By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com
Talkin’ Bout a Revolution: A Conversation with ReGeneration’s Phillip Montgomery and Matt DeRoss
I meet with Montgomery and DeRoss in a cozy nook on the second floor of the W Hotel, where SIFF is headquartered. The PR team for the film stays nearby, but remains casually unobtrusive. We have plenty of time to chat, which is a good thing, because Montgomery and DeRoss have plenty to say.
Their energy and enthusiasm is palpable; at times they feel almost symbiotic, talking over each other or finishing each other’s sentences. It’s hard to feel cynical or apathetic in their presence, and I can’t help but think that these guys need to go on tour with their film, the way Al Gore did withAn Inconvenient Truth and preach their gospel of actvism to the youthful apathetic masses.
We start out by talking about how their project got started.
“At the beginning it was looking back at our parents’ generation and how they were a major part of stopping the war in Vietman, and we looked at our generation we looked our generation, and the political and social climate, people weren’t out on the street like they were in the 60s and 70s, and with Bush getting elected a second time we were like, what’s going on? Why aren’t people of our generation being more vocal? And it started as a conversation about that amongst friends,” says DeRoss.
Montgomery chimes in, “Today, there is a lot of awareness about what’s going on out there, but it’s become, let’s create a Facebook petition and sign off, not getting out on the streets. That was a major inspiration for us, because this is how we saw activism happening.”
In ReGeneration, there’s a bit where a high school student talks about how she thinks kids her age are disconnected from the world because they’re on the internet too much, and never get outside in nature. I ask how they feel about this idea … could it be that the technology that on the one hand makes the world a smaller, more accessible place paradoxically be contributing to apathy by overwhelming kids with too much information? DeRoss jumps in to answer.
“I think part of it, yes, does come from feeling it’s too much. But on the other hand much of the inundation is just an advertisting attack on our kids. When we started off making this movie, it was like, the difference between this generation and other generations is that there used to be “we” based communities, and why are we so “me” based, so self-indulgent, so celebrity infatuated?” he says.
“And it wasn’t something we understood. And then Facebook came along, and MySpace, and it’s just … a different way of growing up. People don’t go outside that much anymore. You look at the enviroment right now … if what’s going on with the environment right now was going on in the ’60s and ’70s, people would have been protesting much more.
“There are certainly people out there in the younger generation who are out there trying to do things, trying to make change, we’re not trying to say that there aren’t … But they don’t seem to be as loud, as vocal and as media driven as they should be.”
Montgomery adds, “But it’s also a question of, why is there a Tea Party movement where 200 people on Capitol Hill are getting massive amounts of press, while hundreds of thousands of people coming to Capitol Hill for a gay rights protest receives no press?” He pauses thoughtfully, opens a bottle of water the publicity guys thoughtfully brought over.
“But to get back to your question, yes, kids today are inundated. We touch on the word apathy in our film … that was me. I never once thought when I was in high school that I would ever make an impact, a difference of any sort of magnitude. I was always socially aware, politically aware of things that were happening, but it was always just beyond me. And you see that a lot. And that’s where advertising and all those other influences really beat you down, because the message is, you buy these things, consume these things, be these things, and that will be your fulfillment, not going out on the street, not doing anything, because that’s too difficult.”
I ask about how this ties in with what philosopher and historian Noam Chomsky says in the film, about “one television, one person” being a means of societal control without force.
“Democracy now has become our daily news,” says DeRoss. “There’s many of those outlets, but even the left side of it — even MSNBC — have become so aggressive in the way they present themselves that it’s not unbiased.”
Montgomery, leaning forward intently, jumps into the fray. “The question for MSNBC is, would they do a story on the industrial military complex, given that their owners, GE, make missiles? And Fox? Fox is not news, it’s a sensation opinion column. And now MSNBC is turning into that as well. Because it’s all become about ratings. They are there to sell you things.”
We segue from this into chatting about the Obama campaign, for which both Montgomery and DeRoss worked. The energy they felt during the campaign, the sense that people had come together, united for this common cause, ready to change the world, they tell me, clashed hard with the post-election reality of apathy returning to the masses.
“We were both very active during the campaign. We were on Obama’s side very early. We both canvassed all over Tallahassee — one of the areas involved in the recount during the previous election — I was involved in the recount, and that was a very demoralizing time, we were a laughingstock,” DeRoss says, shaking his head. “So we canvassed for Obama in that area during his campaign, and it was a difficult region.
“But there was a period of time in the campaign there from October through about when he got inaugurated where it felt like the Left finally found its voice. Not Democrat, not Republican, but progressive, humanity-based, we have to help each other to survive, and that time was very inspiring. I woke up every day feeling like I was a part of something.”
