Monthly Archives: January 2014

Comment on a feminist documentary

Women heroes in Harlan County, USA

There are two prominent women heroes in the documentary Harlan County USA (1976), each representing a larger collective class of women. Lois Scott is the leader of the strikers’ wives, and Barbara Kopple, the filmmaker, represents the women filmmakers who brought the story of the women’s struggle and the strike to the public. Although each had the help of men, there would have been no story, and no telling of the story, had it not been for these heroic women. Lois’s heroics, with the rest of the strikers’ wives, is brought to our attention with cinema verite realism through the courage and heroics of Barbara Kopple and Nancy Baker.

As Annette Kuhn states in her book Women’s Pictures, Feminism and Cinema, “The central characters of socialist realist texts frequently embody heroic traits, a quality which has its origins in the influence of revolutionary romanticism on socialist realism. Art offers a vision of the future which is optimistic, but also aims to be grounded rather than utopian.”

While there is socialist realism in Harlan County USA, the filmmakers exhibit no desire for objective realism. This is a film by women and about women, and the momentous role they play in the struggle against classism and oppression. Kopple tells a story of real women living real lives, and tells it subjectively. She is keenly interested in representing the real lives, thoughts and feelings of her women protagonists. Thus she breaks with the conventional Hollywood cinematic tradition of placing woman in the gaze of man, woman as object for the benefit of man. The stereotype of woman as passive and man as active is shattered, as we are given a glimpse into the world of women organizing themselves in meetings, actions on the picket lines, verbal jousting with the sheriff and the gun thugs, Lois Scott packing a revolver, and women singing protest and labour songs (Hazel Dickens and Florence Reece). Throughout all this activity, women look after their children and their families. They support each other but are not shy about arguing about issues that matter to them most.

As Karen Warren argues compellingly in her essay The Power and Promise of Ecofeminism, there is good reason for feminists to support the ecology movement. Naturism, the destruction of nature by men, is justified in mainstream society by a logic of domination that is part of a patriarchal oppressive conceptual framework. The domination of nature by men is deemed justified by a process similar to the one that is used to justify domination of women by men. Harlan County USA provides a living, historical example of the powerful impact women can have in a struggle against patriarchal institutions, especially when women align themselves with other oppressed groups, similar to the way Karen Warren argues for feminists to see themselves also as ecofeminists.

In Harlan, oppressors are represented by two patriarchal institutions. The first is Duke Power, the corporation that owns the coal mine and that is governed by an executive board of men in suits. The second is the United Mine Workers of America, the union that represents the striking coal miners, also governed by an executive board of men in suits. And of course, the corruption and dealings between these two patriarchal institutions is made known by the film, through the use of stock footage found by Barbara Kopple and other scenes that play out during the strike.

One could argue that the wives act in support of their husbands against the company, purely for reasons of self-interest. They naturally want their husbands, the miners, to be safe. And they need for their husbands to receive better pay and benefits so they can feed and clothe their families and pay medical bills. This may well be true. However, the film supports a reading that the women have aligned themselves as an oppressed group themselves, with the strikers, another oppressed group by virtue of their class as workers. In addition to that, I would suggest, the film shows that members of one oppressed group often find it quite natural to make an alliance with members of another oppressed group. This is because oppression and struggle is understood as a result of personal, lived experience. As such, people who have never experienced oppression have difficulty feeling empathy with those who have, while those who have suffered oppression often relate with understanding to the struggles of others.

For example, in one telling incident captured on film in Harlan, the gun thug Basil Collins makes a threatening comment about the only black man we see as one of the strikers, calling him a “nigger”. Lois Scott hears the threat and shouts back at Basil “That nigger is a better man than you’ll ever be!” Here we have the natural alliance of aware and courageous women with other oppressed groups, in this case the racially oppressed (although the black man in question is also a member of the oppressed strikers).

Too often, though, empathy alone does not result in protest or action in solidarity with other oppressed groups. There is personal risk in doing so. But in the case of Harlan County USA, we see the women persuading the sheriff to serve an arrest warrant on Basil Collins. They do not ask the men to talk to the sheriff – they do it on their own, now that they have realized some inherent personal power as women. It is possible that empathy, on the one hand, and belonging to a group with common purpose, on the other hand, combine to supply the sense of empowerment often necessary for the taking of action in the face of personal risk.

