Film review of Mic Check: Documentary Shorts of the Occupy Movement

Film review of Mic Check: Documentary Shorts From The Occupy Movement by various contributors but curated by Nick Shimkin. Reviewed by Troy Belford. Originally published at the Anthropology Review Database at http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/cgi/showme.cgi?keycode=5380 Shimkin, Nick 2012 Mic Check: Documentary Shorts from the Occupy Movement. Northampton, MA:Media Education Foundation. Notes: DVD, 100 minutes Reviewed 6 Sep 2013 by: Troy Belford <[email protected]> Madison WI Medium: Film/Video Subject Occupy movement ‐ United States ‐ History ‐ 21st Keywords: century Protest movements ‐ United States ‐ History ‐ 21st century Occupy Wall Street (Movement) Income distribution ‐ United States Equality ‐ United States United States ‐ Economic conditions ‐ 2009‐ ABSTRACT: Consisting of 19 short films ranging from two to twelve minutes, this film is a record of the Occupy Movement from 2011. It was curated by Nick Shimkin. The collection leads with an artistic short called Why Don't You Join Us? based on the old home video game Pong. One side has a huge paddle that takes up most of one side of the screen and the other side has the small paddle for a normal character. The inequality of this game is expressed in the uneven score that mounts until another paddle joins in the game, and then another and another paddle joins in solidarity until the graphic shifts into a hashtag advert for the Occupy twitter feed. Nobody Can Predict the Moment of a Revolution presents an encapsulated version of the Occupy gathering in New York. the concept of the “people's microphone.” Mostly the film presents the a series of statements from Occupy protesters about why they are protesting. The mainstream media uniformly derided the Occupy protesters for lacking an “issue.” Consensus demonstrates some fascinating aspects of a general assembly that utilizes the “people's microphone,” as well as hand signals in order to achieve a direct democracy consensus based on a non‐hierarchical anarchic process (Graeber 2011b:22‐24, 2013:210‐239). The people's microphone is a process whereby the words of a person speaking to the massed protesters are repeated by those in earshot to those who are a greater distance away. The practice features prominently in the other videos. This film also shows the process utilized to allow different individuals to directly address the general assembly. The hand gestures that are used in order to show agreement or disagreement with statements, while not interrupting the speaker, are also shown. Far from being a chaotic mess the Occupy camps and assemblies are highly organized affairs with inspirationally inclusive collective practices. There is an explanation of the process of “blocking”, whereby a single attendant to the general assembly can enact a veto if it is felt that there is a proposed collective action that is fundamentally at odds with the movement. The gravity and seriousness of these blocking motions cannot be understated, which also makes these maneuvers a fortunate rarity. This film would be excellent for linguistic or ethnography of communication instructors for the ways in which it is able to communicate what a refined, decentralized form of public decision can be like. Homeowners Speak Out focuses on New York homeowners dealing with the frustration of facing foreclosure. The main thrust of this film is the irrational idea that real estate developers would rather have empty homes than allow them to be occupied under some form of government assistance program. Homeless Family Occupies Foreclosed Home In Brooklyn takes the issue one step further and gives the stage to a homeless family who decides to occupy a foreclosed home. It is a political act of protest that became a momentary rally point for the protest. Occupy The Hood addresses the efforts of African American protesters to engage with the working poor of black and Latino communities in order gain their solidarity in the pan‐cultural movement. The Eviction of Zuccotti Park is a short and bitter piece that shows the eviction of the Zuccotti Park camp on November 15, 2011. The meltdown is difficult to watch, but the park was eventually reopened. This film is followed by a lyrical piece called The Morning After Eviction, featuring the marches and protester arrests that came with the eviction and following reoccupation. The use of music in this piece is very effective. This film closes with a moving spoken word monologue that carries an inspirational gravitas that frames the footage of arrests that preceded it. ReOccupy Oakland focuses on the Oakland, California Occupy movement. This video offers a disputation to the highly publicized riots in downtown Oakland, though it does feature some serious verbal abuse aimed by protesters towards the police. Occupy America provides a form of mission statement of the social goals central