My side of the story
Stephanie J. Castillo
Cockfighting documentary
is a cultural exploration,
not advocacyThank you for your editorial coverage of my film "Cockfighters: The Interviews" and for contributing to the lively discussion surrounding cockfighting. However, your Sept. 3 editorial and guest columnist Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States (Sept. 4) misstated many things. Possibly it would have helped if the writers had seen the film and understood what documentary film- makers actually do.
Independent documentary makers are part of a long tradition of film artists who make films of discovery, meaning and relevance. We seek to generate new ways of perceiving and new forms of understanding. For 14 years, my films have explored themes of cultural intolerance and cultural myopic societies that have persecuted minorities out of fear, hysteria and values that are felt to be superior.
In "Cockfighters: The Interviews," I document the American subculture that my grandfather belonged to, a group that today feels persecuted, misunderstood and demonized by outsiders, a group that is battling for its right to exist. My eight-hour documentary, in which these American "cockers" speak for themselves, is an anthropological, nonjudgmental study of them, their cultural traditions, their diversity and their mindsets. My grandfather, a Filipino immigrant, had been a cockfighter for 50 years in Hawaii, and I simply wanted to know why. My four-month exploration in 2000 took me to 12 states and to more than 30 randomly selected cockfighters and game fowl breeders.
In making my film, I discovered cockfighting is very far from being just about gambling or birds fighting, and the people hardly demons. At an illegal pit in Hawaii and at two legal derbies on the mainland -- one in Oklahoma and the other in Louisiana -- I got to see what a cockfight was all about. As the tradition goes, I was not allowed to film the fights. After spending time at these pits, I concluded that filming them would have been fruitless, for there was no way to really show what a cockfight was about without misrepresenting and trivializing its cultural complexities and the complex intentions of the rooster folks I met. If one really wanted to make an informed judgment, one would have to go to a cockfight or visit game fowl breeders and their farms like I did. My documentary is only a point of departure.
The following are the most critical errors in the Star-Bulletin's Sept. 3 editorial, "Tradition fails to validate cruelty of cockfighting," and the Sept. 4 commentary "Film glosses over cruelty of cockfight aficionados" by Pacelle:
>> The editorial stated that I had been "on the front lines of one of the blood sport's last American bastions" showing my film and using it as "ammunition" for the game fowl industry in this state's dispute over cockfighting. In truth, I was never "recently" in Oklahoma but in another state, at a cockfighting derby in Louisiana where the sport is legal and recognized as a cultural tradition brought by the Cajuns. A quick phone call to me would have mitigated this false accusation and all that it insinuated.I invite people to see my film and judge for themselves. University of Hawaii students and faculty can view all eight hours at Sinclair Library. The two-hour film festival version of "Cockfighters: The Interviews" will have its world premiere at the Cinema Paradise Film Festival at 5:15 p.m. Sept. 21 at Restaurant Row's Art House Theaters. This festival features independent films with an edge and runs Sept. 19-25.
(Editor's note: The Star-Bulletin published a correction Sept. 6 stating that Castillo showed her film in Louisiana, not Oklahoma. Oklahomans voted to ban cockfighting in 2002, but injunctions and temporary restraining orders by breeders have suspended enforcement of the law in about 30 of the state's 77 counties.)>> The Star-Bulletin stated that I had shown my "eight-hour movie" at a cockpit in Oklahoma. In actuality, it has never been shown publicly in its entirety anywhere, not in Oklahoma or in Louisiana.>> The Star-Bulletin depicted me as providing "ammunition" to the cockers. When a newspaper in Louisiana, The Advocate, doing a story about my film wanted to get comment from the Humane Society of Louisiana, I suggested they send the organization my two-hour press review copy and let it comment from that, which it did. My intention is to provide no side with ammo. Everyone and anyone can have access to this film.
>> In Pacelle's commentary, he attributed statements to me that were made by the cockers interviewed. In my film, there is no narrator and no comments by me; the cockers did all the talking.
>> Pacelle called me an advocate of the sport. He failed to understand that just because one makes a film about something controversial and makes it from the point of view of its subjects does not mean it is propaganda or advocacy. Film artists are free to make whatever film we wish and from whatever point of view we choose.
>> The Philippines is one of the oldest, not newest, countries to have cockfighting, and it came from Southeast Asia, not Spain.
Stephanie J. Castillo is a former Honolulu Star-Bulletin reporter and a Regional Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker based in Honolulu. Contact her at castillosj@aol.com.
