INTRODUCTION
As
another year ends, it is time for The Sociologist’s Dojo to rattle off the top
ten Sociological films of the year. As
with the last three years, I’ve decided to once again, give
readers a list of 10 events of the year that can be encapsulated in film. Understand
that this is not an exhaustive list of events, nor even the ones that are “The
Most Sociological.” Instead, this is to
provide an accounting of some of the noteworthy happenings of 2023 and the
films that epitomize their essence; either directly or tangentially. With each
event, I will provide a brief explanation, 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.
2023
has been another year of a mixed bag of social events, that have provided
fleeting moments of hope amongst a sea of tribulation. We continue to see the
erosion of our social institutions, which are becoming increasingly ineffective
and chaotic, as another war breaks out; a generations long simmering tension of
animosity, finally brought to a boil. Rights are being stripped, knowledge is being
undervalued, and yet, labor activism has been on the rise, and we have seen
some meaningful and remarkable gains for the workers of the entertainment, automotive
and food service industries.
10) Trans
Rights Rollback and Resistance: Anything’s
Possible (2022)
At
the beginning of this year, over 120
different anti-LGBTQAI bills were introduced into
Congress, many of them targeting Trans people. This is yet another example of
the political right’s irrational and purposefully distracting culture war
against anyone who challenges their white male heteronormative Christian
Fascism, simply by existing. This has been an ongoing political attack, based
in fear, to grasp at and maintain power by scaring their base with false claims
and erroneous conclusions. Several Republican
led states have outlawed
gender affirming care, a set of processes and procedures
that allows Trans individuals to be able to have an accurate gender identity
and self-expression. Of the 500 total bills that were introduced this year, 48
passed, mostly affecting trans people in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Montana, Texas,
and Florida.
However,
just as transphobes, and the institutions that they control, seek to codify their
bigotry into law, resistance to these laws has also been at an all-time high.
Activism across the country, from demonstrations, marches and sit ins, people
are making their voices heard in the overall support for Trans and LGBTQ rights;
as a majority of Americans want to protect
Trans people from discrimination.
One
of the more recent films on this list, Anything’s Possible (2022) is a
trans inclusive romantic comedy that is set in the waning days of high school as
two students kindle an unexpected spark of passion between them. In the context
of the current state of trans rights, this story can be considered a microcosm,
with many of the events and experiences of discrimination felt in the film are
a proxy for, and inspired by, actual events in trans people’s lives. Yet, like
the resistance that fights back at such oppression, the film’s characters
persevere. This film stands as the
first romantic comedy with a trans actor in the lead and is important
for overall gender and sexual representation on screen. This film embodies the
hope of a possible world free of anti-trans oppression; where love is love, no
matter who it ensnares.
9)
Disney v. DeSantis: AVP: Alien vs. Predator
(2004)
In 2022, Florida Governor
Ron DeSantis passed the Florida Parents’ Rights and Education Act. Publicly
known as the “Don’t say gay” bill, rightfully surmised through its contemptuous
colloquialism, forbids schools from discussing/providing course content or
instruction involving gender and sexual orientation. Additionally, this prohibits
any LGBTQAI child, or child of LGBTQAI parents, from talking about their lives
in a public school. Disney, Florida’s largest employer, and titan of
corporately corrosive crimes themselves, (including
child labor) initially supported the bill, giving
$200,000 to the bill’s sponsors and co-sponsors. However, after protests from their
employees (that included threats of walk outs and work stoppage) and the eventual
passage of the bill, Disney publicly took a stance against it and donated 5
million dollars to Human Rights Campaign, a LGBTQAI advocacy group.
In 2023, Disney also
paused their contributions to political campaigns in Florida, pulled
out of a 1 billion dollar deal to increase jobs in the
region, and personally sued Ron DeSantis for the violation of their free speech
rights. At the time, DeSantis was using political power to threaten the
sovereignty of Disney to operate independently inside the state of Florida.
