Rich cis-het people are informing a deeply toothless era of transgressive cinema

In a new Rolling Stone interview, Megalopolis director Francis Ford Coppola addressed allegations of him kissing and touching extras without their consent on this film's set. "You’re talking about the Guardian piece, which is totally untrue. If you read that piece, you’ll realize that whoever the sources were — and I honestly don’t know who the sources were — it’s the same people who provided quotes for that Hollywood Reporter piece that said all these people were fired or resigned, and that there was a mass exodus, all of that...It’s all so ridiculous. Look at the timing of that article. It’s right before we’re about to premiere the film at Cannes. They’re just trying to damage the picture."

Megalopolis extra Lauren Pagon has accused the filmmaker of hugging and kissing her without her consent (she's seen in a video turning her back to a grabby Coppola). Her reasoning for speaking to the publication was NOT about "trying to damage the picture". Instead, Pagon spoke out because another Megalopolis extra claimed absolutely nobody on the set was made uncomfortable. Instead of reflecting on how these accusations from infinitely less powerful and influential artists speak to his on-set conduct, Coppola is now twisting these allegations into being a grand "conspiracy". Similar to Elon Musk thinking a "woke mind virus" made his daughter trans, Coppola is a man with deep pockets and power who simply must conjure up some boogeyman to make himself the victim. The people accusing Coppola of misconduct are not the victims. This uber-powerful filmmaker and Megalopolis are "targeted"! Yes, that's it!

He also commented on Megalopolis including prominent roles for cast members like e Dustin Hoffman (accused by multiple women of sexual assault), Jon Voight (a staunch supporter of the fascist Trump regime), and Shia LaBeouf (accused of sexual assault and going to court over the matter in October). "What I didn’t want to happen is that we’re deemed some woke Hollywood production that’s simply lecturing viewers,” Coppola declared. “The cast features people who were canceled at one point or another. There were people who were archconservatives and others who were extremely politically progressive. But we were all working on one film together. That was interesting, I thought.”

There’s a lot to break down in these bone-headed comments. As said before, an exorbitantly wealthy man like Coppola acting like accusations of inappropriate behavior is part and parcel of a “grand conspiracy” is insane. You’re a man with enough money and influence to spend $100+ million on a movie like Megalopolis without going broke. You are not the powerless victim in a scenario where working-class women accuse you of inappropriate behavior. Then there are his comments on casting Hoffman, LaBeouf, and Voight in Megalopolis. These really show that Coppola has lost the plot as far as being in touch with modern reality.

In the early 1970s, Coppola’s The Conversation demonstrated a masterful awareness of the paranoia permeating American society in this era. Now, in 2024, Coppola is ranting and raving about “wokeness” or “canceled” artists. The man behind The Godfather is now another old white man clinging to words he saw on Twitter to reassure himself that he’s the real oppressed person in society. Cancel culture doesn’t exist. It’s a thing rich people created to reinforce their victim complex. Dave Chappelle, Kevin Spacey, Louie C.K., they’re all getting work. Shia LaBeouf has a court date for his sexual assault and abuse allegations set for this Fall. Yet he's appeared at the Venice International and Cannes Film Festival over the last two years.

Coppola’s comments don’t just reflect a mindset made further creepy by his support in the 1990s and 2000s for convicted child abuser and sex offender Victor Salva.  It’s also a microcosm of how 2024’s examples of “transgressive” cinema hail from rich cis-het people looking to reinforce the status quo. Megalopolis is supposedly a rebuke of mainstream Hollywood norms. However, Coppola is out here spewing the same “anti-woke” rhetoric you’d find in a typical Netflix stand-up comedy special. Where’s the subversiveness or edginess there?

Meanwhile, Joker: Folie au Deux director Todd Phillips is looking to light up theaters again this October with another Joker movie bent on shaking up society. This title hails from a dude responsible for countless transphobic comedy movies and has openly declared that he hates unions. Phillips clearly isn’t operating from a creative mindset that isn’t all that unique or idiosyncratic in America. Those anti-union comments could easily hail from some Amazon executive! His comedy movies like the Hangover trilogy, meanwhile, rely heavily on gay panic and transphobia jokes. While exuding a "bro-y" reputation for "challenging" comedy, Phillips always goes back to reinforcing societal norms when it comes to treatment of unions and LGBTQIA+ people.

