10/20/06: War Zone (1998)We started the week with goofing on Leftist tripe, which always feels like shooting liberals in a barrel—or a fishbowl, or a cocoon, or a newsroom. Let’s end the week with an honestly appealing Leftist documentary. Besides, it’ll make us look classy before we spend the rest of the month writing about horror movies.
War Zone came out during the same summer that gave us
There’s Something About Mary and the Clinton sex/perjury scandal. The film still managed to break some new ground in shameless behavior. This humble production follows Maggie Hadleigh-West as she dresses comfortably and looks for catcalls on the street of American cities.
Most critics reluctantly acknowledged
War Zone’s most tragic flaw—the film essentially mirrors the downfall of feminism. Hadleigh-West begins with the noble idea of confronting blatant harassment. Unfortunately, she finds that getting harassed is more difficult than she thought. This reduces her to approaching men and saying things like, “I noticed you looking at my breasts…”
The entire film is undermined. You see Hadleigh-West chasing a guy up an escalator, but we don’t know if he harassed her or just looked at her. You know, the same way anyone would look at a gal being followed by a camera crew.
Hadleigh-West acts like a jerk, but she’s admirable in choosing her targets. We’ve spent untold hours strolling around Manhattan, and it seems that most gals there are harassed by lower-class black and Latinos. Our own gross generalization has white executives making up 20 percent of the offenders. Let’s also note that ladies tell us the executive crackers usually settle for whispering their sexist remarks (which, frankly, seems more hateful).
War Zone dares to reflect our rough estimates. Hadleigh-West isn’t afraid to stick her accusatory microphone in the faces of scary and drunken creeps of all races. The film doesn’t tolerate cultural differences, either. (“You were born in this country,” Hadleigh-West admonishes one black guy.) The white males all look like they’re harassing women because they needed something to do while Phish wasn’t touring.
It’s kind of a shame that Hadleigh-West stays in urban surroundings. Maybe some good Leftist film critics would note how that skews the documentary. A lot of critics probably did.
War Zone doesn’t really interest us for what it says about demographics. We just like seeing a Leftist documentary that looks like the real world. Also, it ends with a disturbing 911 call from a woman who didn’t have a gun in the house.
Make it your own: Good luck on this one. We can’t find copies for sale in any format. Maybe it’s being suppressed. Anyway, keep an eye out for the film—but don’t stare at Maggie Hadleigh-West’s breasts.
