This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Special thanks for production assistance to: Orlando Adaio, Cynthia Carr, Nancy Crompton, Abigail Esman, Nina Fonoroff, Pete Friedrich, Carole Gregory, Beth Halpern, Sue Heinemann, Tish Rosen, Amy Sillman, Carol Sun, Leslie Thornton, Stephanie Vevers, Tom Zummer. Thanks to former collective members: Carole Glasser, Vanalyne Green, Lyn Hughes, Flama Ocampo, Cecilia Vicuña. Thanks for photo research assistance: Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers, Black Filmmaker Foundation, Museum of the American Indian, Third World Newsreel. Photos top to bottom: Alile Sharon Larkin, photo by Michael Harris; Anne MacArthur, photo by Joan Jubela; J. T. Takagi, Juliana Wang, and Christine Choy, photo by Joe Ratke; Susan Stoltz, photo by Keith Rodan; Pat Ivers, photo by Joan Jubela. ejAl© HERESIES COLLECTIVE present the N0 1983 INTERNATIONAL LINA September 8-11 at the 8th Street Playhouse Keda aAa ae BORN IN FLAMES by Lizzie Borden HOMA Ane innein Second Decade Films BON e) This issue was typeset by Myrna Zimmerman, photostats by Frey Photostats and Carol Sun, headlines by Nina Fonoroff and Scarlett Letters, print- ed by Capital City Press, Montpelier, Vermont. Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art & Politics is published Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall by Heresies Collective, Inc., 611 Broadway, Room 609, New York, NY 10012. Subscription rates: $15 for four issues, $24 for institutions. Outside the U.S. and Canada add $2 postage. Single copies: $5 each. Address all correspondence to: Heresies, PO Box 766, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013. Heresies, ISSN 0146-3411. Vol. 4, No. 4. Issue 16. ©1983, Heresies Collective, Inc. All rights reserved. This publication is made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Heresies is indexed by the Alternative Press Centre, Box 7229, Baltimore, MD 21218. It is a member of COSMEP (Committee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers), Box 703, San Francisco, CA 94101. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The focus of Heresies #16 is on the work women have done, and are doing, in film, video, and the media. In choosing this focus, we hope to create a sense of community for other feminists for the issue, and these differences were implicit in our discussions. For instance, is there a correct way to present women’s images? Can we infiltrate the mass media, or should we leave it alone? Is it who feel information is lacking in these areas. Much of the con- possible to present radical content in a conventional form? At tent in this issue would have little chance of being published else- times, positions taken by collective members on such issues were where—and #16 provides some deserved publicity for these works. mutually exclusive. The wide range of material in the issue reflects The recent surge in technology has changed the way we commu- these disparate visions. Many of our discussions about articles nicate, and women have an increasing opportunity to use differ- forced us to define as well as to defend our own ideas and beliefs ent forms of media. Our interest in technology is not to suggest that women join the ranks of the technocrats, but rather to en- about media work. We were each strongly committed to our own forms, but we did come to realize that other women could be as courage women to overcome a conditioned fear of technology, committed to different forms. In the long run, however, some of us and to begin to use it as an organizing tool and a source of personal expression. grew apart because those differences could not be overcome. Putting out a Heresies issue takes a long time, and although all of us had had some experience working on collectives and doing political work, only one of us was familiar with the entire production process. None of us found it easy, but on reflection, we have managed to isolate some of the difficulties. Like most nonhierarchical groups, one of the problems we Only one woman on the #16 collective is Black, indicating a lack of outreach to Third World and Black communities. Heresies has a poor reputation for dealing with the concerns of women of color, and not enough distributors in Third World communities sell the magazine. The content of many of the previous issues has not reflected the needs of Third World women, and no adequate mechanism has yet been put into place to address these problems. failed to face was the distribution of work at each stage. We never What Heresies needs is more visibility in Third World communi- discussed what working on a collective meant to each of us, what ties. The Heresies collective should more actively solicit Third World women for the main collective and the issue collectives. Per- our personal commitments could be, or what a reasonable amount _of responsibility should be. The haphazard organization led to an unequal distribution of work. Some members took on more work than others, and resentments grew. Because most of us could not suspend all non-Heresies work, we all faced a decision in how we haps then women of color would be more interested in submitting material and suggesting topics for future issues, thus broadening Heresies’ horizons. divided our time. These decisions were not clear-cut. Work outside The difficulties of #16 arose mostly because we lacked foresight. Future collectives could approach these problems by taking Heresies can be motivated by a desire for personal gain, but it can the time early in the process to investigate the differences among also have political intent. These choices can also be paralleled within the collective. One works for Heresies to experience collec- members, and use this knowledge to establish their own working structure. Lulls in the development of the magazine—for instance, tive process, to contribute to a magazine committed to change, or after the call for submissions and before material begins to arrive to network with other feminists; but it is also possible that one —could provide this time. The main collective could help further might participate to gain recognition in the artworld. Ultimately, these choices determined how much work we did for this issue. by giving a realistic chart of how an issue develops, indicating the The problem of workload was compounded by unrealistic deadlines: for submissions, for rewrites, for editing, and for production. The collective felt further confusion because of the lack of a clear definition of #16’s theme. The initial grant proposal was for a film and TV issue, but by the time our collective was meeting regularly, the main collective had expanded the theme to include time period required for each of the various phases of producing a magazine. As with most issues of Heresies, #16’s topic was too broad to be covered by one issue. One thing that we agreed about was the need for a new journal in which to continue a dialogue about, and develop networks within, the vital feminist film/video/media arts community. At this time, the more activist feminist press devotes little all communication media. Early debates about whether to empha- space to such work. The few journals which address women and size commercial or artistic work were then further clouded by dis- film/video concern themselves far more with the male media por- cussions of all forms of media. All these problems forced us to trayal of women than with the growing body of work produced by women. The feminist academic journals limit themselves to oc- hurry through crucial early stages of the collective’s formation. Under pressure, we never adequately examined the aesthetic, political, racial, and sexual differences among us. Disputes about the materials—their style, their content, and their feminist politic casional articles on feminist theory and criticism. As women’s studies becomes co-opted by the university system, outspoken feminist academics are fired, and feminism becomes more threatened, —were frequently taken on a purely personal level, outside of their such a journal becomes crucial to continue the dialogue about political context. Feminism, like every movement for change, faces feminist media. Now is the time to expand our audience to include conflict about strategy. Issue 16’s subject matter—the very infor- a wider base of women. We see this issue as part of this dialogue. mation channels through which we try to effect change—pguaranteed us plenty of conflict. Although we were united in our desire to challenge the male-dominated media system, our personal choices about the forms of media we worked in outside of Heresies differed Editorial Collective: Diana Agosta, Edith Becker, Loretta Camp- greatly. These other experiences affected how we chose material Nicky Lindeman, Barbara Osborn. bell, Lisa Cartwright, Su Friedrich, Annie Goldson, Joan Jubela, This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Victoria Schultz Deciding to make an independent documentary film with a left and/or feminist perspective is asking for trouble. Primarily money kind of trouble, since getting funding for such projects these days is like pulling teeth from a Bengali tiger. The filmmaker must be prepared to spend as much time and energy on raising funds as on shooting, editing, and writing the film. When finally the film is finished, you face the hurdle of distribution. Few distributors are interested in films with an explicit political focus, so you’re on your own. The distribution work will keep you busy for years, if you want the film to be shown a lot. This doesn’t necessarily mean you'll make money, unless you're lucky and get sales instead of rentals. But often groups that want to show political films have very little money and can barely afford a rental. In other words, making an independent, politically oriented film takes tremendous commitment and enthusiasm, at times to the point of obsession and fanaticism. You also have to believe very strongly that this particular film just has to be made. I discovered my need to make Women in Arms little by little. First I was fascinated by the newspaper reports of the presence of a young woman, Comandante Dos, in the bold takeover of the National Assembly building in Nicaragua by a group of Sandinistas. Then I heard more and more about the very active role of women 3 in the military as well as political aspects of the Sandinist resistance. On a visit to Panama a friend showed me a letter writ- side with the men in a very dangerous situ- revolutionary process that led to the over- ten by a Nicaraguan woman, Idania, to her ation and this, I was told, was nothing throw of the Somoza regime on July 19, six-year-old daughter, explaining that she unique. (It was on trying to enter this same 1979, and my problems quickly diminished had to return to Nicaragua and risk death liberated area that ABC correspondent Bill to a manageable size. so that the children of their country would Stewart was killed in cold blood by the I believe that as documentary filmmak- be able to have a better future. Shortly National Guard.) The visceral experience ers we should to some extent live through after writing the letter, Idania was in fact of fear I describe in my journal fueled me killed by the Nicaraguan National Guard. with an intense sense of the reality of these what the people we are filming go through. It tests our will and determination to de- Once I was in Nicaragua I heard more stories and met with several women from women’s lives; my admiration for the wom- vote a chunk of our own lives to document en was no longer an abstraction. All this their reality, and also forms a basis of trust the resistance, but it wasn’t until I visited helped me in the making of my film. At between us and the subjects. Obviously we the liberated zone of Managua that I times when the money had run out and I understood the enormity of what was hap- was desperate, I thought of the women and But these attempts must be made to dis- pening. Here women were fighting side by men who had lived through the arduous cover our common humanity. 2 are not they, and our lives are not theirs. ©1983 Victoria Schultz This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Managua, June 18, 1979 Scared. I don’t think I’ve ever been as scared in my life as I have been today, at least not for a very long time. After a lot of disorganized organizing I’m off with Alan, Alain, and Alma to the liberated zone of the city to interview the Sandinist is going to be very dangerous. I am sweaty and tired, my heart is beating fast. I am ready to give up. I can’t look around too much since I have to concentrate all my strength on just dealing with my fear. leaders. My co-worker Mikko finally showed up this morning; he Alain mentions that fear lodges in different parts of the body. had arranged for us to have a press conference with them this Suddenly I feel my left breast most vulnerable and hold my Guate- morning at 11, at a place called Puente Eden. The directions for malan bag toit, thinking how odd because that’s not the side where finding it: Just ask around. the heart lodges. But of course it is. I can’t tell left from right. Fear I’m eager to go and see the blockades and.the muchachos. We drive only a short way around the hill where Somoza’s bunker is, then leave the car by the road and start heading for one of the side starts making me shaky, and that seems dangerous. I try to breathe deep, but can’t for more than a few seconds at a time. We move on and on. Finally we come to a kind of central gathering place. A streets. We ask for the Puente Eden. A man with a thin, drawn slight rest. I think I won’t be able to continue any further. A young face, Mario Solorzano, offers to take us there with his six-year-old woman in olive green uniform and black beret is scanning the sky son Jesus, saying he was headed in that direction because he had to see what a push-pull bomber is doing. “No, it’s too high to relatives living there. We turn a corner and hear pretty heavy bomb us right now,” she says. “When it returns to where we are it will have run out of bombs,” she assures us. shooting nearby. We rush back and start contemplating whether the effort is worthwhile. Alan favors leaving; Alain and Alma want It seems we are waiting for something. Alma calms me by tell- ' to go ahead, block by block if necessary. “You mean just the way ing me that the more nervous I become the more dangerous it will you live, day by day,” comments Alan. I remain neutral, somewhat be because I won’t be able to think straight or act clearly. She is siding with Alan, but wanting to go, though I started feeling scared. Alain carries our makeshift truce flag, a Hotel Intercontinental right. I feel better. Surprise, surprise, Margarita shows up! She is towel attached to a stick. We sprint from corner to corner, staying someone I know, though it is no protection against the bullets. We close to the walls of the mostly abandoned buildings. A lot of fallen follow her, and for some unexplainable reason stop at a barricade. A few muchachos are around. I talk with them about the basics, branches on the streets, probably shot down during heavy bursts of in charge of taking us to the leaders. I feel relieved that there’s and also about fear. They mention their slogan, Patria libre o morir fire. We come to our first barricade, built out of adoquines, those (“Homeland free or die”), and explain that even the muchachos, cement bricks used to pave the country’s highways. Ideal for con- the most irregular of the fighting forces, have had some political as structing barricades. The entire intersection is a maze of trenches, well as military training. They’re no longer afraid, or maybe they're with little coves fenced by a board, providing a place to burrow just used to it. But going in cold, without the experience of military into in case of an aerial attack. Ten young muchachos and mucha- service or other battlegrounds, you react the way I do. The others chas, boys and girls, are guarding the place. A blondish young are afraid too, but they don’t express it as openly as I do. Sandinista (they are all young) takes a lot of time deciding if he'll On the move again. Some people are still living in this area. An give us permission to go to the Puente Eden or not. He looks at our old man peeks out a window. A young woman is crocheting a yel- credentials and is glad none of us is American. He argues about low tablecloth on the footsteps of her house. Other people keep our safety and worries about who should accompany us—an armed their front doors open and are sitting inside in their rocking chairs or an unarmed person. That’s when Mario identifies himself and as if nothing much out of the ordinary were going on outside. But says he’d be willing to lead us there. A very young guy is also as- long stretches of the streets are totally deserted. signed to accompany us, at least some of the way. I see the first Sandinista with something resembling a uniform, We run, stop, and peer around a corner. The muchacho guide told us, at one point, that if we heard a hissing sound we should namely an olive green jacket. Most of the people we meet at the throw ourselves on the ground and keep our mouths open so our dozen or so barricades we pass wear very little to identify them- eardrums won’t burst. A mortar explodes very close to us. I am flat selves as Sandinistas. I see a black beret with a piece of narrow red on my stomach in a split-second. ribbon, or some kind of red insignia. Many young women, most of Running, trying to look around, my heart pounding, feet get- them armed with pistols. They are very friendly, as are the boys, ting tired, and fear making me pant and almost panic. I think I once we tell them we’re journalists and have permission to pass may die just because right now I am very happy, a happiness I feel through. Nobody once searched us; they trusted us even though I don’t deserve. All kinds of little images going through my head. I someone tells me the Guardia sends in women with bags containing bombs. At each barricade we are told that the strip ahead might be ex- admire the muchachos who have spent days and weeks working on this liberated zone. Finally we have arrived where the leaders are. I can’t believe it. tremely dangerous. Franco-tiradores, sharpshooters. Sometimes But yes, we are at the safehouse. Someone gives me a pill to take, bullets whizz very close by. A push-pull plane circles in the sky, seeing that I am very shaken. A woman gives me a glass of water mortaring the area. At one point Alan tells us a bomb is coming and someone tells her to give me a few drops of valerian too. I because he has seen it fall. All those details piling up in quick remember as a child taking that bitter-tasting drug for my nervous succession scare me very much—also the constant running from upset stomach. She rummages through her first aid kit, a flowered one block to the next, this whole idea that we must keep moving. picnic bag, but she doesn’t have any. Even crossing the street seems very dangerous. Everything is start- The press conference. We sit on metal beds without mattresses. ing to seem very dangerous to me. Alma comments that it is sur- After a while the pill starts working and I’m in a good mood. Three prising so many people do come out alive, considering the number people introduce themselves. I recognize one man from pictures. He has a clean look about him, a neat moustache and light tan of bullets flying in the air. Small comfort. We get to a Red Cross post. They warn us that the next stretch army jacket; he holds an Uzi, no it must be a Gallil. Next to me is a 3 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Victoria Schultz. youngish man with bright eyes and curly short hair, and a pistol should show. I think I’d like to stay; it’s comfortable, and I would lying next to him. Then I see Moises Hassan, sitting with legs not have to face the mad dash to get back to the world with their crossed on the floor. He looks grubby with his untrimmed beard messages. They indeed invite us to stay. Alan says he’s sorry he and thick glasses, but cheerful. Colorful swirls pattern his blue shirt. can’t stay since there’s no telex or telephone. Alma makes a crack I have a hard time focusing on what they're talking about. First come rounds of rhetoric, the definition of the structures of the struggle. Then we’re told about this liberated zone and how hard about Alan needing his well-ironed clothes and creature comforts. Alain is game, though he’s been as afraid as me. Although we’re all set to go, to avoid the heavy shooting that the work was that went into building it. They are very proud of this starts after lunch, we’re told there will be another little meeting. liberated zone. It is vast, not quite half of Managua, maybe onefourth, and what used to be a very densely populated area. The Two guys arrive. One is a very young man, big and dark-skinned, dressed in full olive uniform. He cradles an Uzi in his arms and zone is concrete proof of the insurrection and the people’s partici- tries to find a way of holding it so he won’t be impolitely pointing it pation in it. They talk about the Somoza regime’s atrocities—facts we already know well. I look at the house and try to focus on observing things to calm my fear and anxiety about the return trip ahead of us. Hassan, who is now a member of the Sandinist junta, says the leadership moves at us. At his waist he has tucked a pistol. The other one is Joaquin. He sits across from me, a slight man with a small-featured face. He has two deep furrows in his forehead. His greenish eyes seem distant; he is somewhere else. The two men talk mostly about the military aspects of what’s from house to house; this is their base for only a very brief moment. been happening. The darker man details the facts and figures. It is a small one-room house, 15x15. Seems newly built from the Joaquin talks about other things. He is optimistic, but his face tells inside, or at least reinforced. From the outside it doesn’t differ another story. It is full of pain and profound sadness. I’d like to much from the modest wooden houses in the area. All around is a kiss him and hug him. What’s the drug they've given me anyhow? four-foot high wall made of thick cinder blocks; above that a pan- I feel good about meeting the leadership and seeing that they are eling of thick slabs of wood looks very fresh. A few chairs, beds; people who seem to have their shit together. I feel these two are the windows are opaque glass. On one wall a framed picture of a pointing out that the struggle can’t be won overnight. Are they cherub’s face against a star-studded pink background. Another then part of the other factions, the GPP and the Jnsurrectionistas? picture, some remote cityscape, Paris perhaps. A baby’s cot. Sev- Despite all the talk of unity, I get the feeling it isn’t terribly solid. eral kids running around. Hassan says they belong to the people It’s finally time to go—1:30, time for the shooting to begin who live in the house. He shows me the bomb shelter they’ve dug in again. Many details I don’t understand in Spanish, some of the the backyard, some ten feet deep, covered with boards and a layer directions and such. My survival instinct, however, makes me of cinder blocks. A little girl is sitting on a mattress at the bottom of the shelter. I tell Hassan all this reminds me of the war in Fin- to do with potential dangers. I give Hassan and José Antonio the land when Helsinki was being bombed. I remember the night sky message about the airport being pretty lightly guarded, ammuni- lighting up from the flares. tions and arms having arrived by land via Honduras, and two They all smoke cigarettes constantly, except for Hassan. A understand perfectly all the signs and even rapid phrases having planeloads of military stuff. They appreciate the information and young woman guards the door. She cannot yet be 20. She has a say we should denounce this flow of arms to Somoza. I would like pistol next to her on the floor. Smiles are returned, the atmosphere to ask them how they cope with fear. I don’t. I leave them a pack of is very relaxed, though throughout the hour and a half we spend in cigarettes, Rubios. They laugh and say it has become the brand of the house we constantly hear the sounds of shooting, mortars ex- the war. I don’t quite understand why. I feel silly asking them if I ploding, and push-pull planes circling above us. can come back to the liberated zone to talk with the women fight- We talk about the provisional government which has just been formed. They sound basically like Social Democrats. They feel everyone should participate in the transitional phase of reconstruc- ers. I admit to them that I don’t know how I’d make it, because already this time I have been very very scared. At the outset, the trek back isn’t quite as bad as before. I’m tion, even the bourgeoisie. I ask what the role of the Guerra Popular Prolongara and the Insurrectionistas will be.