If you’re watching a movie like Django Unchained and you’re focusing most closely on the narrative logic and historical detail, you’re watching it wrong. Like, you’re going to miss a lot of great stuff. And at the same time, you’re still not going to find many valid gripes to cling to. Some complain that the scheme to retrieve Broomhilda from Candieland was unnecessarily elaborate and that a simpler plan would have worked. But that would not have been consistent with the character of Dr. King Schultz, who has a flare for the dramatic—like remember that time he killed a sheriff in front of his entire town? Django is of the same mind when it comes to these sorts of demonstrations, if you consider the first outfit he chose to wear upon learning he could choose his own clothes.
Others object to the inclusion of mandingo fights, the horrific form of entertainment Candieland is famous for, pitting slave against slave in a fight to the death. While there is apparently little historical evidence for such practices, it doesn’t seem like a tremendous stretch of the mind to consider the possibility of this type of cruel subjugation in this time period. Once again, there are much more disturbing methods of inflicting punishment the movie does not depict.
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