Luther Campbell
*2 Live Crew alum Luther Campbell has jumped into the debate over Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained.”
In an op-ed for the Miami New Times, the former rapper goes all the way in on Spike Lee, who has publicly taken issue with Tarantino’s repeated use of the n-word in “Django’s” script.
RELATED STORY: ‘Django’ Fanatic Dick Gregory Says Flick ‘Freed’ Him; Calls Spike Lee ‘Thug’ (Listen)
“Screw Spike Lee,” Campbell begins. “Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ is a brilliant flick that more accurately depicts the African-American experience than any of the 15 movies about black culture Lee’s directed in his lifetime.”
He continues: “Lee needs to get over himself. He’s upset because Tarantino makes better movies. The man who put Malcolm X on the big screen is Hollywood’s resident house negro; a bougie activist who wants to tell his fellow white auteurs how they can and can’t depict African Americans.”
Campbell ends his missive with this bullet: “Spike is upset because Samuel L. Jackson’s character in the movie is just like him: a conniving and scheming Uncle Tom.”
Samuel L. Jackson as house slave Stephen in “Django Unchained”
In December, Lee called “Django Unchained” “disrespectful to my ancestors” and tweeted that he was “honoring” the memory of those who came before him by boycotting the film.
Since then, a number of celebrities have knocked Lee’s opinion. Comedian Donnell Rawlings called the famed director irrelevant and activist Dick Gregory went so far as to describe Lee as a “thug” and a punk.”
Spike Lee
Meanwhile, Tarantino picked up a Golden Globe award for Best Screenplay at Sunday’s ceremony, where he went on to say the N-word himself backstage.
Below, Luke’s column in its entirety:
Screw Spike Lee. Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is a brilliant flick that more accurately depicts the African American experience than any of the 15 movies about black culture Lee’s directed in his lifetime. It’s why the movie took home a Golden Globe award for best screenplay over the weekend and why it was recently nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Since Django Unchained hit the theaters, Lee has been publicly trashing Tarantino. In announcing his personal boycott of the movie, the Do The Right Thing filmmaker tweeted, “American slavery was not a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western,” and “It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them.”
Lee needs to get over himself. He’s upset because Tarantino makes better movies. The man who put Malcolm X on the big screen is Hollywood’s resident house negro; a bougie activist who wants to tell his fellow white auteurs how they can and can’t depict African Americans.
He complains that Tarantino uses “nigger” too much (100 times) in Django Unchained, but show me a white man in the 1800s who wasn’t dropping n-bombs left and right.
Tarantino is one of Tinseltown’s most clever directors. Some of the most brutal scenes in Django Unchained are metaphors for the unfair racial inequality African-Americans still experience today. For instance, Leonardio DiCaprio’s plantation owner character Calvin Candie trains some of his male slaves to fight to the death in a sport called “Mandingo Fighting.”
When one of the slaves refuses to fight, Candie threatens to feed him to his wild dogs. That scene is analogous to professional boxing where white promoters control black fighters through fear and intimidation.
In another scene, a bunch of slaves are shocked to see Django riding a horse since blacks were never allowed to have one. That’s like the cops who stare at and then pull over the dude who is driving a Bentley on South Beach.
While on the horse, Django tells the slaves that he’ll treat them worse than any white man ever will. That’s the truth about blacks in positions of authority in today’s corporate America. They will treat blacks worse than any white boss every could.
Lee could never pull off a movie like this. When he’s not being an ass from his court side seats during New York Knicks games, he’s making bull crap films that most African Americans cannot relate to.
Spike is upset because Samuel L. Jackson’s character in the movie is just like him: a conniving and scheming Uncle Tom.
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Whoa there, Uncle Luke is getting deep. I pushed back on this “scholar’s” article about the parallels of Hollywood and the old plantation system posted by a friend on FB and think I’ll use Uncle Luke’s letter as a response.
