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Action figures for ‘Django Unchained’ draw protest
Slavery-era action figures for ‘Django Unchained’ called insensitive
Slavery-era action figures tied to Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” are raising questions about whether they’re appropriate.
A line of figures of the movie’s main characters are on sale online, manufactured by toy maker NECAin partnership with the Weinstein Co.
Najee Ali, director of the advocacy group Project Islamic Hope, plans a news conference Tuesday with other Los Angeles black community leaders calling for the removal of the toys from the market.
Ali called the action figures “a slap in the face of our ancestors.”
“We were outraged,” said Ali, upon learning of the figures. “We feel that it trivializes the horrors of slavery and what African Americans experienced.”
The action figures are collectibles recommended for people older than 17. Tarantino has had such figures made for all of his films, including his last, “Inglourious Basterds.” That film, too, reveled in a revenge fantasy set in history — Nazi Germany.
The Weinstein Co. and NECA didn’t immediately comment Tuesday.
Ali made clear his objections were not with the film “Django Unchained,” which he said he liked and had seen twice.
Though controversial in its unusual melding of historical atrocity and movie mayhem, “Django Unchained” has proven a hit at the box office, where it has earned $106.3 million since opening Christmas. It’s also been nominated for five Golden Globes.
SNIP: In case you were wondering, Ali is a well known race hustler who learned his craft from Revrum Al $harpton.
Unslung Hero
January 10th, 2013
OK….let’s see here. We got the Weinstein Brothers here (supposedly) exploiting the black race and Project Islamic Hope is protesting all of this.??? Louis Farrakhan was right all along……..
CrustyB
January 10th, 2013
There is no demographic on planet Earth that works as hard to get offended by things as the African American.
I was talking to a co-worker from Dubai about race in America. He told me that in the Arabic world African Americans are seen as the world’s biggest bunch of crybabies, always bitching and whining over nothing. Even African blacks see them this way.
Diann
January 10th, 2013
When in the name of Sweet Fancy Moses did insensitivity become a mortal sin?!
Boobie the Rocket Dog
January 10th, 2013
@ CrustyB — Cuz’ it PAYS.
I wonder if the D’JANGO UNCHAINED doll comes with the set of chains he was unchained from? Black boys could put ‘em on their sisters’ Barbie dolls and make an OJ SIMPSON-like blackmaster-whitebitch phonecamvid.
thirdtwin
January 10th, 2013
Leave it to a muslim to protest against toy black slaves and ignore the actual black slaves toiling away in the islamic world. He should be angling for a cut of the toy slave trade. I’m sure that would not go against the principles of sharia finance.
eternal cracker p
January 10th, 2013
So by the same logic they would also have a problem with play-EBT cards and play-Food Stamps.
hanoverfist
January 10th, 2013
@Boobie the Rocket Dog
It’s called “Black Snake Moan”
With Samuel L. Jackson & Christina Ricci
even steven
January 10th, 2013
When I was a kid, I remember being mad and feeling ripped off when my Kunta Kinte action figure was missing half of one of its feet, and the store would let me return it for one that wasn’t defective.
even steven
January 10th, 2013
…and the store wouldn’t…
CrustyB
January 10th, 2013
Magneto = fictional Holocaust survivor, doll not offensive.
Union soldier = 140,000 died in action to free slaves, doll not offensive.
GI Joe = US Vietnam soldier, 58,000 died to fight Communism, doll not offensive.
Django = fictional freed slave, I’M OFFENDED, WHERE MY PITY PARTY AT?!
Boobie the Rocket Dog
January 10th, 2013
@ Hanover – Thanks.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462200/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_1
Hahahahah! I knew it!
Stranded in Sonoma
January 10th, 2013
The only reason this race hustler is offended by these dolls is because he’s not in on a percentage of the profits.
Noodengr
January 10th, 2013
My cousin had a Barbie that would be sure to offend.
She tried to dye the hair darker, the plastic of barbie’s head also took the dye, the body didn’t, guess this was an early version of a mulatto barbie.
CrustyB thanks for confirming what I have thought all along, as a group they spend far more time figuring out how to be offended or what we should call them this decade than doing productive things that would advance everybody.
Tim
January 10th, 2013
“… trivializes the horrors of slavery …”
If slavery was so horrible, why did African negroes sell other African negroes into chains?
It was the Arab (islamic) slavers who bought negroes from African Kings, kept some, and sold the rest to the Portuguese.
But it was, indeed, the Africans who initiated the process.
Boobie the Rocket Dog
January 10th, 2013
@ Tim – American Indian tribes in the southwest did the same thing (enslave other Indian tribes) well into the nineteenth century.