The Forbidden Zone

Jun 3, 2016 0:29:32 GMT Steve said:

You seem to feel that a twisted message is ok if a work is poetic or melodramatic, and if the work is of high quality. Well, "Triumph of the Will" (which makes Hitler look good) is well-made and poetic and "Birth of a Nation" (which makes the KKK look good) is well-made and melodramatic. Do we overlook the messages contained in those films because they are well-made, poetic, melodramatic?

I think the comparison between Griffiths/Reifenstahl and Mitchell is unfair, and I’ll explain that in a sec, but on that issue... Personally, no, I think bad morals contradict good construction. To take a different (and overly simplistic) tack to that question: in Sight and Sound’s Greatest Film poll of filmmakers and critics, Birth of a Nation was chosen by five critics (who deal in subjective analysis) and by zero directors (who deal in emotional creativity).  As one of those five said, “Yes, it is racist, but it is also a masterpiece of mise en scène”. If you’re willing to see something purely on constructive merits, you overlook the message, but even using this simplistic fallacious comparison, only five critics out of hundreds were so unsentimental as to overlook the messages.

But as I say, that’s an issue that’s been debated since, well, The Birth of a Nation, and really my belief is artists can make what they want and, as you say, it’s our job to take them to task when their politics cross the line. I’m proud we live in a world in which those works can exist but the world condemns their existence. Here, though, I don’t think Mitchell does cross the line, and here’s why.

Jun 3, 2016 0:29:32 GMT Steve said:

This is the second time in a fortnight I have seen a Katie Mitchell work, in which she has presented suicide as the only option/recourse for women in a hellish patriarchal world. Hamlet and Ophelia never existed, so you can do what you like with them. But in this latest piece, it is real suicides that she appropriates, and whose stories she shapes into a whole new history.

I also think the melodramatic (as you describe it) description of men, "[our] sex," being uniquely violent is melodrama, yes, but also harmful. The Forbidden Zone" underestimates women in excluding them from the full humanity of their capacity for cruelty and violence. The reason women have not committed more cruelty and violence in history is not that they are incapable, it is the same reason they have written less books, plays, movies: it is lack of opportunity.

Well, I didn’t see Ophelia’s Zimmer, and I do question how this appropriated the suicides for maximum dramatic effect. On that matter I’d agree, and perhaps had I seen that and this so close together I’d feel differently. However, I don’t think that the gender politics are as bad as you think, and here’s why.

I’d compare this to Mitchell’s 10 Billion, strangely enough. In 10 Billion, Stephen Emmott tells us that earth is really dying, and if by 2050 we’ve not moderated the population simultaneously changing our lifestyles we’ve got 33 ½ years left to cry in – and then, unlike Chris Rapley’s sensible but soporific advice, says “I think we’re f***ed”. How immoral, how frankly sinful, it is to have an expert environmentalist tell us there’s nothing we can do, and we just have to accept the extremity of the point – so naturally, we don’t! We rage against the dying of the light and don’t accept his dangerous words, but fight them.

And so to The Forbidden Zone.  I thought it did much the same, by way of its extremer medium, albeit less successfully than 10 Billion – it makes an argument founded in reality, goes to its extreme, and in asking us to rage against its extremity it says something hugely important. As you say, it does two things: it demonises men, and secondly, it underestimates women. Absolutely, it does this. However, it does this because it’s making a point about the one-dimensional gender politics (both ways) of war narratives, criticising both through the intelligent extremity of this narrative. After all, according to theatre, war was fought by the Oppenheimers and Feynmans and Bohrs and Heisenbergs, and it wasn’t until Rosamund Franklin that women got off their arses and did some science. If we take this to its extreme then yes, according to all the theatre I’ve ever seen, our sex is wholly culpable and women can wash their hands of all violence – THIS is the narrative Mitchell tells/parodies, the narrative we’ve been surreptitiously telling for years. You say this portrays men as uniquely violent, but most art about war does without realising it; Mitchell reminds us of this point in such an extreme way it becomes blindingly obvious how poorly men are treated by these narratives of war. It’s not sexist, it’s critical of the surreptitious sexism that says men are warmongering scientists. Then, I think her point about women – great scientists and huge historical figureheads – being condensed into hysterical historical footnotes is made far more clearly. As with 10 Billion, Mitchell uses the facts to reach an absurdly extreme argument to provoke us to have this discussion; we’ve fallen into her trap! I think by following this through so extremely, it’s so ludicrous it’s a reductio ad absurdum, an argument easily disagreeable; by using a genre like the melodrama, it manages to do so whilst being entertaining too.

So to use the only science metaphor I’m qualified to make, if this has a twisted message, it’s twisted like a Moebius strip – follow it through, and one ends up on the other side and forced to disagree with it, as with 10 Billion, and as with this. Griffiths and Reifenstahl were extreme but uncritical; Mitchell is extreme but equal opportunities critical. As I say, its re-appropriation of reality is not unproblematic, but I don’t think its gender politics are as problematic as you do. So it’s a bit iffy and a bit having-your-cake-and-eating-it and I won’t deny there are flaws, but it’s also poetic, melodramatic, forgiveable, and in this case, fun!