Django unpacked: A student forum on Django Unchained

Abstract

Discussions of America’s history of slavery can lead to paralysis in contemporary audiences who prefer the wish-fulfilling fantasy of films like Django Unchained that, like myths of a postracial society, suppress the trauma of this history and its ongoing legacy. The slave narratives, historical fiction and secondary materials in my course, “Peculiar Intimacies,” counter such depictions and enable students to move past their stultifying guilt toward productive analysis of trauma and its repercussions. A recent class led a public forum on Tarantino’s Django to encourage discussion and awareness of our affective responses to historical trauma rather than their suppression.