Show and Tell: the ethical issues behind documentary films

Originally published in The Oxonian Globalist

Alexandra Sutton explores the ethical issues behind humanitarian documentaries, and questions their ability to facilitate change

Whose voice are we hearing? Photo by Jonathan Smith.

The humanitarian documentary is a double-edged sword of communication and narrative. It serves both to inform and to raise awareness, but it does so through a medium which is necessarily subjective, emotionally manipulative and most importantly, aesthetically produced. So, when it comes to documentaries which focus on human rights issues and campaigns, there appears to be a serious ethical problem in their nature. This problem then forces the question – what do these documentaries actually achieve?

The dichotomy between communication and narrative can be broadly broken down into the idea of “show and tell”. Do these documentaries show us problems, or do they tell us about them? The answer is almost inevitably “tell” – the most powerful documentaries tend to be ideological in their foundations, not only alerting people to serious human rights issues, but exploring the reasons behind them and positing the possibilities for change. This is by no means a bad thing – whether a documentary is led by one strong voice, or features a panel of insightful talking heads, it is often enlightening to have problems which may seem initially very alien relayed to you by those who know the subject.

Although it is arguable that ideology should be the motivating force behind documentary, that argument is contigent upon what we believe the documentary can and should achieve. For example, the basic concept of a documentary would be “to document”, to simply chronicle information and then relay it, leaving room for personal interpretation and reflection. However, humanitarian documentaries, which are heavily stylised and persuasively emotive, aim to create food for thought without actually leaving any room to taste it. A notorious exemplar of this is Invisible Children’s much debated Kony 2012 short film. With its heartbreaking images and moving soundtrack, it struck a chord with the public (not unlike charity adverts) and immediately went viral, before being quickly denounced as flawed, partially false and worryingly evocative of militant propaganda.

Why then were so many people taken in by it? Perhaps it was the aesthetic qualities of the video, perhaps it was the rush of virtual activism (or “slacktivism”, if you will), or the extremely simplified message of Good vs. Evil. However, the most revealing form of persuasion was actually the most unsettling: Kony 2012 made people feel good. Much of the appeal is inherently self-centred – it told us that we could achieve great things by doing very little, that we were an empowered generation of connected social media activists, and crucially, that we in the liberal West had the power to solve the problems of everyone else. It was all about us.

The assumption that documentaries are actually all about the viewer isn’t necessarily wholly negative; learning about and attempting to understand human rights issues requires empathy as well as sympathy. It’s just that the documentaries rarely present situations that we can even attempt to empathise with. As soon as we start trying to, the films risk becoming ethically flawed, and frequently Western-centric – both in terms of moral values and presentation.

For example, recent documentaries such as Girl Rising and Half the Sky – both about women’s rights in India, Pakistan and Africa, amongst other countries – relay personal, first person narratives through the medium of celebrity monologues or interviews. Girl Rising calls for female education and empowerment, but good intentions are dampened by the film’s execution – liberties are taken with the girl’s stories, and their voices are essentially drowned out by a Western imposition of morality, and the famous faces we implicitly trust to deliver said moral judgment. The difficulty with this imposition is that it requires us place a value judgement on cultural norms. In these documentaries, the general solutions are wound up with Westernisation, suggesting that countries should not only assimilate our societal structures, but assimilate the cultural values that go along with them. The question is, where does this end? What happens in countries where religion and state are one and the same? In this respect, the documentary can become overtly political, and once again lose sight of the nuances in these issues, and in each nation. Obviously, there are elements of Western society that are objectively beneficial, and among these education is chief. However, human rights issues cannot be diluted into abstract “pillars of society”; these ideals are fundamentally subjective as culture and morality are not easily separated.

Half the Sky is similarly concerning, in which several Hollywood women meet female victims of persecution and attempt to relate to them. The actresses epitomise the flaws in these kinds of films – the interviews blur into psuedo-docu-drama, and in the attempt to connect with the women, the film ends up alienating them even further. Their very real histories of oppression and trauma are glossed into a simplified story female troubles the world over.

However, idealistic though it may be, behind the majority of these films are people who are intending to achieve something positive. In many cases this goes beyond raising awareness, to actually facilitating change. For example, They Go to Die, a film about the links between tuberculosis and the South African mining industry, led to an All Party Parliamentary meeting in the UK to discuss the issue, and the film received a Global Health Award. The person behind the documentary, Jonathan Smith, was not a filmmaker, but rather a student of the Yale School of Public Health. Smith approached the issue by using his academic background of health and social policy, but rather than letting social theory dominate the film, he let the victims of the mining industry explain the issues themselves. Equally, the award-winning documentary on sexual assault in the US military, The Invisible War, led to an almost immediate directive ordering all sexual harassment cases to be handled by senior officers, issued by Secretary of Defence, Leon Panetta. According to the New York Times, the film has been credited with both encouraging victims to come forward, and galvanising procedural changes within the military itself.

