The Cinematography of Sean Price Williams: An Exercise in Grit, Fluidity, and Realism

By Colin Kerekes, Edited by Bridget Zhang

Sean Price Williams began his career shooting for low-budget, unadorned independent films with skeleton crews. These features tended to follow a smaller cast, feature narratives grounded in realism, and contain dialogue-heavy performances emblematic of the mumblecore movement of the 2000s. According to Maria San Filippo, professor of visual and media studies at Emerson College, films of this movement had a “minimalist aesthetic” and “unpolished idiom” that resisted traditional “Hollywood” models - these models being engendered by classic story structures and big budgets (Filippo 2011). These terms are easily applicable to Williams’ imperfect visual style emphasizing a mobile camera and naturalistic environments. Film critic Richard Brody describes Williams as a “cinematographer for many of the best and most significant independent films of the past decade, fiction and documentary” (Folden 2024). In fact, Williams’ personal style is inspired by many prominent documentary filmmakers, such as Albert Maysles, who is known for helping pioneer cinéma vérité (Williams 2023). Even though he mainly works in fiction, films shot by Williams feel as though the viewer is stumbling upon real people undergoing real situations. Therefore, I will be conducting an analysis on three films he has served as DP on which explore overlapping themes of anxiety and the search for personal freedom, to investigate William’s technique of extreme realism. This includes Yeast (2008), Heaven Knows What (2014), and his directorial debut The Sweet East (2023). In each of these works, Sean Price Williams harnesses fluid camera movement reminiscent of art cinema of the 1960s and 1970s in conjunction with heavy zoom effects, naturally sourced lighting, and imperfect exposure. In doing so, he offers an intimate perspective into characters’ psychological dispositions while portraying tension and conflict with a sense of urgency. Williams illustrates a portrait of real life for the viewer, free of glorification and rough around the edges as reality tends to be. 

Cinéma vérité, the style most reminiscent of Williams’ work, is historically utilized in documentary filmmaking. John Hassard, professor of organizational analysis at the University of Manchester explains that on the surface, cinéma vérité can be defined as filmmaking concerned with capturing the truth (Hassard 1998). He cites film scholar Roy Armes, who describes that within cinéma vérité, “an interesting visual style and striking beautiful effects are rejected as a hindrance to the portrayal of the vital truth” (Armes 1966). In other words, pictorial beauty is exchanged for complete realism. Mary Bronstein’s Yeast is the ideal example of cinema at its rawest. Being Williams’ second time as director of photography on a full-length feature film, Yeast follows Rachel (Mary Bronstein), an emotionally unintelligent, perpetually disturbed young woman who is thrust into conflict with her unmotivated roommate Alice (Amy Judd), and her obnoxious, childish friend Gen (Greta Gerwig). The dynamic between each of these unlikeable individuals spirals into biting hatred, physical violence, and cyclical bickering, constructing an experience colored by discomfort and frustration. 

This sense of uncomfortable tension is captured through the viewpoint of a MiniDV camcorder. Through this, it is immediately clear that Williams is not interested in depicting images through a sharp, vivid lens. Instead, scenes are often drenched in grain, blurred, and cloudy. The true artistic prowess emerges from the emotive movement the camcorder offers. Williams tends to shoot handheld, granting him the freedom to follow character actions fluidly and shift easily for the benefit of narrative development. Simultaneously, the motion of the camera can feel clunky, but not at the disservice of the plot. In fact, oftentimes clunky camera movement is deliberate in heightening anxiety and allowing the story to feel cemented in the real world. For instance, a key incident within the film revolves around Gen and Rachel going on a deeply strained camping trip together. As the pair grow tired of each other, the two walk through the forest side by side. Rachel complains incessantly, whether it be about Gen’s lack of planning or the spoiled weather. Eventually, Gen’s annoyance reaches a climax as she hits Rachel across the head before placing her in a chokehold. There is an incredible sense of intimacy associated with Williams’ mobile cinematography as the camera first follows the pair quite freely throughout the scene, mimicking the experience of actually walking with the two. That intimacy is exploited and turned to unease when the camera begins to shake aggressively at the beckon of Gen’s physical aggression. The viewer still feels invested in the scene through means of immersion, however this immersion now serves to make the viewer feel as trapped and overwhelmed as Rachel feels. Though it can appear low-effort, Williams’ distinct camerawork grants the spectator a portal to the world of the film, leaving no room to escape. The aesthetic of invisibility is lost, and instead the viewer is made aware of the camera and meant to connect with it, feeling as though they are eavesdropping upon Rachel’s bitter interactions with her distanced friends. 

Williams’ portrayal of emotion and toxicity is further manifested through the use of close-ups. When Rachel is not outwardly verbalizing her emotions, the viewer is made to infer upon her irritation as the camera looks inwards. Before the camping trip, Rachel and Gen dine at a Burger King. As the two sit at a booth of a closed diner, Rachel condescendingly questions the validity of Gen’s job. Gen is vexed and steps away from her seat, leaving Rachel alone at the booth. The camera then zooms closely on Rachel as she appears perturbed. Her face fills the screen before the camera pans to her hands as she crumbles a Burger King bag with her fist. Though this perspective is mobile, our view is still tightly locked onto Rachel’s actions and feelings. She says little, making every slight variation in expression more notable. Through near proximity, the viewer acknowledges that Rachel is a victim of her own mind who internalizes interactions while hiding behind the facade that she is not the initiator of the friction within her life. No cinematographic choice better elucidates this than the ending shot, where Rachel reaches the realization that Alice no longer needs her nor desires to associate with her. Credits roll over a frozen close-up of Rachel in a dark parking lot, looking off to the side with a certain impotent callousness. This stillness serves as a deliberate contrast to Williams’ constantly moving camera, emphasizing that Rachel’s dissatisfaction will persist for as long as she refuses to recognize her own faults. Essentially, these close, detailed shots force the viewer to see these characters as they truly are. Close often becomes too close, and that is exactly the point. Williams puts the ugly and personal on display. 

Six years following Yeast, Williams collaborated with the Safdie Brothers on Heaven Knows What, a film depicting Harley (Arielle Holmes), a woman living in New York City, as she meanders through a brutal life with an addiction to heroin and a mentally disturbed boyfriend named Ilya (Caleb Landry Jones). Though the film had a slightly higher budget, Williams’ cinematographic tendencies set forth in Yeast still apply, including fluid camera movement and ample close-ups. However, there is a clear maturation in technique on display in Williams’ camerawork which consciously alienates Harley in an environment that cares little for her wellbeing. Williams shot Heaven Knows What on a Sony F3, substituting a home-video aesthetic for a more realized look into the dark underbelly of New York City. Interestingly, desolation is not characterized by low-lighting. Instead, Williams relies on high exposure to render the reality of a bleak, unforgiving city in the dead of winter. Harley weaves through sidewalks and across streets amidst a landscape of dead trees and harsh light. This overexposed light creates a sort of haze that washes over the image. As seen through Yeast, dynamic and unblemished picture quality is not a priority. What is seen on screen is in many ways a reflection of the protagonists’ respective mental states. In Harley’s case, she spends most of the film high, tired, or troubled. Therefore, the washed out light expresses the mental fog she experiences. 

Williams experiments with different types of shots as well, including a panning shot across the cityscapes of New York. This sequence, like the majority of the film, is overexposed. The white, cloudy sky dominates over gray skyscrapers to craft a vision of the city that forgoes beautification. After all, a hallmark of Williams’ cinematography involves portraying spaces and characters as they are - vulnerable, imperfect, and even ugly at times. Harley’s existence is unglamorous, so the camera displays it as such. His experimentation extends to an increased usage of the zoom feature. As Harley sits on a busy sidewalk pleading for money, the viewer sees her from afar. Slowly and choppily, the camera zooms inwards onto her as she is obscured by passing pedestrians. The image becomes flattened. As dimension is lost, the viewer is reminded of Harley’s desperation as the weight of the world crushes in on her narratively and visually. Per usual, Williams still employs his classic handheld style for similar functions seen in Yeast. The opening scene of the film features Harley cutting her wrist with a razor blade in an attempt to appease Ilya. As the razor blade digs into her skin, the camera shakes energetically in panic, cutting rapidly between close images of Harley’s pained expression and blood pouring from her wound. The alarming scene is shot with immediacy. The camera is unflinching and as a result, suspense is overflowing. Though what is shown on screen is not always clear, the camera is not meant to be an objective perspective. It rather acts as a representation of Harley’s frenzied state in the wake of a self-destructive choice. It may not depict the entire reality of the situation, but it does depict the reality of Harley’s hysteria. 

Interestingly, Williams does decide to incorporate small amounts of unnatural lighting at the expense of realism. When Harley injects a heroin needle into her arm, a stylized neon light colored with purple and pink hues pervades the screen, washing over her face as she gives into drug-induced euphoria. In some ways, the resulting image is beautiful. It is expressive of the joyful relief Harley must feel when taking drugs. However, the light is also sourced from the room of a cramped apartment that Harley is barely able to call home. It is a reminder that the difficulties she faces are only bound to fester as the heroin rushes through her veins. Therefore, even when Williams foregoes natural lighting, he does so to authentically convey the unsavory truths of the matter. 

The Sweet East marks Williams’ first time directing, and 32nd feature film as director of photography. It is perhaps one of his more fantastical works, centered on a young student named Lillian (Talia Ryder) who embarks on a surrealist journey across the American east coast, placing herself in increasingly strange and unrelated situations which include the basement of a punk political anarchist, a secret neo-nazi rally, an obnoxious independent film set, and more. Here, shot on an Aaton XTR Prod, Williams utilizes all the tricks in his tool box, incorporating shaky camera movement, quick pans, close-ups, zooms, etc. Yet, Williams’ cinematography on The Sweet East differentiates itself from his prior productions, namely because there is a greater reliance on aesthetic beauty and visual variation. Despite this, conventions typical of cinéma vérité still apply. The film opens with a montage of Lillian on a high school field trip to Washington D.C., where Williams uses handheld that is characteristic of the rest of his work. As the camera swings around a school bus, bobs up and down as Lillian jadedly saunters beside the U.S. Capitol, and zooms in on her glued to the screen of an iPhone, the viewer watches these events unfold like a documentary. It is an honest portrayal of modern American youth through the eyes of Williams. Throughout the sequence, Lillian's boredom is palpable amidst the visual chaos of her high school class. While the cinematography overwhelms, the viewer sympathizes with her desire to slip away. Williams’ purpose here is, as is the usual case, to bring the viewer closer to his protagonists’ desires, needs, and issues. 

The film takes a jarring shift into the bizarre when Lillian sings a Wonderland-esque melody to a mirror, acknowledging the camera directly, before leaping into a metaphorical rabbit hole. In an interview conducted at Film Fest Gent in Belgium, Williams explained that he wanted distinct “changes [in camera motion] when Lillian is with the different characters she meets” (Williams 2023). This is evident when Lillian stumbles upon a neo-nazi rally in the middle of a field, where she meets far-right professor Lawrence (Simon Rex). Williams delineates that in scenes with the professor, he put the camera “on a tripod” (Williams 2023). A still camera, though not entirely absent, is generally uncharacteristic of Williams’ work. However, its usage in The Sweet East functions to underscore Lillian’s personal relationship with security and spontaneity. She wanders through life apathetically, though this apathy allows her a sense of flexibility. She welcomes whatever comes her way, even if it happens to be a near-romantic relationship with a neo-nazi professor twice her age. She seeks refuge in his home, and for a short while, begins to feel secure in this dynamic. That is until she gets bored and decides to flee with a duffel bag full of his money. As she hastily races away, the camera transitions to handheld and a sense of chaos is instilled. This dichotomy between stillness and mobility signalizes her agency. Lillian takes initiative in any situation she wanders into. Even if she feels comfortable for a moment, her restlessness tends to build, leaving her to pursue the next absurd encounter.

Though Williams has become more exploratory in his recent works, at the core of his cinematography is the preoccupation with depicting the truth of the characters being filmed. The imperfect camera united with uneven lighting become vehicles for the messy nature of life. Williams is concerned with accentuating a reality that is not sugar coated. Even if it is not the direct reality the viewer is accustomed to, it is the personal realities of the characters we get to know all too well.

Works Cited

Folden, Matt. “Sean Price Williams’s 1000 Movies - Journal.” Metrograph, 18 Mar. 2024, metrograph.com/sean-price-williamss-1000-movies/#:~:text=The%20New%20Yorker%2 0film%20critic,and%20 Nathan%20Silver%27s%20Thirst%20Street. 

Filippo, Aria San. "A cinema of recession: micro-budgeting, micro-drama, and the 'mumblecore' movement." CineAction, no. 85, winter 2011, pp. 2+. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A269691785/LitRC?u=anon~b365da7a&sid=googleScholar&xid =b3cf6fb1. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024. 

Hassard, John, and Ruth Holliday. Organization/Representation: Work and Organizations in Popular Culture. SAGE, 1997. 

Williams, Sean Price. “Sean Price Williams on ‘The Sweet East’: ‘The Script Was Written to Make Us Laugh.’” FILM TALK, 13 Mar. 2024, filmtalk.org/2024/03/13/sean-price-williams/.

Digitally Indigenous: Images of Late-Stage Colonialism, Imperial Violence, and Metabolic Shift in Neptune Frost

By Micah Slater, Edited by Duncan Geissler

The world of film criticism was both stymied and scintillated with the 2021 release of the musical-surrealist-Afrofuturist Neptune Frost (2021), a film so entirely out of the purview—yet within the release profile and production value—of critics’ standard fare that nearly every review came bundled with synonyms of ‘strange’ (Liz Chan for Make the Switch: “A peculiar yet confusing visual and sonic experience,” A. O. Scott for the New York Times: “Neptune Frost,” a strange and captivating new feature by Saul Williams,” Özgür Çalışkan for SFRA: “an exciting production that defies convention.”). The film is multi-faceted, to be sure, but its narrative, symbolic, and political treatments could not be more clear: set in modern-day Burundi’s mining region, a group of escaped coltan miners, social outcasts, gender rebels, and the assorted detritus of colonial capitalism build an autonomous digital collective in an e-waste dump and begin to plot the downfall of the layered regimes that oppress and exploit their home. Accompanied by technospiritualist diatribes, visions of gods robed in icons of modern waste, diverse musical practices, and metaphysical technological capabilities, Neptune Frost presents a thorough consideration of the conditions created by digital colonialism and labor exploitation in the Global South. Further, in its dialogue of hyper-consciousness and its ambiguous (and distinctly non-Western) treatment of gender and sexual identity, the film positions alternative and expansive modes of being in a digital world as explicit resistance. 

The film opens with the death of an enslaved miner, Tekno (Robert Ninteretse), in the desolate gray wasteland of a coltan mine. Bludgeoned to death over a split second of non-productivity, his body is left where he falls. The other miners, one his brother, swarm the body to treat his wound, and upon failing that, mourn him. Armed guards, one of them his murderer, order their immediate continued labor [00:03:30]. This is the familiar image of resource extraction in Africa: land containing lithium, coltan, fuel, and other limited resources is seized and controlled by a foreign power, which then employs violence to maintain an underpaid, overworked, and dangerously exploited class of laborers from the local population. This paradigm resembles Marx’s theory of spatial rift, in that it exemplifies the “process of so-called primitive accumulation” followed by long-distance transport to urban centers, that then do not fulfill the reciprocal relationship that would be requisite to maintain the stability of the human-Earth metabolism (Saito 26). While Marx is speaking of agriculture here (his ‘favorite’ example, according to Saito), the relevance of the comparison becomes apparent when considering the use of extracted coltan: laptops and cell phones.

