From box office to Oval Office: can a film ever lead to political change?

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: August 15, 2018 at 11:56:29 PM GMT+9
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] From box office to Oval Office: can a film ever lead to political change?
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> From box office to Oval Office: can a film ever lead to political change?
> As America heads toward the midterm elections, Spike Lee, Michael Moore and Dinesh D’Souza all hope their films will 
> have a profound effect on voters
> By Zach Vasquez
> Aug 14 2018
> <https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/aug/14/spike-lee-michael-moore-dinesh-dsouza-can-a-film-change-politics>
>
> August is supposed to offer the average moviegoer their last chance to bask in big-budget spectacle and easy 
> escapism, the time when studios unload the remainder of their summer tent-poles as they gear up for the heady days of 
> Oscar season. However, a cursory glance at the slate of films currently on US release – including Spike Lee’s civil 
> rights-era police procedural, BlacKkKlansman, Boots Riley’s surrealist satire of late capitalism, Sorry to Bother 
> You, the kinetic social drama Blindspotting, and, at other end of the ideological spectrum, the latest piece of 
> revisionist history from rightwing polemicist Dinesh D’Souza, Death of a Nation – reveals a lineup that has more in 
> common with the politically charged fare typically associated with awards season.
>
> This is not a sudden development. From last year’s Oscar darlings – Get Out, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards 
> Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and The Post – to this year’s biggest blockbuster, Black Panther, American movies are more 
> unapologetically political than they have been in over a decade.
>
> The same can be said of the people behind the movies. Incited by the daily outrages and embarrassments of the Trump 
> administration and forced to reckon with their own industry’s history of malfeasance brought to light by the #MeToo 
> and #TimesUp movements, as well as widespread calls for greater diversity in front of and behind the camera, American 
> film-makers are no longer content to let their work speak for them. In interviews and across social media, they are 
> expected to take strong political stances, even at the risk of alienating audiences or worse.
>
> Recognition of this new paradigm still leaves one question unanswered: do film-makers really believe that their work 
> can move audiences to take substantive political action?
>
> Spike Lee certainly thinks so. While speaking to CNN about BlacKkKlansman – a film developed in response to the 
> resurgence of white nationalism under Trump, and opened in wide release during the first anniversary of the deadly 
> Unite the Right demonstrations that tore through Charlottesville last year – Lee said he hopes the film will convince 
> viewers to show up for November’s midterm elections and vote against Republicans.
>
> Lee’s hopes are shared by fellow liberal muckraker and Gen X icon Michael Moore, whose new documentary, Fahrenheit 
> 11/9, is due out at the end of September. During a recent appearance on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Moore said, 
> “I’m finishing my movie and getting it out before the midterms because I want millions of people to get to the polls!”
>
> Dinesh D’Souza produced his pro-Trump documentary, Death of a Nation, with the same goal in mind (though in the name 
> of achieving the opposite electoral outcome), but the film’s dismal opening would seem to put the kibosh on any hopes 
> he had of taking credit should the Republicans hold on to the majority in Congress. D’Souza blamed “leftist” critics 
> for his film’s brutal reception, but a peek at the box office history paints a more quotidian picture: like Moore, 
> D’Souza’s films have seen an unbroken streak of diminishing returns since he scored his biggest hit with 2016: 
> Obama’s America (2012), suggesting that the success of a partisan political documentary is dependent upon the 
> opposing party being in power during the time of its release.
>
> At any other moment, this equation would bode well for Moore’s forthcoming film. However, while Moore was once one of 
> the few unapologetically liberal voices able to cut through the cacophony of conservative commentary holding the 
> market share on cable news and talk radio, it’s unlikely he’ll be able to replicate his own career high. What 
> realistic chance does a Moore documentary stand with audiences today, inundated as they are with political content 
> across all available platforms – social media, TV, streaming services, YouTube, podcasts, internet message boards? 
> The sheer fury Trump inspires in liberals and progressives may drive more people to see Fahrenheit 11/9 than his last 
> several pictures, but anyone hoping it might replicate the success of Fahrenheit 9/11 (still the highest grossing 
> documentary of all time) should probably temper their expectations.
>
> They’d also do well to recall that while Fahrenheit 9/11 was undeniably influential, it didn’t actually achieve the 
> intended result. Released less than five months before the 2004 presidential election, the film possibly inspired 
> more people to vote against George W Bush than might have otherwise, but clearly didn’t inspire enough of them.
>
> [snip]
>
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