Barbie Helped Me Say Thank You

Previously on Miguel’s Madness (a third-person recounting for anyone who doesn’t know)…

Following a series of panic attacks and mental breakdowns in Oakland, Ca, Miguel posted dark suicidal ideation on a very public forum while in a fog of rage, despair, and guilt. The ensuing reactions, and a return to some emotional balance, led him to write a long journal to give his friends and family context for the last public screams into the void of social media.

Because increasing financial insecurity has been an intensifying effect on all of these struggles, former film industry colleague Dor Dotson took the initiative to create a GoFundMe fundraiser to support his family. The response has been awesome.

Ok, let’s get back to 1st person. I will start with that word, “awesome,” which is a part of day-to-day casual English vernacular, but I am using it in the archaic form, which describes something that is not only breathtaking, mind-blowing, and impressive, but something that also inspires feelings of apprehension or terror. I doubt that last bit is included in the everyday use of “awesome,” but it does here.

Much of the terror is in my head and the difficulties I have in balancing my emotions and reactions to those emotions, but some of it is concrete—and the line between the two is blurry. There are the obvious ones, like guilt at receiving monetary support from people I love, the fear of this eventually being held against us at some point in the future, the sense of failure at any of this happening at all in the first place. Let’s brush passed all of that and get to the most immediate and concrete thing: saying “thank you.”

Part of using a fundraising platform is keeping engaged with your supporters. This is both for reasons of simple gratitude, but it is also a marketing tactic to get more engagement and, ultimately, more money. In the case of this particular fundraiser, the goal has been surpassed so quickly that I haven’t had a chance to catalog my own feelings, let alone have the capacity to provide every person with the sincere thank you that they deserve. A couple of days ago, I started to feel panic rise while considering all of this.

Ain’t that some shit?

Ok, let’s move on to the title of this rant. Yesterday, I took the family to see Greta Gerwig’s BARBIE movie. Here is some more context for you: in the past couple of years, my life’s greatest tool for finding the joy in existence—immersing myself in, sharing with, and discussing the art of cinema—has become a trigger for panic, contemplations of suicide, and an absolutely crumbling sense of self worth. Because I have retreated into my cave, well meaning friends have sent me spiraling by reminding me of some of the film exhibition events I have done in the past. All of this is to say that all I have spent my adult life preaching about on stages, in classrooms, and at festivals—that art, and particularly the lowest-brow of popular art or genre storytelling are integral to knowing ourselves and how we fit in this tumultuous universe. Or, as one of the Horrible Imaginings values states: Entertainment CAN be Enlightenment. Exhilaration CAN be Thoughtful. Trash CAN be Treasure.

Somewhere, after the human reaction to the pandemic, the ever-accelerating rise of fascism, the constant shootings (both mass shootings and those perpetrated by the police), the tenacious clinging to white supremacy and patriarchy, and the attacks on education, and. . .well, you know. . .I have found myself in a place where I have looked back on my life and despaired. It has not just been the time and money spent (and family neglected) while directing a film festival, but all the time I spent watching and studying film and sharing what I felt sincerely was the virtue of such activity. All of that sense of virtue and joy was annihilated to the point that I have felt so much hatred for myself and my wasted life.

I know logically that this is not realistic thinking, and my therapist and I have done some work to help me explore where these feelings originate and fight back against them. We all know how strong logic can be in the face of emotion, though. The depression can snowball all of the negativity to make it stronger and stronger until other negative aspects, no matter how trivial, become amplified by their attachment to other negative feelings.

This is becoming scattered, but I will give a quick example from my film work and the film industry as a whole. There are negative aspects that everyone is aware of and powers through anyway: the commercial side of the art form crushing any artistic integrity, the perceived worthlessness of human dreams and well being in an industry that commodifies humanity, and the falseness of community. Horror community, film community, art community, whatever. It all started to feel like the mission I dreamed of and worked hard to built turned into excrement.

Let’s get back to Barbie for a second. If you haven’t seen it yet, I would give it my recommendation. For me, it wasn’t flawless, but the vast canyon separating what I would have expected and what I saw—it was, well, awesome. Perhaps the heightened sensitivity of my emotional states are partially to blame, but I spent most of the film vacillating between laughing hilariously and sobbing. Just sobbing. And, sitting in that theater with Tiff on one side of me and Scarlet on the other, I started to consider what the film was saying.

There are challenges to patriarchy and, wonderfully, how it oppresses people across the gender spectrum, and I loved that and how it could be presented in a way that was just so…fun. More personally, though, the film is an exploration of cynical commercial fluff (like a toyline that built a corporate empire) and where that fluff can paradoxically add joy and meaning to our lives. As a film lover and particularly as a lifelong defender of the horror genre as meaningful, this paradox is real. It is a seed that has tipped over into unbalance for me lately and decimated my self worth. Barbie spoke to this contradiction quite specifically, and I wonder how many people have written about it.

To couple that viewing with Dor’s GoFundMe was a healing potion. Not completely, but enough to get me to write this and (even more astonishing) be able to look back on the work I did for Horrible Imaginings and Film Geeks and other projects without hating myself and wanting to die. The harmful and stupidly cynical feelings I had for the horror or film communities were proved wrong by so many people who came forward to help us. Reading through the names has been wild because I didn’t know many of those folks even knew who I was or remembered me.

It hasn’t even been a week since I spent hours laying in an oil puddle on the street in Oakland, sobbing to the suicide hotline. For that reason, I’m not sure where I am right now. I will let people know that the financial support will go first to be able to pay and continue to see my therapist. That is…critical.

There is also tens of thousands of dollars of debt that I can directly tie to running a film festival. This will help alleviate some of that. I’m only talking money now because I think the folks who opened their wallets deserve to know that it will be used thoughtfully and wisely (and with the support of the financial resources supplied by the university). Words on here can’t do justice to the feelings that are overwhelming the capacity of my ribcage right now as my heart threatens to break out. I can quote for all of you Frodo’s words to Faramir: “You have shown your quality; the very highest.”

I will also say here that Dor Dotson, the wonderful human who made that GoFundMe, works as a freelance social media and film marketing consultant. Once, I picked her to speak on a panel to art house cinema owners and distributors. If you need services like the ones she specializes in, I will also ask you to consider hiring her. You can find her Genuine Article at her website here!