Baci (and this goes for Hezog, too) - although your points may be thoughtful and relevant, the way you break them down de-politicize a very political issue, that of gender, as would the case with race. De-politicizing a political issue is not helpful to a political struggle. 

pbrtreetgang - of course I understand your argument that one who has not witnessed something cannot comment. Clearly I disagree with that seeming contradiction -- however, the point is: your argument doesn't address the question of whether the film romanticizes rape and murder. If the answer is yes, it doesn't matter who has asked the question or where it came from. 

Paul - The Socratic method of asking a participant enough questions as to destabilize their point of view is a common practice used within complex issues. And since a question at this moment would seem manipulative to you, I'll put this next observation in the form of a statement. If I hadn't asked the audience/readers questions - which may seem like a limited two-option entrapment, I would've had to make my observations statements that took for granted the audience/readers answering in one particular direction, which would have sounded like flat out accusations. Although questions seem manipulative to you because they seem to leave only two options - that of agreement or disagreement - I think statements of accusation would have shut down the conversation in more immediate, condescending ways. Which is the opposite of what I wanted. But thank you for some of your further description of the film. It demonstrates all my points above: that it does indeed do what I thought it did, and I didn't have to watch the whole film to discern that.

(I'll put these next observations in the form of statements to humor Paul Lundgren) There are other films in the media that are examples of more obvious glorification of rape and torture, watched by a wider audience that gives more passionate support. 

I think this film is ripe for this kind of  discussion because of the particular audience it drew in: artists, patrons, the educated, who participated somewhat - I think - to stand out as just those things: artists, patrons, educated people who consider themselves liberal and elevated enough to find this kind of film hip and didn't want to appear as out-of-touch mid-westerners. I suspected that because the film was a focus point of culture in a town desperate to appear cultured, it would make it a more complex discussion which is more helpful, because it's a complex issue. An issue so potent and political as something like gender or race, doesn't have to be a front-and-center issue to be propaganda. In fact, it works better in media it isn't -- it's more of a background; as something taken for granted in a world already established by a set of assumptions.

I have gotten direct feedback from many women concerned with these issues. I believe many of them did not indeed see the film. What can be done with the minimal feedback at this moment can be a further challenge to the audience and readers. (I apologize Paul, but these next observations are going to have to appear in the form of questions.) How many of those who have defended the film are men? And how many women who saw the film have responded? My guess is this: men defend this film, women who saw it are too conflicted too comment, and women who are scared for their own well-being and the well-being of other women are making the coherent, intelligent defenses of my argument because it's their own lives that are put in danger by the prevailing indifference of their safety.

If gender issues could be compared to race issues (which some may think bombastic; I do not) -- and the oppression and exploitation of women could be compared to the oppression and exploitation of a persecuted race -- this discussion so far looks like this: the whites are defending the racist film, and the minorities are relieved and empowered by my commentary.

If I'm mistaken about this break-down of demographics, please prove me wrong.

the prize is the lobster: again, if my commentary is essentially spot-on, it proves seeing the media doesn't matter. I might compare this to watching the behavior of someone I have no intimate knowledge of and discerning character traits: the man at the bar talking down to his wife doesn't see her as an equal. The college kid falling off his bar stool ordering himself more drinks can't hold his liquor. I don't have to know the college kids internal struggles with alcohol to know he's ultimately losing the battle. I don't have to know about minutia of the marriage between the condescending husband and his wife to discern there is not equity between them. 

We can make discernments like this all the time and everywhere. Although it may seem hypocritical to do so without intimate knowledge, often times the details just don't matter, and the important content is right there to be experienced by all, but often seen by few - those who are interested and capable of cultural & political critic, or those who are experienced and wise in their experience.

rev: excellently succinct. 

baci: You previously mentioned in your earliest responses that you didn't go to the screening because you were "not cool enough" and because you're "not interested in continued wallowing in others futility" - perhaps you can clarify whatever that meant. In a later response you take things more seriously and say you avoid films "which rely on prurience to attempt to make a point (or just sell tickets)." Prurience means having or encouraging an excessive interest in sex. You didn't clarify that is wasn't the general excess of sex that repelled you, but the violence and rape and necrophilia the sex included. I would not consider those two objections the same. Not at all.

That aside, your point about venom shot into the men trying to be part of the solution is important to note and I'm glad you did. Men who try to be part of the solution are making themselves vulnerable to direct critique because, quite literally, they show up to hear it. I recognize your dilemma. I appreciate you ardently representing the white man's burden, however I'm all out of gold-stars stickers at the moment. Beyond my nod in your direction, you'll have to give the pat on your back yourself.

