On Saturday, Nov. 8, Pitzer College hosted a screening of Adam Bronfman’s PO ’85 film “I Have a Name” as part of the President’s Initiative on Constructive Dialogue. The event took place during Pitzer family weekend, which meant that the room was packed with students, faculty, many visiting parents and some members of the board of Trustees.
The event took place in Pitzer’s George C.S. Benson Auditorium, where attendees snacked on hors d’oeuvres and lemonade as they waited for the documentary screening to begin. Pitzer President Strom C. Thacker introduced the film to the crowd, explaining why they’d chosen to host Bronfman’s film during family weekend.
“It invites compassion and leads to action in a Pitzer kind of way,” Thacker said.
Bronfman’s film follows photographer Jon Linton through various encounters with unhoused people as part of his “I Have a Name” charity initiative and photo series. The project was born in 2007 out of Linton’s interest in telling stories about the unhoused, which led him to begin photographing portraits of men and women living on the streets of Phoenix, Arizona.
Riding the momentum of publicity from his public charity initiative, Linton expanded his project to include a traveling outreach bus, touring through cities like Oakland and Los Angeles to donate food and resources to unhoused encampments. The film documents this journey, featuring footage of Linton giving out burgers and masks interspersed with interviews where he describes conversations he shared with people at various encampments.
In one interview clip, for example, Linton tearfully recalls talking with some unhoused children.
“As I was saying goodbye to the kids — and it was a tough goodbye — my immediate thought was, ‘I’m tired. I’m gonna go get something to eat. I’m gonna take a warm shower,’” Linton said.
As he continued to speak, Linton’s voice cracked, and he hesitated for a second.
“And then I went, ‘wow, I’m gonna go take a warm shower,” Linton said in the documentary footage. “When’s the last time they had a shower?”
The film concludes with Linton ending his bus project early, and the website explains that he found himself “at the end of his tether emotionally and physically.”
Reactions to the film were mixed. Miriam Savage, a professor of Psychology and Expressive Therapy at the California Institute of Integral Studies, attended the event as part of parents’ weekend. As a long-time advocate for unhoused people, including years of experience working with people on Skid Row in Los Angeles, Savage found Linton’s psychological experience particularly compelling.
“It was interesting to hear — not as much as I would have liked to — about therapy and psychology and self-care. The artist clearly had — I wouldn’t even call it compassion fatigue, I would call it vicarious trauma,” Savage said. “That’s a real thing … that’s what I was curious about.”
While many attendees felt the film’s content and message were important, Savage and others were left questioning the role of “vicarious trauma” in the documentary, and the creator’s perspective and positionality in general.
“I didn’t like the way that he told his story,” Nate Butler PO ’29 said. “It was from his perspective. I feel like it would have been more powerful if it had been from the perspective of somebody experiencing homelessness. But I do respect his willingness and his motivation to give.”
Butler’s comments spoke to a larger discussion at the 5Cs and private colleges in general surrounding the politics and ethics of how one gives voice to underrepresented or marginalised people.
Wealth disparity is endemic to college towns, and Claremont is no exception: The 5Cs are a bastion of economic privilege. According to a 2017 study by the “New York Times,” the median family income among Pitzer students was $216,600 — one of the highest among highly selective colleges. Meanwhile, Los Angeles County has one of the greatest homeless populations in the country.
Many of these wealthy liberal arts institutions, like Pitzer College and the consortium as a whole, emphasize values of “social justice and intercultural understanding,” and prioritize helping students develop into advocates for underserved communities. In practice, however, Pitzer has faced criticism in recent years for what one TSL opinion piece described as instances where flawed advocacy promotes “the ‘white ally’ syndrome that plagues Pitzer students.”
Savage spoke to the incongruity between the production team’s demographic and the interviewees featured in the documentary.
“At the panel there were two white men,” Savage said. “It’s not about racism so much, but about representation, and so we have to be careful about white saviorism. We have to be careful about who we are in the story.”
Savage’s comments described how she viewed the film as a way to promote Linton’s “I Have a Name” project as well as an exploration of the nature of activism — rather than a documentary about the unhoused.
“I see the film as a kind of public service announcement, advertisement for this program, which is great, ” Savage said. “It was a good story about a person who was experiencing unhoused people … I don’t think it was as much about those people.”
After the film showing, Bronfman and Linton held a Q&A about their joint project. They reflected on the filmmaking process, compassion fatigue, activism and the connection between storytelling and action. Linton spoke about how his intention in creating the film was that it would serve as a wake-up call for the privileged.
“My advice to [students who want to make a real change] would be to get off your rear end and do something,” Linton said. “My hope is that this piece of filmmaking challenges your willingness to confront the realities of the unhoused crisis, and provides a call to action here on campus.”
Still, some audience members found the film and Linton’s role in it performative.
“It felt like Mr. Beast. There were a lot of moments in the documentary of him handing things out and getting sentimental and welling up with tears about the experience that other people were having, and then him deciding to do something about it,” Butcher said. “It felt like he was creating an image for himself alongside this whole story about unhoused people … like it was kind of fitting into this savior narrative.”
As the panel concluded, the audience was left thinking about activism, art, the unhoused crisis and vicarious trauma. The ethics of street photography and making art about disempowered people have long been controversial, and to some audience members, “I Have a Name” walks a fine line between empowerment and exploitation.
“I have a strong feeling about taking people’s stories and what you do with them,” Savage said. “So, is it exploitative when you take someone’s story for your own gain and sell a book with all their portraits in it? This is a question that’s so big.”
Facebook Comments