A couple of working class masterpieces (one film, one novel): Bubble and Strawberry Fields

I find representations of “class” in film to be incredibly annoying. Hollywood usually force-feeds us a view of “regular guys” that are only “regular” if you live in a world comprising the .05% at the top of the economic pyramid, a place that actually defines the background of too many screenwriters, producers and directors. I’m thinking of, for example, the “everyman” schtick of Steve Martin in an execrable pile of shit like Father of the Bride, where his future in-laws are derided as insensitive “rich” buffoons, but we’re supposed to identify with Martin, who lives in a house in suburban LA that would cost, oh, $6 million. At least. And audiences eat this slop up, with soup spoons. “Average” people are depicted by trust-fund know-nothings as not just wealthy, but insanely wealthy. That little kid who delivers the paper? His grandpa owned the Minnesota Twins! And now, since Gramps kicked it, the kid owns the team! What a heartwarming story. But, wait, don’t you have to be, like, SUPER rich to OWN a major league team? So isn’t this kid rich by association? Oops, sorry, I spoiled the movie magic by bringing money into it.

We’re even treated to the auto-biographical whining of silver-spoon-addled children of famous directors, and critics fawn all over it. Okay, there’s a story there, and some of it is interesting. But where are MY stories, those about factory workers (and their kids) who DON’T play football at Notre Dame or dance in a flash-y way? Oh, sure, there are movies about (and of interest to) “Labour,” but that’s not what I mean. Norma Rae was awesome, but so… Hollywood. There’s drama, but there is no real depiction of drudgery, desperation, soul-destroying boredom, and (especially) the constant attention to MONEY. How much am I getting, how much do I need, how can I organize my other priorities to get more. “Money” doesn’t exist in Hollywood except as an abstract concept (one terrific exception being Little Miss Sunshine, which even had the gay academic black sheep in it). So when I encounter something that’s my kind of cinema verite, it really turns my crank.

I taped Bubble, which is a film by Steven Soderbergh that was released last January simultaneously in theatres, on HDNet, and on DVD. This sounds gimmicky, I know, and in the midst of this campaign I think a lot of people lost sight of the product. I didn’t get around to seeing it (on Movie Central HD) until today, and the main reason I watched it was because (1) nothing else grabbed me, and (2) it’s only 73 minutes long. I knew nothing else about it, aside from the capsule.

Well, the movie is brilliant. It’s about people who work in a doll factory in West Virginia, and all, ALL, of the actors are amateurs, all from the area where it was filmed and all with appropriate regional accents. It feels “real,” ad-libbed, with lots of conventional break-room small talk, lunches from Hardee’s, little houses and crappy apartments and trailer parks, and even–YES!–open discussion about how great it’s going to be to get this $50 bonus if we reach quota. That’s what I’m talking about. Oh, and somebody gets murdered. It’s a completely fascinating movie and a breath of fresh but disturbing air.

Okay, this brings me to the second reference in this post title. When I bought Michael Tolliver Lives on eReader (see here), I also bought was sounded like a cute piece of fiction called Strawberry Fields (in the UK, Two Caravans).

This is the second published novel by Marina Lewycka, a UK-based author originally from Ukraine. She’s an inspiration, because her first novel (A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, which I’m now reading) was published, after 30 rejections, when she was in her late 50s. That’s inspiring. Anyway, Strawberry Fields is about the travails of a group of migrant workers who start out at a strawberry farm in southern England, and who endure exploitation and worse. It sounds like a depressing read, and some of it is, but it’s also funny at times and marvelously inventive in Lewycka’s writing style. The story is told from the perspectives of all major characters. Some of these perspectives are related in conventional third-person narrative, but one is first-person (this is how you know, for example, that this part is told from Irina’s perspective: it uses “I” and “my” and “our”), one is told through letters to the character’s sister, and one is always in CAPS and is actually first-dog narrative.

I read this book while I was in Germany and it was really neat to be in the new Europe, one in which citizens of EU countries can live and work in any EU country (try that in North America), no visa or folderol required. This has benefitted new and old EU members (well, those that want to live elsewhere), but has also left some neighbours (Ukraine, for example) on the outside looking in. Lewycka tells an important story here; it’s about the characters, of course, but it’s also about the new global economy and its winners and losers. It’s inspired me to learn more about migrant labour (there are great sources out there to learn about, for example, the plight of citrus workers in the US); let’s hope these stories get a wider audience.