Rage: A review

I was not in New Zealand in 1981, although it may have played a role in my parents deciding to move here; the protests against the tour were a large part of what they knew about NZ before coming. I remember going on the protests later in the 1980s (we got to go to McDonalds after one). Apartheid was the second political issue I understood when I was a girl (the first was anti-nuclear).

I was certainly chanting a long while watching Rage.

In many ways it was a very good movie. I was particularly impressed with the way archival footage of the key moments was edited with fictional material. The acting was strong. And even though I spent most of the first twenty minutes asking: "Where is that? It is not Victoria University" there were some nice period moments.

The politics of the movie were reasonably clear. Although I could have done without a wise old African man telling a young Maori women how awesome New Zealand white people are.

The other political message was about the police - and the movie quite deliberately presented the police as stuck in the middle. We saw the police through the eyes of a young Maori female recruit who faced no racism or sexism from her co-workers. We didn't see the red squad. The police came and protected a house full of protesters in Hamilton. That is not a complete picture of the role of the police in '81 - it's a misleadingly limited one.

Leaving aside that political difference - my main objection was the sheer inanity of the 'plot'. Pro-tip if you're writing "falling in love wasn't part of the plan." then you may not be conceiving your characters as individuals with interesting and complex inner lives and well developed relationships.

It was neither the love story or the dead mother that bothered me per se; it was the way those two stories played out in the most predictable, unoriginal, ridiculously timed kind of a way. There was nothing specific or real about those stories that couldn't have come from "So I see you're writing a star-crossed lovers" cheat-sheet.

On top of that it meant we saw the anti-tour protests through a pakeha perspective.* You could tell an interesting story of a young Maori woman working as an undercover police officer, and the way she navigated that life. But instead of it being about her life and her world and what she saw - her story revolved around who she was sleeping with.

I think what bothered me most about the film was the idea that the events of 1981 and the many different realities those involved in them weren't interesting or dramatic enough in themselves to make a tele-movie. There are so many vivid interesting real stories that could be told about an incredible, stressful, intense time. Those stories could also have involved sex, and death and love and joy. Why rehash inanities rather than find something interesting and specific?

* And don't think I didn't notice that the only moment that it passed the Bechdel test was when the Donna Awatere character criticises the under-cover police officer. To have a pakeha man (who is supposedly deeply involved with the tour and reasonably politically aware) come in and rescue her was pretty telling about where the film-makers stood.

So this is Huge

Regular readers will know that I'm a fan of television. I have in fact written an ode to television.

I have also written about the problems of television - the ways how it is produced limits what we can see

For one brief shining moment this winter I was proved utterly, utterly wrong as I watched 10 episodes of Huge.

Then I was proved right again, when they cancelled it.

But I thought I'd write about Huge anyway. For a NZ audience who probably won't have seen it - so no spoilers - just general raving about awesomeness. This is how it begins:



Huge aired on ABC Family a US cable network that I hadn’t even heard of until a few months ago, that apparently makes a TV version of 10 Things I Hate About You and sells airtime to Pat Robertson when it doesn’t have enough programming of it on. It’s set in a fat camp – where teenagers are supposed to lose weight.

So far so avoidable right? But it’s by the Winnie Holzman, the creator of My So Called Life (New Zealanders of a certain age may remember My So Called Life’s run on IceTV), and her daughter Savannah Dooley. (who I know next to nothing about, but think is unbelievably awesome – she is threatening my decade long commitment as a one-showrunner woman).

I want to explain what's so amazing about Huge, because I think it's important. It is the most closely observed show I've ever watched. This is not a show where the main character has to stab her boyfriend to save the world - this is the world we live in, or close to it.

I've always loved bangity-flash big moments on TV. But there is another way, instead of metaphors Huge delivers us the fine details of people's life.

The show appears not to take a side. For weeks the big question as I was watching it was - what is this show saying about fat? Will, played by Nikki Blonsky was fierce about not hating her body. But she was surrounding by people who normalised dieting. Where did the show stand? And it didn't appear to stand anywhere. Then at the 8th episode the kids had a weigh in and it showed, without judging, the effect that had on them. That's when I realised that standing nowhere can be a much more radical place to put the camera

Many things that are normalised in the world are shown on Huge without the appearance of judging: slut-shaming, body-hatred and adults bullying children. But in this light they appear as grotesque as they actually are.

While things that we are treated as something to be ashamed of like fat, but also asexuality, anxiety, live action role-playing, disability, queerness and many other aspets of the character, also appear differently when observed closely and without judgement. The things we're supposed to be ashamed of are not the same, so they don't appear the same on Huge. But collectively they are seen as ordinary, joyous, ok, real and a source of strength.

That is, in the end, what made Huge so beautiful.

It's been cancelled in America (because American TV executives enjoy stabbing anything that is beautiful or true to death). At the moment it is only available on youtube (or through other even less legal means), although it will come out on DVD.

I really do recommend that you watch it, and if you have older kids, show it to them. Because I think they'll probably get something they need out of it.