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Reviews
War Zone (1998)
An important film about the escalation of sexism
Too many educational programs about sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual violence focus solely and intensely on the perceptions and experiences of the targets of these individual and institutional forms of discrimination. In doing so they fail to address or spotlight the actual roots of sexism: male privilege and men's abuse of the resulting power they are afforded-abuse intended to maintain their privilege, power, and control over women. The lack of a critical examination of the motivations, actions, and intentions of male predators leads in many cases to a societal problemization of women: `She shouldn't have worn that short skirt'; `Why did she go to his apartment'; `She shouldn't have gotten drunk'; and the ultimate denial of male responsibility, `She brought it on herself!' War Zone, a film by Maggie Hadleigh-West, literally turns this approach to understanding sexism, harassment, and violence on its head. The filmmaker shines the spotlight, and her video camera, on men whose actions and attitudes perpetuate a social context in which women are at best objectified and at worst abused, raped, or killed by men, often with little or no consequence.
The context for War Zone is powerful in its simplicity. Hadleigh-West, equipped with a video camera, walks through four major cities (New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and New Orleans) to record the day-to-day abuse-sexualized comments, objectifying stares, uninvited physical contact, and other forms of harassment and sexism-women experience that rob them of the basic right to walk safely and comfortably in their own neighborhoods (or anywhere else). She challenges the continued institutional denial of sexism and its implications by documenting what may be its most pervasive and effective element-that even in the most public spaces, women must operate and function in a war zone.
But instead of interviewing street harassment scholars or centering her own reactions to and perspectives on her abuse, Hadleigh-West turns the camera, and the heat of the spotlight, on her abusers. The film documents her confrontations with those abusers, but focuses tightly on their reactions to the turning of the tables. Every time she experiences harassment (which runs the gamut from objectifying stares to being followed) she directly turns the camera on the perpetrator. As a result, her abusers as well as (or including) male War Zone viewers, are forced to think and reflect more critically about the ways men maintain dominance and control. More specifically, the film illustrates how men continuously cycle sexism through what many men have traditionally argued to be harmless or natural interactions.
Among all of the films related to sexism, harassment, and violence I have reviewed, War Zone, in both its form and content, stands out as the most unique, powerful, and important contribution to anti-sexist education. It elicits emotional responses from both women and men precisely because it is real, unstaged, honest and raw. It disallows the overwhelming comfort of denial by men. Meanwhile, the film demands a new urgency to establish space and validation for women to confront sexism in its most pervasive individual form, putting the onus of responsibility for change on those who benefit from its institutional form.
This film can provide an especially powerful educational experience for high school and college students, but is appropriate for anybody in their teenage years or older. Every American Studies, Women's Studies, Cultural Studies, Sociology, and Psychology program should have a copy of War Zone in its library. It will also be an invaluable resource for activists or trainers who conduct workshops on sexual harassment, sexism, sexual violence, street harassment, masculinity, male identity, male privilege, and related topics.
Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary (1997)
One of the most important films about equity in education.
`When I grow up I'm going to be a person who fights for this country. I'm going to be an important person. I'm going to a good college. I'm going to fight for [people]. I want them to come to me and say, 'Thank you.' I want to be a lawyer.' Mayra, a fifth-grade student from a high-poverty school in Los Angeles, is one of the central figures in Laura Angelica Simón's Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary. Mayra lives in a small apartment with her mother and uncle, both undocumented immigrants from El Salvador. Like many of the students and parents of Hoover Elementary, a school in Pico Union (often described as the Ellis Island of Los Angeles), Mayra fears the ramifications of California's Proposition 187, which denies health care and public education to undocumented immigrants.
Simón, a teacher at Hoover and an immigrant from Mexico, unravels the complexities of the Prop. 187 debate and its impact on Mayra and other students at the school. She effectively weaves together the stories and voices of students and colleagues into a collage that powerfully illustrates the awareness and lack of awareness, compassion and lack of compassion, and anti-racism and racism that exist at Hoover (and at every school in the United States). In doing so, she introduces critical questions that cut across many educational issues: At whose expense do these public policy debates occur? Why do we bring policy debates regarding immigration into a context such as education, where children--those who have the least control over where they live--experience the most intense and detrimental impact?
Fear and Learning is progressively unique in both form and content. During an educational era in which teachers have little or no voice in local and federal policy that governs their roles and responsibilities, Simón offers a distinctive teacher perspective--one informed by her own experiences and her love and respect for students. She goes a step further by including student voices and perspectives, reminding the audience that, despite popular belief, even elementary school students understand and experience the politics of difference. In fact, as this film shows, students often offer deeper and more critical insights than adults.
Fear and Learning is one of the most important, engaging, and powerful films ever made about education, equity, and social justice in the United States. The film raises questions about race, ethnicity, language, socioeconomic class, and the intersections of these identities. It is an essential part of any multicultural or social justice education film collection.
Though it focuses on an elementary school, Fear and Learning encourages dialogue about issues that span all grade levels. As such, it is appropriate for education workshops and classes, regardless of grade level or subject area. The film can also be a useful tool for high school or college courses in American Studies, Political Science, Education Policy, Latina/o Studies, Sociology, and a variety of other fields that consider intersections of culture, policy, and the politics of difference. Parts of the film--especially those including Mayra and other students--can also be used to introduce these issues to elementary and middle school students.
It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School (1996)
Important film about education and teaching
It's Elementary is, to date, the most important film (and one of the most important pieces of work in any medium) available which addresses gay and lesbian issues in a grade school setting. Debra Chasnoff and Helen Cohen, the filmmakers, visited six elementary and middle schools in which teachers used a variety of techniques to introduce discussions about gay and lesbian issues in their classrooms.
Daithi Wolfe, teacher at Hawthorne Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin, shows Bill T. Jones as example of famous gay person. "I don't think people should be strict about [gay people] because if they were gay they wouldn't want to be getting beat up..." - 4th grader at a New York elementary school.
While the film is worth it's price (see price information below) for the teaching strategies employed and displayed by the educators whose classrooms were highlighted, the power of It's Elementary transcends teaching techniques and pedagogy. Chasnoff and Cohen broach topics that even people in the Multicultural Education community often find difficult to discuss. More importantly, the film challenges several assumptions made by educators and lay-people alike about student interest in, and ability to intelligently discuss, gay issues. And it does so in a way that is accessible, not intimidating, for viewers who most desperately need to be pulled into a discussion about gay issues as they pertain to self, school, and society.
Even teachers and administrators who routinely hear students throw around terms like "faggot" or "gay" tend to be more comfortable believing that those students are not ready to discuss the bigger implications of this "name-calling," maybe because they, themselves, have never had an opportunity to engage in a dialogue about gay issues. Even as our society is becoming more comfortable exploring issues of race and gender, dialogue about sexual orientation remains taboo, even in many of the most liberal circles. In such a context and climate, the most critical assumption challenged by the film is that young students are not ready to discuss oppression, discrimination, and specifically, homophobia and heterosexism. This assumption is shattered in the unforgettable opening sequence through a manufactured exchange of ideologies between a Congressman who prefers such topics to be left out of the classroom and a group of elementary school students who demonstrate that they're not only ready to discuss it, but that they may be more ready than a hefty percentage of adults. Then, throughout the rest of the film, the students continue to demonstrate and reiterate their readiness.
By providing the educational community with It's Elementary, Chasnoff and Cohen have provided me and other college instructors, workshop leaders, facilitators, and social activists one of the most powerful and important resources available for initiating dialogue, encouraging individual self-development, and pushing forth toward educational and social change on a topic that too few have successfully accessibly addressed.