The 1951 movie “Rashomon” by Japanese master film maker Akira Kurasawa offers the best explanation for what happened last Friday in that now-famous videotaped incident in Washington D.C., showing a confrontation between Catholic school students and a Native American leader.
Kurasawa’s masterpiece was a story about four different eyewitness accounts in court of a rape of a princess and murder of her companion. The crucial word here is “different.”
Though it was clear that a rape and killing occurred, the question of how and why were murky because all four accounts agreed on virtually nothing. The movie had such tremendous impact that afterward analysts since have referred to differing accounts of the same incident as “The Rashomon Effect.”
It seems this phenomenon applies to the much discussed and debated account and explanation of Native American Nathan Phillips being surrounded during a rally in the nation’s capital by a group of high school students from Covington Catholic, who had appeared earlier that day to attend a Pro-Life rally.
The most famous image of the incident is a photo of high school junior Nick Sandmann standing face to face with Phillips. Many have interpreted the young lad’s face as nothing short of a disrespectful smirk. Meanwhile, Sandmann’s comrades are raising a ruckus in back of him, some demonstrating the tomahawk chop and some shouting “Build the Wall!”
Adding a lot of fuel to the fire is that many of the students are wearing the red and white “Make America Great Again” caps associated with supporters of President Donald J. Trump.
The immediate reactions were very negative, with many on social media expressing disgust with they thought was disrespectful behavior exhibited by the students to a venerable Native American elder beating a drum, The initial response by Covington also was alarm, with the promise of consequences.
However, a different interpretation of the event surfaced almost immediately afterward, with some of it promoted by Fox News and conservative media. They produced other videos that presented a different take, including the presence of a small radical group of blacks who were trash talking and taunting the students.
With this new information about a rush to judgment by the mainstream media, some “Facebook friends” immediately excoriated the “lamestream media” and liberals for showing only what they wanted to be seen by the American public. Two of my “friends” demonstrated their own rush to judgment in this public relations war by quickly determining the motives behind the inadequate early coverage.
After examining all of the videos and seeing and hearing all the spin and propaganda on both sides, it became painfully apparent that once again we are so divided and so in search of confirmation bias that we don’t take the time to do critical thinking about what we see and hear.
“Rashomon,” rather than a conspiratorial media with nefarious intentions does a better job explaining what happened here. Yes, we seem to have witnessed a solid example of the Rashomon Effect.
But too many in these shrill and contentious times prefer to take this sordid debate as yet another black and white, us vs. them demonstration.
Somebody out there has to be really enjoying the notion we are so divided and therefore weaker than we should be.
Good stuff, David! A brilliant piece worthy of praise. Thank you for keeping the aspidistra flying.