Thus the power and influence of Harlan County USA is that it represents women as heroes in taking a stand against social injustice, as well as taking a stand to defend themselves and the oppressed. My point is that not only is this an example of one oppressed group struggling against an oppressive patriarchy, but rather there is much more happening here. When women take a stand in defence of other oppressed groups, the normal violent response of the patriarchal oppressors (at least in a more or less civilized society as 1970’s USA) is thwarted. Women have the power to use their perceived status as carers and nurturers to effectively shield themselves from the violence of men who defend the patriarchal institutions (scabs, strikebreakers, thugs, police). Women know that men see them not only as “the weaker sex” but also as the people entrusted with the care of their children and their families. The women know and expect, or at least have hope, that men would not be capable of shamelessly harming women in broad daylight and in living colour on camera. And their presence on the picket line protects the men on strike as well. This is what gives their non-violent resistance efficacy.

This advantage is available to the women of Harlan County through their own courage and the courage of Barbara Kopple. Kopple spent so much time on the picket lines with the strikers and their wives, that she became like family to them. Her main reason for doing so was her knowledge that with her on the picket line, holding her camera for all to see, the men gun thugs would not likely resort to violence. In the film there is an encounter between Basil Collins, the leader of the gun thugs, and Kopple. Stopping next to her in his truck one day, he tells her he wants to see her press credentials, while he has one hand on his revolver on the seat. Kopple asks to see his credentials, and says “Seems I forgot mine at home as well”. Basil’s attempted intimidation is thwarted. He drives off without incident. Kopple is a small woman, armed only with a camera, but aware of the source of her power and smart enough to take advantage of it. Nonetheless, it is a scary moment for Kopple, as she discloses in the commentary to the film.

The scene relating the shooting death of Lawrence, a young married white striker, one night when Kopple is not on the picket line, serves as proof for the viewers that the thugs, defenders of the patriarchy, are capable of employing violent means. As such, calling the role of the women heroic is no exaggeration. Ironically, the murder of Lawrence serves as a catalytic event that leads to a contract settlement with the company. The men in suits, representatives and defenders of the patriarchy, no doubt feel guilty for allowing its foot soldiers, the gun thugs, to commit murder. With murder on their conscience, the struggle has gone beyond acceptable forms of intimidation. Duke Power could be seen by the public as vicariously responsible for the criminal act of its agents. It thus becomes politically expedient to give in to the strikers’ demands.

Another reason why Harlan is a women’s film is exemplified by the way it was made. The making of the film in a way mirrors some of the story it describes, in that it was made in a collaborative effort by the filmmakers, many of whom worked without pay for long stretches of time so that the story of the struggle could be told. And like the collaborative nature of the film production, the unfolding events described in the film come about through collaboration between groups as well. The women of Harlan County and the women filmmakers work together. The women of the strike connect with the filmmakers because they appreciate their support. Kopple and Nancy Baker lived with the women of Harlan County for several months. They heard their stories, saw how they lived and struggled, and came to respect them and their courage. Collaboration, as opposed to competition, is a hallmark of femininity. Harlan shows us how it can be a key to successful struggles against an oppressive patriarchy. As Annette Kuhn so aptly points out,

“To the extent that it has adopted collective and participatory working methods, feminist film practice shares in and contributes to a broader tradition within independent cinema, a tradition which arises from a rejection of the production practices of the film industry, with their highly developed divisions of labour and hierarchies of power and authority.”

Harlan County USA is a political film; political in the sense that it documents the struggle for social justice, waged by an oppressed group. Many people nowadays seem to think that when it comes to political struggles, there are always two sides to every story. Harlan reminds us that we need to take a stand when we are witnesses to oppression. That is the mark of a just society. I imagine that in 1970’s USA, you could either be for the Vietnam War, or you could be against it. It must have been untenable to say you were undecided. What brought an end to the war was the effect of so many people who were willing to give voice to the strength of their conviction.