* Hassan is quick to point out that they'll have to wait for the elections. If the people want them, then that’s how it will be, he says. We cover a lot of ground. After an hour we take a break to take pictures. I, too, pose with the three, smiling so none of my fear *The three factions of the Sandinist National Liberation Front (FSLN) during the 1979 insurrection were the GPP, or Prolonged Popular War, which favored a long struggle based in the rural areas; the Insurrectionistas, who believed the time was ripe for an immediate insurrection; and the Proľetari- an Tendency, which concentrated on organizing the masses in the cities. 4 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms tired, I run out of breath and want to pause often. Now I know the same direction we are. I’m beginning to feel much safer—we more or less where we’re heading. I have no sense of the distances. have made it alive. We pass a movie theater, the Select. I wonder We see a long line of people waiting for the food rations of the day. when a movie was last shown there. Approaching an intersection We hear the sound of airplanes. Someone tells the people in line to we stop short. Across the street we see a Sandinist guerrilla. We move close to the houses, into the shade of trees. They are still holler to him, and he waves for us to cross the street. As we do we living here, and they keep their doors open. It seems weird to be see flimsy barricades made of tree branches on both sides. Behind jogging in this doubled-up fashion, panting and afraid, and then one, quite a few people. I hope they’re Sandinistas and won’t shoot. to catch glimpses of the calm interiors of people’s houses. The We cross safely. usual neat, simple interiors, tile floors and rattan furniture. Wom- Further on, we come to a fence and behind it a barracks-like en, children, and old men look out their windows at the insurrec- building. Little Jesus tells me it is his school. We must be close to tion passing by. Now we move faster than before because the muchachos at the the car. At least now we’re out of the zone. My mouth is dry, I feel an intense heat radiating from me. I ask Alma if we should give barricades know us and let us through with no trouble. At many Mario some money and I wonder why he took us. He never even posts it is lunchtime. Plates of rice and beans. At the Puente Leon we take a different road from the one we came. We have to cross a tried to visit the relatives he said he wanted to see. Alma says he is either a real patriot or an oreja, a spy. She has several dollars to wide open stretch of grassy land. Alma runs sort of zigzag. I just give him. I want to give him 100 pesos. Alain also wants to con- run. We’re along the highway now, with very few people around. tribute. For blocks, only abandoned houses and angry dogs—the least Finally I spot the three colored circles on the wall of the house thing to be afraid of here. I’m actually too exhausted to even think where we left the car. I am ready to cry, grateful we have made it. I about fear anymore. I’m too tired to bend my head low. Several take a picture of Jesus and his father. We leave them the Inter- times we hear fire very close by. At one barricade there’s some hassle, they don’t want us to go on. We’re told they can’t guarantee continental flag. Alan doesn’t make a contribution. Alma says we should cool down before going to the hotel. I our safety beyond this point. The guide Mario and his little boy Jesus are still with us. Mario says he’ll take us out. At the next barricade young militias sit and eat lunch in the to the Estrella. A lot of people are sitting in the lobby. They see that something has happened to me. Lenora asks if I’ve been shade of a tree. They are all very skinny. One wears a wide- beaten. No, I say, I’ve just been running a little bit. Richard has brimmed hat with the rim turned up and FSLN in black letters on left for Rivas, leaving a note saying he’ll probably stay all night. I it. To see a human face shining fills me with joy. I say hello, they need him to hold me in his arms. I drink glasses of water, take two say adios. Yes, a dios, to God, that’s the appropriate greeting in a Valiums, and fall asleep. ‚ time and place such as this. But I have to start working on the material we risked so much On our own again, we take out a Hotel Intercontinental towel. to get. It calls for all the strength I have to concentrate on writing. Mario holds it in one hand and holds his little boy’s hand with the other. We run in a kind of no-man’s land. A Sandinist medic I look at my red face in the mirror. The terror of the experience. The worst part of it was not knowing where we were going and comes over and informs us that the road ahead is bad. Mario says where the lines of fire were. I didn’t know who was shooting whom he knows a roundabout way of getting there by crossing a narrow and from what direction to expect the bullets. They were every- bridge to get to the other side of the road. I am the first one to cross. I jump over a chasm to get to the ` bridge because a large part of it is missing. I not myself. The situation was so new. Richard arrives just before curfew. He had been close to Rivas, feel like a moving target for a sniper. I run for but had turned around at the post where the old Guardia had the houses, to find shelter in their shade. The helped me and Mikko get to Rivas last week. A post where the medic and a Sandinist fighter argue which way soldiers played cards and lay sleeping in hammocks in the noonday to go. The barrio is totally deserted, except for heat with chickens pacing around. A scene to be filmed, a scene a man playing baseball alone in a yard, throw- that couldn’t be reproduced. ing or, rather, batting the ball against the wall. I’m exhausted, shaken. Revolution is a hell of a thing. Only a Thump, thump, thump, the only sound hetre be- long process can make people face what I faced today. I saw every- sides the gunfire in the distance and the sound thing as simply horrible and frightening. The young woman peer- of the airplanes in the sky. ing into the sky and making rational calculations about the flight After a while we meet three women going in patterns of the bombers exists in a different world from me. Mario with his six-year-old son Jesus. Photo by Victoria Schultz. Victoria Schultz worked as a radio and TV correspondent for 10 years in New York and Latin America. Her first independent pro- duction was Women in Arms (1980). She has recently finished La Frontera, a fiim about the U.S.-Mexican border. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms W sense of fascination. . . Rock video is the new darling of the and distribution. When the stirrings of the corporate rock video screen. Video artists have continued to produce technological “revolution.” It has a bright rock video began, things were very differ- future, so bright that it could well make ent. The punk/new wave movement was tapes independently, often working with stereo systems obsolete within the next few radicalizing rock music in such a way that bands with whom they share aesthetic and years. All the signs are there: Rock groups a significant number of women were play- conceptual concerns. Most independent are aiming for the simultaneous release of ing rock instruments for the first time. In products, however, have been eclipsed by albums anđd rock clips, video jukeboxes are 1975, two women—Pat Ivers and Emily record company promos. Even if an inde- poised ready to fill the clubs, and the price Armstrong—started a New York-based of TV/stereo hook-ups is almost within production company called Advanced Tel- (difficult when the standards are set by evision. For five years, they documented record industry promo budgets of $35,000 the performances of many of the bands to $100,000), it rarely receives much ex- that were shaping the new rock movement in the U.S. Said Ivers: posure because of the limited and carefully controlled distribution. reach of the average rock consumer. The majority of rock videos (or ‘“promos”) are developed and given away by record companies to boost record sales. They come in two different styles. One is The early days of rock video coincided straightforward, basically a documenta- with a time when people in music were tion of a song, performed either on stage or trying to distance themselves from their in a studio. Effects are limited to dry ice and flashing lights. The other is a three- to five-minute “narrative,” a mini-Hollywood that follows the storyline of the song. The first narrative promo, produced in 1977 by the Warner/Electric/Atlantic “coalition,” set the scene for what was to come. “Tonight’s the Night” featured Rod Stewart’s seduction of a blonde bombshell by a fireplace. She remains the faceless mystery woman throughout the tape, existing for the viewer only as a froth of tiny ribbons, frills, and pieces of bare flesh. Unlike albums, commercial promos, as giveaways, are still not products in their [traditional sex] roles. Even Richard Hell was conscious of it. It made it much easier for us to work. No one would have dared come up to me and say, “Hey, li'l girl, what you doin’ with that big old camera?” Rock clubs were also the sites of an experimental approach to rock video. At Hurrah and Danceteria in New York, a DJ and a video-jockey would often work together, mixing sound and image. As Maureen Nappi, ex-VJ from Hurrah and Peppermint Lounge, described it: The connections would sometimes be own right. They remain advertisements— haphazard; other times we would try to pendent tape is of “commercial quality” Rock videos are shown in clubs, a few galleries, and on cable TV. The most influential outlet is the cable station Music Television (MTV), which has gathered 12 million subscribers throughout the U.S. since it was set up in August 1981. MTV is a joint investment of Warner Communications and American Express—the Warner/ Amex Satellite Entertainment Company, to be precise. The initial investment was $20 million (although confirming this amount was difficult). MTV’s national broadcast features continuous promos, liberally sprinkled with advertisements and self-promotion, including ‘stars’ such as Paul MacCartney and Boy George speaking out in support of the station. It has a weekly playlist of about 50 videotapes, chosen from a library that and thus are spared the identity problems make the music and image relate in of rock music, which has always teetered some thematic way— springing twists between being an “art” and a ‘commercial on the audience in the hope of involv- fuses to show tapes by Black and independ- product.” The producers who create pro- ing them in the long wait to hear the ent artists, giving exclusive showing to the mos determine a visual style and a personality that will sell the song. Their policy of “hits only” has evened out the diversity that exists in rock music. Whatever the setting of the narrative, from the jungles of Sri Lanka and oceangoing yachts in Rio, to the grimy urban wastes of London—the headlining band play at 2 a.m. Clubs can be so boring.... Nappi would intercut all kinds of material currently holds 1,000 tapes. Its selection is racist and conservative; it virtually re- advertising promos of the major record labels.! The station’s intended purpose is —“found footage” (Eisenstein’s films, to “break” bands, escalating them to number 1 on the charts. It is successful—both documentation of JFK’s assassination), the Stray Cats and Musical Youth received synthesized and animated images, and little attention until their promos were taped performances of live bands. played on MTV. More and more tapes are In the clubs and basements, a new art now being produced that adhere to MTV’s theme is tiringly similar: romance. Rock video’s obsession with True Love, which movement was created, but its aesthetic production styles, and as a virtual monop- idealizes sex roles defining men as active discoveries were rapidly co-opted by record and women as passive, is reintroducing values from the 50s. company interests to develop their new oly, it has clearly defined the parameters of rock video as a medium. promotional tool. Exactly how innovative MTV programs according to demo- The conservatism of rock video is not these early artists were is only becoming graphics—aiming to satisfy the tastes of the fault of the fusion itself, but rather of apparent in retrospect—as more and more white mid-America. Its prime target is the the corporate control over its production of their ideas and techniques are seen on family, and as MTV spokesman Roy Tray- 6 ©1983 Annie Goldson This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Yet many of the new women perform- kin said, especially those with a ‘“three- drums with the British band Honey and minute attention span.” Defenders of MTV the Honeycombs, alongside her brother. ers did not identify as feminists. Although maintain that it acts as a visual radio, pro- As a session musician, Carol Kaye received by raising the expectations of women in viding a mere backdrop to normal house- less acclaim, but she played guitar and every field, including rock, feminism had hold activities. Even a vague understand- bass in some of the top U.S. line-ups. ing, however, of the different meanings of television and radio in Western culture in- indirectly encouraged the presence of the women rock artists, the worlds of feminism the Gingerbreads, Megan Davies of the and rock culture had diverged considerably validates this defense. For those who have Applejacks, and Terry Garthwaite and by this time. The women’s movement, in been exposed to alternative images—of Toni Brown, instrumentalists with Joy of rejecting the sexual double-standard of the rock culture and of sex-role stereotyping— Cooking. “sex, drugs and rock ’n roll” generation, the power of MTV can at least be tem- Others include Genya Ravan of Goldy and The first women, however, to assume had given rock music, the manifestation of pered. But for the huge suburban following creative control over widely popular bands male sexuality, the boot as well. By the of this cable station, exposure to the racist and sexist fantasies is undiluted. came out of the psychedelic movement of time the punk movement arrived, many the late 60s. Janis Joplin and Grace Slick feminists had lost interest in rock, concen- Rock video will also go beyond the U.S. suburbs. The transmission of American possessed tremendous talent and power, trating instead on developing their own Joplin reaching almost mythological status particular sound from the influences of (mass) culture has always been most suc- in the counterculture. But they, too, were protest, country, blues, and jazz. cessfully carried out by Hollywood, TV, forced to face the demands of the image. and popular music, and by combining as- Although Joplin tried, she could never “feminists,” but they were often strongly pects of all three, rock video has a potential quite break free from her audience’s ex- anti-sexist. Not only did their presence on influence that is quite staggering. It will be pectations. As Ellen Willis, New York fem- stage contradict the passive stereotype of able to prescribe its romantic formula—an inist writer and critic, describes: ‘“Joplin’s women in rock, but so did their expressed affirmation of the nuclear family, that revolt against conventional femininity was politic. In the U.S. Patti Smith, artist/poet/ basic unit of consumer culture—to many brave and imaginative but it also dovetailed minimalist, was developing an androgy- countries, including the Third World and the Eastern bloc. with the stereotype— the ballsy one-of-the- nous image that the mainstream media guys chick, who is a needy cream-puff found difficult to take. She gained com- underneath—cherished by her legions of mercial attention with hits like ‘“Gloria,” hip male fans.” ? while still producing subversive songs such Preoccupation with romance and sexism is hardly new—such fantasies have been the basis of rock cultùre, passed down More women were playing in bands by The punk women may not have been as “Rock ’n Roll Nigger.” Tina Weymouth, bassist with the influential band Talking to three generations of adolescents, through the early ’70s—Fanny, Suzi Soul and the Elvis, the Beatles, psychedelia, and punk. Pleasure Seekers (Suzi Quatro), Ramatan, Heads, also chose androgyny, tending to How rock video compounds their impact, and Bertha among them. Times were more liberal—the counterculture had at least trast, Debbie Harry of Blondie was a self- use of the female image, has to be understood in the context of broader rock culture. freed women from the restraints of ’50s conscious sex siren, sliding back and forth femininity. But the ‘sexual equality” of More than any form of popular media, this period was a guise. Rock songs were from irony to being a real sex-kitten. Weymouth is one of the few women from that rock’s primary message is about sex. still mostly about love; men remained the period who has managed to produce a com- Threatening as this has always been to parents, conjuring up fears of teenage sex- sexual consumers, women the objects to be consumed. It took another musical move- video) without compromising her style. Yet and-drug orgies, in reality rock has rein- ment—punk—along with the example of Harry soon lost her subversive edge—to forced the traditional ordering of the sexes. Women have been cast as “dumb chicks,” Patti Smith to inspire an entire wave of women rock artists and instrumentalists, emblazon the cover of Playboy and, more groupies, and obliging wives/girlfriends, who demanded the stage. by its narrow commercial interests and its while ironically providing the “inspiration” The punk movement? sprang up partly downplay her image completely. By con- mercially successful solo album (and rock recently, to star in the movie Videodrome. The British punk movement fused the minimalist sounds of Patti Smith and her contemporaries with Reggae and Northern soul. Punk’s arrival in the U.K. was an un- for most rock lyrics. In their only tolerated as an anti-consumerist revolt against sexual role, as singers, women have been con- stereotypes in both the U.S. and the U.K. strained by the demand that they conform to the image of the day, and their presenta- Its message—a rejection of romance as constructed in Western industrialized soci- tion of sexuality, although encouraged to ety—released women from their peripheral be “provocative,” has remained passive. position as romantic (sex) objects within rock culture. For the first time it became record industry, and for a while this seemed conceivable that rock could be against energy of the movement were the English sexism. “girl-punks,” often still in their teens. They There have been a few brave exceptions to this rule of the “brotherhood.” In the z , =- early 60s, Ann “Honey” Lantree played leashing—angrier and more directly political than its U.S. counterpart. One of its avowed intentions was to overthrow the possible. Playing an important part in the z GOD. wHO'D ÈY EVER GVESS This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms used irony and outrageousness to subvert the original meaning of punk (rebellion), the traditional images of femininity. Cover- spreading it through mainstream culture. men, and in most of these cases the women were the lead vocalists. In the narrative ing themselves with sex-shop parapher- By the time the bondage costumes of the videos, women were generally peripheral, nalia and wearing torn fish-nets, they flaunted the commercialization of sexuali- punk women reached the windows of Bloomingdale’s (via exposure on MTV) as Sometimes they were represented only as ty. Their lyrics parodied sex roles: “punkette” fashion, they were just another body parts (lips, etc.). glimpsed at intervals through the song. I'm so happy You're so nice the anger and the irony, had been dis- The most popular female stereotype is the ‘cold bitch”— the beautiful woman re- Kiss kiss kiss placed by another—being cute. jecting or ignoring the superstar’s plea. “safe” product. The subversive meaning, Fun fun life Oh oh oh Sweet love and romance [The Slits] I could stay home and play houses Love my man and press his trousers It would be so easy... [The Bodysnatchers] Although the commercialization of One promo showed a woman preparing to punk affected both male and female art- go on a date. As she dresses and puts on ists, rock video left the new women per- her makeup, she has to keep stepping formers particularly vulnerable. Rock around the male singer, who insists on video has many of the same ingredients of cluttering up her bedroom. Although he is Hollywood—heroes, heroines, and love— singing about her, neither of them ac- and a critique of Hollywood developed by knowledges the other—he sings to the feminist film theorists can be adapted for camera, she ignores him completely. Final- an analysis of rock video. Using psycho- ly, she finishes dressing and walks out of the house. The singer is there to open her thought you were a man but I was Tinkerbelle analytic theory, this critique describes how women’s images are constructed by Holly- car door and she slides in, leaving him behind. and you were Peter Pan ence—needs that arise during the formation of desire in the human unconscious. are depicted as “adoring,” as “man-eating I thought I was a woman, [Poly Styrene from X-Ray Spex] Punk could not last. For those unin- woođd to satisfy certain “needs” in an audi- In addition to the ‘cold bitch,” women Women are positioned outside “language” vamps,” and as “victims.” Women are also volved in rock culture, the punk movement and any real expression of their subjectivity used less specifically, dotted around as was seen as pointlessly nihilistic, violent is denied due to their “lack” of the phallus, decoration, eating (grapes and figs), sleep- and ugly. The increasing exploitation by and therefore of power and authority. This the mass media (which loved the mini- notion of women as “lacking” provokes skirts and ripped stockings) sexualized the fear of castration in the hero, and in the ber of the rock videos. “Nice Day for a anti-romantic meaning of punk costume, and the rawness of the sound obscured its flip-side response, fascination or “love.” White Wedding” is a chronicle of disillu- Women as beautiful objects are used as sionment by Billy Idol, one of the scene’s political thrust to all except the initiated. phallic substitutes; they have no real im- most voguish stars. His use of marriage as Especially in the U.S., punk was rapidly portance in themselves. assimilated into fashion, while in England An infatuation with the ’S0s and early various neo-fascist and violent gangs- (Nazi 60s followed the demise of punk. The new interest in romance and the use of “retro” punks) assumed the distinctive image—a blow for a movement that had developed as a fusion of Black and white influences. The dispersion of punk was largely the responsibility of the record industry. Punk’s musical innovation had developed outside ing, dressing and undressing. Brides and weddings figure in a num- a solution to his unhappiness is not unusual (when all else fails, at least your wife will look after you). The bridal scene is held in a cemetery, with smoky-eyed brides- style are especially evident in rock video. maids in black offsetting the beautiful Yet there is a difference: Many of the bride, decked out in white frills. During “stars” in the tapes display a certain self- the ceremony Idol forces the ring onto the consciousness, as if they remained aware finger of the bride, making it bleed. As of the alternative ideologies they grew up with the eating of figs and grapes, this with (such as the counterculture, femi- clumsy piece of symbolism needs little ex- mance and some independent distribution. nism, and punk). Neither parody nor irony, planation. When its ideas proved sufficiently popular this self-consciousness appears to be used to be lucrative, the industry used its financial clout to take them over and turn them to justify the choice to extol the “old val- “documents” a bridal ceremony and in a ues,” a choice that becomes part of a back- subsequent scene shows Jeffries chasing his wife around the kitchen `as she tries to the corporate domain, through perfor- into ‘“safe’” products. For the women in- lash against radical elements in this cul- volved, their radical image was turned into ture. Along with the New Right, rock has just another glamorous style. Although “El Salvador” by Garland Jeffries also prepare dinner. Intercut into both scenes begun to wax sentimental about the past, are shots of wide-eyed children. If, in some their presence on stage had brought up idealizing marriage and the family, as if way, these children are meant to refer to new questions about convention and sexu- to suggest that such traditional “solutions” the war that is destroying their country, will clear up contemporary problems of a the tape is hardly making a political state- ality, in the end they could not survive unless they were “beautiful.” Some, such as Patti Smith, Poly Styrene, and Lora Logic far more complex nature. Whether the self-consciousness is used (sax player with X-Ray Spex), stopped per- to justify the artist’s choice or not, the dis- ment. It seems more likely that Jeffries and MTV have used the visibility of the war for their mutual commercial benefit. forming. Those who continued in the spirit play of romance is being appropriated by of punk were forced into art rock rather than commercial rock circles—and their youth culture today, as it was by the teen- to provide romantic interest, or whether agers of the ’50s. Romance describes love visibility decreased. They were further and marriage in a way that means different they themselves become the stars,” their visual treatment varies little. Video tech- Whether women are used as adjuncts eclipsed by the “liberated” women— those musicians who conformed to the demands things to boys and girls. For boys, the cock- nology lends itself to “romantic” imagery; rockers, from Elvis to Adam Ant, become a confirmation of their dominance and the tapes are full of slow-motion shots— of the record industry. Accelerating the commercialization of punk was rock video—the ideal medium power. For girls, however, these same superstars become symbols of the Boy Next women with long hair blowing around them, women rising in a cascade of silk and ribbon from a bed, women appearing for defusing any threat. Its success lay in Door, the necessary “goal” to fulfill their in a pink cloud puff cornerscreen. Even its immediacy: Now the rock consumer life’s work—marriage. the women who manage to escape the could “see” the superstars (always a strong The new preoccupation with romance cute-as-pie treatment stay well within the urge), as well as hear them. Placed in the is clearly evident in a brief survey of rock consumerist spirit of rock culture, these video. Of the MTV clips sampled, 80% images were highly marketable—every last kiss-curl and mohawk could be mimicked were love songs and 84% performed by allmale bands. The ‘“mixed” bands were all been traditionally in rock— they are toler- and sold. This commercialization dispersed comprised of one woman and three or four ated as visual sex symbols to front an all- bounds of “femininity.” In general, the position of women in rock video is no different from what it has 8 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms male band. But some have an added sophistication. MTV, careful to stay in tune with market demands, has responded to the ‘woman question” by providing an im- [7 age of the “new, liberated woman.” The women performers are not only beautiful . COW (hence still gratifying as images to be consumed), “liberated” (sexually assertive in BITCHES their approach to men), but also capable S (having a woman play an instrument counters the criticism that they are being used purely for decoration). Not that these characteristics are negative in themselves, but they are frequently used to mask the real oppression and violence that women face. “I Know What Boys Like,” a hit by the Waitresses, sung by a woman and written by a marn, typifies the old cliché that it is “women that really call the shots.” The song acknowledges that women are in a position of relative powerlessness, yet it implies a bemused acceptance, even an enjoyment of this position. This more know- 1S ing woman imay appear more exciting than her passive precursor, but in her acceptance of the existing power structure, she is still containable, affirming rather than threatening established sex roles. Such images recuperate the impact of feminism, and the beautiful “liberated” woman becomes an impossible ideal. The “heavy-metal” stereotype is a variation of the “new, liberated woman” with ZZZ the added dimension of ‘“tough-girl naughtiness.” There seems to be more room for female expression in this stereotype (for example, in Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” and “I Love Rock and Roll”). But as “leather girls” their sexual appeal seems constructed according to male expectations —a sexy toughness, turned cute (Joan Jett’s “Crimson and Clover”). 3 In the tapes I looked at, only Grace Slick from Jefferson Starship and Chrissie Hynde from the Pretenders appeared to MANEATERS FEMALE STEREOTYPES IN THE LOVE SONGS LLLE o 3 VICTIMS HIII o o ©0000 W Graphic by Tom Zummer and Annie Goldson. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms have creative control over their images. In- other power structures. For women, too, terest. But to an opposing group, which rock can provide a source of sexual expres- sees finding positive expressions of sexuali- that did not focus on “love” as a major sion and power, which can be used to wrest ty for women as a way of challenging the theme. Slick and Hynde came out of dif- the female image away from being defined current imbalance of power between men ferent musical eras—the psychedelic and in purely male terms. Although penetrat- punk movements respectively. Both have, ing the inner male circle of rock has not attempt to censor and control male sexuali- terestingly, their tapes were two of the five and women, rock holds possibilities. Any to some degree, retained the concerns of been easy, women musicians and video art- ty, they believe, will further inhibit female those periods in rock, although any real ists Jave used rock’s sexual language to sexual freedomÝ They argue, too, that sex- radical expression has been toned down explore feminist concerns. Ivers and Arm- uality is no more ‘naturally’ aggressive and violent than female sexuality is ‘“natu- and cleaned up. Neither woman has the strong, in collaboration with Robin Schaz- creative influence in shaping rock she once enbach, produced a tape called “Girl Porn: rally” gentle and passive. Although this had. Boys’ Backs,” a short satirical piece that view may correspond with the experience My point is not to criticize rock culture shows 18 men stripping for the camera. in itself, but rather its direction, showing They are currently working on an installa- how rock video, in undermining the power tion piece about ‘“seduction.” Nappi, too, of recent rock movements, has driven has used her image-processed and animat- women’s visible, powerful presence out of ed tapes to “reclaim the female body back rock culture. Serious critiques of rock are from voyeurism.” only just emerging.^ There has been a general refusal to acknowledge rock on the of many people, to see these characteristics as inherent is to reinforce traditional notions of female passivity. Within the framework of the second argument, rock can be described as a medium that is not ‘“naturally” male, but Ironically, it is this sexual characteristic one that can provide women with a rare of rock culture that many feminists have opportunity for finding sexual expression. rejected. Despite widespread acknowledg- Not that this is easy—but feminist disap- feminists—a surprising omission, consid- ment that ‘sexual freedom” is a goal for proval of rock can only act as a further ering its overwhelming importance in de- women, how to achieve it has led to consid- prohibition against participation. I do not veloping sexuality within Western culture. erable conflict.5 The arguments that lie at the root of this current conflict about sexu- mean that every woman should grab for the ality also explain the attitude many feminists hold toward rock music. For those videos. The products, and the industry that er, an energy and enthusiasm that have at who reject sexual liberalism, suggesting dismiss rock altogether is to cut out possi- certain times crossed the barriers of race, that all male sexuality is an uncontrollable bilities of expression for women, and to part of both traditional academics and But, even apart from this influence, rock should command our attention. Rock has a potentially subversive pow- nearest bass guitar or start producing rock controls them, have serious flaws. But to class, and sex, challenging the authority and constant source of violence, to be deny them one way of changing sexual atti- and control of the record industry and curbed at all cost, rock can hold little in- tudes. And as rock culture, led by rock video, takes a conservative turn, it becomes more essential than ever for independent women artists and musicians to force the market to expand to include alternative images to those that are currently flooding the TV screen. maé 1. Initially even Diana Ross was banned from MTV, but now as criticism of its racism is in- creasing, MTV has conceded a little, airing those Black tapes that are acceptable to a white audience. 2. Ellen Willis, “Janis Joplin,” in Beginning to See the Light (New York: Wideview Books, 1982). 3. I have used the term “punk” in a somewhat blanket way to describe a movement that developed into other movements such as “new wave” and ‘“no wave.” As I wish to concentrate on the position of women during this period, rather than analyze the musical variations within the genre, I use ‘‘punk” to refer to all the music that rejected the romantic notions that had previously reigned in rock culture. 4. See, for example, the excellent analysis by Simon Frith in Sound Effects (New York: Pantheon, 1981). It is interesting that feminist filmmakers and theorists have tended to use women punk musicians (or at least their lyrics) in work that has examined issues of identity and identification. S. I have drawn much of my analysis from Ellen Willis, “Towards a Female Liberation,” Social! Text, no. 6 (Fall 1982), pp. 3-15. 6. They argue for a need tò assure free and avail- able abortions and birth control (rather than emphasizing the control of male sexuality), as a way of allowing women to develop a positive sense of sexuality without fear of pregnancy. Annie Goldson is an ex-journalist from New Zealand now living in New York. She works in film, occasionally in video, and plays in a rock shoplifting and white-collar (computer) crime. band. 10 © 1983 Sherry Millner This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 3 Parkerson licity still, From e Mills. z Dorothy Dandridge beyond a rare 8x10 rector Otto Preminger) made her contro- gave Dandridge billing above the film title, and she became the first international glossy or yellowed pages in vintage Ebony versial. She was deeply scarred by family Black star in the history of film. magazines, although her screen brilliance relationships, love, and lovemaking, and surfaces occasionally on late TV in Bright she juggled both devastation and Holly- Road (1953) or Porgy and Bess (1960). Hol- wood glamour. Her death made good myth. lywood’s first movie queen of color committed suicide in 1965. Barbiturate over- Beneath the packaging was a Black woman intensely committed to social mous with Marilyn Monroe, but Dorothy dose and few explanations. She was 42. change. At the height of her singing career Dandridge was my first serious crush. Little remains of the phenomenon of Dorothy Dandridge was a diva under white men (particularly an affair with di- I am just fully realizing the impact of Dandridge on my life. As a chubby, Black in the 1950s, Dorothy Dandridge was Some twenty years later, I have become an among the first Black entertainers to break independent film- and videomaker, pro- the color barrier at hotels and nightclubs. ducing documentaries on jazz vocalist the miscegenation mold; her star quality Scarce editions of her autobiography, Betty Carter and a cappella activists “Sweet was based on her fair skin. Dark enough to Everything and Nothing, reveal Dan- Honey in the Rock”—Black women who embody The Exotic, light enough to be dridge’s political awareness and her relent- Negro Object of Desire, her fate always less fight for racial equality and civil rights. have clearly taken their talents and lives into their own hands. glass: her beauty and travesty marketed to millions. Hollywood processed her through hinged on the leading (Black or white) man From a Black feminist perspective, the There is a correlation. The career of — Harry Belafonte in IJsland in the Sun or circumstances of Dorothy Dandridge’s life Dorothy Dandridge taught me that women Curt Jergens in Tamango, for instance. The few books on Blacks in film view her are yet to be told. Born in Cleveland’s must control the making of their images. Black ghetto in 1922, she grew up around women and show business. Her mother, with victimization, at the cost of her life. as The Tragic Mulatto. In Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks, author Donald Bogle states: Before her, Nina Mae McKinney had displayed uncontrolled raunchiness, Fredi Washington had symbolized intellectualized despair, and Lena Horne had acquired a large following through her reserve and middle-class aloofness. On occasion, Dorothy Dandridge exhibited all the characteristics of her screen predecessors, but most important to her appeal was her fragility and her desperate determination to survive. Dandridge was surrounded with awe and voyeurism by the white media. She was the first Black on the cover of Life—as the leading lady in Carmen Jones. But Dandridge was often at odds with the Black press. Her screen image and romances with ©1983 Michelle Parkerson comedienne Ruby Dandridge, reared Dorothy and her older sister Vivien with the help of an “aunt”—a close family friend On and off screen, Dandridge contended As Blacks, as women, we must begin to master the medium that has killed us for so long. Exploitation, misrepresentation who doubled as pianist for their vaudeville on screen, union discrimination, and limit- act, “The Wonder Kids.” Later, “The ed production opportunities in the larger Dandridge Sisters” gained success on the Black theater circuit. industry are still struggles to be won...at Dorothy Dandridge’s marriage in the 1940s to dancer Harold Nicholas was brief Michelle Parkerson, a poet and documentary filmmaker from Washington, D.C., has just least for the next generation of daughters. and disillusioning. She gave birth to a published Waiting Rooms, her first book of daughter, Harolyn, who suffered severe poetry. brain damage. As a single parent, she be- REFERENCES gan a solo career that eventually led to stardom. In 1955 she was nominated for “Best Actress” for her role in the 20th Century-Fox production Carmen Jones: a first for a Black woman. A three-year contract with the studio followed—the first and most ambitious ever offered to a Black performer. In that contract, Darryl Zanuck Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks. New York: Viking Press, 1973. Dandridge, Dorothy & Earl Conrad. Everything and Nothing: The Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy. New York: Abelard-Shulman, 1970. Mills, Earl. Dorothy Dandridge. Los Angeles: Holloway House, 1970. 11 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The film begins with a TV spot about the Revolution while the official revolutionary song (“We are born in flames. . .”’) plays. Titles appear over the TV image: “New York City, ten years after the Social-Democratic War of Liberation’: This week of celebration, commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the War of Liberation, is a time when all New Yorkers take pride in remembering the most peaceful revolution the world has known. It is time to consider the progress of the past ten years, and to look forward to the future. The music continues over shots of Manhattan, titles, and Isabel (Adele Bertei) speaking from her radio station: Hi there. This is Isabel from Radio Regazza, bringing you a little tune that you'll be hearing an awful lot these days, from the makers of our “Revolution.” You might not be hearing it here, but you'll be hearing it everywhere else you go. Happy Anniversary! Dem lames 7s set in the future—ten years after a SocialTC c` cultural “revolution” in America. The film is not trally “science fiction”: There is no attempt to create a futurc fook because it is as much about today's world as it is about the future—posing the question of whether oppression against women will be elimina er any kind of social system. The film opens during c a period of disenchantment, when political ideals fave ‘been sacrificed to pragmatic realities. The Social` Democratic Party that women had supported has not fulfilled its The music continues over tracking shots of women workers, including Adelaide Morris (Jeanne Sattersfield), a construction worker. FBI voiceover begins with this image and continues through slides of Norris: Adelaide Norris, 24. She seems to be the founder of the Women’s Army. Her background? Ordinary. Typical of a lot of Blacks. Mother a domestic. Her . The women in the film are not anti-socialist. In fact, father died when she was a teenager. Eight kids in the family. society have been destroyed. T hey are opposed to the bu- jock, good in track and basketball. Goes to school nights, Adelaide’s the oldest. She helped raise the others. Always a racy of the; traditi onal Left, whose governing structure inevibly reproduces white male dominance within the culture;,to a SO works construction jobs during the day. Homosexual? Yes. The Women’s Army seems to be dominated by Blacks 1 where any temporary economic advancement for women “only reflects: the opportunism of the government rather than a true desire. 2 for egalitarianism. These women are not satisfied by relative ` “progress” in a society where rape, prostitution, and harassment È still exist, where homosexuality is punished, and where ' ‘women’s issues” such as daycare are seen as secondary concerns. ` Born in Flames is fantasy in i: : confronted with the very “ordi and lesbians. Norris started it as a radical-separatist vigilante group three or four years ago. Now it seems to be looking for a base of support by instigating various community uprisings involving women. Adelaide conducts a community meeting about daycare cutbacks: T’d like to know if anyone has any ideas or any suggestions as to how we can keep this center open, because for those of you who are working, what this means is that you're going to have to stop working and stay home and take care of your kids. pression against won is not eliminated m with “so- Woman at Meeting: No, it's going to be impossible for me to cialism”—not only do political values have to change, cultural stop working. We have to figure out some way we can keep values must change and become embedded in practice. the center open independently. ` The narrative of the film is disjunctive, cutting ‘between various ` groups of Women which represent various con Honey (playing herself), speaking from her radio station: Good evening, this is Honey, coming directly to you from cultural positions within the women's comm Phoenix Radio, a free radio station, a station not only for the the script were developed by collaborating wit liberation of women, but for the liberation of all through the freedom of life which is found in music. We are all here be- film who, to various degrees, play themselves. is meant to suggest that even though an armed cause we have fought in the War of Liberation, and we all bear witness to what has happened since the war. We see the ment may be nposstbie to sust; [i he language, even for a ihat woren will be able oppression that still exists, both day and night. For we are the children of the light, and we will continue to fight, not against the flesh and blood, but against the system that names itself falsely. For we have stood on the promises far too long now, that we can all be equal, under the cover of a social democracy, where the rich get richer and the poor just wait on their dreams. ©1983 Lizzie Borden This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Lizzie Borden Hillary Hurst (playing herself), a leader of the Women’s Army, The Bicycle Brigade: two men accost and attempt to rape a wom- is harassed as she walks past a group of men sitting around a truck. an. Behind her screams, the sound of whistles can be heard ap- Cut to TV spot: proaching from all directions—bicyclists from the Women’s Army Setting aside for a while the growing pressure of economic surround the rapists and drive them away. A TV news report be- crisis, organized labor joined forces in a parade of 150 thou- gins over this image: sand up Fifth Avenue to commemorate the overwhelming Police have been puzzled in the past week by what they de- victory by the Social Labor Party ten years ago. Labor’s scribe as well-organized bands of 15 to 20 women on bicycles attacking men on the street. While the victims say that these abandonment of the old Democratic Party is considered by incidents were unprovoked, eyewitness reports suggest that many the cornerstone of today’s liberation. these men may themselves have been attempting to assault Isabel and her band (The Bloods) sing “Undercover Nation” in a women. However, officials have condemned the lawlessness recording studio: of such vigilante groups and ask for information leading to the atrest of the women involved. Maybe even their telephone Headlines screaming as she watches the race/ reading back numbers! the Constitution/ Leather-legged or a dancer in space/ talking ’bout evolution/ She’s got a black suit and a red dress/ She’s got a chest full of the poet’s mess/ A hangover and her Isabel and a woman from Radio Regazza debate this incident: Isabel: ...