Spike Lee calls Django Out
Spike Lee, never one to be afraid of speaking his mind, most recently made news for his comments to Vibe Magazine regarding the highly anticipated Quentin Tarantino film, Django Unchained, due out on Christmas Day. Lee commented, saying that the film is “disrespectful to my ancestors” and that he will not be one of the millions of people expected to see the film in its opening weekend. The film has already garnered much attention, both positive and negative, and nothing less should be expected from a film that dates back to American slavery, a period in which many people find hard to stomach unless its presented as entertainment, which Django clearly is.
Lee, who has made a career off of delivering authentic and credible historically-based works such as Four Little Girls and Malcolm X has a different approach to history, and attempts to depict events as they happened without the sensationalism and falsities that a typical Hollywood director would produce. Lee faced pressures throughout the filming of Malcolm X to produce a film that would represent the realities and hardships that Malcolm X faced and not produce a film that one African American film critic said would “help middle-class Negroes sleep better.” Along with directing two documentaries based on the effects of Hurricane Katrina on black families and examining television manufactured stereotypes of black actors, Lee is invested in the quality of black-focused films and has earned the right to have such an opinion.
