This is not a review.

It is not a review because I have not seen the film. It is not that I don’t care for Quentin Tarantino’s work; I love his film obsession and constant play on the genres—not to mention his obsession with words.

I love Tarantino’s borrowing from Django (1966), Mandingo and Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles. Brooks’ 1974 effort was the first film of which I know to reference a Black person in the old west; it was a very funny movie touching on racist themes. Tarantino is great at doing film mash-ups and he does them well.

It is not that I won’t see the film; I will probably reserve it on Netflix and with relish look forward to its being sent to my door.

Being a movie lover who forgets what movie I’m seeing as the lights dim, I get so excited at seeing a film in the theater as it was meant to be seen. But I will not go to the theater to see Django Unchained.

It doesn’t offend me: the premise, the ode to Black exploitation films, or even that a white filmmaker is again tackling the subject. (It is the second of two mainstream films dealing with the United States’ dirty little past of slavery.)

I won’t be seeing it just yet because it would be painful for me to sit in a film where people are laughing while the N-word is being used in every frame, as I am told by friends who saw the film. Historical context doesn’t make that less painful for me. I am glad to hear that the content does not shy away from the ugly truths of the time. I think that’s important.

I think what bothers me about sitting in a theater where by and large is that the patrons, seemingly born in or after the 1990s, have likely never seen anything of substance or historical on slavery. That perception on my part and being barraged by the N-word, just doesn’t sound good to me. It sounds painful to me. It hurts me to think that this will be the first indepth view of slavery for many. That it will be made somewhat palatable is a hard pill to swallow, but whatever gets you thinking, right?

Maybe if there was a viewing of the 1977 TV mini-series Roots before? I’m just joking—sort of. Roots is an eight-part miniseries, based on a novel by Alex Haley, about three generations of slaves from 1750 to the end of slavery.

My mother told me that to this day she still gets choked up at the “breaking” of Kunta Kinte; the act of a young boy being beaten, whipped and brutalized until he accepts his slave name is what she means. Kinte is played by Levar Burton, my favorite nerd crush while growing up and who is best known afterward for his Reading Rainbow series and Star Trek: Next Generations role. Hard to imagine “Geordi” as a slave, isn’t it?

Film and art take liberties with history all the time, it is to be expected and of- ten applauded, but I would hope that people would educate themselves on reality too. Two film documentaries worth viewing are Slavery: The Making of America and Slavery By Another Name. Both are available to watch online.

I am long past ‘soapboxing’. I am just a movie lover sharing some personal perceptive on a film I fully intend to love, I just happen to prefer to see it with people coming from an informed place. I will see it and judge it on my own terms. Away from the sensationalist headlines of Spike Lee’s “opinion” on the film, Tarantino’s claims of “authenticity” and fans ranting about who is and who is not racist. Because all of that is just white noise.

Perhaps Django Unchained will open up the opportunity for people to educate themselves on U.S. History and gain their own context for the film.

I hope certainly so.