"Living on One" has serious issues that are so typical of these "awareness raising" campaigns that have taken the stage among the privileged audiences in the US. I have no idea how this film made it to any film festivals, nor why it received any viewership past its tiny liberal-arts-college crowd that gets off to projects like "Living On One Dollar" and "Kony 2012."
The largest and most egregious mistake the filmmakers made was rendering the lives of Guatemala's poorest as simple and two-dimensional. Take Rosa for example - the filmmakers turn her into a convenient plot- device and fundraising icon with a minimal voice: "Rosa went to school. Rosa had to quit school because she's poor. Rosa wanted to be a nurse. Rosa has a business now - look at her! Now let's help Rosa become a nurse!" Feminists these boys are not. There was no presentation of agency - no depth to the people they interviewed - the Guatemalan people remained characters and tools in the "experiential education experience" of four white college-aged men from the US.
The only redeeming quality of this "white man goes to save the poor foreigners" film was its endorsement of micro-finance loans in alleviating global poverty. The rest of the film smacked of privilege. If you want to make a difference, help give people their own voices, their own access to money, and quit acting like disadvantaged people are simple and below you. We've had enough of the "suffering foreigner tourism" and the propagation of this film only keeps that bus rolling.
The largest and most egregious mistake the filmmakers made was rendering the lives of Guatemala's poorest as simple and two-dimensional. Take Rosa for example - the filmmakers turn her into a convenient plot- device and fundraising icon with a minimal voice: "Rosa went to school. Rosa had to quit school because she's poor. Rosa wanted to be a nurse. Rosa has a business now - look at her! Now let's help Rosa become a nurse!" Feminists these boys are not. There was no presentation of agency - no depth to the people they interviewed - the Guatemalan people remained characters and tools in the "experiential education experience" of four white college-aged men from the US.
The only redeeming quality of this "white man goes to save the poor foreigners" film was its endorsement of micro-finance loans in alleviating global poverty. The rest of the film smacked of privilege. If you want to make a difference, help give people their own voices, their own access to money, and quit acting like disadvantaged people are simple and below you. We've had enough of the "suffering foreigner tourism" and the propagation of this film only keeps that bus rolling.