It is well documented that I hate Disney with the fire of a thousand suns. From the beginning, and for most of its existence, Disney has amassed and horded corporate and cultural power over the United States and internationally. They have used everything from legally sleezy and strong-arm tactics to maintain their overall omnipotence in the popular media landscape; whether that be through the functions of capitalism, which cause them to create poor working conditions for employees and sell products through consumer engineering, with an eye toward planned obsolescence; all in the name of profit. However, Ron DeSantis is an aggressively creepy tool, whose publicly expressed views and policies actively court the worst dregs of humanity to his side, while actively threatening the livelihood of anyone who does not support his heteronormative Zionistic crypto fascist worldview. Thus, the best I can hope for is mutually assured destruction.
Due to my animosity for both DeSantis and Disney, it seems only fitting that the movie to properly encompass this kind of tension between two hostile and aggressive species is Paul W.S. Anderson’s 2004 antagonist amalgam: AVP: Alien vs. Predator. For comparison, Disney is obviously the xenomorphs, an entomologically virulent aggressor which does little more than multiply and dominates whole planets. DeSantis, like The Predator, hides behind a mask (of fruitless civility) while underneath, he’s a crab faced ghoul that wants to hunt people down and (metaphorically) tear out their spine. As the tag line for the film suggests: “Whoever wins, WE lose.”
8)
Book Banning: Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
According
to the American Library Association, there have been over 700
attempts to ban books in the first 8 months of 2023.
Most of the books under this scrutiny were books that were written by people of
color or members of the LGBTQAI+ community in an extension of previous years
tensions between knowledge and the silencing of members of non-white, non-heterosexual
communities. Whether that be through a belligerently ignorant condemnation of
Critical Race Theory, or academia in general, in 2023, any book that challenges
the cultural primacy of the white, male, heterosexual, able-bodied Christians
is being targeted for elimination by a select few zealots that have managed to
claw their way to power.
Both
the Francois Truffaut adaptation and the Ray Bradbury classic center around the
control of knowledge as a form of intellectual pacification. While we’ve yet to
commit to the actual act of book burning, there have been recent
suggestions of such a practice by current
members of congress. This is another example of our weakening
socio-political structure as we slouch toward totalitarianism.
7) Affirmative Action in
Education Unconstitutional: Operation Varsity Blues:
The College Admission Scandal (2021)
In
June of this year, the YOLO Supreme Court once again struck down 40 years of
precedence in the majority opinion of two cases involving Harvard and Chapel
Hill. According to the Court: “The Court has permitted race-based college
admissions only within the confines of narrow restrictions: such admissions
programs must comply with strict scrutiny, may never use race as a stereotype
or negative, and must—at some point—end." Unfortunately, this reasoning assumes
that race-based college admission discrimination no longer happens. The reality
is that students of color still face a
wide continuum of barriers to admission whether that be unfair
weighting of standardized tests, lower numbers of active recruitment of Black
and Brown students, lack of access to collegiate preparatory services in lower
income high schools that are disproportionally Black and Brown, or legacy
admission. These preferences all are additional hinderances that make it more
difficult for nonwhite individuals to go to prestigious colleges and
universities. The court’s inane decision invokes the kind of logic Former
Justice of the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsberg eloquently described as
“throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”
when she was defending abortion rights. The same is true, now, with this court,
under the subject of race.
To be
a touch glib and ironic, The Netflix docu-drama Operation Varsity Blues: The
College Admission Scandal discusses “the elite side door”. This is where wealthy
families who did not want to spend so much money in donations (the back door) to
get their child into an elite school, could for a lower price, orchestrate to
have their child be accepted into a university through falsifying their status
as a college athlete. After the scandal broke, one of the convicted, actor
Falicity Huffman stated that “it was the only thing she could do to secure a
future for her child,” without the forethought as to the dispersions that
casted upon her daughter’s intellectual capabilities and/or work ethic.
However, with this side door closed, other loopholes still exist, including all
the ones mentioned above, and anymore “side doors” that have yet to be
exposed.
6) The Titan Submersible Implosion:
Ghosts
of the Abyss (2003)
On
June 18th 2023, OceanGate’s submersible, Titan, imploded as
it was trying to reach the resting place of the Titanic. Five people died
including OceanGate’s CEO, Stockton Rush. The company that was founded in 2009
had specialized transporting paying customers in leased commercial submersibles.
