That said, I do think media representations have some effect on how we see the world, on our attitudes about the world and towards other people. I don’t think media violence has the kind of direct effect that a lot of people assign to it – there’s not a lot of research to support the view that there’s some kind of simplistic, monkey-see-monkey-do effect on human behavior. I also haven’t been very sympathetic to Tarantino’s dismissive take on the effects of movie violence in the real world. And that’s been the major way I’ve thought about Tarantino’s use of violence over the years. The result is to minimize how we think about real-world violence. A pretty characteristic example of this in Tarantino films occurs in the scene in Pulp Fiction, when John Travolta accidentally blows someone’s head off and Tarantino plays it for laughs. So in a Tarantino film, every time you laugh at the absurdity of violence – rather than being horrified by it – you are experiencing violence in what Gerbner called a “happy” way. It becomes a cartoon version of violence, and it masks the real pain and tragedy that always accompany violence in the real world. I think that in the past, and to a great extent in Django as well, Tarantino has been guilty of glorying in what the pioneering media scholar George Gerbner called “happy violence” – violence that’s delivered with a joke, violence that’s not very serious, violence that’s glamorized. And these stories position viewers in specific ways in relation to that violence. We need to bear in mind that violence in movies is never just violence – depictions of violence tell a story about who can do what to whom and can get away with it. SUT JHALLY: I have to say up front that I’m not particularly sympathetic to Tarantino, mostly because of the way he’s handled violence in his past work. Where do you stand on the question of violence in this film? Do you agree with those who have argued that while this is clearly an anti-slavery film, it also glamorizes gun violence in ways that are troubling – especially given the kinds of violence we see playing out in the real world? The violence question has been especially pronounced given the film came out around the time of the Sandy Hook tragedy. JEREMY EARP: There’s been a lot of discussion and debate about Django Unchained – not only about the film’s handling of race, but also its depiction of violence. Jeremy Earp, Director of Production at MEF, sat down with UMass Communication Professor and MEF Executive Director Sut Jhally to talk about the interplay between violence, race, and cultural politics in Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar-nominated film Django Unchained. FebruIs “Django Unchained” a Radical Movie? A Conversation with Sut Jhally (Part 1)
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