{"id":51405,"date":"2012-10-03T11:33:36","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T16:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=51405"},"modified":"2012-09-28T16:58:04","modified_gmt":"2012-09-28T21:58:04","slug":"cultural-relativism-and-beasts-of-the-southern-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/10\/03\/cultural-relativism-and-beasts-of-the-southern-wild\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Relativism & \u201cBeasts of the Southern Wild\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The crucial moment in \u201cBeasts of the Southern Wild,\u201d for me at least, was the sight of Hushpuppy\u00a0 in a new purple dress.\u00a0 Hushpuppy, a seven-year-old girl is the central figure in the film, and up until that point we have seen her, dressed in the same clothes every day, living in The Bathtub, a bayou area south of a fantastical New Orleans-inspired city, on the unprotected side of the levee.**<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Life in The Bathtub is harsh.\u00a0 The people there (\u201cmisfits, drunks and swamp-dwellers\u201d —\u00a0Washington Post<\/a><\/em>) live in shacks cobbled together from scrap metal and wood.\u00a0 They fish from boats that are similarly improvised.\u00a0 They scavenge.\u00a0 The children\u2019s education comes from the idiosyncratic stories of one woman.<\/p>\n

They are wild people living among wild things, unconstrained by laws or walls, reliant on ancient prophecies and herbal cures, at home with the water that may overwhelm them at any moment. \u00a0— New York Review<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>After a Katrina-like flood, the authorities force the evacuation of The Bathtub.\u00a0 Hushpuppy and the others are housed in a shelter – a large, brightly-lit room (a high school gym?) \u2013 and given new clothes.\u00a0 This is when we see Hushpuppy in her new purple dress heading out the door, presumably to a real school.<\/p>\n

No, no, no, I thought. This is all wrong. This is not her.\u00a0 She belongs back in The Bathtub, for despite its rough conditions, the people there are a real and caring community.\u00a0 Her father loves her and prepares her for life there.\u00a0 The people there all love her and care for her, as they care, as best they can, for one another.<\/p>\n

That was the voice of cultural relativism telling me to look at a society on its own terms, with understanding and sympathy.<\/p>\n

At the same time, though, the voice of ethnocentrism was whispering in my other ear.\u00a0 This is America, it said.\u00a0 These conditions are the things you deplore and want to improve — lack of decent health care, education, clothing, shelter, and basic safety.\u00a0 (In an early scene, Hushpuppy tries to light her stove with a blowtorch, nearly incinerating her shack and herself.)\u00a0 It\u2019s wrong that people in America live like this.<\/p>\n

It was not much of a contest.\u00a0 Cultural relativism won.<\/p>\n

In turning the audience into cultural relativists, the movie plays on old themes in American culture.\u00a0 We\u2019ve always had our suspicions of civilization and refinement, and we\u2019ve had a romantic attachment to the unrefined and rugged.\u00a0 In \u201cBeasts,\u201d the shelter — sterile, impersonal, and bureaucratic — is contrasted with The Bathtub — rough-hewn, but an authentic community nonetheless.<\/p>\n

Then there is Hushpuppy.\u00a0 I\u2019ve commented before (here<\/a>, for example) that children in American films are often wiser, more resourceful, and more honest than the adults, especially those who would try to change them.\u00a0\u00a0 Add Hushpuppy to the list.*<\/p>\n

In the end, the audience seemed relieved when she and the others make their escape.\u00a0 We don\u2019t want Huck to be civilized by Aunt Sally.\u00a0 And we do want Hushpuppy to light out for the territory of The Bathtub.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

———————<\/p>\n

* I should add that much of the credit for convincing the audience goes to the unforgettable six-year-old actress who plays Hushpuppy.<\/p>\n

** Images borrowed from dirty-mag<\/a>, allmoviephoto<\/a>, thevisualvamp<\/a>, filmreviewonline<\/a>, boscosgrindhouse<\/a>, and\u00a0tampabaytimes<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog. The crucial moment in \u201cBeasts of the Southern Wild,\u201d for me at least, was the sight of Hushpuppy\u00a0 in a new purple dress.\u00a0 Hushpuppy, a seven-year-old girl is the central figure in the film, and up until that point we have seen her, dressed in the same clothes every day, living […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,232,15,23384,283],"class_list":["post-51405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-cultural-imperialismneocolonialism","tag-culture","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-prejudicediscrimination"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51405"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51421,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51405\/revisions\/51421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}