Antoine Fuqua Defends ‘Django Unchained’ From Racially-Charged Criticism
Director Antoine Fuqua has stepped up to defend Quentin Tarantino from the critics of his latest film, Django Unchained.
Django Unchained, a film set in the antebellum South, shines an unflattering light on slavery in the mid-1800s, and has generated equal parts praise and controversy. Director Spike Lee is one of Django Unchained‘s most vocal critics, saying that the film is “disrespectful to my ancestors.” Though Lee had not seen Django Unchained (he made clear his intentions to steer clear), he wrote on Twitter that “American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them.”
Rolling Stone reports that Lee has also taken issue with Tarantino’s films in the past, particularly the heavy use of the “n-word” in many of his exploitation-esque movies.
The latest director to weigh in on the controversy surrounding Django Unchained is Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), who told The Hollywood Reporter that “I don’t think Quentin Tarantino has a racist bone in his body.”
“Besides, I’m good friends with Jamie Foxx and he wouldn’t have anything to do with a film that had anything racist to it,” Fuqua reasoned.
Fuqua also disagreed with Lee’s criticism of Django Unchained, or at least his choice of venue:
“That’s just not the way you do things,” he remarked of Lee’s Twitter post. “If you disagree with the way a colleague did something, call him up, invite him out for a coffee, talk about it. But don’t do it publicly.”
Who do you think is right about Django Unchained? Spike Lee or Antoine Fuqua?