 While these devices do not sustain a population in the same way as agricultural exports, they are functionally equivalent in its necessity to the life of a person in the global North. However, Saito’s mediation of Marx’s ideas of luxury are also relevant here. In his definition, “‘luxury’ – something not ‘naturally necessary’ – becomes ‘necessary’” (Saito 9). Naturally, the extreme and temporally rifted coltan mining is not, in fact, a necessity: it merely seems so, as has been declared requisite for populations in the West to re-produce their ways of life. Neptune Frost is, to a degree, guilty of this misconception as well: while it presents depictions of resistance and reclamation, there is no explicit mandate for limits on technological use, solely the elevation of oppressed peoples to the level of consumption extant in the West. Michael Kwet notes in Digital Degrowth, on his perfect global equity income of $80,000 per year per family of 4, that “we likely need to reduce the present level of material consumption, which would leave us with even less” (Kwet 3). Neptune Frost rebels against this idea, focusing instead on their rights to the digital as tied inextricably to their rights to their own land; and therefore, more privileged to an unlimited consumption, even while performing resistance against the cultures that created this mode of planetary use. 

While the premise of Neptune Frost is inextricably linked to traditional and centuries-old practices of colonial capitalism, its novelty and prescience is predicated almost entirely upon its approach to the digital, specifically in terms of access, ownership, and, strangely, spiritualism. The film is not only concerned with the production of material assets used to access the digital space, but the space itself—which is used by its protagonists through meditative and metaphysical practices, directly evocative of their indigenous religious heritage. Early in the film, Neptune (Cheryl Isheja & Elvis Ngabo), an intersex character on the run from the volatility of Burundi’s socioeconomic condition, is visited by a god of the land, digitized and transformed by waste. Broken bicycle wheels spin like parasols on his back, black light paint decorates his clothes and body, wires are woven into his hair. He commands them to hack: “Hack into land rights and ownership. Hack into business law, proprietorship. Hack into the history of the bank. Hack and question the business of slavery, of free labor, of its relation to today’s world” [0:12:10]. Exhibited in this spiritual and extremely explicit verbiage is Neptune Frost’s divine mission: not only does the land from which the material resources of the digital are mined belong to its inhabitants, but so does the digital world created by those resources. It is therefore the goal of the Burundian natives not only to reclaim their land and labor, but to establish themselves as people indigenous to the digital space, and to use it against their oppressors. From Kwet: “We, the common folk, have to liberate ourselves” (9).

                 A hut made of televisions and wires. (Williams and Uzeyman [1:07:42])

Characters throughout exhibit extreme proclivities for technology, going so far as making tech objects begin to work in their sleep [01:06:19]. Others become functionally analogous to holy people, building huts out of televisions and wires in which they meditate to commune with the spiritual-technological realm [01:07:42]. As their powers and numbers grow, however, intervention is inevitable: after spotting a soldier on the outskirts of their camp, Elohel (Rebecca Musyo) declares to the people of the camp: “The Authority is working with European and US intelligence to avoid suspicion.” [1:33:37]. The Authority, ostensibly, is the company for which the coltan miners worked. This explicit conflation of the power of governments and corporations further demonstrates the film’s anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist perspective. This is followed by the appearance of drones, the most evocative symbol of militaristic technological surveillance—-the explicitly weaponized, mobilized sibling of CCTV. Kwet’s note of the overwhelming dominance of the United States aligns perfectly with Elohel’s declaration: he writes “US corporations dominate the world’s social media networks, search engines, semiconductors, cloud computing systems, operating systems, business networking, office productivity software, and more… the US plunders [the South], doing everything it can to [...] sustain its global power and benefit from cheap labor and raw materials” (Kwet 5-6). The collective—nicknamed Matalusa Kingdom, after “martyr-loser”—is clearly a threat to these ideals, both in its anti-capitalist non-productivity and supernatural propensity for technology. And indeed, the film ends the way one would expect: bombs rain down on Matalusa, killing everyone but Neptune. As drones hum overhead, one declares, through a speaker in a female American-accented voice, “I’m sorry. I thought we received confirmation that the target was destroyed” [01:38:10]. As Neptune stares at the drones, their body begins to glitch, and a male voice responds over a different speaker: “confirmed, the target was destroyed” [1:38:20]. In this last moment of digital connectivity, Neptune Frost dismisses and undermines the oppressive presence of the digital West: through their birthright to the technologies used against them, the Burundian people will never be completely annihilated. 

Neptune Frost is a completely singular film. Its conscious and explicit treatment of labor exploitation, digital colonialism, and imperial violence creates a distinct image of the digital space as disputed land and physical resource as rights to its ownership. The film is deeply rooted in the indigenous history of Burundi without neglecting the country’s modern condition, aware of extant rampant corruption and its roots in the powers of foreign governments and corporations. Its treatment of digital colonialism—including metabolic spatial rift, disproportionate access, and the leverage of military technology—is made further distinct by its spiritual assertions, aligning workers’ rights to the products produced by their labor with indigenous rights to the fruits of the land. What Neptune Frost does not consider, however, is degrowth: in its furious holy mission of reclamation, there seems to be no space for global considerations other than destroying the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized and elevating the Burundi people to their righteous level of power and wealth. Nonetheless, the film presents an extraordinary and thorough vision of the conditions that plague resource-rich areas of the global South, particularly those exploited for the materials requisite in the production of technological components. Neptune Frost is a surrealist film, certainly, but the conditions it depicts are far from unreal.

Works Cited

Çalışkan, and Özgür. "Review of Neptune Frost." Science Fiction Research Association, vol. 53, no. 3, 2023, https://sfrareview.org/vol-53-no-3-summer-2023/.

Chan, Liz. "NEPTUNE FROST
A PECULIAR YET CONFUSING VISUAL AND SONIC EXPERIENCE." Make The Switch, December 4, 2022, https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-neptune-frost-a-peculiar-yet-confusing-visual-and-sonic-experience.

Kwet, Michael. Digital Degrowth. Pluto Press, 2024.

Saito, Kohei. Marx in the Anthropocene. Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Scott, A. O. "‘Neptune Frost’ Review: Unanimous Gold Mine." The New York Times, June 2, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/movies/neptune-frost-review.html.

"Neptune Frost." , directed by Saul Williams, and Anisia Uzeyman. , Kino Lorber, 2022.

Ryan Murphy’s Flaws as a Queer Historical Storyteller

By Quinn Jennings, Edited by Alexis Lopez and Emma Smith

Growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I first heard of Jeffery Dahmer when I was seven years old, as the 20th anniversary of the headlines had teachers and friends' parents mumbling where they were and what they remembered from the day in 1991. As I got older, I learned the community believed the best way to respect the victims' families, many of whom still resided in the area, was to discredit any retellings. Most turned out to be dramatized, disrespectful, and created with monetary goals. When Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022), created by Ryan Murphy, became the most streamed television show on Netflix in September 2022, the taboo around true-crime was severely intensified and cross-referenced with Murphy as a creator (White). Schools, publications, and social circles in Milwaukee discussed boycotts of Netflix and Ryan Murphy as a director. It was only when I saw teachers reprimanding students for watching Glee (2009–2015), an earlier Murphy production, during their lunch periods that I began to question the validity of the avoidance strategy and how the Dahmer series, tagged as an LGBTQ+ story by Netflix, fit into the portrait of queer television. 

Ryan Murphy himself is an extension of queer television; he serves as a representation of the genre due to his extensive work with queer media: Glee, Pose (2018–2021), Nip/Tuck (2003–2010), Hollywood (2020), to name a few. However, classifying queer television as existing under one umbrella dismisses the notion that marginalized voices have a unique place in the mainstream. Crediting one creator and forming a designated grouping for queer television flattens the nuance of queer stories. Furthermore, the attribution of Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story as a queer story further alienates Black and brown members of the queer community. Murphy takes true-crime stories and morphs them into sexual thrillers, ultimately altering the themes and compromising the integrity of the storytelling as a result. This is evident in the Dahmer series and the next installation of the Murphy true-crime saga: Monsters – The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (2024). Although the show does not focus on queer storytelling, it suffers from the same Murphy-erotiscm veil that proves unnecessary and distasteful. The Dahmer series does not exist as a queer story in the same way as Pose, another Murphy creation. Pose highlights resilience that propels the queer community forward while the Dahmer series neglects the humanity of victims and disregards the values of the queer community it aims to represent. As a creative, Murphy is not fit to oversee true-crime anthology television. His cachet and affiliation with shows across the true-crime and queer fiction genres–as well as his attempted overlap with the Dahmer and later Menendez Brothers series–is dangerous for the future standard of queer representation through a dramatized historical lens. 

Classified as a true-crime biographical thriller, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story utilizes established stars to portray a retelling of Dahmer's horrific crimes. The marketing of the show emphasizes Evan Peters as the titular role and praises the dark place he entered as a performer, wielding abhorrent acts of a serial killer to entice viewer interest. Murphy draws on Dahmer's patterns of targeting queer men of color as a narrative promotional tool rather than addressing the historical context of prejudice and violence towards LGBTQ+ communities of color in the Midwest. Additionally, the Dahmer series failed to consult victims' families, including those portrayed by actors, or even notify them of the Netflix adaptation's existence, further separating the content in the show with the lived experience of community members (Vlamis). In fact, in 2024, Murphy stated that he had “no interest in talking to [the Menendez Brothers]” since he felt he already knew their perspective on prison reform and the public’s perception of their 1996 conviction (Vlamis). Murphy also declared his show to be “the best thing that has happened to the Menendez brothers in 30 years” (Malkin). Murphy has demonstrated a clear pattern of oblivious behavior in his creative projects and repeatedly treats his subjects as character studies to be observed rather than interacted with and understood. In contrast, his fiction work, Pose, draws talent and perspective from the active community whose history Murphy aims to represent on screen. Lynne Joyrich, a renowned professor at Brown University focused on gender and sexuality studies points out the "diversely racialized group of trans women" Murphy centers in the narrative as well as places in front of and behind the camera in Ryan Murphy's Queer America (33). Pose is emotionally immersive queer television as it is grounded in history and a "lived recognition of the particular experiences, embodiments, and emotions" of trans women of color (Joyrich 33). Purposeful and conscious involvement from community members adds a layer of sincerity to historical storytelling. Without this involvement, we get something like the Monster true-crime anthology series: vapid television that fails to honestly characterize and contextualize queer accounts. 

Pose and Ryan Murphy’s stabs at true-crime storytelling, although both spearheaded by Murphy, have vastly different approaches to depicting queer history in tone and the positioning of queer subjects. The personal and political storylines of Pose portray turmoil and tension within queer communities of color while ultimately celebrating triumphs in a time of racism and homo- and transphobia, in addition to contextualizing the struggles of the HIV-AIDS crisis. The show works to "[refigure] dominant culture" to live "through and with history" and argues that present levels of queer liberation could not have been achieved without the acknowledgement and uplifting of these marginalized stories (Joyrich 39). Stories of past tragedy and joy in the queer community resonate with contemporary audiences as a form of identification. Contrarily, the Dahmer series does not draw from a lifetime of experiences; rather, it focuses on a singular perspective, skewing it in an attempt to capitalize on queer trauma. Although later removed, Netflix's initial choice to add Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story to their LGBTQ+ collection contributes to an erasure of dignity and further adds to Murphy's incomplete cultural phenomenon. The series is a painful reminder of a long history of abuse for queer, Black and brown communities, especially in Milwaukee. The lack of focus on societal issues that positioned queer communities of color as easy targets for violence directly contrasts the emphasis of the community’s perseverance against discrimination in Pose. Standing on almost the opposite end of Murphy’s work, Monsters – The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story does not deal with queer subjects, but it handles topics of male sexual abuse. During the trial, the show depicts the prosecution alluding to Erik’s homosexuality as a tactic to discredit his account of violent sexual abuse at the hand of his father. Murphy had many chances to empathetically investigate the cycle of abuse and trauma with a post #MeToo lens, but instead, moments of critical analysis are overshadowed by Murphy’s favor for shock value and his tendency to oversaturate the taboo. 

The work Ryan Murphy produces serves as a representation of societal issues in underserved and marginalized communities. His filmography also demonstrates the arc of a respected creative who misuses the power at his disposal. Murphy’s true-crime anthology series combines his established aesthetic of good-looking stars with the Netflix exposure that carries weight on social media and translates into TikTok and X (formerly known as Twitter) discourse. Historically, true-crime projects on Netflix have sparked new discussions about an era of problematic thirst traps. In 2019, Netflix’s documentary release of Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019) and biopic Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019) starring Zac Efron emphasized the serial killer’s reputation as a handsome manipulator. Around the same time, the stalker-thriller You (2018–) starring Penn Badgley had social media users excusing and condoning the brutality taken by the show’s protagonist. Young attractive actors are a parcel of the Ryan Murphy brand: they are part of why multiple generations of young people propelled his television shows forward for years. As a white male creator, Murphy’s casting allows his own identity to shine through in the underbelly of his work. These choices allow similar audiences to accept his work at face value without considering the degree to which Murphy is attached to these stories. The Dahmer and Menendez brothers series have ushered in a new era of TikTok thirst traps and fan edits that are unsavory and offensive on multiple levels: to the memory of the victims of these crimes, their families who are still exposed to their depiction on television, and in the case of the Menendez brothers, the subjects themselves. Murphy’s mobilization of young actors to play these offensive roles and take part in depicting these gruesome stories is an act of wielding his power and name recognition to add supposed credibility to the irresponsible storytelling. 

Despite Murphy's flaws, his incorporation of queer stories in television is career defining. On television, he has "[redefined] cultural formations (such as family and home), yielding knowledges and ignorances […] that cannot be characterized as either simply negative or positive" through his presentation of queer characters as multifaceted (Joyrich 35). By incorporating queerness into the mainstream, Murphy structured his work around challenging televisual norms. But while he may have paved the way for uplifting queer representation on television, Murphy’s portfolio is flawed. The understanding of Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story as a queer story told by Murphy that gains viewers from shock value of that association. The series attempts to hide behind this trait with Murphy's position as a creator, striving to add credibility to this supposed queer story with his association with queer television. Murphy takes risks with his true-crime shows despite the genre not leaving room for creative interpretation. The Menendez Brothers series includes a scene of the brothers kissing after killing their parents to add a layer of shock to the show and ambiguity around the degree of sexual abuse Lyle and Erik endured. The implication that the characters–who are representative of real people and public figures–are in an incestuous relationship despite an extreme lack of evidence suggests irresponsible, exploitative, and lazy storytelling. Overall, Murphy's multiple attempts at historical retellings fall short of being captivating or nuanced and remain incomplete without historical and cultural references. 

Extensive work has been done in the past several decades to incorporate queer stories into the mainstream. It would be thoughtless to omit Ryan Murphy’s catalog of work from these accomplishments and milestones. Although Ryan Murphy can be credited with paving a way for the volume representation on television, audiences should be wary of appraising his depictions of queer history–especially when regarding gruesome true-crime cases. There must be a future standard of consultation and consideration for historical retellings. Instead of shying away and allowing acclaimed executives to run free with creative interpretation, it is essential to confront the reality that creating complex queer high schoolers and their intricacies through gossip and song does not license the presentation of layered queer history without consulting lived perspective. 

Works Cited 

Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Created by Ryan Murphy, Netflix, 2022. Glee. Created by Ryan Murphy, Fox, 2009–2015. 

Joyrich, Lynne. "Posing as Normal?" Ryan Murphy's Queer America, 2022, pp. 27–40. Pose. Created by Ryan Murphy, FX, 2018–2021. 

Malkin, Marc. “Ryan Murphy Has ‘no Interest’ in Meeting the Menendez Bros. and Believes New Trial Is Possible: ‘Monsters’ Is the ‘Best Thing That’s Happened to Them in 30 Years.’” Variety, Variety, 26 Sept. 2024, 

variety.com/2024/tv/news/ryan-murphy-menendez-brothers-retrial-monsters-backlash-net flix-1236157104/. 

