I am so pleased to write that as of the past month, my short film has become outdated. Ashely/Amber is now a relic of another era.
The American protest movement has found it’s fighting spirit. Throughout the nation, the people are out in the streets. Normal people, by which I mean people who’ve never lived in a nudist cooperative house in the Bay Area, are debating the merits of consensus-based decision making and self-governance. We are openly asking: should we play by the rules, control our image, present a simple & easy message? Or is protest not just a means to an ends, but an assertion of democratic sovereignty, which therefore must accommodate the messiness of many opinions, values, and approaches?
The Occupy Movement has thus far negotiated this dilemma beautifully, adopting as its slogan a simple and appealing statement that asserts the rule of the people. The means is the end. We are the 99% and we want a government that represents us. So we assemble in the streets, and represent ourselves. But beyond the initial catharsis of overthrowing our apathy and helplessness, can we keep this going? I hope so, and I hope my film can contribute in some small way, if only to remind us of how impossible this moment felt half a year ago.