Need Help

[catscradle]

So the University is sponsering this under the aupisces of my academic department:

"Bridges to the Future: American History and Values in Light of Sept. 11th," a yearlong, statewide effort to encourage exploration and greater understanding of American history and values.

This apparently means the American History and Values of White Anglo/Saxon Protestants. They threw in Elie Wisel to placate the activists, I think. Of 15 scheduled speakers, he's the only one not pushing mom, apple pie, the handing over of our free will to John Ashcroft and the bombing of Iraq. Not directly, at least. I'm guessing they got him to speak to push an Israeli agenda. I have nothing but extreme respect of Elie Wisel, so I'm not saying he's coming here to nay-say the Palestinians. But the Judaic Studies department here has been trying to get him for years with no luck, so it leaves me a bit suspicious that the University got him to be one of their first speakers for the Bridges Project.

Well, a co-worker and I got together and talked to the Bridges organizer, concerned over the right-slant this project is taking. She agreed completely with us and has granted us money to sponser 15 films and/or documentaries that illustrate the other side of "history and vaules in America" to be run the week before or after a speaker hits town. The film will be followed by a panel to talk and debate over the films. I couldn't believe we actually were granted room space to do this. Hopefully more than 10 tightly packed people can fill the room.

Anyway - need help finding films. We've got a list right now, but we need more to review before we set these out to the public. If you can think of movies or documentaries that deal with things like: Native American civil issues, Civil Rights movement, Women's movement, Japanese-American WWII Camps, American government aiding waring countries (Like El Salvador, Afghanistan, East Timor, etc. . .) AIDS moevemtent - anything you think is of great social importance, please drop me a note - either here or at my address.

Thanks =)

Comments

[almostnever.livejournal.com]

LABOR MOVEMENT! I know there must be documentaries; isn't there one called Bread and Roses? But all I can think of offhand is Norma Rae.

Michael Moore's Roger & Me!

Bob Roberts, a satirical movie on right-wing politics.

Rrrm, that's all I've got at the moment.

Bread and Roses

[wiebke.livejournal.com]

Bread and Roses is actually very familiar to me, as the song and the phrase originated during a circa 1910s labor strike in the industrial city of Lawrence, Massachusetts, which neighbors my hometown of Andover. The church I grew up in supported a non-profit called Bread and Roses and I used to know the words.

According to IMDB, there is a 1999 movie called Bread & Roses that uses the term as a reference but it's not about the actual strike, which was quite dramatic as it involved women specifically protesting that they were being treated as less than human. I found a review by the Political Film Society (which is probably a good place to look for movies!)

[ladybd.livejournal.com]

Just by the by, I know that Bob Roberts was supposed to be a comedy... but I thought it one of the finer horror movies I've ever seen.

[catscradle.livejournal.com]

I looked up Bread and Roses and it's up for consideration. I also found a documentary called Salt of the Earth, which looks like it's on the same vein. Thanks for the suggestion!

We've got Roger and Me - in fact, we're trying to get Michael Moore here to speak - we'll see how that goes. . .

Bob Roberts is fantastic! LadyBD is right though - it's a horror flick *g*