War Zone

This film brings up important issues but fails to make any interesting observations or connections. For example, there is the teenage girl who is leered at by some adults while walking in the street. It's disturbing, no doubt, but there is little commentary or significance attached to this in the film. Pedophilia, objectification of women? They're shown here, but without insight. There is also a shot of a man with his penis out at one point in the film, but it seems more for shock value than anything else. The 911 rape call is disturbing and scary, but, again, no connections are made to the objectification of women and rape.

The bulk of the film is confrontations of people who leer at or otherwise harass the filmmaker. In these episodes she asks them why they do this. Much of the time the subjects walk away or insult her, which certainly makes for nice documentary footage but does not help to illuminate the subject.

The filmmaker has good intentions and it probably will provoke some thought among its viewers, but as a film and societal study it does not delve deep enough into the issues of the objectification of women and violence against women.

I just finished watching the gritty documentary "War Zone" and feel strongly compelled to write my views. While I applaud the film's goal of educating men to the problem of a woman's perception in society, I feel that the message was drowned out in the aggressiveness and confrontational style of its filmmaker.

I wholeheartedly agree that the objectification of women is a problem in society and has/can lead to a wealth of terrible situations. However, I do not agree that the answer to this problem is the practice of stripping away the right to privacy of men AND woman in an attempt to "outshout the crowd."

Ms. Hadleigh-West certainly made a lot of noise with her denigrating, insulting style of filming, but did she do her important cause any good? For communication to be effective, the message must be delivered in such a way as to influence the recipient toward the speaker's intended viewpoint. The only thing accomplished by this film was to offend by labeling all men as "potential rapists" and damage the cause of women's rights by reinforcing the stereotype of feminists as offensive, confrontational bitches.

To put her views in perspective: In the past 15 years, my parked car has been hit in a parking lot on 2 occasions, both times by a female driver. Am I now justified in proclaiming that all women should have their driving privileges revoked? This supposition is as ludicrous as this film's slanderous premise.

Her tortured use of an actual 911 call by a rape victim only served to hype her own sense of indignation at the expense of the woman whose life was so brutally violated by the act. While she champions her claim of personal rights and privacy, she continually stripped those rights from all others involved in this film. She repeatedly thrust her camera into the faces of men, insults and degrades them, and then feels vindicated when her harassment provokes ill-tempered reactions. She actually seemed surprised that a man on the sidewalk became angry when she said she imagined he was "unemployable", "had deeply rooted problems", and asked if he were a sex offender.

Her constant attacks and blind labels of all men only prove lie to her stated purpose to educate and assist. Ms. Hadleigh-West has simply used a true societal problem to shout from the rooftops, "Look at me, I'm a woman."

This film should be shown to any boy on the cusp of manhood. The point of the film isn't to denigrate men, it's to remind them of the imbalance of the power relationship between the sexes. While I agree that Hadleigh-West occasionally seems overly sensitive, I think the film serves as a reminder that the line between flirtation and harassment is an invisible one, and the line is going to move considerably from person to person. The film was most effective when it confronted men who seemed willing to think or debate reasonably about their actions, but entertainment value is provided by some out and out male chauvinist pigs and Bible thumpers. There's even a nice old Jewish grandpa who gets the funniest moment in the film. My only major complaint is that sometimes the filmmaker settles on subjects who are clearly mentally handicapped, addicted to drugs or alcohol, or both. Powerful, unsettling, and thought provoking filmmaking.

I viewed a showing of this film and was disgusted in the manner that this so-called documentary blatantly pursued a self serving agenda of vilifying simple flirtation. Ms. Hadleigh-West seems to feel that it is perfectly proper to prance around enticingly attired, and then aggressively harass any and all individuals who attempt a simple flirtation

Granted that insulting remarks or physical harassment is indeed worthy justification for her counter harassment. However, Ms Hadleigh-West lumps simple eye flirtation and "body-scanning" in with the bad stuff and considers them harassment....puhleez!

I wonder what this pseudo "documentary" film maker thinks of the natural forms of flirtation performed in all cultures of the real world. I think she should consider getting a real job. I rate this a minus 10.

Too many educational programs about sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual violence focus solely and intensely on the perceptions and experiences of the targets of these individual and institutional forms of discrimination. In doing so they fail to address or spotlight the actual roots of sexism: male privilege and men's abuse of the resulting power they are afforded-abuse intended to maintain their privilege, power, and control over women. The lack of a critical examination of the motivations, actions, and intentions of male predators leads in many cases to a societal problemization of women: `She shouldn't have worn that short skirt'; `Why did she go to his apartment'; `She shouldn't have gotten drunk'; and the ultimate denial of male responsibility, `She brought it on herself!' War Zone, a film by Maggie Hadleigh-West, literally turns this approach to understanding sexism, harassment, and violence on its head. The filmmaker shines the spotlight, and her video camera, on men whose actions and attitudes perpetuate a social context in which women are at best objectified and at worst abused, raped, or killed by men, often with little or no consequence.

The context for War Zone is powerful in its simplicity. Hadleigh-West, equipped with a video camera, walks through four major cities (New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and New Orleans) to record the day-to-day abuse-sexualized comments, objectifying stares, uninvited physical contact, and other forms of harassment and sexism-women experience that rob them of the basic right to walk safely and comfortably in their own neighborhoods (or anywhere else). She challenges the continued institutional denial of sexism and its implications by documenting what may be its most pervasive and effective element-that even in the most public spaces, women must operate and function in a war zone.

But instead of interviewing street harassment scholars or centering her own reactions to and perspectives on her abuse, Hadleigh-West turns the camera, and the heat of the spotlight, on her abusers. The film documents her confrontations with those abusers, but focuses tightly on their reactions to the turning of the tables. Every time she experiences harassment (which runs the gamut from objectifying stares to being followed) she directly turns the camera on the perpetrator. As a result, her abusers as well as (or including) male War Zone viewers, are forced to think and reflect more critically about the ways men maintain dominance and control. More specifically, the film illustrates how men continuously cycle sexism through what many men have traditionally argued to be harmless or natural interactions.

Among all of the films related to sexism, harassment, and violence I have reviewed, War Zone, in both its form and content, stands out as the most unique, powerful, and important contribution to anti-sexist education. It elicits emotional responses from both women and men precisely because it is real, unstaged, honest and raw. It disallows the overwhelming comfort of denial by men. Meanwhile, the film demands a new urgency to establish space and validation for women to confront sexism in its most pervasive individual form, putting the onus of responsibility for change on those who benefit from its institutional form.

This film can provide an especially powerful educational experience for high school and college students, but is appropriate for anybody in their teenage years or older. Every American Studies, Women's Studies, Cultural Studies, Sociology, and Psychology program should have a copy of War Zone in its library. It will also be an invaluable resource for activists or trainers who conduct workshops on sexual harassment, sexism, sexual violence, street harassment, masculinity, male identity, male privilege, and related topics.