Invisible homeless
As part of my job as a teaching assistant, I watch films for the class and develop response questions connecting the film to the readings. This Thursday, the students will be viewing It WAS a Wonderful Life, a documentary made in 1992 about six or seven “invisible homeless women” of Los Angeles.
It’s interesting how my reactions to portrayals of homelessness varies depending on how it’s presented. For example, last week’s Tyra covering of “the epidemic of homelessness” just left me feeling disgusted and angry at how patronizing she was, and at how little they really probed into the lives of the people on film. At the end, she made everything all better by giving some of the homeless people she encountered checks for 12 thousand dollars - granted, helpful, but it struck me as her just paying them for being able to exploit their experiences.
This film though, almost had me in tears. I thought when I read that it was narrated by Jodie Foster with a score by Melissa Etheridge that it’d be all weepy and melodramatic, but it was actually a thoughtful, considerate, honest look at these women’s lives, and how homelessness isn’t necessarily the picture that you see in Hollywood, alcoholics and psychopaths begging for handouts to feed their crack addictions (okay, that’s a worse-case example). It was good stuff.
Most people don’t engage me about class, because they either know I’m from a lower-class background and think it’s a touchy subject, or because they’re just not interested in discussions of class. For this reason, most folks don’t know that when I was a child, my mother and I were homeless, and that I spent about two years out of school because of it. Maybe because of this, portrayals of homelessness in the media - whether fictional or “non-fictional” (and that’s debatable) - don’t usually have much affect on me. This one did, I think, because I could relate to so many of the stories; my mom did used to be a working woman, we did spend time in cars and hotel rooms, avoiding shelters because of how dangerous they could be (or, more accurately, because we just didn’t know they existed). It’s a good movie, and if you’re looking at a new or different look at gender and homelessness, or just homelessness in general, this is offers an interesting one.
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The criticisms of my students would serve as a good warning to visitors of Seeworthy: she talks too fast, she's too hard on us, she assigns too much work, and you have to be a dyke to get a good grade.
In other words, I'm a big, fat, queer, feminist meanie, and I am totally out to get you. Graaagh!
I wrote the book from which the film “It Was a Wonderful Life” was made. I had had offers from many movie producers (etc.) but GAVE (no money) the rights to a group of women producers in Hollywood because they said they would hold celebrity benefits for MY 501(c)3 nonprofit org which daily assists women who are UNDETECTABLE as being homeless. THEY LIED. They even went on Oprah and took credit for my 20 years of research/fieldwork/doctoral dissertation, never mentioning my book and actually quoting directly from SHADOW WOMEN:HOMELESS WOMEN’S SURVIVAL STORIES (Sheed & Ward, 1990). Oprah did this deliberately because I wouldn’t bring on women to “out” themselves as homeless.
If you read at least parts of my e-doc on studioclub.com (link with my name and UNDETECTABLE HOMELESS on the Home Page) or any of my books, the most popular being SHADOW WOMEN:, you will get a complete picture of how women mingle during the day anywhere but sleep out of vehicles and even become completely self-sufficient and creatively self-employed.
I have my own web site: http://www.HousingAndJobAlternatives.com and a Blog here at http://homelessbutundetectable. Few are interested in how easy it is to be two paychecks away from financial disaster. It’s a difficult concept for those who are working and are SURE they will get their benefit package. The employees ar Enron were SURE they were taken care of for life.
As for integrity, it doesn’t exist on TV shows. I was a “segment” on “60 Minutes” in 1992 and after 4 days of shooting…talking about SOLUTIONS to Lesley Stahl, they edited out everything but exploiting the women who agreed to give up their anonymity for “the common cause.” They even showed one woman’s personalized license plate and asked if she had car insurance. In CA, you go straight to jail if you don’t. She bluffed, but everyone got the message that she didn’t have the money to pay for the insurance.
If you would like any more information about being homeless but actually undetectable in mainstream society, please do contact me. I have “been there, done that” in the 1970s, so my information comes from “the filly’s mouth.”
Peace,
Marjorie
I DID respond but apparently it wasn’t “accepted.” I WROTE the book from which the doc was made. I guess you didn’t want to hear any truths about it….