Kerry Washington says she escaped even more brutal scenes that were cut from Django Unchained
Kerry Washington's prayers were answered when Quentin Tarantino cut an intense assault scene from Django Unchained
Aux News Django Unchained
Like most of Quentin Tarantino’s work, Django Unchained is known for its graphic violence. What sets it apart is the specifically racialized violence of the film, focusing on slavery in the American South. The finished product—which starred Jamie Foxx as Django—was controversial enough on its own. But according to Foxx’s co-star Kerry Washington, the original script was even more brutal, featuring scenes where her character “escaped abuse running naked down the street” and was subjected to a “terrifyingly brutal rape scene.”
In Washington’s new memoir Thicker Than Water (via The Daily Beast), the actor suspects Foxx might have interceded on her behalf right before filming the graphic sequence. “Jamie and Quentin stood in the corner. Both men were looking down at the dirt floor, and as I walked toward them, Tarantino announced that we were all going home. The scene would be cut from the script,” she writes. “Maybe it was something Jamie had said to Quentin days before that had finally seeped in, maybe something shifted for Quentin standing in that cabin. Either way, it was the answer to the prayers I had been whispering on my knees.”
Per an audiobook excerpt from Entertainment Weekly, Washington has nothing but praise for Foxx in her book, calling him “one of the most wonderful lead actors I have ever had the privilege to work with.” She writes with admiration for his abilities and the advice he gave her on set, saying, “Both on screen and off, Jamie is invested in bringing out the best in everyone around him. His generosity, it seems, has no limits.”
Having worked together on both Django and Ray (for which Foxx earned an Academy Award), Washington says she was deeply impacted by Foxx’s leadership style. She shares, “Years later, on the set of Scandal, whenever anybody complimented me on my leadership skills as a number one on the call sheet, I was always sure to credit Jamie for setting the best possible example.”
43 Comments
I could live a long, happy life without ever seeing another rape depicted in a movie or television show.
I agree. I’ve had quite enough of women’s trauma being played on camera for men’s titillation, thanks.
We’re not titillated. I wouldn’t turn away if Kerry Washington did a nude scene in a consensual sex scene, but no one needs graphic rape depicted.
A hit dog will holler
You feel the same about Handmaid’s Tale?
In a movie about slavery, I don’t think the goal was titillation…
You’re fine when it’s done for women’s titillation, I take it.
Unfortunately, it seems that for one exceptionally creepy demographic in Hollywood writing and directing circles, they can’t live a happy life unless they put awful shit like this on celluloid under the guise of “raw filmmaking.”
You’re kind of missing the point. Some horrors needs to be shown, people use to be very casual about rape, seeing it and when it’s shot “well” it really make you understand the gravity of the act and the trauma of the victims.
Yes some sick fucks will like the scene, but for the vast majority of us, now we know and we can’t ignore the horror of what it is.
For example I think war movies have had a huge part in why people are anti war now.
But I get it it’s hard to watch, I love Fincher and I loved Millenium, but to this day I have never been able to watch that movie a second time because of that scene.
Weirdly enough though, people were really into the handmaid’s tale, I stopped after one season though.
Well said. I never need to see Schindler’s List again, but there will always be people who need to see Schindler’s list.
Irréversible.
Well, my point was less about the need to occasionally show brutality in popular entertainment (for instance, the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan should be required viewing, IMO, even for kids in middle school, because it shows better than almost every other war movie what actual combat is like), and more about the fact that there is a niche of filmmakers who have a prurient or fetishistic desire to include scenes like this, rather than an impulse to show something graphic in service of a philosophical point. Tarantino, for example, often errs on the “violence for violence’s sake” side of the ledger because he loves that sort of extreme filmmaking. At least he had the sense to nix this particular scene based on his actors’ feedback – other filmmakers might not have been so accommodating.
I mean, it’s kind of silly to overlook rape in a movie about slavery, where that was one of the common horrors perpetrated against female slaves…
AMEN. The one on Sons of Anarchy fucked up the entire series for me, and it was a pretty minor plot point. Totally gratuitous.
