AFTERIMAGES MAGAZINE TAKE 6 - Social (In)justice by Afterimages

CONCORDIAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S UNDERGRADUATE FILM MAGAZINE

AFTERIMAGES

TAKE 6 SOCIAL (IN)JUSTICE

A FTER IMA GES COVER DESIGN BY AMANDA IBARRA

GRAPHIC DESIGN BY AMANDA IBARRA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: KAMERYN WHYTE FRENCH COPY EDITORS: EMILY JEANETTE HORSHAM ANTOINE RACICOT ENGLISH COPY EDITORS: KIMBERLY GLASSMAN NICOLE RICHARDSON AFTERIMAGES FEATURE WRITERS: MARIE-JEANNE BROUILLETTE PATRICK BLAIR JEAN-MICHEL MUTORE ALEXANDER LEE COMETTI AFTERIMAGES EVENTS COORDINATOR: JAZMINE DARRAGH AFTERIMAGES PHOTOGRAPHER: MARIE-JEANNE BROUILLETTE THE DESIGN OF THIS MAGAZINE HAS BEEN CREATED AS A CLEAR CONTINUATION OF THE DESIGN AND ARTISTIC DIRECTION ESTABLISH BY HANNAH MATERNE. THIS MAGAZINE WAS FOUNDED BY JENNIFER SIN AND NINA PATTERSON. THE PRINTING OF THIS MAGAZINE WAS MADE POSSIBLE WITH THE SUPPORT OF :

AFTERIMAGES.CONCORDIA@GMAIL.COM @AfterimagesConcordia

@AfterimagesCon

@Afterimages.Concordia

Mot de l'ĂŠditrice / Editor's Note

TABLE OF 11-15

A Queer Man Showing Solidarity to Adoptee Activists 8-10

Levithan: Outside the Womb Marie-Jeanne Brouillette

Pascal Huynh

16-19

L'Injustice social chez des cineastes "justiciers" Vincent Zeis

F CONTENTS 20-25

Problematic Representations within Spanish Postcolonial Cinema Kameryn Whyte

32-35

Ballet Adagio and the Choreography of Gender 26-31

Do Not Resist Patrick Blair

Alexander Lee

MOT DE L’ÉDITRICE Nous pouvons changer le monde pour le mieux si nous reconnaissons les injustices et travaillons ensemble pour créer un monde égal et juste pour tous! Le magazine Afterimages de cette année a tenté de porter un regard sur le thème de l’injustice et la justice représentée dans les films et autres types de médias numériques. Le thème est vague pour permettre d’incorporer tous les genres d’interprétations qui passionnent nos écrivains. Nous avons choisi des films qui cherchent à changer notre société et portent sur l’injustice sociale à laquelle nous faisons face dans notre société. Je crois que le cinéma est un moyen de faire passer un puissant message à un grand auditoire. Nous voulons démarrer une discussion sur les injustices qui nous concerne et nous espérons que vous nous joindrez dans nos échanges d’idées pour trouver des façons d’améliorer notre société! J’espère que vous allez aimer lire notre magazine, Kameryn Whyte

EDITOR'S NOTE We can change the world for the better if we recognize the injustices and work together to create an equal and just world for everyone! For this year’s issue of Afterimages, we stepped out of our comfort zones in an attempt to look at the theme of social (in)justice represented in film and other forms of digital media. The theme is broad so that it can include various interpretations that our writers are passionate about. We are looking at cinema that seeks to make social change and analyzing films that represent the injustice we see and face in our society. I believe that film is a powerful medium that allows filmmakers to be able to convey informational and inspirational messages to large audiences. We want to open up a discussion on various social (in)justices that we are passionate about, and we hope that you join our conversation and help us to find ways to improve our society for the better! I hope you enjoy reading our magazine, Kameryn Whyte

LEVITHAN: OUTSIDE THE WOMB BY MARIE-JEANNE BROUILLETTE EDITED BY NICOLE RICHARDSON Leviathan, an unusual documentary by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, was first screened in 2012 at the Locarno film festival in Switzerland. The film documents a ship of the commercial fishing industry. Leviathan is a 90-minute film told from the objective point of view of the ship, as it witnesses the horrors which happen upon it. Due to my prior knowledge of both the fishing industry as well as the basic conventions which make up documentary, I must say that I had some assumptions about what this film might consist of. However, upon viewing Leviathan, the film surprised me; while I still think of the fishing industry as a harmful industry, it made me question what formal qualities constitute documentary. Unlike most documentaries, the filmmaker exists as a passive character in

the film as there is absolutely no diegetic intervention. Documentaries tend to be constructed, framed, and organized with interviews, scenes and other forms of intervention which present to the viewer a complete thought; the filmmaker “chooses’’ what is of enough value to be documented. However, in this documentary there is no coherent thought or prepared scenes: the filmmaker is instead presented as a furtive camera making its way through the boat, through the ocean, grasping at some conversations. There is nothing rehearsed, the camera simply exists as a gentle presence which does not value certain moments over others. The camera floats in the dark, and while there is no direct explanation of what is documented, we understand that we are

on a ship at night. As tension builds, viewers are met with feelings of impatience; it is hard to understand what we are seeing, it is too dark. Slowly, as action aboard the ship builds, the audience is presented with images of various hooks and chains. In addition to this, there is an underlying text which accompanies these images throughout the duration of the film. Sometimes the images are aligned with the accompanying text, while other times, the images drift away from the cohesion of the text to explore the ship. The incoherence which occurs between text and image therefore creates a tension from which the audience is expected to construct a narrative. This allows a fiction to be created within the objective lens of documentary. Therefore, what makes this film a documentary is its objective, non-selective approach. There seems to be randomness as if we are a phantom passing through the ship, only there to observe. This is ultimately what creates tension between notions of fiction and documentary within Leviathan. Due to the films lack of coherent structure, and through the use of ambiguous images and sounds, the spectator can create their own subjective opinion, not based on logic but on senses. Being passive rather than active, the camera acts as a quiet poetic vessel. It is only there to absorb the information it is given. It does not judge nor does it condemn what it sees. The colours in the documentary are also quite garish: going from green to vivid red. The colours play to our senses in a surreal and jarring way. The colours of the ship, of the fish, of the ocean and the blood are all mixed together in each frame. At one point, the camera is lowered to be at the same height as a tank filled with dead fish. The camera passively observes these fish as they squirm upon one another. We can almost smell the fish because of the intense intimacy of this shot. As the camera observes conversations between the men on board, viewers are presented with banal discussions, unrelated to

CRONK, JORDAN. â&#x20AC;&#x153;LEVIATHAN.â&#x20AC;? SLANT MAGAZINE, 14 SEPTEMBER 2012, SCREENSHOT. 21 MARCH 2017.

the goings on of the ship. The most disturbing aspects of the film occur when the camera drifts away from the men, observing the fish in the tank, the ship, and other various goings on, while simultaneously the subtitles remain at the bottom of the screen. There is an apparent dissociation that the fishermen have to do in order to properly function, while doing their job, without getting overwhelmed. They talk about women, vacation, and other topics unrelated to fishing. It is especially disturbing when they make sexist comments in relation to women, which echoes their actions of distributing the fish for consumption as both sexism and speciesism and are closely related to objectification. In many ways, the aesthetic qualities of Leviathan could be compared to the birthing process, from the point of view of the baby. When the baby is in the womb, he feels safe and protected in the amniotic liquid of the belly. He is in darkness for quite some time, and might experience sensory feelings less vividly than once he is brought into the world. Once birthed, the baby is in shock, much like a fish out of water due to the experience of air, light and colours. This film resembles birthing, because it is unfamiliar, it overwhelms the senses and it functions as a shock to the viewer: the colours, images and sounds hurt and confuse us. Additionally, birth, quite often, resembles death, it is so near to the unfamiliar, so out of the norm that we think we

can’t survive it. The camera in Leviathan could be likened to a fish experiencing these processes of death or re-birth. As a spectator, I find it quite empowering that the filmmaker allows the public to make their own informed decisions in regards to the information that the film presents to us. We can decide for ourselves if what the camera objectively presents to us is something we want to perpetuate by eating fish, or not. The point

of view of the camera, of the phantom of death, made me feel like a fish out of water, where my senses were submerged and I felt completely disoriented. As humans, it is hard to empathize with a species that is so far away from us in form: but this film cuts the cord of speciesism first hand, without warning.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Leviathan. Directed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, Cinema Guild, 2012. Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vntC7OPDHs8 About Speciesism http://www.animalequality.net/speciesism-antispeciesism Photograph Cronk, Jordan. “Leviathan.” Slant Magazine, 14 September 2012, Screenshot. 21 March 2017.

