INTRODUCTION
As
another year ends, it is time for The Sociologist’s Dojo to once again rattle
of the top ten sociological films of the year. However, because we are still in
a pandemic, (which now has more Variants than a Marvel Character; Hello,
Omicron!) and the altered release schedules of films,
coupled with the limited the number of films I saw in the theater due to COVID
self-protection; I decided this year, to once again, give readers a list of 10 events
of 2021 and the films that encapsulate them. This is obviously not an
exhaustive list of events, nor even the ones that are “The Most Sociological, but
hopefully represent some of the noteworthy happenings of 2021 and the films
that epitomize their essence; either directly or tangentially. With each event
I will give a brief explanation of the event, followed by how the film(s)
relate to each incident. This list is obviously limited by personal bias, the
films I have seen, and my own specialties in Sociology.
Violence,
death, manufactured moral panic(s) Infrastructure wins (sort of), billionaires
in space, a Texas abortion law that is right out
of a Atwood novel, the end of a high profile conservatorship, and a small
little insurrection that nearly transformed our fragile republic into a
dictatorship; 2021 has been just as wild and uncertain as its older brother.
Below is a curated list of films that, when watched together, gives one a sense
of living through 2021, whether we want to relive it, or not. Enjoy!
10) Rittenhouse
and Arbery Cases:
Triple Feature:
Whose Streets (2017),
On Nov 19th Kyle
Rittenhouse was acquitted of killing two people and injuring a third during a Black
Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The trial and decision were criticized for bias toward the defendant. From
not being able to call the deceased victims, to Rittenhouse
himself being able to hand pick jurors from a tumbler, all of procedural
aspects of the trial seemed to be in Rittenhouse’s favor. Yet, while as some
legal scholars have pointed out that everything that happened in the case was
technically legal, any racial scholar worth their salt will point out the glairing
prejudicial legal procedures that repeatedly favor white defendants.
Additionally, even outside of the technical legality of this decision, the
systemic allowance of an underaged person to be radicalized by a social media
call to arms, gain access to an assault rifle, carry it across state lines to “defend”
property that is not his own, nor was asked to protect by the owners, should be
illegal…full stop.
The
defendants in the Ahmaud Arbrey murder, on the other hand, were convicted only after
many barriers to their guilty verdict were circumvented. First,
there was a reluctance to prosecute the men involved until
the video of the murder was released to the media, sparking national attention.
It should be noted that it was the high-profile nature of this case that led to
the conviction of Aubrey’s killers, as
several other cases with the same or similar circumstances have historically
led to acquittal.
The Rittenhouse
acquittal, and the systemic barriers in the Aubrey case, point to the succinct message
of Naomi Zack (2015) in her book White
Privilege Black Rights; that these disparities are not
about white privilege, it is about the denial of black rights. All defendants
should be treated with the respect and caution to convict that Rittenhouse was
afforded, and the fact that so many are not, is a denial of their rights.
To
illustrate these two cases, a triple feature is necessary. Whose Streets (2017),
a documentary about the rise of police brutality protests after the death of
Michael Brown. This helps to understand the context of the Rittenhouse Case,
and the backdrop of which the events unfolded. American History X, (1998) is included to
acknowledge the ties Rittenhouse, the McMichaels and Bryan have with white
supremacy ideology
and groups.
Nia Decosta’s Candyman (2021) is a great
example of the recontextualization of black pain, leading to the manifestation
of a vengeful spirit. In the film, several real-life victims of racist violence
become a part of the Candyman “hive” to help exact retribution on those that
wronged them. I would imagine, in the Candyman universe, Aubery is now a member
of the horde.
9) Simone Biles backlash at the Olympics:
Bamboozled (2000)
The fundamental
issue regarding the backlash that gymnastic superstar Simone Biles received for
dropping out of a majority of her events in the 2021 Olympics to focus on
mental and physical health has to do with race and the
perceived public ownership of Black women’s bodies.
