INTERVIEWS WITH GRACE POORE
Spotlight on Incest: Challenges For Filmmaker
(A version of this interview by Nancy Schwartzman appeared in The Independent, March 2004, a monthly magazine for film and independent video makers. For back issues or more information, contact the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers, New York City at: info@aivf.org or 1-212-807-1400 ext.0.)
Nancy Schwartzman: Describe The Children We Sacrifice.
Grace Poore: It was shot in India, Sri Lanka, Canada and the US -- a 61-minute documentary that explores the universal crime of incestuous sexual abuse through the prism of South Asian experience. Difficult questions such as the role of mothers as primary interventionists are tackled with honesty and sensitivity. Men are indicted as those most responsible for the abuse without being demonized. The South Asian community is confronted for its culture of silence. At the heart of it, the video is a moving validation of women who confront different levels of shaming and secrecy around a deeply camouflaged issue. It celebrates survivors of incest who defy social pressure and make visible the ways in which families prioritize family harmony, honor and duty over accountability and pursuit of justice for victims.
The style of The Children We Sacrifice is different from my earlier work, Voices Heard Sisters Unseen which was grittier and confrontational. The Children We Sacrifice was meant for a different audience so I needed a different tone and approach because incestuous child sexual abuse is not something that South Asians want to deal with in the first place. So I chose to create a video that was visually warm and beautiful in the hope that the visuals would serve as a juxtaposition to the harshness of what was being said. That way the colors and artwork would draw people in, lull them so they would not have their guard up, making it possible for the survivor stories and statistics to sink in. I think this approach worked for the video. The colors and visual warmth are also a metaphor for the camouflage of the terrible betrayals victims are put through. It's a way to establish the hypocrisy that victims and survivors feel about living double lives, the pain they feel about having to keep up appearances when they are going through a private hell, and having to participate in the culture of silence. Also, I think that for many victims of childhood sexual abuse, the abuse as well as the isolation they experience drains color from their lives -- at the psychological level. Healing from this abuse is about returning color to one's life, to reclaim the colors. So choosing warm colors for the video was a way to celebrate those who have survived and are continually working to recover from the abuse.
NS: What propelled you to make this film?
GP: Two reasons -- first, I wanted to confront the many layers of social and cultural resistance in the South Asian community to dealing with incest. For instance, there's denial that incest happens in the South Asian community, there's denial that it occurs in educated South Asian families, there's denial that it is a widespread problem, there's denial that it causes long-term harm or that young children will remember the abuse when they become adults. These layers of denial contribute to the many layers of silencing that shroud the sexual abuse of children within their spheres of safety. Secondly, I wanted to address the gap between the number of South Asian women willing to speak out about all kinds of injustices from economic oppression to police brutality to racism to homophobia and the number of women who are silent about sexual abuse they suffered as children, including those who advocate breaking silences about domestic violence and sexual assault. They don't feel safe to talk about their own experiences of incest. So I wanted the video to provide a forum for women to share their stories -- where they could choose to be in front of the camera, off camera, in shadow, facing the camera, or with their backs turned. The point was to have South Asian women convey to a South Asian audience that the problem of incest is happening to us, within our own homes, by people we know and love and respect. And pretending that it doesn't happen allows the abusers to carry on unchecked.
NS: What kind of opposition have you encountered?
GP: There was resentment among some people who felt the documentary focused too much on the middle and upper middle class. In their opinion, incest mostly happens in rural communities and poor families. These concerns were invariably based on myth, denial and classist stereotypes.
NS: What has been the most surprising opposition?
GP: The most surprising opposition has come from South Asian fathers with young daughters. Some of these fathers assumed that the video was putting out a message that men should not touch their girl children, that all girl children will become inevitable victims of child sexual abuse. In my opinion, their perceptions were driven by panic because the video was too threatening. It challenged them as fathers, it challenged their idea of what constitutes safety and who might be an abuser. Suddenly, these fathers were faced with the reality that they might not be able to protect their children. And instead of asking, "So how can we protect them?" they preferred to reject the video and get angry with me for making them feel, helpless and therefore vulnerable. It was easier to oppose the video than to look at what changes they needed to make in order to prevent child sexual abuse within their families.
NS: What has been the most difficult?
GP: The most difficult opposition came from some of the South Asian service-providers who work with battered women. They felt that the video unfairly blames mothers who did not or could not protect their daughters from incest. I find this reaction interesting because I took great pains not to hold mothers solely responsible for failure to protect their daughters. I tried to complicate the issue of guardianship by looking at it from different points of view. But these service providers didn't even want to raise the question about mother's responsibility because they feel that battered women cannot be held accountable for actions that damage someone else. I find this position problematic because it reduces battered women to 100 percent victims incapable of acting in defense of those more powerless than them. More importantly, it negates the need to identify and remove the barriers that keep women from being interventionists.
NS: What are the unique ethnic, socio-political, and racial implications of exposing these crimes in your community?
GP: Some of the older generation South Asian immigrants living in the US were concerned about how the community would look to non-South Asians. They felt that existing negative stereotypes would worsen. They felt the documentary might be used to single out the South Asian community when incest is as prevalent and as hidden in other communities. So I added a statement at the end of the documentary that is meant to remind viewers that while this video chooses to focus on the South Asian community, incest cuts across all races and cultures. The fact that this statement was even necessary speaks to how racism adds another reason for communities of color to bury this issue and avoid dealing with family-based child sexual abuse.
NS: What are the stereotypes you have encountered?
GP: Non-South Asians tend to assume that the problem of incest is more prevalent in the South Asian community because they assume that all South Asian women and girls are readymade targets for male violence. So there is a pathologizing of the culture. Many South Asians on the other hand assume that incest is a recent phenomenon, caused by the internet and the media, when in fact children in our communities have been sexually abused long before there were movies and computers. (I also mention other stereotypes in my response to an earlier question.)
NS: What do you hope to change/accomplish by exposing this subject?
GP: Validate adult survivors who have been suffering in silence and had no one to talk to. Unravel the layers of denial and silence that keeps incest underground. Raise awareness about the long-term effects of this kind of abuse. Provide families some sense of what to be on the look out for in terms of adult-child interactions. And to validate those who have noticed inappropriate behavior or sensed that something was not right but did not feel they could voice their concerns.
NS: Have you seen any changes?
GP: Yes. South Asian women's groups in the US who are working on domestic violence are starting to expand the definition of domestic violence to include incest. Some of them are using The Children We Sacrifice documentary and resource book to do community education and organizational training to around the issue. In India, the video has been screened multiple times by different community groups, which has drawn the attention of some newspapers that have run series of articles about child sexual abuse.
NS: What kind of support would you have liked?
GP: I had the support I needed.
NS: Can you describe the issues of loyalties you discussed when making this film? I wonder if you felt you were betraying your community or betraying your family by making this film? Did anyone accuse you of that or did you at any point feel that way?
GP: I did not feel like I was betraying anyone but I did hesitate about exposing my parents to negative attention. I did not want to end up penalizing them because of what the perpetrators had done. At the same time, as an activist, I wanted to break silences about incest in the South Asian community by including my own story in the documentary. I did not know how to protect my parents and at the same time do community education. Eventually, my activist self took precedence over the protective daughter self and I chose to be on camera with my own experience.
NS: Does religion play a part in your feelings of conflict/loyalty?
GP: No.
NS: Who is your inspiration either artistically, spiritually, etc.?
GP: I am not sure how to soundbite this question. It's complicated.
Read more about The Children We Sacrifice and incestuous sexual abuse issues.
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