Phrenology really was used to justify slavery, as portrayed in Django Unchained. But it was also used to justify abolition
"Why don't they kill us?" asks Calvin Candie, the southern slave owner in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. He wants to know why the African slaves he brutalises do not rise up and take revenge. Before long, he has the skull of a recently deceased slave on the dinner table. "The science of phrenology," he announces, "is crucial to understanding the separation of our two species." He hacks away at the back of the skull with a saw, removing a section of the cranium and pointing to an allegedly enlarged area. In African slaves, Candie claims, this bump is found in the region of the brain associated with "submissiveness".
For Candie, phrenology not only explained slavery, it justified it.
Needless to say, phrenology has now been thoroughly debunked: the idea...
"Why don't they kill us?" asks Calvin Candie, the southern slave owner in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. He wants to know why the African slaves he brutalises do not rise up and take revenge. Before long, he has the skull of a recently deceased slave on the dinner table. "The science of phrenology," he announces, "is crucial to understanding the separation of our two species." He hacks away at the back of the skull with a saw, removing a section of the cranium and pointing to an allegedly enlarged area. In African slaves, Candie claims, this bump is found in the region of the brain associated with "submissiveness".
For Candie, phrenology not only explained slavery, it justified it.
Needless to say, phrenology has now been thoroughly debunked: the idea...
- 2/6/2013
- by James Poskett
- The Guardian - Film News
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