As previously reported, in the press room at the Golden Globes on Sunday, a reporter asked Quentin Tarantino if he ever thought about not using the “n-word” while making Django Unchained.
Quentin’s response: “Nnn, no not really because it’s, uh, uh, it’s something, if somebody’s out there actually saying it when it comes to the word n****r, that the fact that I was using it in the movie more than it was used back in the Antebellum South in Mississippi in 1858, well, then they might have a, you know, then feel free to make that case. But no one is actually making that case. So in other words, what they’re actually saying is I should soften it, I should lie, I should white wash, I should massage and I never do that when it comes to my characters.” (0:35 mark in the video)
According to E!, that’s when a hush fell upon the press room as every reporter looked around for the nearest black guy to see whether they should be offended or not. Calm down guys, he wasn’t calling a black guy next to him the n-word, he was using it as part of a discussion on the word. This is like when you’re 5 and everyone in the class starts giggling because they see the word “vagina” in their biology book.
After Tarantino finished, Don Cheadle stepped up and cut the awkwardness by saying, “Please, no n****r questions. Black people questions are all right.”