PREJUDICE NOW

Framework invites a guest columnist to write a piece, of any length, choosing a film or television program that has come out within the last year, and to discuss it in terms of how her or his own prejudice is provoked or to examine a film or program in terms of how prejudice appears in it.

There is an unnamable state inside prejudice, where the feeling is so intense, that it becomes feral; so violent in its feeling, that it becomes overwhelming and threatens to subsume the feeler; so personal in its targeting, even though it often targets unknown beings or lifestyles or nationalities, that it becomes only about the person, the hater.

 Often words like “anxiety” frame the argument in which the word “prejudice” is not used. But what does a word like anxiety mean or reveal? Hate is a better word for prejudice. It is specific, denotative, hard, and hardcore. Yet, it can also be misleading because "hate" implies something that is known, making it something articulate and knowingly directed. But prejudice is pre-verbal. It is gut wrenching and unsatisfiable, a drug in itself that has no high or low. It is not easily named or even defined.

How does prejudice function then? Why does it act as a problem solver when it has no personal end? What does society need from it? What do I need from it? How do these two needs work together? How do they work together in culture today?