Monsters – The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Created by Ryan Murphy, Netflix, 2024. Vlamis, Kelsey. “My Brother Was Murdered by Jeffrey Dahmer. Here’s What It Was like Watching the Netflix Show That Recreated the Emotional Statement I Gave in Court.” Insider, Insider, 26 Sep. 2022, 

www.insider.com/rita-isbell-sister-jeffrey-dahmer-victim-talks-about-netflix-show-2022- 9.

White, Peter. “‘Dahmer: Monster – the Jeffrey Dahmer Story’ Locks up Netflix’s Biggest Audience since ‘Stranger Things’ Return.” Deadline, Deadline, 28 Sept. 2022, deadline.com/2022/09/dahmer-monster-the-jeffrey-dahmer-story-netflix-biggest-audience-since-stranger-things-1235128248/. 

Heavy Metal Parking Lot: On Subculture, Intention, and the Politics of Personhood

By Sophia Fijman, Edited by Ben Glickman

The phrase “the personal is political” implies an inherent connection between personal experience and socio-political constructions, whether or not there is an intended political purpose. This extends to art and media, in pieces which are not necessarily supposed to be political, but can be viewed as such because of their context. Documentary filmmaking, in particular, is arguably capable of depicting humanity in its rawest state, from which political implications can be drawn. Heavy Metal Parking Lot (1986), a short documentary that comes in at just under 17 minutes, creates a portrait of concertgoers in the parking lot before a Judas Priest show. Produced by Jeff Krulik and John Heyn, the film is rooted in personhood and dedicates itself to exploring a condensed version of the heavy metal scene. If read in such a context, there is an intrinsically political current running through the film, one which encompasses the heavy metal movement of the 1980s, and which hints at the criticism and fear faced by the subculture as a result.

Heavy Metal Parking Lot is a concise and thorough painting of its titular suburban subculture. The short documentary was shot in Landover, Maryland on May 31st, 1986, outside a concert arena and is, according to its producers, “hailed as one of the greatest rock documentaries ever” (Krulik and Heyn). On their website, the two claim that the film is “a definitive cultural touchstone for the 1980s metal scene: spandex, big hair, denim, mullets, muscle cars, and beer” which “launched” its own genre of parking lot films (Krulik and Heyn). Though brief and a bit trite – the producers’ ‘story’ rings true to the film itself. Heavy Metal Parking Lot is in fact a kind of underground cult classic (if such a thing exists), with a wikipedia page and a number of popular published articles, yet far fewer references in traditional, peer-reviewed academia.

The personal aspect of documentary film such as Heavy Metal Parking Lot is unsurprisingly intertwined with its time period – the overall tone of the film is underlined by the technological developments and pop culture of the 1980s. Filmmaking in the 80s saw minor technological improvements from the 70s, alongside the continued popularity of location shooting and the significance of authenticity. While production is not entirely determined by such technology’s capabilities, it is indebted to their limitations. Commercially available technology became increasingly common well into the 1980s, as videocassette recorders became available to the public and people like John Heyn and Jeff Krulik could document their own scenes and distribute their projects. In fact, the documentary was allegedly shot on a camera borrowed from Krulik’s day job at a local public access station (Rettman). The implication of accessible cameras of the 80s and the influence of direct cinema on documentary film are both starkly present in Heavy Metal Parking Lot.  In discussing advancing technology as a forum for innovation, Professor Michael Brendan Baker notes that pop culture is historicized by documentary. According to Baker, critical moments in the evolution of popular music coincided with new technologies which, in turn “prompted the exploration of un- and underrepresented musical styles and communities” (Baker 152). He goes on to discuss how “amateur cinematographers and semi professional filmmakers could explore subcultural music communities” (152-3) as cameras developed. Baker names Heavy Metal Parking Lot and similar projects as part of a shift which debatably brought an “expansion of subject matter and representational strategies” (153) – projects intended to document a community, seemingly inadvertently linked to political movements. 

The personhood that is so poignant in Heavy Metal Parking Lot corresponds with Baker’s argument. That is, the film’s intentional focus on a very human experience is linked to its content and style. The states of being – of the subjects and filmmakers – have a kind of raw quality, and the camera itself feels conscious and individual. The film’s physicality is only possible because the camera can navigate the lot, and the project’s eventual reach and influence is a direct result of VCR. Heavy Metal Parking Lot is anything but fly-on-the-wall. The filmmakers interact with the population of the parking lot and move the camera through the crowd like a member of it. While the film includes a slew of one-on-one interviews, they’re done conversationally and on site – Jeff and John are simply filming their interactions with the crowd. In fact, the people being interviewed acknowledge the camera, but also seem to sometimes look over it to make eye contact with the filmmakers asking the questions, as if the camera is just another person. The film spends a notable amount of time panning over the crowd itself – groups of men standing shirtless against cars, people leaning out car windows to check tickets, drinking, screaming, and dancing. Around minute 14, it moves fluidly across a line of people waiting for the concert – a shot easily done because of smaller, portable camera advancements of the decade prior. Many of them wave to it, as if the camera is part of the conversation and representative of potential viewers. It’s carried through the crowd like a celebrity; many concert goers react to it, throwing up a ‘rock and roll’ hand sign, or another gesture. 

The lot interacts with the camera and filmmakers with the apparent knowledge that their words will be shared – their gestures, chants, and personal details representative of the local metal scene. Within the punk scene, there simply is no removing the music and subculture from anti-establishment, individual ideology. Heavy metal is often assumed to be of a similar nature. While they may share an overall genre and seem similar to the uninformed listener, punk music is largely defined by said ideology, and heavy metal by its aesthetic. In short: heavy metal is not defined by a certain mindset, yet this film indicates that it may still be viewed as such. Moreover, dedicated metal researcher and author Bettina Roccor, in speaking on the unification and fragmentation of the subculture, asserts that “the kernel of heavy metal is not a special kind of ideology but rather the music of heavy metal” (Roccor 83). According to Roccor, the subculture “is subject to the momentary political, local, social and individual conditions within which this kind of music is made and consumed” (83). Roccor insists that heavy metal, unlike punk, does not center itself on a ‘kernel’ of ideology. However, as she alludes, the scene itself is often viewed as political and associated with extremes. What’s more, she suggests that the context of a time period might pull metal music into an assumed ideology, and Heavy Metal Parking Lot is not devoid of politics. In one of the few explicitly political moments, a man with a shirt that says “FUCK OFF” points to the camera, then his shirt, and then the camera pans over to cops roaming the lot [1:35]. However, another moment depicts a man with an apparent confederate flag shirt who cheers “Praise rock and roll forever!” [15:08]. Though individual viewpoints are anything but cohesive, politics are present, leaning toward the far left and right. Despite the debatable true nature of metal subculture and possible intentions of the filmmakers, Heavy Metal Parking Lot is an interpersonal film which focuses on the metal scene, and may therefore be interpreted as a clandestinely political documentary.

As it films the group as a whole, Heavy Metal Parking Lot frames the crowd mentality of the fans. It captures them at their most dedicated, and the camera at its most personal. At one point, a man in all zebra print is asked about his “philosophy on life,” to which he responds “It sucks shit! Heavy metal rules! Heavy metal rules, all that punk shit sucks. It doesn't belong in this world. It belongs on fucking mars, man,” [8:54]. Another group is filmed as someone holds up a Judas Priest flag, and a large group begins chanting “PRIEST PRIEST PRIEST” [7:30], as if the fans are patriotic citizens of the band’s nation – the kind of mob mentality that the general public seems to fear when it comes to metal music. Independent scholar and author John Brackett touches on this concisely in covering the development of antirock discourse of the 1980s. He notes that the Parents’ Music Resource Center “argued that socially irresponsible songs and videos—particularly those associated with heavy metal—were a contributing factor in many of the hardships and challenges facing america’s youth” – including generalized sex, drugs, and violence (Brackett 273). Heavy Metal Parking Lot only adds fuel to the fire of 1980s parents’ satanic panic, yet its focus on such subject matter feels intimate; the film is simply a series of personal interactions which might be contextualized as political from an outside perspective.

Throughout the film, attendees are asked how they feel about Judas Priest or whether they’d like to say anything to the band – they frequently respond with passionate praise. Heavy Metal Parking Lot explores extremes, just as the metal scene seems to do. One of the first people interviewed is Graham, who introduces himself as “like gram of dope and shit” [2:50]. When prompted about where he’s from and what he’s doing in this parking lot, he responds with “I’m on acid, that’s where I am” and someone shouts about cocaine. At 3:41, Graham declares “they should legalize drugs. That is a fact.” Much later in the short, a man smiles and announces, “My goal tonight is sit back, run back my car, drink a few beers, and puke on some unsuspecting victims!” [13:20] and less than a minute later, a girl exclaims how much she loves a band member and yells “We wanna fuck your brains out!” [14:09]. A number of the featured interviewees of Heavy Metal Parking Lot fit easily into the metal subculture stereotype – the extreme taboo about which parents of the satanic panic age were concerned. Yet, as filmmakers Jeff and John mention on their aforementioned website, there is nearly 3 hours worth of content shot for this documentary – what they did include was done with a level of purpose (Krulik and Heyn). 

The content that does make the final cut of the short is that which the filmmakers subjectively felt embodied the personality of the scene. As a result, the documentary is informed by their own personal experiences, contextualized by their (potentially subconscious) opinions on the heavy metal scene. While it’s difficult to pinpoint their exact ideological beliefs before the production of this short, it’s entirely possible to speculate that the filmmakers have pushed a specific narrative in their presentation of the heavy metal scene. While Krulik and Heyn now consider themselves fans of the band, their choice to film the Judas Priest concert goers specifically was reportedly simply happenstance (Trutor). Their 17 minute documentary feels like nonstop chaos – and is arguably deceiving in this way. The editing choices made by Krulik and Heyn are motivated by what they assumed would catch the attention of viewers, painting the parking lot scene in its most outrageous moments from the perspective of an outsider. In tandem with its content, the physical production of Heavy Metal Parking Lot is inherently linked to its creators’ personhood and point of view. And, depending on background and previous knowledge of subculture, this shameless, extreme depiction of heavy metal might go on to inform the viewer’s own perspective.

There is another side to Heavy Metal Parking Lot which explores the emotional facet of metal subculture. Two people, when asked what they would say to singer Rob Halford, explain that they have backstage passes because a friend of theirs died in a car accident and his mother wrote to the band. 75 people in the parking lot that night had backstage passes and “a great big banner that says ‘Timmy loved Judas Priest!’” [10:14]. A bit later, an older man says into the camera, “Judas Priest, you play your heart out tonight for all these kids, okay?” [13:57], as if the camera can communicate his wish to the band itself. It’s unclear whether he asks this for any reason, but there is a heartfelt tone. The film gets deeply personal, with the camera in the throng of the crowd – all arms and skin and yelling – as the concertgoers rally. Frequently, the filmmakers ask their subjects about their hometown and how popular heavy metal is in those places, rounding out each of their individual human narratives and their connections to the scene. In a strange way, the film manages to incorporate both the heart and fire of metal subculture, as well as perpetuate the criticism-drawing stereotypical association with sex, drugs, and violence.

Heavy Metal Parking Lot, in just about 16 minutes, encompasses metal subculture of the 1980s – whether or not that is truly informed by the filmmakers’ outside perspective. The film is a portrait, and suggests in its nature and context that the personal and political are intertwined. A film about metal subculture, whether or not intentionally, cannot be entirely apolitical – just as many art forms today. It, in turn, begs the question of whether this uninhibited counterculture can still be documented today, without being quickly commodified by the exploits of social media and digital connectivity. This suggests a kind of online visibility which can be further analyzed via political personhood. Heavy Metal Parking Lot, in the context of its intention, sociological context, and as a pseudo period piece, encapsulates the personal human experience as it relates to subcultural music scenes, and is therefore politicized.

Works Cited

Baker, Michael Brendan. “POPULAR MUSIC AND SHORT-FORM NONFICTION: Is the Web a Forum for Documentary Innovation?” Reclaiming Popular Documentary, edited by Christie Milliken and Steve F. Anderson, Indiana University Press, 2021, pp. 139–56. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv21hrhxk.14. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.

John Brackett. “Satan, Subliminals, and Suicide: The Formation and Development of an Antirock Discourse in the United States during the 1980s.” American Music, vol. 36, no. 3, 2018, pp. 271–302. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.36.3.0271. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.

Krulik, Jeff. “Heavy Metal Parking Lot.” Vimeo, Apr. 2024, vimeo.com/152843738. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024.

Krulik and Heyn. “HEAVY METAL PARKING LOT.” Heavymetalparkinglot.com, 2021, www.heavymetalparkinglot.com/index.html#story. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024.

Rettman, Tony. “Revisiting cult film ‘Heavy Metal Parking Lot.’” Ultimate Classic Rock, 2005, https://ultimateclassicrock.com/heavy-metal-parking-lot/. Accessed 13 Nov. 2024.

Roccor, Bettina. “Heavy Metal: Forces of Unification and Fragmentation within a Musical Subculture.” The World of Music, vol. 42, no. 1, 2000, pp. 83–94. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41699315. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.

Trutor, Clayton. “A Rock Documentary That Won’t Die.” Nextavenue, 16 Jan. 2024, www.nextavenue.org/a-rock-documentary-that-wont-die/. Accessed 13 Nov. 2024.

Female Martyrdom and Sexual Sacrifice in Jiří Menzel’s 1966 Adaptations of Bohumil Hrabal

By Micah Slater, Edited by Lucia Perfetti

In a review of the limited scholarship applied to the work of Czech New Wave director Jiří Menzel, several reading trends emerge: Western scholars are wooed by the Czech “miracle” of the 1960s, often attach his films to the work of philosopher Georges Bataille, and only briefly, if at all, address the symbology and characterization of the women in his films (Bates 37). Jonathan L. Owen, an author with a number of published works on Menzel’s films—specifically his adaptations from the works of Czech contemporary writer Bohumil Hrabal—speaks on Menzel’s portrayal of women most thoroughly, but still, merely to the pursuit of its limits: “Menzel’s representation of women does represent a flaw on the filmmaker’s own terms” (Owen 510). Some scholars ignore the gendered imbalance in his films entirely. Daniel Brennan asserts “all of Menzel’s characters have great depth” (212). Seeing that his work, alongside Owen’s, are the most frequently cited of the few English-language works on Menzel’s filmography, a gap in the scholarship becomes clear. 

In the interest of excoriating this deficit and examining the material causes and implications of this flaw in Menzel’s filmmaking, this paper will move between Owens’ limited readings of the sexual and body politics in Closely Observed Trains (1966) and Brennan’s assessment of sacrifice and martyrdom in the above and Mr. Balthazar’s Death (1966). Between the two films and scholars, a detailed analysis reveals the (mis)treatment of Menzel’s female characters to constitute a sexual sacrifice. In Closely Observed Trains and Mr. Balthazar’s Death, the self-effacement of Menzel’s female characters and their ostensibly willing submission to treatment as sex objects resemble the messianic sacrifice of national subjects in the Czech tradition, modeling for and compelling male characters to perpetuate the sex-death drive of Bataille’s theories of excess and consumption through forms of political martyrdom and individual dissidence. 

