Films about working-class women

Warning: this post contains a distressing image.

The collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Savar, Bangladesh on the April 24, 2013 is one of the tragedies of our time. More than 1,100 garment workers lost their lives and many more were injured. The majority of them were young women. It was, in fact, nothing less than industrial murder. The factory bosses were warned about the cracks in the shoddily constructed building, yet the workers were forced to come to work that day. In June this year, the owner of the factory and 40 others were charged with murder. Multinational retailers could also, of course, be said to have blood on their hands. The poorly-paid workers made clothes for well-known global brands like Primark, Mango and Benetton. Some companies predictably took their time but the compensation fund for victims was also secured in June of this year.

The Rana Plaza tragedy inspired director Andrew Morgan to make The True Cost (2015), an ambitious, wide-ranging documentary about the globalized garment industry. We journey with him to world fashion centres and places where most of our clothes are made- Cambodia, India, China and Bangladesh- to meet garment workers, activists, academics and Free Trade representatives. Global brand bosses are conspicuous by their absence.

The True Cost tackles the exploitation of garment workers and the horrendous impact that the clothing industry has on the health of working communities and the environment. Morgan specifically targets the contemporary fast fashion model- the quick-response manufacturing of affordable clothes inspired by high-cost fashion trends. He explains that High Street fashion brands find Bangladesh a particularly attractive place to do business because of cheap labor and interviews a local factory owner who says that he is pressured by retailers to keep costs low. Reflecting on the exploitative, get-out-of-jail-free part played by global brands should make you quietly seethe. Most of Bangladesh’s garment workers are young women and they earn less than three US dollars a day. Workers are abused, even killed, for demanding better pay and conditions. We see footage of garment workers in Cambodia being shot at as they demonstrate for an increase in the minimum wage. Morgan rightly describes the low-cost, exploitative system of poverty wages and dangerous working conditions as “a perfectly engineered nightmare for the workers trapped inside of it.”

In an effort to personalize and make accessible this complex, multifaceted global story, Morgan spotlights the struggles of 23-year-old Shima Akhter, a Bangladeshi garment worker and union organizer who says she was beaten for trying to improve her and her co-workers’ lot. Her personal situation is tough too as she is forced to leave her young daughter Nadia in the countryside with relatives for long periods at a time while she works in the city. Shima is a strong, gracious woman who wants the best for the daughter she adores. She loves her parents and always sports a warm smile. The shots of Shima and her family in the countryside are beautifully observed but it is her words that haunt you: “I don’t want anyone wearing anything which is produced by our blood.”

Morgan equally addresses the industry’s ruinous impact on the environment and health of people living and working in communities serving the industry. He explains, “Fashion today is the number two most polluting industry on earth, second only to the oil industry.” I doubt most of us are aware of this fact and it underlines the obscene enormity of the problem posed by fast fashion. We see landfills overflowing with textile waste- a strange, disturbing sight- and learn of the appalling effect pesticide and fertilizer use has had on physical and mental health in communities in the Punjab region of India.

Clearly intended as a wake-up call, The True Cost looks at alternative ways of doing business and gives voice to those questioning the existing economic system. We meet London-based Safia Minney, founder and CEO of Fair Trade People Tree and LaRhea Pepper, an organic cotton farmer from Texas. Both advocate ethical and sustainable solutions. The most powerful comments, however, come from economist Richard Woolf. He observes, “So America became a peculiar country. You could criticize the education system…you could criticize the transportation system….but you couldn’t criticize the economic system. That got a free pass…Capitalism couldn’t be questioned.” Morgan, further, takes aim at the consumerist mentality that fuels fast fashion but I’m not sure we learn anything new regarding materialism in the Millenium. I had, however, never seen the nauseating You Tube clothes haul videos Morgan features. They, indeed, denote an epic, soulless low.

The True Cost has moments of power but it is not without its flaws. While Morgan clearly supports their struggle, more garment workers and union representatives should have been interviewed. The documentary, further, does not give an in-depth, gender-aware analysis of the lives of female garment workers. The arguments and images employed to critique consumerism are not, it must be said, particularly striking or original. Morgan should, nevertheless be commended for raising awareness of the acute human suffering behind the production of fast clothes. It prompts serious reflection about the vulturism of the industry and our response to economic violence. While it was widely reported, Rana Plaza did not become a social media cause in the same way as other recent tragedies. We know why, of course. Consumer capitalism reigns and the media, even culturally progressive sites, do not seem all that interested in workers’ rights. Hopefully, documentaries like The True Cost will encourage more to break the shameful silence.

Written by Rachael Johnson.

