Black abolitionists. Black outlaws. Black gunslingers of the west, south, east or north. These are the three groups of people that truly scare white Americans. And they rarely, if ever, appear on a Hollywood screen. They don't appear in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, either.

So what do we get? A violently entertaining, rugged individualist and shallow "abolitionist" by the name of Django, a bounty hunter whose killing spree is sanctioned by the U.S. government. That would be the same government which, in 1858, maintains "the peculiar institution" of slavery as a legal entity in many states. The same government that in most circumstances would have considered Django as bounty to be captured, not the bounty hunter. But this is Tarantino's playground.

Watch Tarantino in interviews. He's rather cocky about the history he thinks he's relating to Americans (which is sad, actually), so while Django is not a documentary, it's not "just a movie," either. Unfortunately, much critical history is lost or completely skewed in Tarantino's telling, even when totally unnecessary. This is a major flaw in a film that is supposed to be about a black superhero turning the tables on history. The problem is, you have to know the history first.

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