Colin Lloyd reviews Romper Stomper<\/p>\n
Romper Stpmper is a \ufb01lm about a gang of Nazi skins in Melbourne, Australia. The gang get their kicks, literally, by attacking Vietnamese immigrants.<\/p>\n
The \ufb01lm topped the box of\ufb01ce charts in Australia, won nine awards, and has generally been judged a vivid but \ufb02awed anti-racist \ufb01lm.<\/p>\n
Its writer and director, Geoffrey Wright, has set out to make a \ufb01lm that shocks through its uncompromising depiction of violence. According to Wright the \ufb01lm\u2019s message is that \u201cas soon as they allow themselves to be driven by the childish simpleness of race hatred, [the youth] are set upon a road to eventual ruin\u201d.<\/p>\n
The \ufb01lm uses the eye view of the fascist youth themselves to put over this message, including hand held video footage of realistically staged \ufb01ghts. With such \ufb01lms there is always a danger that they will become perverse attractions for the fascists themselves, or that impressionable youth will fail to see the anti-fascist message behind the vivid and realistic depiction of youth culture.<\/p>\n
That is why anti-fascists need to take the opportunity of Romper Stomper\u2019s release to conduct anti-fascist propaganda at the cinemas where it\u2019s on show. Anti-fascists must organise to disperse and physically crush any fascists who try to use the \ufb01lm as an organising point.<\/p>\n
The Anti-Nazi League (ANL), dominated by the Socialist Workers Party, has called for people to boycott the \ufb01lm. This response is stupid, bordering on criminal. When the \ufb01lm opened at London\u2019s Prince Charles Cinema on 26 February \ufb01lmgoers were greeted by an ANL picket chanting: \u201cRomper Stomper: Nazi Film, Get the Nazis Out!\u201d<\/p>\n
An ANL lea\ufb02et explained:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe in the ANL are concerned that this \ufb01lm will give con\ufb01dence to the Nazis. It does not condemn violence and could be seen to glorify it\u201d.<\/p>\n
The lea\ufb02et compared Romper Stomper to the 1933 pro-Hitler \ufb01lm Triumph of the Will.<\/p>\n
If Romper Stomper really was a \u201cNazi \ufb01lm\u201d then anti-fascists would not just be mounting a campaign to boycott it. They would be mounting an organised campaign of disruption to stop its distribution and showing.<\/p>\n
But Romper Stomper is not a \u201cNazi \ufb01lm\u201d. It may not be a brilliant \ufb01lm, it may take chances, but do all \ufb01lms about fascism have to be like Brechtian agitprop?<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t trust working class youth to be able to see what every unbiased reviewer has seen, that the \ufb01lm maker hates fascism, then of course you will base the anti-fascist \ufb01ght on shielding the eyes of working class youth from the atrocities fascism commits.<\/p>\n
As for the \ufb01lm failing to condemn violence\u2014hold on a minute! Anti-fascists condemn racist violence. But because we don\u2019t rely on either the police or the board of \ufb01lm censors to crush fascism we have to support and advocate anti-fascist violence. And the lives of working class youth are punctuated by violence\u2014in the home, the school, the pub, the football ground.<\/p>\n
The ANL\u2019s whole attitude says to working class youth: \u201cWe your socialist elders and betters would prefer that you did not see \ufb01lms about real life because you can\u2019t be trusted not to draw reactionary conclusions from them\u201d. And they peddle a liberal \u201canti-violence\u201d message. Working class youth will rightly scorn such a patronising and paci\ufb01st approach.<\/p>\n
Of course there are problems with this \ufb01lm: Australia might have only one cinema full of fascists but Britain has a growing and dangerous bunch. This means that fascists may try to use the \ufb01lm to organise. Anti-Fascists who take the opportunity to make serious propaganda to \ufb01lm queues will need to organise disciplined stewarding against possible fascist attack. The paci\ufb01st ANL, of course, rejects these methods, irresponsibly leaving its supporters undefended.<\/p>\n
In response serious anti-fascists have to organise regular surveillance and propaganda around this \ufb01lm, and where necessary act to physically prevent fascists organising around it. And it means ignoring the ANL\u2019s pathetic boycott campaign, and going to see the \ufb01lm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Colin Lloyd reviews Romper Stomper Romper Stpmper is a \ufb01lm about a gang of Nazi skins in Melbourne, Australia. The gang get their kicks, literally, by attacking Vietnamese immigrants. The \ufb01lm topped the box of\ufb01ce charts in Australia, won nine awards, and has generally been judged a vivid but \ufb02awed anti-racist \ufb01lm. Its writer and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7724,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[104],"class_list":["post-3968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7724"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}