Voicing Their Outrage
System of a Down Has Plenty to Howl About in Genocide-Awareness Film
By Chris Richards
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, January 21, 2007; N01
Anyone familiar with Serj Tankian’s larynx knows the System of a Down
singer can rock-and-roar with the best of them. He’s a screamer.
Carla Garapedian is a screamer, too, but she doesn’t front a nu-metal
band.
She’s a former BBC World anchor and the director of "Screamers," a new
documentary about System of a Down’s efforts to promote genocide
awareness. A "screamer" is someone who can "actually process what a
genocide is without defense, without guile," Pulitzer Prize-winning
author Samantha Power says at the beginning of the film. "And when you
do that . . . there’s no other alternative but to go up to people and
to scream."
The film’s release comes at a time when celebrities such as George
Clooney, Don Cheadle and the activist-hydra known as Brangelina are
preaching genocide awareness. But where Hollywood types aim to save
the world by putting their pretty faces before the cameras, System of
a Down confronts the issue with some of the most abrasive rock ever to
hit the airwaves.
After a decade together, they’ve sold more than 16 million albums that
favor throat-shredding vocals, schizophrenic guitar riffs and general
rhythmic anarchy. Their activism is much more focused: Their concerts
play host to grass-roots political organizations including Axis of
Justice, a nonprofit that Tankian founded with former Rage Against the
Machine guitarist Tom Morello.
Garapedian, in Washington to promote the film’s opening Friday,
concurs with the band’s approach. "We’ve all got to stand up and
scream and tell our politicians we’ve got to do something about this
now."
She’s referring to the estimated 450,000 dead in Darfur, Sudan, which
her film depicts as the latest in a chain of atrocities dating back to
the Armenian genocide almost 100 years ago. A history refresher:
Between 1915 and 1917, Ottoman Turks systematically took the lives of
1.5 million Armenians. Turns out the grandparents of the four
musicians in System of a Down were among the survivors of this
tragedy. Turkey and the United States still do not recognize the
events as genocide.
"It was important for my grandfather and to all those that survived
the Armenian genocide to be remembered correctly," Tankian, 39, says
of his band’s activism in an e-mail from his vacation in New
Zealand. "I didn’t want their sacrifice to be further victimized by
geo-political expediency."
Like the band members, Garapedian, 45, is an Armenian American raised
in Los Angeles. She attended the London School of Economics and
Political Science, pursued a career in journalism with stops at the
BBC and NBC, and directed documentaries, including her 2002 film about
women in Afghanistan, "Lifting the Veil."
And while her work has always gravitated toward social injustice,
"Screamers" hits much closer to home. "I never thought, though, that I
would make a film like this," she says. "It seemed to me like it was
too personal. And as a journalist, one tries to be objective in the
best sense of the word."
Garapedian hopes the band’s abrasive touch will prick viewers’
ears. "We’ve lost our connection to the debate about genocide, and
that music brings out the emotion and allows you to access it," says
the director, who speaks with the eloquence of a television anchor and
the passion of a campus activist.
She first approached the band in 2004, and followed them on tour last
summer.
"They didn’t want it to be a concert documentary film. They wanted
the film I envisaged, which was a music-politics film where we use the
energy and passion of the music to tell the story of genocide in the
last century."
The result is seriocomic. System of a Down bassist Shavo Odadjian is
playing tour bus pranks one minute and talking about the extermination
of his bloodline the next.
"I did that purposefully because that’s who they are," Garapedian says
of the scene. "For me, it’s important to show humor and joy because
we are celebrating the fact that we’ve survived."
Ironically, there was one thing about the band Garapedian couldn’t
abide: their screaming.
"I grew up with the Beatles and Elton John," she explains. "I thought,
‘Oh my God, what am I going to do?’ I have this mega-popular rock band
and they’re all grandchildren of survivors, just like me. I have a way
to tell the story . . . and now I’m listening to the music and I
can’t listen to it."
But after recognizing the political bent of some of the band’s lyrics,
Garapedian realized that she had found the perfect score for her film.
"How could I use Coldplay or something that was easier on the ear when
you’re talking about genocide? You need the rage and the anger."
Much like the band’s music, the film makes some manic jumps —
heartbreaking testimony from Tankian’s grandfather cuts to blaring
concert footage, to carnage in Rwanda, to a House International
Relations Committee debate in Congress.
In one scene, Tankian and System of a Down drummer John Dolmayan
confront then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert in the Capitol’s rotunda
regarding a bill that would force the United States to recognize the
Armenian genocide. (The bill may come to the House in the coming
weeks, and while current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office says she
endorses the bill, there’s no word on whether she’ll introduce it.)
"Of course I was nervous," Tankian recalls in the e-mail. "Here was
the 3rd most powerful person in the country who can call the shots
about my government officially recognizing this historical tragedy
once and for all. . . In my heart I knew Dennis wouldn’t do the right
thing, but I wanted to inspire him to do so anyway. I may have failed,
but hope that the story will inspire Nancy Pelosi, or other leaders in
Congress not to take the same route."
Garapedian hopes this film has an influence on Congress, but she’s
also aiming to win the hearts of American youth. She describes her
audience as "younger people, but not exclusively. . . . You’re sending
a message to Washington: The kids in America are going to see a film
about genocide."