This is the psychological fallout of the practice of 400+ years of slavery that
still frames Black people as being in the service of white people. According to
Rhoden (2006), regardless of how much these individual athletes get paid, if
their primary job is to perform for the entertainment of white people, which
are disproportionally in positions of authority and a majority of their
fanbase, the black athletes are perpetuating the relationships that were
cultivated during slavery.
The
messaging of “shut up and perform” is illustrated in Spike Lee’s controversial satire,
Bamboozled (2000) which, while leaning into problematic racist stereotypes,
presents the performative aspects of black culture for a white audience in
stark detail, outside of the glorified mechanism of professional sports.
8) Manufactured Moral Panic-Part 1 Vaccines
Network (1976)
In the past year, governments
and pharmaceutical companies have come together to produce a vaccine for
Sars-Cov-2. Yet, regardless of abundant vaccine stocks, the Coronavirus is
still with us. Part of this is through the spread of vaccine misinformation by
major networks like Fox News, whose empty-headed, mouth breathing pundits tout
fear and panic through information that is both vague and misleading. Often,
they express hesitancy and outrage over mask and vaccine mandates, even when their
own company has stricter rules than the ones outlined by the federal government.
This is minimizing the likelihood of heard immunity and has allowed Covid-19 to
mutate repeatedly into more virulent and resistant strains.
The 1976 film Network satirizes
the way in which the way media companies can manufacture consent (or in this
case discontent) to their point of view for profit. The Oscar winning speech
given by Ned Beatty towards the end of the film is easily applicable today.
7) Manufactured Moral Panic- Part 2 Critical Race Theory
(1966)
(2018)
Critical
Race Theory (CRT) is a legal scholarship put forth by Kimberlee Crenshaw, Cornell
West and others that identifies how the systemic aspects of racism are built
into our social institutions providing built in benefits and barriers for
individuals based upon race. Initially, CRT was established to understand legal
disparities in arrest, sentencing severity and other aspects of the Criminal Justice
System. This mechanism has since been applied to other social institutions pointing
to the disparities in experience between people who are white and people of
color in our society. This form of
scholarship is not
being taught in elementary schools, high schools, or barely in undergraduate
college courses. However, this became
the focus of right-wing moral panic when their news outlets fueled this false
narrative for their own political purposes for the 2022 election. Instead, what
these people are outraged about beyond their own attempt at acquiring more
political power, is the shift in presenting American history in more accurate
ways, outside of the flag waving nationalism common in the past. Thus, opponents
to CRT: Firstly, don’t
know what it is, and secondly, do
not want to reckon with a more precise accounting of history outside of the
socialized propaganda meant to pacify the public.
This panic has become
such a raging fire that late in 2021, Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin won on a
platform of banning CRT in schools. This has accelerated to actual
members of a Pennsylvania school board desiring to ban and burn any book with “offensive”
content. As I
said, when I heard about this story: “Time to go back to Bradbury.” So, feel
free to choose either the 1966 or 2018 version. Both will get the point across,
and remind you of world we are about two steps away from living in.
6) Brittany Spears' Conservatorship Ends
Double Feature:
Teen Spirit (2018)
The
Neon Demon (2016)
Bonus: Crossroads
(2002) (because…Obviously)
The perception of celebrity
in our culture often obfuscates the reality celebrities are living in. The media and the entertainment industry,
along with fan culture, has ideas about what they thought Brittany Spears life
was like… and everyone was wrong.
Brought to the media’s attention this year through the hashtag #FreeBrittany,
the public learned that Britany has been under a conservatorship by her father
for most of her career. That conservatorship which is usually reserved for
individuals without the capacity to care for themselves, has confined Britany
for decades.
The Conservatorship
officially ended
on Nov 10th of this year, but it is how we as a public respond to this,
and whether or not we commodify her again.
