Imaginaries Versus Documentaries

8/11/2013

When someone wants to send me the name of a great documentary about our food, a political situation, or a past atrocity, I earnestly wish I wanted to see it. I do want to see it. I care about the world, people, and this is the basis of my academic career.. so why don't I watch many of them?

True, I don't have a television and DVDs don't run on my laptop, but I think there's more than pragmatics at play here.

They often terrify me; stories of torture, genocide, corruption, and greed turn my stomach. But why else?

Rather than silently beat myself up over it, I decided to make some good use of my time in the pool and I really think about it.

Here's what bubbled up... unless the topic is one in which I am working actively, I tend to just feel so saddened by seeing more of what is what "not" working. It breaks my heart and I'm not sure it needs to break more for me to care more...I'm sensitive..this pain just leaves me too sullen to be of use.

Documentaries, I think, document what IS. They often highlight vital story lines sidelined by those in power. They are a venue for marginalized narratives. They complicate our understanding and they help us wake up from the numbing master narratives. For example, no longer can the dairy industry alone tell us how to think about dairy. Michael Moore wakes us up to the mechanisms disabling healthcare. Forks over Knives has changed how many of my friends and colleagues see their plates. Documentaries are, for this reason, as vital as independent journalism. We need them as much as we need The Washington Post. We are lucky it was recently saved.

I think what's happened is that these films and independent journalism have awakened in me a desire to imagine what could be. I am ready to hear about the solutions- farfetched, creative..irreverent. Maybe the sci-fi writers could to join with the filmmakers and grapple with genocides, sex trade, pollution, massive corruption in a way that charts a way forward.

I'd like to be a part of that imagining. My contribution now, I guess, is imagining what film could do.

Could we make a compelling two-hour film about what an amazing healthcare system would look like or how Ugandan politics could look?

Documentary filmmakers often work to educate problem solvers and create them by inspiring action. What if we infused with their precious talents a desire and ability to imagine a better future or to team up with those who are?

There might be films out there that I haven't seen that do this, so please do let me know. I think I'll watch them right away.

2 Comments

Paul Bohman

8/11/2013 11:19:45 am

I like the way you think, Sarah, and the hopefulness that you infuse into your realism. Interestingly, your thoughts in this post have wandered into a place that my own have inhabited. Documentaries can take a number of different paths. They can show things as they are, in a rather neutral journalistic approach. They can take upon themselves the mantle of social criticism, which generally strives to highlight flaws so they can be corrected, but often these documentaries strike a negative tone, and they can appear overtly politically partisan when the criticism falls heavily against a stance known to be a part of a particular party's platform. On the flip side, documentaries can venture into hagiography and propagandistic praise if they strike a too-positive tone.

But you're talking about something somewhat different. You're talking about devoting an entire film to exploring the future possibilities of an issue, and stoking the imagination, rather than its current failures or successes. I've been trying to think if I've seen anything like that before, and I can't come up with any specific titles, but I know I've seen elements of that approach sprinkled across a number of different films that I've seen. I'll have to think harder to come up with better examples than the one I'm going to share, but here's my only-barely-relevant example for now:

The 1993 movie Dave (definitely not a documentary, but pure fiction) has a scene in which the substitute president (Kevin Kline) is sitting in a boardroom discussing the budget with his advisers (see http://bit.ly/1bnvchg). They're at a stalemate at trying to find the funds to do a project for homeless children that means a lot to him. This comes on the heels of some previous scenes in which he is accused of turning his back on his promise to fund such programs. As far as everyone in the room is concerned, it's politics as usual, and no one seems particularly bothered by it except for the substitute president [the admittedly flimsy premise of the movie is that the real president is in a coma, so the secret service finds a look-alike – Kevin Kline – to fill in until the real president gets better, to avoid a scandal]. So, in a moment of upbeat hopefulness and determination, the substitute president ignores the strict orders given by his handlers to lay low, and he starts to persuasively and good-naturedly make his case that this really matters to him, and he negotiates the budget details in ways that apparently no one in the room had seen before, until he finds the money for the program. In the end, the room breaks out in applause, as they are both surprised and impressed.

Like I said, this isn't the purest example of what you're talking about. In fact, it’s pretty far from it, but this scene is meant to show that things can get done in Washington, and that things that really matter don't have to fall victim to apathy and politics as usual; that government can be used to accomplish some good in the world. Other scenes in the movie make the same point in more subtle ways. Rather than directly tear down the established order with overt criticism, the movie – and that scene in particular – show that there is a more helpful version of politics out there.

If I have a concern about any attempt to create an “imaginary” (vs. a “documentary”), it’s that it can lean too far toward utopianism, which, in the extreme, can be perceived as misguided and dangerous by some, or – on a less extreme level – as naïve by others. The film would be subjected to accusations of “but where is the evidence?” to show that this really is the best approach, since this is an imagined scenario, not actual, or to accusations that it represents a partisan viewpoint. “That’s not *my* ideal future,” some people will say. “That’s just [liberal/conservative] BS…” I think those accusations will be unavoidable in a lot of ways. Our collective appetite seems to hunger more for an exposé that shows us that things were as bad as, or worse than, we thought. Media creators assume that we like to see our philosophical opponents embarrassed or discredited. Dark imagery tends to evoke more critical praise than positive energy. So I wonder if people will see an “imaginary” as a positive force for good, or as too simplistic or shallow, unworthy of keeping company with the more “serious” works out there.

All of that being said, sign me up! We need more people willing to put themselves out there with a positive and helpful vision of our shared potential.

Sarah Federman

8/12/2013 12:10:04 am

Paul, thanks really good thoughts. I really like how you thought through the utopian concern. The nice thing though about offering solutions, the more the better, is that those in power or closer to the problem will have those ideas on their mind. And they are looking for solutions.. They want to look good. So let's help them look good.
Madeline Albright said at an event I recently attended, "I don't believe that anyone is at their desk trying to make stupid decisions"... People are looking for ideas. So much so, that CIA cells were found in the US just by looking at the sci fi subscription locations...
Hasta miercoles.

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Imaginaries Versus Documentaries

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