They call me Chris.
When I first came to Hollywood as a ballet dancer in 1985, it felt good. This town was a breath of fresh air. This was a town where all things were possible and no one was too weird. You could sit down in any bar or any coffee house and have the coolest conversations with the most interesting people till closing time. Creativity was king and differing views were encouraged. So I thought. So I still hope.
See, even when I wore tights for a living I still believed in God and I still owned guns. Back then I thought that just made me an American. Twenty-three years later, and after I made the film: “Border,” I discovered that it makes me one of “them”: one of the few minorities in Hollywood that still face discrimination….the ideologues that dare not speak their name……a conservative!! Trust me when I tell you that I get more dirty looks walking into a Hollywood party in Wranglers and a cowboy hat than I did when I was jete’ing my way across the deep South.
As we were crewing up, I heard more than one of my industry acquaintances ask, “Why would you want to make a film about a bunch of Bush-loving racists looking to shoot Mexicans in the desert?” Please remember that when we first started test screenings for “Border,” border security and immigration were pretty emotionally charged topics. We were thrilled to see that the film played equally well with audience members from both sides of the aisle. After a few out of state screenings we were a bit concerned because some people had real problems with a disrespectful remark about President Bush that we had filmed. In later months we would actually face real pressure from conservative leadership to take this one remark out of the film.
Make no mistake, it was an offensive remark. It was not an easy decision for me to keep the comment in the film, but it was representative of opinions shared by a segment of people that we filmed on the border. To take the remark out would be to tilt the film towards partisanship. I didn’t set out to make a political statement. I set out to make a film about what I saw on the border. The film is what it is. The audience sees what we saw.
So I was pretty surprised by our first distributor rejection: “Intense film. Very Powerful. Moving. Not really for us. We wouldn’t know how to market this. We don’t do conservative films.”
That was pretty much the standard distributor response that we got across town for the next year and two months. Sometimes we would hear “not theatrical” or “not decisive enough”. I may not be a rocket scientist but I didn’t need another year to figure out that if “Border” was going to get out to the American people, we would be the ones to get ‘er done.
“Border” premiered for the US House of Representatives, played to standing ovations in 16 states and closed by screening for the US Senate last September. Our reviews and web site DVD sales were impressive enough to get “Border” into NetFlix, Blockbuster Online, Amazon and Barnes and Noble Online.
After one screening in Phillips, WI, a man came up to me as said, “Your ‘Border’ screening just outsold my 7pm ‘Harry Potter’ by almost 2 to 1.” An hour later, people were still standing outside the theater talking about what they had seen. “I own three more theaters. How fast can I get this film onto more screens?” That was a defining moment. I realized that just maybe, Hollywood distribution execs had misjudged flyover country.
“Border” also garnered the praise and endorsements of law enforcement agencies such as The Southwest Border Sheriff’s Coalition and The Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition.
Unfortunately, along the way I have been called a racist, a nativist, a propagandist and a xenophobe. I had to look that last one up. Fortunately, the name callers were all people who had yet to see the film.
When I went on national television and tried to warn America about how the drug cartels were running the border, and how, if left unchecked, the violence could escalate into a narco-terror war, I was called a “fearmonger.”
Now after two years of beheadings, more dead than the United States military has sustained in Iraq and Afghanistan and with the United States Joint Forces Command, the Department of Homeland Security and ex Drug Czar: Barry McCaffrey all warning of a possible collapse of the Mexican government … they just call me Chris.
Some of my liberal friends do not believe that evil exists. They think that there is no right or wrong, only different perspectives and that to believe otherwise is to be too “judgmental”. I believe that evil needs to be confronted and defeated whenever possible. There are things happening on our southern border that are wrong. Terribly wrong.
I believe that in America, ranchers should not live in fear of armed paramilitaries from a foreign nation.
I believe that Mexican children should not be rented to drug cartels in order to smuggle narcotics and avoid longer jail time.
I believe that women should not be raped in our American deserts and their undergarments hung in trees and bushes as trophies.
I don’t need people to think like me, I just need them to think. We ended “Border” with three words: “Pay Attention. Participate.” Our Founding Fathers knew that we wouldn’t always agree. They created our government knowing that an engaged debate is essential to the forms of liberty and the democratic process. We must hold open the door to discussion.
It would be amiss if Hollywood failed to engage in this debate, or any other just because it was prejudged as “conservative.” Hollywood is a major force in popular culture and the national consciousness. Our voice is heard around the world. It would truly be a shame if we can’t hear each other.
I was raised to believe that “racist” was one of the worst names you could call someone. After these last three years I have come to know it is also the weapon of choice for those that would seek to avoid discourse of any rational kind.
We should be better than this. We can be better than this. After the Hollywood blacklists of the 1950s, we should be saying “Never again!”
President Obama has asked all Americans to rise above partisanship to heal America and help move us out of crisis. Will Hollywood hear our new President and heed his call?
My wife, my team and I made “Border” because we felt it was important. We wanted to capture what we felt was an historic part of American history. Ultimately, we did it for our kids. I hope that our children will be free to have those same late night discussions in any bar or coffee house in town.
Pay attention. Participate.
Chris Burgard
Bordermovie.com