Jay Ruby: Speaking for, about, with, or alongside

Jay Ruby's article provides insight into the transformations within ethnographic and documentary film, which he lumps together into one category.  Historically, documentary films have sought to represent a perspective of reality from the oppressed voice, the one that often lacks authority and is incapable of producing its own cultural identity through image.  The unfortunate circumstances of the victim (either filmed as individual or group) are transformed into a visual narrative, one which provides a source of entertainment (it is, in fact, a film) and is condoned by society. The basis that through the film's creation, more people will know about a particular social issue, and thus the condition of the oppressed group/individual will improve. This is pretty much the justification for most documentaries.

In his article., Ruby comments that in the case of a group of harvest workers, whose lives were documented for several years, their condition improved little due to the publicity they received from the films. In fact, the only people who profited were the ones who made the film. The money spent on production and filming did nothing to assist the harvest workers in their plight. Although it has often been perceived that documentaries are catalysts for social and political change, one wonders how this can be the case in terms of real monetary return to those filmed. The money required for production does nothing more than fuel the careers of film makers, who have essentially cut and pasted together a narrative of struggle about distant people facing the wrath of not only mother nature but the terrible effects of human nature. The film's impact is usually short lived: Western viewers feel good about themselves for a little while, appreciative of their own good fortune. They may even consider themselves more socially and politically aware after watching the film, but does this magically create an abundance of crops for harvest workers? Does it regulate food prices, build schools for their children, provide them with a means to sustenance? Empathy feels empty in this case.

Along with the death of objectivity and post modern thought, the issue of how to represent the social world as an object has become pretty much impossible for filmmakers. Society was once seen as an objective reality capable of being captured. This reality could be best described through a subject, speaking about her/his reality; or by filming a group partaking in a particular social event that relayed some aspect of its cultural identity. The most authentic subject was always the disempowered, whose authenticity as a source of cultural truth was verified by the filmmaker: the person with power in this case. Yet we've come to understand that by merely following a group or individual with a camera does not in fact allows us deep insight into their cultural or social reality. The powers of production do much to alter the voice of the subject. And even when we do give subjects the power to choose what images are shown, as Ruby points out, they really don't have the sophistication to judge their appearance based on how they are being represented and how audiences will perceive them.

We've also come to understand the negotiation that takes place in creating a cultural identity. If culture is a gamble with nature, it is the individual with agency who creates the storyline of this gamble, with agency varying from culture to culture. Marxism, feminism, the end of colonialism, along with indigenous movements and an entire list of other social movements culminating within the past half a century, have questioned the voice of the white male and his authority in assigning cultural identity. Philosophy has shown us the ideological nature of knowledge, while science (and its authority) has proved itself as yet another construct, capable of producing only hypotheses, yet no eternal truths. This turns filmmaking into a sort of free for all, where anything and everything goes. I agree with Ruby when I say that moral authorship still belongs to the filmmaker. Anyone can buy a camera, take pictures, and shoot a film. The responsibility of representation still essentially rests in the person using the camera and producing the picture. Despite any collaboration with the subject, the person with the camera is automatically in a position of authority (even if its extremely slight) for the simple fact that they own a camera. (Now if we had a person filming a person filming..... ) 

Perhaps this realization, that in trying to know everything we've discovered the greatest mystery of all: we know nothing! serves filmmakers well. For one thing, it has shifted the moral duty from claiming to be neutral and objective, to the obligation of revealing the ideology that exists within any production of images. So that filmmakers aren't demi gods showing us eternal truths. They are people with technology producing images through their particular lens. This moral shift also requires a new task from the filmmaker -- achieving a balance between allowing subjects to represent themselves, and deciding what outside voice of authority and analysis will work alongside the oppressed voice, if not by amplifying it, then by coinciding. (Key point- filmmakers are still always deciding) Issues of representation are the product of having to represent, and it is in their endeavors that filmmakers create their obstacles. Obviously there is no easy solution, and I think that's the entire point. I honestly believe the only "true" representation one is capable of producing is of themselves. Rather than trying to be truthful, I think the focus of documentary filming should be on reminding viewers of the only truth - it just is what it is, acknowledge it for that!