Tarantino is controversial because of what appears to be his fondness for the shock value of the n-word. Since viewing Pulp Fiction and his "Did you notice a sign in the front of my house that said, 'Dead N--ger Storage'?" zinger, I honestly haven't been a big fan of his. The writer-director's casual use of a word that carries so much history for the sake of ironic flair -- in Pulp Fiction, Tarantino's character's wife is black -- just turned me off. This is why I was surprised that I wasn't offended when the word was liberally used throughout Django, though I'm sure it will anger many other black viewers.

Specifically, there were two scenes in Django during which I wanted to run out of the theater and curse our country's history: during the "Mandingo fight" and later, when one fighter is torn apart by dogs. Since reading Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, which begins with a gaggle of black males boxing blindly for coins as a drunk white crowd jeers, I hate to see black men pummeling one another, let alone for the pleasure of two white men during slavery.

But in the post-screening interview, Tarantino said that Candie's character was a boy king, born into the cotton money that his forefathers had earned. He was bored with the business and enjoyed such brutal entertainment. When a hopeless brawler claims he's too tired to fight anymore, Candie orders that he be ripped apart by dogs. These scenes were racially charged, heartbreaking and angering, but I understand that Tarantino often features bloody realism as much as possible in his films.

Ultimately, Django featured several cruel traditions that were likely historically correct -- it's not hard to imagine that blacks were branded with an "r" if they ran away, that some were torn apart by animals or that Mandingo fights had black men fighting to the death -- but that doesn't make them any easier to watch.

In the end -- spoiler alert! -- I clapped as Django blows up the house of Hildy's former master, because in the tradition of any good movie, Foxx's character shoots his way through hell and gets his girl. Taking the film at face value, without dipping too far into the visceral hurt of slavery, I enjoyed Django Unchained. I don't know if I'd watch it again. But I loved Django's victory over the American slavery system, as well as his ride into the sunset with his wife, the two now a free black couple.

Hillary Crosley is the New York bureau chief at The Root. Follow her on Twitter.

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