Bird Watching – Meghan Eckman’s “The Parking Lot Movie”

March 21st, 2011 | POSTED BY Brandi Sperry

I am the sort of person who will glance over at drivers in other cars, or catch a glimpse in a living room window while walking down the street, and be momentarily overcome with the desire to know that person’s story. That kind of impulse is what makes me appreciate documentaries that are about everyday people, which director Meghan Eckman’s The Parking Lot Movie (2010) certainly is. But, our cast of characters is definitely a certain subset of “everyday people”; namely, they’re those who think almost all other everyday people are complete assholes. It’s not the most endearing attitude, but by the time we witness some of the nonsense they’re putting up with on a daily basis, we can hardly blame them.

The lot in Charlottesville, Virginia is dubbed simply Corner Parking Lot. It has been owned since 1986 by Chris Farina, a man who seems the definition of laid back, but employs an ever-evolving cast of attendants who may also start out that way, but soon find their inner rage. Throughout the film, various members of this band try to describe the vibe: “a rag tag group of fractured poets”; “otherwise unemployable misfits”; “deviant romantics.” We’ve got students of philosophy, anthropology, and other such thinky disciplines. All males. Mostly in their twenties, some in their thirties. Mostly white. You get a job as an attendant through knowing someone who is already an attendant. It is apparently a very desired position, even with all the accompanying rage. You must know how to hang out—this is key. Between infuriating interactions with customers, there isn’t a lot to do.

These men think a lot about what it means to be a parking lot attendant. Inside of their booth (a ramshackle, outhouse-sized mess that one guy describes as “the kind of building that Jesus would have collected parking fees from”), the walls are a collage of deep thoughts, jokes, and smart ass comments about parking. Many of these notes speak to bigger theories. The parking lot is a microcosm. What we’re really talking about are issues of class and entitlement. These men have no problem expressing their utter contempt for sorority girls and fraternity boys, who they automatically assume are driving cars purchased by daddy and will graduate to make insane amounts of money they don’t deserve. They hate anyone who drives an SUV, Hummer, or similar. They see themselves as literal gatekeepers to what an elitist populace believes to be an intrinsic right: a place to temporarily store their gargantuan status symbol. They speak repeatedly about how at times it feels like playing God.

The idea of elitism in this context is worth thinking about, and there really is some evidence to back up that contempt. We see a few truly shocking interactions with drivers who are unfathomably rude when asked to pay their fee upon leaving the lot. People in nice cars haggle over a few dollars. Some say they didn’t know it was a pay lot (are there non-pay lots anymore, really?), and have no cash. Some just drive off. The film lets us get to know some of the guys working the lot fairly well and see a lot of these crazy incidents before it delves into the subject of retaliation. Recording license plates and banning certain cars from parking there again, well, that seems reasonable. Chasing cars down the street, kicking them, throwing wrenches at them, diving into open windows? Well…less reasonable, but somehow understandable. Not behavior I’d recommend, though.

It’s always worth talking about how our society values service sector jobs and the people who do them. It is very disheartening to see how often a driver using the lot seems to see the attendant only as the job itself, rather than as a person. The attendant is treated like a money-stealing robot, rather than a human being providing a service and a convenience for a reasonable fee. But then, the most interesting moment comes outside of the context of outright elitist behavior or the attendants’ righteous anger. One man working there used to teach philosophy at the nearby university, and describes an interaction with a former student, who simply pretended that she did not recognize him. He knew that she did, though. So, is it so unspeakable to be an educated person working a service job that we don’t even have the casual social language to get through a polite interaction? Why does it have to be that awkward? Why is it insane to imagine that the person might want to be there? And even if they didn’t want to be there, why should we be so embarrassed about anyone having a certain job to pay the bills?

Eckman doesn’t get too far into the personal lives of the men at the lot, except to talk about their other professional or artistic pursuits. We do meet one man’s wife, who was a regular parker at the lot when they met. She seems a ray of hope—a person who could park without being a dick about it, a trait so remarkable that it found her love. (I joke, but that really does come across.) It makes a certain amount of sense that one’s behavior in a communal space like a parking lot would say a lot about them; I truly hope that there are more people out there capable of getting through the parking experience with some grace and courtesy than this film indicates there are. I must believe that, if I want to continue another day.

Even if some of the bitching gets a little tiresome, and even if some of the assumptions the attendants make about the people in the cars seem just as bad as the other way around, this movie is worth watching and these people’s experiences are definitely worth hearing about. Eckman has done a nice job highlighting an odd little corner of the world, one that feels unique but that is indicative of universal relationships. The film is currently on Netflix streaming; check it out. (And stay tuned to the credits for a wacky music video about the lot—no joke.)

Meghan Eckman, The Parking Lot Movie