On Film: My New Movie Test

The Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Fest has been important to me. I carve out two to three weeks of my time every year to see as many films as I can. This year, a few films have me pondering the role of film in reinforcing (or challenging) how we are socialized. (#4 contains spoilers for Zaytoun...don't read if you want to watch that film)

1. The Parade. On its face, the film is about how to be an ally to a hated minority. In this instance, it's a former mob boss, his fiance, and his buddies protecting a small group of LGBT people wanting to have a Pride Parade in Belgrade. The film was hard to take--homophobia is its primary source of humor, and after a while, I felt numb to it. All lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are called "faggots" and everyone else is called "normals." The cuts and barbs might have been easier to take if the Minnesota audience weren't laughing uproariously at every one of them. The overall message of the film is about humanizing queer folks, but what do the homophobic jokes reinforce in Serbian society? In ours when we watch the film?

2. Also in The Parade, there's a scene where the former mob boss kisses his fiance, then throws her up against the wall, where she slumps to the floor. Once again, the Minnesota audience laughs, maybe even louder than for any of the other jokes. I blurted out "why was that funny?" Then I remembered the MN-made documentary With Impunity: Men & Gender Violence (which you can watch online). Media like films reinforce social rules in our society, and With Impunity sheds light on that. Please watch it if you can. It shows how men can see the rules and how they can break out of reinforcing the violence against women. But not how to be an ally.

3. The closing night film In a World... is about a woman who is a voice-over artist who is trying to be a voice-over for movie trailers, but that the profession is sexist because they prefer men to do it. The film, directed by, written by, and stars a woman: Lake Bell. I loved it. But it actually shows men being allies to women in a funny and entertaining way.

4. Now, onto something about oppression (with spoilers, so don't read if you want to watch this film). I saw Zaytoun, a film about a Palestinian child named Fahed who was being trained for the PLO in 1982 in Beirut, Lebanon when an Israeli pilot, named Yoni, was shot down and captured by his group. Fahed's father then his brother were killed by Israelis and was really angry at Yoni. But despite his anger, he frees Yoni on the condition that Yoni takes him to his grandfather's home to plant an olive tree that his father was nurturing. They have an adventure, and even though at the beginning you fully identify with and sympathize with Fahed, you're rooting for Yoni at the end, wanting him to get Fahed out of what is sure to be a horrible situation. A lot of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes say that the plot is not very believable. They have a point, but my issue is this: I don't trust any story, on film or off, that leaves you rooting for someone in the dominant oppressor group when the story is about someone in the minority oppressed group.

I came across the concept of the White Savior a while back, where our white guilt is used to validate our privilege. Teju Cole wrote about this critiquing the Kony 2012 movement, and it's about feeling like white people (like me) know best how to save an oppressed person (usually brown people). It's about feeling like oppressed people don't have agency in their own lives and need saving.

In Zaytoun, at the end, the audience is pulling for Yoni to save Fahed, and Fahed is portrayed as making a real choice. But he doesn't have any real choice, and none of that is portrayed in the film. He's a Palestinian PLO member and a child, and in the custody of the Israelis. Who has the power in this instance? Yoni or Fahed? Who gets to make a choice, for real? Why did the film want us to be rooting for Yoni?

The film and its intent and how it made me feel made me uneasy. My head and heart didn't match, and I didn't totally understand why. I still don't.

What I do know is that film is a powerful tool that can be used to support the status quo or make positive social change. Sometimes it's both, and sometimes it is one or the other. But it's never neither.

I think the film fest programmers would say that they just program "good" film, that "good" is neutral.

Paulo Freire wrote in Pedagogy of the Oppressed:

There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the practice of freedom - the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with the reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.

I would assert that the same is true of film, that it serves to facilitate us into the logic of the current system (the status quo) or it can educate us on freedom, and help us 'discover how to participate in the transformation' of our world.

I'm a fan of the Bechdel Test which requires that a film 1) have at least two women who 2) talk to each other 3) about something other than a man. (Radical, I know...there are lots and LOTS of film with at least two men talking to each other about something other than women, but ones that pass the Bechdel test? Rare indeed)

So if I made a test like Alison Bechdel's about film that wasn't about being "good" but about promoting freedom, what would it be? (Suggestions welcome). I probably won't name it after myself, however. So name suggestions are welcome too.

Some first thoughts:

Does the film 1)have at least two people from an oppressed group who 2)talk to each other 3)about their own agency and/or their steps toward freedom?

Questions: what about people from an oppressor group? With Impunity has a lot of men talking about how to change society so violence against women is eradicated. I'd like that film to pass the test as well. Maybe there isn't one test.

Your thoughts?