As for the after-party confusion - I find it problematic that the "official" after-party was held at the Owl's Club because my research informs me that the Owl's Club is not just a membership only club, but a club wherein women cannot become "full" members but only "auxiliary members."Having a transgender performer is exciting news on the progressive front, however, a transgender performing in a venue that arguably represents the history of the persecution and incarceration of "unfavorable" demographics (transgender having been on that list for... just about ever) - well, I hope everyone appreciated the irony of that performance, and the irony of feeling proud to humanize one demographic after feeling alright to participate in dehumanizing another.

So to recap, the "official" after-party was held at a club that refuses to give women the right to become full members (in the year 2013), while a great number of the audience went to an unofficial after-party at a old prison. Got it. Thanks for clarifying. 

Now that we have some of the logistics out of the way, perhaps we can re-focus on critiquing the bigger role and implications of Glover's film and media like it on the psychology and behavior of cultural identity and politics. Unless of course, we feel we've hit all the important talking points and the time now is to reflect. 

This article will appear in the mnartists.org website tomorrow where new and old dialogue can generate or be continued. I hope my commentary and your responses here on Perfect Duluth Day and mnartists.org will remain hubs for this discourse.

p.s. I don't know any woman who could look at the mere poster for Glover's film without feeling deeply disturbed and concerned for her own well-being if this is the image men carry around with them while they simultaneous think it's these images that make the film intellectually interesting. There's a disconnect happening in our minds. The poster has a man in power with a beaten, almost unconscious and naked woman he's forcing to give him oral sex while he holds a lynch and the perpetrator in the foreground laughing. This is worse than most images of pornography advertisement. Caleb, think of the film's poster and think of the Steubenville rape case. Do you see a connection? Why did the high school boys find it arousing and amusing to drag around an unconscious peer, strip her, sexually assault her and record it on social media? And where did these boys get the idea we would find their behavior acceptable and amusing? To me, the poster might be considered like the explicit image of a black person facing a lynching with the shadow of a white man at the lynch, and a white man laughing in the foreground. Even if the woman were changed to say, an African American, how would we receive the image? Why is it okay for white men to lynch white women? Catch my drift?

Violence against women in the form of rape and torture and murder is at sky-rocketing all-time highs. How in the world can we not wonder if it's because media perpetuates it as okay at the cost of an intriguing plot, or the interesting character development, or for the arousal in and of itself? Yes, other films depict these theme more dramatically, but I addressed this in an earlier response.

To all who commented on PDD and mnartists.org: I appreciate you responding, as I appreciate all who have been willing to engage in the issue.  We all run the risk of sounding like fools when trying to articulate tricky issues, especially in documented forms like online deliberation. Thank you all for taking that risk. I, too, think many responses have not been well read or well considered. And although this exchange may have helped some of us further form our arguments, I don't think much has been accomplished in these exchanges. It proves those who understand my position understand my position. And those who do not understand, do not understand. And vice verse. And this is among the common criticisms of online discourse - as lively as it can be, it's not a proper replacement for discussion. I suspect it would be a different phenomenon altogether to have to say these thoughts to each other's faces, without the cloak of anonymity; to watch all the history of someone else's experience in their face, their body, their gestures, watching us; listening to us, as we attempt to be understood. 

Although I'm glad this exchange has happened, I'm not encouraged by it. I don't think much else can be accomplished here except further disappointment and anxiety over not being understood. So this is my last response to responses to my article -- on PDD, or mnartists.org, or the Duluth News Tribune. After this final response, the important points I have to make will have been made. And I see no new developments in cross-examination, so I believe the important opposing points have been made, and my counter-responses as well.  To go on like this would not be efficient. And in a struggle, a campaign, a crusade -- when you can see the big picture and you know where you stand, it's best to be efficient with your energy.  It will be needed. I wish us all good luck in our quest for understanding, and thank you again for your willingness to speak-up.  

