There are certain movies that I always stop and watch if I stumble across them while channel surfing, even though I’ve seen them a thousand times. (I know, I just badly dated myself, but I still channel surf). Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of those movies (As is Star Trek II (“KHAAAAANN!!“), Alien or Aliens (“Game over man!!”), Young Frankenstein (“It’s pronounced ‘Fronkensteen.’”)). I am especially pulled in by the ending where Richard Dreyfuss and Melinda Dillon are compelled to struggle up the side of Devil’s Tower, only to confront the base built there for the extraterrestrial encounter.
A year or so ago I was watching the part of this sequence when the scientists begin to communicate with the aliens. The camera pans over the assembled scientists and technicians there to set up the base and assist in the communications with E.T. All of a sudden it struck me. Everyone there is a white male. I thought that can’t be right. I rewound to watch it again. I spotted two black men and two, maybe three, women out of a crowd of about 100. However, the only people actually doing anything in the scene were white men.(operating equipment, greeting returnees, playing the organ, etc.).
The more I thought about this the more I was floored. Not because the depiction was odd for Hollywood, but because I even noticed. I realized that when this movie came out in 1977, and for many years thereafter, I was oblivious to the demographics of this scene. It would never have even dawned on my Cro-Magnon brain that there was anything wrong with the depiction of a world where only white males mattered and everyone else should be happy for whatever token presence they are given. If someone had pointed it out to me, I would have agreed that it was not right, but I would not have come up with it on my own.
This awareness of the importance of representation, which is obviously still weak, is another example of something I learned over the years that seriously threatens my ability to enjoy things that I once really liked, as discussed in my last (non-election/non tribute) blog post. How far I have to go was recently brought home to me through a discussion with my son Calvin. He watched The Battleship Potemkin in his Russian Revolution class (all hail Marx and Lennon) and we were discussing the famous Odessa steps scene. If any of you ever took a film class you probably saw this scene where the Tsar’s soldiers chase a fleeing crowd down steps, trampling and shooting people as they descend. If not, you might have seen Brian DePalma’s pale homage to this scene in the movie The Untouchables.
Calvin said that one of the reasons he liked this movie, and this scene, was that Sergei Eisenstein, the Director, had included people with disabilities in the crowd – people who are generally missing in Hollywood movies. It had never occurred to me to even consider that. Once I did, I realized he was right. Hollywood has plenty depictions of people with disabilities in lead roles where the disability is central to the story (Born on the Fourth of July, My Left Foot, The Elephant Man), but you almost never otherwise see people with disabilities. It is as if they don’t exist unless they are useful.
It actually matters that everyone sees potential versions of themselves that hold out a promise of accomplishment, a promise of achievement, a promise of a seat at the table. And it has to be more than just an occasional starring role that shows someone overcoming obstacles (e.g., Hidden Figures, Brave), because most of us are not geniuses, and will never have to save our tribe. It’s just as important that everyone needs to see themselves as a potential part of the team that creates, succeeds, prevails, to feed the drive to muddle through the BS. It’s in a team that most of us reside, and most of us see success, whether our ego wants to hear that or not. Feeling part of that team is where we find our satisfaction. (I will now step down from my soapbox). I will never see Close Encounters, or any other depiction of an assembled group, in quite the same way.
I have one more of these in me (I told you it was a rabbit hole), and then I will move on. I promise.
Deep. I prefer ‘Community’ to ‘Team’.
I look forward to part 3!
OK. “Deep”. Pretty cryptic. There’s has always been a systemic ‘ism. The ‘lack’ of awareness in our past and how we have carried that with us. The ability to slow it down to the present, and to practice that, will shine the light on what we bring. How’s that for deep ?
Pretty darn good. Sounds like a discussion to be had over many beers.