"After initially insisting that he wouldn't make any changes, Burns said last week that he would re-edit the film to add stories about Hispanic soldiers -- not as an addendum as was suggested earlier in a lame compromise, but as part of the film itself."
Read the rest here:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/14/navarrette/
Posts
How this is handled will reverberate throughout the documentary community for decades to come.
ReplyDeleteIdentity politics has become such a powerful force among my fellow leftists that, we're in danger of alienating our natural allies, those artists known as documentarians.
If documentarians are forced to check with every possible identity group, then the production process, the funding process, the complete process would become impossible. The cultural minefield would be impossible to navigate. Far better then, not to even start the process.
That being said, Mr. Burns was negligent to ignore the intriguing story of how the war affected different American ethnic groups differently. For example, consider the different experiences of African American, Japanese American and Mexican American soldiers, both during the war and afterwards. But, exploring that dimension of the war is Mr. Burns' prerogative, not mine. It would then be up to some other documentarian, with their own funding, to make their own documentary, covering the gaps they perceived.
The left has a long, powerful and successful tradition of defending the artistic independence of artists who receive public funding. It would be ironic if that independence were to end up crucified on the cross of identity politics.