When we Black women tell our stories, we center ourselves in the American experience.

This legacy of voiced expression in the public realm dates back to the 1700s – 1800s. Nineteenth century slave woman Harriet Jacobs wrote about her 7 year self-imposed confinement in an attic overlooking her owner’s property. From the tiny crawl-space where her body is disabled by the immobility she experiences there, Jacobs literally and figuratively looks down on the master who would rape her if she emerged. She also remains in close proximity to her two children, whom her grandmother raises on the plantation. Though her body is confined, her mind is free. Jacobs offers not only her personal experience of sexual degradation, confinement, and the clever use of disguise to eventually escape slavery by sailing north to freedom, she also bears witness to the experiences of other slaves, male and female. She tells the tales of the others, like her, her sisters and brothers in bondage.

From her master’s point-of-view, Jacobs disappears from the plantation during those 7 years she hides away in an attic crawl-space. To him, she is invisible. But just because the dominant white male does not see her, that doesn’t mean she is not there. She is, there, in the middle of it all, cleverly compelling him to waste time and money tracking her in the north, outwitting him, eyeing him all the while.

Through the first half of Django Unchained, Broomhilda appears either in Django’s imagination as an umbra, a delightful spirit compelling his quest, or in flashback, as Django recounts the horrors of slavery as experienced by Broomhilda, whose beauty is assaulted by the medieval torture employed by filthy overseers.

When the audience finally sees the real Broomhilda in real narrative time, she is naked and locked in an underground torture chamber, her punishment for attempting escape. This symbolizes a kind of death for her. Django rescues her from near suffocation in the searing, tomb-like space just outside the big house where, we are made to understand, she is frequently the target of rape.

The images that come from Django’s imagination carefully construct a counter-narrative to the prevailing stereotypes of Black women as crass jezebels and big-bodied mammies. Broomhilda is bi-lingual, poised, classier than any of the free white women in the film. The images that come through Django’s flashbacks carefully construct the slave narrative of Black female degradation. As punishment for attempting to run away to a more authentic liberation, Broomhilda is branded like a horse, whipped like a dog, then dressed like a doll.

Broomhilda willingly acquiesces her position as favored house negro, a kind of pet for her former owner, to forge an authentic union with the man she loves — but we don’t really see her do this. The audience only hears Django say that she does this — then we see him leading her by the hand to run, begging for her not to be whipped.

What Broomhilda lacks, even when she appears in real time, is agency over her destiny – a destiny where she will be free. This lack of agency, this powerlessness, is an insult to real slave women like Jacobs, who crafted complicated strategies to liberate themselves.
It also dishonors the memory of real slave women like Harriet Tubman, who was skilled enough with firearms to become a scout and spy in the Union Army. This weak portrayal of one fictional slave woman’s life acts as a kind of erasure of the powerful testimony of actual slave women like Sojourner Truth, who “ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns” [who] could work as much and eat as much as a man – when [she] could get it – and bear the lash as well!… [who had] borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery” and yet remained, through it all, an autonomous woman.

This lost opportunity to authentically render the real-life heroism of Black women during slavery weakens the film. When Broomhilda first sees Django, she faints. When the shootout occurs, she can’t manage to grab a gun and fire even one shot all by herself. When Django comes back for her after the shootout, she doesn’t help plan the destruction of Candie Land. When the mansion where she was sexually assaulted on a regular basis is blown apart, she can only close her ears and smile approvingly at her man’s cunning power. When she and Django ride off together, the careful viewer might catch the silhouette of her holding a rifle in her hand, but of course, at that point, the movie is over. There’s no one left to shoot.

I would enjoy a film where the talented Kerry Washington is given the opportunity to express a breathtakingly powerful strength, just as she did so well in her feature debut, a beautiful, quiet little film called Our Song. I would have liked to see her in the center of this hyper-masculine, big-budget film, not in its margins. I would have liked to see her do more than just smile and fold her hands and pass out and splash in the hot springs of male fantasy and sit on a horse while this looming symbol of her people?s oppression is destroyed. I would have liked to see her kick ass, too.

I do wish Tarantino had given her the opportunity to be more than just Jamie Foxx’s onscreen helpmate – again. I would have liked to see Broomhilda unchained.

 

Comment(s)

• § simone   said on : 01/10/13 @ 09:07

  We are all autonomous woman in this society.

Comment(s)

• § natasha dyer   said on : 01/10/13 @ 10:20

  simply put i think the movie was just fine. it was great in fact. there were enough dynamic characters. and geez i mean really GEEZ…everyone spared life and limb just to get broomhilda. her power though silent in this film is just as LARGE. i think movie was EXCELLENT. it didnt need not anymore dynamism. Satisfied. plan to see it again this saturday. i mean if you really think of it the movie was about them getting to her. by the time they got to her thats the LAST PART of the movie. she did fine.

Comment(s)

• § Eisa   said on : 01/10/13 @ 16:27

  Thanks for your comment, Natasha. I thought Django was a good movie – and I think Washington is an amazing actress. I just wish she had been given the opportunity to do more in the film, to help actualize her own freedom.