A QUEER MAN SHOWING SOLIDARITY TO ADOPTEE ACTIVISTS

BY PASCAL HUYNH

EDITED BY KAMERYN WHYTE I’m queer and a person of color. Though in this article, it’s not the rights of my people which will be discussed, but the rights of the victims of queers’ new privileges: adopted people and their parents. Adoption of an unrelated individual as we know it today in the West is a social practice that is rarely discussed critically. It’s benignly accepted that adopting equates to a humanitarian and selfless gesture, and that it should be universally encouraged. More importantly, it’s never read as impeding on the human rights of children and their parents. Myself, I had assumed that I’d adopt a

MY INVISIBLE MOTHER (2016), BY PASCAL HUYNH. COURTESY OF PASCAL HUYNH

child because there are so many individuals in need of a loving home and it would be selfish to create a child of my own. I had the chance, through a documentary project, to interview adoptees’ rights activists and understand, to my surprise, that this way of thinking must cease. The passive discourse around adoption is partly caused by the portrayal of adopted people on films and television in strictly emotional terms through stories of reunion, search and identity. We’ve been accustomed to this limited framing where the adopted person becomes a sentimental display for the adopter’s benevolence. That narrow narrative undermines the potential of any political discussion around the power dynamics that generate family separation in the first place. When we talk about adoption amongst higher social classes, it’s always in terms of reproductive rights, when it’s actually an issue of reproductive justice. On one hand, upper and middle class westerners are seeking solutions for either their infertility or for fulling their ideals of a family and are claiming rights to access parenthood. On the other hand, activists in reproductive justice are fighting for family preservation within disempowered communities through holistic approaches: creating parental resilience, promoting social connections, teaching parenting skills and child development, concrete family support in times of need, collaborating among the several community and/or neighborhood systems that are directly involved in the family, and the list goes on. To fully understand the debate, adoption has to be examined throughout its history. Before the 1970s, unmarried mothers, also called “les filles-mères” in Québec, were shamed by an intrinsically sexist society. The unwed mothers who often were confused by the transformation of their bodies through pregnancy and at the same time afraid of the consequences of the stigma they bore, had to either surrender their babies to their death,

go through dangerous backyard abortions or pretend their newborn was a younger sibling. Most fathers simply remained invisible out of guilt, leaving the mothers on their own. Thus, with the increasing amount of children in the streets, the Grey Nuns created orphanages one of which, by the way, was newly acquired by Concordia University on Guy street. This social phenomenon was carried out through the clergy who was enforcing values which stigmatized unwed pregnancy, and at the same time, they were going around the province to sell the illegitimate children in rural homes. In the mid 19th century, the Sisters of Mercy were created out of the need to shelter unwed mothers from the public’s eyes. They created in Montreal an unwed mothers’ home located on René-Lévesque, which interestingly enough, I can see from my bedroom window. Today, this building is vacant and in a poor condition. Now owned by Université du Québec à Montréal, it is roamed by only a handful of security officers, unwilling to answer to any of my questions about its dark history. I found one of the last Sisters of Mercy alive who worked in those homes. From her point of view, mothers were well treated to the point that some of them remained lifelong friends. She dismisses the claims made by mothers saying they were coerced into surrendering their children to adoption. In 2012, the National Post published a story “where most of the mothers interviewed [...] said the coercion was systematic: From the church-run maternity homes where accommodation was sometimes predicated on adoption and where mothers had to write a letter to their unborn child explaining the separation; to the social workers who concealed information about social assistance and who told single mothers they could be charged with child endangerment; to the medical staff who called the women “sluts” and denied them painkillers, and who reportedly tied teenagers to their beds or obstructed their view of labour with a sheet.”1

The reason why we don’t hear much about it is that many of these mothers have internalized the shame and side with the sisters who enforced family separation. When interviewing the Sisters of Mercy’s spokesperson, there was still today no understanding that something better could have been done. It was described that a good social worker’s role was to remind the mother of society’s oppression. They’d discourage the mothers from keeping their children by repeating throughout their pregnancy that they’d be selfish mothers if they kept their babies. They’d remind the mother that she’d be discriminated at her workplace and that no man would want to marry her thereafter. The spokesperson explained, “It was for the child’s best interest.” The popular understanding is that mothers made a willing choice of relinquishing their child. In my view, all surrendered children have been made through subtle systems of coercion. Would a woman with the tools, means, and dignity make the same choices? During an interview for my upcoming documentary on adoption issues a mother described to me: “Those homes for unwed mothers were just like a machine; eating you and throwing you back in society with no support. No one ever explained to me anything of what I was about to live through.” But things shifted around the world for women starting in the late 60s. In Quebec, under Trudeau and Bourassa’s governments, the Council for Women’s Status was created. Women had access to paid maternity leave, tax deduction for child care expenses, legal abortion, the pill and increased child allowances. The Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms was adopted which enshrines gender equality and prohibits discrimination in hiring and promotion on grounds related to sex, marital status or pregnancy. In other words, women had access to financial means

and consequently were able to raise their children. Eerily, this history sounds exactly similar to what has been recognized in Australia as the Forced Adoption Era. Unlike Canadian women, the Australians have developed a political language to understand the horrors that happened to them. In 2013, the first female prime minister of the country made national apologies to mothers, fathers and adopted people who were victims of this discriminatory system. Canada has a long way to go. Mothers here still internalize their shame and only a few have come out of the fog. With the rise of women’s rights, the number of local adoptable children dropped drastically. And in response to the market shift, international adoption boomed. At the end of the American War in Vietnam in 1975, three thousand “war orphans” were put on planes and shipped to the West. This event captured popular imagination under the name of the “Babylift Operation”. Soon, couples were putting greater pressures on the government to systemize international adoption. Baby trafficking exploded and it took a decade later to become regulated. In parallel, in vitro fertilization (IVF) was being developed by researchers around the world. Pioneer in IVF, Alan Trounson describes: What had happened in the late ‘60s, is that abortion was made available to women, and so suddenly there were no babies for adoption. We had to develop something different because the physicians who were then treating women for infertility were being pressured much more to get a solution, and so IVF was born out of that particular need.2 Whilst in the West, we now feel uncomfortable to adopt out our single mothers’ children, hypocritically, we have lower standards for other countries: we’d gladly adopt children from South Korea’s single mothers who

suffer from the same social stigma that we had before the 70s. Have you noticed that adoption agencies portray potential adoptees as orphans? How uncomfortable would it be if those children were marketed with their mothers in the background as victims of systemic inequality? Let’s not forget, adoption is an industry after all, and like any other, it obeys to the same dynamics of supply and demand. With international adoption regulated and local adoption limited, the demand for babies was so strong that offshore surrogacy was created in the turn of the new millennia. As professors Cuthbert and Fronek explain in a report for the Australian Institute for Family Studies: Inequalities in wealth and power have always underwritten the exchange of children for adoption, and continue to underwrite the production of children in surrogacy arrangements. The children of the affluent are not and never have been exchanged to be raised by the poor. The shift from intercountry adoption to commercial offshore surrogacy does not change these political and economic dynamics, for all that it might (...) offer apparently progressive and transformative possibilities for parenthood outside heterosexist norms of family formation in Australia.3 The demand is driven from this very fact: in most cultures, womanhood and manhood are indissociable from parenthood. You can’t fully be a woman or a man if you haven’t raised a child. For death, we have funerals to help overcome the feelings of loss. With infertility, there are no tools. Therefore, many privileged infertile couples and individuals don’t know how to overcome childlessness and will have desperate recourse to three expensive family formation services: IVF, adoption or offshore surrogacy. For queer people, the mimicking of heteronormativity through the ownership of

children can allow some sense of belonging and acceptance within their own social realm. The impossibility of creating children through biological means is not dealt with emotionally, but instead with power and with money. Whether you know an adopted person or not, there are slight chances that you’ll hear an adoptee talking about this issue. Adoptees are an invisible minority of society. Often assimilated to their adoptive families, they are isolated from other adult adoptees and do not develop a political language around their unspoken reality. Many feel a split sense of belonging between their family and their adoptive family and prefer to keep their feelings quiet. It is usually later in their lives when their adoptive parents pass away or when they have their own children that they are triggered to speak critically about the injustices of adoption. That self-consignment is reaffirmed by Minnesota’s University’s study in 2008 showing that adoptees are 4 times more likely to commit suicide and self-harm than non-adopted persons, in addition to the fact there is an overrepresentation of adoptees in substance abuse.4 It’s a reality that can be compared to what queers were experiencing in the 60s, where most had double identities and hid their true selves, afraid of challenging their sense of belonging or causing damage to the family unit. To sum it up, the system of adoption is a service where the adopters are the main beneficiary. It’s not selfless. The UN Convention on the Rights of Children does remind us that adoption is not considered as humanitarian aid. In the words of Ontario Provincial Court judge Nevin, adoption is defined this way: The concept of adoption is a unique creature of statute that has been referred to as the most significant procedure which can arise within the legal system. It involves the total

extinguishment of the birth parents rights and the establishment, legally, retroactively and permanently, of the parent-child relationship between a child and a person who is not the biological parent of the child. Once an adoption order is made the child becomes the child of the adoptive parent and the adopted child ceases to be the child of the person who was his or her parent before the adoption order was made.5 In simple terms, adoption is the transfer of a child’s ownership. It fabricates a permanent identity unto the adopted person and guarantees the acquisition. In its core, adoption does not guarantee the child’s safety nor its well-being, unlike what popular culture likes to sell to us. Some adoptees do even consider the system as legalized human trafficking.6

adoption is left under the radar. It’s still too taboo to question its validity. As adoptees from around the world are now connecting through the Internet, they are starting to understand that their personal experiences are political. Hopefully, in the near future, they will be able to claim justice without being dismissed for being ungrateful. For that, we need to recognize that adoptees are a minority that still don’t have a voice and they need to reclaim their own stories.