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

annklefstad: The statistics you give are hilarious. 58% decline in violence against women? Surely you see the farce in that. Let's remember that many MANY assaults, rapes, and exploitations do not get reported, and thus, would not end up in bureau's neat and tidy file (there are also all kinds of jurisdictional rewards for policing communities who have statistics that are dropping). Perhaps the statistic could read: 58% more women are not reporting acts of rape, abuse, etc. Many other sources disagree with the bureau -- like battered women's shelters for women who have been raped, abused, exploited. Many of those cases are not reported. Not convinced? Do your own research and go around and ask your female friends how many of them have experienced sexual assault, rape, violence, exploitation (assuming of course they would tell you). Off the top of my head, I can think of ten women friends I see around town daily or weekly, and eight of the ten have experienced these offenses. And none of these offenses have been reported. I must make sure to tell my friends that because their names are not in the Bureau of Justice Statistics' report, their pain does not exist. 

annklefstad:  You said you cannot tolerate anymore watching violence against women and animals (is that one category or two?) and so you chose not to go to Glover's film. Yet at the end of your comment, you said Glover's film doesn't seem to be engaged in glamorizing women's pain or making it acceptable or sexy. First: start with the poster. Is it meant to entice us? And why did Glover know that image would entice us?  I wonder how you would describe to someone aloud the images on the poster. Second: perhaps why you can no longer endure watching violence against women has something to do with the underlying tone involved; the use of the violence; the immensity of it in media. What are the deeper reasons for your psychological revulsion to violence against women that lead you to avoid Glover's film? People who watched the film say it wasn't glamorized - have you considered they simply don't share your revulsion of violence against women? That it doesn't bother them as much, so the subtleties of glamorization are lost on them? 

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury:

If you yourself do not live in the aftermath or expectation of sexual assault, exploitation or harassment, I would say this explains the main reason why Glover's film is a moot point for you. And that is your luxury. To believe in a world that stays on the screen; a world that has good intentions for you. Many of us do not have the luxury to intellectualize rape to the point of sympathizing with the rapist. Viewers of the film who are determined to see past that, are in what Slavoj Žižek would call the function of ideology: you pretend you don't see sexual exploitation romanticized, but you still have to see it without admitting that you see it; you are suppose to see the dehumanization of one for the humanization of another, but you have to pretend and act as if you don't see it.

This same Slovenian philosopher, and professor at the European Graduate School which I attend in Switzerland, has made observations that torture and exploitation has become so normalized in Western culture, that its morality is now debatable. Žižek, a radical leftist, says there is something to be desired in a dogmatic culture where torture and exploitation would be NOT DEBATABLE. Žižek would like a world where if you say the morality of torture and exploitation is debatable, you disqualify yourself from the conversation; you are a joke; no one takes you seriously. And to demonstrate how normalized torture and exploitation has become, he tries to shock us with the hypothetical: the use of torture should be non-debatable the way the use of rape is non-debatable; if you were to argue the morality of the use of rape is debatable, you would disqualify yourself from the conversation; you are a joke; no one takes you seriously. This is what Žižek said before there was the Steubenville rape case, before he could witness a whole nation fumbling over the morality and accountability of a documented rape. I think perhaps he under-estimated the ethical state we're in.

Essentially, Žižek asks his audience the same question I ask of us: When someone wants you to agree that the use of torture and exploitation and rape is debatable, what is it they're really asking you to say?

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury:

Since the fantasies in Glover's film are so similar to the Steubenville high school rape case, let's return to it for its deeply revealing pathology. (Here comes some of that pesky Socratic method - hold on tight.) If the rape victim in the Steubenville rape case were standing in line to see Glover's film, would we encourage her to see it? Let's say she goes into the theater without knowledge of the content, would we want to be sitting next to her during the film? Would we want to look her in the face? How about after the film, when we critique the film for her - would we still insist the film's sexual exploitation, rape, torture, and necrophilia must be intellectualized; that she mustn't take it personally; that there is a higher goal when we dehumanize women in avant-garde films, and that is: to humanize art; that the ends justify the means; that the sexual exploitation in the film is inconsequential to the goal at hand; and what is that goal, by the way? Risky art? Risky to whom? 

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: Do we realize that when we critique this film, we ARE speaking to the Steubenville high school girl - one out of three of us, remember?  (The U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics from 1995 to 2010  be damned.)

The high school boys of the Steubenville rape case were acting out a fantasy the way Steven C. Stewart acts out his fantasies in Glover's film. The rapists gained sympathy from Americans following the trial, like Stewart gains sympathy from American audiences that watch Glover's film. Other men who act out on these kinds of fantasies I guarantee consume media not unlike Glover's, but these perpetrators don't kid themselves as to what it is they're watching. They would not be so pretentious as to call Glover's film "avant-garde." (Is "plot" the artistic integrity that defines the difference between an art film and a pornography/snuff film? Who makes these definitions?)