Owen’s analysis of the gendered politics in Closely Observed Trains resembles much of the scholarship on male directors with tendencies to underdevelop or disregard female characters. He notes the objectifying nature of the lens; that the women in his Hrabalian adaptations are often more attractive and less “base” than in the original writing; that their bodies are treated with a “formless materiality” that reduces them to sexual objects (Owens 510, Owens 97). Such are the immediately appreciable qualities of the women in the viewing of the film: of the six featured in Closely Observed Trains, one is a mother, one is a wife, three are erotic partners to male characters (erotic used here in the Bataillean regard for non-productive energy expenditure, as this is not exclusively sex), and one is a scarcely-appearing monument to scopophilia. Some are without explicit names. It is this set of patriarchal sexual norms from which Owen assumes Menzel was unable to sufficiently deviate. In Mr. Balthazar’s Death, the roles are reduced due in part to the length of the film, but nonetheless his women are remanded to sex or invalidity: an older woman drinks to the point of belligerence, well past being of any sexual value, while a younger sneaks off with her lover to withdraw from the spectacle of a motorcycle race. In extant writing, these portrayals are rightly cast as limiting and demeaning. However, in an analysis interested in the ecosystem and specific nature of these limits, Menzel’s meditation on sacrifice and martyrdom becomes relevant.

In Brennan’s article “Jiří Menzel’s Treatment of Sacrifice,” his working definition of sacrifice is the performance of “acts for political and social improvement at the expense of [a person’s] life” (208). He contextualizes these acts against the contradicting spheres of the political, cast as “distant [and] overbearing,” and the personal, the “mundane private relations” of intimate care relationships (Brennan 208). He argues that Menzel cautions against unconditional valorization of the sacrifice of dissidents and that, in order to perform martyrdom against the political, the interpersonal is inevitably disregarded. Brennan remains focused on the dialectics of these two spheres, viewing sex as the boast of the personal, and the political; an overhanging force to stymie the care relations fostered by the sexual-erotic experiences of his characters. 

While he does acknowledge that Menzel allows for play between the two, Brennan continually fails to recognize the established neglect of Menzel’s female characters, further remiss in that their narratives remarkably resemble his selfsame definition of sacrifice. (He uses as an example but doesn’t deign to name Zdenka (Jitka Zelenohorská), the station telegrapher and recipient of the infamous rubber stamps in Closely Watched Trains.) While there may be friction between this statement and the base survival of Menzel’s women through their narratives, it is not misplaced to note that they have endured a form of expense: in their mistreatment, they are, in a way, martyred to the erotic use-case of their bodies. Their sexual encounters are transformative points at which they engender political radicalization or personal growth in their male partners. Brennan also notes British Slavist Richard Pynsent’s diagnosis of a “martyr complex in historical Czech notions of national identity… a messianic complex around the blood sacrifice of various national Czech heroes,” an argument that would then certainly support Menzel’s implicit and, in Owen’s reading, unconscious treatment of his women as sacrificial bodies (Brennan 219). Menzel’s Bataillean synthesis of sex and death further aligns the sacrificial expense of a life with the sexual labor that then transforms his male characters. His ever-classic fixation on the French literal translation of orgasm to “little death” resounds (Owen 95).

At first reading, a connection between a purposeful but non-productive erotic expenditure and a Bataillean approach to the “truth of eroticism”—the squandering of excess energy—may seem contradictory (Owen 86). In fact, Bataille argues, this sense of waste is “integral to the pleasurable erotic experience” (Owen 84). If Menzel’s female characters are serving a sacrificial purpose, then the energy is not wasted, and therefore, the encounters are rendered as productive and by definition un-erotic. This goes so far as to be potentially rendered null in the face of  Menzel’s vocal resistance to the Soviet “productive man” (Owen 83). If his portrayed sexual encounters are motivating, and therefore in pursuit of a producible goal, what is between his erotically active cast and the gormless productivity of the characters in Socialist Realism films? Brennan offers an answer. As mentioned above, he argues that Menzel’s films of the 1960s regard sacrifice, even in its conventional and established definition, as waste itself, and inevitably results in the forgoing of the personal sphere—where Menzel places so much importance. Brennan asserts, regarding the death of  Closely Watched Trains protagonist Miloš Hrma (Václav Neckár), specifically as a martyr to the cause of the resistance, that “a young person, brimful of potential [...] has been fooled [...] into too lightly giving away their life” (213). The implication therein is that his successful erotic experience with female resistance fighter Viktoria Freie (Nada Urbánková), was a performed martyrdom that compelled him to his sacrifice; one that then ended his life. Therefore, a bifurcated picture of the nature of sacrifice emerges between Bataillean philosophy and Menzel’s own national complexes: female characters martyr themselves to unproductive sexual experience, a waste of their youthful virility and also a grand symbolic gesture in the Czechoslovakian national context. The gesture then motivates their male partners, as constituents of the same beliefs Menzel implicitly holds, to make their own wasteful sacrifices. Thus, Menzel splits the national martyr complex along gendered lines, restricting the sacrifices of Czech women to their erotic roles in men’s lives.

In Mr. Balthazar’s Death, the political—as in, the structural system in dialogue with the personal sphere—is reframed from the Nazi occupation to a motorbike race (Brennan 210). The spectacle of the race is presented as if akin to the political exploits of sacrifice or war—everyone is there for, and chattering relentlessly about, the past and potential gruesome deaths of the riders–reifying the national Czech sacrificial complex. He also refocuses his erotic waste on a couple, a pair of side characters who miss the race entirely to sneak off into the woods and expend Bataillean erotic energy. While they’re gone, the crowd gets what they came for: a rider, the eponymous Mr. Balthazar (uncredited), dies on the track [00:22:49]. This is tantamount to the form of martyrdom Miloš expresses in his own death, a public and pointless expenditure of (not as, but still) youth and virility. The political spectacle is missed by the lovers, who subsequently return to the track and see both the man motionless and the spectators leaving. They appear to be the only ones, other than the medical staff collecting his body, who hold any empathy for the rider and run to his body [00:23:24]. Here, Menzel presents a synthesis of feeling between the two forms of sacrifice. In the sexual sacrifice of his female partner, the young man is enabled of resistance in the form of empathy—a personal dissidence from his older, sexless, detached peers. In her sexual sacrifice, the young woman identifies with this dead rider, martyred to the national interest in the same way she has martyred herself to her partner’s sexual experience. Again, not a conventional death, but a marked rift between the politically living (the spectators) and the interpersonal dead (the couple and the rider). In a strange way, this death has liberated these young people from imbrication into the political quagmire of their elders. This evokes further considerations on Menzel’s—and other New Wave directors’—break with their predecessors, particularly in their ideological foundations. 

Other than fictionally condemning older generations for their fanatic indulgence in wanton political sacrifice, the Czech New Wave investment in the recontextualization of socialism from the state has been well-documented throughout the 1960s. As Robin Bates writes, “from 1962 to 1968, a basic goal of the Czech filmmakers was to liberate the ideals of socialism from the reified state in which those ideals had been trapped” (37). Closely Observed Trains casts further backwards than the context of 1950s Socialist Czechoslovakia, but between these two films, it’s evident both Hrabal and Menzel have little interest in literalism in terms of critiquing controlling political systems. Owens notes “one of Hrabal’s early ambitions was, it seems, to “colloquialize” surrealism” (496). Bates also includes a quote from critic Penelope Gilliat, observing that Czech contemporary audiences “seem to start from the assumption that everyone in the audience notices everything, that everyone is sick to death of public utterances that nibble around the edges of things as they are, and that there is not a man left in the country who could honestly be deceived” (39). Between the two, the clear inference is that both of these films inform audience readings not merely of the oppression of the Nazi period and the gladiatorial politics of the race, but the creative limitations of the generation and the decade of filmmakers preceding the New Wave. In both films, the older generations hold to the precepts of homogeneity and productive output, disapproving of frivolous sex and valorizing the death of martyrs as purposeful in the political context. 

A critical interrogation of the women of Jiří Menzel’s Closely Observed Trains and Mr. Balthazar’s Death can seem, at times, an exercise in making mountains out of molehills. They are hardly considered, barely named, and almost exclusively exist in the context of sex, eroticism, or male visual pleasure. Some scholarship has ignored this; others have commented on it in summary as a personal failure of Menzel’s to elide patriarchal sexual conservatism in his otherwise emancipatory impetus. Other more studied elements of his work, however, provide scaffolding to critically interrogate his female characters beyond their marginalization: between Owen’s readings of Bataille’s erotic waste and Brennan’s examinations of Menzel’s treatment of sacrifice, a refocused analysis of women and girls in his films is possible. Here, they are revealed to function as sexual sacrifices to their male partners, centered in the national preoccupation with martyrdom and messianic sacrifice as assessed by Pynsent. Menzel himself appears to hold a distinctly Bataillean perspective on the literal martyrdom of his male subjects, ending their lives in pointless politicized acts of spectacle and resistance, expending their youthful and virile energy in abject waste. Bataille’s assertion of erotic pleasure stemming from such waste allows this principle to backwards apply to sexual encounters between men and women, enforcing the wasteful erotic expenditure of Menzel’s female characters as another form of sacrifice. The deaths and sacrifices of these young people also serve as subtle critiques of the preceding generation of film-makers and -goers, whose capitulation to state depictions of socialism is compared to the spectatorial demand for meaningful death and (re-)productive sex. While Menzel tactfully criticizes both, his own sexual conservatism and disregard for his female host is equally illustrative: to Jiří Menzel, the martyrdom of eroticized women in the process of male maturation is implicit, informed by national preoccupations and social orders. It is through this initial self-effacing sacrifice that these men are then able to become wasted martyrs themselves, bodies on bodies in a heap at the end of the Czechoslovakian New Wave. 

Works Cited

Bates, Robin. "The Ideological Foundations of the Czech New Wave." Journal of the University Film Association, vol. 29, no. 3, 1977, pp. 37–42. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20687379.

Brennan, Daniel. "Jiří Menzel’s Treatment of Sacrifice." Ethics & Bioethics (in Central Europe), vol. 9, no. 3, 2019, pp. 208–220, doi:10.2478/ebce-2019-0018.

"Closely Observed Trains.", directed by Jiří Menzel, Ústřední půjčovna filmů, 1966a.

"Mr. Balthazar's Death." directed by Jiří Menzel, 1966.

Owen, Jonathan L. "Closely Observed Bodies: Corporeality, Totalitarianism and Subversion in Jiří Menzel's 1960s Adaptations of Bohumil Hrabal." Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne Des Slavistes, vol. 51, no. 4, 2009, pp. 495–511. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40871461.

Owen, Jonathan L. "Jiří Menzel’s Closely Observed Trains (1966); Hrabal and the Heterogeneous." Avant-Garde to New Wave. Berghahn Books, 2011. JSTOR,http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qd7tp.8.

Unseen Lesbianism: How Jodie Foster Navigated and Embodied Her Contradictions in Cinema

By Pau Brunet-Fuertes, Edited by Ella Kilbourne

For many celebrities, the only way to publicly live as they are is by becoming a spokesperson for the entire community. Movie stars are figures who transcend their individual personas to become something larger and more complex, often embodying a variety of social meanings that, in most cases, are tied to a dominant ideology. Given their relationship with power, stars outside of the dominant group – typically, white heterosexual men – are pushed to negotiate contradictions, and lesbian and gay actors face the choice of living openly as queer and, consequently,  become a "spokesperson" for their community. The coming-out narratives are still considered brave and significant in the mainstream context, despite the fact that this expectation can be harmful to queer individuals, especially in the case of queer celebrities (Johnson et al. 201). These narratives often cater exclusively to mainstream heteronormative audiences and systems, such as general viewers and industrial interests, while rarely acknowledging or supporting the existence of queer individuals. One example of these conflicts and contradictions behind the queer experience as a celebrity is Jodie Foster, who was forced to grapple with this dilemma. During the  1990s, she was one of Hollywood's most beloved film stars. She won two Oscars, one for The Accused (Kaplan 1989), the first film that addressed the unprotective judicial system for sexual assault victims, and the other for The Silence of the Lambs (Demme 1991), a suspense classic that dealt with some controversy around its depictions of genderqueer individuals.  Foster was a bankable celebrity who starred in several successful movies such as  Maverick (Donner, 1994), Nell (Apted 1994), and Contact (Zemeckis 1995), and developed a filmmaking career with remarkable independent films like Little Man Tate (Foster  1991) and Home for the Holidays (Foster 1995). However, like many other queer folks in the film industry, she was a lesbian under the radar. As a movie star, Jodie Foster incorporated and reshaped contradictions around female gender and sexuality, challenging those through ambiguity and independence both inside and outside the screen. 

Individuals in all societies navigate all kinds of conflicts and exclusions, and stars become an exaggeration of these dichotomies, with the pressure that they need to solve them to maintain or gain their status. Movie stars become popular through images on the screen and in publicity, which means that their image is in all ways fabricated and controlled. In his book  Stars, Richard Dyer writes that "star images function crucially in relation to contradictions within and between ideologies, which they seek variously to 'manage' or resolve" (34). Societies are formed with different ideologies that clash and discuss different forms of life, mainly linked to different ways of understanding gender, class, and race. Film celebrities are at the center of that societal clash as they visually and popularly represent types of behavior that empower different ideologies. In that line, Dyer asserts that "in exceptional cases, it has been argued that certain stars, far from managing contradictions, either expose them or embody an alternative position (itself usually contradictory) to dominant ideology" (34). Some celebrities who resist conforming to dominant ideals draw attention to gaps, double standards, and contradictions within mainstream values. Because of this, some stars do not just accept or work around societal contradictions but actively reveal and complicate them. To solve those contradictions, they need to become symbols that diffuse or exaggerate those contradictions using their "symbolic persona through media," which creates a relationship between the star and an “unseen audience” that inhabits the media (Harris 40). This audience refers to the often overlooked individuals who engage with media content, absorbing the messages, information, or narratives it conveys in relation to their own personal lives. Film stars who propose divergent behaviors become imaginary forms of rebellion against the ideologically dominant culture. As symbolic meanings, they change through time, with or without the active work of the individual behind the persona. Consequently, it is essential to understand that the celebrity does not exclusively form this imaginary form of rebellion but also needs the audience's action to engage and validate it. 

Jodie Foster's relationship with contradictions evolves as she navigates issues of age,  gender, and sexualization. Since the beginning of her career, when she played the role of a 13- year-old prostitute in Taxi Driver (Scorsese 1976) and a mod-girlfriend in Bugsy Malone (Parker  1976), Foster recreated two essential characteristics of her persona in and out of the screen:  independence and ambiguity. In addition to her iconic role in Taxi Driver, Foster's role in Freaky  Friday (Nelson 1976) will cement the idea of her as an adult trapped in a child's body. In the spirit of the late 1970s, Foster embodied that early sexualized girl, clever enough to navigate the adult world during the 1980s economic depression. Films such as Foxes (Lyne 1980), Carny (Kaylor 1980), The Hotel New Hampshire (Richardson 1983), Mesmerized (Laughlin 1986), and  Five Corners (Bill 1988) created a film persona that reflected a symbolic image of the middle-low and working class, in contrast to actors such as Molly Ringwald or Mia Sara,  who personify the middle-upper class American girl. Foster was the opposite of the female in distress; generally, her characters were not in search of the perfect match but embodied the empowerment of being sentimentally independent. 

Jodie Foster crafted a rebellious and cynical character, portraying an ambiguous way to see her feminine persona. Her early success as a teen film star allowed her to occupy a space within independent cinema, both inside and outside of the studios, enabling her to grow as a recognizable actress and character. As Thomas Harris states, "The star system is based on the  premise that a star is accepted by the public in terms of a certain set of personality traits" (40).  Foster's unique traits and significance became mainstream when she portrayed Sarah Tobias in the film The Accused (Kaplan 1988). The film's economic, social, and critical success catapulted her to stardom and earned her first Academy Award. Like in her previous characters, Sarah Tobias is a young girl who is living life on her own terms, far from parental figures, making a living with minimum-wage work, and owning herself sexually. While the hegemonic patriarchal symbolic order pushes audiences to read Foster's characters as heterosexual, there are fissures in those characters that belong to non-normative ways of understanding female gender and sexuality. It is in these fissures where Jodie Foster's film persona signals contradictions that need to be read from a queer and feminist perspective to explore the ambiguous and intellectualized spaces that do not belong to the dominant ideology.  

