DOXA 2022: We Feed People vs. the Author's Pathological Mistrust of Hagiographies

"Lie on the bed and spit." - Korean proverb.

You know, there might be something wrong with me.

If we trust the portrait painted by Ron Howard - yes, that Ron Howard - of Nobel Peace Prize nominee José Andrés and his NGO, World Central Kitchen, in the film We Feed People, playing at DOXA next week, Andrés - a successful chef and restauranteur - is a remarkable man, a passionate man, a man who has discovered his mission in life, which is to bring food to people who are suffering from disasters around the world, often while bureaucrats haggle amongst themselves, paperwork waits for signatures, and containers of food sit undistributed, far from the hungry and desperate. Beginning more or less with his disaster relief efforts after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Howard portrays Andrés as a legitimate hero, who will even put himself at risk in his mission; early on, we see him get stranded when a truck, carrying meals he's prepared, breaks down on a flooded road,  and he and his team need  to be themselves rescued, the food likely going to waste (we never really find out, but it's about the only time we see Andrés fail). There is absolutely nothing in Andrés self-presentation, or in Howard's presentation of him, that suggests he is anything less than the real deal; perhaps an impatient man, perhaps even an occasionally angry man, perhaps someone with a bit of tunnel vision, without which he would accomplish far less... but one who cares about people, who has a talent for just ploughing through red tape, and who has founded an organization dedicated to surmounting obstacles that interfere with humanitarian relief reaching those it is meant to reach, occasionally to the apparent embarrassment of government agencies who accomplish less. Filmed in interview with Joe Biden and others, Andrés presents as a larger-than-life hero, at times paying out of his own pocket to get the job done; he's a man who does more good for others in a week than I've done in my entire life, currently on the ground in Ukraine (the film was completed before the war broke out). There is no reason given to doubt Chef Andrés is anything less than this great man....

...but that itself only feeds into my mistrust of this film. I'm vaguely ashamed of it, actually - like it must say something bad about me, that I see someone who is so clearly devoted to doing good, being portrayed in glowing terms, and some inner asshole in me puckers up and farts out a cloud of noxious cynicism: "So with this film, some rich celebrity is basically the subject of a feature-length commercial for his organization, being made by some other rich celebrity; there must be a gimmick, a trick - it's gotta all be some sort of sham." I'd no doubt feel much the same if Howard followed Bono or Bob Geldof or any other celebrity humanitarian around: if Andrés is a gift horse to the world's hungry, I'm the guy who wants to check his teeth - at least to the extent of Googling "World Central Kitchen criticisms," immediately on finishing the film; if he's the bleeding risen Christ, I'm the one who needs to stick his hand in the wound. And the craziest thing about my unwillingness to trust We Feed People to the extent it asks me to is that I actually am pretty sure I'm wrong, that these reactions are about my own personal pathologies, with no reflection on this (great) man at all...

...though at least these pathologies are things I'm not alone in. There's a scene in We Feed People, early in the film, when a journalist in Puerto Rico pretty much accuses Andrés of taking advantage of contracts to feed people to make himself rich, based on criticisms levied at him by FEMA, who were probably just butt-hurt and firing back at Andrés for his own criticisms of them and his own relative efficiency in getting the job done. I found it a bit odd that Howard doesn't dig into the details of the accusation, doesn't himself see fit to investigate beyond letting Andrés answer the journalist's question.  Considering that he includes the accusation in the film, it seems lacking that he just takes Andrés at his word without poking around a little - talking to FEMA, for example, maybe even giving them a chance to wriggle out of it (they don't come off that well). "I trust this man, so you have to, too," seems to be the subtext of the moment, but... wait, this is a documentary, right? 

Further, there are criticisms that don't even make it into the film: though We Feed People carries its story into COVID, with Andrés bringing food to the deeply affected Navajo nation and transforming some of his New York restaurants into emergency soup kitchens, there is actually nothing said at all about criticisms from 2020 that World Central Kitchen worked too closely with ICE and authorities in Puerto Rico, and with "gentrifiers" and police in their food distribution in New York. Reading between the lines, it does seem possible that these reactions ultimately might just be an example of the pathologies of those levying them - a sort of idealistic leftist puritanism, made by people who are alienated by the chef's capacity to get things done, offended that he has done more than them, or who at least misunderstand the nature of Andrés' work - the nature of his nature, if you will: that he is prioritizing getting food to people, and probably would use whatever organizations he could to meet his aims. (I mean, we gather that after the Kobe earthquake in Japan in the mid-1990's, the first people on the ground with humanitarian aid were actually the Yakuza; Japanese organized crime, whose own lack of bureaucracy made them very effective at helping, compared to the Japanese government. You get the impression that Chef Andrés would have worked with them, too, if he'd been there). Still, pathological or not, these criticisms made it into the Washington Post, among other papers, and are what come first if you Google "World Central Kitchen criticisms," as I did, and as such, probably should have been dealt with a bit. I can see Howard not wanting to bog down his documentary in leftist backbiting, especially backbiting that surely must have occurred very late in the filmmaking process, but given that I felt my own (likely irrational and baseless) mistrusts here, to not mention these sorts of reactions makes the film seem less than objective, not a documentary but a breathtaken, bought-and-paid-for hagiography. I am wary of those, and the ultimate effect is that I was reluctant to climb on board, which is clearly not the effect Howard wanted to have on his audience; by coming from a place of apparent absolute trust, Howard has had the opposite effect on at least one audience member. (Ironic in this context that the phrase "non-serviam" comes to mind...). 

My wife, beside me on the couch, felt none of these things, apparently, when I checked in with her afterwards, and seemed to eye me a bit suspiciously, which may be an entirely appropriate response. II mean, whatta I know? I had not followed José Andrés and World Central Kitchen before now. I was impressed even despite myself with Andrés impatient, eyes-on-the-prize devotion to his cause, enjoyed that even after the one failure depicted, mentioned above, he still had his customary cigar as he was whisked to safety; and I was truly impressed by the enormous quantity of really beautiful looking food we see prepared, packaged, and delivered. Chef Andrés makes feeding people in the hundreds of thousands look easier, prettier and tastier than my own attempts to feed two. So this is probably a great man, and a great cook, doing great things with his talents. But We Feed People tries a bit too hard to convince you of that, when a more measured approach might have been ultimately more convincing, at least for a mistrustful sonofabitch like myself. 

I should just "stop doubting and believe," as Christ tells Saul, but first I'd have to stick my hand in the wound, and I don't want to get  my hands dirty...