And let me be clear - I'm not advocating censorship - I'm not demanding we not make films like Glover's - I want us to question WHY we make films like Glover's. I'm asking us to examine WHY there is a MARKET for them. WHY Glover knew which images to put on his poster to get us in the seats. To question WHOSE fantasy is being privileged over and over again in media - and what is our ethical reaction? And yes, shrugging is an ethical reaction.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I would not consider myself in the high ranks of physically attractive women, though I do consider my self-esteem average.  And still I have experienced many variations of violent and violating encounters and assaults, especially in the bigger cities I've spent time in (Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City). In Los Angeles I experienced it daily. And not just from freaky night-crawlers skulking in the dark around clubs, or from creepy strangers at parties, or the businessmen in SUVs following me down the block to my car with their window down or even door open making explicit propositions with specific instructions; but also from men I would have considered friends; or from casting directors, agents, managers, directors, producers I encountered in my work, in studios, at auditions. The casting-couch is a real phenomenon in LA, and many men with any power at all feel entitled to a woman's sexuality and will use their means of power to establish that expectation or transaction. And why shouldn't they?  Exploiting power over women's sexuality is reinforced in the media they consume, produce, direct, and fund. And the women who work with these men, who have accepted the power dynamic in LA, they close the office door, the trailer door, and go to lunch.

Back when I was traveling through Taiwan with an American guy-friend, we met some Taiwanese hipsters who had never hung out with Americans before. Later, in my solo conversation with one of the Taiwanese guys, he suddenly turned it violent and sexual - in his broken English he exclaimed, "But you American! You do this! You do this now!"  Nothing I said could assuage him. "But you American!" he kept insisting, "You American!" How was this excuse formed in his head? Does it have something to do with the way American women are portrayed and treated in American films? 

And this is key to what I'm arguing. A woman cannot defend herself against the image, or break-out-of the image media gives of her and reinforces in others. And what is that image? How about the image of the woman on Glover's film poster?  The woman beaten, stripped, unconscious and forced to give oral sex to a towering man holding a lynch rope, and the protagonist showing us his tortured delight. THIS is the image chosen to lure us into the theater, and it worked. WHY?  Is that the same image the Taiwanese hipster had of me? Or the Hollywood casting director?  Or the Steubenville boys?  Or the next guy who takes me on a date?

I don't think the Taiwanese hipster would be considered anything remotely close to sociopathic. More than anything, he would be considered a regular guy who was finally given the opportunity to enact a fantasy.  And why shouldn't he? If he's taught a woman's sexuality is a commodity, the next logical step is to try to get it for free - and that's rape, assault, exploitation. It reminds me of a recent news report by Naomi Wolf. The number one health issue on college campuses today? - liberal and conservative campuses alike - women suffering from anal fissures. Ruptures in their anal cavities because the men they're sleeping with are a generation of men coached by the violent sex in internet pornography. It turns out, women's bodies don't work the way they do in hardcore porn. And the male viewers have not made that distinction (and what other distinctions are they failing to make?). They have trapped themselves inside the porn they watch where they are literally tearing apart the bodies of women they sleep with; and the women are trapped inside the men's porn fantasy, too - but the women are the ones who are suffering for it. Sound familiar? 

The fantasy of Glover's film goes beyond the film itself. It goes into the daily lives of women; into men's opinions of us, into our opinion of ourselves. And my own life examples over the years (none of which I ever reported, by the way. Nor should I have to in order to be legitimate in a tally system that has anything but my best-interest in mind); my own life examples speak to the greater volume and degree of debasements and assaults that are terrifyingly common. And I want to know why.  If rape and exploitation and torture is more popular in media now than ever before and it ISN'T because rape and exploitation and torture are more popular in media now than ever before, than what is going on? What is happening? How many times would the foreigner, the citizen, have to say "But you American!" before he says "But you a woman! But you not a person! But you a f**k-doll, a punching bag! But you a thing! But you are nothing!" 

The American friend of mine in Taiwan who had left me in the company of the Taiwanese guy, later met up with me. And when he realized what had happened, he felt outraged and humiliated, close to violence himself. He blamed himself for not being there, but I imagine he was also sick about it because earlier that day he had been reading a Japanese comic book that depicted rape after rape after assault on different women, and he had justified reading it as cultural research. I suppose my assault could be marginalized as cultural research, too. Perhaps we could say the Taiwanese guy was doing a little cultural research of his own.

Out of the innumerable studies done on gender difference in perceiving the world, a famous synopsis was gleaned: Women's greatest fear of men? The men will rape and kill them. Men's greatest fear of women? The women will laugh at them. 

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Perhaps the woman's nightmare exists so that the man's nightmare doesn't have to. 

Happy father's day.