Recently I saw two memorable films: MAID, a Netflix limited series, and Mass, shown only in theaters.
I’m not qualified to speak to the technical aspects of films or the quality of the performances of the actors. Here, I want to briefly share what struck me hard as I watched these films.
In MAID, we watch as a young woman, Alex, attempts to escape from what she feels is an emotionally abusive situation. She is living with the father of their two-year-old daughter, Maddy. Along this road to freedom, Alex cleaned 338 toilets, had 7 types of government assistance, made 9 separate moves, and spent 1 night on the floor of a ferry station. All of this happened during the entire third year of her daughter’s life. And not only is Alex a mother, herself, but she also feels responsible for her own mother.
Watching Alex on this journey is exhausting. But beyond all the hard work as a maid and the toll taken by complicated relationships, her journey exposes a world that is impossibly complicated and restrictive when someone in need attempts to access government-funded programs created to assist people in situations similar to the one portrayed by Alex in MAID. Although Alex had a hard way to go, her homelessness was not nearly as humiliating and terrifying as it is for most people who can’t find a safety net when they fall into this category.
The movie Mass is about two sets of parents meeting six years after a tragic mass shooting at a school. The parents of the school shooter agree to the conversation, which is hoped to be therapeutically healing for the parents of one of the victims of the shooting. As the conversation unfolds, it is obvious that feelings of profound grief have been devastating for both sets of parents.
As we witness the excruciatingly painful toll the tragedy has taken on both sets of parents, we begin to understand the essence and the core of what it means to be human. These actors show us naked humanity. Naked humanity experiences a range of feelings such as anger, blame, and hate tumbling over one another in order to be recognized as the priority. And yet, in the course of a conversation, we also witness that intangible unique aspect of humans called grace. Indeed, we have the capacity to change powerfully negative feelings into something that resembles sympathy and empathy.
Gwen Dungy 
Thank you for lifting up the stark realities that each film seeks to give life and authenticity to and the challenge to be not just a witness but an advocate for different options for those in economically precarious positions and those whose loved ones were victims of a cowboy country that makes guns so available, loved, and a source of male power.