10 Reasons why I didn’t like Babel.

Just a note, I've updated my top ten favorite movies and books on the right, including links to learn more about them!

As for this post...there aren't really 10 reasons. Plus, I've included some praise and related personal experiences.

(***Don’t read this if you want to watch the movie. There are tons of spoilers from here on!!***).

Okay, let me get the praise out of the way before I move on to criticisms. From my experience in traveling, what is portrayed in the movie is so true, about what happens when people from totally different parts of the worlds “clash” or intertwine. I’ve seen it myself. The stereotypes that the West, (and various privileged non-west societies eg Hong Kong), have of the “Third World” is so far off the mark. They think, oh, they’re so “backwards” or “poor”, those villagers, living in the Stone Age…they’ll “kill us all! You know how those people are!” or “rob us!” But in fact, they’re the friendliest people in the world in my experience. Hong Kong relatives warned me “they’re Muslim! Watch out!,” and my mother expressing concern about my travels in Western China, just as the White bus-riding tourists in the movie thought about the Moroccan villagers. For me, I was taken in to a complete stranger’s tiny home in the middle of the world’s second largest desert during a big sand-storm and the lady fed us so much and showed genuine concern for our safety not to go into the storm. “Stay the night” she even offered. “No, we have to make it out of the desert, but thanks.” In Cambodia, when I lost my wallet, all the warnings ingrained into my head about “these kinds of places” made me suspect somebody stole my wallet. “Nobody would do something like that here,” the security guard said. It’s true. Rural country people aren’t socialized to covet money like we do. One Khmer young woman I talked to said she found a wad of foreign cash at the hotel she was working at. She didn’t feel good about taking it because she hadn’t earned it, so she gave it to the higher ups. Seriously, when you have a problem in “these places,” they go all out to help you. I had like 5 people hunting for my wallet…and a random family in the town center took me in for the night ‘cause I had nowhere to stay, and they gave me a free bus ticket back to Thailand. The hospitality was echoed in the movie where the wounded white woman was treated like a queen. It reminded me of even China, where a local gets heavier sentences if he assaults a white foreigner than if he assaults a local Chinese.

What is the value of a white tourist compared to some ordinary “local” in the Third World? What is the value of an undocumented immigrant of color compared to some ordinary American in America?

I like the movie because it exposes these global systems of privilege, and reflects reality. I don’t like the movie because it pissed me off, and I didn’t take much away from it. I’ve already been frustrated by these global systems of privilege when they smack me in the gut in my travels. One example that pissed me off in 2005 Western China was when some white hippie-looking woman shoved her camcorder into the face of a Uighur woman just plain sitting at a street stall in the dusty bazaar (market), minding her own business eating her dinner. I understand where the fascination was coming from: the image was straight out of a Disney movie called “Aladdin,” and to finally see something exotic like that up-close and personal, Wow! Let’s catch it on film like we’re working for the National Geographic or something. But…how I wish I could give that Uighur lady a camcorder and a ticket to New York City, to go into a McDonald’s, and film a hippie eating a bigmac. Afterall, they don’t have those in Xinjiang! But you can see them in the Uighur-dubbed Hollywood movies!

Returning to my point all the movie did for me was thrust these kinds of things right into my face only to uselessly piss me off and frustrate me. Secondly, the movie was so obvious about setting up every single second to be prone to disaster. It was like “duuhhh…something bad is gonna happen. I’m just waiting for it to happen.” The moment those 2 kids got the rifle, you know some accident will happen. The moment that the Mexican guy got into the car saying “I’m not drunk! Don’t worry man!” you know something’s gonna happen. Actually, in that thread, you knew something bad was gonna happen from the moment the 2 white kids got into the car to cross the border. The whole movie is just one continuous anticipationg of bad things leaving me feeling uncomfortable because the whole time I’m feeling “uh oh…here it comes…oh no…it’s gonna happen…there it happened…oh no, something else bad is going to happen again” Too predictable, too cliché. What frustrated me more were the stupid decisions by some of the characters. You’ve got a really good aim kid…why are you shooting at a bus? You’re undocumented, why are you risking crossing the border back to Mexico when there could be problems crossing back? With 2 white kids in tow nonetheless! Plus you let your dopey nephew behind the wheel, drunk? And, Nephew, why are you provoking the border patrol cop? Why are you leaving them in the middle of the desert?

I guess I should also throw in a comment about the Japanese thread. Well, again, too cliché, predictable: “how about this for a story idea…let’s make the character have major self-esteem issues and then make her run in with a gang of druggie boys,” in a movie nonetheless.

And finally, because the movie wanted to focus on the general issue of globalization, there wasn’t any character development. I guess there’s nothing wrong with this…but it turned me off, cause I didn’t care about them, couldn’t connect or relate with them.

Well, the movie objectively speaking isn’t as bad as I make it out to be. I just don’t like it personally.