The commodification of celebrity culture, and the dangers that such an
industry on the performer, is interestingly depicted in the Elle Fanning helmed
Teen Spirit, and Nicolas Winding Refin satirical psychological horror
film The Neon Demon. Readers must
watch the films in the order I have provided as the former gives a sense of
Brittany’s origins, while the latter captures what we did to Brittany when she
was consumed by popular culture.
5) The ‘Build Back Better’ Bill Fight:
2012 (2009)
Every
year that the Congressional Budget Office releases the numbers for the budget each
fiscal yearn I have always cringed and the hundreds of billions of dollars going
towards weapons manufacturing and distribution; while so much less was funneled
to needed infrastructure repair. We tend to only make
drastic changes to infrastructure after a crisis (Minnesota Bridge collapse
circa 2010), and historically, infrastructure was always considered a back
burner issue. Yet, once Biden narrowly
defeated Trump in 2020, there was some hope with a Democratic congress and a
Democratic executive that we could begin the repairing of infrastructure in Biden’s
first year in office. Then the fuckery began. First, Biden attempted to pass a combined
6 Trillion dollar package full of very popular social service spending programs
like free community college and paid family leave. Unfortunately, this was
deemed “too socialist” and both
were gutted in the negotiation process; whittling
down the spending package to a poultry 1.2 Trillion. Then, to please some
energy lobbyist Senators Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin stalled the bill for
several weeks to gain and flex political clout with lobbyists.
There
is no feature length film about infrastructure inspection or infrastructure
repair because, as John Oliver points out in a 2015 segment on Infrastructure,
there is nothing abut infrastructure that is interesting or sexy. Yet, Hollywood
does have a lot of disaster films, and the one thing that disaster films love
to do, is to destroy infrastructure. I picked the 2009 film 2012 because
it features a spectacularly irrational sequence of infrastructure destruction
where the highway overpass crumbles which sets off a sequence of events that
lead to buildings collapsing around a small single engine plane and limousine
trying to escape.
4) US Pulls out of Afghanistan:
Triple Feature:
Syriana (2005)
Three Kings (1999)
The
Stoning of Soraya M (2009)
In late August
2021, the last plane left Afghanistan officially ending US military involvement
for the last 20 years. The troop removal was no handled well,
as many people were killed trying to get to the airport or trampled trying to
get on to planes. This chaos and confusion is analogous to the ending of the
first Gulf War in the 1990’s depicted in the David O Russell film Three
Kings. Additionally, the US government acknowledged a drone striking that
took place (which they first reported was a confirmed terrorist strike, was
later changed, revealing
that the strike was upon a family of innocent civilians
(with several children))against a vehicle going to the airport to provide
people with water. A dramatization of a
drone strike was a part of the 2009 film Syriana, complete with the
confusion and uncertainty that comes with it. Additionally, because the US left
in such a haphazard way, a lot of the progress, especially for women and girls in
the country since the US Military took over. Now, with the Taliban again in
control, there is an expected social regression and an erosion of the rights
women have gained over the last two decades.
With that fear in mind, I chose the 2009 drama The Stoning of Soraya
M as a reminder that the vicious attack that is in the end of that film, could
make a comeback in the region.
3) Billionaires…in…Space!
Elysium (2013)
During the Summer months
of 2021, three
billionaires were in a race with each other to see who could be
the first and go the furthest into “Space”. I use “space” in quotes here
because when we colloquially use the word “space” we typically mean outer space
beyond the earth’s atmosphere. This did not happen, not one of three billionaires
(Musk, Branson, or Bezos) went to outer space. Instead, they all had varying
degrees and times of weightlessness through a sub orbital flight; and unfortunately,
they all came back.
Upon their return, astronauts
that have been to space have come back with a greater sense of humanism. Seeing the earth this way gave them an
epiphany about the importance of environmentalism and reducing human conflicts.