It’s truly sickening and disheartening watching Blacks who should know better lining up taking turns striking out at Spike. I believe it’s done purely out of fear of the white man. When it comes down to it, Luke is the true embodiment of a world-class Uncle Tom. The insults against Spike are off the charts and it’s quite interesting watching nothing but Blacks swarming to Tarantino’s side to demoralize and ridicule Spike. SMDH
If Luke thinks that Spike Lee is an uncle Tom, that is entirely his opinion. A bigger problem is why there aren’t more real black Directors and film makers to depict slavery and other events in Black history. If we were more concerned with creating our own Hollywood and are own Academy Awards. Blacks are still a bunch of slaves, some are just better off financially than others. Master is still running the show, so everybody shut up and do something about it. I forgot, we are talking about black people, we aren’t going to a damn thing but talk.
You too Uncle Luke on Spike’s azz about the movie?? What Spike Lee said, was it really that serious?
It’s almost embarrassing witnessing the zealousness of these brainwashed Uncle Toms who live in fear that the white man will exclude them from future productions etc unless they act as their enforcers. What other race of men would vie for such an honor? Something is dreadfully wrong with this picture!
I went back and searched to see exactly what Spike had said, he was asked the question about the movie and stated why he would not see the movie. He was speaking for Spike Lee and Spike Lee only, I don’t understand the backlash. (shrugs)
Noam Chomsky have mentioned several times that slavery time was actually better time for African Americans than Jim Crow, which was surely the worst period for black people. You all know well enough the reason: a slave is always valuable. During the Jim Crow (especially 1880-1941) value of African American was near $0. At the same time King Leopold of Belgium was doing in Africa something even worse ( to Africans) than Hitler did little bit later (to Jewish people).
I have nothing against the movie, but I’m not drinking Tarantino’s Kool-Aid I understand and accept the notion that since the movie is set in the pre-civil war south people should expect certain language so the frequent use of the n-word doesn’t bother man. However, since it was not important to Tarantino to reflect other historical elements accurately in the movie, then why was it so important to reflect this one element accurately? Another thing that bothers me is how some blacks are saying this movie is important in terms of showing our history. BULL; it is no more important than any of his other movies. Tarantino wanted to make a spaghetti western and felt that setting it in a slave environment would make for good story telling and of course, provide a great backdrop for the graphic violence for which he is known. The movie is a simple revenge fantasy and as long as people see it as just that I have no problem with it, but whole idea that Tarantino wanted to use this film as a vehicle to highlight the brutality of slavery is ridiculous. Also, if I hear one more person how slavery was depicted in this movie compared to Gone with the Wind, as if there were no movies or films about the slave experience in between. The reason this movie appeals to many blacks is because we all like to think about how we would have behaved if we had been born during US slavery and there are many of us who like to think that we would have stood up against the system. Tarantino provides that fantasy in the Jamie Foxx character. Take it for what it is, but let’s not over analyze it as though it is something more. Finally, regarding the N-word, people like Luke don’t have a problem with it simply because they use it loosely themselves and are too lazy to change.
Well said! Clapping!
I concur…. we do not need another movie bout black people in slavery, as maids and butler’s. We need to show more positive images. And especially a movie made by a white man… And of all people luke callin somebody an uncle tom the way he used to exploit black women in those nasty rated x videos. He no’s nothing bout nothing unless it has to do wit strippers or sex videos. jamie fox and samuel jackson needs to be ashamed of themselves to even wannan use their talents to play a slave or house negro. but I see now from the comments bout this movie, there are a lot of closet house negro’s who like this movie and hate on anybody who doesn’t….. shame, shame, shame….
Your comments would have so much more merit if you knew how to spell and use proper grammar! I guess I am a so-called ‘house ni**a’ since I use proper english and think ebonics is lazy!!
the stories we tell to each other, to ourselves and about ourselves work in multiple ways. among these ways, they tell us who we are, who we believe ourselves to be, who we aspire to be and who we wish we were not. in the process of the telling, we both affirm ourselves and create ourselves. such ethosical myths populate visual media and contain profound messages and in america these mainstream myths include notions of justice, liberty and freedom (coupled without profound violence) or else they are not a part of the mainstream american mythos. not mentos. mythos.
