#lcpa

Why exactly did I decided to do Valley Down Girl as my first film review? Because that movie is now permanently burned into my brain, both as a cringefest and as a reason why diversity is important in your teaching staff.

For context, back in Year 4 our teacher was...a specimen, to put it bluntly. She was the only person born on the west side of the Atlantic in my school's teaching staff, and so for many kids, she was their only reliable source of information about what life was like in America (my Mexican heritage only gets you so far). It did not help the quality of information she was giving out that she was born and raised in some reeeaaally remote town in the south of Lousiana (either Cameron or Hahnville).

Anyway, at the end of a long week she would always put on a film for us as a "treat", and the only two films she would play were Valley Down Girl and Jesus the World's Patriot. I could write a whole essay about how World's Patriot changed me inside, but for now sticking with Valley Down Girl.

First of all, it is incredibly unlikely that your film is going to be an accurate portrayal of living in the South as a picture-perfect white family if your directors are named "Alastair" and "Julian". (And I still find it hilarious that this saccharine fest was Alastair Kiern's first directorial outing). The two try their best with a limited budget and the incredibly strict controls set on it by the LCPA (Lousianan Conservatives' Patriot Association, which I believe was done in like ten years prior to us seeing the film for the first time), but the end result is just a mess.

Shirley Dawson is kind of a relatable POV character (before being dumbed down by her asshole of a arranged husband), but everyone else is just ineffectively stupid, astoundingly racist (even for 1930's Deep South rural communities), or in most cases both. The one main black character in the movie (who's played by a modern-day GOP donor) is just kicked to the ground again and again an the movie just portrays it as "comedy" or "justifiable".

Of course, it being created by a conservative Christian organisation means that there are some obligatory beats. It starts and ends with Bible verses, there is an all-American red-blooded sex scene between Shirley (whose actress was 17 at the time) and her horrific partner (played by Earl Daley), and the main messages it carries are one of patience, humility, meekness and what-the-hell-are-you-sure-this-isn't-Utah-or-something-jesus-mcfrying-cornwheel. A mixed-race couple are scorned and dehumanized, and as kids we just sat there appalled at what we were seeing (at least most of us were).

Jesus motherloving. I'm reviewing a religious conservative film, so I will take the Lord and Lord-mini's names in vain however many times I please. Jesus. God damnit. Christ. Jesus Christ on a bike. The ghosts of the beings who relax in heaven cannot affect me here or in Hell. *right where were we?*