ENDNOTES 1

Carlson, Katheryn Blaze. (March 9th 2012). Curtain lifts on decades

of forced adoptions for unwed mothers in Canada. The National Post. Retrieved from <http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/ curtain-lifts-on-decades-of-forced-adoptions-for-unwed-mothers-in-

As a filmmaker, I am concerned by the lack of diversity in the narratives on adoption. Adopters often flood the media coverage saying how hard, long and expensive it is to adopt. What we are missing is the voice of adult adoptees speaking critically against the system of adoption.

canada>

This is what led me to make “My Invisible Mother”, an animated documentary that portrays an adult adoptee who recalls the social realities that forced his mother to put him up for adoption. It’s really short – three minutes long – but it achieves two important things: (1) adoption is not told from the adopter’s perspective and (2) adoption is not advertised as a happy-forever fairytale. The film has won “Best Documentary” at the Canberra Short Film Festival, which has symbolic value since it was also where the National Apologies for Forced Adoption was made in 2013.

Donovan, B. (Writer & Producer). (2011). The baby maker.

Australian Story [Television series]. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved from <www.abc.net.au/austory/transcripts/ s289014.htm>. 3

Cuthbert, D. and Fronek, P. (2014) Perfecting adoption? Reflections

on the rise of commercial offshore surrogacy and family formation in Australia, p.56. Margaret A. Keyes, Stephen M. Malone, Anu Sharma, William G.

Iacono, Matt McGue. (2013). Risk of Suicide Attempt in Adopted and Nonadopted Offspring. Retrieved from: <http://pediatrics. aappublications.org/content/ early/2013/09/04/peds.2012-3251>. 5

Duhaime, Lloyd. (2011). Adoption Law in Canada. Retrieved

from: <http://www.duhaime.org/LegalResources/ FamilyLaw/ LawArticle-190/Adoption-Law-in-Canada.aspx> 6

Dohle, A. (2008),

Against Child Trafficking

. Retrieved from: <http://

www.againstchildtrafficking.org/>

Have you ever heard anyone talk against adoption? Like in any debate such as abortion, immigration or gay rights, we hear both arguments for and against. However,

L’INJUSTICE SOCIALE CHEZ DE Clint Eastwood (Invictus, True Crime, Honkytonk Man, B Wild Boys of the Road) PAR VINCENT ZEIS RÉVISÉ PAR EMILY JEANETTE HORSHAM ET ANTOINE RACICOT L’époque de la Grande Dépression est souvent illustrée au cinéma. Elle sert d’habitude des histoires de violence et de misère illustrant le genre du film de gangsters avec des titres célèbres tels que The Public Enemy (Wellman, 1931) ou bien Scarface (Hawks & Rosson, 1932). Mais des problèmes brûlants de cette période comme la pauvreté étendue et la délinquance juvénile sont exprimés par certains films en particulier : Heroes for Sale (Wellman, 1933), Wild Boys of the Road (Wellman, 1933) et Honkytonk Man (Eastwood, 1982). Ces films abordent les problèmes de la Grande Dépression avec vigueur par des signes visuels comme la poussière recouvrant un décor ou bien avec l’image frappante des trains bondés de vagabonds. Ce sont des films essentiellement visuels dont l’action est représentée par un travail photographique. L’erreur judiciaire est une thématique importante dans ces films où les vagabonds sont dépeints sous un jour positif, atteignant le constat politique par l’émotion des drames humains. Le but principal du récit et du travail esthétique est d’approfondir une mythologie. Chez Wellman comme chez Eastwood, les personnages importants sont des redresseurs de torts et des figures mythologiques : les personnages de Dorothy Coonan dans Wild Boys of the Road comme incarnation de l’image du vagabond révolté et insouciant et le personnage de Richard Bathelmess dans Heroes for Sale comme archétype de l’ancien combattant à la dérive. D’autres personnages ont une valeur mythologique dans certains films de Clint Eastwood: Nelson Mandela en président

iconique pour toute la nation (de manière plus occidentale qu’africaine sans doute) dans Invictus (Eastwood, 2009), le cowboy de cirque aux costumes de scène étincelants défendant la veuve et l’orphelin dans Bronco Billy (Eastwood, 1980) et le chanteur de country dans Honkytonk Man toujours à moitié caché par l’ombre ou un par un chapeau dissimulant son visage, à la fois génie musical et figure retorse et mystérieuse. Dans l’ouvrage que lui consacre Michael Henry Wilson, Clint Eastwood dit : « j’ai rencontré des personnages tels que Red Stovall. Ça m’a sans doute aidé à recréer l’atmosphère ».1 Les personnages de ces films deviennent ainsi des figures noircies par la photographie. Ils évoluent dans des atmosphères chargées qui les éclairent à moitié, ce qui signifie une grande puissance de l’obscurité comme vecteur d’oppression visuelle. Ces figures sont également valorisées par leur mystère. Dans Honkytonk Man ou Heroes for Sale, les personnages sont des inconnus au départ dont les multiples facettes sont révélées au courant du film, démontrant leurs caractères par leurs actions. Des images fortes expriment les situations d’injustice : la ligne de séparation de la voie ferrée de Wild Boys of the Road, les deux côtés du bureau présidentiel dans Invictus ou encore les barreaux d’une prison dans True Crime (Eastwood, 1999). Le style photographique employé par les cinéastes compose une forme de réalisme magique : l’oppression économique est représentée

ES CINÉASTES “JUSTICIERS” Bronco Billy) et William A. Wellman (Heroes for Sale,

(Internet Movie Firearms Database)

par un noir et blanc ou des couleurs délavées qui dramatisent les situations réalistes et peuvent les rendre presque fantomatiques. Clint Eastwood serait alors « un fantôme qui hante l’Amérique » pour reprendre un titre des Cahiers du cinéma. Ainsi les jeunes gens ou les parias de ces films sont des victimes parce qu’ils sont obligés de bouger plus vite, de fuir et de se réfugier dans l’ombre en devenant des fantômes. De même, les héros de Clint Eastwood sont des hommes de l’ombre dont la photographie souligne le profil, mais qui s’expriment peu et souffrent en silence, restant dans une dignité des allures et des attitudes morales. Il en va ainsi pour les personnages Mandela, Beechum et Stovall. Par ailleurs, les surfaces contrastées sont exploitées par exemple avec la pluie dans Heroes for Sale qui accentue les noirs et les blancs de la

photographie tout en les nuançant de toute une palette de gris. De même, des contrastes entre l’égalité et l’inégalité interviennent chez Clint Eastwood, mais il est plus concerné par les marginaux formant une petite communauté parfois familiale ou sportive par rapport à Wellman qui s’intéresse plus au tragique des destinées individuelles maudites et aux forces sourdes, conspirations ou processus économiques, qui influent sur la trajectoire sociale. De même, le suspense est utilisé pour traiter les questions de l’oppression souvent dans des espaces clos et avec des éclairages réduits par exemple pour le suspense final de True Crime. Ce film organise une situation

d’injustice comme une course contre la montre en même temps qu’un manifeste esthétique. Comme le définit Michael Henry Wilson dans son livre sur Clint Eastwood : « le personnage le plus vulnérable n’est pas le condamné, mais le journaliste »2 Ces cinéastes organisent en creux une dénonciation des injustices économiques. Les banques et les pouvoirs publics y sont insidieusement plus incriminés que les méfaits qu’ils occasionnent. Ces films sont des lamentations pudiques et retenues sur des situations socio-économiques propices au drame puis à la tragédie. C’est-à-dire que les hommes y sont souvent montrés souffrants, maltraités ou exploités comme des bêtes : battues, maladies, vagabondages forcés, difficultés à trouver de la nourriture et trahisons y sont nombreux. En témoignent les scènes de personnages accablés par le pouvoir judiciaire et les violences policières où les cinéastes insistent sur le caractère oppressif du pouvoir par l’utilisation de cadrages réduisant les espaces ou bien par des compositions éloquentes telles que dans la scène d’Invictus, où Matt Damon est filmé entre deux gardes du corps, ou bien dans celle de Wild Boys of the Road avec un juge filmé en contre-plongées accentuant son emprise sur les jeunes délinquants. Dans le même film, les policiers sont filmés du point de vue des jeunes comme des menaces à moitié visibles.

