A Film by Mike Holboom
This film is enjoyable in the way that waving foliage or sparkling water can beguile after a coupla beers on Day 12 of a three-week summer vacation.
In its clinical context, the effect is called “hypnagogic hallucination.” During the 1960s, hippies called it “trippy,” but although Judy Rebick hails from the generation that embraced psychedelic visualization as a lifestyle, the technique of Judy Versus Capitalism has little to do with the politics to which she has devoted her life, and, as a fuzzy sledgehammer feigning subtlety but lacking all but negative meaning, it may actually be an (unconscious?) attempt to subvert and trivialize her views and activities.
The sad reality here is that audiences view this kind of stuff as “art” while experts bestow awards on its crafters. Its very vagueness and ambiguity – especially given its ostensible subject – is seen by many as a hallmark of fine and complex aspirations on the part of the artist. In my view, such viewers have developed herd immunity to understanding the writing on the wall. The most intriguing thing about Judy Versus Capitalism is its role in re-enforcing a reactionary idea.
This “entertainment documentary” about a celebrated feminist and political activist relegates her politics to mere afterthought, while foregrounding an attempt to understand and portray her mental illness through meaningless (and protracted) aesthetic flourishes comprised of home movies, “found” footage, inept soft-focus dramatic recreations (sometimes using an uncomfortable-looking Rebick) and a sound track of “abstract” experimental music. These kinds of films have been around since Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). As a producer friend of mine likes to say: “Everything changes except avante-garde theatre.”
Through its hackneyed technique, it seeks to evoke – what? Rebick’s mental state? Her history of abuse by those who should have cared? Certainly not her struggles against the capitalist system of government. I have little doubt that its evocation is limited to the mental state (and political outlook) of the filmmaker.
Like many of us, Judy suffers periodic bouts of depression. Hypnotherapy revealed sexual abuse by her father. While our culture of punishment encourages childhood abuse, the endless war, mass murder, enviro-toxicity, misogyny, racism and wage slavery has rendered entire populations and generations continuing victims of PTSD. No wonder we’re depressed.
In response, capitalism has medicalized – and monetized – natural feelings of anxiety and despair for over a century. The efforts of Big Pharma shifted into high gear as Judy Rebick came of age: “the blues” suffered protracted cultural assault, and was relegated to the lower orders of society. Neglecting proffered succor – a choice between valium and psychoanalysis – unhappiness became the victim’s fault.
Key to this assault was the primacy granted to the individual’s psychological profile as core explanation for political opinion – especially radical activism. The desired effect was to minimize the destructive aspects of racial, sexual, and class oppression. And, as handmaiden to this view, (capitalist) film became a tantalizing tool for the expression of the mental states and emotional motivations of its protagonists and villains – especially those with unconventional social or political attitudes.
This gave cultural licence to the notion that “the political is personal.” Rebick’s generation bravely turned the idea on its head: they insisted that “the personal is political” i.e. we are products of our political culture.
Preference for a “psychological world-view” has trickled down not only into the arts, but into the realm of political discussion. In response to, say, a brief outline of socialist views regarding capitalism’s crimes, its recipiants may reply that “You’re a very sad person, arent you?” or “You seem quite angry,” accompanied by a familiar assertion about “human nature.”
So, what are we to conclude from the arch pretensions of this film and its dreamy “psychological” style? The filmmaker spends nearly 2 hours wallowing in his own alienation from politics and the world. His empty visuals, which supposedly evoke its subject’s mental landscape (or something) do have a cumulative impact, but they are insulting to Rebick because they amount to a low-brow trivialization of her extraordinary life.
In Judy Versus Capitalism, Holboom has done an unsuspecting Rebick and her politics a disservice. After viewing, I realized that the film’s title mocks her, implying personal isolation in a life tinged with absurdity. I pity her exploitation and resent Holboom’s apolitical arrogance. As for its audience, non-political people may be asthetically bullied by Holboom’s vision of politics-as-nightmare, while political people may be disheartened by cultural intimidation masquerading as art.
Me Of All People 