Similarly, Harmony Korine showed up on the fall film festival circuit recently with a new movie relying heavily on A.I. imagery entitled Baby Invasion. His trumpeting of A.I. art as the future and subversion of Hollywood norms was an incredibly eye-rolling development. Back in 2009, Korine's Trash Humpers genuinely eschewed Hollywood convention by embracing analog cinematography in an era where the film industry was bringing everything to digital platforms like Blu-Ray and iTunes. In 2024, Korine is now shilling for the same technology that billionaires like Zuckerberg, Musk, and Netflix executives salivate over. Korine and his new company EDGELRD (which has so far emphasized art from male-identifying creators and super expensive merchandise sure to line the pockets of folks like Korine) can shout from the rooftops as loudly as they want that they're "transgressive". All Korine and his company are doing is supporting a dangerous technology that corporations loooove. Also, nothing says trailblazing provocateur like naming your company after an internet slang term from the mid-2010s!

On and on the examples go among the modern crop of “transgressive” filmmakers. Folks like S. Craig Zahler, Eli Roth, Mel Gibson, Dave Chappelle, Joe Rogan, and so many others claim to push boundaries. Instead, they just reinforce the capitalistic status quo. The moans and quarrels of these artists end up going back to sympathizing for the bourgeoisie. They create imaginary boogeymen out to “suppress” uber-wealthy people self-financing $100+ million movies or secure lucrative Netflix stand-up special deals. Meanwhile, actual struggles of artists go unexplored in the news media landscape treating every new word dropped by J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk as an urgent headline.

What kind of actually subversive works are getting ignored in this societal status quo? For one, there's the new documentary Union. This Sundance 2024 title begins its theatrical run in late October. Here is an actually transgressive production taking a massive corporation (Amazon) to task for not properly compensating workers financially. It’s a project about worker’s rights, the importance of unionization, and the upsetting of the status quo. No indie studio apparently dared to approach the documentary for distribution. Major artists haven’t been banging the drum for the feature on social media. Folks like Aaron Sorkin have been too busy firing their agents for calling the genocide against Palestinians a genocide.

Real provocative and transgressive art explicitly stand up to actual oppression in society and subvert standards for how films operate. 1931's German film Madchens in Uniform humanized lesbian characters in the face of the growing power of Nazism. Barbara Kopple and her crew risked getting shot to chronicle the plight of striking American workers in Harlan County, U.S.A. Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles shattered the standards for how movies should look and operate to emphasize the banal existences of women trapped in stagnant domestic lives. These are works that dare to challenge how films should look, who stars in movies, and cinema's default tendency to focus on the bourgeoisie.

Such tendencies are largely absent from our modern "transgressive" auteurs. Folks supposedly in favor of crusading for “transgressive” material suddenly get really quiet when it comes to questioning corporations and standing up for working-class rights. The Joe Rogans of the world don't have time for that while creating new punchlines about how gross men kissing each other is. Our modern “subversive” media landscape is as subversive as George W. Bush saying “poggers”. Supposedly “un-PC” comments, actions, and art from folks like Coppola, Chappelle, Phillips, and others all come back to just coddling the bourgeoise.

Granted, this is not a new phenomenon in America. Andrew Dice Clay secured fame and acclaim as a “trailblazer provocateur". All the while he just spouted misogynistic and bigoted rhetoric. Meanwhile, Sinead O’Connor became a pop culture pariah after she “dared” to criticize the horrific behavior of the Catholic Church. Throughout the history of America, folks in positions of power have postured themselves as “martyrs” or “oppressed” because they want to suppress the rights of others. George Wallace, for instance, constantly presented himself as a David fighting against a "horrific" anti-segregation Goliath. This endured even as he occupied the office of Governor of Alabama. Heck, the entire warped vision of history of "savages" indigenous people brutalizing colonizers sums up this phenomenon toxically permeating so much of American culture. The American norm is to paint the powerful as lambs and the oppressed as vicious lions. Why would our "subversive" cinema be exempt?