The access to celebrities' private lives influences how audiences perceive them and their roles in movies and TV shows. The most significant contradiction in Jodie Foster's stardom before being publicly recognized as a lesbian was the lack of sentimental partnerships. In contrast to other queer folks in Hollywood, she has never participated in the charades of playing heterosexuals on tabloids or falsely appeared with a potential heterosexual romantic interest on the red carpet (Goltz 182). Through this lack of a publicly sexually or romantically active life,  Foster avoided a relevant part of the lifestyle that celebrities sell. Dyer defines movie stars as "a phenomenon of consumption" in which their expected heterosexual romantic life is conflated with ideological notions. Moviegoers expect movie stars to be "committed to a presumed heterosexuality" because they see them as "extensions of the characters they play on the screen"  (Gudelunas 164). However, Foster's strategy to craft her film career shows special care for characters that allowed her to avoid the conversation around her sexuality, with just a few exceptions, which signals her embodiment and challenge to patriarchal powers. Maria Laplace explores the consumption and significance that female stars encompass in movies in her article  "Producing and Consuming the Woman's Film" (Laplace). Laplace affirms in her article that female stars have an essential function to "articulate patriarchal dichotomies of public/private and domestic/social," and they become "institutions which solicit the psychic mechanism of identification" (Laplace 145). Consequently, Foster's work obligates scholars to question what she is articulating through her strategy to avoid becoming that potentially domesticated woman.  

The feminist agenda in the late 1980s and early 1990s allowed Foster to live in a glass closet during the peak of her career. The glass closet notion refers to "the person whom  'everyone' knows is gay, but never acknowledges her or his sexuality, despite ample evidence to suggest that this person is indeed living an openly gay life" (Usher 193). The concept opened a conversation about celebrities' contradictions and conflicts around their sexuality, especially in times when the LGBTQ movement was seeking public figures to support their political agenda during the AIDS crisis. Jodie Foster faced the situation during the success of The Silence of the  Lambs. In the States, after the movie premiered, members of the LGBT movement rallied outside some of the theaters where the movie premiered, protesting the negative depiction of queer characters; Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill are explicitly queer but are also serial killers. Foster never publicly addressed the discussions surrounding the film's villains, which generated significant criticism against her, with many queer outlets speculating about her homosexuality. However, Foster's stardom kept growing in a direction that constantly outlined her independence as an adult woman without a man around. Because of that particular symbolization of her persona, queerness was permitted but not exposed; instead, her independence and success as a professional actor and filmmaker were admired. 

During the 1990s and 2000s, she became a filmmaker and a producer, and her most celebrated roles reinforced her image of independence and ambiguity, resisting being marked by any sexuality. As a filmmaker, Foster debuted with Little Man Tate, a film about a single mother and her genius kid, Tate, in which she plays the mother's character. The movie already outlines some of the traits observed in Foster's career, such as the lack of defined sexuality in the mother character, the prodigy kid struggling in an adult world (Foster started her career when she was five), and a dominant world that needs to place them in boxes. The film premiered the same year as The Silence of the Lambs (Demme 1991), and, with her most celebrated performance, Clarice, who is not sexually defined. Following this landmark, Foster's most successful characters are from Nell (Apted 1993), Maverick (Donner 1994),  Contact (Zemeckis 1996), Panic Room (Fincher 2002), Flight Plan (Schwentke 2005), Inside Man (Lee 2006),  and more recently, The Brave (Jordan 2011), all of which feature her as a widow, divorcee, or victim of rape–or, in the case of Nell, a wild woman who discovers sexual desire after a whole life isolated from human contact. Like in the 1980s, Foster was embodying her contradictions with the dominant ideology, but the public opinion around her glass closet started to crack in the late 2000s when she was being judged as either afraid or having internalized homophobia.

When Foster took the stage in the 2013 Golden Globes Ceremony, her speech became a reminder that queerness comes in different sizes and forms. Foster's words never engaged with the coming-out idea, which hinted at the fact that "coming-out" notions exist, in many cases, to conform to hegemonic ideologies. Dustin Bradley Goltz affirms in his article about Foster's speech, "[Her] speech performs queer work to assist us in dismantling the increasingly prominent conventions of gay and lesbian coming-out practices, exposing the audience's pleasures and comforts they work to produce" (Goltz 183). Foster's character inside and outside of the screen has pointed to dissident and even rebellious ways to portray youth and gender–a challenge that today can be seen in actors such as Elliot Page or Bella Ramsey, who also engage with unique ways to perform gender in storytelling. As with these names, Foster's Golden Globe speech is not only consistent with her star persona but also addresses the contradictions around her lesbian identity in the mainstream, dismantling the idea that they need to be justified and explained.

Jodie Foster's career navigated and embodied contradictions around gender and sexuality,  questioning if the LGBT closet exists simply because the mainstream does not understand queer sexuality. Foster has been very protective of her personal life and did not participate in the tabloid charades in order to feed her stardom. Instead, she developed a career that fit her persona, pointing out that some notions of "coming-out" and "the gay closet" exist because patriarchal and hegemonic powers are unable to read queerness. Foster's career has grown around independent female characters who have been able to represent heroic forms of female power from the early 1980s to today. Her stardom happens because the audience is able to engage with the force that she imparts to the characters and her image of an independent and powerful film star. As Dyer points out, "Stars matter because they act out aspects of life that matter to us; and performers get to be stars when what they act out matters to enough people" (Dyer 17). When Foster did her not-coming-out speech, she was talking to the people who were not able to understand she was already living her life as a lesbian, never hiding that aspect of her personal life. The way the media still portrays queer people–often as “closeted” or “afraid” individuals– is based on prejudices, stereotypes, and stigmatizations. The social and mediatic inability to empathize with queer life without seeing a political statement obligates gays,  lesbians, and anyone else in the queer community to publicly address their identity in order to fulfill a public duty about their persona. 

Works Cited 

Dyer, Richard. Stars. British Film Institute, 1979 

Harris, Thomas. “The Building of Popular Images: Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe.” Stardom.  Industry of Desire, ed. Christine Gledhill. Routledge, 1991. 

Goltz, Dustin Bradley. “Weighted Expectations upon Jodie Foster’s ‘[I’m Not] Coming Out [to  You] Speech.’” QED (East Lansing, Mich.), vol. 1, no. 1, 2014, pp. 180–87,  https://doi.org/10.14321/qed.1.1.0180.  

Gudelunas, David. “Jodie Foster at the 2013 Golden Globe Awards: What She Said (and Didn’t)  about Coming Out, Celebrity, and Queer Activism.” QED (East Lansing, Mich.), vol. 1,  no. 1, 2014, pp. 162–65, https://doi.org/10.14321/qed.1.1.0162. 

Johnson, Julia, and Kimberlee Pérez. “Queerness May Have Dodged a Bullet: Jodie Foster’s Neo liberal ‘Coming-Out’ Rhetoric and the Politics of Visibility.” QED (East Lansing, Mich.),  vol. 1, no. 1, 2014, pp. 199–208, https://doi.org/10.14321/qed.1.1.0199. 

Laplace, Maria. “Producing and Consuming the Woman’s Film.” Home is Where the  Heart Is, ed. Christine Gledhill. British Film Institute, 1987. 

Usher, Nikki. “Anderson Cooper and Jodie Foster: The Glass Closet and Gay Visibility in the  Media.” QED (East Lansing, Mich.), vol. 1, no. 1, 2014, pp. 193–98,  

https://doi.org/10.14321/qed.1.1.0193. 

On Collective Correctives to Mainstream Black Representation in Arthur Jafa’s Love is the Message the Message is Death (2016)

By Matthew Chan, Edited by Micah Slater and Charlotte Haas

To Gen Z viewers, perhaps one of the most memorable moments in Arthur Jafa’s dense, kaleidoscopic visual portrait of Black life in America Love is the Message the Message is Death (2016) is the appearance of infamous viral sensation and vocalist IceJJFish. IceJJFish gained notoriety through the music video for his song On the Floor (2014), where he expresses his love for a girl with a voice that goes beyond being tone deaf, approaching complete unintelligibility (Courtney, Karlis, and Nowlin 2014.) The song lent itself to endless iterative possibilities within the Black community, proving to be prime meme-material, circulating through the channels of Twitter and—at the time—Vine user-led social media platforms that continue to be more influential in shaping popular culture than the industrial machine of the mainstream media. It is quite likely that in 2014 more people in the US had seen IceJJFish than they did the highest grossing film of that year Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014.) A figure like IceJJFish pierces the cultural consciousness through non-traditional means, and in Jafa’s film he appears juxtaposed against a clip of Martin Luther King Jr. In a moment of natural synergy, IceJJFish sings “I’ve been dreaming,” framing the clear association between this statement and King Jr’s famous “I have a dream” speech [00:02:41-00:02:49]. In its essence, the contrast between a figure of alternative, non-mainstream “low” culture and one of the most famous Black men in US history forms the crux of Jafa’s film. This topples what Chantal Akerman would refer to as a “hierarchy of images”, to lend equal weight to images of historical importance and those that otherwise seem frivolous (Bergstrom 2021.) The film answers to an age where all images, whether from film, history, or social media, have been flattened into consumable content, all holding equal value to a desensitized, detached viewer bombarded by the moving image at all points of the day. Set to Kanye West’s Ultralight Beam, Jafa presents an avalanche of Black images both high and low, public and personal, collapsing history and visual mediums: contrasting film images with digital, from cameras used to film professional sporting events with car dash-cams and so on. To further contextualize what Jafa’s film points towards, we can consider Kevin Michael DeLuca and Jennifer Peeples’ theory of the “Public Screen”, which suggests that Western society has moved beyond mainstream film and television as a key source of representation and has folded in user-generated digital media, such as social media, in a capacity that allows counternarratives to form against hegemonic ones. (DeLuca and Peeples 125) As such, within Jafa’s indiscriminate presentation of images, there is the suggestion that we have entered an age of democratization for the moving image: one where the self-directed exploits of Black men on Vine can be as resonant as the images of Black celebrities broadcast on television. In Susan Sontag’s “Against Interpretation” she outlines the differences between older styles of interpretation where “it erected another meaning on top of the literal one” and newer styles where “It digs ‘behind’ the text, to find a sub-text which is the true one” (Sontag 4.) Jafa’s film lends itself to the former: when taken at face value, each clip he chooses is presented sans context. However, he cuts together the images formally in a manner that openly invites a personal interpretation from the viewer rather than a definitive one from the artist, partially achieved through the use of Soviet dialectical montage. The generated meaning comes from the viewer themselves through witnessing the contrast between two different images, what Sergei Eisenstein writes as “a process of comparing each new image with the common denotation, power is accumulated behind a process that can be formally identified with that of logical deduction” (Eisenstein 62.) David Bordwell states that this prompts “the spectator to search for implicit meanings” (Bordwell and Thompson 259.) In the case of IceJJFish and Martin Luther King Jr, the absurd disparity between the perceived importance of the figures, and the literal contrast in image quality and resolution between a digital image and one captured on film, leads one to ponder the gulf of history and respectability that exists between them. Thus, through the contrast a dialectical effect is generated with both images synthesizing in the viewer's mind to form a unique thesis: a new thought of their own. This is the model Jafa’s film primarily operates on and it is through the constant contrast of images that he raises ideas surrounding mainstream representation of Black life. He questions whether the Black images that typically circulate within mainstream media—which predominantly focus on celebrity, respectability and historic oppression, can ever provide an accurate depiction of the complexity of Black life, and if viral videos created by the masses are enough to fill in these notable gaps in representation. 

Throughout Jafa’s film there is the constant contrast between images of Black unrest from the past and present, specifically between images from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s with modern images of police brutality. The differences between the creation of these images and how they were circulated point towards how modes of representation have changed over time. This contrast is apparent in a sequence where a modern clip is shown of a Black man running from an armed white police officer and collapsing, then cutting a civil rights march. [00:00:33-00:00:40] A literal reading of this juxtaposition may be that by moving from the present to the past, Jafa underscores how little has changed, or perhaps more accurately, how the gains of the civil rights movement did not immediately solve every problem regarding racial discrimination in America. This suggests that institutional racism persists at the heart of the American empire through the historically prejudiced system of policing. Another point of contrast is the medium through which the images are captured: The man being chased by the police officer is a digital image that appears to be from a smartphone, the person filming covertly tucked behind a tree to avoid being seen by the officer. Meanwhile, the civil rights march is shot on black and white film stock, featuring an extreme wide shot capturing hundreds of protestors from what is presumably a camera handled by a media professional given the static angle in which the scene is shot with. We can then consider how each of these images were circulated. The modern clip seems to lack intentionality as a smartphone video filmed in the spur of the moment: It has no artistic purpose, instead serving the function of filming the truth in order to hold the officer accountable. The clip also likely reached Jafa through social media, with the person filming posting it online to expose an instance of police brutality. On the other hand, the older clip appears to be professionally made, maybe circulated through a television broadcast to raise awareness to the civil rights movement. The stakeholders in each clip are inherently different: a call to action and awareness from an individual versus one from an institution or a formal group. As such, Jafa foregrounds how the barrier to entry for image creation and political activism has evaporated between time periods, with anyone being able to expose injustice from a camera in their pocket. It can thus be perceived that within the digital age of the “Public Screen”, modern Black representation can be created by the individual rather than institutions or media conglomerates. 

Moreover, Jafa employs modern images of police brutality and violence to intentionally disrupt the tone of a sequence, often to profound effect. Throughout the film Jafa times his cuts according to the pace of the music. Bordwell states that “many non narrative films have emphasized editing rhythm over the images themselves” (Bordwell and Thompson 253.) In the case of Jafa’s film, both gain the same sense of importance, though the duration of a shot is typically timed to a specific music cue. As such, when a tonally discordant image is introduced, we are not always given the space to sit with it before the film moves onto the next. A specific example comes during a sequence timed to each bar in Chance the Rapper’s verse on Ultralight Beam. It holds on clip of a man riding a bicycle during the line “I mean I fuck with your friends but damn Gina”, cutting to footage of couples dancing in a club, and then to a clip of a man being brutally assaulted by police officers set to the line “Now they wanna hit me with the woo wap, the bam” before cutting back to a group of young girls dancing [00:05:00-00:05:09]. The line over the footage of police brutality is not long, making its inclusion within a string of otherwise innocuous images all the more jarring. Perhaps what Jafa is suggesting is that because of the unfortunate American reality of frequent police brutality, they have become subsumed into everyday life and treated with the same degree of normalcy as the other images. Moreover, the choice of line to sync it with (“hit me with the woo wap, the bam”) is as ironic as it is literal, which creates an even greater sense of discomfort for the viewer, who has to reconcile how injustice has become so tragically normalized. What also becomes apparent in the footage of police brutality is the perspective from where it was taken and who took the video. All the other clips mentioned in the sequence seem to be taken by an actual person with the faces of the subjects legible to the viewer. However, the footage of the assault comes from the dash cam of the car, with the police officers turned away from the camera and the victim barely visible under them.  [00:05:40-00:05:47] There is something distinctly cold and clinical about the machine-made clip, which makes it all the more standout in a sequence that otherwise consists of images of unity and warmth. It further expands upon the idea of the public screen, suggesting how the mass of cameras available in the world not only allow individuals to film, but also permits them to be filmed within the surveillance state. In the case of the dash cam footage a web of contradictions arise: it simultaneously allows the public to bear witness to a crime while also violating the privacy of its subjects. One's autonomy is traded for accountability and truth. Non-mainstream representation can thus just as easily feed into institutions of oppression as much as it can offer counternarratives. As such, through this footage, Jafa highlights a distinction between non-mainstream representation directed by individuals and those directed by systems and institutions. 

