Hey guys!

I don't know about either of you, but after seeing Once Were Warriors, much of the film stayed with me and there are still parts repeating in my head. I think often we become desensitized to the types of violence shown in the movie, and I wasn't aware of how deeply the events in the movie impacted me until well after we watched it. Parts of the film keep flashing through my brain and it's almost hard to truly analyze it with full concentration because many of the acts were so heinous and brutal. However, I can discuss some of the theories and ideas we read about in the readings that came to life in the film.

One that I felt resonated most deeply was the idea of shame, and how it is linked to violence. Throughout the film, we see Jake (the father) repeatedly resort to violence in order to avoid shame. He strives to be the "top dog" and anyone that threatens to take him down a notch (his family included) is victimized by his lashings out (whether they are physically, verbally or emotionally). Even at the end of the film, after the death of his own daughter, he could not bring himself to attend her own funeral because it took place on ancestorial land where his descendants were a long line of slaves and he himself was denied marriage to his wife--a place of his own shame.

The influence of race and social class on violence also linked the readings with the film. The film took place in New Zealand, and the family characters (and many of the supporting characters also) were aborigines--descendants of native Maori tribes. It is made obvious in the film that this family and their friends are below middle class; some, such as Toot, are homeless and live in poverty. The brief glimpses we do see into the "higher class" world (such as Boogie's day in court) are almost absent of racial diversity. All but one of the "people in power" are white, and the majority of them are men. These segregations of power and wealth are examples of structural violence. In Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes, James Gilligan states that "Structural violence is normally invisible; because it may appear to have other (natural or violent) causes." In a previous class I had with Prof. Suzanne Scott (Art Interventions in Global Affairs), we often talked about structural violence and how it feels "natural and normal" and how it is "the way things have always been." I think this is a reason why structural violence is so dangerous, because it is something than you can't see unless you looking deeply enough into an already-instilled system.

One vein of thought that I noted several times in the movie is the role that women play. Grace (the eldest daughter) is told on numerous occasions that it's just the way things are, and, "It's a woman's lot--someday you'll understand." Mavis, Beth's friend, even makes the comment (although somewhat jokingly) that as a woman you know to "keep your mouth shut and your legs open." I know we haven't yet discussed too much in the readings or in class about gender roles, but I noticed that as soon as I heard that in the movie, I thought it was a ridiculous mentality. However, upon reflection I think that is perhaps only a slight exaggeration of how our society works at present. We've made huge strides towards equalities between gender, like Nancy Pelosi becoming the first female Speaker of the House. But acts of violence like what we witnessed in the film happen daily, hourly, minutely--and in incidents of domestic violence and rape, more often than not the victims are female.

But I feel like I'm rambling and I want to hear what you guys have to say too! How did you respond to the film?

PS: I know I am doing this before the class discussion on the movie, just because I really felt like I had to "debrief" myself. Don't feel like you have to talk about the film, I'm just using that as a jumping off point for myself. :]