The Titan had made expeditions to the Titanic the previous year but
never got close to the Titanic due to inclement weather. A later investigation
would find that the company did not initially seek sub certification due to the
excessive safety protocols; which in their words: “hindered
innovation”. Upon seeking certification from Lloyd’s Register in
2019, the vessel was denied.
Rush stated in a 2019 interview that he broke
some rules making Titan “with engineering and good judgement behind him.”
When the news broke about the vessel losing communication, intermittent banging
was picked up on the monitoring equipment. This led to speculation and fear
that there were survivors alive at the bottom of the ocean. This fear turned
out to be unfounded.
Unfortunately,
during the investigation of the incident, it was uncovered that the drive for
profit led to cost cutting practices (as with safety protocols) and embellishing
sales tactics. The initial cost of the 5-day excursion, including the trip down
to the Titanic, cost $250,000 per person. In trying to fill in seats, Rush
offered Vegas businessman Jay Bloom a $100,000 discount and told him that it
was “safer than crossing the street.” Bloom declined after hearing the safety
protocols.
The
Choice of James Cameron’s Titanic documentary
is a bit glib considering the famed director has been down to the Titanic
several times without issue; and Cameron vocalized
his criticism of the company and the construction of
the submersible itself. The film documents the process of deep-sea diving and
the inherent dangers associated with it.
Part of the reasoning behind the backlash and lack of empathy for those
that died is coupled with the image of bored billionaires circumventing safety
measures to create another exclusive experience; further stratifying them from others
at lower class levels. To that end, there are many that consider the implosion
karmic retribution. However, those individuals tend to see the universe as
having a cosmic bent toward justice, when justice is just as much a social
construction as anything else. The reality, as many Marxists will tell you, is
that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and that the implosion,
while avoidable, was made more difficult because profit was promised. Choices
were made and consequences of those choices were experienced. Only later do we decide whether that event was
a tragedy or justice.
5)
Trump
Indictments Frost/Nixon (2008)
Donald
Trump surrendered to authorities four separate times this year; facing both
civil and criminal charges involving real estate fraud, the handling of
classified documents and conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. Bewilderingly,
neither the indictments, nor any possible convictions determined by a court of
law, disqualify Trump from holding the office of the President again in 2025. While
there are some that cling to an interpretation of both events and the
constitution that would see Trump disqualified under section 3 of the
14th amendment, the likelihood of that transpiring
is slim, given the reluctance of the US attorney general and New York AG to
indite in the first place. This is understandable given the zealous exuberance
with which Trump’s followers embrace and defend their demagog. The prosecutors
must have been hesitantly trepidatious to bring the indictments forward fearing
both reprisals and retaliation. Still, even as charges were handed down, Trump’s
defense has implemented a scorched earth campaign, centered around undermining
the public’s confidence in the US court system.
This process of disruption and spreading of misinformation has led to
several applications and revocations of “gag orders” on the 45th President,
determining what he can and cannot say to both the press and his followers.
The fact that
presidential indictments being at the middle of this retrospective list speaks
to the normalization of the political consequence that is Donald Trump. We’ve
lived with him in or adjacent to the presidential spotlight for nearly decade, that
his pathologically evil irrationality seems both quaint and comforting to…*checks
poll numbers* about half of the US population. The sycophantic cult that has
deified him cannot be reasoned with or compelled away from him. It is the
movement of independents back to his side, that even in the face of these
charges, he seems like that best candidate in their eyes. Wild.
In a pivotal scene toward the end of Frost/Nixon,
a Ron Howard film dramatizing the interviews conducted by David Frost and
former president Richard Nixon in 1977, Nixon (Frank Langella) responding to a
difficult line of questioning from David Frost (Michael Sheen) in their final
interview states “When the President does it, its not Illegal.” This is the
reasoning that Donald Trump is using as his defense. However, where Nixon
understood that the presidency is elected official, Donald Trump sees the
presidency more akin to a Monarch. Like being CEO of his own company, he
believes that he is above both the law and the people. What he says goes, and
he can not be held accountable for anything that he did as President. This is synthesized
in the quote from Nixon that is embraced by Trump as Gospel.