….lesbianism, faggotism, Niggerism, honkeyism... mother’s on the phone... You know, really that could have been the Women’s Army Wake up, wake up ’cause she isn’t alone... that did that. Wake up, wake up, could this be you? No, they’re not aggressive enough. Hillary conducts an induction meeting for women joining the They're not aggressive enough? What are you talking about? Army. One woman questions the use of the word “army” as too I told you, Jules. They're a service to the community, they masculine for a women’s group. FBI voiceover begins with this deal in childcare and daycare centers and stuff like that. image and continues through other images of Hillary: That's not all they do; they're vigilantes; they'd use violence; Hillary Hurst, 26. We figure her to be the current leader of they could have done this easily. the Women’s Army. No official political record, but she’s No. They're not aggressive enough. They’re not terrorists. been instrumental in bringing the Army to large numbers of women through induction meetings she holds around the Adelaide and another woman from the Army confront a man har- city. It’s impossible to say if Hurst is in command. We'’re not assing a woman on the subway. FBI voiceover: even sure how the organization is structured. All we know is Well, I wouldn’t exactly call them terrorists, although we do that they’re starting to appeal to women who would have know that they're responsible for those bicycle incidents. written them off as lunatics a few years ago. That’s no big deal. What is the problem is the vigilante sensibility. We’ve got to watch ’em. Put some pressure on them Adelaide and Zella Wylie (Flo Kennedy) watch Mayor Zubrinsky at their jobs. on TV: As chief executive officer of the city, I am pleased, proud, and grateful to you all for affording this city the opportunity TV news: Violence flared today in Lower Manhattan as youths threw to share in the anniversary which heralds our society as being Molotov cocktails outside City Hall. The demonstration be- the first true socialist democracy the world has ever known. gan as a protest against what the young men call meaning- Ours has been the greatest cultural revolution of all time, less jobs given to them through the Workfare program. They through which we have wed democracy, with its respect for freedom and individualism, and its abhorrence of all forms treatment in the real job market. However, human services of communism and fascism, with the moral and ethical hu- officials deny that this is true. manism of American socialism. claim that women and other minorities receive preferential Angry young men roamed the downtown area, indiscrim13 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms inately destroying storefronts and cars and attacking passers- The SYR editors, told that Adelaide’s death was a mistake, be- by. Police spokesmen denied accusations that they overreact- come disenchanted with the Party. Voiceover of their editorial is ed, citing the sympathy many officers feel for the demonstra- heard as Honey walks by a newsstand and sees Adelaide’s photo on tors’ cause. They claim that they handled an explosive and the front of the paper. dangerous situation as well as could be expected. Adelaide at construction site as the foreman hands out paychecks. She receives a pink slip: laid off for no apparent reason. The song “Born in Flames” begins and continues over a series of images of women’s hands at conventional women’s work as mother, secretary, dental hygienist, prostitute, etc. Adelaide leads a job demonstration in front of City Hall. Voiceover of the editors of the Socialist Youth Review (SYR) in their office (Pat Murphy, Kathy Bigelow, and Becky Johnston): As the editors of the Socialist Youth Review, we regret that many of the construction and steel workers laid off in the past few weeks have been the women hired only last year. The industries have been overburdened recently by the enor- As editors of the Socialist Youth Review, we have been troubled by the official reports on the death of Adelaide Norris, the founder of the Women’s Army. Grave inconsistencies in the police records and in the coroner’s report have led us to believe that Norris did not commit suicide but was murdered —assassinated, if you will, for political reasons. It is alleged by the government that Norris was involved in arms dealings with the Polisarian rebels sympathetic to her cause. If so, why wasn’t she allowed a fair trial? When Norris returned to New York she had no weapons on her person, nor was there any proof that she was successful in her negotiations. Did the Party so fear that she could rally an armed group of women that an assassination was necessary? mous number of minority workers who are applying for a limited number of jobs. Only a small percentage of each group can be accommodated in these trades. The rest will receive alternative placement in the Workfare program. We feel that women who immediately cry ‘“sexism’” are being selfish and irresponsible. Any move toward separatism, the demand for equal rights for one group alone, hurts our struggle for the equal advancement of all parts of society. Zella, speaking to Adelaide: I’m going to tell you something. We have a right to violence. All oppressed people have a right to violence. And I want to tell you something. It’s like the right to pee. You’ve got to have the right place, you've got to have the right time, you’ve got to have the appropriate situation, and I’m absolutely convinced that this is it. SYNOPSIS OF MIDDLE OF FILM Tensions build between sectors of the workforce. The Women’s Army tries to broaden its constituency by involving the women’s radio and press. Regazza is unfriendly and the women from SYR refuse to help. Phoenix, however, is receptive and a friendship develops between Adelaide and Honey. As Adelaide becomes more Zella speaks at an emergency meeting of the Women’s Army: and more frustrated with the lack of government response to their We've got to make it clear that she’s been murdered. And demonstrations and protests, she begins to feel that the only way we’ve got to cut through this cover-up, because they'll bury it the Army will be heard is through violence. Her decision to pick up if they can. This is supposed to be an army! We need media. arms is encouraged by Zella, but opposed by the rest of the Army. While her moves are monitored by the FBI, Adelaide arranges a We've got to get a message on television that will be seen everywhere. trip to the Western Sahara to work with a revolutionary group that agrees to help the Army. When she returns, she is seized at the airport and incarcerated. She dies in jail. The Social-Democratic Party calls it a suicide. Honey, speaking from Phoenix Radio: Greetings. This broadcast has been dedicated to Adelaide Norris. Every woman under attack has the right to defend herself whenever we are unjustly attacked. Freedom? You talk about freedom? Freedom—it’s yours, it’s right here, and it’s your right. They may label you, try to classify you, and even call you a crazy bitch, but don’t flinch, just let them. Continue, just as Adelaide Norris. Exercise your rights, and your freedom is yours. Black women such as Adelaide Norris may be among a minority and be insignificant to many. But just like the fuse that ignites the whole bomb, we are important. Black women, be ready. White women, get ready. Red women, stay ready, for this is our time and all must realize it. Montage of groups of women preparing for action: looking through blueprints, training physically, casing out CBS. Cut to SYR editors discussing whether printing photos of Adelaide would sensationalize a dead body or serve to mobilize. Next, a shot of Honey singing as she shaves her head in the bathtub: To fulfill the need to be/ who I am in this world/ is all I ask./ I cannot pretend to be/ someone that I’m not/ and I can’t wear a mask./ There’s this need to be true to myself and make my own mistakes./ And I don’t want to lean too hard on someone else... This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms _ work. My fellow Americans, good evening. I am speaking with you this evening to ask your support for a program which this Administration believes is a critical step forward toward greater justice, equality, and freedom for all our citizens. .…. . . .in every aspect of our social and economic life. Tonight, I am asking your support for a critical part of that program which will affect the lives of 40 million of our citizens. American women... . . that for the first time in our history will provide women with Wages for Housework. Women who would rather devote themselves to their families will be freed from the double burden of work outside and inside the home. Zella Wylie here, and we interrupt this broadcast to talk to you about the murder of Adelaide Norris by federal agents. They called it suicide but a lot of people don’t buy that lie. She was murdered because she stood up against the betrayal of women. We're being sold down the river—at home, at work, and in the media. And now the President wants to pacify us with Wages for Housework. Wages for Housework is a dupe... The aim of the Revolution was the equality of all men and all women and all people. Insofar as these women struggle for selfish ends, for ends that are against the aims of all the people, which are embodied in this revolutionary government, those aims must be stamped out by any means necessary. The means that are at hand for us are the means of the criminal law. What these women have done is utterly self-interested. They are not concerned with the progress of all of us... You can do all that can be done. The most important thing nomic and social position of women. Our government, which of all is media, our media—communication. You've got a has prided itself on being the first successful socialist democ- radio station. Your job is to see that it can’t be quieted, that racy, is neither democratic nor socialist. In forming an alli- it can’t be bullshitted out, and that we make the connec- ance with male Labor, the government has reinforced the tions... caste system that has always existed in this country. Women fought the War of Liberation with certain expectations in mind: that the government would work, beyond reform, Psychoanalyst: If I may say so, this has been a very satisfying toward a truly egalitarian society. But unless we struggle now thing because it has proved an ancient theory of Freud’s, for our rights, we will always be oppressed. that there is a primary female masochism, a deep-rooted, rock-bottom sort of thing. Of course we don’t see that; what you see is the secondary manifestation, the reversal of that— the secondary female sadism. Belle Gayle: The secondary female sadism? Yes. All these so-called pranks. You mean their deeper impulse is masochistic but they fear to express it in that fashion? That’s right. There’s a terror of their own masochism... You’ve made it impossible for the Party to keep you on as editors. You’ve taken a position of considerable power and you've thrown it away. And you've also taken a woman, Adelaide Norris—probably a malcontent—and made her into a hero. Kathy: It's not just Adelaide Norris. Pat: She’s right. It’s a lot of other issues as well. We can no longer compromise our position by continuing to work for this newspaper. As the editors of the Socialist Youth Review, we would like to comment on the CBS break-in last week by the Women’s Army. In a videotape by Zella Wylie, the Women’s Army exposed government duplicity not only in the cover-up of Adelaide Norris’s death, but in the repression of active feminism with Wages for Housework. We extend our support to the Army as a legitimate revolutionary group, because we, Wake up! We're being murdered out there in the streets. Andđd if you're going to sit by and watch it happen, sister, all your babies, and yourselves, you’re going to be cleaned out— we ain’t going to be around no more! Now get it together. It’s time to fight! This is for all the dead heroes out there. Yeah! (continued) 15 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms It’s time to work some voodoo on these motherfuckers, sis- tions in the home? The media, the tool of the government, ters. This is a message to the Women’s Army and to women reinforces their position by promoting images of women as everywhere. Wake up! This is station 2016 on your dial. If wives and mothers. We are surrounded by the very images you can’t find it then you’re in trouble, sister. our mothers fought to destroy. Decades of women’s work for Pat, one of the SYR editors, meets with the Women’s Army: One of the things we have to realize is that each one of us is public, that they have a file on each one of us. The idea that each one is working privately is just a false one—they can pick up each one of us anytime. So what we have to keep aiming for is to have control over the language, over our own image—so that we have control over describing ourselves. TV news: socialism, for freedom of choice, equality of opportunity, are being swept away. Once again we are being placed outside politics. It’s not only women who will suffer. You know the pattern. Blacks, Latins, all ethnic and social groups will suffer, as the old sex, race, and class divisions reemerge. There can be no true socialism until we are all represented in government. We demand a quota system which is truly expressive of our numbers, and we will not stop fighting until we get proportional representation in government. Police were called in today to investigate blazes that gutted two female-operated unlicensed radio stations, Phoenix Radio and Radio Regazza. Citing the recent backlash against women extremists, officials say that the suspicious and possibly related fires may have been the work of vandals. Phoenix and Regazza broadcast from their new mobile stations: Good evening, this is Honey, coming directly to you from the new Phoenix and Regazza radio station, a station not only dedicated to the liberation of women, but a station dedicated to deconstruct and reconstruct all the laws that suppress and In a meeting initiated by Isabel, the women from Phoenix and oppress all of us. Now if you should lose our broadcast, you Regazza decide to steal trucks and equipment in order to make may have to search your dial, for Phoenix and Regazza are now on the move. two mobile radio stations. Honey participates, on the condition that they work with the Women’s Army. The women from SYR become involved with the Army. When the Army interrupts another TV program, it is Pat who delivers the message. Some of her speech is heard over images of Phoenix and Regazza stealing U-Haul trucks: We are interrupting this program to bring you a special message from the Women’s Army, and we will continue to make this kind of direct action until everyone understands and is prepared to do something about the way the government has betrayed women. Look at the reality of your lives. The government thinks that socialism was instituted ten years ago, after the War of Liberation, but it denies the very basis of -true socialism, which is constant struggle and change. Wasn’t the War of Liberation fought to create an egalitarian state? Why, then, does the government attack women, putting them out of their jobs and relegating them to secondary posi- Meanwhile, the ultimate action is planned by the Army: A bomb is made; blueprints of the World Trade Center transmitter locations consulted; a woman enters the WTC with the bomb in her purse. Good morning. This is Isabel, broadcasting from the new Phoenix-Regazza radio station. I’d like to open up by making a statement on behalf of Adelaide Norris and the Women’s Army. Her murder serves as a warning for women everywhere of the struggle we face, and the truth will be heard as the story must and shall be told. It is not only the story of women’s oppression; it is the story of sexism, racism, bigotry, nationalism, false religion, and the blasphemy of the statecontrolled Church; the story of environmental poisoning and nuclear warfare, of the powerful over the powerless for the sake of sick and depraved manipulations that abuse and corner the human soul like a rat in a cage. It is all of our responsibility as individuals to examine and reexamine everything, leaving no stones unturned. Every word that we utter, every action and every thought, we are all, women and men, the prophets of this new age, and for those of us who would be safer in the sensibilities of racism, separatism, and martyrdom, if you can’t help us toward building this living church, then step out of the way! The scope and capability of human love are as wide and encompassing as this vast universe that we all swirl in, one for all and all for oneness. This fight will not end in terrorism and violence. It will not end in a nuclear holocaust. It begins in a celebration of the rights of alchemy, the transformation of shit into gold, the illumination of dark chaotic night into light. This is the time of sweet, sweet change for us all. This is Isabel for Phoenix-Regazza Radio, signing off until tomorrow. A male TV announcer is seen standing outside, in lower Manhattan, in front of the World Trade Center: But have we gone too far? It is time to ask if the programs of yesterday’s liberation have become the stagnation of today. We cannot ignore the monumental inflation with which we are burdened, nor can we condone the widespread abuse rampant in our social system. At home we are becoming trapped in bureaucracy, and throughout the rest of the world our influence wanes. The management of this. station fears that oversocialization has transformed our democracy into a welfare state. If we are to survive our ideals, we must careful- i FBI presentation: The entire organization, which is represented by the circle, is ly consider their implications. This, in the midst of our cele- bration, isthe opinión of WNYC... ....... -u BOOM! about 1000 women. It's subdivided into small cells, each of which selects its own leader on a rotating basis. After each of Suddenly, his voice is interrupted by a deafening explosion, as the these small cells has selected a leader, about every three or WTC transmission tower blows up. four months a leader for the entire organization is selected from those leaders, and this is the problem: We don't know at any given time who is in charge. Lizzie Borden is a filmmaker and art critic living and working in New York City. This is her first narrative feature. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ei , t tions . and three men wer ” ire Briga inh basic logic! armist, alluding 10 an used to justify extensive ©1983 W immin’s Fire Brigade # Ea This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms t ‘People sell themselves every day. It just depends on your occupation. You sell R e R N In the stat room I’m enlarging a chrome of her. . All these girl sets are beginning to look the | same. It’s frightening how when I go to crop the image the art director’s designs are > becoming automatic, “We don’t care about the furniture just don’t crop her pubes.” Very often I feel like her—like I’m selling myself. How can I be a feminist and work on a skin magazine? Not that Vogue would be . that different. But I’m trying to get by— get skills—ġet out of here ... It’s lunch, I go downstairs with a friend from work. She looks shorter than l’d imagined, she looks like a tourist. We catch the light and run across the street. