Your Guide to Making a Global-Conscience Film
January 28th, 2007
Check out the cynical cleverness in Steve Rose’s article “Heal the World,” in yesterday’s The Guardian. It’s all about the cliches that go into those Hollywood movies where some conscientious white person confronts “the horror, the horror” of a third-world country with darker-skinned people in humanitarian crisis.
Here’s one of my favorite bits, to give you a flavor of the article: “Wherever you are in the world, especially in the greatest depths of dark-skinned human suffering, you’re sure to find a smokin’ hot white woman. Usually she’ll be struggling to rectify the situation single-handedly on behalf of her uncaring compatriots, carrying the conscience of the western world on her shoulders, and bravely maintaining immaculate skin tone despite the absence of cosmetics.”
The one puzzle is that, as an example of this genre (along with Blood Diamond, Traffic, The Interpreter, The Constant Gardener, and Syriana), Rose includes Alejandro Iñárritu’s Babel. This seems odd, because, unlike the directors of the other films, Iñárritu is Mexican and therefore not exactly from the First World. It’d be interesting to explore how and why Babel acquiesces to the Hollywood pattern–if indeed it does. Of course, I have to actually see it first, which won’t be happening until it’s released on DVD next month.
From what I’ve heard, The Last King of Scotland may follow this formula to some degree as well. The one difference is that the white character, a Scottish doctor played by James McAvoy, actually gets drawn into participating in, rather than observing or fighting against, the horrors of Idi Amin’s regime. But several reviews have mentioned that the film’s ending, where McDoctor takes his story back to the white, Western world, implies that justice can only be brought about when the U.S.-European authorities get involved.
Entry Filed under: Movies, Uncategorized
4 Comments Add your own
1. Jillian | January 28th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
They included The Interpreter in that list? Weird.
I mean, I haven’t seen The Constant Gardener…but when I read the brief about the article that was the first film that came to mind.
One cannot completely avoid the story-type if that’s the story you’re telling, but I thought The Interpreter did some nice spin on the cliches. Even if Nicole was her adorable pale self. I watched it for Nicole, being almost 100% loyal… but was pleased with the little film’s differences (not a romance in any fashion, the main character was African–white, but culturally not American–, the main woman was seeking diplomacy as her means to impact her home country not as a diplomat but rather as serving on a low level function as interpreter…) Okay, *chuckles* I’m not really going to defend the film am I?
I suppose the curious thing for me is that… even if Hollywood is trying to make the public ‘aware’ of certain events, they’re going to get put down for how they do it? I guess so. How do you make a film that’s real, yet artistic, accurate… yet going to get more than the die-hard advocates to watch? Honestly, as much as I’d like to be up to speed on my current events… the only potentially political film that I’ve watched and enjoyed was Jarhead. And that was because it struck me as a fan of T.S. Eliot’s poetry or through the artistic imaginings characteristic of Jillian. I’m not going to watch a film that isn’t creative… even if it is unique or particularly factual. Which is why I watch Battlestar Galactica. Sci-fi is the best way to bludgeon me with political opinions.
Tricky. Tricky. It’ll be interesting to see if Hollywood’s on a learning curve or if it’ll settle for the lowest common denomonator.
2. theotter | January 28th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
I haven’t seen a single one of the films mentioned by the article, so I can’t comment on whether the observations are valid or not. I just like Rose’s writing style.
Jarhead also had John Krasinski in it, didn’t it? I haven’t seen it either, but that’s what I’ve heard.
Oh, wait–I did see Hotel Rwanda, which does get a brief mention. I thought it was well done, though I’ve seen lots of stuff since about how Rusesabagina wasn’t really that much of a hero. Oh well–it’s film, and it needs a story with memorable characters. And at least he’s not white. Though, when I come to think of it, Hotel Rwanda does kind of imply that the only way to stop the Rwandan slaughter was to get white folks and the U.N. to respond. I can’t entirely blame movies for suggesting that, though, as that is sort of one of the current injustices of how the world works.
3. Dormouse | January 29th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Hotel Rwanda does kind of imply that the only way to stop the Rwandan slaughter was to get white folks and the U.N. to respond. I can’t entirely blame movies for suggesting that, though, as that is sort of one of the current injustices of how the world works.
Yeah–you can’t really fault the implication there, since one of the biggest criticisms leveled at the UN, the US, and various other “Western” global powers since the Rwandan genocide has been their failure to respond. Ditto on Darfur.
We can’t have it both ways. We can’t claim that the UN and the global community, many of whom are white, need to intervene to stop atrocities in Third World countries, and then turn around and complain that the movies depict the white bastion of the UN as necessary to creating peace in those regions.
Which is not to undermine the very good point made in the article (which I didn’t read, so I’m going off of your summary here). You know what movie is *particularly* bad for all of this? Angelina Jolie’s Beyond Borders. The movie meant well. It really did. But it was *so* cliched–the wealthy white woman buys two truckloads of food and drives them into Ethiopia during the famine! She saves Cambodian children! She’s killed by landmines…somewhere where there are landmines! (Bosnia, maybe?) All while she remains in a loveless marriage and falls passionately in love with Clive Owen!
4. theotter | January 31st, 2007 at 11:55 am
Wait–she remains in a loveless marriage while she’s killed?
(Sorry–I know what you meant.)
Ah, Clive Owen, why did you stoop to such lows?
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