L’expression cinématographique est composée de formes denses : les cadrages incorporent de nombreux détails dans les décors et la lumière, les durées des plans sont généralement longues et focalisées sur des actions peu découpées laissant les acteurs libres de leurs rythmes. La caméra peut alors se frayer un chemin pour exprimer au mieux toutes les dimensions du drame relativement aux différentes composantes de la réalité, le montage laissant les actions se développer et s’épuiser en plans fixes privilégiant la profondeur de champ. Par exemple dans ce plan de Honkytonk Man. Selon René Prédal dans son livre Esthétique de la mise en scène : Parmi ces figures le plan-séquence est certainement le plus mythique, sorte de symbole du cinéma par excellence, dont la virtuosité magistrale attesterait la qualité du metteur en scène, apportant la preuve par sa beauté de la nature éminemment artistique du cinéma.3 Ce qui montre que la continuité est importante dans la mise en scène de Heroes for Sale qui explore les lieux en même temps que Richard Barthelmess tout comme dans celles de Honkytonk Man et de Bronco Billy qui accompagnent les trajets récurrents des personnages dans des odyssées douloureuses, mais aussi picaresques dont les changements de ton ne font que mieux ressortir le caractère foncièrement tragique. Dans des compositions qui figurent l’écrasement et la répression, la mise en scène de ces deux cinéastes témoigne d’une froideur de l’approche commune qui montre le caractère implacable de l’injustice sociale. Ainsi selon André Bazin dans Qu’est-ce que le cinéma ?:

(WARNER BROS. 1933)

Chez Orson Welles, la technique n’est pas seulement une façon de mettre en scène, elle met en cause la nature même de l’histoire.

(THIS DISTRACTED GLOBE, 2010)

Avec elle, le cinéma s’éloigne un peu plus du théâtre, devient moins un spectacle qu’un récit. Comme dans le roman en effet, ici ce n’est pas seulement le dialogue, la clarté descriptive mais le style imprimé au langage qui crée le sens.4 Ainsi le récit de ces films va se déployer dans la clarté descriptive d’un style qui se développe au fur et à mesure, résultat d’une confrontation d’une technique à l’histoire qu’elle doit raconter. En particulier, l’utilisation des gros plans acquiert souvent une dimension picturale pour représenter la Passion des opprimés du système socio-économique qu’ils soient errants ou enfermés. Le regard des acteurs va exprimer cette résignation. Pour eux, l’art et la culture sont dépeints comme un moyen de survie. L’injustice sociale frappe d’abord les jeunes et les minorités ethniques, mais touche aussi les déclassés et les parias de la société qui peuvent se rassembler pour s’entraider. Mais le regard dépassionné que posent les cinéastes sur cette situation ne laisse pas d’équivoque quant à l’issue tragique ou du moins amère de ces trajectoires dans la misère, la solitude, la maladie ou la marginalité. Ce qui rejoint la conception suivante : « le gros plan appartient au montage, son émotion n’est pas autonome ni déconnectée et, cependant,

elle s’offre aussi comme émotion du portrait, extase ou tragédie du visage » que développe Pierre Berthomieu dans Hollywood : Le temps des géants.5 La mise en scène de Wellman et Eastwood dans ces films est dénuée de fioritures de narration ou de représentation. Elle repose sur une description concise des actions, sur des jeux d’acteurs minimalistes et peu démonstratifs. Cette sécheresse représentative fait corps avec une conception de l’oppression et de l’injustice sociale comme force abstraire et surhumaine s’attaquant à chacun de manière d’autant plus redoutable qu’elle est dépassionnée.

RÉFÉRENCES 1

Michael Henry Wilson, Eastwood par Eastwood, Cahiers du Cinéma,

collection Albums, 2010, 47. 2

Michael Henry Wilson, Eastwood par Eastwood, Cahiers du Cinéma,

collection Albums, 2010, 146. 3

René Prédal, Esthétique de la mise en scène, Cerf, collection 7ème Art,

2007, 175. 4

André Bazin, Qu’est-ce que le cinéma ?, Cerf, collection 7ème Art,

1976 5

Pierre Berthomieu, Hollywood : Le temps des géants, Rouge Profond,

2009

PROBLEMATIC REPRESENTATIONS WITHIN SPANISH POSTCOLONIAL CINEMA BY KAMERYN WHYTE

Postcolonial cinema consists of films that focus on the history of colonialism and its effects on the colonized. Although, in Spain there are not very many films that focus on their history as colonizers or their relationship as neo-imperialists/neo-colonialists with their former colonies. Palm Trees in the Snow (Molina, 2015) is a contemporary Spanish co-production that focuses on a love story between a Spanish colonist and a Bubi woman. It follows Clarence as she travels to Bioko in her quest to discover her family’s history, her grandfather, father and uncle were Spanish colonists in Fernando Poo and she found out that her uncle Killian had a love affair with a Bioko native named Bisila. The film consists largely of flashbacks in Bioko in the 1950s and 1960s where we see Killian and Bisila’s relationship develop. The film ends with Clarence finding out the truth about her father and uncle’s past in Bioko and later reuniting with Bisila’s and Killian’s children, Fernando and Iniko. The flashbacks follow Killian from when he arrives in Bioko in the 50s to begin his job as an overseer on a coffee plantation, to the 70s after Equitorial Guinea became a Republic and deported Killian (and all other Spaniards on the island). Although Spain’s colonial history in Equitorial Guinea (Spanish Guinea) is central to the

narrative, the film glides over the cruelties and atrocities committed by the Spanish colonizers during this time period in favour of a typical forbidden love story. This is the problematic aspect of Spanish Postcolonial cinema that will be explored and explained in this article. By looking at postcolonial cinema in Europe, the film industry in Spain and looking at Tambíen la Lluvia (Bolláin, 2010) as a secondary case study, this article will demonstrate how Spanish Postcolonial cinema does not represent the entirety of Spain’s colonial history and how Palm Trees in the Snow is a contemporary example of this misrepresentation of history. Firstly, Palm Trees in the Snow is a film that exemplifies the tendency for Postcolonial cinema in Europe to misrepresent and downplay the reality and history of the colonized. In Ponzanesi’s article about Postcolonial cinema from the South of Europe, she writes, “Postcolonial cinema in Europe explores in particular how identity, space and language are represented, articulated and visualized. It often focuses, […] on migration as a material and existential journey.”1 Palm Trees in the Snow explores the themes of identity, language, and home as we see Killian’s struggle with a sense of belonging in Bioko. Killian

comes back to Bioko to find out more about the place where he was born, along with his father and brother he acts as a supervisor on the plantation, while in his free time he reads about and explores the island and its native inhabitants. Throughout the film he goes back and forth between Spanish and Guinean identity as he learns to speak Bube in order to command the workers and communicate with Bisila. He even considers himself a native of the island, rather than a foreigner, that is until after the colony becomes a republic and they force all the Spaniards to leave, then Killian refers to himself and his wife Bisila as Spanish citizens. Notably, this film focuses on the themes surrounding the Spanish perspective of colonialism in Bioko. In talking about the use of flashbacks cinematically, Ferreira states, “Flashbacks as narrative technique in both films are essential to providing a healing from the past. They help to establish the idea that history is remembered in an impersonal and correct way,–”2 Flashbacks are often used throughout this film and they tend to present the idea that Killian’s perspective on the events that transpired in Bioko during his time are entirely factual, but this is an

incorrect presentation of the facts. Although Killian was portrayed as a “good guy” in this film, he most definitely had a biased outlook on Spanish colonization as he found nothing wrong with his presence in Bioko and his role on the plantation. Thus, viewing most of the film from the perspective of Killian’s flashbacks depicts an equally biased view of Spanish colonization in Bioko, there is only one scene demonstrating colonial violence toward the plantation workers where a hesitant Killian whips one of the workers. The rest of the film focuses on Killian’s forbidden relationship with Bisila, and the rest of the violence seen in the film is committed by the Bubi’s in their uprising against the Spanish. This type of representation and depiction is problematic because it downplays the role of the Spanish during the colonial period. In her analysis of Portuguese Postcolonial cinema, Ferreira notes, “[…] a contextualization of the colonized African countries is omitted from both films, with Africa featuring only as a landscape of backdrop to the events concerning the Portuguese protagonists. Moreover, both films downplay cruelty or racism against indigenous people–”3 Palm Trees in the Snow follows