Furthermore, in one of the film’s few instances of diegetic sound, Jafa cuts to a clip of actress Amandla Stenberg directly addressing the camera, her speech layered on top of the music as she asks: “What would America be like if we loved Black people as much as we loved Black culture?” [00:04:10-00:04:13] It is through this dichotomy, between manicured media-approved images of Black culture and the seemingly unembellished view of Black life delivered via viral images that Jafa raises questions about proper and improper representation and notions of respectability. Intercut throughout the film are images of recognizable political figures such as Barack Obama, the aforementioned Martin Luther King Jr, and Malcolm X; Black artists such as Michael Jackson, Earl Sweatshirt and Aretha Franklin; Black athletes such as Serena Williams, Michael Jordan and Muhammed Ali. As public figures of a certain stature they occupy the most visible platform within mainstream American culture as representatives for the Black community, and, especially for the politicians and athletes, are required to carry themselves with a sense of respectability in and outside of professional settings. In contrast, the various clips of everyday Black life in Love is the Message prominently include footage of couples dancing at the club in an overtly sexual manner, grinding and twerking on each other, in a way that may seem crude to a non-Black viewer, shirking traditional respectability politics. As opposed to a mainstream media outlet or production studio, Jafa gives equal screen time to both celebrities and regular people. He again suggests an equality within the images underscored by rhythmic editing: no image is more important than the other, both at the mercy of the song. Most of the footage taken at the club appears to have been recorded by other individuals while those dancing seem unaware, absorbed in the act, suggesting they are not performing for the camera, opposed to the celebrities who are made to constantly stay on their best behavior. Within Jafa’s film viral images circulated throughout the Black community are hence perceived to hold a greater degree of authenticity, being less performative than those circulated through mainstream media. 

Moreover, there is a notable difference in image quality between the professional images of celebrities and the footage of regular people in the club. For example, footage of basketball player Steph Curry making a pass is shot in crisp HD with a cinematic camera that pans around to capture the movement from multiple angles [00:06:25-00:06:26.] On the other hand, the video of a man being aggressively twerked on  is of a much lower quality with visible digital artifacts, filmed on someone’s phone. [00:00:41-00:00:46]. In her essay “In Defense of the Poor Image”, artist Hito Steyrel suggests how the modern hierarchy of images are “not only based on sharpness, but also and primarily on resolution,” with cinema and television regarded as mediums that produce the most respectable images ( pageless.) Meanwhile, for images circulated online, their poor quality “speaks not only of countless transfers and reformattings, but also of the countless people who cared enough about them to convert them over and over again, to add subtitles, re-edit, or upload them” (Steyerl pageless..) Poor images are considered as lesser, with the club footage likely degraded through constant resharing on social media or popular websites like World Star Hip Hop. However, Steyrel seeks to shift the perception of poor images to those of “popular images—images that can be made and seen by the many”, ones that “present a snapshot of the affective condition of the crowd, its neurosis, paranoia, and fear, as well as its craving for intensity, fun, and distraction” (Steyerl pageless.) Poor images, such as the videos of people dancing in the club, thus become collective images, ones that express the honest reality and concerns of a community and ones that have been lovingly degraded by being shared from one person to another. These images are ones that are “heavily compressed and travel quickly”, conditions necessary for their virality, which ultimately helps to establish an alternative economy of images (Steyerl pageless.) It is also notable that Jafa himself shirks a similar sense of cinematic respectability by leaving in watermarks and timecodes from outlets within various pieces of footage. In mainstream productions, this would appear unprofessional or unsightly, but in the context of his film it suggests a greater authenticity and acknowledgment of an image’s history by not tampering with how others have tampered with it. Therefore, within Jafa’s film there is a difference between images passed down from a conglomerate to the masses and an image shared within communities, marked by resolution. The pristine image quality of mainstream Black respectability and celebrity can thus connote a manufactured quality, one that does not fully account for the complexity of Black life. The viral image, no matter how crass, can ultimately fill this gap, where visual degradation is perceived as a mark of authenticity and extensive community engagement. The deficiencies of mainstream Black representation in Jafa’s film are, as such, supplemented through the viral, self-directed image. 

Within Jafa’s presentation of an alternative ecosystem of Black images, he also takes aim at Hollywood, which for most of America’s history had hegemonic control over mainstream Black representation. In Patricia White’s “Reading the Codes”, she states “Hollywood studio product was the nation’s most significant mass cultural discourse for the first half of this century; at the height of Hollywood’s cultural hegemony in 1946, ninety million Americans attended the movies weekly”, while also stating that America was a “patriarchal, white-dominant, culturally imperialist nation” (White 3.) As such the images circulated by Hollywood typically reinforced the dominant ideology of White supremacy. In a clear nod to this history, Jafa presents a shot from D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) of a white man in blackface captured by the Klu Klux Klan, before cutting to modern footage of a Black man walking alone. [00:02:04-00:02:07] In this single instance, a stark contrast is shown between the historically fabricated and materially harmful representation of Black men within Hollywood and the unadorned reality in which Black men exist. Throughout the film similar contrasts recur, such as a shot of Barack Obama standing at a podium singing Amazing Grace cutting to footage of an old Hollywood film containing a white judge presiding over the court case of a young Black child. [00:00:51-00:00:59] Here what Bordwell refers to as a “graphic match” occurs between Obama and the white judge, both in a similar position, standing while those around them sit (Bordwell and Thompson 220.) Both men are figures of power and respectability, however, an “abrupt contrast” is perceived between their historical context and their races (Bordwell and Thompson  220.) What Jafa suggests in this moment is how, with time, progress has been achieved with more Black people in notable positions of power. Moreover, in a later sequence, Jafa cuts from footage of a white minstrel performer in blackface to  Michael Jackson 1:18-00:01:24]. The same notions of progress are suggested though they are complicated by the details of Jackson’s life, suggesting despite the enhanced visibility and position of Black people within mainstream culture, they are still exploited by predominantly white industries which have moved from exploiting the image of Black people to Black performers themselves. In spite of this, the larger idea Jafa is communicating is simple: Black images have evolved throughout popular culture and history, from those primarily created by the hegemonic system of Hollywood to those that originate within the Black community. Despite the present deficiencies in mainstream Black representation, Jafa shows that in the modern age Black culture has evolved beyond Hollywood. As discussed prior, this evolution of Black images is part of a larger process, where these organic images have the potential to be re-subsumed into the Hollywood machine. As such, the modern endpoint would be an evolution beyond the concept of a representative mainstream itself. 

The final images within Jafa’s film are those of Black individuals captured in solitude. In a rare moment of pause, Jafa holds on footage taken by a woman through the front facing camera of her smartphone. She is in a car with only the right side of her face visible. Over the footage, Chance The Rapper sings “This is my part nobody else speak”, emphasizing how she commands the frame. [00:05:31-00:05:34] With no one else visible, the viewer is sucked into her orbit in a brief moment of stillness and peace, a feeling frequently evoked by similar shots of people walking across the screen alone. [00:05:39-00:05:40] Within Jafa’s maze of footage, these moments feel like a respite, as if to pull the viewer out of their mental consideration of the complex history of representation and force them to see Black people just as they are without the burden of categorization. Amidst images of violence, particularly of police brutality—which seem unavoidable between their circulation on social media and broadcast news—Jafa also centers images of collective joy. During a brief interlude Ultralight Beam is replaced by Cali Swag District’s Teach Me How To Dougie, cutting from footage of people dancing in a club to black and white footage of Black performers dancing on a variety show to footage of people dancing to the song during a wedding [00:02:21-00:02:31]. A clear throughline is drawn through different historical contexts as Black joy is foregrounded, a feeling that exists in opposition to the images of historic oppression typically circulated through the mainstream and which, in the case of the film, are predominantly user-generated. By featuring these moments, Jafa further shows the complexity of the Black American experience, suggesting that communities are not purely defined by tragedy, while also illustrating how an alternative economy of Black images can be circulated. 

As Spike Lee and Julie Dash’s cinematographer, Arthur Jafa exists within a lineage of modern Black filmmakers, though his efforts to counter Hollywood’s hegemony and challenge traditional cinematic language distinguishes him from his peers through his embrace of experimental non-narrative styles. His contributions to this space perhaps resonate more strongly with younger Black filmmakers like Khalik Allah and Terrence Nance, who have also invested their careers in conceiving counter narratives (da Costa pageless.) By working with found footage, Jafa seeks not to contribute to the mass of extant Black representation but to refashion pre-existing images to hold a mirror to the modern world. Through his assembly of images, Jafa shows that Black life is not a monolith, neither definitively represented by the mainstream nor people through social media. Only by considering both sources with the same level of importance does he show the Black experience as one of deep complexity and contradiction. Therefore, Jafa demonstrates that counter narratives can balance out the mainstream, as well as how user-generated images have offered corrections to historic deficiencies in Black representation. Jafa’s film has its gaze focused on the future of image creation: Perhaps what he is ultimately interested in is not how people are represented, but how they can represent themselves, offering a vision of a time where the poor image is treated with as much reverence as the cinematic one. On a closing note, it is perhaps important to mention that within its online circulation Love is the Message the Message is Death only presently exists as a poor image. At the time of writing it is only available as a YouTube camrip. 

Works Cited  

Bergstrom, Janet. 2021. “Keeping a distance: Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman | Sight and Sound.” BFI. 

https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/keeping-distance-chantal-akerman-jeanne-dielma n. 

Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. 2013. Film Art: An Introduction. N.p.: McGraw-Hill Education.

Courtney, James, Michael Karlis, and Sanford Nowlin. 2014. “The True, SA-Based Story Behind IceJJFish's Viral “On the Floor” Video.” San Antonio Current. 

https://www.sacurrent.com/music/the-true-sa-based-story-behind-icejjfishs-viral-on-the-floor-vide o-2257207. 

da Costa, Cassie. 2020. “Video artists and the music video.” Apollo Magazine. 

https://www.apollo-magazine.com/where-video-art-meets-the-music-video/. 

DeLuca, Kevin M., and Jennifer Peeples. 2002. “From public sphere to public screen: democracy, activism, and the "violence" of Seattle.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 19 (2): 125-151. 

Eisenstein, Sergei. 1977. Film form : essays in film theory. N.p.: Harcourt. 

Griffith, D.W., dir. 1915. The Birth of a Nation. David W. Griffith Corp. 

Jafa, Arthur, dir. 2016. Love is the Message, the Message is Death. 

Sontag, Susan. 2009. Against Interpretation and Other Essays. N.p.: Penguin Books. Steyerl, Hito. 2009. “In Defense of the Poor Image - Journal #10.” e-flux. 

https://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/. 

“2014 Worldwide Box Office.” n.d. Box Office Mojo. Accessed March 1, 2024. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/world/2014/. 

West, Kanye, “Ultralight Beam”, Track 1 on The Life of Pablo, GOOD Music, Def Jam, 2016 White, Patricia. 1999. Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability. N.p.: Indiana University Press. 

This paper was dedicated to David Bordwell.

Before Our Eyes

By Jules Crawford, Edited by Aimi Wang and Joseph Green

Introduction 

A civil war in Sudan causing millions to be displaced, another in Yemen leading to a hunger crisis, and an invasion of Ukraine that created over $155 billion in damage. All of these crises inevitably led to devastating loss of human life, but more often than not, they existed simply as a flicker in the background of American perceptions. A significant aspect of why these conflicts are so limited in their effect on American consciousness is that they are not consistently present within our news cycles. The development of social media allows foreign conflicts to become more recognizable and present within international recognition, allowing for real-time reporting. This is especially relevant in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which is being reported on with a near-microscopic lens. The conflict stands out from others, past and present, because of the mass amount of professional photographers, journalists, and reporters that are trapped within the humanitarian crisis. These press workers demonstrate how warzone reporting has developed over the last 200 years, eventually leading to on-the-ground sources becoming available at one’s fingertips. While the vast increase in available media about a conflict seems beneficial, it can first appear overwhelming and may be difficult for the average viewer to disseminate. Understanding the history of war photography, the various Palestinian-specific themes, and the importance of cultural preservation will allow viewers to more easily understand the importance of all the photos currently coming out of Gaza.

From telegrams to Instagram, the technology used to record warzones has come a long way. Invented in 1843, the telegraph was the first technological tool to allow rapid dissemination of information from warzones; it would be followed up by photography, newsreel film, radio, and television (McLaughlin, 63-88). This rapid innovation not only made it easier to report on ongoing wars, but also opened the doors for increased corruption within the news industry. With the rise of social media and the citizen reporter, there is a new wave of wartime reporting coming directly from those affected by the genocide. The advent of cell phones and the internet allows anyone to record and publish directly from the scenes of action. The use of modern media technology to broadcast events around the world in real time makes wars like this more visible than ones of our past. This is most evident in the current crisis in the Middle East, with Palestinians and Israelis in conflict over territories that include present-day Israel, The Gaza Strip, and The West Bank. 

The dispute began as far back as 1885, but intensified in 1933 with a rise of Jewish immigration to Palestine during the lead-up to WWII and the rise of Nazi fascism (Cruz and  Cruz). The ongoing discordance further picked up increased publicity in the wake of mass media and the internet. The Palestinians are native to the land, while the Israelis believe they hold religious rights over it. The active fighting taking place in the Gaza Strip since October 7th, 2023 has been exceedingly visible compared to other present conflicts– such as those in Sudan, Yemen, and Ukraine. On October 7th, the militant extremist group Hamas attacked Israel during their Nova Music Festival, killing a reported 1,139 people (France 24). Israel responded by both attacking and occupying the Gaza Strip, which is an ongoing event as of October 2024. The death toll is reported to be over 43,000 as of October 2024 (AJLabs). 

This on-demand coverage has caused the Israel-Palestine War to be one of the most documented engagements in history. War photography was already a highly discussed genre of photography with its questionable ethical motives, but the recording of the conflict in Gaza adds a new layer to understanding war photography and how it is influenced by the internet. It is also important to consider the historical symbols used within Palestinian activist photography prior to October 7th, as they are essential to the readings of Palestinian war photography. These photographs are different from other war photography because they have a goal of cultural preservation ingrained in them, due to the genocide targeting cultural centers. Thus, Palestinian  photography during the Israel-Palestinian conflict is paving the way for a new understanding of  modern war photography, primarily due to the way it uses the internet and social media for broadcasting, the incorporation of important symbols for Palestinian resistance, and the intentional recording of ethnic cleansing.

Photography, Mass Media, and the Internet in War Photography 

War photography as a genre is built on the foundations of photojournalism and primarily serves to document conflicts while questioning their motivations. It was said to have been originated by Roger Fenton during the Crimean War; however, the coverage was still restricted compared to modern scales due to the limitations of equipment of the time (Smith, 132). Rather than most of the photos being of action, many were of soldiers and depictions of their everyday lives. Other significant aspects of these early war photos include portrayals of the war-affected landscapes, women working, and children from the other side of the war.

This was the beginning of the “democratization of images” which served to take the power depicting wars out of the government and place them into the hands of the people (Smith, 136). As war photography developed into the mid-19th century, an aesthetic of “decay, disorder, and destruction” began to become favored (Smith, 139). Around this time, we started to see the  debate over how ethical war photography was, with claims of exploitation and propaganda being  made. There was also a central question on whether war photography serves the purpose it was  created for. 