i agree that there needs to be more representation of american culture heroes who are not stereotypical—meaning, not white–and that is what i think tarantino is attempting to do. im not sure that he is the person to do it; the story of django is a white man’s story, ultimately. it is a white man’s version of the slave experience in america & the heroes he wishes to see emerge from that: django is a black version of the stereotypical white anti-hero (classics like robert de niro in taxi driver, clint eastwood in dirty harry & every western he was ever in, charles bronson, etc.).
the way in which the film depicts the backdrop black characters is pretty stock in that they all conform to a specific shuffling and submissive archetype with the exception of 2 of the men (the one who django told to stop eyeballing him & the one in the wagon cage who looked on at django with wistful & admiring tears in his eyes, which is kinda hokey but its based on a spaghetti western actually called “django” from 1966)…and racist (django gets somewhat 2-dimensional as the film proceeds rather than 3-dimensional)..but see, django aint like those other n—ers; like candie said hes special, hes different hes more like a white man because he has dignity, sand, pride will not be bowed…etc. and thats what these other guys like luke are responding to—-they relate to django from their perspective NOW and how they see themselves or aspire to be; they dont relate to the actual degradation of the historical slave experience because they are too far removed from it, perhaps internalized racism produces shame in them so they reject the actual historical experience of being black and having a slave history. perhaps in their own minds they tell themselves if they were back in 1858 THEY would have acted differently, they would have died before being degraded that way. THEY would have been men and died like men. that kind of mentality, in itself, is also a production of whiteness. so they look at spike lee’s films (which themselves have a middle class mentality and ethic which is not the experience of every black person or community) and reject it, embracing the thug and hood n—er versions of themselves, because at least that version dont take no s–t from nobody. what the miss is that the hood n-gger version is a self-defeating identity that white racists no doubt take a lot of pleasure from, seeing how it affirms their racist view of the world.
while there is definitely racism in the film (compare this with racism being depicted in the film) is that a function of tarantino’s lens or the dehumanizing process of slavery or both? we must also remember that the story of slavery and racism in america is a story of both the african american and white american communities—is tarantino’s expression racist? yes, simply because you cannot be white in america without having internalized something of the culture of whiteness and its ideology of racism….thats just how culture and society works. is it cheeky of him to have made this film? i do not necessarily think so. as an american who is heir to america’s racist legacy, tarantino has as much right to decode that experience and recode it as anyone in the black community.
but for inventing true culture heroes specific to an experience like being a descendant of people who have had the experience of being enslaved in america, the african american community is, by far, much more qualified to do that.
my bottom line with this film is for movie goers to watch it with a grain of salt and remember that it is not necessarily a story coming out of the african american community…..it is a white man’s story about a fictional character who could just as easily be white.
aside from that i enjoyed the ride. it was entertaining and made me wish there were more authentic stories about resistance and antiheroes coming out of the black community….because i know for a fact there are thousands of unsung heroes in the past who did amazing things from which modern stories could be based.
Agree 100% It’s honestly unbelievable. I’m pretty much speechless. We have entered the Twilight Zone.
Considering the things said about Spike when he has criticized “black films” this shouldn’t even surprise us. Spike has been an easy target for as long as we’ve allowed.
Luke calling someone a sellout a Tom.Since when did he know these terms existed and that they didn’t apply to him more justly in comparison to Spike..
I know that there is good in him however like Gregory calling Lee a thug and punk,way too much and too stupid.
2013 version of House Negroes in full effect,some of them I found surprising,but you learn something new everyday. WILL WE EVER LEARN. I i wish we could drop squad these fools
why did my comment come out with that name g2-8ed3dd52ae37295c3106779de9745dbe ????
nylaconnect
and where did that avatar come from,definitely not my doing.what’s really going on,lol
Secondly: Tarentino and Spike Lee make totally different types of movies. They are both intelligent and clever in their own right. Spike is entitled to his opinion and, like it or not, people expect him to share his opinion because there are so few Black directors in Hollywood and because he has made a major contribution to creating a dialogue about race relations in this country through film. I understand his point about slavery not being a western. In fairness to Tarentino, he put a ridiculous twist on the Jewish Holocaust in Inglorious Bastards, that’s what he does. Did anyone ask Spielberg what he thought about that Tarentino movie???
