Blue Eyed

• Jane Elliott

Blue-eyed (Original Title: Blue Eyed ) is a documentary by Bertram Verhaag about the workshops of the U.S. teacher and anti -racism activist Jane Elliott. The film talks about how they participants, vividly and directly conveys the life experiences of those discriminated against minorities such as people of color, the disabled, homosexuals, migrants and other disadvantaged groups in society in these workshops with its participation.

The documentation about Jane Elliott and her workshop concept has been manufactured by the Munich filmmaker Bertram Verhaag 1995 in the U.S. and shows the course of such a workshop with a group of adults as well as the socio-psychological experiment with a school class of 1970, with the interview of a participant later as adults, to parts of presentations and interviews with Jane Elliott.

In these workshops, it simulates the emotional and experiential world of the disadvantaged, they experience real. It divides the participants into two groups, a group of privileged and discriminated against group, which they then the corresponding attributes and rights ascribes or denies. The privileged are intelligent, decent, neat, clean, so better. They are recognizable by their brown eyes. The disadvantaged, blue-eyed, were less intelligent as a rule, they are dirty, disgusting, bad. Accordingly, preferring encouraging and affirmative or humiliating, harassing and derogatory they now handled by participants in their workshops, so that transmitted through their authority and group dynamics these artificially generated stereotypes on participants. In the further course of the workshops particularly the participants of the discriminated group experienced the futility of breaking out of this arbitrarily constructed value system. Rather, manifested their role and behavior, to the point of resignation of the underprivileged.

Background

The purpose of the workshops, which were simulated by many psychological and educational professionals is to make the consequences of stigma -conscious and, according to Jane Elliott to sensitize people for these structures in society. She wants to convey this in their workshops to the individual quasi- close, but also illustrate through their commitment to a wider audience, it is not enough to do nothing to combat racism and prejudice. Indifference, passivity, lack of commitment and lack of moral courage are often, unintentionally but also wanted the stabilizers of this structural discrimination.

" Thus racism works, it is sufficient for good people to do nothing. "

The workshops were conducted in numerous seminars with students with professionals, with firefighters, with bank employees, as well as in schools in the U.S. and in other countries and were sometimes controversial. In Germany, an association founded, which is to promote the training concept and now distributes commercially.

Awards

The film won the 1997 prize of the Palm Springs International Film Festival for Documentary and the Civis Television Award and the Prize of the Youth Jury Civis. At the Academy Awards in 1996 Blue Eyed was awarded an Honorary Mention. More prices: Audience Award at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival in 1996, bronze plaque award at the Columbus International Film & Video Festival in 1996, IDA Award from the International Documentary Association in 1996, One Future Prize ( Honorable Mention ) at the Film Festival Munich 1996, Documentary Award at the Central Florida Film & Video Festival 1997 Creative Excellence Award at the U.S. International film and Video Festival 1997.