Set in coal-mining Pennsylvania, Wanda (1970) is the story of a directionless working-class woman who leaves her husband and young children for a life on the road. Barbara Loden (1932-1980) not only plays the title role of Wanda, she also wrote and directed the film. Although it would, sadly, be the only feature she would make, it remains one of the most culturally significant portraits of American womanhood of its era, as well as one of the greatest independent films of all time.

We see Wanda at the beginning of the film sleeping on her married sister’s couch, but she soon embarks on a journey to nowhere. Unable to secure and maintain a job, her situation becomes increasingly precarious. She is ditched by a man at a rest stop outside of town following a one-night stand, and robbed of her money when she falls asleep alone in a movie theater. She meets a small-time, hopeless crook, Mr. Dennis (Michael Higgins) and develops a relationship of sorts with him. He’s an aggressive, charmless man but he offers a kind of security. Initially hesitant, she becomes Mr. Dennis’s accomplice in a bank robbery. It all ends disastrously, and at the close of the film we see her surrounded by strangers in a bar, as isolated and aimless as she was at the start of her journey.

Some may find Wanda’s inertness and passivity baffling, even exasperating. We are not given much insight into her former life. We only have her husband’s testimony in court that she was a poor homemaker and neglectful mother. Was she bullied and belittled by her husband? Why does she not fight for custody of her kids? In the courtroom, she instructs the judge to give her husband the divorce he wants and states that the children “will be better off with him.” Although it is what society dictated for women, perhaps Wanda never even wanted a family.

Loden’s description of Wanda in a 1972 interview on the Mike Douglas Show is quite instructive:

“She’s really running away from everything…She doesn’t know what she wants but she knows what she doesn’t want, and she’s trying to get out of this very ugly type of existence but she doesn’t have the equipment that a person that has been exposed to more different kind of people that would help her… She can’t cope with life..”

It is, indeed, evident that no one was there for Wanda growing up–no loving, supportive parent/s, inspirational teacher or mentor. Loden, interestingly, got the inspiration for the film from a newspaper article telling the curious tale of a female accomplice to a bankrobber who thanked the judge for sentencing her to twenty years in jail but it is also semi-autobiographical. A native of North Carolina, Loden did not come from a privileged home. Brought up by strictly religious grandparents following her parents’ divorce, she endured a hard childhood. Loden equally understands Wanda’s psyche. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times (1971) she explained, “I used to be a lot like that… I had no identity of my own. I just became what I thought people wanted me to become.”

Crucially, the director seems to recognize that countless working-class American women of her background and generation were never taught to develop their very identity and assert themselves. Although Hollywood tries to propagate the myth, not everyone survives shitty childhoods through self-education and force of will. There are, also, indications that Wanda was abused and/or neglected as a child. To say she has poor sense of self-worth is an understatement. Unlike mainstream American movies, Wanda, moreover, recognizes that human beings of all backgrounds repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Loden does not judge her protagonist and nor should we. Judging Wanda does not help us understand her. In fact, it reflects a position of privilege.

Barbara Loden’s own journey was remarkable and successful though ultimately tragic. Unlike her heroine, she was graced with opportunity and talent, as well as encouraged to realize her creative ambitions. Loden was a dancer and model before becoming a screen and theatre actress. She was married to director Elia Kazan and starred in his films Wild River (1960) and Splendor in The Grass (1961). As said, Wanda was her first and last film. Other projects remained unrealized up until her death. No doubt misogyny played an ugly, starring part in keeping her out of the film business. She tragically died of breast cancer in 1980 at the age of 48.

Wanda was critically acclaimed when it was first released- it won the International Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1970- but in the years that followed, it fell into relative obscurity in the United States (Loden and Wanda have always been more appreciated in France).

Shot on a small budget, Wanda is a stark film devoid of sentiment. Nicolas Proferes was the cinematographer and editor, and in terms of its look and form, it’s a grainy, unpolished film that reeks of the real. It is, in fact, a road movie but without the usual romantic qualities of the genre. It does not rejoice in the freedom of the open road. There are no cool, seductive lovers or beautiful cars. Wanda is not a charismatic counter-culture heroine or anti-heroine. She’s not a heroic working-class figure either. Loden’s portrait, however, aims to shed light on the psychological condition of young, working-class women disconnected from societal demands and expectations. Some may find her portrait of female identity lack and alienation a tough viewing experience but it is a rewarding one. Loden’s low key performance, it should be noted, is, also, entirely persuasive.

Although the film is beginning to be rediscovered and revisited, Wanda needs to be even more appreciated. Loden’s story too should also be more widely known. As we are only now beginning to fully realize, the history of women in film has, criminally, been one of forgetting. We need to remember and honor Barbara Loden as a director of one of the most grittiest and unconventional American films of the 20^th century.

Tag: Films about working-class women

Barbara Loden’s ‘Wanda’: A Persuasive Portrait of Female Aimlessness and Alienation