Director: Christopher T. McGill
Running time: 17mins
Art activism is in many ways the defining form of protest of the modern era. Stepping into the void left by the terminal decline of the trade union movement, and the continuous erosion of the right to assemble mass protests, figures like Dan Glass – the subject of Christopher T. McGill’s short documentary, Beautiful Trouble – have weaponised viral irony to strike a blow against the creeping totalitarianism of late capitalism. But adapting to the context-light means of meme-messaging can quickly devolve into the sharing of silly imagery being taken as a victory in itself – gratifying us as clever for recognising the joke, while not risking any greater change than shifting the vibes.
As Glass notes in the film – recalling an earlier action in the 2000s where he and some comrades shut down Aberdeen’s airport with a miniature golf tournament to protest the building plans of a certain future American President – the defence he effectively deployed then is increasingly unlikely to work. Committing a lesser crime to prevent a greater one was something which worked in his trial – but the state is aware that to keep the world’s oligarchs and their pet politicians in the economic conditions they are accustomed to, greater crimes can no longer afford to be impeded.
So, as the goalposts continue to shift, Glass has also adopted more artistic means of protest. One instance saw him dump a pile of animal waste outside UKIP headquarters, after a representative of the party suggesting not letting migrants with HIV into the country. And most famously, he built a gigantic, orange balloon to torment that same American President, when he visited the UK in 2017. The inflatable Trump baby which hovered above London that fateful day contributed to the President complaining that he felt “unwelcome”, something which Glass was elated at, as it was exactly the impact he had hoped for.
But here in lies the problem with this form of protest. It is all too easy to divorce from the context of any momentum that could build into effective opposition. A Baby Trump-shaped blimp hovering above Parliament Square will rile a few right-wingers, and it will give the organised opposition something to gather around – but to the uninitiated, it just mirrors the churn of the late-night television circuit. The Daily Show phenomenon I described in my old review of Saló sees the incompetence or stupidity of political leaders is translated into a safe consumable, one which we can lap up passively while conning ourselves into thinking we’ve got one over on the powers that be.
Without the activist/artist Glass present to issue a call to action, Baby Trump falls into the same category. It is all too easy to mistake the joke as the end, rather than the means. Eight years on, with POTUS 45 having become POTUS 47, and the weaselly Keir Starmer determinedly ascending into his colon in a way even May and Johnson seemed reluctant to, it seems that the joke was all too easy for the political mainstream to metabolise. Trump might still be “unwelcome”, but that makes no practical difference – it threatens nothing more than some light ribbing.
Making a film about Glass should be an opportunity to address this gap. To not only present us with the joke, but with the rallying cry that spurs us into getting involved in resistance. Unfortunately, the movie comes up a little short when it comes to delivering on this front – regularly failing to move from the symbolism of its subject, and into something more committal.
In particular, there is a glaring elephant in the room, when it comes to Palestine. Glass seems like he really wants to talk about it. He recalls how all four of his grandparents were Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, and how his family subsequently instilled in him how important it was to fight against antisemitism. But as he grew older, and came out as a homosexual, he became aware there were people killed in the Holocaust who were conspicuously absent from the important lessons he had been taught. Never again should mean never again for anyone – and this led Glass to become not only a fervent anti-fascist, but also an advocate for the LGBT+ and Palestinian communities. The latter hardly features in the film, however, besides one line shouted from atop a float at a Pride march – and that is peculiar considering Glass had produced his own film, Censoring Palestine, and was in the process of touring it around the UK at the same time Beautiful Trouble was made.
The tour is given a brief mention in the closing credits – but removing it from Glass’ thoughts around his family history serves to utterly disconnect and de-fang both inclusions. Given this was the biggest issue of the last two years – and the one which introduced huge numbers of people to activism – that is a missed opportunity to help link Glass’ work with direct action.
When there are mentions of more consequential actions, it is also unclear what we can actually do with the information. For example, we follow him on a patrol of Bender Defenders – a street defence group he helps to organise, aiming to respond to homophobes and fascists that intimidate LGBT+ citizens – has, he says, led to him physically combatting the far-right. We also see a group of the volunteers training in a graveyard (which admittedly is the coolest place they could be training), complete with martial art instructions.
But the question of what we should do with this is left underdeveloped. If we are in the physical condition to join this kind of action, how we go about that is never mentioned. Simply strolling out into the world to do something like this, without training or support is a suicide mission. Surely, then, anyone who actually meant for us to participate would supply a means for us to make safe contact with such a group.
Without this, what is a deadly serious form of action, subsequently feels as though it has become another piece of Glass’ decontextualised resistance art. This is just a performance piece, where the artist and his crew – decked out in some splendidly outrageous cartoon-jackets he had designed – give the fascists a good, humorous hiding, served up for our vicarious enjoyment. Enjoyment, which, without further direction, threatens to be mistaken as the resistance itself.
Luckily for Christopher T. McGill, his subject is charming, and hugely charismatic. This means the lengthy, sometimes meandering, talking heads sequences are never the drag they would be in another film. It is enjoyable to hear Glass define himself in his own words. But in those moments, there is also a glimpse of a personality which, like the art and the film, is not quite sure how seriously it should take itself. Glass finds it difficult not to immediately follow a serious or angry statement with a joke to diminish it.
After explaining how Section 28 meant he missed out on education that could have better informed him what HIV meant to the LGBT+ community, Glass quips “may she not rest in peace” – an entirely defensible position given the context – but cannot help but humorously ask himself if maybe he is being “a bit harsh”. Perhaps that says more than anything else about his usual medium of activism. By adapting everything to be a joke, to be something that can be easily consumed and shared on social media, or printed onto t-shirts, it is broad enough not to alienate anyone. But taking that risk of not being for everyone might also the only way to build a movement that can fight back.
This film was completed in November 2023 – so it comes before a couple of major political shifts, and I’d be intrigued to see how Glass feels about them. Despite the mockery, and feeling “unwelcome”, Donald Trump has returned to the White House. In the UK, the (seemingly intentionally-temporary) Labour government spent its first six months in office enabling a genocide, and now looks set to attack the LGBT+ community and migrants, just as UKIP/Reform UK would like to see, however much manure Glass once piled outside their HQ. It feels like that serves to highlight the limits of protest art – that it is so easily removed from its context that it may actually play into the safe consumerist behaviours which preserve systems of oppression. It seems that Glass knows this – and is keen for his work not to fall into this trap, hence making his own films to add to build a clearer link between art and calls to action. If this film were willing to take a more critical view of protest art, and discuss its possible short-comings in detail, it could have provided a great antidote to them.