This was on my mind as well, but didn’t want to be the first to bring it up. I think that’s the main issue of America’s racialist discourse in general as it ignores the complexity of non hegemonic groups in the US as well as keeping blacks as othered. In all seriousness who was the last Mexican-American filmmaker to have a major hit and follow up in the way DuVarney and Jenkins have been afforded? Robert Rodriguez?criterionoop wrote: ↑Thu Aug 20, 2020 5:19 pmControversial statement(s):
Whenever things get into a black vs white binary, the significance of other “people of color” get lost (I say this as a gay man of Mexican descent). The article barely mentions any Mexican films, South American films, Asian films, Middle Eastern films, and seems to focus more on African American filmmakers rather then focusing on international black filmmakers.
Also, the emphasis on “Criterion could release...” gets into the issue of putting Criterion into a vacuum where they have all the rights and the money to release these films. They don’t. And their line of output is slow (how many years did it take to release all the Chaplins? How many years will we be waiting for all the Almodovar / Fassbinder / Kurosawa / Harold Lloyd releases?). Moreover, as people pointed out, Criterion isn’t the only company releasing films.
This is not an excuse to say that Criterion is free from blame, but I think - like with Oscars so White - Criterion is a symptom of a problem. The bigger issue is the film industry itself. If the industry is not emphasizing a bigger push for diversity and gender parity, then you only get a select few films that are put out by female filmmakers and by black filmmakers. And if those films are omitted from the Criterion announcements, then the issue becomes conflated to say that Criterion is the sole problem, when it is a more complex issue than that. And then people are quick to cancel Criterion.
That doesn’t even get into a lot of other elements which make up a person as well. While watching Glass I was really impressed with the sense that this would be a radically different film if made by someone who lived in LA rather than remaining in PA. Regional voices are very important and something we don’t get at large. I mean, even something as basic as the fact that Biden would only be the second ever non-Protestant president gets shoved under the rug due to this absurd dichotomy.