Look - Zan Romanoff Page 0,80

you ever want to talk—you know I’m happy to—”

“I know,” Lulu says.

* * *

Mr. Winters isn’t done with her for the day, though. He starts class with an announcement. “Usually Cinema Studies is a general survey,” he says. “But a general survey, as many of you know, tends to be a general survey of the history of white men.”

“Mr. W, so woke!” Isaac Levine pipes up from the back of the class.

“Woke Winters,” Doug Anderson agrees. “Winters woke.”

Mr. Winters laughs. “I’m not trying to earn any brownie points,” he says. “Or—what is it on the internet now—cookies? I just feel like, as one of the few teachers at this school not bound to get you to pass any kind of standardized test, maybe it’s my responsibility to broaden your curriculum a little bit. And I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how women are depicted on screen.”

The hand that’s been lingering, loose, at Lulu’s throat tightens its grip. It’s hard not to imagine his smile is directed at her.

“We’ll still be watching plenty of the classics—don’t worry, no one is taking A Clockwork Orange or The Usual Suspects off the syllabus,” he says. “But I wanted to start the semester with a little clinic on feminist filmmaking. So that when we watch the men, you have something to compare them to.”

Lulu’s hand is in the air before she can stop herself. Has she ever volunteered a comment in class before? Much less an opinion? But that was Lulu before, she thinks. This is Lulu after. This is scorched-earth Lulu; Lulu scorned. Lulu who isn’t going to get to say what she thinks about so much stuff, so she may as well say what she can, where she can.

Mr. Winters doesn’t exactly call on her, but Lulu starts talking anyway. “So the women are just, like, context,” she says. “For the work that the men have done?”

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly,” Mr. Winters says. “I think they’re both context for each other. You’ve been watching cinema made by men—”

“My whole life, I know that,” Lulu says. “I think we all know that. So, like, I’m just wondering: Why give it so much space, still, here? If you want to teach a feminist film class, why not do it right, and do a whole semester on it, instead of just cramming it into your syllabus at the last minute? Oh, wait, sorry, I know the answer.”

“Lulu,” Mr. Winters says warningly. You didn’t tell off Doug and Isaac, Lulu thinks. She’s about to get an earful when Kiley interrupts him.

“Can I ask why you decided to think about diversity just in terms of men and women?” she asks. “What about race? I’ve noticed that, other than our detour into Confederate propaganda early in the semester, we haven’t focused much on filmmakers of color. If we’re making this class inclusive, I’d love to see some racial diversity as well. Especially since most of the women we’re watching this week”—she indicates the syllabus Mr. Winters has written onto the whiteboard—“are white.”

This earns her an appreciative hoot from Rob Sullivan, the other black kid in the class, and Charlie Andrews, who probably thinks he has a chance with Kiley just because she’s a sophomore and he’s a senior.

Everyone else is silent.

“Exactly, Kiley,” Lulu says. “You can’t just shove a handful of films onto your existing syllabus and say you’re making a real change. There’s more than a week’s worth—more than a semester’s worth—there’s so much, um—”

This is why she doesn’t talk in class: no time to strategize how best to express herself. Woke Winters, she thinks, already imagining what Doug is texting Isaac under his desk. Loony Lulu. She’s being shrill. She can’t stop herself. Her voice keeps squeezing itself out the narrowing channel of her throat.

“But that’s true of cinema in general,” Mr. Winters says, looking at Lulu, then turning to nod at Kiley. His tone is infuriatingly placid, as if to highlight how emotional Lulu is. “There’s no way we can cover everything—even if we picked an incredibly niche topic, let’s say feminist filmmakers just 1960 to present, or black filmmakers in the 1970s, we couldn’t really do it justice in two semesters, probably. The class has always been a survey. I’m just trying to start broadening the survey a bit.

“I’d love to hear your suggestions for what else should be included. Lulu, Kiley, anyone else. And it might be interesting for you to petition the school for courses specifically on black history, or