Reuters
NEW YORK — Spike Lee blasted Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained for being “disrespectful” to his ancestors, telling Vibe that he would not see or speak about the movie for that reason.
“I can’t speak on it ’cause I’m not going to see it,” Lee said. “All I’m going to say is that it’s disrespectful to my ancestors. That’s just me … I’m not speaking on behalf of anybody else.”
He followed up his statement on Twitter, posting: “American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them.”
Django is a Western mixed with the story of a slave’s revenge, a revisionist tale of history much like Inglourious Basterds was for the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Like most of Tarantino’s work, it blends extreme violence with humour and serious filmmaking with a sense of flair.
Tarantino has not responded to Lee’s comment, but he has answered questions about Django and race in the past, specifically his use of a certain racial epithet.
“I think it’s kind of ridiculous,” he told MTV News. “No one can actually say with a straight face that we use the word more than it was used in 1858 in Mississippi. So since they can’t say that, what they’re basically saying is I should lie. I should pretty it up. I should lie, and I don’t lie when it comes to my characters and the stories I tell.”
This is not the first time Lee has criticized Tarantino, rebuking the director’s extensive use of the same epithet in the film Jackie Brown.