As far as the movie itself, it was well acted and well scripted. It’s a social critique, but it’s also made with entertainment value in mind. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it. All of Tarentino’s films have gratuitous violence and he didn’t pull any punches with this one and it would have been ingenuous if he did. Roots was also violent, and so was Beloved and Amistad so should be any film made about this ugly, inhumane, barbaric, gross period in world history.
Luke is one to talk. He’s spent his entire career off debasing black women as a member of the two live crew. Second, isn’t he kinda ‘tomish’ himself for attacking another black man to defend a white one? Does he know the meaniing of ‘Uncle Tom’?? Why folks go ballistic over what Spike’s says only shows me that perhaps what he is saying is the truth. I skimmed Luke’s nonsensical letter and I’ve come to the conclusion that people like Luke, Sam Jackson and that ilk, feel incomplete with getting a pat on the head from yt by putting ‘uppity negroes’ like Spike in his place. Spike answers a question asked of him and everybody and their mama loses their minds. If you need a movie to tell you how ‘bad’ slavery was, that’s a sad shame. Didn’t he at least see ‘Roots’ or ‘A woman called moses’ for a clue? And that fight scene that Luke talks about is taken from the blaxploitation movie ‘Mandingo’. Damn dummy!
BTW, if Spike didn’t cast the likes of Samuel Jackson, Halle Berry, Denzel Washington, Rosie Perez, Kerry Washington, etc. in his movies, would they have gotten the type of celebrity they have today? These attacks on Spike are pretty pathetic. Folks attacked him when he dared to criticize Eastwood and looked how Eastwood showed his arse at the RNC convention. Spike is not right all the time but these virtolic attacks against him are ridiculous.
Yep! But that’s exactly why I don’t go an a Spike tirade because his commentary is always consistent..whether we agree w/him or not!
Melody chile, I can’t comprehend what these negroes are up in arms about. Ignorance seems to rule the roost nowadays. When Taratino did ‘Inglorioius Bastards’, was ‘hymie’ and ‘kike’ thrown around like the ‘n’ word in this movie? Please. I understand the ‘times’ and all of that but it’s overdone. Taratino knows he can get away with it with blacks because some of us support that foolishness. Why some of us are caught up in pseudo wanna-be ‘negroes’ like Taratino is beyond me.
Ooh, it turns my stomach!!!!! And it’s all because mofos are terrified the powers that be may not recognize them. This is no way to curry favor and gain respect. I know people who have seen the film and I have no problem with them exercising their right to do so…but these unseemly, over the top attacks points to a larger problem, I’m afraid.
Because ‘kike’ and ‘hymie’ weren’t bandied about during World War II. Widespread use of those terms is nice and modern. We only have ourselves to blame for the legacy of ‘nigger’. As I’ve said before, if we survived the scourge of mental slavery unscarred, perhaps we wouldn’t have allowed this term to survive or alternately given in the power it now wields. The word ‘nigger’ would be as dated as ‘colored’ or ‘negrito’, an historical relic.
When one of the slaves refuses to fight, Candie threatens to feed him to his wild dogs. That scene is analogous to professional boxing where white promoters control black fighters through fear and intimidation. Last time I checked Don King was the biggest fight promoter in the business…
Ouch…
LOL! The biggest promoter in boxing is Bob Arum.
Honestly, without the violence I don’t think most blacks would give Taratino the time of day, not that he’s not a good movie maker. I think it similar to how blacks relate to Robert Nino or Al Pacino films. For some it’s the whole outlaw/ganster aspect to the films.
Why call Spike names because he didn’t wish to see a spaghetti western that was remade 33 times. With the only major difference being the insertion of our holocaust. I’m sure some people didn’t want to see their holocaust in Schindler’s list for various reasons. I didn’t hear people calling these people vile and nasty names. I think people should see this film. I hope that some enlightening discussions will occur from it. Especially concerning the reasons for our continuing lack of respect for each other and what we are going to do about it.. Unfortunately too many of us still harbor attitudes like Sam Jackson’s character toward each other. Until we rectify this enslavement mentality, our communities will continue to get worse.
