by Ben Shaffron-Davis

In times of rampant injustice, movies become the voice of change. Lately, I have found myself drawn to the works of progressive filmmakers to help lift my spirits in the face of consistent bad news. From Lois Weber to Spike Lee, seeing the work of these courageous storytellers gives me back some faith in our collective humanity.

When I was invited to write this piece about the work of filmmaker, writer, and activist Byron Hurt, I resonated with Hurt’s mission to push viewers to question the way they understand gender, race, and class. It is challenging to watch the disturbing rise of the online manosphere in real time. Being a fan of the CNN documentary (directed by Contessa Gayles) The Feminist on Cellblock Y, I was eager to talk to Byron about his work and approach.

Hurt found his calling in documentary, using interviews and intimate conversations to reframe and prevent gender-based violence in American society During our conversation, Hurt traced the origins of his mission to his time with the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program. Founded by Dr. Jackson Katz in 1993, MVP is a global powerhouse that trains people to confront gender violence and smash abusive cultural norms. Hurt himself was actually one of the program’s very first employees, calling it “fertile ground” to workshop and develop crucial ideas about masculinity that would go on to shape his future films. In fact, one of these crucial moments was when Hurt picked up Richard Majors and Janet Mancini Bilson’s book Cool Pose: The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America. Hurt loved the book’s perspective on Black masculinity so much that it actually sparked the creation of his first professional film: I Am a Man: Black Masculinity in America.

At the beginning of I Am a Man’s production, Hurt was staring down a gargantuan task. Green as grass, Hurt had no formal film training: only a shoestring budget and guerilla style approach to filmmaking. Still, Hurt was determined to see I Am a Man to fruition. So determined, in fact, that he ended up traveling between 15 different American cities to have conversations about Black masculinity with scholars and common folk alike. “I had been rejected from a lot of schools, but I was passionate about storytelling,” Hurt elaborated, “and I refused to let rejection stop me.”

As we talked more about the highs and lows that come with making a movie for the first time, Hurt recalled I Am a Man’s lighting and set direction being unexpectedly difficult obstacles. Between the release of I Am a Man and the start of his second project Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, however, Hurt told me that both skills had come a long way. He credited both trial-and-error lessons learned from I Am a Man’s production, as well as his P.A. work under acclaimed filmmaker, Stanley Nelson. “I learned a lot from working with him, observing not just his approach to storytelling but also how to run a set as a director…” Hurt said, “I’m really grateful to Stanley for helping me with it.” He emphasized how good communication is a core part of running a set, making sure your cinematographer is able to keep up with the steps you take toward your creative vision. “As a director… I’m the leader on set…” Hurt explained, “I have to walk in… knowing what I want so I can communicate what I want to my crew, so they can help me execute what I want.”

While we were on the subject of vision, I wanted to ask more about Hurt’s creative process. In any creative job, inspiration can often be one of the hardest things to wrestle with, especially when your subject matter (in this case, gender-based violence prevention) has so many sides to approach from. To me, making a film like Hurt’s seemed less like a straightforward path to walk, and more like an island surrounded by rivers of spilled ink. Hurt’s response, however, was pretty straightforward; The issues he chooses to make films about are just issues he is passionate about at a given moment, or issues that he feels that society at large is doing a bad job at addressing.

Hurt’s most recent film, Men of Courage, was actually commissioned by Will DuBose, director of the similarly named youth development initiative that uses mentorship and educational programming to prevent gender-based violence among at-risk young men. Hurt said that when DuBose had first approached him with the idea, he was happy to start working on it. Not only had Hurt spent several years working with similar programs, but he had also, coincidentally, been planning to make a film about the role of men in ending that exact kind violence. He had even touched on it before in his second documentary film, Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes. “There’s a segment… where there are multiple men… physically and sexually assaulting women,” Hurt described, “I remember being very, very meticulous about how we framed that scene, to focus on the men’s abusive behavior and not on the women as being people who egged on that behavior, or who wanted to be treated in that way.” Thus, the core idea of Men of Courage was born: to bring attention not only to the role men must play in breaking cycles of abuse, but also the reframing violence against women as an inherently male issue.

Personally, hearing that last part in particular really made me happy. In a post-gamergate world, objectification, victim blaming, and other forms of blatant misogyny are not only omnipresent, but normalized. One particularly offensive tactic I’ve seen is when bigots twist the progressive notions of  “female independence” and bodily autonomy into some sort of “gotcha” moment to deflect accountability from male perpetrators. So, of course, it would follow that seeing a well known activist make an effort to push back against this sort of anti-accountability movement would be something I find very satisfying. But, what I find more satisfying is how much this issue benefits from being depicted in film. Men of Courage features five Black and Latino men sitting down with one another and having conversations surrounding their experiences with domestic violence; it centers their firsthand lived experiences and stories, as well as how they impart the lessons they learned to young men in their community.

On its own, this is a fine story: a hopeful, uplifting affair that underscores its message with real, actionable examples. But, through film, I believe that it becomes something more than that, something more intimate. This isn’t some hypothetical being debated on some internet forum, or a recounted story from halfway across the country. Through the visual medium of film, the viewer is made to attach narratives to people: real, breathing people with faces, names, and stories that unfold right before their very eyes. There’s no mask of anonymity, no abridgement for quick engagement, nothing that would make the issue seem theoretical or far away. Just the hard, visceral truth of what these men went through, and what they’re choosing to do about it. When these people and their actions are depicted so directly, it becomes something the viewer can see themselves in. And if they can see themselves in it, it naturally begs the question, if they can do it, why can’t I? And if you can get people to ask that question, it can open worlds of possibilities.

This was the idea that was on my mind as Hurt and I came to the end of our conversation. I asked him in passing if he felt there were any distinct advantages to using film-based activism specifically, but Hurt was very humble about the whole affair. He stressed that film was just one of many tools an artist can utilize to amplify a story, or, in his case, challenge a particularly nasty narrative. “We’re living in an era where the truth is being suppressed, where history is being erased…when you can suppress the truth… you then control the narrative…” Hurt said. “That’s what we as artists are here for…There’s a tremendous amount of information and stories that are available for us to tell, and we just need to have the courage to go out and tell those stories.”  

Even as I type up the closing sentences of this article, I think about that quote. There’s multiple parts to it, of course; from Voltaire’s Candide to the collective behind No Other Land, using art, film or otherwise, to fight for justice and challenge social narratives is a tale as old as time. But it’s that second part, the part about courage, that really sticks with me. Because, frankly, I agree wholeheartedly. We live in a time of growing fascistic authority that, while disturbing, isn’t exactly unprecedented. Revolution and social change have never been in the interests of America’s ruling class. Even during its founding, slaves were barred from using their native language and customs to communicate, and abducted Native American children were forced into boarding schools to systematically erase their language, name, and traditions. But, even all these years later, through these layers of chains and gags, people persisted. Stories were told, folklore was established, and creativity persisted through writing, art, and, in our case, film. So, in oppressive times like these, maybe it does fall to these courageous filmmakers to use their art in defense of a better world, not only to document the awful things they see every day, but to show why and how things can still get better, to inspire those bound by apathy or despair to slough off their chains and take control over their own life stories. At the end of the day, it is through our stories that we find unity, and may it be through unity that we ultimately achieve change.