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This panel discussion was conducted by Diana Agosta and Edith Becker from the Heresies #16 Collective (HC) in November 1982 with four women filmmakers and activists: Janice Blood (JB), Director of Public I nformation for 9 to 5, the national organization of women office workers which inspired the movie 9 to 5 and the TV series; Cara DeVito (CD), who has worked on documentaries for the past 10 years, most recently on What Could You Do with a Nickel? about a domestic workers’ union in the South Bronx; Christine Noschese (CN), who has shown films and tapes to working-class women as an organizer for the National Congress of Neighborhood Women and is currently working on a film about community leaders in Brooklyn; and Brenda Singleton (BS), a social worker who has been active on the Women's Issue Committee of the National Association of Social Workers and uses film as an organizing and educational tool. HC What doyou think about the images of working women since the mid- end. Lots of films, however, are more optimistic in the end than in reality. I’m not Still, our members tended to feel happy 1960s? sure that they have to be. For example, and proud that an actual commercial movje was made about women office workers Wilmar 8 doesn’t have a truly optimistic and not an obscure documentary. They are CN A lot of working-class women object to films showing only their oppres- ending, but women seem to like it. They so starved for some depiction of themselves don’t feel it’s a movie of oppression be- that it was okay when the only thing that cause it shows women as real people taking emerged was a movie saying office workers as much control over their lives as they can against odds they just couldn't beat. The have some problems. Never mind if they solve them and, of course, it was a comedy. women in Wilmar 8 are not passively talk- But some of the issues portrayed are part ing about how they lost. That would be de- of working life: a person who doesn’t get ‚sion and not showing their joy, their laughter, their love. Successful feminist films in this country have been upbeat; they've talked about the leadership women have provided and discussed the problems within that context. This way, there is more of an interrelationship and women feel the films represent them. After all, who wants to be told what might be wrong with them? pressing. We see them demonstrate. A story promoted, no job training, people treated just about failure wouldn't be a great without respect. It is worth seeing this movie, but not in the same way as Uzion movie. Maids or Rosie the Riveter. The real people The dilemma is that you don’t want to show that everything is wonderful We found a bit of hopelessness in the movie made a difference and they among our membership when it was impart a sense that “We could do that, too.” The commercial movie lacks any and these women have life easy, because first shown. That has changed over the last that’s the lie traditional media shows. It year as office workers and their rights be- doesn’t show working-class women because we don’t fit into the situation come- come a topical issue. There were no unions in existence at the time the Wilmar 8 went dies or Madison Avenue hype. Therefore, white middle-class America doesn’t want out on strike, but now unions are interest- to see or hear about it. I want to show peo- ization. For uses of organizing, there ple struggling for their dignity, their eco- should be a feeling after the movie that nomic rights, and controlling their destiny, there’s a way to get a hold of the oppressive ed in clerical workers, even our own organ- and show it in a positive light. The danger situation, whether it’s documentary or fic- is making it too superficial or upbeat be- tional film. cause then it’s just another fable about Based on what the members of 9 to 5 have experienced, there seems to be a big workers. BS In terms of using films to organize, it’s very important to include those women whom the film’s about in the filmmaking process. Only those people can say what the situation actually is. Others can look into it and talk about it, but you know when someone is telling her own story. With any organizing, people need to feel they have some ability to change things. It’s very hard to use film that does not give the sense that, even though people struggle, they can achieve something in the Facing page: Both photographs are of the same woman. The photo in the foreground appeared division between documentary and fictionalized story telling, commercial TV and PBS. Union Maids is shown by our members all across the nation, even though those women were not office workers, their struggles go back a long time, and they show heavy union involvement; and 9 to 5 is in a sense a preunion organization. But we feel its continued popularity is because of its spirit—how women describe themselves, what they've gone through and how they’ve met it. There is hope in their struggle for justice in the workplace. I compare that feeling with our experiences with the movie 9 žo 5. There is so much lacking there that should be said. But there are in a newspaper interview with the model. unbelievable obstacles in commercial Graphic by Nicky Lindeman, an artist who lives media that prevent anything that seems and works in New York City. real from getting made. sense of encouragement. It’s a glorification of office work and workers. BS rd like to see more films offering role models. We know what the problems are. We need to see some solutions of how women deal with certain things successfully on a realistic basis. For instance, there’s a million types of families these days, not a ‘typical’ two-parent family with a car and house, which is what we see on the screen. More movies should include working women and day-to-day involvement with daycare, and how to survive, the basics. This is what viewers are starving for. That’s why Awake from Mourning inspires such a reaction. It’s a film about a self-help movement among South African women. It’s very subtle, on a day-to-day routine rather than on something major like a riot or a strike. There’s nothing wrong with strikes but it’s also important to show what goes on in an organized women’s community on a day-to-day basis. This is helpful for organizing. Even the social workers I showed it to were very impressed. CN Movies are one place where the women’s movement should applaud itself. It’s from the movement that these films about working-class women got 19 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms made. The women’s movement is accused certain things but then when I viewed the where you see a problem on the screen that of not being concerned about class and mi- same film with others, the majority of is similar to your own, suddenly you begin nority issues but in the independent film whom, in this case, were white middle- to see these things don’t have to do only community it’s been women who've been class with several Black women, something with yourself. It puts it in perspective and very concerned about those issues and active in them. very different happened. Part of the put- makes it ‘“tackleable.” That’s why the pose of this particular screening was to raise consciousness about women of color through. As organizers we need to see that and to introduce some ideas about what’s truth in a film. We can say to a woman going on in South Africa, and to show that what she experiences is institutional some of the parallels with our own lives. It discrimination; but it’s much better to see CD The process for making these films is also very important. For What Could You Do with a Nickel?, three of us went into the South Bronx looking like a network with all this equipment. The women didn’t know the money came out of our own pockets. They thought we were going to make a sensational story and show the poor people. What we did was to get involved with the actual organizing. We picketed, leafletted, attended meetings, and encouraged leadership among the women —the community group the women were involved in was headed by a very good man, who just didn’t make the leap to try to cultivate leadership among the women. That’s one way to get involved aside from the editing process. was incredible because there were so many different levels coming out of the film. For example, the film addresses many issues of self-help movements; the women in the film make their own clothes and grow their own food and do not depend on factory work. That has a lot of implications. The film negated a lot of racial issues because it showed very articulate Black women from South Africa. The audience was saying, “Ah, uh, I didn’t know they could talk or express what they need.” Most people can express what they need. You ask them what they need, they'll tell you. HC What was the use of the film for the women in the South Bronx? Some women who are making decisions for other people and organizing are so far point of view of the people must come on screen another woman experience it and see how she is capable of dealing with it. CN Asa feminist organizer, I think it’s much easier to use the types of films we’ve been talking about where we show the empowerment of women. It’s consciousness raising to have women feel they can control their own lives in some way. I consider CR an organizing issue, so then it’s very easy to use films for women’s organizing. I’ve used Cara’s videotape on her grandmother who was a battered woman. I don’t think Cara knew that tape would have such a use. It was a persoñal tape. I used it in a working-class neighborhood in CD They felt good that they were the subject of a film. They were feeling removed from what’s going on. We’ve got- Brooklyn to discuss battered women. It’s more difficult to use other kinds of film ten very professional with all the jargon, than women’s films with women. I don’t completely fucked over by everyone. They and sometimes lose sight of the real issues. were doing traditional women’s work, low- I think film helps explore these issues. It’s est paid on the social ladder. They wanted to communicate to others that they’d gone a consciousness-raising tool. The issues don’t have to be resolved in the movie. this far and other people should learn from Film shows it on the screen and allows peo- what they did. ple to take it in, sift it around and then I had a community advisory board before anything was shot for my film Women of the Northside Fight Back. At react to it. In fact it was the next day when I saw some of these women that most of the discussion took place. know if it’s because women’s films are better, but I have some prejudices in this area, or because they have a personal quality and are in touch with an everyday politic. Another way to use films for organizing is to use study guides. 9 to 5 developed a study guide to go along with Wilmar 8. California Newsreel distributes one minute I was saying, “Ha, ha, I have all these women from the community on my board and I’m gonna make a politically correct movie,” and at other times I felt, “Oh no, all these people are telling me what to do and I’m not going to be able to say what I want to say with the film.” It’s very frightening. None of the 20 women agreed with one another anyway. They were all from different ethnic groups and were all leaders. As soon as they saw I was in their corner and understood the issues they wanted to communicate, I had their trust. It was only my own fear. People trusted me. That was nice. What about showing contradictory opinions in a film? How does the v Beverly Benkowitz complexity of the issue get conveyed to the viewer? CN We have to start talking about form then. Not form that is not entertaining or that is boring or so way-out that peo- JB Something Brenda just said rang a bell. We found that the biggest benefit of all the films we’ve worked with and were part of was that the fact that it’s on film suddenly made it more concrete. It’s Annette Moy the film and got a grant which allowed them to turn money over to us to produce the study guide. Our labor education organizer put together a guide that is applicable to any group of people, though it’s ple can’t relate to it. Form in terms of what like knowing something in the back of primarily for working women. She put it is a style that can represent women’s is- your mind without being able to verbalize together so that a group meeting regularly sues. One of the problems is that the dra- it; then seeing it on screen makes it legiti- would use it differently from a group meet- matic forms we know now do not represent the holistic view of women’s lives and the way women see them. Now the forms limit us and the way we can portray women and these issues, and that’s the reason for some of the ambivalences. BS I found that when I saw Awake from Mourning by myself I reacted to mate. For women this is incredibly impor- ing only to view the film. In all instances she tant because we’re so used to internalizing drew together many different forms of in- our experiences. We don’t seem to have an volvement. For example, one issue that the outer reality. The most negative extreme is film deals with is pay equity. In order to to blame oneself for things that are objec- explain that issue, part of the manual asks tively not your own fault: institutionalized people to guess the salaries for a steelwork- discrimination, not dressing for success, or er and an executive secretary and a whole “I don’t have enough education.” But range of jobs that fall into the predomi- 20 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms nantly female or male categories. That’s funny, but that’s who’s writing for tele- how people found out about pay inequal- vision. ity. The manual was designed to add ap- But that’s how organizations can help. Last Tuesday some young white guy proximately 45 minutes to the film. It from NBC called and said, “We’re think- suggests giving a brief introduction and ing of making a TV movie and we’re think- CN It's also depressing from the filmmaker’s point of view that here they are living on crumbs to make these films having the audience note particular things ing of an office worker who gets black- during viewing. It’s just now being printed so we don’t know how well it will work or mailed by her boss and we want to talk to lucky, some people in colleges or universi- some women who this might have hap- ties will see them, but the filmmaker is in- what people’s experiences will be with it. pened to.” Before I could help myself, I But that may be one more way to make terested in reaching people in the streets. said, “How do you guys think this stuff films applicable to groups that you might otherwise think would not find a film of To reach a group you almost have to have that I can’t believe any boss would be stu- organization. But if people don’t know pid enough to blackmail his secretary because secretaries across the board in the there is such a thing as independent film, interest. HC Talking about appealing to a broader audience seems to relate back to the question of commercial media. How do you deal with the damaging images of working women shown on TV and in the news? CN That’s partially why we want other mythical images of ourselves on screen. It’s partially a reaction to all this up?” He said, “Pardon me.” And I said USA are earning a little below $11,000 a to work? Do you expect the people to storm the barricades after seeing a film? How do don’t even know how to respond to that. you use anything in your work? Each film CD This brings up an interesting point. Do you stay completely separate from mainstream commercial media or do is going to do different things for people. you try to infiltrate somehow? You’re up against a power structure that’s so big that the effect you can have working on the in- pendent films are positive in terms of how we see ourselves as women. We need that side is so small. Yet if you don’t start making small inroads like Norma Rae, which image to counteract the terrible way we’re gets people wanting something more dar- That’s one reason we pounced on Norma Rae with such glee and gratitude. [Agreement.] It’s not as if that was an organized effort. You do it through your that’s a problem. How do you expect films year. And you’re gonna blackmail her? I negativity we feel in our lives. The inde- made to feel by current media. and then who gets to see them? If they're ing, is it ever going to make an impact? CN But look who gets to make Norma Rae. Martin Ritt had a lot of success before he got to make Norma Rae. a totally accurate portrayal of what organ- It’s important to make films that izing is. She just did it in two hours flat. come out of the grassroots, that are The people are always different and there’s no particular rule to say how you can use a film. BS It takes the person or group to sort those things out. You should know the audience as well as the film. If I show a film to a professional group the issues that they should be dealing with are different from those of a community group. Somebody’s got to do that work. The more I use film the more I know this is true. All these films we’re talking about are self-distributed or distributed through small nonprofit distributors. This [Laughter.] But to actually see a woman as the hero was so wonderful that we could not doctored up for the networks and means that the only reason they are getting which tell the story just as it is. On the hardly stand it. Especially as a commercial seen at all is that these people are putting other hand, we need to try to chip away at in labor and capital to get their films to the them. Sometimes it happens in a big way, groups. Forget about commercial access. at other times, it’s just the cumulative ef- Most distributors don’t do anything for fect of a chip here and a chip there. these films. So that’s a joke. First you have film. A big problem is the whole area of CD Fd never worked for a network, but I was so broke after my last tape, I got a job in NBC’s news department. I have all sọrts of torments over whether to leave and starve or stay and argue with the producer for my points of view, and try to get in there and do the documentaries even though they’re gonna keep pushing me down. It’s a real conflict for me. BS It's important to stay in touch with the mainstream because it, too, is a reality. If you can deal with the politics and bureaucracy, I’d rather someone be a part of the decision-making process who is informed than someone who is totally reKv11) uuo (q 0310y moved from women’s grassroots organiz- to make the film, then self-distribute, then make an organization to make people aware of the films.... But as feminist workers, is there a use to trying to get the films on TV, where every woman is isolated from other women? CD The value of screening in the commercial world is that our own images are fighting the images that we see as socially acceptable. The work is seen not just as a project of a lunatic fringe group that feels women are human beings and deserve rights. Everyday you turn on TV or go to the movies and it’s ludicrous. You don’t have to be in a group to begin to feel entertainment, where networks and stu- ing. The producer of Awake from Mourn- dios feel they can’t simply tell the truth when telling a story—they’ve got to enter- ing got her money from her father, a businessman in South Africa. She took her in- tain. The politics of this is that they say heritance and put it back into the commu- CN Put a film on TV and millions of people will see it. If you're self-dis- the power of these images. “entertain” but they really mean a million nity from which it was taken. It’s a fantas- tributing it, to get those millions of people dollars gross at the box office or good rat- tic film made by the privileged. So it’s im- will take you the rest of your life. TV, even ings. With the exception of Jane Fonda’s portant to work on both levels. My feeling, without the proper publicity, is very impor- production company, our experience with too, is that distribution is a big problem tant. Although I don’t think that commu- networks and Hollywood has been terrible. There’s a noticeable lack of minorities and for these films. How many people who nity people who see a film in a room with need to see them even know they exist? the projector think that it’s only a fringe women in important positiońs. People are Women who are already organized should group. I prefer seeing something on a big screen to seeing it in a little box. Seeing paid so much and peak so young that no use the films, but more basically most of one believes these people could portray my these films should be seen by the commu- something on a big screen does something reality. How could a white 28-year-old nity people who are not organized. The to you in the gut. It has a more mythical male earning $170,000 a year presume to real problem is to use those human resources that we have. life. The bigger the screen, the bigger the know what my life is about? This sounds quality. It makes us heroes, bigger than 21 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms truth. The writers were the most scared. The producer gets day-to-day total control over who’s hired and fired, even casting. Jane’s role as Executive Producer usually is an inactive one, but she wanted to be involved. But she also understood that she would have to come up against the producer, 20th Century-Fox, the production facility, and ABC TV. There was very little she could do. HC Other than inviting you to LA for three weeks, were any other secretaries invited or any other research done? We've encouraged our members through leafletting to write about what they like and hate about the show and to write their own experiences. We don’t have that kind of impact at the network. All we can do is jump up and down if things get really bad. But then it’s just for one instance. They don’t learn anything cumulatively about working women in general—a very discouraging process. We've come to the point now where we don’t think a commercial TV show about secretaries is worth it if the women are not porWilmar 8 is a terrible indictment of woman hero. And you can’t get these films in a commercial theater or on the networks anyway. There should be a way to infiltrate standard images. It shouldn't always be this polarized thing: the alternative image out there and then the stuff everybody accepts as real. We should start fighting to get that known. BS Its unrealistic to expect documentaries or real struggle films to come on TV or to the theaters on a big scale. It’s a grand idea but on a smaller scale, can we even be effective with the films we have the trade union movement in certain trayed the way we know office workers have to live day by day. Our members express a lot of disappointment in the series ways. You see this man from the UAW say- so far. But the networks get their rewards ing, “Gee, gee, we couldn’t help the girls.” by ratings, not political motivations. It’s a He was awful and yet unions are very interested in the movie now because a lot of dollar and cents game. If they get ratings them want to start organizing clericals. Af- they get more revenue, and the ratings of “9 to 5” have been terrific. But we don’t ter three years, they don’t feel as ashamed think politically the show has any meritori- as they did and Wilmar 8 is quite the dar- ous impact. ling of the unions. CN When something becomes history, it becomes less threatening than when it’s right then and there. and the means we have to distribute them What would you like to do with it if you had your choice? T'd like to hire at least three of the writing team as women over 40, have But are we going to have to wait a much heavier female writing crew, and three, five or ten years until it’s not Y’d like to see the stars of the show, the reg- to people we know in decision-making and a hot potato in order to get it distributed ular cast, have much more meaty parts. leadership roles? I think that is a powerful properly? Particularly for the minority women. If you use of film. It is not a bad idea to show film What about the role of 9 to 5 as the changed those two things we’d be on our to people who could make a difference. consultants for the TV series “9 to way to making it a meaningful show. Now You can’t always deal with people who are totally on the bottom. I’m not saying I wouldn’t reach out, too, but sometimes you have to talk to people who are in a position to affect many other people. I’m thinking of distribution realistically. But professional groups are usually 5”? What kind of effect do you hope to it lacks an understanding of what it is to be a woman over 40, which is after all two of have? Such a topic that is! I was in LA for three months when they did the first four episodes. Our role is to be a conduit between our members and these producers who know nothing about real work, mak- not the people you want to reach and I’m not sure how useful it is to use this ing $145 a week and being a woman. We strategy when you really want to reach of- into a story or that might be vignettes in fice workers and people on the street. part of the episode: to add some reality CD These people in leadership positions have a vested interest in zot seeing and to be a check against their mistakes. We had high hopes and so did Jane Fonda. these films and their points of view. None of the unions will use our film because it’s We were thinking the series would be a cross between “Hill Street Blues” and have to provide incidents they can develop the central