4)
Labor Strikes: Norma Rae (1979)
In
2023, over
453,000 workers have gone on strike in a variety of
industries. From food service and auto workers to writers, actors, and medical
professionals, this year we saw a breaking point for the issue of labor
revolving around pay equity, residuals, number of hours worked, various working
conditions, and the ownership of work produced.
While many of these worker strikes were inevitably successful, they only
worked because of the solidarity of the workforce and the profit loss due to
the work stoppage. Not only does this not change the problem of capitalism, but
many of these industries are also trying to implement union busting behavior to
make sure that this does not happen again.
Over the last decade, we
have seen an amalgamated fusion between social media and political activism to
the point that a lack of engagement “on the socials” is tantamount to political
irrelevance. It is a foregone conclusion that any social or political movement
must have a presence in these online spaces to gain any kind of political
traction. Thus, the labor strikes of 2023 were reductively referred to as “hot
labor summer”, transforming an important moment for worker’s rights into
another transient tik tock trend, deflating its public power through the
anesthetic amnesia of a short attention span. Thus, it is unlikely we will see
this kind of labor activism again anytime soon, because even though many of
these industries have acquiesced to the demands of their workers, we did not
see a complete overhaul of the capitalist system that affects all labor. Instead,
we have experienced these little tremors of economic social justice when what
we need is a devastating earthquake.
Additionally, in the case
of the writer’s and the actor’s strike, the studios are coming to fiercely
erroneous conclusions. For example: Bob Iger CEO of Disney, stated that the
economic losses felt by recent Marvel films was not due to overworked animators,
the bureaucratic standardization of every single Marvel film, or a drive to
meet a release date to forsake quality, but that the films have been “too
focused on messaging” [read as “Too woke”] and less focused on
“entertaining everyone” [read as “white men”]. To translate further, this means
that Iger believes that storytelling is unimportant, and Disney should just produce
content. For Iger, the content doesn’t
matter, as long as that content doesn’t say anything about the world. As a sociologist that studies pop culture and
understands that pop culture is both a cultural and social product with the
ability to influence decision making (pop culture is soft power after all), I
know that this is impossible. But what Iger is harkening back to, and steering
Disney toward, is to content and messaging that reinforces the traditional heterosexual
Christian white male, which fuels the normalization of white supremacy.
The film that captures the labor fever of 2023
is 1979’s Norma Rae starring Sally Field as the Titular cotton Mill
worker who organizes a labor strike to for a union. The film is wonderful in
its depictions of typical union busting behaviors pointed out by scholars and
labor organizers to this day. This is mostly due to the real-life union
organizing in 1978 that inspired the film. Hence, once again this is another
instance of life imitating art, imitating life. The soft power of film and
popular culture is often cyclical.
3) Kissinger’s Death: Platoon (1986)
This
November, infamous diplomat Henry
Kissinger final died at the age of 100. In the Geopolitical landscape, he
was a giant; manufacturing
malevolent Machiavellian machinations with a deft hand that rarely wavered
in the face of scrutiny. Because of these actions, he will also be remembered as
(one of) the most morally bankrupt individuals to ever live. He
was a Jewish Antisemite who, in his time in various government roles, promoted
genocide (Cambodia, Indonesia), extending the war in Vietnam (troop surge), encouraging
a military coup of a newly elected socialist government(s) (Chille and
Argentina) supported the annexation of a previously freed states (East Timor),
prolonged apartheid in South Africa and ordered the dropping of 9 billion pounds
of munitions on Indochina during his tenure. He was revered by imperialists,
dictators, military leaders, war hawks and private military contractors. He was
also the enemy of social justice and reviled by those who seek a more positive
and equitable future.
If anyone needed any more
proof as to the state of our broken system, it is the fact that Kissinger was able
to live to 100 without any consequences for his actions; either directly
(prison time) nor indirectly (professional alienation). After his time in office,
Kissinger continued to advise presidents both Democrat and Republican and was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work negotiating ceasefires. Though,
given the origins
of the Nobel Peace Prize, and who
they give it to, it seems consistent that Kissinger would be honored.
Oliver Stone’s Platoon
is a film to rewatch for anyone who wants to sample what the world was like,
particularly military life, when Kissinger ran the world at the height of his
powers. It was a time where soldiers’
lives were measured in seconds, and their value was only measured in bulk. Out of
all of the films of 70’s and 80’s Platoon was one of three films without
any military funding (the others being Full Metal Jacket, and Apocalypse,
Now) because of their complex [read as more real] depictions of solider life
at the time than other films that were given the Military’s blessing.
