Inessentials

There’s been a spoiler-disclaimer backlash happening among television critics. You can read a nicely condensed argument at Monkey See. The even-shorter version of the argument: In TV journalism, “spoilers” applies only to reveals about unaired television episodes. If you time-delay on your DVR or if you are just now finishing season one of Mad Men, it is your responsibility to avoid discussions of what happens later. Journalists and critics can help by not spoiling things in the title of a post or article, but use your common sense: don’t read ahead. And if an article references an old occurrence from a different show, that’s not spoiling.

I am very sympathetic to nearly all of these points. But it’s not the policy I’m following here. Whenever possible, I’ll alert a reader to the television shows and films being discussed by placing a big, bold statement at the beginning of that piece. Even if it means, as it did in the last post, that I’m discussing only the first 30 minutes of the film Wendy and Lucy. Why would I be so hypersensitive? Because I am going to reveal information about a film that I want people to see and discuss, and by informing them of how much of the film I am discussing, they can decide for themselves whether to read on based on how much of the film I will be discussing. It’s just one of the many services I helpfully provide.

By informing the reader of which films or shows I will be discussing, and how mild or strong I consider the spoiler to be, the reader can make a more informed choice about whether to read on. That’s not always possible. If I do an end-of-the-decade discussion like the AV Club’s Best TV Series of the Decade or, more significantly, Best TV Episodes of the Decade, it will be impossible to avoid all spoilers. (Heck, it’s a list spoiler if you see the picture at the top of the latter article and know that shows on the latter list aren’t on the former list. Oh, well.) I’ll try in that case to keep them mild (e.g., talking about “romantic developments” instead of “getting married”), but remember that you proceed at your own risk, even as I try to help avoid big spoilers.

Spoilers for the first 30 minutes of Wendy and Lucy

Wendy and Lucy, a very small and moving film about a woman working her way across country to a job in Alaska but is delayed in a small town in Oregon, is so careful in its study of a person at the edge of society that in its brief 82 minutes it reveals a great deal about individuals and the way they understand and interact with society.

Although there is a lot to consider in this film, one scene struck me particularly. In this scene, Wendy has been caught shoplifting dog food for her dog Lucy. An eager teenage stock boy grabs her arm roughly and leads her into a back office where a manager sits. At first, Wendy denies that she took anything. When the young stock clerk pulls her purse from her and pulls out the cans of dog food, she begins to scramble reasons for why she did it and why she’ll never do it again. The teenage stock boy goads the manager into calling the cops. “It’s store policy.” “You have to treat everyone the same.” “If she can’t afford a dog, she shouldn’t have one.” Having grown attached to Wendy over the early scenes, these words sound snide, almost hateful.

What director Kelly Reichardt and writer Jonathan Raymond have done is to provide a nicely encapsulated feminist critique of rule-bound ethical systems. While not clearly endorsing any particular ethic of care or explicitly acknowledging any link to the pioneering work of Carol Gilligan, the film presents instead a simple moment in which the viewer hears words that he or she has probably spoken at some point, words that sound very right when spoken in generalized form, but that seem very, very wrong when we see the consequences they have for Wendy (and for Lucy). By placing these generalized ethical rules in the mouth of a teenage boy, it further emphasizes that these sorts of rules are adolescent, limited, and we need to move on from them toward a system that allows us to treat Wendy with the care that the film recognizes she deserves.

That’s a very thoughtful moment in a film that addresses homelessness, social blindness, charity, friendship, and more in a very sophisticated yet never preachy way.