hang on a second Kelley. what I said what that the movie was disgusting. I did not say that Jennifer's comments were racist or classist, I was disagreeing with her conclusions. she had clearly noted that the film disturbed her, and where I would differ is that for me the film was disturbing but not in the way she suggested.
I don't know if you've seen the film. it's one of those films that, in posing as doco-realist anthropology, is clearly capable of seducing an audience into thinking they're watching the exposure of the secret life of the underclass. where gummo was truly awful was that each of the characters was so physically 'othered', their conditions of life are (especially in such a visual medium) seen as flowing from their bodies. the film is manipulative in the extreme, like all realist films are. and, with films like this it's always important to see it with an audience rather than at home. I felt myself not only bouncing off the film, but also the audience with their loud guffaws and their tsk tsk tsk. ie., most of the audience responded to it as a presentation of a world, not as the filmakers' representation of it or his own fantasies of it or indeed his desire to make films which are 'a controversial insight into the life of OTHER people', as his film 'kids' was also, which I never thankfully saw. it's not an easy film to respond to, and I certainly should have been prepared to discuss it at greater length than to declare conclusions.
Angela --- rcollins at netlink.com.au