What does Angela Shelton Find?
Helene Cixous states on page 878 of The Laugh of the Medusa that "It is time to liberate the New Woman from the Old by coming to know her--by loving her for getting by, for getting beyond the Old without delay, by going out ahead of what the New Woman will be, [...] in order to be more than her self." The film-making Angela Shelton set off on her journey to meet other women with a similar name professing not to know who she would find. But within each woman she encounters she identifies with a certain portion of that woman, a particular situation of experience, and this is what she portrays on screen. She is essentially using encounters with other women to tell a story about herself. However this story transcends the small boundaries of her own life because it begins to capture what Helene Cixous is alluding to: the unflagging spirit of women who have been and are still being hurt, molested, raped and repressed all over the country. And yet there are voices that speak out from this movie about sisterhood, survival, and hope. This is the true impact of Angela Shelton's movie -- little inspirational tidbits. If she does this task with a bit too much melodrama we as viewers forgive her on behalf of the women she has introduced us to. Angela Shelton goes on a journey and finds herself but also finds an echo of the voice of American women that helps her to be more than just herself. The thing I would have done differently in making a film like this is that I would have admitted from the outset exactly what I expected to find in the commonality among these women and use it to start the conversation with each woman rather than letting the film maker's personal story slip out in conversation as a probe to elicit a similar story. This seemed to me to be a shoddy brand of documentary film making. I wonder if more or less of the Angela Sheltons would have agreed to be on film if she had presented her project more straightforwardly.