December 19, 2015 - 12:54
i will here start this paper with most of the notes i took when viewing the mini-documentary Released: 5 Short Videos about Women and Prison.
A Gram O’ Pussy
“Incarceration does not rehabilitate women. Prison creates resentment, violence, illness, and recidivism.”
sex work as gendered concept, argument of empowering vs depowering probably relevant here but honestly fuck swefs
HIV+ women talked about less but i think that’s something to bring up… silences even within the documentary itself
ruiz was incarcerated again after being showed on ABC
The video clip her re-represents her as an artist and activist while using the original TV expose
using depowering representation and reclaiming it
Unyielding Conditioning
opens with the text, “I am your daughter, your sister, your mother. When you look into their eyes, know you see me.” This is not accompanied by any voice, nor is it attributed to anyone. The text is then distorted in various ways, focusing on certain parts of quotation.
Claudia Timman
“there were always drugs in the institution, which brought along a certain amount of violence.”
“as sick as it is, there’s a certain amount of status… you do a certain amount of time for a certain crime, it becomes part of your identity.
abandoning her children; motherhood and gender, drugs and incarceration // the importance of putting emphasis on this..?
Tracy Mostovoy
“the institution set up a lot of segregation themselves so that the women don’t gain too much power as a community”
“above all, when you’re inside, you can show no fear.”
her fears relate to her drug addiction, which she claims was in fact worse than her incarceration.
Breathe
“The inside and outside of prison are not strictly confined. The quiet and personal realities of incarceration can only be locked out of sight for so long.”
The music is not jazzy here. It is eerie, and includes a heartbeat in the background. Is that silence?
The images are almost stop-motion-esque, animated but not in full detail.
We see a woman, her eyes almost clear. She stands in a vast field, where there is a leafless tree. Leaves pass her by overhead.
She wakes in a prison bed.
In the prison, she is surrounded by countless others, voices indistinct (another kind of silence?). They all look almost zombie-like, but we are shown most of their faces, unlike the guards.
While outside, the woman again sees leaves, much like in her earlier dream, and the earlier chatter goes quiet under the wind. There is a laugh.
This seems to operate as a space within of the documentary to think, to reflect on what we’re seeing, to breathe while watching the power of a breath. Seems extremely similar to Claudia Rankine's use of art in Citizen.
Making the Invisible Invincible: Cheryl Dunye’s Stranger Inside
“How do you paint a picture of long silenced voices? What songs can focus eyes that refuse to see? When we dare to cross barriers through collective effort, new images and energy arise.” This text is played without any voice.
“How do you tell a story if it’s not completely yours?”
“invisible women”, “who are the women who’s stories go untold?” “no women are more invisible than the women behind prison walls”
workshopped piece to incarcerated women, who “filled in the details”; “this is their story, not mine”
“what is a girl to do when she knows that her mom is in prison and has to connect motherhood with incarceration?” “mothering is connected with prison, prison equals mothering, and mothering equals love — and so, prison becomes a place of love”
“they are mothers, daughters, and granddaughters” — do they have to be established as these in order to matter?
“who’s going to give ourselves a voice but us?”
this documentary does not show any actual incarceration. the closest we get is within the short animation breathe, where walls and guards are briefly depicted. but in this brevity, in the focus on the lives outside of incarceration, there is a way that so much is not told to us in this documentary. so much is still kept private. the specificity of traumas are still kept silent while these women open up in their own ways. the control of their stories provides power. these women have been given the power to choose the images of them that are portrayed, a power that so few women are granted - especially incarcerated women. this depiction and control gives them a voice and a power to control some of the ways that their voice is taken in by the viewer.
women are systematically silenced as it is, and to add incarceration into such a mix, complicates, complexifies, and maybe amplifies trauma. the trauma that is depicted in this documentary are hinted - such as timman's description of "abandoning" her children. her incarceration traumatizes her in a specific way due to her gender… or at least gender roles.
what does this mean for generational trauma?
i found myself thinking of balaev; i thought about her piece "trends in literary trauma theory" a great deal of the semester (partly, i think, because it gave me such a run around and i’m probably going to be revisiting it after this semester o).
in western/colonize[d/r] society places the onus of the family unit's existence and functioning on women. because generational trauma is generally family-based, and balaev talks a great deal about generational trauma, i wanted to see what connections i could draw.
“the theory of intergenerational trauma limits the meaning of trauma in literature because it conflates the between personal loss actually experienced by an individual and a historical absence found in one’s ancestral lineage. personal loss can be understood as the lived experience of a traumatic event by an individual. historical absence can be understood as a historically documented loss that was experienced by a person’s ancestors. … the theory of intergenerational trauma conflates loss and absence and collapses boundaries between the individual and group, thereby suggesting that a person’s contemporary identity can be “vicariously traumatized” by reading about a historical narrative or due to a shared genealogy that affords the ability to righteously claim the social label of “victim” as part of personal or public identity.”
it would seem that, in balaev’s view, generational trauma largely doesn’t exist, or perhaps does not exist in the way that many might conceptualize it. for example, i myself think that (inter)generational trauma exists in such a multiplicity that it cannot be de-/trans- scribed… in much the same way that (as i think we concluded via anne’s class) silence operates.
for example -- what of timman’s children? would they agree with balaev’s assertion that trauma isn’t generational – that the trauma of their mother being incarcerated doesn’t affect them and their subsequent children?
we can also examine a more fictional/’literary’ take from the documentary – since largely balaev’s piece focuses on literary depiction; breathe does not articulate generational trauma such as with timman’s experiences, but i would argue it has the potential to expand the concept of generational trauma. in the animation, there are several depictions of incarcerated masses who i assume are at least primarily women. while women who are incarcerated may not “directly” experience and/or witness physical violence within the prison system, many women are still traumatized by the very experience of being present in a space of such violences performed by the state. is this not generational trauma? is this not generational in the sense that it is simultaneously gendered, racialized, and experienced by the same culture and community that the pic creates but also tries to pull apart (mentioned by mostovoy, with regards to community; also cheryl dunye’s stranger inside piece on whose stories go untold, which could contribute to this expanded view).
also is video a pedagogical form unto itself in a different way than articles (like balaev's)? archiving, brevity, entertainment, visibility as voice... also articulation exists in a different way, perhaps that is more accessible than dense pieces like balaev's, though video isn't as accessible for those with visual impairments.
i also had some other stray thoughts i had that i still want to voice, though i'm not sure that they relate to balaev --
i want call attention also to the intended audience of this documentary, as the audience is also who allows these voices to be heard. i would imagine a documentary of this kind is made only to be shown in certain settings, given its artistic value but also the discussion it brings and its format. perhaps to artists, but more likely incarcerated individuals (current or former) and college communities (students, profs, etc.). to an extent, i wonder if these are pretty much the only people who care. there are very few settings for radical leftist discussion. there are also some conferences (though only that i know through hearsay, like the one that anne and jody recently attended), but i am unable to imagine other spaces. even in non-traditional spaces for discussions, such as the socrates cafe that we attended earlier in the semester, do not allow for these issues without similar backgrounds.
this is also an issue with giving voice to prison issues; prisons function in a way that is completely separate from “the outside”, from society and its citizens.