Tarantino X-Mas

Over Christmas Eve dinner of vegetarian curry, my family engaged in a conversation about Tarantino's new movie Django Unchained. The controversy about it, whether it is exploitive, or I guess "exploitative." The film opens today, so none of us had seen it. Much of the controversy is around the use of the n-word. Read about it. Metacritic: 20 out of 22 critics give it a positive review. So we bought tickets to the 11:30 matinee today.

Our conversation continued about Tarantino's other films, in particular Inglourious Basterds, and I admitted I hadn't seen the whole thing through, just the last part. My kids were outraged that I hadn't watched the whole thing, so we decided to watch it after dinner. They had all seen it between 3 times (Joe) and 30 or 40 times (Ian). Joe disputes the merit of the ending, which I could debate because I had seen the film's last 20 minutes at least once. Zoe and I love the satisfaction of Operation Kino, watching the effigy of Hitler being shot to pieces by vengeful Jews. Something that Hitler made impossible by killing and immolating himself, leaving the world cheated of that pleasure. Tarantino took it upon himself to fulfill, in one scene, a collective cineastic anti-Nazi fantasy. Film as the fuel for the torching of high ranking Third Reich including the Führer, catching them in the moment of their highest vanity, as if propaganda could make great cinema, was so beautiful and haunting. So we watched Inglourious Basterds together on Christmas Eve. We thought it would be good preparation for Django Unchained. It was.

On Django and the controversy around it, producer Reggie Hudllin tells theGrio (in case you don't go to the link):

“Forget racism, let’s talk about modern day slavery,” he comments. “There is a penal system in certain parts of this country where the war on drugs is used as rationalization to incarcerate the black population, and use it as unpaid labor sources. These things are destroying our community. If we don’t understand our past, we won’t understand where we are at present, and won’t be able to fix things for the future…We’re giving the word in its proper historical context, and if people feel uncomfortable, they should be.”

We just got back from seeing the film at the Metreon in a big full house - the Christmas day $6 matinee. Two-hours and forty-five minutes of epic entertainment, taking an unflinching look at the violence of slavery, flipping the roles of Southern Americans as heroes and Germans as villains in Inglourious Basterds on its head, making a hero of the German character, played by the very same genius of an actor Christoph Waltz, and the white Southerners as evil as Nazis. You gotta love that touch.

Tarantino's over-the-top violence aside, his high stylization of the western mixed with blaxploitation  genre really works. The masterful tension he builds, the performances he evokes, are priceless. Jaime Foxx's performance is remarkably understated, such an astute and effective choice. Samuel L. Jackson as the house slave is as scary as any of the white villains, and so explains the legacy of black on black violence, the "internalized colonialism" we all suffer today.

Outside the theater in the hallway we met three African American young men friends who live with us on our floor, who recently moved to SF from Georgia and Florida. They loved the film, not just for its cinematic feats but for its direct hit on slavery, and the undeniable implications for today. They could not get over how the n-word had a whole new meaning to them, "really showing where it came from."

Again from the theGrio article:

Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University, also believes the argument over brazen use of the n-word is merely a diversion from more difficult topics people are unwilling to discuss. “As a country we want to be post-race without ever fully engaging the dynamics of what race means to American society,” he says. “It’s much easier for us, at this moment, to gloss over historical realities and turn to what words we used and how they were used. Whether that’s getting rid of the n-word in books like Huckleberry Finn, so as not to offend young folks who are reading the book, or complaining about the use of the word in a film like Django Unchained.”

He adds, “When all is said and done, it’s a word, and I’m much more concerned by white supremacist actions than use of these terms….I think the fact that we’re having this conversation about the n-word is a way for us not to actually have the conversation about slavery, which the film talks about. If all that we’re talking about is the n-word, no one actually has to get to the depth and reality of talking about violence and slavery and racial relations in the historical context.”

Neal feels that anxiety over black on white violence in the film is due to an inherent fear in American culture that such depictions will actually “sanction” real life enactments, and that perhaps such loose use of the n-word might inspire some people to worry it will create tensions between races. However, these narrow-minded conclusions don’t give audiences credit for properly interpreting the story."

Meanwhile, I highly recommend Django Unchained. As far as endings go, this one is classic Tarantino, satisfying in it's unbridled pyrotechnic and symbolic glory. See it.

Now gotta meditate or do yoga to cleanse my soul. We have so much work to do to heal our culture. 

Nonviolent Communication

Joe and I are working on our Nonviolent Communication skills. It seems so simple and is so hard to practice in the moment. When listening, you have to stay so conscious and "listen with your whole being" for what people are really saying, then paraphrase, help them articulate what it is that they need. It's usually about connection, as in, we are all struggling to connect with each other. And when talking, it's so hard to take responsibility for your own feelings and express what you need in a tone that can be heard. Because being heard is a step towards connection. It sounds simplistic, and it is. Deconstructing all the complications of our communication is very, very hard. It takes everyday practice to get good at it.

The author Marshall B. Rosenberg (MBR) is superhuman. Joe and I read chapters aloud to each other because it's cheaper than therapy. In between our NVC nights we can be such assholes to each other. Or in NVC, "I observe that I often forget how to communicate clearly what I'm feeling and what I need, and as a result, I blame you for not understanding me." Or, "I often forget to bring my whole being to listening to you, and when I am not really listening, I have a hard time hearing what you are really saying, what you really need."

I'm a novice and generally suck at this. My own kids are better at it than I am (and point it out). But I will keep working on it. There's a whole vocabulary - not new words, but a different, more highly attuned attention to words that express feelings. Recognizing fake expressions of feelings, such as "I feel misunderstood," which is really an assessment of the other person's level of understanding. Maybe more accurate to say, "I feel annoyed," or "I feel sad."

Listening and not giving advice, or accepting blame, or blaming others, but sensing people's feelings and needs. This can be so hard when someone is yelling, or using "that tone" with "that face" that triggers your own negativity. You have patterns. It's so easy to blame and feel like shit.

What would it mean to practice NVC all the time? It would be so much cleaner. So much unnecessary conflict would be averted. It would require a commitment to staying conscious. That's hard to do the way we live. Drinking, trying to be funny, working, getting to BART. Who has time to be conscious all the time?

Who has time to be an asshole?