Harlan shows how movements of social struggle against oppressors use this principle of solidarity. People join a movement in support of the oppressed. And struggles succeed when the movement gains momentum from the solidarity of those on the margins of the struggle. Kopple makes this point clear when towards the end of the film we see Florence Reece singing her anthem of the coal miners “Which Side Are You On?”, rallying the miners at a meeting. The song is a call to awareness and action. While seeking the solidarity of those on the margins, it serves also to create a sense of community among the strikers, in a similar way that Pete Seeger’s We Shall Overcome became the rallying song for supporters of the civil rights movement. I expect African-Americans would not have achieved their civil rights without the active support of women and white folk, minorities and others.

When it comes to oppression, acquiescence is not an ethical option. Either you are for justice and fairness or you are against it. Barbara Kopple, as a woman filmmaker, understood this reality early on. She had no hesitation in joining the side of the oppressed – the women and the coal miners. It was never about objectivity. It was always about what was right.

It seems ironic that this notion of choosing sides – “Either you’re with us or you’re against us” – is today often used as a talking point in the public relations campaigns of right-wing, conservative political groups, at least in the USA.

Harlan County USA is a woman’s film, a feminist film. It portrays women as heroes and as powerful. It could not have been made had it not been made by a woman – a politically aware and courageous woman. Not only is the film’s story an inspiration to women and other politically oppressed groups, but the filmmaker – unafraid to take a stand – is an inspiration to political women filmmakers and to women seeking to break from patriarchal notions of how to make socialist realist art.

Bibliography

Kuhn, Annette (1982). Women’s Pictures – Feminism and Cinema. London, Routledge & Kegan
Warren, Karen (1990). The Power and Promise of Ecofeminism. Environmental Ethics, vol. 12, No. 2 125-146
Crowdus, Gary, ” American Dream (Interview of Barbara Kopple and Nancy Baker),” in Cineaste, vol. 18, no. 4, 1991

Decline of truth in America

On The Decline of Truth in the Age of Bullshit

It’s late September in the forest on Salt Spring Island. Foot-wide, stiffened, yellowish-brown maple leaves float to the ground, signalling the end of summer, and I crave one last taste of watermelon. In Ganges, watermelons are on sale. The label says seedless. Back in my forest hut, I slice into that succulent two-tone green orb, only to discover that its crimson-pink flesh hides dozens of white seeds. Flicking away these intruders, I remind myself that this is advertising. Anything goes. In my disappointment, I can’t tell if the bland taste means I didn’t pick a good one or if seedless doesn’t cut it when it comes to sweetness.

Should I be bothered about a misleading label? What right do I have to be indignant about it? I’ve stretched the truth a little here and there, dabbled in some exaggeration over the years. Everybody does it. It’s all quite harmless, isn’t it? I wonder if it’s just the silhouette of a shadowy monster.

What’s become of Truth? Is it Play-Doh in the hands of Mad Men, used car salesmen, politicians, cheating spouses, nasty five-year-old fibbers?

Apparently, from the time we can speak, grown-ups inculcate us into the cult of Truth. But according to Dr. Frances Stott, child development researcher and faculty at the Erikson Institute in Chicago, learning to fib is an important step in every child’s development. Stott says most children learn to lie between the ages of two and four, with the first lie representing a developmental achievement because it marks a child’s discovery that her thoughts are her own. We grown-ups all tell lies of convenience, while our children watch and learn.

Dr. Bella DePaulo, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, confirms that the lie is a condition of life. In a 1996 study, DePaulo and her colleagues asked 147 people between the ages of 18 and 71 to record all the lies they told over a week. Most of them admitted to lying once or twice a day. Over the course of a week they deceived about 30 percent of those they interacted with one-on-one. Not only that, but some types of relationships, such as between parents and teens, seem to be built on foundations of deception.

Everyone lies, although some people lie more than others.

