Born in Flames - Movie Review Example

The Politics of Representation; Born in Flames Introduction The film industry has been playing a key role in notonly entertaining, informing, and influencing but also representing particular crucial contexts of human living. They are created from occurrences that the directors come across, hear about, or imagine will happen after reviewing some current events. During times of war, films were used to capture the happenings such as brutality, weapons used, and the might of the commandeering heads. This again represents a nature of the film; that they vary with the current times, and capture the events of that particular time context. In the light of this, the following study text will analyze the 1983 movie Born in Flames by Lizzie Borden and into it highlight the majorly highlighted issue of political representation. The representation emerges with competition between female and masculine power as the latter struggle to make meaning over the other. In the evaluation, events carried out, especially by women are highlighted, and from them, their representations and meanings are evaluated with regards to political representation. Film summary Born in Flames was produced in 1983 by Lizzie Borden and was done in a documentary-like style. It has been categorized as a feminist film under sci-fi, although it constitutes of various themes such as sexism, racism, and collectively, a democracy that is alternatively based on United States’ socialist strategies. It is about two womens groups thriving in New York, and each of the two feminist groups air their concerns through pirate radio to the public. The first group uses Radio Ragazza and is led by Isabel who happens to be a lesbian. She is white. The second group is led by Honey who is African-American. Their pirate radio is called Phoenix Radio. Several outbursts in the led occur due to different events; the first is when Adelaide Norris, who is a political activist is arrested upon visiting New York and dies while in police custody. Apart from the two groups, there is a third female army led by one Hilary Hurst. As the events unwrap, the two radio stations are destroyed and this leads to the teaming up of all the three feminine groups to form a larger coalition (CA5520 n.p.). Collectively, the film advocates for strategies that can be used in dealing with sexism, and how women with different worldviews can participate in it. Additionally, there is the notion that it is up to the women to take action themselves from the government will not assist them in any way. The women in the film are seen executing tasks otherwise termed as “difficult” for them. They are also seen organizing themselves perfectly, and making big impacts from the resulting groupings. Evaluation According to Wenden (90), political representation is the competition over the meaning amongst different groups. In this particular context, it can be stated that the women are the chief competitors, seeking to elevate their dignity and meaning in the wider societal context. This is mainly so because during the film’s placement in history, women’s rights were still demeaned, and the issue of equality between genders was not a major concern. There were different feelings and views pertaining to the issue, but with time, national sensitization went viral and women were being respected more as the culture of equality began to emerge. In short, it was time for the cultural ideology that the woman was weak and only qualified for household chores to be dispersed as a new era set in. The two radio stations, Ragazza and Phoenix are owned by the women, same as the female army. It is therefore sufficient to conclude that from these privately-owned facilities and movements, the females depicted the issue of capitalism. The overall definition of capitalism is that certain economical facilities are privately-owned by the people, and not the government. The same is replicated in the women who go ahead to own radio stations, and through which they can reach out to the wider public. These stations were highly effective as is seen in most of the sensitizations done through them and what effects they ended up having. It can be sufficiently proven that in having fewer women rule over such channels of great effect, it was a way representing the power and ability that women had in society, and in it, there might be seen in the events that emerged from the broadcasts that they issued, such as mass action. From a more complex perspective, one can perceive of the matter from a higher perspective and derive the conception that the women in having such strength promoted capitalism, which is holding the power in the people’s hands, and not entrusting the governments with it. Although the film is largely dependent on feminist themes and perspectives, it represents the wider society to a large extent. This theme outstanding majorly in that the political and economical systems were largely capitalized for the gain of a few mean individuals; meaning the people were overly sidelined, or marginalized. This coincides with Willse and Spade (8) who states that “We realize that the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy.” From this statement, the Born in Flames film can be perceived of as advocating for the general good of the society, as opposed to capitalism which chiefly benefitted the “1% rich” in society who seemed to control everything. Generally, life in those days was seemingly taking a nosedive towards the worst as Willse and Spade quote, “… simultaneous with economic stagflation, oil shortages, a hostage crisis abroad, and urban decay.” The decay in the system, and which fuelled the women groups to rise against the system, was evident in the film. For instance, the lawyer Zella Wylie was fired from her place of work simply because she was brave enough to bring suit against oil companies which accused of operating in unacceptable ways which ended up causing oil shortages in New York City. In short, the above revelations support that the representation was not only feminist-focused, but addressed issues which affected the entire society. The idea was liberating the people’s suffering emanating from some established cartels. Isabel, the leader of Ragazza Radio, was a lesbian. She did not mind revealing this to her followers, Honey, or Hillary. Her nature did not seem to affect her because when the time came for the three leaders to team up, they did so regardless of this. Culture was changing. Before the onset of the feminist uprising, the state had the power