PALM TREES IN THE SNOW (2015) DIRECTED BY FERNANDO GONZÁLEZ MOLINA, PICTURED: KILLIAN (MARIO CASAS)

this same model as the film features Bioko as a backdrop to the love story between Killian and Bisila. It focuses on Killian and Clarence’s journeys of self-identity, and the fact that Killian and his family are Spanish colonizers that enslaved the native population (just in a more “legal way” than American slavery) is only a small and largely skipped over aspect of their history. Clarence even attempts to correct Iniko; when he states that her family members were Spanish colonists, she says that they were estate workers and that they were different than colonists. Therefore, this softer representation of Spanish colonization in Bioko is problematic because it depicts a tragic historical moment from the side of the oppressor, which results in a downplaying of Spanish colonial history. This film is about how two people from different countries fell in love and were separated due to colonialism and its legacy, yet we are missing the entire accuracy and prominence of that colonial history that led to their meeting and eventual separation. Moreover, distribution and exhibition circuits play a role in shaping Spanish Postcolonial cinema due to the availability and nature of funding for Spanish films. In their discussion of the transnational circulation of Spanish cinema in the digital age, Binimelis and colleagues note, “Many current productions are financed by multiple institutions in several countries, while the production and circulation of films outside of institutional frameworks is also increasing, thanks to the possibilities opened up by digital tools”4 Palm Trees in the Snow was co-produced by two Spanish production companies, one Columbian production company and Warner Bros International, these institutions gave the film a budget of ten million euros.5 This large budget allows the filmmaker to create and market the film in a way that represents and promotes Spanish cinema internationally. One of the ways the film achieved this international recognition was through the circulation of the film, it was screened in Spanish and American film festivals, it screened in theatres across

Spain and it is available for international viewing on Netflix. This will allow the film to be viewed worldwide, and on Netflix the film is labeled under the category of “Spanish Films”, thus allowing the film to be viewed by a larger audience and be consumed as an example of Spanish cinema. The intended audience and circulation platforms for this film shaped the nature and content within the film so as to appeal to international and Spanish audiences. Another way that the film achieves its appeal is through the use of its accompanying genre as a road movie. As Berger writes in her article about genres, “Being a worldwide wellselling film genre […], road movies focusing on postcolonial narratives like the return journey there are especially suitable for an intertwining of past, present and future as well as for the transformative potential of postcolonial identities.”6 Road movies that focus on postcolonial narratives are films that tend to do well in film markets worldwide. Therefore, the fact that this film is a road movie that focuses on the postcolonial narrative in relation to Killian and Bisila’s forbidden romance attributes to its potential success and consumption internationally as a staple of Spanish cinema. It made sixteen million euros at the Spanish box office due to its consumerization, it is a road movie that features a love story during Spanish colonization in Africa, but it does not actually show enough of the reality of colonization to cause Spanish audiences to feel a sense of guilt or discomfort due to their history. Thus, this side-stepping of history through the use of the road movie genre allows the film to gain funding from Spanish production companies (among others), as these companies are not likely to fund films that paint a negative view of Spain nor are Spanish audiences likely to enjoy a film that depicts their ancestry in a negative light. In addition, Palm Trees in the Snow was made for commercial distribution rather than historical accuracy. The film’s director (Fernando González Molina) is known for making commercially-driven comedies, the scriptwriter (Sergio G. Sanchez) is known for

PALM TREES IN THE SNOW (2015) DIRECTED BY FERNANDO GONZÁLEZ MOLINA, PICTURED (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT): BISILA (BERTA VÁZQUEZ) AND KILLIAN (MARIO CASAS)

his work in Spanish commercial successes The Orphanage (Bayona, 2007) and The Impossible (Bayona, 2012). Even the book that the film is based on is a best-selling novel written by a popular author: Luz Gabás.7 As can be seen by the commercial notoriety of the major parties involved in the making of this film, it is clear that the film was intended for local and international viewing, which would give Spanish cinema more visibility in international markets. Furthermore, the misrepresentation of Spanish colonial history in Palm Trees in the Snow is part of its ability to be marketed both domestically and internationally, which is similar to También la Lluvia. Similar to Palm Trees in the Snow, También la Lluvia is a Spanish film that focuses on Spanish colonialism and neocolonialism from the perspective of the colonizer. Bolláin was an innovative Spanish director, in the sense that she made a film that demonstrated a side of Spanish colonization that was not previously shown in Spanish cinema. As

Wheeler states, “This film is a long overdue reappraisal of Spain’s imperial past which, at least in cinematic terms, has been systematically evaded.”8 The film contains a film-within-a-film plot where a Spanish producer (Costa) and Mexican director (Sebastián) are making a film about Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas. Bollaín’s film features a more accurate, cruel depiction of Columbus and the atrocities he committed against the indigenous people after his invasion of their land. Whereas, Palm Trees in the Snow paints a more peaceful and sympathetic picture of Spanish colonizers. As Hulme-Lippert points out in her article about neocolonialism and human rights, “También la Lluvia, often represents present-day Bolivians and the inhabitants of sixteenth-century Hispaniola as people in need of ‘rescuing’[…], resulting in what can be considered a neocolonialist depiction of these social actors.”9 Palm Trees in the Snow and También la Lluvia are depictions of Spanish colonization from the perspective of the colonizer, which

PALM TREES IN THE SNOW (2015) DIRECTED BY FERNANDO GONZÁLEZ MOLINA, PICTURED: KILLIAN (MARIO CASAS), BISILA (BERTA VÁZQUEZ) AND THEIR CHILDREN.

is problematic because it provides a biased and therefore slightly inaccurate representation of Spanish colonization. It is problematic because these films have been and will continue to be circulated internationally and will thus paint a passive and inaccurate picture of Spanish colonization for an international audience, leading viewers to be misinformed about these tragic historical moments. Furthermore, También la Lluvia is a film that profits off of the very thing it seeks to criticize. As Hulme-Lippert points out in her article on this film, También la Lluvia could also be considered to fall within the category of ‘issuetainment’ cinema. That is, mainstream films that attempt to foster global awareness regarding particular social issues, but actually reify conservative values and hegemonic powers given their dependence on a global free-market economy and entertainment-focused conventions.10

This film is a big budget commercial production that demonstrates Spain’s maintenance of its neocolonial position over Latin American countries, which is the same problem that Bollaín criticizes in her film. While the film criticizes the unethical actions of Costa and Sebastián in making their film and profiting off of it, Bollaín ironically does the same by profiting off of the low-cost of making her film in Bolivia. Therefore, También la Lluvia and Palm Trees in the Snow are prime examples of Spanish Postcolonial cinema that are misrepresentations of Spanish colonial history due to their tendency to focus on only one side of history, the side of the colonizer. Overall, Palm Trees in the Snow is a Spanish Postcolonial film that exemplifies the tendency for films to feature inaccurate representation of Spain’s colonial history in Spanish cinema. In this film, the role of Spanish colonizers is downplayed as can be seen through the attempts by the filmmaker to draw sympathy

for Killian and his family from the audience. In reality, Killian and his family are Spanish colonists that force the Bubi people to work for low wages (if any at all), but the film is made to focus on the forbidden love of Killian and Bisila. Moreover, the funding sources for this film and the intended circulation and exhibition circuits shape the way this film was made so it could be marketed towards an international market. Forbidden love stories sell, and although the nature of their love story is heavily related to Spanish colonialism, the accuracy of this history is not as important as the construction and consumption of the love story between Killian and Bisila. In addition, También la Lluvia is a film that depicts Spanish colonialism from the perspective of the colonizer, which is problematic and results in a misrepresentation of history. In order to accurately depict history in Postcolonial Cinema, it should feature a combination of stories from both sides of colonialism.

