IHaveIssues: Are the "Django Unchained" Action Figures Offensive?

 

"Django Unchained", one of the highest rating films of the new year was assured success under in the hands of Quentin Tarentino, but after positive reviews and ratings, controversy has risen over the new "Django Unchained" action figures being sold online.
The film solely geared toward revenge is a western film of a former-slave getting back at plantation and slave owners.  The film portrays some of the harsh interaction between white southerners and blacks right before the reconstruction era.  Althought the film was not meant to be an educational one full of facts depicting real slaves and owners of those times, one cannot learn nothing from any film on slavery, fiction or non-fiction.  Curious minds wonder and ponder on how blacks were treated in American at the time.

Now these figures were manufactured by the well-known toy makers of NECA.  NECA is known form making toys and figurines from popular culture whether it be from movies, video games, or anything they'll make a toy for the biggest buzz.  The "Hobbit", another popular film this new year also has a figurine by NECA.

The toys, which were approved by, prominent production company, Weinstein Company has not gained approval from Black Activist leaders of the Los Angeles Civil Rights Organization Project Islamic Hope.

Najee Ali told the associated press that the toys are, "a slap in the face of our ancestors" and will be calling to remove the dolls for purchase.

Ali also said, "We feel it trivializes the horrors of slavery and what African-Americans experienced."

Obviously this toy was no problem for the makers or production company and has not been the first figurine to portray "the struggle" of African-Americans.

Remember Addy? If you don't, you should because she is still around in every American Girl across the globe.  Like the "Django Unchained" dolls she represents a fictional character deriving from the reconstruction ere.  Her story tells that she was very poor yet determined to appreciate the little things in life.

She was not a real person but her life illustrated the lives of many young African-American girls living in America during/after the reconstruction era and her doll is happily sold to thousands of little girls.

Are these "Django Unchained" dolls making slavery and what Black ancestors went through significant?  Is America taking slavery lightly because, constitutionally, slavery is over?  Should these dolls be taken off the market?

These dolls are only from made up characters who have have experienced anything but something "made-up" and the toys were made as collectors items paying respect to a film well done.

Maybe the figures were never meant to hurt anyone but if they are, in fact, offensive to a sensitive spot in American History, then I say, take them off the market.

The new "Django Unchained" figurines portray the main characters in the film; Candie, Shultz, Butch, Broomhilda, Stephen and, of course, Django and can be purchased online.