I don't always agree with Armond White but his film reviews are always provocative. Here's his contrarian take on Tarantino's latest epic.
How SamJack stole Tarantino’s epithet orgy Django Unchained
Uncle Tom, the black overseer created by Harriet Beecher Stowe and despised ever after, reappears to spy on and punish other slaves in Django Unchained. It is the role Samuel L. Jackson was born to play. Here named Stephen, Jackson’s Uncle Tom-style shuck-and-jive is prototypical–even atavistic–climaxing the profane, deceitful racial self-hatred that he has accustomed us to in his detestable roles for Django Unchained director Quentin Tarantino, although not those alone.
In Django Unchained Jackson is to Tarantino what Stepin Fetchit was to John Ford–the actor who personifies his director’s sense of the Other. This is not an alter-ego thing; it transfers detachment into “sympathy.” Roles like Jules in Pulp Fiction, Ordell in Jackie Brown and now Stephen the ultimate Uncle Tom display Jackson’s patented shamelessness–his Nigger Jim flair. Jackson reverses the anger that 70s black militants felt toward the Uncle Tom figure into an actorly endorsement. He embodies the dangerous Negro stereotypes harbored by Tarantino and every Huck Finn wannabe.
http://cityarts.info/2012/12/28/still-not-a-brother/
