Faucheaux -Human Trafficking

Though often overlooked, there are many forms of slavery still current in the world today. A majority of the films made about modern day slavery focus on the trafficking and enslavement of women for the sex trade. Sex trafficking is viewed as more scandalous and attention grabbing than issues such as migrant workers. 

The film, Human Trafficking explores the extensive international network of the sex trafficking industry. The movie revolves around four intersecting character story lines. A sixteen-year-old girl from the Ukraine named Nadia  thought she was getting her big break as an international supermodel and left for New York without the permission of her protective father. Helena was a single mother from Russia who was under the impression that she was dating her abductor, she left for a weekend getaway and never came home to her little Ivanka. Twelve-year-old American tourist, Annie Gray, is abducted in Manila, Philippines while shopping with her mother. Kate Morozov is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent with emotional involvement in the issue of sex trafficking, she struggles to expose the worldwide network that has enslaved these girls. 

Most of the young women that are abducted into sex trafficking are international, however the greatest market for this heinous industry is the United States. According to the film, even the “business” that takes place in other countries is to the advantage of American “customers”.

The U.S. Department of State released a Trafficking in Humans Report in 2007 which stated that "Sex trafficking would not exist without the demand for commercial sex flourishing around the world. The U.S. Government adopted a strong position against prostitution in a December 2002 policy decision, which states that prostitution is inherently harmful and dehumanizing and fuels trafficking in persons. Prostitution and related activities—including pimping and patronizing or maintaining brothels—encourage the growth of modern-day slavery by providing a façade behind which traffickers for sexual exploitation operate. Where prostitution is tolerated, there is a greater demand for human trafficking victims and nearly always an increase in the number of women and children trafficked into commercial sex slavery. Few women seek out or choose to be in prostitution, and most are desperate to leave it. A 2003 scientific study in the Journal of Trauma Practice found that 89 percent of women in prostitution want to escape prostitution but had no other options for survival." 

Faucheaux -District 9

District 9, a Neill Blomkamp film, tells the story of a prawn-like alien race which has inhabited a militarized refugee camp in Johannesburg, South Africa for nearly 30 years. Now in the year 2010, The Multi-National United corporation is to evict the population. Field operative named Wikus Van Der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is in charge of relocating 1.8 million aliens to a new camp, District 10. Wikus serves an eviction notice to Christopher the prawn and searches his shack, he is squirted with a black chemical that has taken Christopher twenty years to make. Christopher is very knowledgeable about alien technology. After being taken to the hospital and being harvested for biological testing, Wikus escapes from the MNU and finds refuge in District 9 with Christopher and his son. Throughout the film, the side effects of the chemical grow more and more and at the end of the movie, it is insinuated that Wikus is now an alien. 

I believe that the political focus of District 9 is mainly racism and exploitation. The aliens wanted to return to their homes but are exploited by our governments for their highly advanced biological weaponry and forced to live in slums. 

Wikus’ story reminds me of Saint Paul of Tarsus. Saul was a persecutor of Christians until he was knocked off of his donkey one day and became blinded. He said Jesus spoke to him and after that was converted to a Christian himself. Wikus begins as a “persecutor” of the aliens, someone with authority over them. Throughout the film he transitions from an authority figure to just another prawn. 

The film opens and closes with series of interviews and news broadcasts which providing human opinions on the events surrounding the aliens. I think that the interviews are an important part of the film because they make the situations seem realistic.

Faucheaux -Ides of March

In The Ides Of March, our main character, Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) is a deputy campaign manager for Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney) who is sitting pretty for the Presidency in the midst of the Ohio primary campaign. Stephen is a fresh face in the business of politics, he is idealistic, somewhat naive, and extremely good at his job. So good in fact, that the opposing candidate's campaign manager, Tom (Paul Giamatti) asks to meet with Stephen and offers him a job on his staff. Stephen neglects to tell his boss, Paul (Philip Seymour Hoffman) about the meeting until it is too late. Paul leaks the info about the meeting to Ida, a journalist for the New York Times, who tries to blackmail Stephen for a quote on the story. Stephen also uncovers a dirty little secret of the Governor’s that could sink his political career; he cheated on his wife by sleeping with an intern named Molly. Molly (Evan Rachel Wood), who was sleeping with Stephen as well, was pregnant with Morris’ child, had an abortion funded by Stephen, and committed suicide for fear of the story getting out. Stephen plans to use this information to sabotage Morris’ campaign after he is fired for being untrustworthy, but he cannot get a job working for the opposing candidate now. So Stephen resolves to blackmail Morris using this information, getting Morris to fire Paul and hire him as the new head campaign manager.