characters: Roz and Rita. The writers simply don’t know how to write for these characters. I think it would drive me completely mad if I were Black, particularly seeing how Blacks are portrayed on TV. BS Absolutely! N PBS is supposed to be our public access, but they’re not representing women well. CD The public television stations have just as much a vested interest in the ratings as commercial TV. The money they’re getting comes from corporations critical of the bureaucracy of unions. It’s “M*A*S*H.” Unfortunately, the way the for rank-and-file union members to push network world works today, a show doesn’t the unions to be responsive to the needs of the women. The white male leaders aban- get a full season to see if it makes it. They doned the Black and Latina domestic would come—if the ratings are good. Or, women workers when the going got tough since we had the movie, they gave us four have the opera and “Great Performances” and every other union organizing domestic episodes to make it. Everybody got scared —because we do shows for special groups workers followed. Well, the film’s critical doing the four probationary episodes. We of that. understood ratings was the game and not of people interested in public television. We’re not broadcasters like national com- may give you a pilot from which a series underwriting these programs. It’s free publicity for Mobil, Exxon. But their rhetoric is that we believe in narrowcasting. That’s why we 22 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms mercial networks. Within their logic, it working women we want to see and use in really relate to each other. The value of seems that they wouldn’t have as high a re- organizing? that community is underestimated. There gard for ratings as for networks. JB It took over a year’s effort to get Wilmar 8 on public TV. There is not as much feminist pressure on public TV as there was five or six years ago when we had “Woman Alive” on. B Feminists are not organized enough BS We need to see women of color, single parents, women struggling with the feminization of poverty, coming with the cuts in food stamps, Medicaid and daycare. It’s crucial for a lot of women. As the address that variety. We also should try to that women make films but that women get these films to the communities. I hear get a view of how we can live our lives in a about good films through professional or- positive and supportive way. We live with so much stress, we need to learn from each This brings us back to the commu- en. These films are not reaching the communities. port the films, the filmmakers, and do the work of distribution and exhibition. Christine, you conducted a survey with working women. How did they find their work in the community and in the homes portrayed on film and TV? C It is beneficial to have multiethnic and racial film crews so that there is feedback within the crew and with the on white ethnic working-class women. Other studies were conducted with other minority women. We had a conference using all the results of these surveys. Every ethnic and racial group put together a package that presented what those women felt to be their needs that were not being met in their community. Every group included media—film and television—as other and to get support. JB Personally, I want to see less on commercial TV of the woman lawyer, doctor, private eye, the witch or superwoman, and see more of a mixture—both fictional and documentary—of women in community. More women should get the opportunity to make films. That’s still an issue. That’s specifically one reason we CN I did that study a long time ago for the National Institute of Education ing ourselves is the only way we’re going to make these films accessible. definition of family changes, we need to ganizations, never from community wom- nity. It’s the communities for which unless people know about them. Organiz- BS It's important that there be a light at the end of the tunnel. Not only to lobby for this. the films are made who also have to sup- is no way these films are going to be shown don’t see a lot of the images that we want to see. We see from the independent film community that when women get to make film, they do a good job. If more women made more films and had more positions different environments, different walks of life, rural Black women in Black communities and women grappling with all the things we cope with every day. It’s wondetful to see women heroines, but we’d be better served to see women coping successfully—if not winning the big battles, making changes on a daily level. of power, then we’d see those results. The We would like to thank Roberta Taseley and industry is still oppressive to women. Also I think we have to start defining a clear Joyce Thompson of the NYU Interactive Telecommunications Department for providing the alternative community both in making phone conferencing hook-up, and Marc Weiss films and in distribution. And they have to for suggesting the topic for this panel. part of their package along with college, job training, high school. No group of women felt their media needs were being met. They analyzed how they were being presented, if at all. In Mean Streets you don’t even see women, Scorcese just had a plate there. In the Godfather I and II, well how many Italian women do you know who are that passive in the home? The Irish women were always praying for their hoodlum son. A lot of white ethnic women are portrayed as if any family pathology were the woman’s fault. In the films women are crazy, overly religious and repressive elements. BS That’s one reason, as a Black woman, I can respect Cecily Tyson and the roles she’ll portray in movies. She will not take a part that portrays Black women as very negative or just as a sexual object or as the maid. She takes very strong, positive roles. It’s important to have that kind of image, even with Black men. You always see the negative, so it’s important to focus on people’s strengths. JB But then how often do you see Cecily Tyson? BS Exactly, that’s because she’s taken a side. We all have to find that balonto your own values and sense of who you NSA WILL GET EXCITED OVER. ance between the mainstream and hanging < enis.NO T are. It doesn’t matter where you work. It is ea ae “i FOUGHT PORNOGRAPHY a challenge at all levels to keep to what you believe is right and to deal with bureaucracies. Movies can show that struggle. HC To end with, can you reflect on what we need to see in terms of alternatives in distribution and what images of Graphic by Erika Rothenberg, an artist whose appeared in the Village Voice as well as in several galleries, including Ronald Feldman anddrawings the Newhave Museum in New York. ©1983 Erika Rothenberg This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms MAUREEN NAPPI was going to say that I have enjoyed fucking, but I, that feels, I mean, I don't know what that means anymore really, and in fact The following is a dialogue that occurred during one of the taping the more conscious I became around sexuality, the less I liked sessions, when I was in the room with the woman. During the fucking 'cause I always knew that I wasn't going to get what I others, the women were alone with the camera. wanted, although if I knew the man then I could feel free to ask or he knew me enough to know what I really liked, you know, but Maureen: God, men [sigh of pensive riddance], I haven't slept with a man in Everybody’s lips are so different. almost a year. Woman: I never masturbated until I was 28. I can always make myself The first time these tapes were shown was at the Grey Art Gal- come. I've never not come when masturbating. ...It won't be my lery at New York University in May 1976. It took us two days to set face, right? up the show and it was to open on the third day at 11 a.m. I arrived. at 10 and was greeted at the door with the news that the tapes were Right. not going to be permitted to be shown. News had filtered to the Do you think that lesbians masturbate differently than heterosexual women? Dean and se Head of the Department that there were THESE FING TAPES among the installations. Their reacWas furious; they hadn’t even seen the tapes. Yeah! They have to! Directors of the Gallery (a man and a woman) But maybe it's a function of how repressed you are sexua ; F invited them to view the tapes. They accepted. I than— Ve TVs, they took one glance and yanked me to the the MEDIA,” they said, “got hold of this, the Gal- Yeah, but that has to do with the ex èd down.” Oh, they UNDERSTOOD what I was and women, which are qu tapes, but I just had to understand their posiCENSORSHIP. They then told me of a show de ere:was»a painting of st closed them istration that Oh right. Yeah. y didn’t allow me bians, I don’t th e the whole Who knows wh given population 0 as there— Oh gi Anyway, the ta; shown—interesting reactions. Women e to me saying that they had never seen another woman’s genibefore, or that they didn’t know that other women mastured, or how did I get the courage? The five TVs were set up in a straight line (bird’s eye view) as a hypotenuse, with the two adjacent sides being the walls. The tapes people come, you know what I mean? I m man, a guy has to put his penis— Right, right. into a woman’s vagina for the purposes of coming and that doesn’t mean that his pelvic bone is going to hit against her clitoris— Right. at the magic hour. Not to mention how many women still think that they need a penis in order to come. Right. I know and that’s incredible. You know, before I really understood what was going on, in terms of—this was way way back—the first man that I ever slept with was an incredible lover in the sense that he turned me onto my clitoris. I mean, not through fucking, but other—tongues, hands— and it was, like, the most incredible, absolutely incredible experience and I almost didn't know what it was. And fucking felt, sort of, I mean, it was interesting but it felt, like, second-rate because you never have that total orgasm where you just feel that your were started simultaneously. People had to come in to see the tapes and sit on the floor (there were small pillows and a rug) next to other people. It was clear on walking in that the mood of the tapes was serious and lively. And after each viewing there usually was a spontaneous discussion; a lot of people had something to say or ask. I felt alive and really happy to share the tapes. REPRESSION GREY GALLERY FORBIDS SHOWING OF STVDENT & WORK ON WOMEN AND SEXVALITY / —0N THE GROVNDS THAT 1T5 "PORNOGRAPHIC" GREY REFUSES TD ALLOW A STUDENT To SHOW HER WORK — AND YET TREY HAVENT EVEN JEBN THE PIECE THEMJSELVBS! TWE ONLY “ART” THEY ALLOW HERE 15 “SAFE ART" Í whole body was shot through with this incredible feeling or energy, you know, and then you just feel like [sigh of total pleasure] and, Maureen Nappi currently does work using computer animation, combining you know, I personally have never experienced that in fucking abstract imagery and more explicit sexual material, accompanied by music. [laughter] although I guess I know how to say it [more laughter]. I The Clit Tapes was her first public video installation. ©1983 Maureen Nappi 25 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Dee Dee Halleck } The so-called “communications revolution” has promised ` something for every constituency: perpetual up-to-the-minute re` ports for the news junkies; indoor and outdoor soccer for the jocks; | late-night rock for the Woodstock descendants; quotations on request for stockholders; push-button consumption from commodity channels; Mexican soaps for the barrios of New York and LA. For women, there will be emancipation in the form of entire channels full of information and entertainment. The cable feast offers a dish for every palate—every palate that can pay, that is. This menu is strictly for those that still have jobs and surplus enough to pay the monthly cable bills. The “revolution” is in fact an electronic era of “supply-side” information that turns the very word communication into a euphemism. The main effect of the new technologies is a growing information gap—between the information /aves and the Žave nots. Which side are women on? The JGndustry Most of the information we get comes from the networks, major newspapers, weekly and monthly magazines, book publishers, and record and movie companies that are wholly owned or subsidiaries of the “information giants.” The tremendous growth of this sector has pushed the communications trans-national corporations into the forefront of the expansion of capital. With this expansion, more and more of the culture of the world has come under a system of domination by these media industries that is more subtle and insidious than the British Empire. Indeed, the sun never sets on ET or Charlie's Angels. Like the empires of old, the media corporations have felt the need to expand or die. This tendency, coupled with the world economic crisis, has led them to exact ever greater tolls from the population at home. The essence of cable is that it is a way to charge for media programming. Audiences have always paid for the largest share of the media empire—the equipment to receive the signals. They also have paid for programming through increased prices on the commodities advertised.2 With the advent of cable, they will pay yet again. Cable is not broadcast. It comes into the home through a wire, and as such can be metered and charged for. Of course, the glowing predictions of electronic diversity never mention the price tag. (The third of the U.S. population now receiving cable is also receiving monthly izformation bills— soon to be as common as electric or gas statements.) Nor is there mention of the fact that this information comes into our homes on one wire. However many channels or services, it is owned and provided by one source. This fact is obscured by the predictions of a 70- to 100-channel capacity for the new systems. The “range of Drawing by Carole Glasser. Photos top to bottom: Helen Gurley Brown and Hugh Hefner, Phil Donahue, Gloria Steinem, on choice” is often cited as the reason there is no longer a need for airwave regulation. A close look at the reality of the new cable pro- “A Conversation With... on Daytime. gramming should quickly dispel any lingering hopes about the Photos courtesy Hearst/ABC. emancipatory potential of the cable industry. ©1983 DeeDee Halleck This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms mostly male executives wedged between them and the system heads The P. TOGgrams USA is a cable programming service that reaches 1600 cable systems. Their USA Daytime is described as “women’s entertainment and family service programming.” Anticipating flack, their brochure opens defensively with a disclaimer: “No, it’s not a soap opera.” That much is true: This is not The Young and the Restless. The average soap opera is a lot more expensive than the shows on this schedule. These formats are talk shows: studio hostesses (mostly male to begin with). Women in acquisition departments, who had in the early days of cable been able to pursue some innovative programming ideas, found their decisions reviewed by whole echelons of vice-presidents. The Statistics Cable executives are proud of what they consider to be a glow- with either a guest or a new kitchen appliance, a classic form of ing record of affirmative action in the new industry. They like to cheap TV pioneered by Betty Furness. The guests are mostly ‘“ex- bring out long lists of all their women managers and programming perts” and, more often than not, males. They offer technological officials. Gracie Nettingham has her own list of statistics—ones solutions to such perplexing problems as. removing dog hair on that give a different picture. She is a researcher with the Office of Communications of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the carpets and turning a corner when placing a zipper in do-it-yourself upholstery. More intimate problems are handled by Sonya Friedman, a psychologist billed as someone who is searching for ‘“emotions behind behavior.” Since celebrities are too expensive for this schedule, the after- founder of Minorities in Cable, a nationwide organization dedicated to increasing the participation of minorities in the developing industry. “The patterns here are the same as those in regular broadcasting,” she points out. “Women and minorities have made noon settles for the next best thing: their wives. Called “Are You very few inroads into technical and managerial positions.” Netting- Anybody?” this program reveals “what a woman’s life is like when ham cites statistics from reports that cable operators must file with the FCC. her husband is a superstar.” Guests slated to appear include Mrs. Norman Mailer and Mrs. Howard Cosell. Similar in content and identical in name is Daytime, produced by Hearst/ABC. The format is four hours of hostesses on the set introducing preproduced segments with male experts. Jerry Baker offers advice on plants. Dr. Salk gives insight into teenagers. Mr. Rogers reassures parents that “You Are Special.” This Daytime promises to deliver what was requested by the women who filled Currently, white males hold 57% of all positions and 75% of all decision-making posts in cable. While cable employment shot up by 14% between 1980 and 1981, minority jobholders increased their ranks by only 2%. Women do slightly better in cable than they do in broadcast TV or radio, holding 33% of cable jobs in 1981 compared with 31% of TV and 32% of radio positions. But women’s placement within cable companies is another story. Sev- out research questionnaires: shows of ‘substance and depth.” enty-four percent of all women working in the industry hold cleri- Thus, Daytime producers have included a new show called “News- cal and office positions. And women hold only 15.5% of positions week for Women,” which covers public affairs in the same depth in the top four job categories, compared with 21%in broadcast TV and 22% in radio. as the magazine. They even tilt at controversy, albeit neatly and carefully packaged as “Outrageous Opinions Updated” with Helen Gurley Brown. However, while the Newsweek segment gets 75 minutes of a sample week, food and cooking advice tops the list with a total of 92 minutes, and sewing has near parity with 70 minutes a week. The only new elements on these schedules are the chintz sofa cover on the set, the hanging macramé planter for the studio fern, and the occasional hint of punk in a hostess’ overhennaed hairdo. Most of these programs amble along the well-worn paths that women’s magazines have been trudging for 50 years. Not all that surprising, since many of the shows on cable are being co-produced by these very same magazines: Women’s Day, Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, etc. Even Ms. has had its cable debut with a program called “She’s Nobody’s Baby, a History of American Women in the 20th Century.” Conceived by Suzanne Levine, managing editor of Ms., and Minority women are in last place in cable hiring. They hold only 5% of cable jobs and less than 2% of the high-level positions. Most—76 %—do office or clerical work. Minority men don’t fare much better. They hold 9% of cable jobs, and their 10% of the high-level positions is more likely to be in sales or technical fields than in managerial or professional (read—decision-making) areas. (See tables for details.) “We may have a hard time just getting at these statistics in the future,” Nettingham warns. “Moves to deregulate at the FCC would eliminate the requirement to collect this information.” Indeed, groups with media reform offices like UCC? and the National Organization for Women face an uphill battle in attempting to halt deregulation proceedings in communications at the national level. They are also working in many local areas to assist citizens’ groups in the cable franchising process. This has meant creating regulations that will make the local cable contracts accountable to funded to the tune of $200,000 by Home Box Office, this hour of democratic input. collage history won the George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Journalism in 1982. It was the first time that this award the New York NOW Chapter. Active in media reform groups for was given to something produced specifically for cable. However, the success of this program has not engendered a series, or even more individual programs like it. Critical acclaim and social usefulness are not ingredients in the program selection process. The heavy promotion that surrounded the Ms. HBO show, coupled with the fact that there have been some highly visible women program executives in the cable arena, generated high hopes among women in the creative community. “It was a new industry. There were a lot of talented women who had been ready to go for a long time,” says John Shigekawa, director of New Medium, a consulting agency that helps independent producers work out co-production arrangements with the new technologies. “Some of them were refugees from public television or had graduated from public television training programs of the sixties and early Barbara Rochman, a lawyer, is the legislative vice-president of many years, she is currently working to develop good Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) clauses in the franchise agreements being negotiated between New York City and the cable companies that are waiting to wire the lucrative boroughs of the metropolitan area. “We would like to see the franchises carry monitoring requirements and follow-through procedures in case EEO goals aren’t met,” she explains. “We are working for substantial representation by women and minorities in decision-making positions and technical areas.” Rochman is also working to generate interest in public access: “In the future, the need for access channels will grow in importance, especially as active constituents become involved. in programming. Much of the research, organization, and outreach work already being done by local women’s groups is easily translated into access programming.” seventies. They were smart women who wanted to work, and they were willing to accept salaries that were lower than what men with the same experience would accept.” For a while there were a number of women in key program- The Alternatives As an exploration into possible uses of access, the New York ming positions. However, as the big dollars moved in, and smaller NOW office has undertaken a series of programs on access in entrepreneurial cable groups were swallowed by the multinationals, Manhattan. “Women don’t need programs on how to sew,” asserts many of these women found their authority eroded as new layers of Rochman. “They need information on how to organize a daycare 27 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms center, how to file a discrimination complaint, how to protect their rights in divorce proceedings, and how to take political action to insure abortion rights. Our NOW office is constantly getting calls about these kinds of questions. This is the kind of information we’d like to see cable programming for women provide.” The NOW chapter in Madison, Wisconsin, was one of the first to latch onto cable access as a forum for their activities. Carol Sundstrom produces a regular series, which began in January 1981. ‘““The Madison project has two goals: to train and encourage women to participate in the media and to regularly produce and air programs on women’s issues.” The programs have ranged from politics to dance. Their most popular show is a documentary on house-husbands in the Madison area. Sundstrom’s success has inspired other Wisconsin NOW chapters, and they are forming three other producing entities at access centers in the state. The four cities will exchange programs and hold joint training workshops. What might an ideal schedule for women be? Two examples of series that were directed to and produced by women are: Woman Alive and Womanvision. Both used large amounts of independently produced segments. Woman Alive, a public television series, was produced by Joan Shigekawa from 1974 to 1978. The variety of topics is evident from the contents of a typical show (#5 in the first series): (1) Charlotte Zwerwin’s film Wormen of McCaysville Industries, about a group of Georgia women who have set up their own sewing factory; (2) Holly Near, singing three of her own songs; (3) Eleanor Holmes Norton, NYC Commissioner of Human Rights, looking at women and the recession. The series was dropped when Shigekawa found it impossible to TIME E garner corporate support—then, as now, a prerequisite for the so- O called public airwaves. “American business has huge investments in the old way of viewing women,” explains Shigekawa. “Images of s 1980 N3 Minori! potal* | MMA Minori! Female? | wite Males a666 N white Femalé? a0 10) 103 mp of Males aofo 208 af A9) 1,538 \ see FOIS -a 1,621 243) (158) g7 (929) 47o (6B) 10% C z 59) A fo (7 8) p 8,298 women cooking and spending are acceptable. The active, creative, independent women who peopled Woman Alive were another matter.” When one corporation did offer money, PBS rejected the offer on the grounds that there was a conflict of interest. The corporation was Ortho, of birth control pill fame. (PBS doesn’t have any problem with the major oil companies sponsoring the “MacNeil-Lehrer Report.”) 