One of the critiques on war photography, as it serves as an artistic genre, is whether or  not the aestheticizing affects the way it’s perceived. Studies go back and forth with numerous  results that both support and deny the hypothesis on how aestheticizing war photography is less effective. Most recently, a study from the Department of Psychology at Ludwig Maximilians-Universität München reported results that suggest there is no effect of aesthetic style or aesthetic content on emotionalization and behavioral activation (Altenmüller and Gollwitzer). Nonetheless, the topic is still highly debated and studied. The main concern is  whether or not we are becoming desensitized to war imagery due to a distance developed by regular aestheticized content. However, despite possible downfalls of the genre, it creates a  power to understand war that hasn’t otherwise existed. Photographs have the ability to “stand as evidence…on a social, historical process” (Taylor, 159). They offer another layer of insight into what wars our countries are funding or taking part in. Outsiders are also more willing to believe suggested events with the use of photographic evidence, but this also can result in issues of photo manipulation and staging. Ultimately these central concerns about war photography all go back to it being designed to be marketable under a specific news organization. No matter how objective a photo may seem, they are always affected by how “photographers have their own personalities and points of view, and that what they choose to photograph and how they choose to photograph it is more than a little tinged by who they are and by the news organizations they represent” (Ritchin, 22). Especially when war photography is led by outsiders, there’s no guarantee of the legitimacy of what’s being presented through the lens, versus what actually exists outside of it. 

What makes the Palestinian crisis so relevant is how well broadcast it is. It is far from  being the first conflict like this, nor the only conflict like this currently occurring. It is simply  being recorded and shared on a mass scale, unlike other conflicts. Nearly every day there are new photos, videos, or tales of horrific events with children trapped under buildings, aid workers being shot, entire families starving to death, and so on. It’s a constant whirlpool of graphic imagery. While there is still a lot of non-professional capturing, a significant amount of what’s being spread on a mass-media scale comes from Palestinian and Egyptian journalists, photographers, and other media workers. This is causing not only constant content being shared, but constant content that is created with specific messages and intentions embedded within them. With Gaza being locked down to entry and exit, there is also a lack of international photographers covering the engagement- which affects the typical sanitized delivery of media that normally occurs. The power of the telling of events is placed in the hands of those directly affected by them (Sheehi). Most of these reporters have lost families, friends, and homes to the war. Unfortunately, a reported 134 journalists have also lost their lives since October 7th (“Journalist Casualties in the Israel-Gaza War”). While the same ethical issues of war photography are present, the mass variety of perspectives and the fact that the sources are those who are inside the conflict, rather than outside of it, create a more complete picture of what’s happening. 

Symbols in Palestinian Photography 

Like in many third-world countries, Palestinian photography has been overlooked despite  its significant use as a national art throughout its country’s violent history. It’s more than just  photographs that all originate from the same country, it presents unifying themes and motifs that are used to represent the Palestinian ethnic survival through art. Another reason why it is often  overlooked is the suppression of art that represents the Palestinian national identity by Israel,  with artists being targeted since the start of the initial hostilities. An important aspect of  understanding Palestinian modern war photography is to understand the history of Palestinian  photography. 

One of the most significant themes within Palestinian photography is depictions of the  land and destruction. With the land being the cause of the conflict and also the current  battleground, it often serves “as a metaphor for the social, political, and physical body of the  people” (Apel, 186). The land not only is a physical object but represents the identity of the  Palestinian people as their home is taken from them. Historically, photos depicting the land in  this war of ownership emphasized the destruction used by Israel in marking their claims. More  than just removing Palestinians from the land, the destruction serves as a way to remove 

Mahmud Hams, The destroyed Shehada family home following an Israeli strike on Rafah on Dec. 14, 2023

Palestinian culture from the land; in other words, tearing it down to start anew. This shines through in modern war photography in Gaza, as much of the land has been destroyed by airstrikes. A lot of photographers seek to emphasize the level of destruction to the land as evidence of the claim of ethnic cleansing. There is no specific target being hunted; the target is Palestine itself and everything that represents it. Alongside this, the specific wrecking of a home is emphasized in many photographs to highlight the overall displacement of Palestinians. 

One of the key plights of Palestinians trapped in Gaza is homelessness, as a majority have  been forced to evacuate or lost their homes entirely. The history of homelessness within Palestine is plentiful, as they’ve been systemically separated from their land and denied housing in order to make space for Jewish settlers. This focus on invading the domestic space was taken on by the IDF who trained their soldiers on “walking through walls” (Apel, 199). The goal was to cut holes in walls to aid in teaching soldiers to detect bodies and kill through walls. The presence of these mock Palestinian villages and holes in walls was used within Palestinian photography to show their loss of domestic spaces. Within the current context, this has evolved to photos framed around blast holes from airstrikes. It continues this narrative on destroyed landscapes  and the displacement of the Palestinian people. 

Abed Rahim Khatib, A Palestinian man inspects a destroyed house belonging to the Al-Jazzar family after an airstrike in Rafah, Gaza, on October 18, 2023 

The last area of note within Palestinian war photography is the presence of walls and borders. As previously mentioned, the borders are currently closed to both entry and exit of the occupied territory. The land has essentially become akin to an open-air prison. Even before the complete lockdown of the land, travel was limited and numerous walls were constructed to create a division between Israel, the territories of The Gaza Strip, and The West Bank. These walls were often painted on both sides and it’s a prime  subject of Palestinian photographers, representing this division within their native lands (Apel,  205-216). Since October 7th with the threat of constant Israeli attack, attention has shifted from the Gaza-Israel border to the Gaza-Egypt border where numerous Palestinians are trying to leave. There is also a regular mass of aid trucks lined up at the border attempting to get in. This border represents a choice between the Palestinian’s physical life and their national life since, they can’t return if they leave. 

Agence France-Presse, Palestinians near the border fence with Egypt at a makeshift tent camp for displaced people in Rafah on Jan. 24, 2024

Even if one makes the decision to leave, crossing costs more than most can afford with many making a GoFundMe in order to fund their escape. These photos of Gazans waiting on the edge of their safety serve to demonstrate the desperation for peace in a war that they never signed up for. Ultimately, what we are seeing in photos coming out of Gaza since October 7th is hardly new thematically. A lot of what’s happening now has happened before; it’s just reached a greater scale. Other common Palestinian photographic themes I didn’t cover include the destruction of olive trees, the use of pine trees in Israeli land claims, and the persistence of cacti marking former Palestinian homes. New trends I’ve noticed mostly revolve around mass bloodshed, the tent cities for displaced individuals, themes of ongoing famine with many shown  begging for food, and the sacrifice of the Palestinian press. With the crisis having no end in sight,  these themes and motifs will likely continue to develop. I suspect they will be reimagined once there is some sort of resolution and individuals have the opportunity to restructure their lives around their new state of existence, post-war.

Mohammed al-Aloul, a photographer for a Turkish news service, said he had lost four of his five children on Nov. 5 in what the Gazan authorities said was an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza, 2023

Recording Ethnic Cleansing 

While what’s happening in Gaza is certainly a war and thus the photography falls under  the category of war photography, there needs to be a consideration of the fact that it is also an  ethnic cleansing. Especially since most of the photographers are Palestinian, the desire to preserve Palestinian culture and history in the wake of ethnic cleansing is essential within the war photograph. This type of war photograph is most similar to the photos from the Litzmannstadt (Lodz) Ghetto from WWII where Jewish photographers had secretly recorded their daily lives.

While a majority of photos from the Holocaust come from Nazi photographers due to  strict regulations, a selection of Jewish photographers was able to sneak photos. This most  notably occurred in the Lodz Ghetto in Poland where Mendel Grossman and Henryk Ross risked  their lives to take photos of their daily conditions as well as the mass deportations and liquidation of the Ghetto (Löw). The focus of these photographers was to not only document the injustices they were facing but the survival of the Jewish identity despite the drastic conditions they were facing.

This meant that both the highs and lows of the Lodz Ghetto were recorded, with the highs including mothers and their children, family gatherings, make-shift schools, and events that the upper class partook in. The purpose of these photos was not to downplay the utter horrors of The Holocaust but to take the Jewish people out of the imagery of being helpless victims, and instead paint them as those who persisted through the worst. The same sort of imagery can be seen in a lot of Palestinian photography. 

Yousef Masoud, The Khaled Bin al Waleed Mosque on Nov. 8 in Khan Younis, in the South Gaza Strip, 2023

While a lot of current Palestinian photography has been focused on the bloodshed and  aftermath of the airstrikes, a number of photos have focused on the role of the war as an act of  ethnic cleansing. This includes depictions of the perseverance of the Palestinian people despite  all they’ve lost with photos of children playing, mothers cooking, and families celebrating religious holidays. These photos, like those from the Lodz Ghetto, illuminate Palestinians as more than passive victims. Another type of photo that illuminates the role of ethnic cleansing is  revealing the damage of the war on historic and religious landmarks, including Mosques. The  goal is to express the deliberate efforts to erase the cultural history of Palestine from the  landscape. Photos that depict the remains of Mosques stand to attest that no amount of  destruction can erase what came before, the memory of these landmarks cannot be allowed to fade.

Thus, in circumstances where war is more than just conflict, but an ethnic cleansing, it’s  crucial to understand how war photography is affected. This is best seen in the photos from the  Lodz Ghetto during the Holocaust, which express the importance of recording the Jewish people as people, and not just victims, as well as in Gaza with the documentation of the purposeful attack on religious monuments to erase cultural histories. This reading allows for a greater nuanced understanding of the conflict through the photos and creates a depiction of the war that is more evolved than meaningless violence. It also contributes to a variety of photography which helps prevent desensitization due to an overload of violence. 

Conclusion and What Follows 

Ultimately, through the use of the internet and social media, important symbols for  Palestinian resistance, and representations of ethnic cleansing, Palestinian photography during  the Israel-Palestine conflict represents a new age of developed war photography. What we are  seeing from Gaza is more than we’ve ever seen from past conflicts, and the photography is more  complex and diverse than the genre has previously been able to provide. Current technology  allows for more to be seen of the conflict, and the ease of both taking and sharing photos allows  more perspectives to be seen. Alongside the overall increase in photos, the genre is developed by the mass amount of trained photographers who are sharing the war, and the fact that many of them are affected by it. One of the greatest issues historically facing both Palestinian photography and war photography was the fact that it was coming from outsiders, the ability to hear the voices of those who are victimized by the conflict changes the output entirely. This includes a meaningful inclusion of important themes and motifs for the Palestinian resistance and a focus on the effects of the ethnic cleansing they’re experiencing. Previous use of the war photography genre would’ve just shown the gore and violence of the conflict, but the current use of war photography expands out farther than the genre has ever gone. This is likely why the conflict is exponentially seen and more discussed than other ongoing conflicts because the ability to see through a Palestinian perspective helps outside viewers empathize with ongoing crises. 

What’s important to keep in mind going forward is that while what’s coming out of Gaza is integral in aiding our understanding of the conflict from the Palestinian perspective, the photos  and other kinds of reporting often go through multiple hands before they reach the average  American. Along with computer algorithms that can be manipulated to hide certain information or mishandling by secondary news outlets, there are often many biased avenues before these  pictures reach us. A lot of Palestinian press workers have contested that American or pro-Israeli  media has been manipulating their work to tell a certain story. A significant occurrence of this  has been the manipulation of victims’ footage and to claim they are crisis actors, creating a narrative that what’s happening in Gaza is fake (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS). Also coming out of Gaza has also been a lot of Israeli propaganda, and any outside reporting done in Gaza is extensively monitored by Israel. Similar to the manipulation of Palestinian reporting, the main goal of Israeli propaganda is to downplay the violence and create a narrative focused on a terrorist threat of Hamas. Unfortunately, Israel has a lot more ties to the US and our media, so keeping vigilant of understanding sources is imperative when analyzing what’s coming out of Gaza. The most reliable method involves focusing on the primary sources of Palestinian reporters and following their social media, rather than using American-based news outlets. Before we can take the step of trying to understand the Palestinian war photograph, we must first ensure that we aren’t being misled by outside influences who may be presenting it.

Works Cited

Agence France-Presse. “Palestinians near the Border Fence with Egypt at a Makeshift Tent Camp for  Displaced People in Rafah on Jan. 24.” AFP - Getty Images, Digital Photograph, Jan. 2024,  www.nytimes.com/article/israel-gaza-hamas-photos.html. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024. 

AJLabs. “Israel-Hamas War in Maps and Charts: Live Tracker.” Al Jazeera, 9 Oct. 2023, www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker. Accessed 30 Oct. 2024.

Altenmüller, Marlene Sophie, and Mario Gollwitzer. “Power of Pictures? Questioning the  Emotionalization and Behavioral Activation Potential of Aesthetics in War Photography.”  Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000607. Accessed 14 Apr. 2024. 

Apel, Dora. “Israel / Palestine and the Political Imaginary.” War Culture and the Contest of Images,  Rutgers University Press, 2012, pp. 183–231, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hhwpv.11. Accessed 12  Apr. 2024. 

Cruz, Margaret, and Margaret Cruz. “The Question of Palestine- Timeline of Events - Question of  Palestine.” Question of Palestine, 12 Apr. 2023, www.un.org/unispal/timeline/. Accessed 13  Apr. 2024. 

Elouf, Samar Abu. “Mohammed Al-Aloul, a Photographer for a Turkish News Service, Said He Had  Lost Four of His Five Children on Nov. 5 in What the Gazan Authorities Said Was an Israeli  Airstrike in Central Gaza.” The New York Times, Digital Photograph, Nov. 2023,  www.nytimes.com/article/israel-gaza-hamas-photos.html. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024. 

Fenton, Roger. “Camp of the 4th Dragoons.” Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Divison,  Photographic print: salted paper ; 16.8 x 17 cm, 1855, www.loc.gov/item/2002695371/.  Accessed 11 Apr. 2024.

France 24. “Israel Social Security Data Reveals True Picture of Oct 7 Deaths.” France 24, FRANCE 24,  15 Dec. 2023, www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social-security-data-reveals true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths. Accessed 13 Apr. 2024. 

Hams, Mahmud. “The Destroyed Shehada Family Home Following an Israeli Strike on Rafah on Dec.  14.” AFP - Getty Images, Digital Photograph, Dec. 2023, www.nytimes.com/article/israel-gaza hamas-photos.html. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024. 

“Journalist Casualties in the Israel-Gaza War - Committee to Protect Journalists.” Committee to Protect Journalists, Oct. 2024, cpj.org/2024/10/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/. Accessed 1 Nov. 2024.

Abed Rahim. “A Palestinian Man Inspects a Destroyed House Belonging to the Al-Jazzar  Family after an Airstrike in Rafah, Gaza, on October 18.” Picture Alliance/Dpa/AP, Digital  Photograph, Oct. 2023, www.cnn.com/2023/10/07/world/gallery/israel-gaza-attack 2023/index.html. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024. 

Löw, Andrea. “Documenting as a ‘Passion and Obsession’: Photographs from the Lodz (Litzmannstadt)  Ghetto.” Central European History, volΩ. 48, no. 3, 2015, pp. 387–404, www.jstor.org/stable/43965177. Accessed 15 Apr. 2024. 

Masoud, Yousef. “The Khaled Bin al Waleed Mosque on Nov. 8 in Khan Younis, in the Southern Gaza  Strip.” New York Times, Digital Photograph, Nov. 2023, www.nytimes.com/article/israel-gaza hamas-photos.html. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024. 

McLaughlin, Greg. “From the Luckless Tribe to Wireless Tribe: The Impact of Media Technologies on  War Reporting.” The War Correspondent, Pluto Press, 2016, pp. 63–89, www.jstor.com/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x.8. Accessed 12 Apr. 2024.

