Online Response 7

Documentaries have been used since their inception as a means of calling awareness to different social issues and as a tool to effect social and political change.  It should be noted, however, that because this is the case does not mean necessarily that documentary seeks to represent underprivileged groups, or individuals and ideas whose aims and purpose fall outside the norm of the society they live in, though this also can be the case.
                The skewed power relationship between filmmaker and subject is a tricky thing to navigate. Nichols pointed out the early case of 1935’s Housing Problems, where it seemed that impoverished workers had been given their chance to speak out for what they wanted—to be moved out of the slums. This may have been what some of them wanted, but it was certainly what the Gas Light and Coke company wanted, whose goal of selling more gas dovetailed conveniently with the aims of the documentary and “desires” of its subjects.

                In an ideal screening world, each documentary would be able to be shown with the background of its creator and the social and political context of the subjects it depicts evident.  As documentaries often engage in bringing first-time awareness to a subject or problem—such as in Errol Morris’s The Thin Blue Line—this is rarely an option. What can be said in terms of representing a community/group of people is that while these social arrangements are often viewed as being the only view within the community, out of necessity they always eschew some social deviant, whether it be a person, group of people, practice, or idea. This is important to remember. Nichols notes, “We seldom pause to give careful consideration to such questions as: Who do we choose to emulate or identify with, and why? Who do we choose as objects of sexual desire, or love, and why? Who do we choose to join with as members of a community, and why? The Need for role models, loved ones, and social belonging seems profoundly human. These forms of interdependence ‘just happen’, or so it seems.”

                Perhaps this is why the issue of representation has always remained a hot issue,  and why filmmakers such as Ivens, Vertov, and Grierson have questioned the role sponsorship (alternately,  censorship) plays in the creation or depiction of actuality. In light of these difficult issues, perhaps this is why initiatives such as the StoryCorps and Center for Digital Storytelling play such a vital role in documentary—that of self-representation by subjects.