to interfere with sexual and domestic matters such as interracial marriages, and this had made the people (particularly women) to keep their intimate lives hidden. However, the feminist uprising was out to repress such laws and advocate for freedom of such matters. It had come to a time when laws guarding birth control, abortion, or miscegenation had to be loosened (Duggan 8). In the representation of this freedom in Born in Flames, Isabel is the element. Before the mid nineties, matters related to intimacy and sex were perceived of as private or sensitive such that gay or abortion matters were not so highly publicized. The film did not adhere to that cultural implication, but went on to include such matters in it. Being a leader who was a lesbian, Isabel acted as an icon of political representation; that is, she was advocating for the rights or dignity of fellow lesbians or gay persons who could not come out in public. This was because such matters were termed of as gross. Therefore, in her being a leader who was gay, she went against the culture and proved that such people were equal to all others, and could have as much impact as straight people. Sexual matters did not stop with Isabel being gay. The women in the film were at one point seen learning and teaching others on how a condom should be used on the penis; such a sensitive show for that time. In as much as this would be a source of controversy, the film was open about it, and it was included in it. This event had two depictions; resistance, and change. With the fact in mind that women were not as powerful when it came to matters of intimacy, but were rather objects of sex meant for men (Hooks 80), this was a real channel of controversy. It is possible that it was one way of crushing capitalism in a sexual context in that sex was not only the man’s but for the feminine as well. It was a change of capitalism, which undermined the role of gender in several matters, such as sex (Duggan 5). The act of women learning to insert the condom on a man’s penis represented women’s relevance, or seize of power in sexual matter. This is because once they had learnt on how it was done, they would then go on to apply their knowledge during intimate moments with their husbands. The fight for meaning here is that the women would no longer leave the entire sexual process to men, but would participate by helping in using the contraceptive. In this show, therefore, an additional example of political representation emerged. New York City had in 1975 being branded as “the city of fear (Greenberg 133).” This had been caused by the Mayor, Abe Beame who had announced that in trying to reverse the deteriorating financial status of the City, approximately 50,000 city workers would be laid off so that the salaries would be diverted in reconstructing New York, and make it appealing to investors. This is what had led to the “Committee for Public Safety” issuing advisories to New York Dwellers to avoid the City citing high levels of crime which would arise from the Mayor’s decision to lay off workers, amongst them security officers. The Welcome to Fear City was a pamphlet circulated all over New York by unions, which were against the intended layoff. The Mayor at one point banned the circulation of the pamphlets, and this sparked wide outrage from the people who felt that their freedom of speech was being denied. This denial led to the marginalized city dwellers such as those in marginalized downtown shanties, and who took up to hip hop music and graffiti writing on every surface they could find in New York. With their music and graffiti, they became so “loud” that they could no longer be ignored, and an ear was given to them (147). The above evaluation reflects on the feminist movements and uprisings seen in the film. Women began reacting in mass scales, and even went on to apply terrorist tactics such as the bombing of the World Trade Center. They had formed the “Women’s Army” and used their radio knowledge to interrupt the President’s broadcast, and stealing vans from which they continued with their broadcasting. This brings the overall similarity of the women’s activities to those of the “Fear City” pamphlet, and the graffiti hip hop movements. The similarity is in that they were both fighting for recognition and granting of better living environments from the capitalist governments which were bent of benefitting themselves while the common civilians suffered. The Born in Flames film can therefore be termed as one which represented the need to induce a new phase of governance held by the marginalized people (represented by women), and that which would benefit the overall population. This was reflected in Duggan’s literature that, “Authority achieves compliance more efficiently than benefits, at least from society’s viewpoint. The government need not make the desired behavior worthwhile to people” (15). All in all, the concept in the film was that if the government was ignorant of the people’s voices, they would rise against it, and forcefully make their presence acknowledged and appreciated. Conclusion The evaluation of the film Born in Flames supports the fact that films can be used for various purposes such as representing current or historical occurrences. In Born in Flames, the film, although developed from a feminist perspective represented the overall society, with the feminist oppression seemingly representing the marginalized civilians. Events in the film such as women taking to men’s roles, and even fighting the authorities through terrorist tactics represented the assumption of the people in power in fighting the capitalist culture of American politics which were contributing to the deterioration of New York City. Concisely, film directors capture the flow of events and redefine them so that their films, although different from the real scenarios, reflect on the very same themes that occurred in real happenings. Works Cited CA5520. Born in Flames. YouTube.com, 2012. Video. Duggan, Lisa. Downsizing Democracy. Beacon Press, 2003. Print. Greenberg, Miriam. Branding New York: How a City in Crisis was Sold to the World. Routledge, 2010. Print. Hooks, Bell. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. S.l.: Pluto, 2000. Print. Wenden, Anita. “The Politics of Representation: A Critical Discourse Analysis of an Aljazeera Special Report.” International Journal of Peace Studies, 2005. Web. 2 July, 2014. Willse, Craig & Spade, Dean. “We are Born in Flames.” Women & Performance : a journal of feminist theory, 2013. Web. 2 July, 2014. Read More