Hulme-Lippert, Michelle. “Negotiating Human Rights in Icíar Bollaín’s

También la Lluvia.” In Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1, 2016: 106. 10

Hulme-Lippert, Michelle. “Negotiating Human Rights in Icíar Bollaín’s

También la Lluvia.” In Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1, 2016: 106.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Berger, Verena. “Going Home’: mobility and return journeys in French and Spanish road movies.” In Transnational Cinemas, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2016: 168-182. Binimelis, Mar, Josetxo Cerdán and Miguel Fernández Labayen. “In and out: the transnational circulation of Spanish cinema in digital times.” In Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2015: 1-8. De Pablos, Emiliano, “Hollywood Investment in Spanish Coproductions Paying Off” Variety. Accessed 10 Dec. 2016. Ferreira, Carolin Overhoff. “Decolonizing the mind? The representation of the African Colonial War in Portuguese Cinema.” In Studies in European Cinema, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2005: 227-239. Hulme-Lippert, Michelle. “Negotiating Human Rights in Icíar Bollaín’s También la Lluvia.” In Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1, 2016: 105-122. También La Lluvia. Dir. Icíar Bollaín, Vitagraph Films, 2010. Palm Trees in the Snow. Dir. Fernando González Molina, Nostromos

ENDNOTES 1

Ponzanesi, Sandra. “On the Waterfront.” In Interventions, Vol. 18, No.

2, 2016: 218. 2

Ferreira, Carolin Overhoff. “Decolonizing the mind? The

representation of the African Colonial War in Portuguese Cinema.” In

Pictures, 2015. “Palm Trees in the Snow.” IMDb.com, http://www.imdb.com/title/ tt3202202/combined. Accessed 10 Dec. 2016. Ponzanesi, Sandra. “On the Waterfront.” In Interventions, Vol. 18, No. 2, 2016: 217-233. Wheeler, Duncan. “También la lluva/Even the Rain (Iciar Bollain, 2010):

Studies in European Cinema, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2005: 236.

social realism, transnationalism and (neo)colonialism.” In Spanish

Cinema 1973-2000: 239-255.

Ferreira, Carolin Overhoff. “Decolonizing the mind? The

representation of the African Colonial War in Portuguese Cinema.” In Studies in European Cinema, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2005: 236. 4

Binimelis, Mar, Josetxo Cerdán and Miguel Fernández Labayen. “In

and out: the transnational circulation of Spanish cinema in digital times.” In Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2015: 3. 5

“Palm Trees in the Snow.” IMDb.com, http://www.imdb.com/title/

tt3202202/combined. Accessed 10 Dec. 2016. 6

Berger, Verena. “Going Home’: mobility and return journeys in French

and Spanish road movies.” In Transnational Cinemas, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2016: 178. 7

De Pablos, Emiliano, “Hollywood Investment in Spanish Coproductions

Paying Off” Variety. Accessed 10 Dec. 2016. 8

Wheeler, Duncan. “También la lluva/Even the Rain (Iciar Bollain,

2010): social realism, transnationalism and (neo)colonialism.” In Spanish Cinema 1973-2000: 245.

DO NOT RESIST BY PATRICK BLAIR

EDITED BY KAMERYN WHYTE Last year, Craig Atkinson released his newest documentary film, Do Not Resist (2016), which is a raw portrait of rapidly increasing militarization of police forces in the United States. Despite gathering positive reviews - with critics describing it with words like as “piercing,”1 “audacious,”2 “terrifying,”3 “chilling,” and “essential”4 - the film managed to garner minimal attention from the broader public who perhaps need to see it the most. This lack of visibility for the film can be assumed through its low box office earnings of $72,791. The militarization of police is a phenomenon that activists have been discussing for years, and is closely tied to the ongoing struggles against police violence that have grown in the United States. The film does not engage in polemics, instead opting for a largely observational approach. But against a societal backdrop of continuous police violence and repression of protest movements, the images can practically speak for themselves. As Donald Trump and his team of far-right racists, business elites, and military generals enter the White House with their overtures to “law and order,” the film is a frightening reminder of what the burgeoning resistance movement to the new administration will be up against. The film opens under a stormy sky in Ferguson, Missouri, ten days after the police killing of Michael Brown in 2014. A row of police officers stand by the side of the road as a line of protesters march by them chanting “No justice, no peace!” The protest goes on as the state-imposed curfew draws closer, and several heavily-armored vehicles

and dozens of riot police descend on the crowd. Protesters declare their intention to demonstrate peacefully, and the police immediately respond by launching tear gas at the crowd, breaking up the protest. Scenes like this have become increasingly common on the streets of the United States. It’s hard to divorce these protests, which have taken increasingly organized forms under the leadership of groups like Black Lives Matter, from the ongoing militarization of police that film documents so brilliantly. As the son of a former SWAT officer, Atkinson was able to gain the trust of the police units he documented, giving him and his crew one of the most intimate and frightening views into the ways that modern police forces operate. James Baldwin, the black American writer and the subject of a new documentary by Raoul Peck titled I Am Not Your Negro (2017), penned the famous article “A Report From Occupied Territory” in 1966, where he described the police in Harlem as an occupying force. On the relationship between the US police force and black Americans, he writes that [...] the police are simply the hired enemies of this population. They are present to keep the Negro in his place and to protect white business interests, and they have no other function. They are, moreover—even in a country which makes the very grave error of equating ignorance with simplicity—quite stunningly ignorant; and, since they know that they are hated, they are always afraid.

One cannot possibly arrive at a more surefire formula for cruelty.5 When watching the training seminars given by Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman, described in the film as the “number one trainer of all U.S. military and local law enforcement,” we catch a glimpse at how fear is utilized in the mentality of modern policing. Grossman, in his fiery lectures, makes it clear that he is preparing them for war. He compares the modern police to the iconic American frontiersman who fight “violence,” and must respond with “superior violence.” “Violence is the realm we operate in,” he says. The colonialist implications of these statements are palpable, with the recent violent police repression of indigenous resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline, and ultimate shutdown of the water protectors’ camp at Standing Rock in an operation described by The Guardian as a “military-style takeover.”6

Recent events at Standing Rock and the often violent police responses to protests over police killings reminds us once again of the historical role of the US police force, which is historically rooted in suppressing the revolts of slaves and indigenous peoples. The police force of St. Louis, for example - the city of which Ferguson is a suburb - was founded in frontier times to protect the city’s settlers from indigenous rebellions.7 In the US today, according to a recent study, unarmed black Americans are on average 3.49 times more likely to be shot by police than unarmed white Americans, and that number rises as high as 20 times in some counties.8 Black Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rates of whites (nearly 1 million out of a total 2.3 million prisoners). The US as a whole contains 25% of the world’s prisoners, despite making up only 5% of the world’s people.9 The Ku Klux Klan has historically worked hand-in-hand with police, and in recent years white supremacist groups have continued to infiltrate and recruit

DO NOT RESIST (2016) DIRECTED BY CRAIG ATKINSON

from law enforcement.10 This rapid militarization has been facilitated by $34 billion in grants from the Department of Homeland Security, as the film notes. Massive MRAP vehicles used in US wars on Iraq and Afghanistan have now found their way into small-town US police departments like those of Concord, New Hampshire, making James Baldwin’s “occupying army” thesis come full circle: the tools used by the US government to occupy countries abroad have now been brought back to use on the domestic population. We’re given a particularly egregious example of these tools in action in one scene of the film, where a SWAT team conducts a no-knock raid on the home of a young black man who is accused of drug trafficking. They break the windows, raid the home and force the family outside. After several minutes of looking for a drug stash, they find a mere gram and a half of marijuana in his backpack, which an officer

admits “appeared to be” for “personal use.” They arrest him and seize the money he was carrying as asset forfeiture. After raiding the home and terrorizing the family, a SWAT officer casually says to the camera: “Drug warrants are, you know, 50/50.” At a Cinema Politica screening of the film, Atkinson stated that when he was embedded with the police of St. Louis County, they conducted several of these raids per day. These SWAT raids have rapidly increased in frequency all over the country, as the film notes. In the year 1980, there were roughly 5,000 SWAT deployments nationwide. By 2005, it was about 45,000 and today, estimates range anywhere between 50,000 and 80,000. The film also explores new surveillance technology that has been employed by police forces. Private companies like Persistence Surveillance Systems have been contracted by police departments to provide low-cost aerial surveillance through the use of drones.

DO NOT RESIST (2016) DIRECTED BY CRAIG ATKINSON, PICTURED (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT): ANDERSON COOPER, MISSOURI POLICE OFFICERS, AND AN UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER.

