whether audiences ever see a film. With Django, distributors took a calculated risk on a celebrity writer/director/producer, controversial plotline, studio endorsement, and award-winning cast drawing large
audiences. They invested millions and their risks paid off with exponential
gains in box office revenue. For some audiences, the movie was an outlet for
fears about Black revenge. For others, it fulfilled hopes for Black people to
fight back and win. Either way, viewers purchased Django and felt safe rooting for the outlaw because of the studios investment in a credible director,
cast, and story.

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This interplay reflects the reciprocal process where media producers constantly probe and respond to their target audiences thinking, even as media
products help shape that thinking;11 for the patterns in media content, production, and distribution have the potential to affect audiences sentiments.
Therefore, more distributors and producers should recognize the profit potential in investing in counterhegemonic narratives that challenge conventional media representations that involve stereotyping cultural minorities.
Revenues should create incentives for studios to back films with Black heroes, Black love stories, and Black histories. Django changes how audiences
and filmmakers see heroism. This movie rightfully returns the worlds gaze
to Americas original sin of slavery. Tarantino challenges American history
and indexes contemporary fears and fantasies about Black empowerment.
The call to action for filmmakers is simple. Tarantino and McQueen reflect a reorientation trend toward racial comity. Multiple determinant theory,
as outlined by Entman and Rojecki, defines racial comity as media personnels reoriented professional thinking and practices to a normative ideal that
urges the reexamination of market incentives in favor of mutual social interests in racial healing, civility, courtesy, and a more effective and harmonious
society.12 May other filmmakers and studios do similarly, but go deeper.
Django (Jamie Foxx) is compelling as a hero, but a more historically accurate representation also requires the socially transformative communalism
of heroic abolitionists like Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman,
Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and the many warriors whose names
we will never know. Perhaps, this presents an occasion for the next lucrative
investment opportunity.
Roslyn Satchel is an assistant professor of communication and
Seaver Fellow at Pepperdine University. Her forthcoming book Movie
Racialization brings her multidisciplinary lens to examining cultural
representation in movies, and additional areas of her research agenda
include ethics, intersectionality, and human rights.She earned her PhD
in Media and Public Affairs at Louisiana State University and her JD
from Emory University.

Notes
1. Douglas Kellner, Media Industries and Media/Cultural Studies: An Articulation,
in Political Economy and Cultural Studies (New York: Blackwell, 2009), 147. See also
Robert Phillip Kolker, A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Stone, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg,
Altman, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Janet Wasko, The Political
Economy of Film, in A Companion to Film Theory, ed. Toby Miller and Robert Stam
(Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004).

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Roslyn Satchel / Films Political Economy and Django Unchained

93

2. Robert M. Entman, Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm,

Journal of Communication 43, no 4 (1993): 5158.
3. Stuart Hall, Racist Ideologies in the Media, in Culture, Media, Language: Working
Papers in Cultural Studies, 197279 (London: Hutchinson, 1980).
4. Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki, The Black Image in the White Mind
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
5. Oscar H. Gandy, Communication and Race: A Structural Perspective (London:
Arnold Publishers, 1998).
6. Entman and Rojecki, The Black Image in the White Mind, 190.
7. Ibid.
8. Hall, Racist Ideologies in the Media.
9. Pamela McClintock, African Americans Turn Out in Force for Quentin
Tarantinos Django Unchained, The Hollywood Reporter, January 2, 2013, www.holly
woodreporter.com/news/quentin-tarantinos-django-unchained-african-407582.
10. Henry L. Gates Jr., Tarantino Unchained, Part 3, Interview with Quentin
Tarantino by Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Root, December 25, 2012, www.theroot.com/views
/tarantino-unchained-part-3-white-saviors.
11. Entman and Rojecki, The Black Image in the White Mind, 15.
12. Ibid., 1112.

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