I‘ve been mulling over thoughts about something which came up in a Critique the other day. It was one of those moments when you realise the value of working beside people who often express radically differing opinions from your own, one of those moments when the students you teach are forced to revaluate their own critical position in relation to the arguments put forward and one of those moments which are such a valuable and essential part of art school education.
The disagreement centred around the Danny Boyle’s film "Slumdog Millionaire". My colleague brought it up as an example to illustrate a point he was making in relation to a film by one of the students. At this point I was compelled to interject and blurted out something like “that’s a terrible film!”. Then the whole emphasis of the discussion changed because it was clear that there was a substantial difference between our assessments of the film. I can’t speak for my colleague but I should say that he made a persuasive case. My point was that I feel the film is incredibly exploitative, telling a story of desperate poverty, suffering and abuse and sugar coating it as a classic rags to riches romance.
It turned out that very few of the students had actually seen the film so once we had made our points and the students had acknowledged that they really wanted to see Slumdog Millionaire “especially now!” we moved on.
Something still nagged at me though.
When I went to see Slumdog Millionaire few weeks ago I bumped into an ex student who works at the cash desk. I knew he’d be in the foyer when the film was over and I also knew he’d want my opinion of the film before I left, so as I passed the cash desk I was ready with my response: “Not bad for a glorification of poverty!”.
The truth is, I’d actually enjoyed the film – it was very well written, well told, funny, dramatic, visually stunning, spectacular even. But that’s when the alarm bells should have been ringing. Some small part of me had recognised that something was deeply wrong but the story had seduced to such an extent that I had barely been able to perceive the fact. It wasn’t until yesterday that it crystallised: Narrative or perhaps more accurately Narrative Closure.
Of course there’s nothing new about this – that’s not my point. My point is that despite all my scepticism and all the things I’ve heard, said and read about narrative it still manages to draw me in and pacify my senses.
That’s not to say that I don’t think narratives can be instructive, informative, enlightening or edifying but I do think there’s something very insidious about the way that narratives wrap everything up into neat packages which gloss over or distract us from many of the more disturbing realities of the world.
It reminds me of something Bruce Chatwin described in The Songlines where he discusses nomadic tribes and the fact that children are quieted by travel.
I think I see a short disjointed lecture forming “Narrative: the opium of the masses”.