The Ides of March shows a great deal about the media’s influence on politics. I believe that this was the main political focus of the film. Towards the beginning of the movie, Stephen and Paul meet with Ida Horowicz. She is the journalist who represents the main media struggle in the film. When Ida threatens to throw Stephen’s “traitor” story on the front page of the Times, he says to her in his childlike hurt, “I thought you were my friend.” She replies callously that they are not friends, it’s all business and politics. 

The movie closes with Ida coming after Steve for a story again, “Hey Steve. I'm still your friend, right?” Stephen replies “You're my best friend, Ida.”

The film illustrates the well known notion that politics is an ugly business and no politician is the perfect saint they pretend to be. Even the “good guys” like Morris. I find it humorous that Stephen accuses Molly of being naive, he implies that she is too sweet to play in the “big leagues” if she thinks it’s okay to make a mistake as big as she has. Stephen too has his weak moments and is quite naive as he is so shocked to find out that his perfect Mr. President is only human after all. He convicts Morris of committing the greatest sin in the history of politics; sleeping with the intern. Nice to meet you Mr. Clinton.

Faucheaux -Restrepo

Nobody can win a war in Afghanistan, 
they just get tired and leave . 
Is that the message of the Oscar nominated documentary Restrepo? When the film ends, the fighting is still going on even though soldiers we’ve met get to come back home. Maybe our good intentions will never amount to a good outcome?

That could very well be one of the many underlying points that I believe this movie illustrates. The ambiguities of this film and the obscurity of its intended message can leave the viewer wondering exactly what they’ve just been told, and perhaps even confused about their own opinion of the United States’ war in Afghanistan. What the viewer does get, is a powerful movie that allows you to experience the life of a soldier in combat from a front row seat. We watch these men form a family, we see how they handle life in a foreign country amongst enemies and how they cope with the grief of losing a brother in the clutches of war. This emotional aspect of the film allows us to sympathize with the soldiers, to picture them as our brothers, uncles and friends that may be in their shoes. But there is still a doubt of why they are there, whether or not they should even be there. These young men were only boys when they boarded the plane that would take them to war. At the rate we’re going, people who weren’t even born when 9/11 occurred could be fighting this war.

One thing shown in the film that really vexed me was the way that the elders and the allies of the Korengal Valley were dealt with by some of the American soldiers. In one of his earliest interviews, Captain Dan Kearney tells us that he did absolutely no research on Korengal Valley because he wanted to go in there with an open mind, all he knew was that it was considered one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan. Throughout the course of the movie, he met often with the elders of the valley. His lack of knowledge of the history, the culture, and the language of the valley aided him none in his attempt to communicate and neither did his demeanor. His ignorance came off as arrogance, his arrogance came off as chauvinism, and he threw around more than a few “F” words. I don’t know about you, but I would consider this an inappropriate time to cuss. Because the people you’re speaking to don’t know the language, its all right to represent the United States that way? No disrespect to the captain, I am positive that he only did what he thought was best at the time and most likely did not realize that he was coming off as an inexperienced and callous man. The bottom line is, whoever was in the position which requires speaking to the locals and having meetings with the elders should have been trained as a diplomat and definitely should have learned the language.

Faucheaux -Extraordinary Rendition

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, and insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity...will attempt to torture information out of any possible threat to the United States of America?

Rendition, a film directed by Gavin Hood, shows the political and the emotional aspects of torturing “enemies” of the United States. Following a suicide bombing (in an unnamed country) in which an American CIA agent is killed, Egyptian chemical engineer named Anwar El-Ibrahimi is seized by the CIA (in an American airport wile he is on his way home to his American wife and son). His wife investigates his whereabouts as he is subjected to torture and interrogation for being suspected of assisting a terrorist. Douglas Freeman is a CIA analyst who must take over the duties of the killed American, which include overseeing the torture of El-Ibrahimi.

