A response to bell hooks' critique of Beasts of the Southern Wild

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

Directed by Behn Zeitlin

***SPOILERS***

Mostly thanks to Indiewire, I’ve had the privilege of being exposed to bell hooks' (aka Gloria Jean Watkins) insightful criticism of film (among other important works) over the years. And here I go, doing something that bothers me to God’s end: taking the time to point out how incredibly wrong hooks is in this one instance, when I never acknowledge how right she often is. If I’m ever half as insightful as bell hooks in my writing career, I’ll have made something of myself. But of course I’m referring to hooks' critique of Beasts of the Southern Wild, which accuses Benh Zeitlin’s directorial debut of being irresponsible on the racial and gender front. Upon starting hooks' critique, I found myself shocked to be agreeing with her—I mean, I didn’t love love LOVE Beasts of the Southern Wild, but I found this bombastic film to be quite adept in its subtleties, juxtaposing a young girl’s self-discovery with the grand scheme of time and life itself. But as the review carried on, and I kept reminding myself, “come on now, this is hooks…” and eventually I got to the point where I just had to ask: “Wait, this is bat-shit crazy…right?”

You know, I think I can be quoted once as saying, “White people just shouldn’t make movies about black people.” Yeah, I said it, and even meant it wholeheartedly at the time. To an extent, a twinge of myself holds onto that idea. It is, of course, a dangerous statement, and in actuality it’s not at all true. But I do think that, to some degree, it’s difficult for a white person to place him or herself in another race’s shoes and accurately depict the daily “struggles” we only perceive from a distance, as so many accidentally-racist films over the years have tried their hands at. And it doesn’t just apply to black people (ahem, Slumdog Millionaire), but it does seem as though they’ve received the short end of the stick over the last few years: Crash utilized racism as a manipulative, derogatory, convenient morality lesson; Precious literally defines the “goodness” and “intelligence” of characters by the lightness of their skin; and The Help (which I watched for this godforsaken review—you’re welcome!) was basically made to make white people feel better about themselves, shrugging off that whole "civil rights" debacle as we humbly chortle to each other and say, “Remember when people were stupid?” But of course this isn’t a 100% foolproof theory. I mean, if this was the case, men couldn’t make movies about women—last time I checked, Pedro Almodóvar and Abbas Kiarostami were putting movies like Confessions of a Shopaholic to shame (which isn’t fair, because just about every movie does).

The true danger in such a statement is this: once a director’s/writer’s race or gender is taken into account and used as a legitimate point to back up your argument, the conversation ends. Essentially, such a statement suggests all art comes to a standstill once a person’s race or gender disrupts their ability to accurately convey a piece of art, thus limiting how substantial a discussion of art can ever become. This is more of a self-observation than a slight against hooks, as I’m sure she’d agree with me. But strangely enough, this revelation didn’t peak until after I read hooks’ critique. And it has much less to do with a white person’s “irresponsible” take on a particular black person’s impoverished situation, and more do with the fact: in taking so much time to berate Zeitlin’s take on gender and race, she’s completely disregarded the themes and finer filmmaking points of the film, and thus completely misinterpreted certain material.

Once again, that statement is treading dangerous waters. I mean, I’m sure Tate Taylor thought he was making a glorious film for black people when writing The Help. Filmmakers can explore larger themes, but still come off as racist morons. The difference with Beasts of the Southern Wild is that its larger themes actually denounce these attacks on hooks' part because they’re beyond the idea of race. Surely Zeitlin didn’t help himself from the get-go, as when he adapted the original play (Juicy and Delicious) he chose to transform the central boy character into a six-year-old black girl, and changed the setting from Georgia to Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina—or, you know, basically not even hiding the fact that he brought some innate racial undertones into the film. Because of this perplexing alteration of setting and gender, it has led hooks to state that Beasts of the Southern Wild utilizes black people as victims, stating: “While she is portrayed as continuously resisting and refusing to be a victim, she is victimized.” Right here is where I really have to part ways with hooks—I would argue that The Bathtub isn’t a community of victims, but people overcoming victimization. It’s a piece of transcendence on Hushpuppy’s (Quvenzhané Wallis) part that keeps in line with the film’s overall theme (which hooks has chosen to ignore).