When it comes to modern movies, though, one pressing problem has emerged. Compared to the past, dwindling opportunities exist for subversive filmmakers to secure visibility and financing. Genuinely transgressive and challenging art from filmmakers like Samuel Fuller, Marlon Riggs, and Lizzie Borden have always struggled to get financing. However, we exist in a modern world with fewer and fewer studios and streaming algorithms. In this realm, it's become borderline impossible for actually subversive art to flourish. There are fewer challengers than ever to modern-day equivalents to Andrew Dice Clay.

The few corporations and rich people controlling what movies exist pride themselves on coddling up to dangerous individuals like J.K. Rowling or reveling in connection to people spouting transphobic rhetoric like Dave Chappelle. Heck, Amazon MGM Studios is financing and releasing a new movie from David O. Russell, a man accused of assaulting his niece and verbally abusing actresses like Amy Adams.

While WarnerDiscovery, Netflix, and Amazon cuddle up with these artists, art challenging the status quo languishes without a distributor. Acclaimed Israeli/Palestinian documentary No Other Land, for instance, has not secured American distribution six months after its Berlin premiere. Mike Leigh, a filmmaker famous for class-conscious works centered on everyday people, struggles to get financing for his new movies. Black directors constantly face endless hurdles to get even the cheapest movies off the ground. The few corporations controlling what movies get made cling tighter and tighter to folks with contempt for the proletariat. Meanwhile, independent artists struggle to get subversive creative visions realized.

Contrary to what Coppola believes, giving work to Jon Voight or actors accused of ceaseless domestic abuse is NOT subversive. That's not an exciting middle finger to the status quo. If anything, you’re just parroting the default history of American cinema, which has always given more precedent to D.W. Griffith than Charles Burnett. Like so many things in your modern world, Hollywood’s emphasis on a false vision of “subversive cinema” has always existed. It’s just more apparent in the modern world thanks to media monopolies heavily restricting what art exists.

If there’s any consolation in this reality, it’s that great art challenging the status quo has emerged even during the most precious eras of history. Derek Jarman and Marlon Riggs made vitally important pieces of cinema during the AIDS crisis. Somehow, in 2024, something like The People’s Joker made it to theaters despite endless ridiculous legal woes. Even after its shelving in the early 1980s, Samuel Fuller’s White Dog now exists on home video. The warped corporate-approved version of “provocative” cinema is inescapable. But the likes of Sorry to Bother You and Born in Flames persist in reflecting actual transgressive art and real-world struggles.

Permit me to end this list not with a final rebuke towards Coppola. Instead, I want to impart a list of great provocative films reflecting cinema’s exciting capacity to challenge the status quo. An endless deluge of wealthy cis-het people currently declare that “cancel culture” is the greatest concern of our time. The movies below confront and challenge actual issues playing real-world people. They do so with endlessly vibrant and imaginative filmmaking. Comments like the ones made in that recent Coppola interview make me feel frustrated with the world. The movies listed below remind me why I love motion pictures so much. Give them a watch and discover what actually subversive cinema looks like.

Working Girls (1984) – dir. Lizzie Borden

The People’s Joker (2024) – dir. Vera Drew

Sorry to Bother You (2018) – dir. Boots Riley

Mutliple Maniacs (1970) - dir. John Waters

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020) – dir. Eliza Hittman

Kokomo City (2023) – dir. D. Smith

White Dog (1982)– dir. Samuel Fuller

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022) - dir. Laura Poitras

Z (1969) - dir. Costa-Gavras

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (2020) dir. Nicole Newnham & James Lebrecht

Tongues Untied (1989) dir. Marlon Riggs

Daisies (1966) - dir. Věra Chytilová

Harakiri (1962) - dir. Masaki Kobayashi