The ranks of the ignored are growing in our culture. Earlier this
month, I was riding my bike in the North Bay during the grape harvest.
Pedaling through the heavy Sonoma County fog, I could not help but be
struck by the ghostly looking images of hardworking Mexican laborers on
the horizon. These men wore jeans, plaid shirts, bandanas, and ball
caps as they efficiently worked from row to row selecting the grapes
that will pleasure us at our next meal. As I pedaled the brutal hills I
wondered what they were thinking as they efficiently gathered the
grapes. What is happening in their families, and where do they go when
they are done? Most of all, why don’t we care?
One of the most repugnant things about the obsessions of our current
society is how the escapades of celebrities and the super-rich crowd
out a real view of any of our other fellow citizens. Media
representations of the “underclass” in recent times have focused on
“irresponsible” poor people who bought houses in a futile attempt to
live beyond their means. While the Limbaughs and Becks bleat about “we,
the American people,” those who benefit from the status quo hold up our
market-based society as an effective and even just system that rewards
talent and virtue. The subtext of this current narrative of the
American Dream is that those who don’t fit this definition of success
don’t quite measure up, in intellect or activity.
A new film provides an affecting and powerful retort to these cruel
caricatures. I am always impressed when a movie is able to focus our
gaze on a sector of society or an important part of ourselves that we
have forgotten or may not have realized existed. The Philosopher
Kings, a movie by the Los Angeles-based filmmaker Patrick Shen
showing at the San Francisco International Documentary Film Festival,
does just this. Wanting to explore current misconceptions of where to
find wisdom today, the film features the work and narratives of eight
custodians who clean our nation’s premier universities. Their stories
offer a powerful and poignant stew of the rich lives of our ordinary
fellow, but often forgotten, humans.
The Philosopher Kings shows that real wisdom can be found in
“unlikely” places. Each janitor’s story is interwoven through several
themes, including the tragedies that many have experienced and the
dignity and pride with which they do their jobs. Of course,
universities are special places. In spite of the recent heavy-handed
response to the financial crisis at Cal, it is still a better place to
work than many other places in the East Bay. Ideas matter there and not
every legitimate gripe can be foreclosed by an appeal to profit and
greed. Students who have not yet fallen into the cynicism of their
parents are often erstwhile allies of these workers’ efforts to receive
a living wage for their work. This environment undoubtedly affects the
workers, who seem to have time to ponder deeper issues.
Each scene in the film begins with a quote emphasizing its theme.
Most of these are from Socrates, Plato, Shakespeare, and the like. My
favorite comes from tennis great Arthur Ashe, who said: “True heroism
is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all
others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever
cost.” Who among us can say they live up to this standard?
A couple narratives moved me to tears. Melinda Augustus, a custodian
at the Florida Museum of Natural History, tells of enjoying making
things look nice. She “likes to clean.” Coming from a family of
fifteen, her mom died from a doctor’s negligence. This made me think
about those who claim that the part of our legal system that provides a
remedy for medical malpractice is somehow responsible for the ills of
our medical system, and should be eliminated.
Augustus tells the camera she loves being at the museum. It has been
a “nice learning experience,” she says. “I did not know anything about
butterflies before I started working here. To see them fluttering
about, so carefree, and so lively. So trouble-free. It is a wonderful
feeling. If I can get that out of life then that is a good thing.” I
can’t imagine these sentiments coming from the Gordon Gekkos of Goldman
Sachs.
Included in the film is Michael Seals, a custodian who has worked at
UC Berkeley since 1979. His judgment and dignity is moving. He knows
the homeless often come to take quick baths in the restrooms that he
cleans. He treats this need with humane respect. In one scene, we see
him being called to clean and restock a women’s restroom. He waits
patiently while a furtive student who seems unaware of his existence
goes in just as he knocks to enter. This particular job is not an
appetizing one, but it is something that needs to be done and he is
going to do it well, with respect for all concerned.
“I have come to realize that when two people come together with two
different backgrounds or ideas, it is not easy, but it can work if you
want it to,” Seals told me. “Saying ‘good morning,’ just treating
people nicely, is an art within itself.” That is true wisdom.
As our political system continues to fail us when confronted with
human issues such as health care and the problems of the disadvantaged,
we need to turn to culture to reestablish a humanistic bond with our
fellow citizens. It is hard to write about those things that go to the
deepest part of our being and are usually invisible to us. It must be
hard to make a movie that does that too. But in The Philosopher
Kings, Patrick Shen has succeeded at exactly that.