2) Speaker of the House Battle: Death of Stalin (2017)
On October
3rd 2023, Speaker of the House Kevin Macarthy was voted out of office
by a thin Republican majority spearheaded by gross “dude-bro” Congressmen Matt Gaetz.
This was after 16 attempts and Macarthy metaphorically walking on hands and
knees to prostrate himself before Gaetz and Representative Lauren Bobert just
to be nominated. What followed was a 3-week stall of work in the House of
Representatives; where many of our elected officials were so busy vying for
power that they haltered the process of government. During this time, budgets
weren’t approved, and aid could not be given; during a time when the US
promised to support allies in two foreign conflicts. Handfuls of Republican House
members were selected and then failed to win the nomination: Steve Scalise, Jim
Jordan, and Tom Emmer were all voted on, each more conservative than the last. Mike Johnson finally won the nomination (by a
razor thin margin against his Democratic challenger, Hakeem Jefferies) a 2020
election denier who has continued the conservative
crusade against abortion and birth control.
The
satirical buffoonery of the characters in Armando Iannucci’s Death of Stalin
seem affable when comparing them to the actions of some of our US
representatives. When looking at the “Trump faction” of the House, we have members
who have been investigated
for sex trafficking minors, removed
from Committee assignments amidst fiery and false rhetoric, and forcefully
removed from a Broadway show for raucous and lascivious behavior. This is
such a congressional clown car, that any attempts
to satirize it, is ultimately fruitless.
1) Reignition of Israel/Palestine Conflict
Gaza (2019)
The
apathetic guilt over the genocide perpetrated by the Nazi regime in WWII resulted
in the appropriation of land and removal of its denizens in 1948. This reparational action, the proverbial “robbing
Peter to pay Paul”, was the spark that set the Israel/Palestinian conflict in
motion. Over the decades, there have been eruptions of violence and periods of
tense cold war conflict…but bever peace.
On
October 7th 2023, the tension between Isarel and Palestine once
again boiled over with a Hamas attack on Israeli Military bases and civilian
population centers. From that Israel promptly declared war on Hamas, escalating
its military numbers and
after little warning, began regular bombing campaigns throughout Gaza including
soft civilian targets like
schools and hospitals. Israel also cut
off food and water to the region. Even
though Hamas fighters began this current skirmish, they are far outmatched in
both weapons and tactics. In that, Israel has a monopoly. Their “Iron Dome” is
fully backed and supported by the US. A country that has given Israel blanket
and unwavering support since its inception. This support is fueled by fears of
being perceived as anti-Semitic and has resulted in a
rise in hate
crimes against Palestinians in the States.
I chose the 2019 film Gaza, for two reasons: First, we can not lose sight of the humanity of others even if there is conflict. One of the issues with the (first?) two world wars is that Military propaganda dehumanized the enemy for American Soldiers but when they came face to face with each other, during the start of the war, they found it difficult to engage in violence. World War I also saw the first and only Christmas Armistice in 1914, impart because both sides ran out of munitions weeks before. But as the war ranged on, and the demonization of the enemy was more complete, truces became rare. Secondly, a comparison of Gazans under Hamas can be a point of commiseration for Israelis under their known semi-tyrannical government especially under Netanyahu, who has been criticized for using Hamas to remain in power.
CONCLUSION
Thus, I look out, on the
precipice of another year on the horizon, with a minor sense of personal hope that
absolutely, positively… does not extend to the mezzo or macro level(s). Our
institutions are crumbling, there is an acrimonious stalemate in Congress, and
the likelihood of a Trump second term is on the horizon. There is not much to
be thankful for on that level, which is why it is essential for us to find love
and joy wherever we find it. Whether that be among our family, friends,
spouses, partners and ‘others of significance’, we cannot count on happiness
coming from anyone other than inside and around all of us. I leave you with the
upcoming regeneration of the 14th Doctor into their 15th
incarnation. May we all transform ourselves for the coming celebrations and
challenges ahead. See you all in 2024!