Luke must have a comeback cd or something because he should be the last person to talk. Spike Lee gave his opinion and that was it. It sickens me so much how many just jumped on QT’s bandwagon who is known to be an undercover racist in Hollywood. QT has not done anything significant but make money and it goes right in his pocket and yet Spike has been bashed unfairly although he has done many positive things in the community. It’s 2013 and many are still craving for validation and approval. Smh!
A white filmmaker makes a movie Django. A black film maker expresses his opinions, criticizes and attacks the white filmmaker. Black comedian attacks black filmmaker, then black rapper chimes in with negative remarks directed at the black filmmaker too. So I definitely see and understand what’s really happening here. Not cool to witness turning on each other to exchange hateful & harsh words. Based on a white man’s version of a movie lead to bickering among other well known blacks attacking the black filmmaker over his opinion. I’m surprised of trash like Luther Campbell would get in on this to unleashed some scathing a.. criticisms towards Spike Lee calling him conniving and scheming “Uncle Tom”. Moreover, the type of movies that Spike used to make, I don’t think that he should be criticizing other filmmakers on their projects. Apparently the so call comedian, social activist Dick Gregory is a very outspoken supporter of the civil rights movement & African American causes with the exception of Spike Lee.
This is an incredibly sad commentary! The African-American race is so split over a fictional movie. Publicly bashing someone that voiced his opinion.
I thought in Hollyweird you were NOT to do stuff like this! What happened to supporting one another? Why not just say “no comment?”
I just read on Ebony.com that Afeni Shakur saw the movie 4 times and Dick Gregory saw it 12 times? Wow!!!
DOne, nail-on-the-head!
We need to see this film to have a discussion about slavery??? Are you kidding me?? I wouldn’t pay a cent to see this movie and I surely do not need a fictional movie to tell me what slavery was. Doesn’t anybody read anymore? Does anyone go conferences or symposiums where the topic of slavery is discussed? Really? Why did we stop talking after seeing “Roots” or ‘A Woman Called Moses’ or any of those blaxploitation movies like ‘Mandingo’and ‘Drum’? Why weren’t we ‘enlightened’ enough to see movies like ‘Rosewood’, ‘Beloved’, or any movie that dealt with actual historical African American events? Man, some of us are perishing from a lack of knowledge. Real tragic.
Well said NYCsoul!
Diva007, all of QT’s cheerleaders will find out sooner or later the same they got the wake up call on Eastwood. Watch and see.
Yes, it is coming!!!!
muzyk, Spike Lee has made it his business to hire people of color behind the scenes of his movies. Can any of QT’s supporters say the same? With the exception of Ernest Dickinson, who shot some of Spike’s earlier films, does anyone know the names of other black cinematographers in Hollywood that have been employed by QT?
As a European i have found how badly most of Americans understand the whole idea of Spagetti Western generally. The genre of Spagetti Western actually is telling us how western civilization, values, the whole culture broke down in 1960′s. It’s rather stupid to talk about “what was Wild West really like”. Instead genre is telling how we in west were changing. How the idea of “hero” changed. Former the hero was dutiful, respectable person. But in this new genre hero was cynic, brutal, crafty and gloomy. No – he too has a “moral” but it was weird and totally different.
Tarantino is dedicated follower of Spagetti Western genre. 35 years ago when i was young our European cultural establishment don’t respect much it. The value of genre was understood better little bit later – when people really found how western culture, our image had changed. There was no more chance for “coming back to old values” (like those of John Ford&John Wayne). Even Clint Eastwood had mentioned how he was so bored with old values of American Western. He hated the image of “good people” introduced by Hollywood.
I don’t know how Leone or Corbucci would have solved this American slavery puzzle. My guess – they would have introduced African Americans as cynic, brutal, crafty, unscrupulous and gloomy as they introduced Europeans and Mexicans.
Spike Lee’s ineptitude knows no bounds.
Slaves were not stolen. The slaves were sold by their own people. Yep, you heard it, blacks sold blacks into slavery.
Some were stolen…some were sold by other blacks (not necessarily “their own” people, but other tribes). And?