Spend It All

At my first studio job I had a coworker who was from Louisiana. He was super proud of that fact. It was all “crawdad boil” this, “cajun spice” that. He prided himself on being from New Orleans. Ragtime and jazz, baby. He’s talk about “living on the bayou” all while putting on the worst put-upon Cajun accent I had ever heard. Essentially, he was a cosplayer. Everything “cajun” and “Nawlins” about him was superficial. I never needed to go to Louisiana to know that. The dude reeked of upper class comforts. His own personal politics had such a deep disdain for the very type of person this film is about. No doubt he would sneer at them for being “dirty” and “poor”. He would not be able to spend a day living like one of these people. 

You see, there is a joy to these people and a deep respect for them present in this film, a warmth that I never felt from this person despite all the open invitations to crawfish boils and barbecues. Film and its power to showcase the lives of people as they live them is a powerful tool. Film is the empathy machine.

At my first studio job I had a coworker who was from Louisiana. He was super proud of that fact. It was all “crawdad boil” this, “cajun spice” that. He prided himself on being from New Orleans. Ragtime and jazz, baby. He’s talk about “living on the bayou” all while putting on the worst put-upon Cajun accent I had ever heard. Essentially, he was a cosplayer. Everything “cajun” and “Nawlins” about him was superficial. I never needed to go to Louisiana to know that. The dude reeked of upper class comforts. His own personal politics had such a deep disdain for the very type of person this film is about. No doubt he would sneer at them for being “dirty” and “poor”. He would not be able to spend a day living like one of these people. 

You see, there is a joy to these people and a deep respect for them present in this film, a warmth that I never felt from this person despite all the open invitations to crawfish boils and barbecues. Film and its power to showcase the lives of people as they live them is a powerful tool. Film is the empathy machine.