Methinks Zeitlin has seen a few Terence Malick films in his day, as Beasts of the Southern Wild recalls some of the same filmmaking techniques as Days of Heaven and The Tree of Life, along with the same life-affirming themes. Certainly Hushpuppy’s journey of self-discovery and her insignificance in the grand scheme of time is a reflection of what’s explored in The Tree of Life, and Zeitlin’s utilization of his surroundings and nature recall how Malick controlled the mood and atmosphere in Days of Heaven. This is best depicted in a scene where Hushpuppy fights with her father. Just after slapping her, she rises, her face fierce with apathy, and punches him in the chest. hooks takes this moment to accuse Beasts of irresponsibly portraying black men in the form of the father.

It’s incredibly hard to argue with hooks for a variety of reasons. Firstly for her incredibly informed and well-read examples, quoting Miles White’s From Jim Crow to Jay Z in writing: “White reminds readers from the onset of their appearance in films black males were portrayed as ‘brute or the folkloric bad nigger figure, a lawless man, feared by black and whites alike.’” And while it may seem impossible to argue with such a seemingly undebatable statement, there’s a problem of scope at play. Surely White’s statement is undeniably true when referring to pop culture, and hooks’ utilization of the statement appears to stick a fork in the idea of a counterpoint, but is this section of hooks’ argument not working in the confines of someone else’s statement? It’s one thing to point out that Wink (Dwight Henry) is an angry black male figure with an addiction to alcohol, but it’s another to tie such a claim to the larger argument. There mere presence of White’s point exposes there is definitely a problem in the depiction of black people in the media, but hooks' utilization of the statement also suggests we as people are incapable of transcending beyond the mere image of Wink and attaching meaning to his stereotypical state of mind—a technique the Crash’s, Precious’s, and The Help’s of the world seem incapable of doing.

With this in mind, we can come back and dissect the scene between Hushpuppy and her father. This scene is the beginning of many that start Hushpuppy's realization of her insignificance in the grand scheme of time, and it’s also a moment we witness Zeitlin working outside the confines of hooks' argument. Much of Hushpuppy’s realization lies within her disillusion, which allows her to believe her drawings on the inside of a cardboard box are equivalent to ancient cave paintings. So in this scene, in the midst of a thunderous storm, her punch to her father’s chest coincides with a loud crack of thunder. Thus, when he falls onto the ground, Hushpuppy creates the idea that the power behind her fist is extension of the force of nature, which also explains the presence of the “beasts” and why later she refers to them as her “friends”.

It’s a moment that combines the power of an image and the psychological mindset of a character that’s ever-present throughout Beasts, and it’s also a moment hooks views as a myth sold to young black girls. She once again quotes an academic source (this time Maurice Berger), when she writes: “Western commentators, critics, and academics seem no to realize how duplicitous words and images can be. They simply do not understand how myths work, how myths hold us hostage to their smooth elegant fictions.” Unfortunately for hooks, the “myth” here (or the one she’s perpetuating, anyway) isn’t a myth of young black girls being told they must learn to fend for themselves, or that “nobody is gonna help you, so get strong!” While this is a problem in pop culture, this iteration implies that race is directly tied to Hushpuppy’s realization, when really this is a beleaguering journey that plagues all adolescents. For Hushpuppy, it comes during a time where she misses her mother and is losing her father to a disease, showing that the tugging effect on her disillusioned state of mind isn’t concerned with the larger dissonant reality, but instead Hushpuppy’s place within her own sprawling imagination. Commenting on a filmmaker’s irresponsibility in reference to larger perpetuated stereotypes is one thing—and perhaps undeniable—but, once again, such a claim is presented as the end-all opinion and doesn’t allow for dissection. This isn’t the offensively one-dimensional Hallmark picture The Help sells to its audience.

I hate to play this card, as it normally doesn’t work and hardly ever holds substance (and it sounds like something your sort-of racist uncle would say), but Beasts of the Southern Wild would work with white people in Hushpuppy and Wink’s place—a claim that’s not at all true for The Help, Precious, or Slumdog Millionaire. You can just take Pan's Labyrinth, which also features a young girl living in her own disillusioned fantasy and disregarding the world's ugly reality, or one of the thousands of movies that features a brute of a white father...I don't know, there are a few in Stand By Me, right? hooks actively acknowledges in her review that Beasts doesn't take the time to address race in the racially diverse Bathtub, which makes the entirety of this particular argument even more of a stretch. Such a statement isn’t the end-all opinion that puts hooks argument on hold, but it does reveal that the scope of hooks’ argument is confined within society’s own broad stereotypes through mass media conventions. Perhaps this is why her argument goes off the rails quickly, whereas her seemingly undeniable points assessing myths sold to young black girls devolves into nonsensical observations of Zeitlin’s filmmaking, starting with an insightful observation regarding Hushpuppy’s mother’s jersey as a “deconstruction of gender”, but losing all credibility when writing:

“This transgender casting of Hushpuppy as sometimes representing maleness and sometimes femaleness is the constant image when the film begins. From the onset of the movie the camera highlights the back of the child’s body wearing a thin white undershirt and orange boy briefs leading onlookers to wonder are we seeing a boy or a girl. Again and again the camera zooms in on Hushpuppy’s behind. We see her gleefully running and jumping. Audiences wait for a gendered identity to be revealed. Clearly the camera toys with the child’s body pornographically eroticizing the image.”