PBS NewsHour. “More than 29,000 Palestinians Have Been Killed in Gaza since War’s Start, Health  Ministry Says.” PBS NewsHour, 19 Feb. 2024, www.pbs.org/newshour/world/more-than-29000- palestinians-have-been-killed-in-gaza-since-wars-start-health-ministrysays#:~:text=RAFAH%2C%20Gaza%20Strip%20(AP),of%20the%20Israeli%2DPalestinian%20 conflict. Accessed 13 Apr. 2024. 

Ritchin, Fred. “The Photography of Conflict.” Aperture, no. 97, 1984, pp. 22–27,  www.jstor.org/stable/24471449. 

Ross, Henryk. “Woman with Her Child.” Art Gallery of Ontario, Gelatin silver print, 1940,  www.mfa.org/media/slideshow/9089. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024. 

Sheehi, Stephen. “Decolonising the Photography of Palestine: Searching for a Method in a Plate of  Hummus.” Imaging and Imagining Palestine: Photography, Modernity and the Bibical Lens,  edited by Karène Sanchez Summerer and Sary Zananiri, Brill, 2021, pp. 340–58, Decolonising  the Photography of Palestine: Searching for a Method in a Plate of Hummus. Accessed 12 Apr.  2024. 

Smith, Ian Hayden. “Genres.” The Short Story of Photography, Laurence King Publishing Ltd, 2018, pp.  10–43. 

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. “Israel-Hamas War Misinformation Is Everywhere. Here Are the Facts.”  AP News, 2 Nov. 2023, apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-fact-checke829d1dddcc2dad0f5f99cf62ef353ad. 

Taylor, John. “War, Photography and Evidence.” Oxford Art Journal, edited by Caroline Brothers, vol.  22, no. 1, 1999, pp. 158–65, www.jstor.org/stable/1360688. Accessed 25 Nov. 2021.

The Different Approaches to the Angry-Man Genre: Juxtaposing the Long-Term Legacies of Sholay and Zanjeer

By Krisha Sikka, Edited by Bridget Zhang and Enoch Lai

Introduction 

1970s Bollywood reflects the transition from an optimistic, post-Independence atmosphere to one depicting a lack of trust in the government after the appointment of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Spearheading a mass sterilization campaign, her regime was linked to the censorship of free speech and neglected lower classes in society by denying them basic civil liberties (Raghavan). Movies like Zanjeer (1973) and Sholay (1975)—directed by Prakash Mehra and Ramesh Sippy respectively—established the angry young man genre, which features enraged heroes seeking revenge for injustices committed against them through their own means, rather than relying on law enforcement. Zanjeer revolves around a young man avenging the death of his parents through partnership with a crook, while Sholay focuses on two thieves avenging the death of a local police officer’s family by hunting down a treacherous bandit. Although the two films have different storylines, they are both centered on a lack of trust in the government due to the political climate in India during the 70’s. 

Despite both being of the same, revolutionary genre, Sholay was able to differentiate itself from Zanjeer and become the highest grossing Indian film for almost a decade due to its ability to appeal to public opinion by incorporating ideals that aligned with the current political climate, as well as its innovative use of advanced foreign technology. More specifically, Sholay’s increased success over Zanjeer can be attributed to 1) its realistic depiction of life after the issuance of the Emergency—a period from 1975 to 1977 in India in which Gandhi’s administration tightened their control through mass arrests and censorship; 2) its pioneering role as the first “curry western” influenced by narrative styles and technology from Hollywood; and 3) the portrayal of an antagonist whose sadistic violence mirrored the oppressive actions of the government.

The 1970s and the Emergency: A New Era of Bollywood Cinema 

When Prime Minister Indira Gandhi took power, she wanted to prevent civil disobedience against the corrupt government and, thus, issued the Emergency on June 25, 1975. Under this order, Article 359 and the Parliamentary Proceedings (Protection of the Publication) Act prohibited reporters from discussing or distributing any of the discussions occurring in the government, and protections for free speech were abolished (Jha 120). Authoritarianism reached an unprecedented level and was largely a response to the mass protests that called for Gandhi to step down. Various opposing leaders who spoke out against her were incarcerated, which created a general sense of fear in India regarding speaking out against her injustices (Caravan Magazine).  

Zanjeer uses storylines that represent a fantasy, pre-Emergency world. This resembles movies from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s administration, where social classes get along and women embody ideal Indian womanhood. For example, the main character, Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan), is able to avenge the death of his parents by killing Teja (Ajit Khan), their murderer, without facing consequences. He does so with the help of Sher Khan (Pran), a former crook; earlier in the movie, Vijay is able to make him change his ways because Khan is impressed by his down-to-earth character and determination. Furthermore, he has a successful love story with Mala (Jaya Bhaduri), a homeless knife-sharpener that he nurtures into an obedient wife with the help of his adopted brother and sister-in-law. Vijay is able to end up happily-ever-after with a woman that successfully depicts Indian womanhood—exemplified by women who are dedicated to serving their husbands and managing the household—even though she is from another class. 

On the other hand, Sholay depicts the reality of life after the Emergency. The antagonist Gabbar (Amjad Khan) is a ruthless criminal who makes a living off of theft and cuts off the arms of a local police officer, Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar), as revenge for arresting him. The famous line, “Yeh haath mujhe dede Thakur [Give me this hand, Thakur], '' remains timeless and depicts the vulnerability of law enforcement, who Indira Gandhi intended to be at the top of the social ladder but yet did not have as much power as various bandits and criminals. Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) and Veeru (Dharmendra) are two thieves that Thakur enlists to capture Gabbar in exchange for money but later realize that they themselves are encouraged by justice, rather than monetary value. In Bollywood’s India: A Public Fantasy, Priya Joshi states, “In the new world of the Emergency, these two are as good as the police'' (Joshi 47). Thus,  Jai and Veeru represent an era in which people of the lower class were utilized by those of higher classes, in this case Thakur, in the name of morality. 

Although the successful mixing of the classes is shown in Zanjeer, in Sholay, Jai ends up losing his life, shedding light on the death of pre-Emergency ideals. He wants to marry Radha (Jaya Bachchan), the widow of Thakur’s son, but eventually realizes it was wrong for him to think that he would be accepted by someone belonging to a higher class. Furthermore, Veeru is not able to avenge Jai’s death by killing Gabbar himself because he is subject to Thakur’s authority. Compared to Mala in Zanjeer, Veeru’s love interest Basanti is not tamed to become the perfect wife; she continues to own a horse-carriage transport system to sustain herself, while Mala gives up her knife-sharpener business. In the iconic song Jab Tak Hai Jaan Jaane Jahan [As Long as I am Alive], Basanti is told by Gabbar that he will not kill Veeru if she keeps dancing, even after he throws broken glass on her feet. For the first time in Bollywood cinema, a woman is dancing to save the hero, rather than needing to be saved herself. 

With Zanjeer being released prior to the Emergency and Sholay being released after, the latter film went down as more symbolic of that time period, with the censoring of the ending depicting an abuse of power from the law. Originally, Thakur was supposed to murder Gabbar by pummeling him with his feet. However, since the Emergency was instated, the Central Board of Film Censors did not approve of the original ending and the violence, forcing director Ramesh Sippy to cut out some of the gore. Thus, law enforcement arrests Gabbar for his crimes instead, reinforcing that the police are still more powerful than the people in terms of carrying out justice (Chopra 150-151). Even though Zanjeer had the same message as the uncensored Sholay ending, as Vijay kills Teja instead of the police doing so, it was not censored and was able to depict vigilantism without the police being involved because it was released pre-Emergency. With a few of the non-censored copies slipping its way into the general audience, Sholay’s issues during distribution shed light on the unfair oppression and censoring that occurred during the Emergency, making it a historical artifact. It reflected a period in which the government could control almost every facet of life, specifically film and creativity in this sense, and thus exemplified the effects of the Emergency. 

Foreign Influence: The Making of the First “Curry Western” 

With a movie intended to be the first “curry western”, director Ramesh Sippy and the entire crew for Sholay utilized foreign features and techniques, such as 70 mm print, stereophonic sound, and meticulously choreographed action scenes. Sippy wanted to depict the movie’s big vision through utilizing a 70 mm film print for the first time in Bollywood cinema, shooting each shot in 35 mm and enlarging it to the 70 mm size in post-production. On the other hand, he found that the action stunt coordinators were not at his desired level; he turned to foreign technicians instead. Foreigners from London who specialized in film production, such as Jim Allen, Gerry Crampton, and John Gant, were able to introduce innovative techniques, such as how to realistically time the jumps and incorporate boxes to protect the actors from falls. For example, the attack on Ramgarh scene incorporated numerous fake gunshots and individuals being caught in the staged fire, which took the team over two weeks to shoot (Chopra 37-38). 

Another innovative concept in Sholay’s production that helped set it apart from the rest of Bollywood was the opening train ambush to show the first on-screen interaction of Jai, Veeru, and Thakur. It also sets the stage again for how this movie is like a Hollywood western by showing how the thieves defended Thakur, rather than leaving him to fend for himself against the numerous attackers. However, the crew ran into an issue; it was not legal to have two trains running on the track simultaneously, but they could not stop the originally scheduled train from running. They came to an agreement with the railway company, paying a fee everyday and providing a langar, or free meal, to not only the officials but also the local farmers influenced by the production (Chopra 38). The langar not only allowed for Sholay to successfully complete its shooting of this scene but also helped rally individuals of different social classes together to watch the production.

To match the incredible visuals, the team chose to use stereophonic sound. However, no studios in India were suited to handle such a mix, so they instead utilized London’s Twickenham Studio. Although most of the sound effects were generated in Mumbai and taken to London, they

decided that they wanted to switch up action sounds and the typical “dishoom-dishoom” sounds of gunfire, generating them abroad (Chopra 40). These new techniques gave Sholay a sense of novelty that had never been seen in previous films, including Zanjeer, and also led the way for new themes and settings to be expressed.

Although Sholay and Zanjeer both fall under the angry young-man genre, the adoption of the “inclusion of the outsider into the community” and the “iconicity of a barren landscape” from a Hollywood western set apart Sholay as the first “curry western” (Mukherjee 1). The Hollywood western can be defined as centering around conflict between “civilized order and the lawless frontier.” The hero is also commonly torn between two worlds, one which is disorderly and one centered around morality (Bordwell and Thompson 339). Jai and Veeeru were accepted as honorable in Ramgarh because of their dedication to bringing Thakur justice; although they could have just stolen the money he had given to them, they took the moral route. Bound by codes of honor, Jai and Veeru do not kill Gabbar, as Thakur wanted to do so himself; on the other hand, the opposite is depicted in Zanjeer, where Vijay is drawn by his own personal motivation. He is already somebody in law enforcement and joins the lawless frontier to achieve justice. Furthermore, Sholay’s setting, being the first dacoit, or criminal, movie shot in the South in Ramanagaram and requiring the construction of an entire village, mirrored the wilderness setting that is often portrayed in Hollywood westerns (Chopra 42). On the other hand, Zanjeer has many grand set pieces, such as Teja’s fancy party and mansion. Thus, Zanjeer’s“urban setting,” which was often featured in many other films of this period stood in stark contrast to Sholay’s “wilderness” setting, which was instead similar to the Hollywood western.

Sholay set the wave for a new subsection of the angry-young man genre, the “curry western,” which highlights the struggles of ostracized classes. Upon its release, it initially received backlash for not including the familiar themes of the Golden Fifties, such as patriotism, social welfare, and overall prosperity; for example, it emphasized the friendship between Jai and Veeru more than the romantic relationship between Jai and Radha (Kalia 140). It broke away from the escapism that other movies provided, but was popular because people wanted to see more of what they were experiencing in reality on the big screen.

Gabbar: An Unprecedented, Sadistic Villain 

Perhaps the most important factor that helped set apart Sholay from Zanjeer and make the audience truly resonate with the movie was the villain Gabbar, who represented someone that was forgotten in India and was able to inflict violence that mirrored what many lower-class individuals were facing in real life from the government. When picking the villain for the film, Salim-Javed, a popular screenwriter duo during this time period in Bollywood who wrote both Zanjeer and Sholay, knew that they needed someone who stood out from the cliché villains of that era, even one that stood apart from Teja in their creation Zanjeer, and was not restrained by the law. They cast Amjad Khan, whose peculiar but recognizable voice “sounded like a child with a bad cough” (Chopra 138); To make him look like the bandit Gabbar, they blackened his teeth, dressed him in army gear, and splotched dirt across his body (Joshi 53-57). When Gabbar kills a villager for simply being from where Thakur resided, it is parallel to innocent people in India being thrown off their land simply for urbanism. While Indira Gandhi aimed to provide poor people with housing, they were often placed in areas that were underdeveloped and thus left them unable to make a living for themselves (Dhume). On the other hand, Teja in Zanjeer was not nearly as evil or sadistic, being the leader of the oil mafia and having acquired wealth. His glasses and fancy attire depicted his elevated status in society and did not resonate as well with the people, not inflicting nearly the same level of pain on people of the lower-class. 

Gabbar went down as the more memorable villain in comparison to Teja, with his actions shining light on the terrible acts that the government committed against people. People were able to remember Sholay more when thinking about how brutal a character could be, with Gabbar’s inflicted bloodshed permanently smeared across the brains of every viewer. While Sholay is purely fictional, this bloodshed can be compared to the turmoil that Indians experienced during the Emergency. For example, according to Caravan Magazine, Indira Gandhi issued “a large-scale demolition of slums,” which led many lower-class individuals to wander the streets of Delhi looking for a place to reside (Caravan Magazine). Although Gabbar himself was a villain, he and the two thieves were all influenced by poverty and living in a low infrastructure area in Delhi; the key difference between them was morality. Due to his popularity and distinctiveness, he was even featured in popular advertisements, such as for Parle-G biscuits, which added to the continued longevity of his character (Chopra 175-176). 

However, it was not only the media that adopted Gabbar’s dialogue and presence but even common people that had come across the movie and also resonated with the character. For example, there was an instance when Amjad Khan entered a small shop in Gujarat, and his voice echoed as he spoke into the microphone “Kitne aadmi the (How many men were there)?” (Chopra 177). His influence was all over India and reached multiple groups of people, something that Teja from Zanjeer was unfortunately never able to achieve. Thus, Sholay’s viewers still bring up Gabbar and his iconic dialogues and actions, which have contributed to his long-lasting legacy for the past 40 years. Gabbar himself became a trademark character for the film, as viewers had never seen not only unique mannerisms but also a figure who inflicted unprecedented violence on the Bollywood screen. He represented an ability for the screenwriters to no longer play it safe when depicting evil but unleash the full potential of a villain. 

Conclusion 

When watching Sholay, the audience was taken aback by its bold commentary on the failures of law enforcement, which resulted in a mix of positive and negative reviews from individuals. However, after finishing the film, many people came back to the theaters to witness this masterpiece—a pioneer of foreign influence and the “angry young man” genre—again and found that they themselves could relate to Thakur’s struggles, causing the film to achieve tremendous success. Sholay’s usage of foreign technology to create new sounds and visuals in the angry young man genre made the film a huge success and set it apart from Zanjeer by not just sticking to previously used techniques. Therefore, Sholay represented the start of a new era by its politically subversive response to the circumstances of the Emergency and the birth of the “curry western.” The film not only introduced characters who took up vigilantism and did not glorify the government but also included romance and friendship as key themes to serve side-by-side with action and justice, influencing future films to also mix these themes together and challenge political authority. 

Works Cited

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Sholay. Directed by Ramesh Sippy, performances by Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Dharmendra, and Hema Malini, Sippy Films, 1975.

Zanjeer. Directed by Prakash Mehra, performances by Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan, Prakash Mehra Productions, 1973.