Cinema

From my favorite recent NBER research paper:

.... We find that violent crime decreases on days with larger theater audiences for violent movies. The effect is partly due to voluntary incapacitation: between 6PM and 12AM, a one million increase in the audience for violent movies reduces violent crime by 1.1 to 1.3 percent. After exposure to the movie, between 12AM and 6AM, violent crime is reduced by an even larger percent. This finding is explained by the self-selection of violent individuals into violent movie attendance, leading to a substitution away from more volatile activities. In particular, movie attendance appears to reduce alcohol consumption. Like the laboratory experiments, we find indirect evidence that movie violence increases violent crime; however, this effect is dominated by the reduction in crime induced by a substitution away from more dangerous activities. Overall, our estimates suggest that in the short-run violent movies deter almost 1,000 assaults on an average weekend. While our design does not allow us to estimate long-run effects, we find no evidence of medium-run effects up to three weeks after initial exposure.

The lead author, Gordon Dahl, a University of California economist, is a serious researcher who has done lots of other interesting work, including papers finding that women who marry in their teens are more likely to end up living in poverty later in life than women who wait to marry, and that expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit that boosted income for working class parents increased the school achievement of their children.

Here is a review of the film event from Sarah Sattelmeyer, Research Assistant, and Emily Groene, Program Assistant. -- Margy Waller

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October has been a busy and productive month for us here at Inclusion!

Last night (October 10th) we co-sponsored a screening of the documentary Center for Social Media at American University as part of the DC Labor Film Festival (whew!).

Here is the flier:

For those of you who are movie buffs, Made in L.A., which documents the interrelationships between garment workers in L.A and their struggle to gain and maintain basic workplace rights, made its debut at documentary film festivals across the country this year, including SilverDocs in Silver Spring, MD. It also aired on the PBS program POV on September 4th. So needless to say, we were pretty lucky to have this (free!) opportunity and be able to share it with others from the DC area.

In case you are not convinced yet, here is what some other "movie buffs" thought about the film:
LA Times
New York Times

Over 100 people were present for the screening and many stayed after the movie to engage in discussion and dialogue about low-wage work in America. Margy was joined on the discussion panel by the film’s director Almudena Carracedo (who, I must add, was wearing amazing boots from Spain!) and its producer Robert Bahar, as well as by Rich Stolz from the Center for Community Change’s Immigration Team.

As a panelist, Margy offered a broader look at the state of the low-wage workplace and explained to an audience composed of students, professors, and community members why Inclusion promotes an economy that works for and allows participation by everyone in society. Perhaps the most salient point made by the discussion panel (to us, of course!) was when Almudena and Robert acknowledged that the story of illegal and unhealthy work practices told in Made in L.A. could have been told about many other parts of the service industry.

The message to us at Inclusion was loud and clear: the struggle for job quality and higher labor standards is universal. While the film did a beautiful job of interweaving the personal narratives of three female garment workers with their struggle for justice in the workplace, it also addressed issues experienced by Americans in every part of society. We hope that the many film students who were in the audience took note of how a film can exist as a symbiotic effort between filmmaker and community and how a strong social message can be portrayed to an audience through documentary film.

We enjoyed the opportunity to bring this dialogue out of our downtown Washington policy wonk-y office and into the community and the chance to use a different form of media to explore and project social messages.

Please see this list of things you can do to help!

-- Emily Groene and Sarah Sattelmeyer

If you are in the DC area, please join us tonight – Wednesday October 10 – for a free screening of a new documentary.

The Mobility Agenda is collaborating with documentary filmmakers and an intermediary, Active Voice, to promote the new film about low-wage work: Made in LA.

Active Voice brings filmmakers, policy advocates, and researchers together on issues of mutual interest. Recently, Inclusion’s Mobility Agenda team hosted a roundtable discussion about the film with Active Voice, just as the documentary began its festival circuit with a showing in DC at the SILVERDOCS festival.

We’re excited about this film for two reasons:

First, Made in L.A. is a story about the low-wage labor market and the critical importance of organizing the workplace to create a space for worker voices, and providing intermediary support and resources (like worker centers and unions) that can improve low-wage job conditions. It also provides a teaching moment for shoppers - if the price is a "steal", someone else probably already "paid" for it in low wages.

Second, at Inclusion and The Mobility Agenda, we are committed to using new media approaches for sharing ideas about issues of economic security and mobility, and successful strategies for system change. We are really impressed with the Active Voice leadership and their approach using documentary film to advance public understanding and policy change. While the film presents the particular experience of immigrant workers in LA, this documentary provides information about the low-wage labor market that is relevant across sectors.

Here is a description from the filmmakers:

MADE IN LA follows the remarkable journey of three Latina immigrants working LA’s garment factories and their struggles for self-empowerment as they wage a three-year battle to bring a major clothing retailer to the negotiating table. In an intimate vérité style, MADE IN LA offers a rare and poignant glimpse into this “other” America, where immigrants in many industries toil long hours for sub-minimum wages, fighting for an opportunity in a new country.

In her post about In the Valley of Elah, Margy asks a great question: "Is it possible to make a movie about people that illustrates a larger point about a structural and systemic concept?" The one recent movie I can think of that arguably accomplishes this goal is last year's Fast Food Nation.

