Nilalapo nakuota wewe Response - I talk to much, as usual

We are assigned to respond to at least three blogs by the end of the school year. I found Wyndstorm's blog Nilalapo nakuota wewe fascinating so I wrote a lot about it. When I tried to submit the comment it wouldn't let me because I went over the world limit, so I decided to turn it into a blog. Here is my response to her reactions to the film Darwin's Nightmare

Hey!

I thought your blog post was incredibly fascinating and I wanted to give you a respectable response. What I chose to do was star the parts of your blog I wanted to respond to and then write my deal afterwards. I hope that’s cool!

*I understand Suaper’s full intent with this film, to educate the importers of African materials their effect on the people of Tanzania. As a documentarian I was slightly saddened by the lack of a call to action at the end of the film. I want to know why Sauper decided to make a politically examinating doc and not giving the viewer something to do to change the situation.

I didn’t even think about the missing “call to action” aspect of the film. I watched the film as a source of information. This is my first year as a “film student” and therefore the first year where I have truly been exposed to various documentaries so I usually take what I see because I don’t have many formats to refer back too. It’s interesting to think about how drastically creating a call to help would change this film.

*“I could quit eating fish- but I already am a vegetarian and don’t like fish anyways.”

So you kind of are already supporting the causeJ I guess it all depends on learning about the companies that are distributing the fish that you eat. There should be an Iphone app that you can use to scan products and learn the nit and gritty details on where it came from.

*Then again I start to think about how helpless things are, how it isn’t my fault and how I am super lucky because I live in America and it shouldn’t be my responsibility because I didn’t tell that scientist in 1960 to fuck up the Victorian Lake with a carnivorous species of fish.

I’m always guiltily relieved that I grew up in America. Women still have a bit to go before we are treated as equally as men, but I’m a white middle class American. Life is pretty good.

*I looked at Mwanza Women Development Association and what their mission statement is on helping the women of Mwanza. It apparently has been in place since 1997, but Sauper didn’t want us to see that, he wanted us to see the negative things about globalization, why?

I was wondering if the situation was all bad. Documentarians are still telling a story. The main story in Darwin’s Nightmare was the destruction caused by the perch being introduced into Lake Victoria. That positive organization didn’t fit the theme of the story. Is that a just way to tell the story? Maybe not in some people’s eyes, but it’s an artists’ right to present their spin on certain situations. I kind of wish that there was some way of informing the audience that there are other sides to the story.

*I understand this is a very smart move for a touching close documentary, wise in my opinion, yet I feel by him fictionalizing them it turns the documentary into something else. The film is educational, yet it is fictional, it is truly Saupers view, yet it makes me feel something, it is frustrating to me.

This kind of goes with my last response. The reason why I am frustrated with this is because I am one of those people that watches a movie and allows to be fully sucked in. This makes me naïve to other sides of the story. I’m a filmmaker! I should be more in tune to the idea that what you see isn’t the whole story. This makes me think of all the people that believe what they see and make automatic judgments accordingly without researching on the side.

*I just wonder if other viewers who aren’t sensitive to the plight of exploitation and the effects of globalization are affected in a similar why?* I want to know if my fellow peers are going look into what they eat now that they have seen a glimpse into the lives of people who are directly affected by globalization and the negative sides of trade.

This was two statements that I decided to respond in one section. In a discussion earlier in class we talked about shutting down when too much negative information is thrown out. I am like that. I am slightly obsessive and when I am going 100% into something (school at the moment) there is very little energy left for anything else. When I see programs like this I get overwhelmed because I don’t even know where to start!

I was ignorant to most of the issues that exist until I went to college. Now I hear about disappearing bees, AIDS, food monopolies, child labor, human trafficking, global warming, the sinking economy, racism, PVC, unending garbage pits, pollution, prejudice, sexism, hate, corruption in government, bad water, running out of fresh water, child soldiers, war, and a number of other things. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!

Try as I might, I can’t fix the world. In order to avoid throwing myself off a building for being a horrible citizen I decided to choose a few issues that I feel comfortable working towards changing. These issues (probably obvious) are women empowerment, sexual repression, and LGBT rights.

I feel uneasy sometimes because I don’t check everything I buy or what I eat. I feel little comfort in the fact that I recycle and feel physical pain when I see something recyclable in the trash. I just have to remind myself that I’m doing what I can and to be aware of what’s out there

*Maybe by being in arms at Sauper I am asking too much from him. Some times there isn't much you can do about a situation except from learn from it.

This was an edited part of your blog. I don’t think you are asking too much. I think it is perfectly acceptable of you to ask for his idea of a solution if he was choosing to go into such great depth into a problem. Like you said though, sometimes all you can do is learn from a situation.

*American's have it great because we made our selves great, taking this into considerations maybe we should leave other nations alone and don't think of them as "uncivilized" needing us to fix the problems that arise, also we should not allow corporations to exploit these people, which is a different discussion in and of itself.

I agree. I don’t know much about government or politics, but I do know we have a tendency to meddle. It’s great we want to help, but sometimes it seems as if we are pushing our ways on other countries because we think we are the best. Our ways aren’t necessarily the best for others. Huge discussion and lots of factors, but I wonder how often our help ends up being hazardous.