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<em>Django Unchained:</em> A Black-Centered Superhero and Unchained Audiences

2016; Indiana University Press; Volume: 7; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2979/blackcamera.7.2.62

1947-4237

Coetzee,

Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism

Critical discussion of Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012) centers around two related sets of questions.Th e fi rst set concerns the representation of blackness on the screen and the gaze as racialized.Th e second set has been centered on questions of historical accuracy and the political implications of a historical cinema that thematizes slavery.Th is article argues, developing the insights of others such as Litheko Modisane, Tsitsi Jaji, and Manthia Diawara, that audiences are not enchained by a director's vision, but are creative and resistant in their responses to fi lm.For this reason it is possible to theorize Jamie Foxx's Django as a black-centered superhero, if a certain audience is convened for the screening.Th is audience-centered response liberates viewers, in the United States and elsewhere, from the limitations imposed by a director's vision and enables discussions of black-centered identities.