Cinema and Community

Cinema and Community D.W. McKiernan Cinema and Community 19th March 2008 10:55 MAC/CACY Page-i 9780230_517615_01_prex This page intentionally left blank Cinema and Community D. W. McKiernan 19th March 2008 10:55 MAC/CACY Page-iii 9780230_517615_01_prex © D. W. McKiernan 2008 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–51761–5 hardback ISBN-10: 0–230–51761–7 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McKiernan, D. W., 1945– Cinema and community / D.W. McKiernan. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0–230–51761–7 (alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures—Social aspects. I. Title. PN1995.9.S6M37 2008 302.2343—dc22 2008011401 10987654321 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne 19th March 2008 10:55 MAC/CACY Page-iv 9780230_517615_01_prex Dedicated with love to my wife, Barbara McKiernan 19th March 2008 10:55 MAC/CACY Page-v 9780230_517615_01_prex This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgements viii 1 Reading Community in the Cinema (Slap Her ...She’s French; Whale Rider; Distant Voices, Still Lives)1 2 Representing the Ambivalence of Community (Babette’s Feast; The Magdalene Sisters)24 3 Realizing Community in Suburban America (It’s a Wonderful Life; Pleasantville; American Beauty)36 4 Class, Gender and Communitarianism (Brassed Off; The Full Monty; Billy Elliot)63 5 Leaving the Margins: Women and Community (Calendar Girls; School for Seduction)85 6 Honour and Community in Multicultural Britain (My Son the Fanatic; East is East; Ae Fond Kiss; Yasmin) 107 7 Globalization, Mobility and Community (Lost in Translation; Monsoon Wedding; Last Resort; Lilya 4-Ever; In this World) 140 8 Community, Structure and Anti-structure (Together; The Idiots; Italian for Beginners) 167 9 Conclusion 190 Notes 194 Bibliography 207 Filmography 215 Index 218 vii 19th March 2008 10:55 MAC/CACY Page-vii 9780230_517615_01_prex Acknowledgements I would like to thank: The publisher’s anonymous reviewers of the initial proposal and of the first draft for encouraging and detailed criticisms. Jill Lake and Christabel Scaife at Palgrave Macmillan for knowing when to help and when to leave me alone. Ed Brush for his willingness to say yes to every unreasonable request for technical assistance. Liz Murphy and Gillian Leach for professional library advice. Fiona Thompson for smoothing over logistical problems associated with being a semi-detached scholar. All those students and colleagues who had to listen to me trying out my ideas on them over too many years. If they read this book they will know who they are. Ramindar Singh and Qadrat Shah for helping me gain some understand- ing of the complexities of ethnic relations in and around Bradford. Michael Higgins and Amy Kenyon for encouragement during the early stages of the book. Yousaf Ibrahim for comments on Chapters 6 and 7. Merle Tönnies for commenting on an earlier draft of Chapter 4. Joanne Hollows for her valuable suggestions for improvements to Chapter 5 and her warm encouragement. Zygmunt Bauman for his quiet but not always diplomatic encouragement since 1972. I hope I have not bowdlerized his ideas too badly. Mike Pickering for critical advice sensitively expressed throughout the whole process – from proposal to completion. viii 19th March 2008 10:55 MAC/CACY Page-viii 9780230_517615_01_prex Acknowledgements ix Stefan Herbrechter for his hospitality, enthusiastic encouragement and unfailingly rigorous criticisms of my ideas. Jim McGuigan for his friendship and inspiration in what now seems like another life on another planet, far, far away. Dan, Dave and Trevor; under-performing golfers but great companions. Siobhan McKiernan for her incisive critique of an earlier draft of Chapter 3 and helpful advice. Beth McKiernan for her help with Chapter 6. Catherine McKiernan for her expert editing skills and her willingness to listen to my ideas whilst taking otherwise enjoyable walks in the Yorkshire Dales. Barbara McKiernan for her patience in waiting for our retirement years to begin. Beatrice and William Frederick McKiernan, my Mom and Dad, who took me to the pictures on Friday nights. 19th March 2008 10:55 MAC/CACY Page-ix 9780230_517615_01_prex This page intentionally left blank 1 Reading Community in the Cinema Introduction In an attempt to attract the teenage audience to the cinema, US film stu- dios over the past 15 years have revived and developed the teen movie genre. A significant sub-genre is the female-oriented High School or Col- lege based film, of which Clueless (dir. Amy Heckerling, 1995) is probably the best known and most influential example.1 A minor film of this sub- genre, Slap Her ...She’s French (dir. Melanie Mayron, 2002), focuses on the experience of a high school student participating in a foreign student exchange programme and the consequent misunderstandings and deceits that ensue. The film begins by following the progress of student Starla O’Grady (Jane McGregor) as she attempts to win the ‘Splendona Beef Pageant’, her College’s annual beauty competition. Typical of such pageants there is a moment of gravitas when participants are required to say something of moral significance to sum up their personal philosophy. Aghast to dis- cover that another participant, a supposed friend, has stolen her thunder by ‘playing the God card’, Starla has to think of an alternative idea on the spur of the moment. On being asked by the pageant’s host to sum up her personal philosophy in just one word Starla hesitates for a few seconds before declaring, Community! This world would be better off if we didn’t spend so much time on our knees worshipping at the altar of self. Now, I admit I have enjoyed enormous success as an individual. Yes, I was a junior intern for the Texas State Legislature two summers in a row. Of course, my 1 26th February 2008 22:52 MAC/CACY Page-1 9780230_517615_02_cha01 2 Cinema and Community peers voted me person most likely to wind up in People magazine. But all of these accolades mean nothing if I am not servicing my community. [Leaving the podium she senses that her earnest statement has been received badly by the audience. She returns and retakes the microphone.] And gosh, I’m just so darn proud of Splendona that I want the world to know what a very special community we live in. And so, in the spirit of global warming, my family, the Arnold O’Gradys of Mockingbird Lane, has decided to host Splendona’s first ever, all the way from Paris, France, foreign exchange student. [Rapturous applause follows.] The good people of Splendona might have been taken by surprise at Starla’s endorsement of the virtues of community. However, they should be seen as a special case for hardly a day goes by without the idea and practice of community finding a place in the headlines of local and national newspapers and major broadcast news bulletins in the United Kingdom and throughout much of the world. Politicians, publicists and social workers fight with each other over their support for one particular community or another, and over the significance of community in general. As a political concept, community is attractive to both the right, in the form of ‘golden ageism’ and ardent nationalism, and the left, in the form of the self-defining counter cultural politics of the alternative society of the sixties and seventies and in feminist, gay, lesbian and ethnic minority community activism. Mainstream political parties and governments have seized on the significance of community and the Brit- ish government has been no exception. In response to voiced concerns by citizens over increasingly troublesome behaviour of neighbours and the perceived threat posed by groups of youths roaming the streets, the New Labour government has implemented a policy of issuing anti-social behaviour orders against miscreant citizens. One poster announcing this policy reads, ‘Your community knows who UR: Together’.2 The slogan captures perfectly the ambivalence of community since it is difficult to tell whether the expression is intended as a Big Brother-style threat or as a friendly arm-around-the-shoulder gesture to a vulnerable youngster. Community is high value currency for publicists too. For example, Cornhill Insurance, a significant presence in the UK insurance market, believed it was financially beneficial to be seen to sponsor the Leeds Fire Service.

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