In an interview with The Intercept, Atkinson stated that he and his crew “found [...] a whole slew of retired military officers now in the private sector now selling the exact same surveillance technology that they just got back from Iraq and Afghanistan with to local law enforcement for small money on the dollar.”11 This is just a one example of a growing arsenal of surveillance technology that more and more police departments have at their disposal. Moreover, the state is known to engage in surveillance against protesters. In 2015, The Intercept obtained “hundreds of documents” showing that The Department of Homeland Security - the agency behind the aforementioned $34 billion in grants - had been monitoring Black Lives Matter activists since the protests in Ferguson.12 In one scene of the film, we see a police officer browsing through Twitter posts with hashtags like ‘#IHATEPIGS’. President Trump has made clear his desire to increase the repression against those who protest him. In his campaign he famously reminisced about the “old days” where protesters would be “carried out on a stretcher,” reminding us of the often bloody repression faced by civil rights activists five decades ago. As resistance to Trump grows, we can also expect an increase in COINTELPRO-type repression, which can range from infiltration and subversion of mass organizations and imprisonment of activists, all the way to assassinations. Over 200 individuals caught up in a mass arrest during the protests of Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20th have already been hit with felony riot charges, which could lead to up to ten years in prison for those convicted. Phones and cameras were confiscated - even from journalists - as evidence.13 Trump’s presidential campaign relied heavily on attacking “illegal immigrants” from Mexico. The scapegoating of “illegal” Mexican immigrants, who are indigenous to the western half of the United States,

is a classic political tactic by demagogic conservative politicians who seek to divert the blame for society’s problems away from the ruling class that Trump represents, and onto the most vulnerable and subjugated sectors of the population. The Obama administration massively expanded the Bush administration’s deportation machine - deporting over 2.5 million people, more than any other administration in US history. This included a great expansion of what have been described as “race-based community raids”; the Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) has struck up agreements with local police departments in the borderlands; tens of thousands of migrants have been reported missing after being chased by Border Patrol agents through the desert since the 1990s. The massive infrastructure required for all of this, which has resulted in an uncountable amount of lives and families destroyed, has now been handed to Donald Trump.14 In turn, he appointed Julie Kirchner - the director of an anti-immigrant group founded by a white nationalist and eugenicist - to be the Chief of Staff at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.15 Trump stirred up racist, nativist anxieties during his campaign. He claims that his administration is only targeting “criminals,” but the reality is that a substantial portion of people who are being deported are - and for many years have been - non-criminals.16 The United States’ deportation machine is manifestly racist and inhumane, and is now being controlled by some of the country’s most unapologetic racist demagogues. Syracusebased undocumented activist Aly Wane stated in an interview with Truth-Out: It might be a shocking thing for folks who are not aware that this has been happening, but this used to be routine, and the only difference is that now Trump has really allowed these organizations to run wild at this point. Their rhetoric is that they selfrestrained under Obama, despite the fact that Obama deported 2.5 million undocumented folks. More than any other president. But,

they still have been wanting to do more, and now Trump is basically authorizing them to go after all of the 11 million undocumented immigrants because the definition of “criminal alien” has been so expanded that now pretty much anyone who is undocumented can be considered a criminal alien. It is just open season now.17 It is important for activists and organizers who are involved in political struggles - especially the millions of young people who have been mobilized, many for the first time in their lives - to understand the tools that can and will be used against them. This is perhaps what makes Do Not Resist such an important film as we enter the tumultuous era of the Trump administration. Atkinson wasn’t aware that we would be dealing with a Donald Trump presidency during the film’s production. Social movements in response to police brutality were already growing under the Obama administration, and surely would have continued to intensify under a Clinton presidency. Indeed, the Democratic Party leadership’s

unwillingness - some would say incapability - of engaging seriously with the issues that concern young people and the public more generally is evidenced by their sustained and successful effort to sideline even meager social-democrats like Bernie Sanders (who admits his politics are about as radical as Dwight Eisenhower’s). They have continued to demonstrate that any successful, long-term resistance to the societal problems that the rise of Donald Trump and the far-right represent will have to take place outside of the Democratic Party’s Resistance Movement™. As global capitalism continues to fall apart and mass resistance increases, encounters with these tools of repression will only increase in frequency. The film closes with a clip from David Grossman’s police training seminar. He tells them: “In the very near future, you will be vindicated. The bad news: the wolf is at the door, very bad times are coming. Good news: you have job security!”

ENDNOTES 1

Pride, Ray. “Terror in the Streets: A Review of Police Militarization Doc “Do Not Resist”." Newcity Film. Newcity Communications, Inc., n.d. Web. 3

Mar. 2017. <http://newcityfilm.com/2016/11/01/terror-in-the-streets/>. 2

Vance, Kelly. “Do Not Resist This Film.” East Bay Express. East Bay Express, 23 Mar. 2017. Web. 3 Mar. 2017. <http://www.eastbayexpress.com/

oakland/do-not-resist-this-film/Content?oid=5009014>. 3

Seitz, Matt Zoller. “Do Not Resist Movie Review & Film Summary (2016) | Roger Ebert.”

RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC, 30 Sept. 2016. Web. 3 Mar. 2017. <http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/do-not-resist-2016>. 4

Weiss, Max. “It’s Maryland Film Festival Time!” Baltimore Magazine. Rosebud Entertainment, 23 Feb. 2017. Web. 3 Mar. 2017. <http://www.

baltimoremagazine.net/2016/5/3/maryland-film-festival>. 5

Baldwin, James. “A Report from Occupied Territory.” The Nation. The Nation Company LLC, 18 July 2016. Web. 3 Mar. 2017. <https://www.thenation.

com/article/report-occupied-territory/>. Article originally published July 11, 1966. 6

Wong, Julia Carrie. “Police Remove Last Standing Rock Protesters in Military-style Takeover.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 23 Feb. 2017.

Web. 3 Mar. 2017. <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/23/dakota-access-pipeline-camp-cleared-standing-rock>. 7

Kappeler, Victor E., PhD. “A Brief History of Slavery and the Origins of American Policing.” A Brief History of Slavery and the Origins of American

Policing | Police Studies Online. Eastern Kentucky University, 7 Jan. 2014. Web. 3 Mar. 2017. <http://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/brief-historyslavery-and-origins-american-policing>. 8

Ross, Cody T. “A Multi-Level Bayesian Analysis of Racial Bias in Police Shootings at the County-Level in the United States, 2011-2014.” Plos One 10.11

(2015): n. pag. 5 Nov. 2015. Web. 3 Mar. 2017. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141854>. 9

“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet.” NAACP. NAACP, n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2017. <http://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/>.

Rivas, Jorge. “It’s Time to Admit Police Have a History of Connections With the KKK.” Fusion. Fusion Media Network LLC, 16 Dec. 2015. Web. 3 Mar.

2017. <http://fusion.net/story/245527/police-history-kkk-connections/>.

Devereaux, Ryan. ““Do Not Resist”: The Police Militarization Documentary Everyone Should See.” The Intercept. First Look Media, 12 Oct. 2016.

Web. 3 Mar. 2017. <https://theintercept.com/2016/10/12/do-not-resist-the-police-militarization-documentary-everyone-should-see/>. 12

Joseph, George. “Exclusive: Feds Regularly Monitored Black Lives Matter Since Ferguson.” The Intercept. First Look Media, 24 July 2015. Web. 3 Mar.

2017. <https://theintercept.com/2015/07/24/documents-show-department-homeland-security-monitoring-black-lives-matter-since-ferguson/>. 13

Lazare, Sarah. “In Trump’s America, ‘Felony Riot’ Charges Against Inauguration Protesters Signal Dangerous Wave of Repression.” Alternet.

Independent Media Institute, 22 Jan. 2017. Web. 3 Mar. 2017. <http://www.alternet.org/trumps-america-felony-riot-charges-against-inaugurationprotesters-signal-dangerous-wave-repression>. 14

Lazare, Sarah. “Barack Obama Handed a Lethal Deportation Machine to Trump’s Gang of White Nationalists.” Alternet. Independent Media Institute,

07 Feb. 2017. Web. 3 Mar. 2017. <http://www.alternet.org/immigration/barack-obama-has-handed-lethal-deportation-machine-trumps-gang-whitenationalists>. 15

“Trump Appoints Hate Group Leader to Border Patrol Agency.” TeleSUR English. La Nueva Televisión Del Sur C.A., 27 Jan. 2017. Web. 3 Mar. 2017.

<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Trump-Appoints-Hate-Group-Leader-to-Border-Patrol-Agency-20170127-0002.html>. 16

Jilani, Zaid. “Trump Wants You to Think All the Immigrants He’ll Deport Are Criminals. They’re Not.” The Intercept. First Look Media, 01 Mar. 2017.

Web. 3 Mar. 2017. <https://theintercept.com/2017/03/01/trump-wants-you-to-think-all-the-immigrants-hell-deport-are-criminals-theyre-not/>. 17

Jaffe, Sarah. “We Can’t Organize Out of Fear”: Undocumented Organizer Aly Wane on Resisting ICE.” Truthout. Truthout, 2 Mar. 2017. Web. 3 Mar.

