An American Pastoral
(USA/France 120 min.)
Dir. Auberi Edler
Program: Tipping Point
Holding up an old copy of the play A Streetcar Named Desire, a teacher in small-town Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania points out to his students why that particular version has been banned. Apparently, a parent was uncomfortable that their child had to read the play, which featured a shirtless Marlon Brando on the cover. It was simply too sexually charged and inappropriate for their child’s eyes.
As comical as it might seem that a young Brando could still cause such a stir 72 years after he starred in the 1951 film adaptation, which the book jacket was based on, the incident is indicative of a greater movement taking over the region and America as a whole. While that play was not removed from schools outright, they simply replaced it with an imageless cover. But many works of literature are being pulled from school shelves. In the brilliant observational documentary An American Pastoral, director Auberi Edler examines how schools have become the new battle grounds in the fight for civil liberties.
A perfect microcosm of America’s current shift towards conservative extremism, Elizabethtown is a heavily Republican area that finds itself on the cusp of dangerous change. Focusing on the upcoming school board elections, Edler’s film follows candidates who represent the Democrats and Republicans parties, the latter split between centrists and far-right conservatism, as they vie for a seat on the 10-person board. Already featuring two far-right board members who are actively ushering in white supremacist ideology under the guise of Christian nationalism, they only need a few more individuals to give them majority control.
Campaigning on the promise to ban books that contain “any sexual content,” their quest to protect children and Christian family values is far more sweeping than they are leading others to believe. At the heart of it is a thirst for power. One where the far-right board members have the ability to set the rules for others, even if they don’t adhere to them themselves. It is why one of the members can preach about keeping children safe and pure one minute, and then attend a women’s gun safety group, where she has no issues watching a video of a six-year-old boy practising shooting on a supervised course, the next.
In one revealing moment, two of the existing board members talk about being part of the January 6th insurrection as both a fight against corruption–they believe Trump won the 2020 elections–and a religious opportunity to honour God’s will.
By being a silent observer to it all, Edler’s documentary allows the individuals attempting to control the board and ban books expose the hypocrisy of the Christian nationalism movement in their own words. It is telling that even the centrist Republicans are fearful of what might happen if their more extremists’ peers get into power.
In capturing how easily civil liberties can be erased in real-time, An American Pastoral effectively hits home just how much people have been radicalized since the pandemic. When one individual remarks “it’s so wild that our minds focus on this now. It’s like Covid just changed everything,” it is equally as disturbing as the misinformation he and his fellow book banning colleagues spread. While Edler’s documentary shows that dark clouds are descending across the American landscape at a rapid rate, she does present slivers of light still fighting to break through.
Shifting through the anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and fears of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, Edler’s film notes that there are still those who refuse to go gently into the oppressive night. Whether it is groups like the Freedom Readers Book Club, which include members who can personally attest to how reading a book like To Kill a Mockingbird prepared them for witnessing racial inequality in the South firsthand; candidates trying to change mind one house at a time; or local teachers trying to navigate a system that is stacked increasingly against them, there are people who still want the education system to continue to push America forward not backwards.
A riveting and chilling look at how democracy is often first eroded on a local level, and then national level, An American Pastoral is a reminder of a culture war that is hurting those who need education the most.
