Last night I went to an advance screening of the movie Towelhead. The movie is directed and adapted by Alan Ball from the novel by Alicia Erian. The story is about a young Arab-American girl, coming of age during the time of the first Gulf War, in Texas.
The movie was pretty amazing. It was uncomfortable, funny, hopeful and disturbing at various times. I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised coming from Alan Ball, who didn’t shy away with uncomfortable topics in American Beauty or Six Feet Under. I was actually kinda bummed that I wasn’t able to stick around for the Q & A session after the screening (it was late).
Its going to be interesting when this film is actually released. From looking at the official website for the movie, it looks like they are going to be doing a bunch of screenings around the country before its wider release. Of course the title of the movie is going to be controversial. The film makers (and original author) address this a bit on the website, which I quote beneath the cut. I encourage ya’ll to see this movie when you can, its the best movie I’ve seen all summer.
As an Arab-American woman, I am of course aware that the title of my
book is an ethnic slur. Indeed, I selected the title to highlight one
of the novel’s major themes: racism. In the tradition of Dick Gregory’s
autobiography Nigger, the Jewish magazine Heeb, or the feminist magazine Bitch,
the title is rude and shocking, but it is not gratuitous. Besides the
fact that the main character must endure taunting about her ethnicity
(including being called a towelhead), so much of the novel’s plot is
fueled by the characters’ attitudes toward race.
I was not contacted by any organization or
group when my novel was released in 2005. I don’t know if this was
because no one had heard about my book, or because they didn’t feel it
would have as much of an impact as a film. Having lived in a world in
which my book has existed without protest for the past three years,
however, I feel I have at least some view onto what to expect from the
public in terms of a response. The bottom line is, never once have I
encountered anyone who didn’t understand the seriousness of the word
“towelhead” and all its implications.
This is not to say that I don’t find these
concerns legitimate — I absolutely do. We live in a racist society,
one in which people continue to use ethnic slurs to delineate those who
are different than they are. Realistically speaking, though, these
people are neither the audience for my book, nor for the film. They
will continue to use whatever language they wish whether or not a movie
called “Towelhead” is released. For this reason, I am pleased that
Warner Bros. is standing by the title.
Towelhead, like its many cousins — nigger,
spic, gook, etc. — is an ugly word. The job of the artist, however,
has been, and always will be, to highlight that which is ugly in the
hopes of finding something beautiful. This charge, by necessity, will
at times put the artist at odds with admirable groups such as CAIR. The
solution, it seems to me, is not to force the artist to alter his or
her work, but instead to use the occasion of that work as an entry
point for meaningful debate and discussion.
ALICIA ERIAN — In addition to Towelhead, Erian wrote a book of short stories called The Brutal
Language of Love. She is currently working on a memoir.
*
As a gay man, I know how it feels to be called hateful names simply
because of who I am. Therefore, I felt it was important to retain the
title of Alicia Erian’s novel, in which she so effectively dramatizes
the pain inflicted by such language, something many people of
non-minority descent never have to face. I believe one of the
unintended consequences of forbidding such words to be spoken is
imbuing those words with more power than they should ever have, and
helping create the illusion that the bigotry and racism expressed by
such cruel epithets is less prevalent than it actually is, which we all
know is sadly not the case.
ALAN BALL — “Towelhead” is
written for the screen and directed by Alan Ball, Academy Award-winning
writer of “American Beauty,” and creator of “Six Feet Under” and “True
Blood.”
*
One of the ideas conveyed in the film is that we all make assumptions
about each other, without knowing, based on racial stereotypes. It was
our goal in releasing “Towelhead” to help make this point.
Some of our past releases, like “Paradise
Now,” were extremely controversial and elicited demands that the film
not be released; “Good Night, and Good Luck.” drew criticism from some
as well. Warner Bros. supported the release of these films then, as
they do now of “Towelhead,” as a medium to create dialogue and support
the expression of ideas, as controversial or as unpopular as they may
be. We apologize for any offense that is caused by this title but
support Alan Ball and Alicia Erian in this effort.
WARNER INDEPENDENT PICTURES
