(CNN) -- Spike Lee says he's never going to see Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" because he's certain it is "disrespectful of my ancestors." Tarantino says he doesn't need to waste time responding to Lee's accusation. That, as they say, is that. So why do we insist on staring at two egomaniacs staring down each other? Race. Again. The subject that never fails to provoke, antagonize, alienate -- and fascinate rubber-necking onlookers from sea to shining sea. Fixating on race is an absurdity that has no rational reason to exist, yet no one quite knows how to eliminate it from humankind. The only thing dumber than race is underestimating its importance.Gene Seymour: Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino spatting over "Django Unchained"Seymour says film, which upends slavery narrative, is classic comic-book TarantinoHe says debate is over whether white artists have right to tell any part of black American storySeymour notes James Baldwin's sound advice: "If you don't like their alternative, write yours"
"_" is Tarantino's latest exercise in genre-bending audacity, an antic ripsnorter folding in most of what its director knows and loves about spaghetti westerns, 1970s blaxploitation thrillers and his own ribald, recklessly violent body of work.