to the Occupy Movement. It blends together the Wall Street and Oakland movements, notably the ways in which police repression was utilized to agitate the non‐violent protesters by facing them down with riot gear. This film also visits the Occupy Cincinnati protesters, just one of many examples of the smaller protests. We the People Have Found Our Voice also sketches out personal motivations of Occupy protesters in their own voices. It has probably the most openly self‐conscious multi‐ vocality of all the films, as well as a nice example of the poly‐rhythmic percussion jam common to protests these days. We Are Farmers, We Grow Food for the People provides a short profile of an organic family farmer. He shows his solidarity as a farmer with the urban protesters. This film challenges the stereotyped idea of farmers as conservative Republican lemmings. It also sheds some light on the food production issues that were a part of the Occupy platform. These issues of agribusiness controlled by corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill, and Conagra were often overshadowed by the vocal and necessary criticisms that the Occupy movement voiced about the financial sectors of the economy. Foreclose the Banks is a short piece, constructed in a way that mimics a movie teaser, that introduces a rally call of “F#$% the Banks” aimed at Bank of America but extending to the banking system in general. New York Students Rising concentrates on the protests about college tuition hikes at SUNY as well as other city colleges in New York City. It explains in succinct statements the value of education, the oppressive effects of student debt, and the need for direct action to protect the right to higher education for the majority of people who are not privileged. Occupy Museums – MoMa Banner Drop at Diego Rivera Exhibit is a short two minute piece that challenges the idea of a 25 dollar admission price to a Diego Rivera exhibit. They unfurl their own banner and Occupy the lobby of the museum. Occupy the DOE is also about a single protest event, this at a meeting of the Panel for Education Policy, which is a major steering force for the New York City Department of Education. At the open forum meeting protesters utilize the peoples microphone to voice concerns overpowering the public announcement system. Occupy Wall Street 'Bat Signal' for the 99% also examines a single protest event, this one the planning and implementation of the “We Are 99%” signal projected on the side of the Verizon building in New York City. Grounded TV Network Occupy Wall Street Coverage – An Interview with Naomi Klein is a short expression of Klein's appreciation for the Occupy movement, her solidarity, and her hopes that this is the breakthrough that will demonstrate that there is an alternative to the predatory capitalism that reigns today. Klein is always an interesting voice to hear, and her summation of the Occupy case in this short interview distills and selflessly underplays her own contributions to what would become the Occupy movement (Klein 2000, 2007). Official Occupy Wall Street Thank You provides an insight into the opportunity for networking that these protests were able to provide for the organization of what was formerly loosely allied groups in things such as the Peace and Social Justice Movement. As a farewell to the Occupy Wall Street actions it is a fitting and somewhat saddening coda to the protests. It remains to be seen whether it will only be a reorganizing hiatus, or if the Occupy Movement is dispersed in such a way that it will reform in the future as a new entity utilizing the direct action methods of Occupy but branded in a new way. Perhaps there will be an evolution to the movement that will reflect more regional concerns. Regional action seem to be the ones in which direct democracy has the most effect, though they are not the grand gestures that capture people's imaginations and galvanize support. These films demonstrate that the Occupy Movement did have an issue in that a group of different people were united in their disgust with a economic system that was demonstrably, openly, and shamelessly depleting the future middle class. Working class dissidents were also expressing their rage at the growing social inequality. What made it so dangerous, and so necessary for the media to bury all the content of the Occupy movement into a stereotyped image of loud‐mouthed malingerers, was the fact that these diverse groups were achieving a network of solidarity (Graeber 2013:130‐146). In fact they were expanding on events that happened in early 2011 in the accidental synergy that developed between the Wisconsin union protests about collective bargaining and the Arab Spring movements demanding a democratic voice to a multi‐sited global movement of citizens who were forced to bear the brunt of various forms of economic repression that came to pass as part of the global financial crisis (Nichols 