{"id":252,"date":"2008-08-27T09:13:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-27T16:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts-wp\/?p=252"},"modified":"2014-04-17T17:12:20","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T00:12:20","slug":"towelhead-the-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/2008\/08\/towelhead-the-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Towelhead (the movie)"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oy25eZVgzRs?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<p>Last night I went to an advance screening of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.towelhead-themovie.com\/\">movie<\/a> <em>Towelhead<\/em>.\u00a0 The movie is directed and adapted by Alan Ball from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&amp;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FTowelhead-Novel-Alicia-Erian%2Fdp%2F0743285123%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1219851989%26sr%3D8-2&amp;tag=rhinolovesongs&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325\">novel<\/a> by Alicia Erian.\u00a0 The story is about a young Arab-American girl, coming of age during the time of the first Gulf War, in Texas.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">The movie was pretty amazing.\u00a0 It was uncomfortable, funny, hopeful and disturbing at various times.\u00a0 I guess I shouldn&#8217;t be that surprised coming from Alan Ball, who didn&#8217;t shy away with uncomfortable topics in <em>American Beauty<\/em> or <em>Six Feet Under<\/em>.\u00a0 I was actually kinda bummed that I wasn&#8217;t able to stick around for the Q &amp; A session after the screening (it was late).<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Its going to be interesting when this film is actually released.\u00a0 From looking at the official website for the movie, it looks like they are going to be doing a bunch of <a href=\"http:\/\/wip.warnerbros.com\/towelhead\/screenings.html\">screenings<\/a> around the country before its wider release.\u00a0 Of course the title of the movie is going to be controversial.\u00a0 The film makers (and original author) address this a bit on the website, which I quote beneath the cut.\u00a0 I encourage ya&#8217;ll to see this movie when you can, its the best movie I&#8217;ve seen all summer.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px;\" align=\"center\"><strong>WHAT&#8217;S IN A NAME?<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>As an Arab-American woman, I am of course aware that the title of my<br \/>\nbook is an ethnic slur. Indeed, I selected the title to highlight one<br \/>\nof the novel&#8217;s major themes: racism. In the tradition of Dick Gregory&#8217;s<br \/>\nautobiography <em>Nigger<\/em>, the Jewish magazine <em>Heeb<\/em>, or the feminist magazine <em>Bitch<\/em>,<br \/>\nthe title is rude and shocking, but it is not gratuitous. Besides the<br \/>\nfact that the main character must endure taunting about her ethnicity<br \/>\n(including being called a towelhead), so much of the novel&#8217;s plot is<br \/>\nfueled by the characters&#8217; attitudes toward race.<\/p>\n<p>I was not contacted by any organization or<br \/>\ngroup when my novel was released in 2005. I don&#8217;t know if this was<br \/>\nbecause no one had heard about my book, or because they didn&#8217;t feel it<br \/>\nwould have as much of an impact as a film. Having lived in a world in<br \/>\nwhich my book has existed without protest for the past three years,<br \/>\nhowever, I feel I have at least some view onto what to expect from the<br \/>\npublic in terms of a response. The bottom line is, never once have I<br \/>\nencountered anyone who didn&#8217;t understand the seriousness of the word<br \/>\n&#8220;towelhead&#8221; and all its implications.<\/p>\n<p>This is not to say that I don&#8217;t find these<br \/>\nconcerns legitimate &#8212; I absolutely do. We live in a racist society,<br \/>\none in which people continue to use ethnic slurs to delineate those who<br \/>\nare different than they are. Realistically speaking, though, these<br \/>\npeople are neither the audience for my book, nor for the film. They<br \/>\nwill continue to use whatever language they wish whether or not a movie<br \/>\ncalled &#8220;Towelhead&#8221; is released. For this reason, I am pleased that<br \/>\nWarner Bros. is standing by the title.<\/p>\n<p>Towelhead, like its many cousins &#8212; nigger,<br \/>\nspic, gook, etc. &#8212; is an ugly word. The job of the artist, however,<br \/>\nhas been, and always will be, to highlight that which is ugly in the<br \/>\nhopes of finding something beautiful. This charge, by necessity, will<br \/>\nat times put the artist at odds with admirable groups such as CAIR. The<br \/>\nsolution, it seems to me, is not to force the artist to alter his or<br \/>\nher work, but instead to use the occasion of that work as an entry<br \/>\npoint for meaningful debate and discussion.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">ALICIA ERIAN &#8212; In addition to <em>Towelhead<\/em>, Erian wrote a book of short stories called <em>The Brutal<br \/>\nLanguage of Love<\/em>. She is currently working on a memoir.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">*<\/p>\n<p>As a gay man, I know how it feels to be called hateful names simply<br \/>\nbecause of who I am. Therefore, I felt it was important to retain the<br \/>\ntitle of Alicia Erian&#8217;s novel, in which she so effectively dramatizes<br \/>\nthe pain inflicted by such language, something many people of<br \/>\nnon-minority descent never have to face. I believe one of the<br \/>\nunintended consequences of forbidding such words to be spoken is<br \/>\nimbuing those words with more power than they should ever have, and<br \/>\nhelping create the illusion that the bigotry and racism expressed by<br \/>\nsuch cruel epithets is less prevalent than it actually is, which we all<br \/>\nknow is sadly not the case.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">ALAN BALL &#8212; &#8220;Towelhead&#8221; is<br \/>\nwritten for the screen and directed by Alan Ball, Academy Award-winning<br \/>\nwriter of &#8220;American Beauty,&#8221; and creator of &#8220;Six Feet Under&#8221; and &#8220;True<br \/>\nBlood.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">*<\/p>\n<p>One of the ideas conveyed in the film is that we all make assumptions<br \/>\nabout each other, without knowing, based on racial stereotypes. It was<br \/>\nour goal in releasing &#8220;Towelhead&#8221; to help make this point.<\/p>\n<p>Some of our past releases, like &#8220;Paradise<br \/>\nNow,&#8221; were extremely controversial and elicited demands that the film<br \/>\nnot be released; &#8220;Good Night, and Good Luck.&#8221; drew criticism from some<br \/>\nas well. Warner Bros. supported the release of these films then, as<br \/>\nthey do now of &#8220;Towelhead,&#8221; as a medium to create dialogue and support<br \/>\nthe expression of ideas, as controversial or as unpopular as they may<br \/>\nbe. We apologize for any offense that is caused by this title but<br \/>\nsupport Alan Ball and Alicia Erian in this effort.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">WARNER INDEPENDENT PICTURES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night I went to an advance screening of the movie Towelhead.\u00a0 The movie is directed and adapted by Alan Ball from the novel by Alicia Erian.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It was &hellip; <\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link btn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/2008\/08\/towelhead-the-movie\/\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,8,10],"tags":[237,532,38,276,244],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","category-life-or-something-like-it","category-the-global-world","tag-america","tag-life-or-something-like-it","tag-movies","tag-racism","tag-sexuality","item-wrap"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/upload\/\/app_1_220086724709892_1567717122.gif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1444,"href":"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions\/1444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rhinoblues.com\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}