I mention that during that time, it felt like people were uniting on behalf of the “we” instead of the “me,” which is also a theme that’s threaded throughout their film.
“Yes, exactly,” DeRoss says. “And we’d felt about the previous five years working on this movie and suddenly it felt like, this is real. And as his presidency went on, we felt as if we … watched as the younger generation gradually went back to their armchairs, went back to Facebook. They’d done their job, they’d elected an African-American president, it’s on him now to make change. Our work is done. But since then, who has been the leader in the voice of the media? The Tea Party. And Fox News. Because we went to bed.”
We talk about insularity then, about how DeRoss feels the South and Midwest, in particular, are places where kids grow up being indoctrinated. “Our society is this closed box that feels threatened if you step outside that box. It’s very insular. You get into situations of class, religious, racial disparities. I mean, how long ago was slavery? Not that long. And people look at the South and it’s incredibly segregated, still to this day.
“The night of the election, Obama won, we were incredibly excited, we went to celebrate at the college bar where I used to go a lot. And there was this group of white frat boys punching cement walls, saying, ‘the white race is over,’ saying the ‘N’ word over and over and over. Racism is alive and well, and we see that with the Tea Party movement. If you look at the healthcare debate, those people are actually fighting what’s good for them! The indoctrination is so deep-seated, that all we do is listen to a talking head.”
I ask them to bring that around for me, and tie in what they’re talking about with how they see popular culture influencing apathy among youth today.
“One of the basic tenents of our film is the lack of critical thinking today. To watch a Bill O’Reilly talking point, to absorb it, doesn’t require education or critical thinking. Why are people like yourself choosing to homeschool your kids — not for religious reasons, but for educational reasons, right?” says Montgomery.
DeRoss interrupts, “But taking that a step further, it’s in the text books. Howard Zinn spoke very loudly across the globe for decades about this. But look at what happened in Texas — they took Thomas Jefferson out of textbooks! That’s not a joke. And one of the first people to talk to Bush after 9/11 was McGraw-Hill, one of the largest textbook manufacturers –”
“– And the next thing you know, No Child Left Behind was being pushed through. Indoctrination, a specific textbook outline of indoctrination,” Montgomery finishes.
I am mesmerized by their seamless flow of thought, but education and indoctrination is a part of the puzzle they present in their film, so I jump in: “But the public education system in general is a part of that propaganda pushing, a part of that indoctrination process, isn’t it? They aren’t teaching critical thinking, they’re teaching how to pass standardized tests, which are themselves based on that very indoctrination you’re talking about.”
“Well, right. Because the education system is tied directly to the political system and to the military industrial complex,” says DeRoss, sounding, for a moment, almost … cynical. “We as a people, we’re never going to change as a society if we think one or two or three elected officials are going to be that change. We need to vote, we need to participate in that conversation, but if we’re not outside calling them out, they are never going to be what they promised us in the election. And that’s a fact.”
We’ve run way over our alloted time already, and I know they have an event to go to for their film shortly, but I want to get into the distribution angle before we close, so I ask how they plan to get the film out there to the high school kids they’re targeting. DeRoss, not unexpectedly, has thought about this.
“What we really want to do is find a distributor who understands how to get this movie out there in front of as many kids as possible. Because I think when they see it, kids will be inspired, teachers will be inspired, parents will be inspired.”
Well, sure. But how will they be able to even get the film shown in more conservative areas, given its rather liberal slant? How will they reach those kids who, they feel, need to hear its message the most? They ponder this for a moment.
“Well, you’re right, my old high school would probably never play this,” DeRoss admits. “But it’s about finding the right distributor to get it out there. It took a long time to make this movie, we worked very hard to make it non-political. It’s progressive, yes, but it’s not strictly Democratic or Republican, it’s apolitical. We don’t want this film to be just preaching to the choir.” He pauses, considers some more, then adds, “I’m sure there will be controversy if we’re allowed to present this film, to put it out there. But we’re okay with that.”
So even if all you accomplish from showing this film to a given group of students, I ask, is to get them talking and engaging on conversation, is that enough? Do you feel that’s accomplished at least part of the goal of making the film?
“It changed our lives, making this movie,” DeRoss says.
“We made it hoping to spark and inspire a conversation. That’s the point of this movie. And if we can do that, whether they’re for the movie or against it, if they’re talking, that leads to personal reflection, and if there’s personal reflection, then that reaction becomes change. And we hope that it goes in the regenerative direction.”
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