2012; Schiffrin and Kircher‐Allen 2012; Winans 2012). Iceland is a telling example of where the Occupy Movement did not take hold because irresponsible bankers were jailed and foreclosure debt to citizens were forgiven. These films are social productions of the Occupy Movement and should not be considered to be objectively ethnographic. That being said, it is far closer to reality than the dismal and judgmental perversions of the truth that were reported by the mainstream media about the protest. They also provide insight into what elements of the Occupy Movement the participants wish to present. Though the films are created by Occupy members with training in video production techniques they still provide a cultural insight into their particular subcultural worldview (Worth and Adair 1972). This DVD collection is an important document of the Occupy Movement as it occurred in New York City. Since most of these films were created and disseminated during the Occupy Wall Street protests, they have an immediacy to them that might allow them to be dismissed as ephemera by some viewers. They are not historicizing in their approach, nor are they reflective. They are films produced in order to further the protests, to capture the spirit of the movement, and to recruit support. I do find myself confused about how to coordinate this collection with other Occupy literature and film. In terms of explaining the Occupy philosophy they are instructionally wanting, but by no means are they dismissible. Those interested in that aspect should look to the film#Regeneration, which I previously reviewed for the Anthropology Review Database (Belford 2013). The literature explaining the movement has been published (van Gelder 2011, Lang and Lang/Levitsky 2012) but in terms of reflective and analytical views the anthropologist David Graeber has probably presented the best analysis of the New York protests (Graeber 2013). Graeber was an important organizer of the protests, and his 2011 book on the history of the concept of debt (Graeber 2011a) had an immediate impact on the moral arguments of the protests. This film collection is of interest to the brave instructor who wishes to present ideas of popular protest, social justice, economic inequality, or general disagreements about corporate personhood in the creepingly corporatized intellectual environment of the academic system of the United States. It should be standard in university library collections for the screening use of various student groups. I fear that it would be difficult to use any of the material from this collection on the high school level due to the landscape that has been created in the secondary public education system by the vocal conservative elements of many communities, as well as the entrenched corporatization that is found in United States public schools. While AP History may celebrate the protest movements of the 1960s civil rights and antiwar movements, celebrating the protests for economic justice that come from today's headlines just may prove to be career suicide for the well‐meaning educator. Then again, the front line is everywhere. References: Belford, Troy 2013 Review of #reGeneration: This is an Uprising. Anthropology Review Database February 15, 2013. http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/cgi/showme.cgi?keycode=5377, accessed September 2, 2013. Graeber, David 2011a Debt: The First 5,000 Years. New York: Melville House Publishing. ‐‐‐‐‐ 2011b Enacting The Impossible: Making Decisions by Consensus. In This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement. Sarah van Gelder ed. San Francisco: Berrett‐Koehler Publishers, Inc., pp. 22‐24. ‐‐‐‐‐ 2013 The Democracy Project: A History, A Crisis, A Movement. New York: Spiegel and Grau. Klein, Naomi 1999 No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs. New York: Picador. ‐‐‐‐‐ 2007 The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Metropolitan Books. Lang, Amy Schrager and Daniel Lang‐Levitsky (eds.) 2012 Dreaming in Public: Building the Occupy Movement. Oxford: New Internationalists Publications Ltd. Nichols, John 2012 Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street. New York: Nation Books. Schiffrin, Anya and Eamon Kircher‐Allen (eds.) 2012 From Cairo to Wall Street: Voices From the Global Spring. New York: The New Press. Van Gelder, Sarah (ed.) 2011 This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement. San Francisco: Berrett‐Koehler Publishers, Inc. Winans, Kirk Michael 2012 Contemporary Social Movements through Twitter: The Cases of Madison, Wisconsin and Occupy Wall Street. Electronic document, http://antipasto.union.edu/engineering/Archives/SeniorProjects/cscurrent/CSSeni orProjectPage‐2012_files/Winans_Kirk_Report.pdf, accessed November 30, 2012. Worth, Sol and John Adair 1972 Through Navajo Eyes: An Exploration in Film Communication and Anthropology. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.