During a recent film production, I negotiated a sponsorship with a major camera company for the use of some of their brand spanking new, high-end cinema lenses. In exchange for this free lens rental, we agreed to provide the camera company with behind-the-scenes (“BTS”) photos of the cinematographer using the lenses on set.
Due to a range of circumstances—including my being stuck at home in quarantine with my two kids for most of the shoot—we didn’t take any BTS photos. In short, we failed to hold up our end of the agreement.
Understandably, the rep from the camera company (let’s call him “Jim”) was not pleased. In fact, he was furious. When I apologized to him over email, he responded by berating me for my failure to deliver even one image that he could use for marketing purposes. In no uncertain terms, he let me know that I had permanently burned a bridge, and he insinuated that my reputation within the larger Chicago film community would suffer as a result.
Of course, I’m human and my initial response to this was to become angry at Jim’s total lack of empathy and understanding. It’s hard to manage a feature film shoot—let alone a side project like taking BTS photos for a sponsor—when you’re literally stuck in a closet for a month because your entire family is in quarantine. My instinct was to pick up the phone and give Jim a piece of my mind, to put him in his place and insult him as he had insulted me. Here’s what I wanted to say:
You small-minded POS! You think “community building” is a transactional relationship that’s ultimately about getting some marketing images featuring people of color so you can show the world how woke your company is? F-you and all your white male colleagues for trying to use us “diverse people” for your marketing purposes. YOU burned a bridge by treating us like shit!
But meeting fire with fire is typically not productive. Instead, I tried to take the temperature down and offered to take Jim out to coffee, or at least hop on a call to clear the air and discuss a possible way to make amends. I feel genuinely bad about not fulfilling our end of the bargain, in spite of Jim’s “one strike and you’re dead to me” mentality.
So far, he’s ignored my invitation, which is of course his prerogative. It’s not my place, after all, to tell him how to manage his anger, frustration, or disappointment. I’m sure he had to deal with repercussions on his end from his boss, which must not have been pleasant.
Jim’s angry reaction to what I perceived as a fairly minor transgression is not unusual these days. A lot of people, including myself, are filled with anger and quick to fly into a rage. We’re mad at folks on the other side of the political spectrum. We’re mad at the 1%. We’re mad at local government, the federal government, the CDC, Fox News, the New York Times. We’re even mad at our friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues.
Somehow, in all this rage, we’ve lost the capacity to forgive one another. Reflecting on my botched relationship with Jim, I can’t help but think about my own anger at everything that’s happened during these past few years. The pandemic has changed everything, and even as we try to get back to normal, we are continually thwarted each step of the way.
As one psychologist recently opined, what underlies this anger is grief. We have all lost so much. Some of us have lost loved ones. Some of us have lost jobs, homes, stability, and livelihoods. But most of all, we have lost our lives as they used to be. No one gave us any warning. We didn’t have time to say goodbye. We didn’t even know we were losing our former lives until they were so far in the rear view mirror that we could only conjure them up through memories and photographs. The pre-pandemic world is gone to us forever. And we have not been able to properly grieve.
When you cannot grieve, when you feel your pain is understood by no one, it can give rise to anger. And anger is a major roadblock to forgiveness. In its worst variations, anger is hateful. It’s vengeful. It’s petty.
I feel all of these types of anger, almost on a daily basis. Sometimes this anger leads to fury-laden rants. (See my last several blog posts!) But this recent episode with Jim gave me pause. It forced me to reflect on someone else’s anger directed at me. I’m actually thankful to Jim because his anger serves as a mirror, reflecting back at me my own vindictive anger that I feel towards the world on many days.
My two children—ages two and six—are also mirrors who reflect back at me all that I say and do. When they see me angry and worked up, they respond with a softness and innocence that demands that I chill out. They are so young and do not yet know what it feels like to have your entire being filled with existential rage. What am I modeling for them when I respond to challenge with anger? What kind of message do I send when I lash out because of some petty, perceived slight? What kind of world do I want them to live in as they grow older—one that is forged through kindness and love, or one that is built on fear, hate, and rage?
Anger is an important human emotion. It is essential to the human experience. Sometimes anger is even good—righteous anger, for instance, has an important place in social justice work, and can fuel the fire of revolution. But anger is also destructive, for ourselves and others. In the coming days and weeks, my goal is to check some of my anger with compassion and grace. As hard as it is to do, I know that forgiveness, not retribution, is the only way to build a better world. The world we want for our kids. The world we want for ourselves. Me and you and Jim included.