America’s funniest self-proclaimed television pundit, Stephen Colbert, has his own take on what’s happening to truth in America. In 2005, he popularized the notion of truthiness as a gut feeling that something is true regardless of logic or the facts. “Truthiness is tearing apart our country,” Colbert said in 2006. “It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that’s not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It’s certainty. People love the President because he’s certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don’t seem to exist. It’s the fact that he’s certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?”

In a 2011 study, researchers working together in both New Zealand and Canada, looked at how images people see every day – the ones that decorate newspaper or TV headlines – produce truthiness. What they discovered astounded even them. In one example, they showed the claim ‘The liquid metal inside a thermometer is magnesium’ to one group alongside a photo of a thermometer, while a second group was shown the same claim without a photo. When they asked the test subjects if they agreed or disagreed with the statement, those who saw the claim with the photo of the thermometer were significantly more likely to agree, even though it was obviously false.

Photos make it easy to picture the information, and that makes it feel right. “These photos might have unintended consequences,” concluded the researchers, “leading people to accept false information because of their feelings rather than the facts.” Could this help explain the mesmerizing power of print and visual advertising? Might also explain why cigarette makers paid actors big money over the years to light up in the movies. If our heroes smoke, how harmful could it be?

Seedless watermelons are hybrids – like a mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey. As a more convenient product, seedless watermelon outsells seeded by a margin of eight to two. According to the U.S. National Watermelon Promotion Board, ten years ago that margin was only six to four.

In the film The Insider, about Jeffrey Wigand, a former vice president of research and development at tobacco manufacturer Brown & Williamson. Wigand blew the whistle on the tobacco industry in a 1996 episode of the CBS television program 60 Minutes, when he revealed that Brown & Williamson intentionally increased the amount of nicotine in its cigarettes to make them more addictive.

But two years before the 60 Minutes revelation, a U.S. congressional subcommittee, while conducting a formal hearing into the regulation of tobacco, had heard sworn testimony from seven CEOs of American cigarette makers. They were asked point blank if they believed nicotine was addictive. One by one they parroted: “I believe that nicotine is not addictive.”

And when U.S. state governments sued big tobacco companies in the 1990s, newly released documents revealed that tobacco executives were aware of the harmful and addictive effects of smoking since the early 1950s. But in January 1954, four of the largest cigarette makers published an ad in the New York Times and 400 other newspapers, headed ‘A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers.’ It read, in part:

“Although conducted by doctors of professional standing, these experiments are not regarded as conclusive in the field of cancer research. However, we do not believe that any serious medical research, even though its results are inconclusive, should be disregarded or lightly dismissed…Regardless for the record of the past, the fact that cigarette smoking today should even be suspected as a cause of a serious disease is a matter of deep concern to us…We believe the products we make are not injurious to health.”

One small step for advertising and public relations. One giant leap for bullshit.

Bullshit is pervasive in American culture, suggests moral philosopher Harry Frankfurt in his essay On Bullshit. “Everyone knows this,” he claims. “Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted.” Bullshit is something expressed with complete disregard for the truth. Pretentiously. The object is to influence others by lying about the speaker’s own thoughts, feelings, or attitudes.

Many of us look to journalists to keep the bullshitters honest. But even journalists can be victims of the war on truth. Sadly, libel chill stifles many important stories. And two current trends I’ve observed suggest the war on truth is relentless and escalating. The first is the flourishing of bullshit media – both broadcast and print. The second is the proliferation of whistle blowers and truth-checking organizations. The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, for example, announced their inaugural Integrity Award in 2011. Three Health Canada scientists became international heroes for raising concerns about potential harmful effects of Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone, designed to boost the milk production of dairy cattle. Following the scientists’ whistle blowing revelations, the drug was banned in Canada and most of the developed world. But only after a smear campaign led to them being reprimanded, ordered to be silent, and eventually dismissed from Health Canada. Another new truth organization is FactCheck.org, popular recently for ferreting out truth and lies in the U.S. presidential election campaign.

I doubt FactCheck.org would be as popular as it is if mounds of bullshit weren’t being piled on the truth like so much fertilizer on a field of watermelons.

