Auberi Edler
In An American Pastoral, film director Auberi Edler focuses on a school board election and book banning brouhaha in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to give us a microcosm that encapsulates the disunity that comes with pitting Americans against each other.
The French filmmaker’s documentary follows the 2023 school board race in Elizabethtown, population 12,000, as far-right candidates run against moderate Republicans and Democrats. The moderates fear that if ultra-conservatives win five seats currently held by middle-of-the-road Republicans, educational policies, including school library control, will become dominated by extremists.
In the film’s opening, right-wing challenger Tina Wilson, who campaigns on “gender identity” issues and against allegedly “vulgar, . . . pornographic books” available to pupils, argues that prohibiting volumes from school libraries is “not book banning [because students] can go to the [public] library or Amazon if a book is banned at school.”
Throughout the film, Wilson discusses the role that Internet influencers Alex Jones and Free PA have had on her thinking. Free PA is a so-called electoral integrity organization that, according to its website, demands “an audit of the 2020 election,” opposes “mail-in and drop box voting,” and advocates running for local office in order “to get control of the things we are dealing with.” The site also features a Steve Bannon photo.
During a school board meeting, board member Danielle Lindemuth opposes a small tax increase for education because many families feel the “cost pinch.” Later, Lindemuth shares a speech lauding John Birch at an event where books are sold, such as The John Birch Society: Its History Recounted By Someone Who Was There
by John F. McManus and Deep State by Alex Newman, the evening’s rabble-rousing speaker who is of the opinion that Adolf Hitler was a socialist, not a rightwinger. Lindemuth is also shown marching at an anti-abortion rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s state capital.
Literally draped in Old Glory, Lindemuth attends a firearms training class that screens a video of a six-year-old girl practicing handgun basics taught by “A Girl & A Gun” safety instructor Sue Smith. The class continues after the video with indoor shooting range target practice.
Guns are a recurring theme for the pro-MAGA school board candidates, especially faith leader James Emery, who is seeking re-election to the board and confesses to having been a substance-abusing ne’er-do-well who fathered three children by the time he was seventeen. He claims his life changed when he experienced a religious epiphany, but he seems to have replaced one illusion-producing addiction with another, as Emery’s version of Christianity is laden with militaristic undertones.
Leading an all-men’s meeting at the evangelical LifeGate Church, which Mother Jones called “Christian nationalist,” Emery refers to his faith group as a “church platoon.” He contends, “We’re in a spiritual battle . . . . This series is to promote battle buddies. We’re all enlisted. We gotta be strong as a church . . . a strong squad.”
Edler’s crew has remarkable, up-close access. Onscreen, election denier Emery recounts bringing his fifteen-year-old son to Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, after being “summon[ed] by [Donald] Trump” to the “Stop the Steal” rally. In another scene, his god squad of goons appears to lock-and-load their automatic weapons. Emery, a LifeGate minister, anoints the armed-to-the-teeth Christian warriors as they move out so as to protect against “Antifa, BLM, and Al-Qaeda” at a commemoration in Jamestown, Virginia, where North America’s first permanent English settlement was established 1607.
Next, An American Pastoral cuts to a Virginia Beach hotel ballroom where Emery provides security for a “Declaration of the Covenant” event hailing “a re-dedication of America back to God.” The speakers, a who’s who of zealotry, include former Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, talk show firebreather Glenn Beck, plus an unidentified priest who proclaims, “We should crush like the vermin that they are—and they are—every school board member and teacher who tries to shove their mentally ill tr–––y freak show down the throats of our precious children.” Claiming to quote from the Bible, the fanatic calls it an “abomination” when “a man puts on a woman’s clothing”—although this priest, ironically, wears a cassock resembling a dress.
Although unmentioned in the film, Emery’s “holier-than-thou” stance didn’t prevent him from owing “more than $87,000, including penalties and interest, for failing to pay federal and state income taxes,” according to Lancaster Online, a local news outlet.
The school board candidates opposing the MAGA aspirants in An American Pastoral are spearheaded by contender Kristy Moore, a local Democratic Party leader who strongly criticizes “the extreme right, Christian nationalists.”
Advocating a coalition of moderate Republicans with Democrats, Moore calls the prospect of the reactionaries winning a board majority in the 2023 election “really frightening.” In contrast to their exclusionary politics, she insists “this school district is for everyone” as she condemns the “intent to remove any sexual content” found in many books on the school library’s shelves.
Later in the documentary, a Freedom Readers book club member is concerned that To Kill a Mockingbird is attacked because Harper Lee’s classic supposedly “teaches critical race theory.” The group’s signs proclaim, “Patriots don’t ban books.”
Non-MAGA residents, including teachers’ union members, express anxiety about being disrespected and demonized by extremists. At a school board meeting, Church of the Brethren member Amy Karr explains that an “attempt to weaponize public comments can lead to threats to public safety.” At Elizabethtown’s Church of the Brethren, pastor Naomi Kraenbring introduces Faith in Public Life founder Reverend Jennifer Butler, saying “Our congregation attempts to practice peace, service, and openness for all.” At the podium, Butler boldly declares: “Christian nationalism is ethno-cultural” and “a white supremacist ideology,” that has exploited “the symbols of faith” to “perpetuate the lie of replacement theory.” Butler contends “Trump . . . used Christian nationalism . . . to stoke an insurrection and subvert the will of voters” on January 6, 2021.
In an early sequence in the film, an unidentified, bearded, thirty-something teacher with an untucked shirt tells students that one published version of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, which bears a cover photo of a shirtless Marlon Brando—“Looks rather smutty, doesn’t it?” he quips—has been replaced “by brand new copies” featuring an abstract sketch and text on its cover.
Later, in a different classroom scene, another apparently liberal-minded, goateed teacher discusses gun violence and school shootings. This, and another brief scene from a meeting of the high school’s LGBTQ+ club, are just about the only time during the almost two-hour documentary wherein we hear from students themselves.
This is a shortcoming in an otherwise insightful film. As adults wage ideological warfare over what can and cannot be taught to and read by pupils, An American Pastoral’s teenagers are mostly silent. Although Elizabethtown, only eighteen miles south of Harrisburg, may be full of Christian nationalists in Trump territory, Edler never mentions that Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, is a Jewish Democrat. And while Lancaster County is an Amish stronghold, I noticed traditionally garbed Pennsylvania Dutch residents only once.
But these are quibbles. Overall, Edler’s documentary is well-made and thought-provoking, shedding light on what may be dissolving into the Dis-united States of America. Her film is distinct from the similarly titled 2016 feature American Pastoral, based on Philip Roth’s 1997 novel of the same name, about New Left terrorism protesting the Vietnam War that splits an all-American family apart. However, by calling her nonfiction film An American Pastoral, Edler may be slyly referring to the movie and book as another form of the extremism—this time from the far right—that stalks America.
An American Pastoral closes with the results of the school board election, but your plot-spoiler-averse critic won’t ruin the ending. The film is now available via all leading cable systems, along with outlets like iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, and Fandango at Home.