Directed by Richard Linklater, Fast Food Nation is a fictionalized version of the non-fiction book by Eric Schlosser. It tells a number of individual stories, including those of undocumented workers at a processing plant and a fast food executive who ultimately decides not to blow the whistle on his company's use of contaminated beef. What stays with you, however, aren't the details of those stories, but the larger systemic problem that they add up to. Here's a quote from Linklater that captures how at least some people responded to the movie:

I don’t have any delusions that the movie is gonna change much. [Laughs.] Yet at the one U.S. screening we had, a lady came up and said, “I can’t eat this stuff and not think about everything that’s behind it—the workers and the whole system.” So that’s a good start. I want to know what’s behind everything I’m asked to buy—whether it’s my food or my government’s policy on another country. I have the right to know the real cost.

FFN was unusual in its refusal to provide a happy ending, or tell the story of a heroic individual who triumphed over corporate greed. As Linklater has noted, one of the main characters "is no Erin Brockovich. The film pushes responsibility back on the audience." But here's the catch, perhaps for these reasons, FFN wasn't particularly successful and got mixed reviews from critics.

Is it possible to make a movie about people that illustrates a larger point about a structural and systemic concept? As we work with documentary filmmakers and the fantastic folks at Active Voice, I’ve been struggling with this question.

We aim to share a larger construct and in particular, build public will for policy action to address a particular problem. How do we do this within the popular culture?

Viewing In the Valley of Elah with my mother and two of her friends – all reliably progressive women, I was struck again by the difficulty we face in telling a story when everyone has a different lens for viewing.

Spoiler alert: The post below will reveal some details about the movie that you might rather not know until after you see it.

Even as I was watching the movie slowly reveal the horrors faced by military in Iraq…. I wondered whether the storyteller intended for viewers to see this as a lesson about the horrendous impact of war on soldiers, or a morality tale about “bad people” who got into the regular army when standards for recruiting were lowered to meet quotas.

What the soldiers do upon return from Iraq makes them seem evil or insane…and the descriptions of their actions in Iraq despicable at times, a distasteful necessity at others. But, are these actions caused by the horrors of war, or simply actions of “bad people” who will be bad no matter where they are or what we try to do about it?

After the movie, we talked about the possible impact on opinions regarding Iraq. Others seemed initially certain that people who see the movie will be hard pressed to defend war – this war in particular. This is an interesting discussion in part because it appears the movie may reach beyond the usual lefty audience for a Michael Moore film since it stars Tommy Lee Jones and appears in previews to be something of a mystery-thriller.

The movie is based on the true story of one father looking for his son, recently returned from Iraq and deemed AWOL by his superiors. The movie slowly reveals that the young man was killed by fellow members of his troop and the credits include a reference to a web site about the dead man.

When we got home, I found the website, home for a foundation dedicated to ensuring the military ends the practice of lowering standards for admission. “The Richard T. Davis Foundation for Peace has been created to remind everyone of the importance in making sure people are properly screened for mental disorders and criminal dispositions prior to being admitted into military service. We want to raise the bar on the all-time low recruitment standards in place now, so that the honorable men and women who serve our nation don't have to do it alongside criminals and murderers. Our troops deserve better than that.”

In the film, the murderer describes himself as surprised to look down and see that he is stabbing the soldier who dies. We already know that the dead man suffered multiple stab wounds, before the others chopped him up and tried to burn his body – instead of taking the time to bury him because they got hungry and it was getting late. (See how it sounds even as I write about from the distance of two days? Can this really about the horrors of wartime after-effects?)

Some reporting indicates that the real-life father – a former military policeman – does not believe that Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was a factor in his son’s murder.

Paul Haggis, the film’s writer, director, and producer described his effort in an interview:

PAUL HAGGIS: I wanted to tell a story that asked bigger questions than that story actually did. I didn’t want to answer the question: "Who killed this particular soldier?” Although I wanted to use all the events of that, I wanted to ask: "What’s happening to our men and women?” So rather than keep it focused on "Oh yes. That’s right. That’s the guy who’s guilty. Now we found out.” You’ll see the movie is structured in such a way that it begins with a murder mystery. It beings with "Ah, we know what this is. We’re trying to find the guy who did this.” And then three quarters of the way through the film, I start to tell you that’s not important any more.

It’s not who did it. It’s who is responsible that we’re interested in, and it goes from a murder mystery to a moral mystery. It’s still a mystery, but I do this sleight of hand. I didn’t know if you were going to sit through it or like it or not. I sort of messed with the rules of screenwriting there. You’re not supposed to do that. A genre is a genre is a genre. Your hero is the guy who solves the crime and gets to the end, and this hero you just see him debilitated by this and you get to the end and people just start handing him clues and people confess. I knew what I was doing. That breaks all the rules. But I wanted to talk about his journey and our journey – where we are in America and ask questions about where we are in America right now and what’s happening.

I’m still wondering if some will see the movie and come to a different conclusion than Haggis intended. Will some see it as a comment on the kind of people in today’s military?

When you put a real face on any issue, is it possible to ensure that viewers will see the larger picture – the systemic issue that is an umbrella over the real person in the story? I’d like to think so – but, I’m reminded again of how hard that is to do – and how our own lens on the story can get in the way of remembering that other people may have a different starting place.