Untitled, Harlem, New York, 1947 Credit: Photograph by Gordon Parks / Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
The Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College and WCMU present Community Cinema on February 12, 2015, at 7:00 p.m., FREE of charge. The program features a documentary film followed by discussion with community leaders and scholars. Visit http://www.dennosmuseum.org/
American Denial (55 minutes)
Follow the story of foreign researcher and Nobel Laureate, Gunnar Myrdal, whose study, An American Dilemma (1944), provided a provocative inquiry into the dissonance between stated beliefs as a society and what is perpetuated and allowed in the name of those beliefs. His inquiry into the United States’ racial psyche becomes a lens for modern inquiry into how denial, cognitive dissonance, and unrecognized, unconscious attitudes continue to dominate racial dynamics in American life. The film’s unusual narrative sheds a unique light on the unconscious political and moral world of modern Americans. Archival footage, newsreels, nightly news reports, and rare southern home movies from the ’30s and ’40s thread through the story, as well as psychological testing into racial attitudes from research footage, websites, and YouTube films.
Hear from experts — historians, psychologists, sociologists and Myrdal’s daughters — all filmed directly to camera. Witnesses work to exhume unconscious feelings Americans have about themselves and others — fascinated by the Myrdal question, and by how much true thinking and feeling unfolds in social contexts in an unconscious mode. What are the implications for individual responsibility and social justice in democracies like America’s?
Community Cinema is an outreach project of CMU Public Television and the Dennos Museum Center. Screening events are part of the ITVS (Independent Television Service) Community Cinema program. For more on the Independent Cinema series, including upcoming dates and films, visit WCMU.org/TV.
Films are screened with captions. Milliken Auditorium now features a T-coil hearing loop for those with hearing impairments. Additional arrangements for a sign language interpreter can be made by contacting Linda Dielman at dielm1lk@cmich.edu or (989)774-3562.
Interested in being a panel member for discussion? Contact Jason Dake, Curator of Education, at jdake@nmc.edu.
The Dennos Museum Center is open daily 10 AM to 5 PM, Thursdays until 8 PM, and Sundays 1-5 PM. For information on the Museum and its programs, go to www.dennosmuseum.org or call 231-995-1055. The Dennos Museum Center is located at 1410 College Dr., Traverse City, MI 49686, at the entrance to the campus of Northwestern Michigan College.