Django and the Legacy of the Western?

So i need one final post and i dont want to backtrack and do a previous book because it's really just my own fault i didnt do them sooner. As it happens, however, i watched Tarantino's "Django Unchained" over the weekend and i thought i would put what i've learned in this class to the test and see if what, if any, Django owes or adds to the Western tradition as I've come to understand it this semester. The first thing i noticed was the music and font of the opening credits, Tarantino uses the traditional, hokie saloon font and the Bonanza style song complete with "whip crack" sound effect to immediately tie his story to the traditional John Wayne, Ox-Beau western. Despite his "dialogue" on slavery, this movie is not as forward thinking as Tarantino would have us believe. Instead its much more a stereotype and cliche western, more at home with our early readings. When i saw the giant tooth on the German's dentist wagon i thought for a moment it might be referencing McTeague somehow and perhaps pointing at a deeper understanding of the West, but alas, the wagon is blown up with dynamite and that particular icon goes no further. Like our early readings Tarantino's West is defined by its trappings. Django becomes a cowboy the moment he puts on that dead slaver's hat. His transformation is immediate and heroic in the way only a movie montage can be. But in this moment Tarantino engages the myth of the West by rising Django to that mythical western status. He is a deadeye with a rifle and pistol, a superb horseman, and a consummate badass seemingly without justification. Tarantino even seems to wink at us when the German acknowledges this, likening Django's story to that of a German folk legend. The concern for Justice with a capital J likewise is a western ideal, that Justice is something one can know inherently and which is beyond the laws of man.

Overall there is not much that Django brings to the western genre. Tarantino shows his appreciation for the genre through his fond use of the traditional tropes and cliches, but does not expand with his own interpretation. As a western, Django is straight forward and predictable. Not so much a modern take, as a nostalgic nod.