Documentaries such as these appear to operate on both a deeply personal level, whilst effectively working to make definitive change. Although they may be a rarity, it is certainly encouraging. Despite the fact that humanitarian documentaries can be extremely flawed in their composition, the argument ultimately boils down to the way we perceive change. Is change restricted to formal, legislative action, or can it also refer to a change in attitude? Raising awareness is the germ of change, even if that change is a gradated one, beginning with a person who watches a documentary at home, and is inspired to seek out answers by themselves. However simplistic it may seem, any narrative that at least raises a few questions, or sparks interest in a previously unknown topic, can only be a positive thing. When the glossy veil of film is stripped away, the human rights issues at their core still remain – as long as we become aware of that, the documentary may still have the power to make a difference.

Retrospective: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight

Trilogies are an important part of the film lover's repertoire. They become a feature length blur of ideas and feelings; each installment influences the way the others are interpreted. and together they almost form a cinematic personality. This personality is what generates the bizarre sense of loyalty and connection people have with films - we invest in them and care for them, in exchange for a glimpse of something escapist and idealistic. Culty art-house type trilogies include Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours series or Satyajit Ray’s Apu films, but for me, the finest of them all has just been decided by the release of the final installment in Richard Linklater's 'Before' trilogy.

In 1995, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater began what would be a 18 year project, spanning three countries, three films, and influencing countless young romantics with a taste for introspection and a fondness of talking about it. Jesse is your typical young American, full of ideas and brimming with bravado, Celine is a flighty Parisian student, a classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl with a melancholy twist. They meet on a train, engage in pseudo-philosophical verbal acrobatics and spend a day and a night getting lost in Vienna. Their meet-cute is whimsical, their characters seemingly clichéd, and in any other context their patter could be vastly irritating. But somehow, Linklater, Delpy and Hawke have created an environment in which the characters can soulfully filibuster the big questions in life whilst outwardly attempting to answer them, in a way that is charming, tender, and most importantly, interactive.

The intricacy and wonder of the series lies in this attempt at an interactive viewing process. It begins simply; they are young and in love - you want to be young and in love. They wander around Europe spouting extremely interesting and insightful nonsense about the world under a canopy of consistently good weather - you also want this. It is romantic, it is dreamlike, but it is not wholly unrealistic. Who wouldn't want this? On a superficial level, the films allow you to superimpose yourself into the dream. However, it is the acknowledgment of flaw, condition and sheer bloody humanity that make the characters seem so real, so tangible. The characters are a Gatsby-like embodiment of self-performativity - they let you understand them exactly as you want to; each person is moved in a different way, and each viewing inspires different emotion. As the series progresses, the characters grow a little older and a little more weary, with a middle installment of 30-something cynicism, until we reach Before Midnight, which as Linklater suggests is a "harder pill to swallow", where love has become a "brutal kind of beast." The very nature of the films, produced over such a long period of time, necessitates the growth of the characters and the growth of the audience. Equally, the production cultivates the type of obsessive analysis that Jesse and Celine are inclined to themselves - nine years is a long time to wait for the next film, and to attempt to predict its outcome.

I don't want to reveal that outcome, as you should all sit down and watch the trilogy immediately, but I'll happily say that Before Midnight is a beautiful piece of cinema. Like its predecessors it is talky and indulgent, and so appeals to those, like myself, who often feel like talking makes them indulgent, which is something one should probably talk about. What makes them so magical is the way one can go on interpreting them, understanding them, obsessing over them. Shameless attempts to draw out similarities between yourself and the characters are inevitable, but they also inspire some of the best conversation and the best experiences, once you get past the semi-pretension of it all. Linklater has created something intensely personal, and his love of story and talk of all kinds (small, big, poetic...) has spawned a fan-base who have experience their own versions of the tale as a result of that intimacy. I for one can't wait to weep over Before Sunset in my thirties, and re-experience Before Midnight as a gin soaked forty year old. Both create visions of a potential future that for Jesse and Celine began 18 years ago in a serene 80-second unbroken shot, and for us lowly mortals began the first time we peeped at their intimacy.