It put into perspective for them that we have but one world, and we better
preserve it. People who were widely expecting the earth to give emotional
catharsis to these sentient flesh sacks of money were sadly mistaken. First,
Jeff Bezos tone deafly thanking his Amazon
employees, many of them under sweatshop like conditions with a history of union
busting, for making his space flight possible. Then, realizing
the media expected him to have the aforementioned epiphany, Bezos made a thinly
veiled speech on the commercialization of space and use it to
get rid of trash and pollution.
This is the result of the defunding of the
space program over the last 20 years, leaving space to now be commercialized by
rich white dudes with a god complex. This is perfectly illustrated by Neill
Blomkamp’s 2013 film Elysium that depicts earth as an overpopulated polluted
trash planet in which the rich live on a space station in the earth’s orbit
with the very best medical technology in the universe.
2) Texas Abortion Law:
Double Feature:
Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always (2020)
Unpregnant (2020)
In 2021, Texas
circumvented Roe vs Wade and brought challenge to this “super precedent” that
was ignored by The Supreme Court. The Texas state law allows for individuals to
bring
civil cases against anyone helping a woman obtain an abortion, regardless of cases
of rape or incest. Suddenly, everyone from the abortion
doctor to the lift driver that brought her to the clinic could be sued by Texas
civilians (not even in the same county) for $10,000 plus court fees. In the words of Justice Sotomayor, this has
allowed all Texans to become bounty hunters.
As of this writing, oral
arguments have begun in the Mississippi Supreme Court case that could further
erode the protections women have altogether, and at
first glance, it is not looking good. Therefore, I wanted to
put on this list a pair of films that speak to the Abortion Process and the
power of women supporting other women through such a difficult decision. The
first, Eliza Hittman’s Never, Rarely, Sometimes,
Always is a drama about Autumn and her cousin, Skylar, traveling from
Pennsylvania to New York for Autumn to get the procedure. The story is poignant
with sobering pragmatism. The Second film, Unpregnant, while also
dealing with the same subject matter, is a road movie friendship comedy. Both
films treat the actual procedure with care, grace, and dignity. Though it is
tempered wit the fact that all four women across these two films could
have been subject to prosecution if any of this happened in Texas and a handful
of other states. Remember, Abortion is a Human Right for anyone
with a uterus.
1) Jan 6th
Insurrection:
The Purge: Election Year (2016)
I
have already written exclusively about the January 6th
insurrection earlier in the year, focusing on the impact of media consumption
and whiteness on protestors; ultimately leading to the events that unfolded. As
we approach the one-year anniversary of the event, we are seeing just how deep
this plot goes. So far, the investigation has handed down indictment to
several of the rioters, many of whom were in denial that they would even be
prosecuted. The investigation has also implicated several members of congress who
were involved in the planning of the coup attempt (even so far as giving
guided tours to the insurrectionist just days before the event) no one has
yet been arrested or removed from office.
The only cinematic choice
to represent the events on Jan 6th is the third installment of The
Purge franchise Election Year, primarily because the film ends with
the Anti-Purge candidate winning the election, outlawing Purge Nights, and as a
result, purge supporters staged violent uprisings across the country,
protesting election results leading to the fourth film The Forever Purge
(2021). While I still have some hope that we are several years away
from this becoming an actual reality, the end of this film was a little too
close for comfort.
CONCLUSION
Going into 2022, I am less optimistic about all aspects of society, and our ability to weather the storm. From the approaching midterms to Covid’s consistent threats, to environmental depletion 2022 just like the last two years before might be yet another brick out of the wall of civilization. Therefore, it is important to remember human and civil rights for all people and understand your place in the world. We fight as hard as we can for as long as we can. If you need to personalize these collectivist ideas in order to support it, so be it. But here, in the last essay of 2021, I leave you with the parting words of The 12th Doctor: “laugh hard, run fast, be kind.” See you all in 2022.
REFERENCES
Roden,
William C. 2006. Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption
of the Black Athlete New York: Three
Rivers Press
Zack, Naomi 2015. White Privilege and Black Rights:
The Injustice of US Police Racial Profiling and Homicide New York: Rowman
and Littlefield