  Thanks so much for your comment, sis! 🙂

Comment(s)

• § PEC   said on : 01/11/13 @ 11:13

  Well put. I concur.

Comment(s)

• § Keryl Mc   said on : 01/22/13 @ 23:28

  Late one night a week or so ago having a great late night conversation with my best friends while attending a conference in New York, it was a girls night in, we of course talked about Django Unchained. I’d seen it, they hadn’t yet. When I returned home Virginia DeBerry, being the ever knowledgeable social media maven and writer sent your blog post. You raise some interesting points, but it feels like there are some really important dynamics highlighted in the film that are being overlooked.

  Based upon Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction I know QT knows how to create strong female characters. And these are women who are not adjunct to the story, especially in Kill Bill, they are the movie. So for me that’s a given. He can create strong female characters.

  Here’s another perspective about Django that comes up for me. For Broomhilda to become a central character in this film it would have to be her story, it would have to be Broomhilda Unchained. You can’t have a character appear two thirds through the movie who suddenly now becomes the kick ass, I don’t need any help, can kick ass all by myself, shoot a honky, kill a mf, and run just good, just as fast as any man, heroine. That would be another movie. I’d love to see that movie, too. I’d pay to see that movie. But it would be a different movie.

  Plus, if she were that kind of tough as nails chick, she would have “been done gone” from Candie Land and any other plantation that tried to hold her, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake, a la Kill Bill. So I appreciate the observation and criticism about Broomhilda but suggest that is another movie. Write your movie, we need more perspectives not less.

  Then there’s this do or die love thing between Django and Broomhilda. It’s a love story for the ages, let alone the love story of slavery. I mean brother man goes through fire and flame, dogs and wicked heat, being beaten and outwitting folks, just to find and free his wife. And when he is freed, brother man is a free black man, what does he want most in the whole wide world? To find and free his wife.

  I’m not seeing many people talk about the novelty, if not outright pioneering imagery, of the relationship depicted between Broomhilda and Django. There was fire and heat, there was passion in this union, and commitment, and trust. Sister girl trusted Django. He was steadfast, a man of his word and worthy of trust. So this script broke a couple barriers, here was a black man worthy of trust, and there was love, passion and commitment between two slaves who were not even considered human.In all of the slave narratives we’ve seen, all five of them, when do we see this kind of deep love depicted?

  But Django and Broomhilda were up against a system designed to grind them into dust and when he was sold off she, legitimately, thought she’d never see him again. Ever. So when she does see him, at the plantation where she is held captive and clearly this was no accident but by design, she faints. I understand, and understood in the moment. What a shock to her system. Not only was he alive but he had the support of a white man trying to help them? Seriously?

  Maybe because QT isn’t invested in this narrative in the same way we are, he was not compelled to treat it as precious, as untouchable, he didn’t need to construct noble, long suffering, loyal and beaten down slaves. And it works. It works. I really loved this film because he was able to uncover some dynamics of the relationships between slave and master that many overlook if they ever thought it might exist at all. (Ole’ Stephen in the library, legs crossed, crystal glass of liquor in hand getting set to school the master. Say what!!)

  I could go on and on but I won’t. I think much of the criticism of Django is a result of the absolute dearth of stories of the black American experience, especially the slave era. So each film is freighted with the need to address everyone’s needs and desire. And that is a bridge too far for any one film to cross. Even and especially Django Unchained.

  That’s my two cents and I’m sticking to it. 🙂

Comment(s)

• § Eisa   said on : 01/23/13 @ 14:44

  thanks so much for your thoughtful comment, keryl. first of all: lovelovelove virginia. she’s a terrific sister. thanks to her for connecting us.

  so, i think i agree with much of what you assert here. yes, tarantino does amazing things with women characters in most of his films. i am still pleasantly stunned by arquette’s alabama in true romance. this character just shocks the audience in an amazing way in that film. what genius! so, i am more than a little disappointed in broomhilda, who is tough and strong and tried to run away on her own and totally loves her man and is empowered by that love. why can’t she just shoot one gun? kick one guy in between his legs, or elbow somebody – anybody – in the gut?

  i don’t think that would detract from django as the central character or somehow make this another movie. i think that would make this movie a better movie.

  i don’t expect her to be able to shoot all those men who come into the big house like she’s some wild bad-azz super-slave – even django couldn’t handle all those shooters. but i do want to see her DO something in that climactic scene. any little ole thing. after all she’s gone through – and all that we know she knows that django has gone through – she ought to have the gumption and skill to make one subversive move (heck, maybe even two or three) in that shoot-out or in the final scene in the end when django blows up candieland. she can’t get no payback from sam jackson? bust one cap in him? come on. django coulda even handed her the gun to do it, and showed her how to use it.

  i’m not asking that the narrative shift to some other plotline; i’m just asking that the one that tarantino wrote just be a more satisfying one.

  not too much for a sister to ask for, right?

  PS – i also loved the relationship between jackson’s character and his master. too much – and still just right. 😉