I am against the use of torture to gain information from suspected terrorists. Torture is ethically and constitutionally wrong, obviously I am not the only person who has this belief or torturing wouldn’t be outsourced from the United States and would not be done in such a secretive manner.
I believe that torture has proved to be ineffective in comparison to other forms of obtaining information. When information is gained from torturing, there’s no guarantee that the information will be useful, or even legitimate.
When a person’s mind and body are under that much stress, guilty or innocent, they will say whatever they think you want to hear just to get some respite. In the film, El-Ibrahimi flat out asks Douglas Freeman what the interrogators want to hear, “Tell me what to say and I'll say it.”


When Anwar reaches his breaking point, he makes up a confession on the spot. At this point he has presumed that he will never make it out of the situation alive and confesses to crimes he didn’t commit just so he can be left alone. When asked for the names of his cooperators, he lists the first realistic sounding names that come to mind (the names of Egyptian Soccer players) and claims that he aided the terrorists for a payment of 40 grand (bear in mind, he is a chemical engineer who makes 200 thousand a year). “Why would somebody who makes $200,000 a year risk his life and his family for $40,000?”

There has been controversy over the classification of water boarding as a torture method. The argument was made that it is not torture because the physical and mental suffering produced by this method of forced cooperation was not severe enough. To me, water boarding is torture. “Torture” is defined as inflicting pain or anxiety on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain. In water boarding, water is poured over the covered face of a restrained captive, causing the sensation of drowning. Because the person cannot actually drown this way, it shouldn’t be considered torture? Call me crazy, but at the very least, water boarding is psychological torture.

I felt dehumanized just watching the torture scenes in this movie from the safety of my cushioned seat. I can’t even begin to imagine the effect that torture has on the people involved.

Faucheaux -Social Networking

The Social Network explains in great detail the series of events surrounding the development of Facebook. Our main character, the boy genius  called Mark Zuckerberg (apparently played with spot on accuracy by Jesse Eisenberg), is a socially handicapped Harvard undergraduate who is ironically obsessed with social status.

Much of the story is told through the two law suits that are made against Mark. One is his former best friend, Eduardo Saverin, after Mark deceitfully cheated him out of the company. The other is made by the Winklevoss twins who claim that Mark stole their idea after they approached him about creating a social website especially for Harvard. 

I believe that, though subtle, there is a political agenda regarding corporations, business ethics, and privacy.

Obviously, “social networking” has become a HUGE thing. There are countless websites geared toward social interaction and many sites that existed before the craze have now added a feature that allows you to communicate with your online friends or share information with them. These networks have become a part of life (especially but not specifically for the younger generation) that are in some ways unimaginable to live without. For many, these sites are their main source of interaction with other people. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google Plus... the list goes on and on.

Faucheaux -Movie Presidents

Michael Douglass, Harrison Ford, Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, Jack Lemmon, Bill Pullman; all these men have played fictional United States presidents. The presidential characters they’ve portrayed fit a relatively consistent description. I’ll call this profile “The Movie President”. 

“The Movie President” is is a man (or Geena Davis) who is eloquent and educated. He is a father figure, usually a family man, and attractive. I mean, who wants the leader of the free world to be an uggo? And obviously Movie President is wonderful with connecting to the American people, is “honest” and has wonderful leadership skills. “Movie President” is a man of the people. 

The West Wing’s President Jed Bartlett, played by Martin Sheen, is another fictional president who fits this profile precisely. In The West Wing pilot episode, we only meet the president in the last few minutes of the show. However, it is apparent that he is a perfect Movie President. He shows no political stand. Instead it seems that he rules with an ethical backbone. It is mentioned earlier in the show that President Jed belongs to the Democratic party, but that this does not stop him “from fulfilling his role as a moral leader.” He is a husband who speaks of his wife kindly, a protective grandpa, and he is unpretentious.

While I agree that these movie characters would make good presidents, this is just not reality. 

In the 21st century, politicians are “career politicians.” Their decisions are usually not made based on the wellbeing of the common people, but instead on how to steal another term. The promises they keep are usually not those made to the voters during election campaigns, but instead the promises made to endorsers and people with the funds to get them elected. People do not lead according to morals and ethics but according to political affiliation and nonsense parties.

I believe that it is possible for present day presidents to make good on their promises to the people (if their promises are realistic and not propaganda) and to be a humanly, successful president. But it will take individuals who are willing to go against the grain.