I Google seedless watermelon. One web site says there is no such thing as a seedless watermelon – they all have seeds. But here’s what the National Watermelon Promotion Board has to say about seedless watermelons:

“Seedless watermelons…have few or no seeds. When we say seeds, we are talking about mature seeds, the black ones. Oftentimes, the white seed coats where a seed did not mature are assumed to be seeds. But this isn’t the case! They are perfectly safe to swallow while eating, and don’t worry – no seeds will grow in your stomach.”

To me they look like seeds.

On the September 18, 2012 CBC television show The National, a segment called The Insiders, hosted by Peter Mansbridge, featured a panel of experts discussing the politics of lying. One of the examples the panel looked at was a news release by Stephen Harper’s 2005 election campaign that asked the question: “Paul Martin supports child pornography?” Truth is, Paul Martin did vote against a Conservative motion to curb child porn. But in Parliament, opposition motions are routinely voted down. Nonetheless, what the Conservative press release proclaimed was that “Martin says he’s against child pornography but his voting record proves otherwise.”

Also in the same segment, Mansbridge showed a clip from the recently released fiction film The Ides of March. In the scene, a U.S. senatorial candidate’s campaign press secretary asks a staffer if it’s true their opponent has investments in a diamond mine in Liberia. The staffer says they’re still checking it but they got it from a blog. “I don’t care if it’s true,” says the press secretary, “I just want to hear them denying it. If it is true, great. Find out. But if not, let them spend a day telling the press he doesn’t own a diamond mine in Liberia. Win win.”

Fiction imitating real life?

Hasn’t there always been bullshit? But what’s different nowadays, Frankfurt claims, is that bullshit is no longer shit – waste emitted without thought. Advertising, public relations, and politics all rely extensively on bullshit that is meticulously crafted by sophisticated specialists with the help of market research, public opinion polling, and psychological testing.

I get it that people sometimes lie to cover up an embarrassing secret or mistake, or to make money. No doubt, most of these people are decent folk who have strayed after succumbing to temptation or pride. But when someone resorts to bullshit, he does not care at all about the truth. His aim justifies the means. He knows that maybe he can’t fool all of the people all of the time, but he tries to fool enough people to achieve his aim.

Bullshit is perceived by most people as less objectionable than lies, and it’s also harder to debunk. Spun into strands of disinformation, with enough wool to pull over people’s eyes, it renders the unaware blind. Bullshit is the smear campaign’s ammunition. Insidious and manipulative.

Why does it bother me? Harm and consequences, I think. Certainly, lies can cause great harm. But bullshit has the power to change a society, by changing the rules of common discourse. It can sap the spirit of those who think they are playing the same game – the game of debate over truth and reality – when it’s actually a completely different game. There are no rules. Bullshitters spread whatever bullshit will make the other side squirm, and wait for the red face or the white flag.

When elected leaders and corporate executives flaunt the truth, many of us can become cynical, skeptical, or overly vigilant. Behaviour changes. We might start to rationalize and justify our lies and our bullshit. Or what’s worse, people could become apathetic, lose faith in democracy, in society’s institutions, and in their fellow man. Which leads inevitably to further erosion in the value of truth. Like the downward spiral spin of an out-of-control aircraft, it’s very difficult to reverse.

Take climate change. Soon after Al Gore shared the science with the world in An Inconvenient Truth, deniers started filibustering the debate. U.S. Republican Senator James Inhofe, for example, has championed the notion that “global warming is the worst hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” Action deferred is action not taken. I’m not a scientist, but I think I smell the stench of…well, you know.

Have I developed sensitive bullshit antennae? If bullshit detection is a learned behaviour that’s hard for me to shake, the thought makes me sigh with sadness. In a way, I grieve the loss of the me I once was, carefree and ready each day to embrace the world with an open heart and a smile.

Now summer is saying hello to autumn. Squirrels scramble to store food for the winter, and my neighbours in the forest chop and pile stacks of firewood. I can taste my next watermelon, the last one I’ll have before next summer. This time I’ll get one pockmarked with slippery, inedible, pesky black seeds. It’ll be hard work digging them out, but I know the sweet red flesh that remains will quench my desire for natural watermelon taste. The real thing. Authentic.