Which one???
Murders are ok?
Same, lower bar but I could live a long, happy life without ever seeing another Tarantino film.
Ditto. He doesn’t have a problem with the complications posed by extremely graphic scenes of violence. He’s gross.
This is a very dumb take.
We’re all very impressed by how cool you are, edgelord.
The one in Fincher’s version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, especially.
This. It’s what finally did it for me in Game of Thrones. They didn’t use it as part of storytelling, they did it because they got to show people getting raped. It was uselessly gratuitous and they approached it in the same way as a director being given a huge CGI budget and feeling the need to use every penny of it because they didn’t have any other ideas.
Agree.Tell that to the showrunners for Outlander. Please.
There’s a commenter above who specified that it was only bad when done for men’s titillation.
Meanwhile, Outlander…
You’d have thought people finding out Taratino personally strangled Diane Kruger (and left marks) would have been enough to end his career and yet…Good for Jamie Foxx stepping in. Also, fuck Quentin Taratino.
There was already enough awfulness on screen in Django that I have to think this would have risked a NC-17 rating. It may also have pushed potential audiences into the “sorry, too much” camp.
I accidentally read that as “sorry, too much camp” and was seriously concerned about your definition of camp lol.
Yeah that would be a pretty different movie, wouldn’t it? I was just inspired to go back and watch the raid scene with the mask discussion, which is comedy gold.
there is something campy about the movie tho lol. I haven’t watched Django since it came out, but it’s a revisionist revenge the same way as Inglorious Bastards and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is I guess? But I feel at least Tarantino was only truly brutal to the nazis and the Manson Family in the latter, so I’m happy he cut out the scene of Kerry’s character being further brutalized. Would have been a little more suspect about what kind of victims in history he thinks deserves more violence.
Guess he had to be satisfied with a script that lets white characters use the N word a few hundred times.
true that haha, suspect all the same.
It’s not as fun for him if he doesn’t put himself in the movie and say the n-word a hundred times himself
Django’s fancy suit veers close, it must be said.
Her being abused sexually is clearly said more than enough. Having a scene showing it wasn’t needed. I get that it’s a revenge movie, so the more you show the abuse, the better the revenge feels, but it would have been too much.
Exactly. It was already a LOT.
“Either way, it was the answer to the prayers I had been whispering on my knees.”
W-what?
She’s always ready to blow someone
“ it was the answer to the prayers I had been whispering on my knees.” You READ THE SCRIPT before. Why did you take the role then???
The original script leaked before the movie came out. I’m pretty sure it was before they even started filming. The main difference I remember is a whole interlude where Calvin Candy is not Broomhilda’s first owner after she’s separated from Django. She’s gifted to this shy plantation owner’s son who I want to say was going to be played by Jonah Hill? Anyway the idea is that he’ll lose his virginity to this slave but he becomes totally infatuated with her and she finds some degree of quality of life for a bit before he loses her in a poker game to Candy. I don’t remember the running naked down the street bit but my memory isn’t great. Edit: I looked in the PDF and it actually says “Last Draft April 26th 2011″ so not the first version I guess.
But April 26th 2011 is still 6 months before shooting started, so if that script didn’t contain any running naked down the street and otherwise closely matches the final film, either the scene was added after the “last draft” (far from impossible, but it seems awfully random to add one scene and then drop it right as it was about to be shot) or Washington is misremembering the details.
What? Why? Aint nothin wrong with a lil terrifyingly brutal hanky panky
Surprised woketards didnt accuse white boy Tarantino of covering up the fact that some slaves got raped
Show, don’t tell (except for rape scenes). We don’t need any more of them.Also asking Kerry Washington to run around naked is gratuitous. We can understand what she went through already without that scene. Luckily it seems like it was Foxx who had a head on his shoulders and probably said to Quentin “we don’t REALLY need this scene, do we?”