Along with her duties as California’s first partner in a time of seemingly endless crises, Jennifer Siebel Newsom also makes socially conscious documentaries via her nonprofit organization,the Representation Project.
Her latest directing effort, “The Great American Lie,” which starts streaming Friday, Oct. 2, is a kaleidoscopic look at economic inequality and its complex negative effects on the Bay Area and the nation.
Though its scope is massive, the film highlights five individuals: Ruby De Tie, at the time of filming the principal of Oakland’s FrickImpact Academy; restaurant workers advocateSaru Jayaraman, The Chronicle’s2019 Visionary of the Year; Oakland criminal justice reform advocate Zach Norris; Scott Seitz, an Ohio steelworker who has seen his community and his own finances ravaged by plant closures; and Sharon Galicia, a staunch Louisiana Republican whose ideas about personal responsibility are challenged by exposure to systemic inequality.
Calling from Sacramento, where she lives with her husband, Gov. Gavin Newsom, and their four young children, Marin-raised Stanford graduate Siebel Newsom sounded cheerfully upbeat about her home region, despite the difficulties it’s facing.
“The Bay Area rocks!” she told The Chronicle. “There are just so many incredible thinkers and minds and thought leaders. There’s such a beautiful commitment to the environment and equality and opportunity. I’m grateful that I was born and raised predominantly in the Bay Area. It will always be home, and we’ll always have a deep connection to it.”
The struggle, however, continues.
Q: How does “The Great American Lie” relate to the two previous documentaries you directed?
A:“Miss Representation” (2011) started with me wanting to look at how we devalue women in the media and the larger culture. Then I turned the lens on boys and men with my next documentary as a director, (2015’s) “The Mask You Live In.” That looked at how we were socializing our boys to conform to hypermasculinist norms of dominance, control and aggression. I wanted to dive deeper into how this upside-down hierarchical value system was ultimately impacting society at large. That’s when “The Great American Lie” was born.
Q: What is that impact?
A:The American dream is out of reach for a majority of Americans, and social immobility and economic inequality are as bad as they were just before the Great Depression. A majority of Americans are experiencing hopelessness and despair, we’ve never been more divided, and the film is really the answer to the question all of us are asking right now: How did we get here?
It infers that we can have a conversation about who and what we value, and then it commits us to reimagining the American dream. One that isn’t saddled with hypermasculine values of power, money and rugged individualism, but one that’s more embracing of feminized values such as empathy, care and collaboration.
Q: Numerous commentators, from cultural historian Riane Eisler to a dude named Gavin, put a gazillion observations into context throughout the film.
A:People have said that our film basically sheds light on things that people are feeling but they don’t know how to put into words. So these academics and thought leaders get to the root cause of what’s happening.
Then we follow five individuals across the country as they go through their own trials and tribulations and awakenings and, in certain cases, have their own empathy journeys or strategies to move us, as a country, out of this mess.
Q: How were the spotlighted individuals chosen?
A:Through a friend from high school I met Ruby and fell in love with her and her total commitment to these kids.
Saru is a total rock star I met through an activist investor; she’s an advocate for One Fair Wage and is a passionate communicator and advocate. Zack Norris is Saru’s partner in life and really understands the intersection of race and gender and class, and how it impacts families of color, in particular by way of the prison-industrial complex.
I chose the steel mill worker from the Midwest and the hardworking Republican woman from the South after the 2016 election, when I realized that I needed to spend more time in those regions and really understand what compelled them to vote the way they did. And to understand their own questions about the American dream and opportunity, and the inequity that is very obvious across the country.
Q: While we watch the underprivileged kids on the fenced-in Frick campus or hear the film’s arguments for fair restaurant pay, it feels like COVID-19 closures have fundamentally changed the dynamics of those and other situations.
A:我觉得这部电影很及时。再一次,我们在a crisis in our country, and we need to start having these conversations about who and what we value. COVID-19 has really shone a light on that.
The top 10 wealthiest individuals in America’s earnings increased 30% as a result of COVID-19, and the majority of Americans are struggling, unable to pay bills and having to get loans to survive. We are out of balance; we have institutionalized inequity. We have to right this ship.
问:很多的加州和国家:a presidential election coming up, daily COVID responses to manage, parts of the state still on fire. … Any thoughts on the future?
A:We have a lot of work to do, but I’m very optimistic because it really can be done one individual and one community at a time. We all just have to commit to it.
America will thrive and excel when we have more equality. That’s really what I’m championing out of the First Partner’s Office, through my work to promote general equality and focus on women of color, and through my work in uplifting women and children and families, and making sure kids have the best start in life.
“The Great American Lie”(not rated) is available on video on demand starting Friday, Oct. 2.