Once again failing to recognize the extremities of filmmaking, hooks believes she is making a valid point regarding race and gender in noting Zeitlin’s “eroticization of the image”, when really she’s making a simple observation in regards to all filmmaking. Surely any filmmaker’s utilization of image, sound, and the characters at hand is an eroticization to some extent, based solely on the fact that filmmakers rely on these instances to control and influence the viewers’ emotions. Since the beginning of time, storytelling has worked and thrived because it not only dictates, but engages our emotions. With this in mind, essentially any piece of storytelling can be viewed as “pornography” of some sorts—thus, hooks point essentially becomes useless, especially as it trails off into a discussion of how Zeitlin “zooms in on her ass” (does hooks know what “zoom in” means?), which completely deviates from how the “eroticization” of the image plays into the disillusion sold to young black girls—or, you know, the base of hooks’ argument.

With these silly points in mind, it simply wouldn't be fair to brush away hooks’ argument as pure nonsense—hooks, during many moments in her critiques, makes incredibly insightful and unique observations that encourage debate amidst the incessant praise surrounding Beasts of the Southern Wild. Also with this in mind, I would argue that hooks’ argument is often times unfair to the power of filmmaking. As an important and well-regarded figure in criticism, this amplifies the importance of each and every piece she writes, but unfortunately amplifies the moments she becomes irresponsible in her assessments. As her argument regarding “the transgender casting of Hushpuppy” evolves, her points become wildly more speculative. And since hooks is working within the confines of a single observation and refusing to acknowledge extraneous filmmaking and storytelling techniques, she digs herself deeper and deeper into a hole with no escape and no light.

This confined state of mind led hooks to write, “Like so much else that makes no sense in this film it is not clear why the wise little Hushpuppy comes aboard this boat,” when it’s quite clear that (and stated verbatim by Hushpuppy herself) that she fled into the sea because that’s where her father said her mother disappeared into. This works with Hushpuppy's state of mind and the poignancy of her beleaguering story, as traveling outside the confines of the Bathtub and "meeting" the mother she never knew allows her to take the next in her own evolution. hooks perpetuates that the "myth" sold to young black girls has allowed Hushpuppy to become one with nature and receive a happy ending, when really Hushpuppy has a better understanding of nature and her insignificant role in the universe's timeline, pointing towards the next phase in her development. This realization is coupled with the moment Hushpuppy finally cries for her father in heartbreaking fashion. hooks' disregard of this simple fact suggests hooks had made up her mind well into the film and abandoned any notion that would suggest otherwise, failing to recognize the place the mother holds in the film and attaching her non-presence as extracting the “nurturing” side of Hushpuppy, while the father extracted the “violent” side—two instances hooks has, once again, chosen to mark as the transgender portrayal of Hushpuppy. As one of hooks’ admirers notes in the comment section of her critique, it’s a merging of the masculine and the feminine that “was intentional as intended to make the audience ponder on the stereotypes as well as the power of dominance in one self that we all have.” Hushpuppy becomes a reflection of her influences, as any child would, is never once is it a larger comment on or a relevant comparison to familial race relations.

I don’t think hooks’ own disillusion is ever in more obvious form when she complains that Hushpuppy’s “fate is unclear”, to which she follows with: “Given all that she endures she may just end up being the mad black female, talking to herself, wandering in a wilderness of spirit so profound that she is forever lost.” hooks believes the myth is being sold to Hushpuppy, when really hooks is the one doing the selling. As Hushpuppy parts ways with the beasts and returns to care for her ailing father, we don't witness a girl “hidden behind romantic evocations of mythic union and reunion with nature”, but a girl no longer disillusioned by such an idea. The fact that Hushpuppy has transcended this idea sold to Western audiences means she has transcended hooks’ critique as well, making Beasts of the Southern Wild—despite all the speculation, sprawling cinematography, and bombastic score—a very small story about child’s self-discovery and her tragic relationship with her father. In the end, all I can ask myself is this: how did hooks even begin to dissect the finer points of Beasts of the Southern Wild without even grasping its loving core?