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RED STATE VOICES BLOG

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Articles:

 Professor Uses Film to Build Bridge between Blue and Red
 by Jon Potter   (www.reformer.com)

Brattleboro, Oct 27, 2005 --   In the aftermath of the 2004 presidential election, Neal Weiner watched his liberal friends wring their hands and rail against the people who voted for George W. Bush.
As the pundits parsed the results, and honed in on the people who voted for Bush for moral reasons as the keys to his re-election, Weiner watched as people here trained their anger on those people – and it didn’t sit right.

“I’ve just been distressed for a long time by the way the left characterizes them,” said the Marlboro College philosophy professor and sometime filmmaker. “I listened to everything that was said about these people, and it just seemed too cartoonish, too simple.”

True to his contrarian nature and his impulses as a teacher and student of philosophy, Weiner decided to do something about it.

In February, 2005 he ventured down south and spent two weeks conducting film interviews in Richmond and Culpepper, Va., and Yanceyville, N.C., with people who said they had voted for Bush for “moral reasons.”

The result is “Red State Voices,” a 94-minute  film which lets these Bush supporters speak for themselves. It will be screened Nov. 4 and 12 at the Hooker-Dunham theater and Gallery.

“My goal is to start a dialogue between the two sides …or just to put a little gray edge to their black-and-white,” Weiner said.

The film had its debut last week in Richmond, and the results were encouraging.

“People really got involved in this thing. There was a long, complicated discussion which was almost entirely respectful,” said Weiner. “Most of the people who spoke to me said that it opened their eyes.”

Weiner hopes for some of the same after the two Brattleboro screenings.  The interviews, set up by a friend of his who lives in Richmond, certainly enlightened Weiner.

“These people are not stupid or naive. They need to be listened to … not that they’re right,” said Weiner.  “I want people up here to see that these are good and decent people, not bible-thumpers and capitalist stooges.”

Weiner emphasized that the people interviewed do not represent a scientific statistical sample.  ….  “I wanted to find out whether I could smash stereotypes,” he said.  “Many people after seeing the movie are amazed that they trusted me as much as they did. I think they want to be known. They feel misjudged.”

In all, Weiner conducted interviews with 20 subjects, nine of whom appear in the film. Some of the things these people say will provoke twinges and even outrage among liberals, some will reveal that the left is equally misunderstood, but some strike more sympathetic chords.

“Everybody is shocked by some of the things people say.  By and large people’s reactions have been much more sympathetic,” Weiner said.  The harshest thing anyone has said is, “I hated all those people, but I liked some of their ideas.”

Excerpt from Marlboro College’s Potash Hill:
Neal Weiner’s new film examines conservative points of view.

 It’s not often that a group of liberal Vermonters are able to listen receptively to a group of conservative southerners. Neal Weiner’s film, Red State Voices, makes this possible. The film features a series of interviews by Neal with several conservative Virginians, chosen, according to the filmmaker, because they voted for George W. Bush in 2004 based on moral values. “I made the film as a response to the elections when I saw what people, my friends, in Vermont were saying about the election and about conservatives.”

Designed to begin a dialogue and break stereotypes that liberals may have of conservatives, Neal says the film relieved some concerns of his own about southern conservatives. “I was scared that they would be just like liberals think they are,” says Neal. “But these people proved to be likable and intelligent.”

The conservatives interviewed—diverse in terms of race, religious background, gender and sexual orientation—presented their ideas in a way that connected with the film’s liberal audiences, says Neal. “Almost all of the audiences were liberal, even in Virginia. The conversations among audience members that took place after the film showed me that the film was enlightening and helped people to see the need for dialogue, which cannot happen without respect.”

Produced on a $1,500 budget, Red State Voices has played to sold-out theaters locally, and Neal is hoping for a wider showing. “I could use help getting this film seen outside of Brattleboro,” he says. “I would like to ask for any assistance in making this happen.”

—Meghan Chapman

More in the media to come