2017. <http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39693-we-can-t-organize-out-of-fear-undocumented-organizer-aly-wane-on-resisting-ice>.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Do Not Resist. Dir. Craig Atkinson. Prod. Laura Hartrick. Vanish Films, 2016. Film. I Am Not Your Negro. Dir. Raoul Peck. Prod. Raoul Peck, Rémi Grellety, and Hébert Peck. By James Baldwin and Raoul Peck. Velvet Film, 2017. Film.

BALLET ADAGIO AND THE CH BY ALEXANDER LEE

EDITED BY KAMERYN WHYTE I’m not a dancer—in fact, I have been told I make a terrible dancing partner—but I have always been quite fond of the art of dance. I welcome anyone bold enough to give me a lesson or two, but I’m afraid I have never been good at following rules. I prefer to curb the rules when I can’t seem to break them. But in order to work outside the norms I was born in—the standards none of us really had a say in as infants and toddlers—I had to really know these rules better than most. Believe me, I know the rules. At sixteen, it was not the norm to tell my parents that I wanted to go to film school. That same year, I visited the National Film Board headquarters in Montreal, and there I discovered the work of Norman McLaren. More importantly, I discovered an artist that— in my personal view—played by the rules, but lived by his own. At twenty-one, I found myself in film school at last, seated in a dark theatre watching McLaren’s Ballet Adagio (1972), and there I realized something about these so-called norms and rules. I know the rules. Therefore, I know I’ve seen this dance before. Since Eadweard Muybridge first photographed human subjects in motion, the camera has been an instrument to capture the movement of gender. Ballet Adagio is a dance of two genders, and a heterosexual union eagerly fulfilling their assigned gender roles. The woman (Anna-Marie Holmes) prances on screen, as the man (her actual husband, David Holmes) chases after her .1 And by the end of their dance, the man seizes his reward and claims the woman for himself. Gender, and the norms designated

to this social construct, is very much like a dance. Gender is a performance; feminist theorists such as Judith Butler would argue that every single gesture is an expression of one’s assigned or chosen gender.2 Should a man choose to follow societal gender norms, then he must be dominant and devoid of most emotions. Should a woman choose to follow societal gender norms, then she must be submissive and overwhelmed by emotion. To respect these binary gender scripts to a tee, without falter or exception, is arguably quite challenging if not impossible, and to try to conform to these rules is to incorporate gender in a daily performance. Ballet Adagio is a ten-minute performance of gender. Haven’t we seen this dance before? Dance, by definition, was meant for cinema; perhaps no two forms of art have ever been so perfectly matched. After all, the word ‘cinema’ derives from the Greek kínēma, which means ‘movement’. Between cinema and dance, movement is inevitable. Edison’s early experiments with the Kinetograph basically consisted of performers moving in dynamic ways before the camera. McLaren takes this relationship further in Ballet Adagio by capturing the choreography in slow motion, so that every fine detail appears all the more noticeable and graceful. Surely, one can comfortably observe this dance, dismiss sex and gender interpretations of the film, and argue that any such reactions are perverse or simply missing the point. Yet perhaps the more pressing issue is not the dance itself—with its apparently gendered movements—but silence, or everything left

HOREOGRAPHY OF GENDER

BALLET ADAGIO (1972) DIRECTED BY NORMAN MCLAREN, PICTURED: ANNA MARIE AND DAVID HOLMES

unsaid. This is not to say that discourses on gender and sexuality are completely silenced—they have historically dominated conversations for better or worse—but to analyze Ballet Adagio without the mention of heterosexuality, inadvertently speaks volumes about how difficult it is to discuss sex and gender. The solution to this problem of silence is rather natural and in no way a new phenomenon, as Michel Foucault has thoroughly outlined in his polemic The History of Sexuality. Discourse, discussion, or even rhetoric on gender must be clearly vocalized and heard.3 Therefore, when watching a film like Ballet Adagio however many times, one ought to think critically and ask questions

about gender with not so obvious answers: Why does the female dancer wear more sheer attire than her male partner? Why does he chase her? How can we study their dance as a metaphor for their relationship, or the heterosexual couple as viewed by societal norms? And consequently, discourse on gender—through the minute details of a ballet film—grant individuals the power and freedom to better identify themselves, and address concerns over misrepresentations or lack thereof. Both husband and wife perform under two states of being at the same time. The husband is the man and the athlete. The

wife is the artist and the woman. The athlete requires the strength to lift his female partner overhead, and his physical form needs to visually align with this ideal. The artist requires the grace to fall into her male partnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s arms, and her delicate figure must not dominate over the man. The film spectator witnesses a double identity of sorts as Anna-Marie and David dance across the stage. Their personalities have been choreographed and, with every step, they enact their assigned gender roles. In preparation for this article, I came to the realization that I could not discuss a social construct as subjective, and as heated as gender without consulting some of my friends, family, and colleagues. After all, there would be no such thing as gender if we were all clones of one another. The paradox of gender is that it places us into categories of sameness yet

implies a sense of difference too. Therefore, knowing my opinion and education has its bias and limits, I surveyed the people within and around my social circle. I created an online survey with a YouTube link to Ballet Adagio, and asked my participants to watch the short film and then respond to a series of questions. Throughout the survey, I made sure to stress the notion that there were no wrong answers, especially for the questions regarding gender. The responses revealed certain dualities and contradictions at work in the film. Many noted the physical strength of the man and the tenderness of his partner, but also how the dance seems to be queering their gender roles. To my surprise, such heteronormative choreography seemed to have inspired queer interpretations. Some even described the man as being rather feminine, while

BALLET ADAGIO (1972) DIRECTED BY NORMAN MCLAREN, PICTURED: DAVID AND ANNA MARIE HOLMES

simultaneously overcompensating through his masculine traits. One respondent commented, “He relishes in being her man [and] her strength […]”, while another wrote, “She has her own strength but often leans on him, in need of his strength.” There is a theme of awareness in these comments, as though the dancers are aware that they have a role to fulfill and maintain. They each embody their individual strength, but they channel such power according to their gendered position in the choreography. There is plenty of room for improvement to reach a more nuanced understanding of gender embedded in the choreography. When asked specifically how gender functions in their performances, some of my participants combined ideas about gender with those of biological sex. Other respondents viewed them as separate concepts. This is not to judge the answers provided by the survey, but simply an observation that complicates the discussion. What do we mean when we call someone female, compared to calling someone a woman? What does it mean to be male? Or a man? These are all valid questions we ought to pose continuously. These are questions with ambiguous answers, informing our decisions, our lives, and how we choose to dance. Much to my satisfaction, Ballet Adagio served as a starting point for a conversation about gender, even among my small pool of survey respondents. Again, I am not a dancer and I am definitely not a sociologist. However, I believe that gender is a mysterious sort of art. And as an artist, I believe that art requires (before discipline or any shred of talent) discussion and perspective, not statistics and hard-hitting facts, as I’m sure some of my academic peers would expect. I feel as though I have spent most of my life trying so desperately to unravel this mystery of gender. Luckily, I have made my peace with the knowledge that I will never solve this mystery. Perhaps this is why I became an artist. I feel an urgency to create, to explore, to express, and to push beyond the rules and norms that have been laid out for me.

When I first enjoyed the quaint elegance of Ballet Adagio, I saw something beautiful in their carefully crafted movements, so thoughtful and so refined. I have since grown, hopefully all the more wise, and the ways in which I express my gender have changed for the better. Now, as I watch the film, I still see beauty, but a beauty that does not belong to me. I do not imagine I am alone in this belief by any means. We (and not just I) must therefore find our own beauty and make art with it. We must respect our individual gender identity, so others may feel that they can do the same. We must keep on dancing, literally and metaphorically, because dance has a way of revealing who we are. It has been said many times over that life is a dance, and gender is a performance. Once again, with Ballet Adagio in mind, I ask the question: Haven’t we seen this dance before? The short answer is yes, we certainly have. It’s all around us. What are we to do about it? Well, I may not be a dancer in this life, but I will dance in the only way I know how, the only way that truly matters.

ENDNOTES 1

“Ballet Adagio.” The National Film Board of Canada, 2017, https:// www.nfb.ca/film/ballet_adagio/

See Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex,

Foucault, Michel. “Scientia Sexualis,” The History of Sexuality Vol. 1,

Psychology Press, 1993 1978, pp. 53-73.

CONCORDIAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S UNDERGRADUATE FILM MAGAZINE

AFTERIMAGES

TAKE 6 SOCIAL (IN)JUSTICE