23% (370 Such questions of propriety are absent from the cable world, where Bristol Myers, for instance, not only advertises on but is also co-producer of the USA Daytime health show “Alive and Well.” Shigekawa’s difficult search for corporate sponsors doesn’t bode well for the possibility of finding funds either as co-production money or advertising revenue for programs that challenge the dominant stereotyped media images of women. Advertisers stay away from controversy. The Woman Alive experience suggests that positive images per se are controversial. Controversy is something that many indepenđent producers thrive on. Thousands of productions have been generated by the independent film and video community in the past 10 years. This is one area in which women have been central—both in front and behind the camera. From Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County to Julia 5 Y g9 9,536 VOA Reichert’s Union Maids to Connie Fields’ Rosie the Riveter, the body of independent work for and by women is a neglected source of programming. Kitty Morgan, director of Independent Cinema Artists and Producers (ICAP), has worked at marketing independent work to cable for years. In 1978 she curated a series for Manhattan Cable called Womanvision. Programs included a film on four folk artists from the Deep South, a vérité portrait of a suburban wedding by Debra Franco, and Claudia Weil’s early film on China. The programs were well received, but Morgan was disap- Service Workers Total pointed when other systems didn’t pick up the series. Critical acclaim and even veiwer enthusiasm have no effect on the bottom line. Other models come from the access realm. Civil rights activist Annemarie Huste of ‘Cooking With Annemarie” on Daytime. Photo courtesy Hearst/ ABC. PDPN NVVN HM VVVVVMN NNNMNN *Row percentages do not always sum to 100% because of rounding error. (——) Less than 0.5% Sources: Data for TV and radio have been estimated from the 1980 Equal Employ| ment Opportunity Trend Report released by the FCC. Data for cable are from 1980 computer tape prepared by the FCC. Numbers in the cable row are based on 3830 cable systems which had readable data. Flo Kennedy understood early on about the opportunity that public access provided. She has produced a weekly show on Manhattan Cable for over five years, and has a loyal and committed constituency. Her shows are occasionally shown on other access systems in other inner-cities. Another series enjoying local popularity is Nancy Cain’s “Night Owl Show” on the community access channel in Woodstock, New 28 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms revolution. Certainly the burgeoning of the cable industry has created rising expectations. Cable has excited the ambitions and hopes of thousands of talented and active women all over the country. Suzanne Levine was enthusiastic about the community of women working in cable that she encountered while touring with her production of “Century of Women,” the Ms. special. Levine made many presentations to groups affiliated with a national organization called Women in Cable. (Most big cities have a chapter; the New York chapter has over 700 women.) “I’d go to a meeting in Iowa,” Levine comments, “and there would be 50 energetic and sophisticated women. Those women are ready for action. They want to do meaningful work, and they think that cable is where they can do it.” What the future holds for these hopeful women will depend on where they and their organization go. So far, many of the chapters have become the ladies’ auxiliaries to the industry: hostessing lavish banquets for the mostly male corporate officers and industry Shirley Robson, host of “From Washington: Citizen Alert,” on Daytime. Photo courtesy Hearst/ABC. biggies. Will women in cable be willing to challenge the status quo York. The show consistently provides innovative programming by women in the U.S. need a “New Information Order,” similar to and for women. Though not promoted as “women’s program- that being demanded by many Third World countries—whose ming,” Cain uses a lot of material that could be categorized as leaders realize that information is power and that communication such because of her sensibility to and consciousness of women’s issues are central to the struggle to overcome domination. and forge structures within this still-forming industry that can give real power and support to women on both ends of the wire? Or do issues. Selections from a recent program include a docu-drama exploring the Cinderella myth that was staged in the ladies’ room of a local restaurant; performing artist Linda Montano, dressed as a nun, giving instructions on teeth brushing; and biker/feminist/ poet Teresa Costa belting out her punk poetry to the accompaniment of shattering glass. 1. See Herbert Schiller’s The Mind Managers (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973) for a prescient description of the current phenomenon. 2. Dallas Smythe has documented the formation of audiences as commodities. His most recent book is: Dependency Road: Class, Culture and Communication in Canada (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1982). 3. The UCC has published the best book about cable: a short primer by The Struggle Jennifer Stearns called A Short Course in Cable (UCC Office of Communi- cations, 105 Madison Ave., NY, NY 10016). Public access becomes increasingly important as we recognize in the cable “revolution” the same old stereotypes long perpetrated DeeDee Halleck is a media activist and an independent film- and video- by soaps, sitcoms, and commercials. But access is constantly maker in New York City. She produces a weekly public access cable TV threatened by deregulation efforts that would obviate local agree- show about communications called “Paper Tiger TV.” ments. Before women can make new programming, they will need to become media activists committed to a real communications Carole Glasser is a Brooklyn poet, recently published in the Centennial Review, North Dakota Review, and Partisan Review. Horror Movie A few recent clichés are all the props needed to shoot the scene and at the slightest stimulation there is the automatic response of the body. As to mild electric shocks the thighs twitch like frogs’ legs in the obligatory rhythm ç lifesize, lifelike, the bodies flash an embrace across the screen, squeaking they rub against each other and bounce off again like taut balloons. A brush of the actor’s hand across the actress’ cheek uncovers a remnant smile buried in her hair but her voice lifts and with a stock phrase adjusts it to the proper grimace. They have grown the fangs and claws deemed necessary for the performance of Lust and Lycanthropy. The better to howl with, my dear. Poem by Erika Miliziano, who has published in literary magazines and anthologies and is currently translating a contemporary American poet into German. ©1983 Erika Miliziano Cartoon by Su Friedrich 29 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms p Am MIRIAM HANSEN German women filmmakers find them- The search for a feminist language in selves in a peculiar bind when it comes to film, a language that would transcend the defining their work against dominant patriarchal terms of sexual difference, is modes of patriarchal cinema. Like all in- not exactly facilitated by the existence of a more or less established male avant-garde. dependent filmmakers, they are confront- sydv18030yg 21n yO :u81sap 1940) up with Verlag Roter Stern in Frankfurt, which will publish FuF on a biannual basis. I will not go into the Berlin/Frankfurt split ing Goliath—the hegemony of Hollywood and its Common Market subsidiaries. Be- The peculiar history of German cinema complicates the oedipal scenario of avant- which bears only remote resemblance to yond the domain of commercial control, garde protest which feminist film theory however, in the precarious enclave of fed- and practice seek to displace. The Cinema the separation of the Camera Obscura collective from Women and Film in 1974. eral subsidies and TV co-productions, of the Fathers, representing commercial women filmmakers encounter the competi- interests, is one of Stepfathers and Grand- of FuF, feminist film culture has salvaged tion of a whole troop of Davids, already fathers at best; the Cinema of the Sons, at a centerpiece of its organizational sub- firmly entrenched in the field. It has be- least in some of its representatives, is less structure, a vital platform not only for come commonplace in discussions on con- concerned with conquering the interna- temporary German cinema to cite its tional domain of Art than with applying its issues of strategy, exchange of information, and critical discussion but also for the Suffice it to say that, with the continuation articulation and revision of feminist theo- unique legal and economic substructure as artistic efforts to the political transforma- one of the keys to its artistic success and tion of the West German public sphere. As international visibility. It is equally com- German women filmmakers are learning mon, though much less acknowledged, “to speak in [their] own name,” they too (1975), lists two major objectives: (a) “to that women filmmakers are conspicuously are engaged in building an oppositional analyze the workings of patriarchal culture absent from the pantheon of New German public sphere, linking the women’s move- in cinema”; (b) ‘to recognize and name auteurs. The American-styled New Ger- ment to female theatergoers and TV audi- feminist starting points in film and develop man Cinema canonizes names like Wer- ences across the country. Like their male them further.” The first objective requires ner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, colleagues, women filmmakers confront a critical analysis of existing cinema in all Wim Wenders, and Volker Schlöndorff, the key contradiction in store for all coun- its aspects: film politics and economics, but rarely extends to Ula Stöckl, Helke Sander, Jutta Brückner, or Ulrike Ottinger. In New York the Museum of Modern Art’s 1982-83 series of “Recent Films from West Germany,” which prides itself on STEMS The second complex includes the relation- ens your focus. Yet German women filmmakers are primarily involved in a struggle on the domestic front. Competing with both commercial cinema and the established male avant- discourse of its products—in short, a comprehensive critique of patriarchal cinema. include a single film directed by a woman tions in recent years. film theory and criticism, as well as the und Film is almost never quite right, but it sharp- the enormous increase of women’s produc- The program of FuF, as outlined in #6 What you read in Frauen featuring lesser-known directors, did not —a glaring omission even if judged only by ries of film. ESERE — Gertrude Koch ship between women’s cinema and the women’s movement, the rediscovery of earlier women filmmakers, the current situation of women working in film and other media, textual analyses, and the question of a feminine/feminist aesthetics. terhegemonic film practice: how to develop an autonomous discourse while, at the FuF’s critique of patriarchal structures in New German Cinema can be traced on same time, establishing, maintaining, and three different levels. On the level of the increasing rapport with an audience. garde, women filmmakers face tremendous In both the work of “naming” and the problems financing their films and often construction of a public sphere essential to incur considerable personal debts; only a feminist film culture, the journal Frauen gradually have they succeeded in tapping und Film (FuF—Women and Film) has the same system of federal grants and sub- played and, I hope, will continue to play a sidies that advanced their male colleagues. crucial role. Founded by filmmaker Helke institutional framework, FuF calls attention to the inequities of the subsidy system which extends privileges to already successful directors rather than individual projects. Women are grossly underrepresented in the committees that decide on grants and awards—hence the political Meanwhile, a large number of films direct- Sander (REDUPERS; The Subjective Fac- stress on the demand for equal representa- ed by women are being co-produced by German television stations—a form of tor) in 1974, FuF stands as the first and only European feminist film journal. Pub- tion. The standards of professionalism by which these committees tend to rationalize subsidy that guarantees access yet also lished by Rotbuch Verlag in Berlin as a their decisions also discourage collective tends to impose artistic and political re- quarterly (beginning with #7), the journal and nonhierarchic modes of production, strictions via production guidelines and is into its 34th issue. Sander signed as thus pitting women filmmakers not only program committees. FuF’s sole editor up to #27 (February against male directors but also against The effect of not-naming is censorship, 1981); with that issue, editorial responsi- each other. Financial support from TV whether caused by the imperialism of bility shifted to collectives in Berlin, Frank- stations, a primary source for women’s patriarchal language or the underdevel- furt, Cologne, and Paris. Last July, the Berlin collective decided to discontinue the films, is tied to production codes that restrict the critical treatment of issues cru- need to begin analyzing our own films, journal, thus causing the publisher to with- cial to a feminist film practice—abortion, but first it is necessary to learn to speak in our own name.! draw. Meanwhile, the Frarikfurt collective female sexuality, marriage. The mechan- formed a new editorial board and linked isms of public reception further ensure opment of a feminist language. We 30 ©1983 Miriam Hansen This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Њаќ раігіагсһа! ітЬа!Іапсе регѕіѕіѕ еуеп іп а ргоќесііопіѕі Іт сшиге: Беѕііуа!, ргеѕѕ опѕ гапріпр гот ѕеуеге роіетісѕ іо теаѕигей атЫіуаІепсе. Іп Ње ѕеагсһ Ғог а Ётіпіѕві 0іѕсоцгѕе іп сопѓегепсеѕ, геуіеүѕ араіп апа араіп соп- йгт Киз сопіепііоп аі таіІе агЫііегѕ Іт, Ғог тодеѕ оѓ регсерііоп апі ргодис- ѕ сопіго! е гергеѕепіаііоп оғ мотеп іп Сегтап сіпета. Тһіѕ сопіго іпсІидеѕ Ње оп оіһег ЮФап іЊҺоѕе сігсштѕсгіБей Бу {оКеп ассіІаіт ргапіей Бу таіе сгііісѕ іо епсоипіегѕ Ње Фі сиНіеѕ оё Чейпіќіоп, ої ѕоте отеп їттакегѕ Биі пої їо оегѕ аѕ уеП аѕ Ње ШЊегаІ епдогѕетепі оё Ње пем “отап Ят.” раігіагсһаІ содеѕ, ҒиҒ араіп апд араіп арргоргіаќіпр иѕеѓші Ғогтѕ ої геѕіѕіапсе Һе аѕѕегііпр аіѓегепсе араіпѕі сооріаоп. Сопѕідег, Ғог ехатріе, Ње Іопр- Оп уеї апоег Іеуе! оѓ сгіќіаие, Ғєті- ѕіапаіпр аіѕсиѕѕіоп оп Ње ргіпсіріе ої соі- піѕі апаІуѕіѕ Ғосиѕеѕ оп Фе пойіоп ої “іп- Іесііуііу, ѕГагіїпр уіһ а ѕресіаІ Ғосиѕ оп үіѕіЫІе ІаБог.” ҒиҒ ргортаттаќісаПу деүоіеѕ ііѕеІЁ їо Ње мог ої отеп іп Ње соПесіїуе ргодисііоп іп #8 (1976). Оп Фе тедіа ућоѕе патеѕ біѕарреаг Беһіпі Фе пате оѓ е та!Іе аиіеиг. А сһіеѓ ойепдег воа! аќ ҒпеІей е уютен’ тоуетепі, а опе һапд, соПесііуііу гетаіпѕ а піоріап үеароп араіпѕі Фе һіегагсһу, сотреіійоп, қуапавојоц | этапу ц) ги8іѕәр әл07) іп іһіѕ геѕресі ів ппаоиЬіейІу УГегпег Нег- апа іѕоІайоп ітроѕеі Ьу раігіагсһа! іпѕсгібе отеп’ѕ ехрегіепсе оғіеіг Бойіеѕ 70р, "һо тау ріуе риЫіс сгейіі їо һіѕ сат- тодеѕ оѓ ргодисќіоп. Оп е оіћег һапд, апа ѕехиаШу іп а іопЫе ѕігисіцге оі ге- егатеп Ыиі пеуег їо Веаіе Маіпка-ЈеШпр- Ње поќйоп оѓ соПесійїуіїу тау ііѕеіЁ ішгп ргеѕѕіоп апа ѕиБуегѕіоп. һаиѕ, ргобБаЫу іе Әеѕі едйіког Фаі Сегтап сіпета һаѕ еуег һад.2 Риз ейогів айеќапііѕт, ҒаІке һагтопу, апа іе ех- ргітагіІу Бу Неке Ѕапдег апд Сегігис Косһ, Ғи ѕһагеѕ Ње ѕКеріісівт уоісед іп {о гепаег іпуіѕіЫе ІаБог уіѕіЫе гапре оп іпіо ап ідеоІору уеп іі іѕ иѕед іо јиѕйѓу Іп іі Феогеііса!І роѕіќіопѕ, агіісшаїей ідепііѓуіпр едііогѕ апа ргодисегз {о ѕсгірі- рІойаїіоп оѓ аШерейІу роогіу даиаПйед ІаБог. Ғагіћегтоге, Ше ідеа ої соПаБога- мгїіегз апа соПаЫБогаіогѕ (ѕее Фе іпіег- Юіүе Ят ргојесіѕ һаѕ Бееп тагкеіед Бу а ѕсһеп апа Шгіке Ргокорі—адйатапііу үіеү5 її М. үоп Тгоіќа, СіѕеІа Тисһіеп- ргоир оѓ таІе ЯтштакКегѕ (іпсІцдіпр Ғаѕѕ- орроѕед {о Ғетіпіпе еѕѕепііаїѕт, уек тоге һареп, апа ОапіеПе НиШеф). Біпдег, КІшре, апа $сһІбпдогіў, тоѕіу іо иќоріап апд аі Фе ѕате те тоге ісопо- ѕріспоиѕ ІеуеІ—ҒиҒ сгійісітеѕ раігіагсһа!] №їһ а деүаѕіайпр геүіеү оғ Сегтапу іп сІаѕіс іһап рѕусһоапаІуќіс-ѕетіоіоріса!] дігесіопѕ оѓ сіпеѓетіпієт. УУШе е сіпета’ѕ ргойисіѕ. Тһе апаіуѕіѕ оѓ таіе- Аиѓитп, ҒиЁ ргіпіѕ ап ореп Іеііег ѕірпей “Рагіѕвіап регѕресііуе,” іо иѕе КиЫБу Кісһ”ѕ Оп а ігі— апд асіцаПу е Іеаѕі соп- е ехсІиѕіоп оё отеп дігесіогѕ. Тореег Сегтап Ғетіпіѕі Феогу Бу $іуіа Воуеп- Фігесіей іт сопсепігаіеѕ оп іе пем Ъу Ғетіпіві Ят могкегѕ апд асііуівів, соп- сһагтіпе рһгаѕе, һаѕ шаде іїѕ уау іпіо аетпіпе е тоѕі ѕауіпе сІаіт ої е Ят КиК іп Ње ѕһаре оѓ ігапзіІаќіопѕ апі соп- сотштегсіа! геѕропѕе їо е отеп’ тоуе- — ії соПесіїуе іпіегуепііоп аї а те ої Ғегепсе герогіѕ, іїѕ гесерііоп іѕ сошпіег- тепѓ. Іл із сопіехі, уге пд геуіемѕ ої роїіќіса1 сгівів—аѕ ап аггорапі апі һуро- ЪаІапсед Бу а поќіоп оѓ гадіса! ѕибјесііүіќу үауе оѓ ѕо-саПед “отеп’ Ят8” аѕ Ње сгіісаІ реѕішге уісһ ейесііуеІу депіеѕ Њаѓ сІеагіу Беігауѕ Фе іппепсе оѓ Фе Ке’з Тһе Гејі-Напаеа У/отап аІопрзіде ѕітіІаг еогіѕ оп е рагі ої тштаКегѕ ої геүіеугѕ ої Ғогеірп тз Ёеаішгіпе Фе аПер- ҒаѕѕЫіпдег’ѕ Еў? Втіезі апа Реіег Напд- Теѕѕег теапѕ апа гериіайопѕ. Іп Ње ѕате ЕгапКҒигі $сһооі. ЕоПоміпр іѕ ітадіќіоп, е Шеогейіса1 ѕеагсһї Ғог Ше аеѕФейіс 4і- еб Меуг ҮЎотап. Тһе ѕіагѕ оѓ Мем Сег- іѕѕце оғ Ки (#16), һоугеуег, Ѕапдег, іп ап тепѕіоп оѓ Ётіпіѕї т ргасіісе іпеуііаЫу тап Сіпета, һомеүег, гетаіп ргедісіаЫу еѕѕау оп “Ғіїшт Роќісѕ аѕ РоІіќісѕ ої Рго- тагріпаі іо Ғи”ѕ йіѕсиѕѕіопѕ: Неггор іѕ йисќіоп,” геѓегѕ іо Сегтапу іп Аиіштп аѕ гергеѕепіед опіу уі а геуіеуг оѓ Мозјёга- а үіаЫе тоде! Ғог соПаБогайуе ргојесіѕ оп а Ғетіпіѕі Баѕіѕ. іи; ҮҮепдегѕ, ехсері Ғог а гесепі іпіегүіеу ҮЙһеп ҒиҒ адуосаїеѕ а “роіісѕ ої рго- сопсегпіпр Гіеіпіпр оуег УЙаіег, іѕ ҒеаЊипгед міі а ѕіпріе диоїе їют Кіпр оў ће йаисііоп” ог йіѕсиѕѕеѕ “Когтѕ оѓ ргодйис- Коаа, “Ње ѕїогу аБоиї е аБѕепсе ої от- оп” гот а Ғетіпіѕї регѕресііуе, Фе іегт еп м Һісһ ів аќ Ње ѕате те Ње ѕќогу оѓ “ргодисііоп” һаѕ їо Бе ипаегѕіоод іп Ње Ше деѕіге аі угапіѕ ет іо Бе ргеѕепі.” үійеѕі роѕѕіЫІе ѕепѕе. Аѕ іпдісаіей, ҒиҒ Тһе рһоќоргарһ һеадіпр іФеѕе пеѕ ѕһоугѕ һаѕ ргоргаттаќћісаПу ргеѕепіей Ње уогК е аероршаѓей агепа оѓ Фе Сегтап Випдеѕќае (рагіатепф). Тһе опу та!е оѓ отеп ейііогѕ, сіпетаіоргарһегѕ, апа Сгіќісіѕт,” Негезіез, по. 9 (1980), р. 78. саѕіоп оп мКһісһ, Ғог опсе, һе 4і4: “Му едііог, Веаѓе МаіпКа-ЈеШпрһаиз, іѕ уегу ітрогіапі {о те, апі І мошід ѕау Фаќї уііћоиі һег І мошід Бе опіу а ѕһадоуг оѓ туѕе!Ё. Виі еге’ аІмауѕ ап епогтоиѕ ѕігиреіе роіпр оп Беімееп Ње уго ої ѕрасе іп ҒиКҒ іѕ АІехапдег КІипре, а йігес{ог үһоѕе ргоѓеѕѕей сопсегп уііһ “уопт- ог оѓ патіпе—0Ё таКіпр риЫіс—іп- еп’з ќорісѕ” һаѕ ргоуоКкед Ғетіпіѕі геас- сІшдеѕ е сгеаќіоп оѓ а сошпіегітадіііоп оё отеп йігесіогѕ, гапріпе гот Геопііпе \ 1. В. ВиЂу КВісһ, “Іп һе Мате оѓ Еетіпіѕві Ейт 2. ТһапКѕ ќо КиЬу Кісһ Ғог гететЬегіпр, ап ос- ргодйисегѕ—еасһ Ше Ғосиѕ оѓ ап іпдіуідиа! іѕѕце. ЅітшІагіу, іє деүоіей а ѕресіаІ іѕѕие іо Ше “үівіЫе” уотап—Ше асігеѕѕ. Тһе ПттакКег ріуеп тоге ехіепзіуе 4іѕсиѕѕіоп епіайѕ а сгіќісаІ іпіегасііоп уі раігіагсһа1 Ят сииге іп іі тоѕї сотріех іпѕіапсеѕ—іп е роіісаІ апа аеѕЊеќйіс аүапі-рагае оѓ таІе сіпета. Ѕарап, Мауа Оегеп, Магриегііе Оиџгаз, апа Уега Сһуйоуа ѓо ЯтштаКегѕ оѓ а уошпрег еепегаќіоп ѕисһ аѕ Уае Ехрогі, Ей Мікеѕсһ, Маграгеі Каѕрё, апд Роіа Вешһ. Веуопа еѕе ігадіќіопа1 Бгапсһеѕ иѕ, апд іі’ѕ уегу ѕігапре һоуг ѕһе Беһауеѕ дигіпр Њіѕ ргосеѕѕ. Ѕһе’ѕ уегу гиде уіїћ те, апа ѕһе ехргеѕѕеѕ һег оріпіопѕ іп а таппег аі іѕ Шке Ше тоѕі тедіосге һоиѕеугіѓе” (“Ітареѕ аі Фе Ногігоп,” могкКѕһор аї Ғасеї Мишітедіа СепТег, Сһісаро, Аргі 17, 1979). 3. Тһе опіу еѕѕауѕ ігапѕіаіед ѕо Ғаг аге Ѕапдег’$ “Еетіпіѕт апа Ейт” апа Косһ”ѕ “УУһу УЎотеп Со ѓо е Моуіеѕ,”’ іп Јитр Си, по. 27 (1982), рр. 49-53. оѓ Ят ргодисііоп, һомеуег, ҒиР”ѕ 0іѕсиѕ- 4. Ғог Воуепѕсһеп, ѕее, “І Тһеге а Ғетіпіпе ѕіоп оѓ Ғогтѕ оѓ ргодисііоп епсотраѕѕеѕ Аеѕіһейіс?” Мею Сегтап Стійідие, по. 10 Ше ргодисііоп ої е үегу ехрегіепсе Њаі (1977), рр. 111-137, апа “Тһе Сопіетрогагу ҮМіісһ, Ње НіѕіогісаІ Ұ/іісһ апа Юе УМіксһ гедшгеѕз а ѓетіпіѕ{ біт ргасіісег Ње вепдег-ѕресійс тедіаїіоп оѓ аП регсер{іол. Іп іһіѕ уеіп, а ѕресіа! іѕѕзце оп отеп ѕресіѓаіогѕ Бураѕѕеѕ рѕусһоапаіІуќіс еогіеѕ оѓ гесерііоп іп Ғауог оё іоситепііпр ігасеѕ оѓ апіһепііс ехрегіепсе үіһіп апі Муіһ,” МСС, по. 15 (1978), рр. 83-119. МОС по. 13 (1978), ап іѕѕце оп е Сегтап отеп’ тоүуетепі, сопѓаіпѕ а ігапзІаќіоп гот РгоКор’х БооК ИРеѓБісһег Г.еБепзгиѕаттепћапр (ЕтапкКҒигі: Ѕиһгкатр, 1976). араіпѕі е ргаіп ої раігіагсһаі сопаіќіопѕ Мігіат Напѕеп {еасһеѕ Піт ѕішдіеѕ аі Киірегѕ оѓ ѕресіаќогѕһір.3 Ѕітіагіу, іѕѕиеѕ оп Іеѕ- Юпіуегѕііу, һаѕ риЫіѕһед агіісІеѕ оп Ғетіпіѕі Іт еогу, апд һаѕ сопігіБиіед уогк їо Ктаиеп ипа Ейт. Біап сіпета, рогпорегарһу, апі егоіісіѕт іпуеѕііеаіе Ње ргойисііоп оё ітареѕ аі ииюштпцэс̧ парс ги81вәр ләлој) 31 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms LOOSE Micki McGee At the four-second point in this particular Calvin Klein jeans com- tion is the name of the company that contracted with Calvin Klein mercial, if you were playing the tape in slow motion, you would see to manufacture the designer’s jeans. “The company used to limp a loose thread dangling from the hem of the jeans Brooke Shields along making low and moderate priced dresses for what Seventh Avenue calls ‘the masses with fat asses.’ That all changed in 1977.” wears as she swings her leg down across the frame. If you were viewing at the normal 30 frames per second you would miss the Puritan’s president Carl Rosen said, “God caused his countenance loose thread and be taken in by the apparent perfection of the shot to shine upon me to do a license with Calvin Klein” (Forbes, Feb- as the camera pans up Brooke’s legs. I imagine it would be possible ruary 15, 1982, p. 34). to produce an.article not unlike this commercial—a seamless essay “Independent retailers and Klein’s own boutiques in London, carefully woven to conceal any confusion. You should be more suspicious reading such writing than I am hesitant to impose a linear Tokyo and Milan will sell $750 million worth of his products in 1982. . . . While much of the country struggled through economic analysis on this overdetermined image. Let’s proceed in a somewhat nonlinear fashion—after the fashion of the tailor taking apart doldrums in 1981, Calvin Klein had a personal income of $8.5 mil- a garment—pulling at loose threads and laying out the pieces to lion.” —People Magazine (January 18, 1982, p. 94) reveal the pattern that gives form to the garment. “, . . etymology, as it is used in daily life, is to be considered not so much as scientific fact as a rhetorical form, the illicit use of historical causality to support the drawing of logical consequences.” —Frederic Jameson, The Prison-House of Language (p. 6) When Jameson wrote this in 1972, it’s doubtful that he could have imagined the advent of designer jeans, let alone a commercial re- sexual exchange value as the woman-child you'll never have or volving around an invented etymology of a designer’s name. Keep- never be. Think of each desiring or covetous gaze as currency. ing in mind the rhetorical nature of etymology, let’s consider what Scavullo on Shields: “The camera loves her and she loves the cam- else it might mean to be ‘“Calvinized.” Calvin could just as easily be derived from the Latin ca/or for “heat” and the Latin venire for “to come”—a pun not likely to have been overlooked in the art director’s drawing room. But even more interesting than the sexual double-entendre, particularly when evoking historical causality, era—vwhether it’s a still or a movie. The magic, the mystique—it dòesn’t happen by training. Some people can work for a million years and never get it.” —“Brooke’s Own Beauty Book,” Bazaar (August 1981, p. 185) is to consider what it would actually mean to be Calvinized. From While the Protestant merchant class amassed capital on the site the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘“Calvinize. To follow Calvin, to teach Calvinism. Hence Calvinized. Calvinizing.” of production, Shields amasses capital at the site of consumption. As the sexual equivalent of the parsimonious Protestant merchant, Calvinism, according to Max Weber’s often-disputed thesis The she accumulates a libidinal fortune while the world of supermarket Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, supplies the “moral weeklies waits for her to expend some small portion of her wealth. energy and drive of the capitalist entrepreneur. . . . The element of ascetic self-control in worldly affairs is certainly there in other Puritan sects also; but they lack the dynamism of Calvinism.” Their impact, Weber suggests, is mainly upon the formation of a moral outlook “enhancing labour discipline within the lower and middle levels of capitalist economic organization.” For Weber, the FIVE MEN FIGHT FOR BROOKEF’S LOVE.... —National Examiner (August 31, 1982) BLUSHING BROOKE SAYS SHE’LL STRIP—IF THE RIGHT ROLE COMES ALONG — Weekly World (September 21, 1982) essence of the spirit of modern capitalism lies in the desire to “accumulate wealth for its own sake rather than for the material re- In the spectacle world of eroticized products and commodified sex, wards that it can serve to bring. ..….The entrepreneurs associated appearance in the Calvin Klein commercials paid her half a million dollars as the 1981 sales of Calvins leveled off at $245 million. with the development of rational capitalism combine the impulse to accumulate with a positively frugal lifestyle.” Abandon the idea of coincidence. The Puritan Fashion Corpora32 Brooke’s desirability is readily transformed in legal tender. Her *We can’t presume to know anything about Brooke Shields as a person, since she exists for most people only as an image. ©1982 Micki McGee This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms When Brooke entered junior high school, she was already earning “The marks made by the branding iron, about three inches in $30,000 a year and for tax purposes her mother had formed a height and half that in width, had been burned into the flesh as paper company in her name. She was no longer just a child, nor though by a gouging tool and were almost half an inch deep. The even just a child actress. She was Brooke Shields, Inc.—and the lightest stroke of a finger revealed them.” only thing still private about her life was the list of stockholders in this unusual firm that packaged and distributed only one product: Brooke Shields. “The commercials themselves—combined with all the press coverage the morality war generated—brought sixty-five million dollars to Puritan Fashions, a sales increase of three hundred percent.” —Jason Bonderoff, Brooke, An Unauthorized Biography If you were anything like me you were one of those alienated kids —Pauline Reage, The Story of O (p. 163) Brooke isn’t bound with leather—her restraint is the denim of skin-tight jeans. She doesn’t receive the branded “S” of Sir Stephen that O receives, she has instead the label with Calvin’s name on her right buttock. “On a network talk show Calvin revealed the thread that really holds his jeans empire together. ‘The tighter they are, the better they sell.’ who read compulsively. You would read anything from historical “When they [Brooke and her mother Teri] moved to New Jersey fiction to chemistry manuals. Once in a while, though surprisingly both of them began attending a nearby Catholic church every seldom, you'd come across a word that you didn't know and Sunday.” couldn't figure out from the sentence. Barely looking up from the page, you might ask your mother, “Hey Mom, what does ‘ravaged’ mean?” “What?” “What does ‘ravaged’ mean?” And she'd say, “Ask your father.” So you'd go into the other room where your father was watching television and you'd say, “Hey Dad, what does ‘ravaged’ mean?” And he'd look up from his newspaper and say, “Why don't you look it up—that’s what we have that dictionary for.” So you'd walk over to the bookcase that held the two-volume dictionary and the Great Books of the Western World and you'd —Jason Bonderoff, Brooke, An Unauthorized Biography Not long after Richard Avedon directed the Calvin Klein jeans commercials he went on to photograph a nude Nastassia Kinski intertwined with a boa constrictor, with the serpent’s tongue adjacent to her ear. The imagery of Eden is ushered back and Nastassia and Brooke are brunette and blonde flip sides of a coin: Brooke with a dictionary between her legs and Nastassia with the snake. Avedon has capitalized on dangerous knowledge/dangerous sex. remove the second volume of the dictionary. “Ravage: devastate, plunder, make havoc, n. destructive force of.” You have the definition, but it still doesn't make any sense because you are reading Photos taken from TV by Micki McGee. -one of those cheap historical novels that your mother worries might said to transform matter. Transubstantiation: A statement be- be a bit beyond your years. This one’s set in Biblical times. Ravage: comes a physical truth via the voice of authority. To wish, desire, devastate, plunder, make havoc. You are puzzled. How does this or covet is as sinful as to act from desire or covetousness. Catholi- apply to Mary Magdalene? You're not sure, but you know it's not cism: A religion in which the distinction between representation good. and reality, thought and action, is continually obscured. So when you see Brooke with her dictionary—if you're at all like The written word allows for the split between mind and body on me— what is invoked is that confusion, powerlessness, and de- which Christian religions base their theology. You can be present sire to have access to knowledge and power which at each thumb (via a note, a letter, or in the 20th century the answering machine) index seem to evade your grasp. The words are there, the defini- yet physically absent. Reading allows you to experience someone tions are adjacent, but somehow there is an inexorable gap between else's thoughts, ideas, and personal history in their absence. What definition and use. do Calvins allow you to experience? A prepubescent beauty squatting over a dictionary with her pos- “READING IS TO THE MIND WHAT CALVINS ARE TO terior at eye level murmurs, “I’ve been Calvinized,” registering sequential expressions of discovery, pleasure, and that wide-eyed THE BODY.” — Calvin Klein ad look most often associated with terror. Given her cant, ‘“sodom- So if reading is submission to the order and authority of language, ized” might be a more appropriate word for her research. Domina- albeit an often pleasurable submission, then wearing Calvins is tion via the authority of the dictionary (submission to the imposi- submission to another signifying system wherein the commodity tion of linguistic order) is overlaid with an all but stated sexual stands for sexuality in the absence of another. Like the Catholic’s domination. The girl-woman at the moment of pleasure in discov- obfuscation of reality and representation, the latter-day Calvinist ery, power via knowledge, announces with an ambiguous expres- obscures the distinction between sexuality and the spectacle of sion that she’s been conquered. The pleasure of discovery is im- sexuality. mediately transformed into the pleasure of submission. In each of the Calvin Klein commercials Brooke is tightly enclosed Micki McGee is an artist and critic whose work has appeared in Fuse, in the frame—girl in a cathode cage. Afterimage, and Jumpcut. 33 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms START STOP 4 a A .. Q Jo Vaughn Brown wants to make $100 an hout working in the industry. So do I, ideally, putting in about eight to 16. hours per week. Brown is an 18-year-old Black woman, studying video at Downtown Community TV and the Satellite Academy, an alternative public high school on the Lower East Side. She likes making documentaries that deal with prisons, junkies, prostitutes, and businessmen. As yet she is not sure whether she wants to operate camera, edit, or produce. The suggestion of working with computers makes her a little nervous. Her financial/parameters, however, have been clearly established. The class outline for Satellite’s video progtam\ reads like a production schedule. Along with developing camera skills, they plan to discuss “ideas for getting our documentary shown on cable, ABC—what the networks are interested in,” They haye the con. tacts. They’ve made the connections. Two hours northwest of Scranton in the Pennsylvania colihity- JOAN JUBELA side, Mimi Martin, a 53-year-old video artist, supports herself As former National Sales Director for United Attists), Liv imagery deals with what she considers the narrative dream, That imagery is constructed on an estimated $20,000 %⁄-inch post-pro- Wright negotiated the licensing of feature films/to pay television exhibitors. She was a ‘little girl from Harlem doing Beverly Hills.” duction system, partially built by hand in collaboration with David Her basic model of the marketplace, of capitalism, of selling wares, Jones of the Experimental TV Center in Oswego, New York, Work- falls'into two/categories:/vendors'or suppliers—the Bloomingdale’s ing one day a week for two years, they constructed a sequencer, analogy. In the retail business, vendors | have names like Calvin interface, and colorizer. major studios, they/are callèd suppliers. It’s/a finite universe, like approach she takes in her artmaking process: “I lived in New York a total of six or seven years. The intensity was too much for me. I can barely cope with the excitement of the sticks. .….thinking about the reviewer or meeting the right person puts a strain on my aesthetic sensibility. I don’t want to hustle my art because I want my tapes to have power and feeling, using my intuition and following what’s most meaningful to me.” Pennsylvania is where the concept of cable TV was first applied, in 1948, enabling farm communities to receive broadcast signals from Philadelphia TV stations. Now, one of Martin’s high $500 million apiece—but ‘distribution is not equal. “The first thing you want to make sure you get is $500 million and one dollar,” states Wright. “One SIG more tn iS next t guy, that’s a s D DEFINITION OF : CHERRY-PIĠKING i USING BLOOMINGDALE’S ANALOGY Bloomingdale’s becomes an exhibitor like Home Box Offis. If a studio produces 10 feature films in one year and offers the entire school students has developed his own device to unscramble sub- package to HBO, it’s like Calvin Klein offering Bloomingdale’s his scription cable services: entire line of wares. If Bloomingdale’s wants to carry only one item, that’s cherry-picking. “So if a studio like Paramount has one PLAY A GAME: DRAW A CIRCLE AROUND successful blockbuster and nine turkeys, it doesn’t matter,” ex- THE TOOLS YOU’VE HAD ACCESS TO, A BOX plains Wright. “That package has to be sold at X amount of dollars.” AROUND THE TECHNOLOGY YOU’VE HEARD OF OR AT LEAST KNOW TO EXIST, UNDERLINE THE WORDS OR FRAGMENTS OF WORDS SUGGESTING OTHER MEANINGS. IF YOU DON’T. HAVE A PENCIL, UTILIZE YOUR GRAPHICS TABLET,. PUNCH ESCAPE/SAFE ON YOUR TOUCH SCREEN. MICROCHIP — DRIFT — UPLINK — DOWNSTREAM—MAINFRAME—LOW NOISE— HIGH Western. What was once a product-oriented environment has evolved into a market-oriented environment. Quality is not the primary factor for success in the competitive marketplace. “The expectation of the number X is now a function that comes from a very distant place. It does not come from the bottom up,” notes Wright. My secret fantasy is to turn old in the desert, grow a little herb BAND — TYPE C — TBC — DVE — LSI — PAL — garden, and operate a satellite channel telecasting nothing but TV ASCACA/SHIBASOKU — CHYRON — QUANTEL snow. I'll call it ZNTV. Maybe no one will ever receive the tele- — CHALNICON — PLASMA PANEL — FRAME casts. Maybe the channel will be on a distant planet. Every once in GRABBER—FLYING SPOT SCANNER — DISH — a while I'll roll a Brooke Shields ad selling Calvin Klein jeans at SOFTWARE— VIDEO FURNITURE 34 Entertainment subsidiaries follow specific formulas to ensure a predetermined profit margin for parent corporations, like Gulf+ Bloomingdale's. Ä ©1983 Joan Jubela This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The reality of cable and satellite technology has suggested the tion, taking just two shots from “Laverne and Shirley.” Other possibility of turning TV from a finite universe into an infinite universe by diversifying the marketplace. Since December 1982, deconstructions followed, using images from “Kojak” and ‘“Won- HBO, the largest pay-TV exhibitor, has been producing its own air, Birnbaum has challenged not only the nature of television, but movies. Bloomingdale’s is supplying itself with its own wares. It is also ownership of image. no longer dependent on Calvin Klein. In response to HBO’s recent move, major studios and other pay exhibitors are pooling their der Woman.” Because her material was recorded directly off the HOME TAPING CASE BEFORE HIGH COURT forces. “Hollywood is also cranking up to take another shot at JUST A COIN TOSS getting a bigger slice of the pay TV pie. Warner Amex Satellite Entertainments Movie Channel just signed a deal with MCA Para- [Variety, January 18, 1983] mount and Warner Bros.. ..$20 million... $4 million..….$10 million. ..$4 million. .….$3.3 million..….$11 million” (Millimeter, January 1983). The numbers, those rolling. numbers, and I'm not talking about the I Ching. <== At present Wright is working outside of what she considers the Copyright infringement is a hotly debated issue in the industry. Producers of films, television, and records claim sales losses due to “illegal” dubbing. In the near future, hardware manufacturers like Sony might be required to pay royalties from the sale of their products, both VCRs and blank tape, to cover the pirating of paternal castle of the\corporate world, conducting media consul- movies, albums, and TV programs. By the time this article is in tancy work as well as producing cable programming. Using her print the Supreme Court may have ruled sales of home VCRs ille- marketing experience, she has undertaken such projects as attempt- gal. That will not necessarily end the debate between Universal ing to procure television rights for the distribution of Black feature and Sony. Nor is it likely that home video equipment will be taken films. “Because I was very political during the ’60s, I might be able off the market. But a Supreme Court decision could create an to bring more to market analysis than just numbers, like knowing interesting precedent in terms of Birnbaum’s use of the medium. that the median age of Blacks is 25 and the median age of His- Questioning ‘“high art practices,” Birnbaum has shied away panics is 18,” she comments. “Madison Avenue doesn’t need to from gallery owners who haye offered to commission her graphics. know that to accomplish their objectives. I do because I want to be a little more creative.” TV. Now that she is constructing rather than deconstructing tele- From the producing angle, Wright and a partner have com- vision formulas, her perspective on ownership of image has altered Her work is about'television and her current strategy is to produce pleted a pilot for a fashion series: “We were looking for borderline slightly. Following her accountant’s advice, she intends to avoid Soho types who were maybe getting a couple of pieces into Bendels royalties because payments are difficult to collect. “Go for the flat and were about ready to cross over into a mainstream kind of thing.” rate,” she suggests. When asked how she raised capital, Wright explained two me- Maxi Cohen can be placed in the first wave of video artists, thods: Find people in a similar business who need the product and having worked in the medium for 13 years. Through the operation are prepared to offer financing in exchange for some form of dis- of her own feature film distribution company, First-Run Features, Cohen has honed a keen business acumen. She credits herself with tribution rights, or seek out venture capitalists who are willing to collect their investment downstream. “Go to 25 dentists and say, ‘Listen, give me 50 grand,’ or whatever, depending on what their investment package looks like. For tax reasons, they may need to lose money that year.” <4— My mind drifts to my mouth and all the work I had done at the a creative sense about how to put money together and how to market, but she’d rather concentrate her creativity on her product: “Marketing and sales are about conquest. I’d rather have someone else do the conquering for me.” Her experience with the world of real TV has been a succession New York University dental clinic last year. A place crawling with of near-hits. In 1975, soon after completing Joe and Maxi, a fea- budding young dentists, budding young investors. Ten years down- ture-length film about the relationship between herself and her stream, 250 dentists at 50 grand apiece equals a million and a dying father, Cohen approached NBC, ABC, and HBO with the quarter. With that amount of money I could make my own version idea of a documentary about child-star Brooke Shields. “Somehow it was the quintessential story about mothers, daughters, and Hol- of Girlfriends. lywood. HBO told me Brooke wasn’t big enough and I said, “Lis- PLAY A GAME: AS YOU READ DETERMINE THE MOOD OF THIS ARTICLE. OVERLY OPTIMISTIC, CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC, SKEPTICAL, REALISTIC, CYNICAL, PESSIMISTIC, ten, by the time this thing is done, Brooke is going to be the biggest thing in this country.” ABSURD. “With television and popular music, there’s a lot of junk around,” comments video artist Dara Birnbaum. “I can’t watch most of what’s on TV and I probably find it offensive, yet I know I u = r = h i=- =i di o have it like a sugar habit.” Two years ago Birnbaum received a Nielson survey in the mail asking her to record her viewing habits. Programs receive points based on the amount of time a single channel is left unchanged. “I D P began realizing how many programs stay on in my house more than ten minutes because I’m so tired I don’t want to get up to switch the channel. ‘Laverne and Shirley’ probably made it another year because I’m just as tired as everyone else.” During the late "60s and early ’70s Birnbaum lived in Berkeley. She didn’t own a TV. She considered herself political. “It came down to finding out you might not own a TV but it wasn’t stopping the majority of people who were watching more than seven hours a day. I felt I had to know a little more of why that was happening. I didn’t want to be isolated or ghettoized in any sense.” While Birnbaum was watching TV, she was also viewing video in art galleries. There she noticed the institution of television was being ignored and its reflection of the popular idiom denied. Birnbaum’s first video piece, made in 1978, was a deconstruc- This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ALLAL AA LA LE M E At the Leo Castelli Gallery, video art has remained a “stepchild” since the early ’70s, when it was fostered by painters and sculptors, whose work was already represented by the gallery. Whereas a Robert Rauschenberg painting might carry a $450,000 price tag or a Mia Westerlund-Roosen sculpture could cost approximately $35,000, a 3⁄4-inch videotape sells for an average of $250 to $500. Annual sales reached about 50 tapes last year. Rentals, at approximately $50 per tape, fluctuate according to the school year, but average about two to three each week. “We function more as a gallery than a record store,” explained Patti Brondage, director at the Castelli Gallery and curator of Castelli/Sonnabend Films and Tapes. She emphasizes that the videotapes they sell are treated as works of art. No copy guards are applied to the tapes, but contracts with buyers and renters forbid going out of business. duplication. In about 10 years, as technology develops, Brondage sees a PLAY A GAME: DRAW UP A CONTRACT. » > vague possibility of a future market for video art. A device to hang on the wall like a painting could display the same image over and IDEA? (good question) GETS TO DO IT? (produce/direct) over and over again. “But I’m not selling hardware; we’re not Sony dealers,” she adds. With the development and marketing of flat-screen, high-resolution TVs and laser disc drives, video paintings are inevitable. In some respects, they could resemble kinetic beer ads in bars, in which simulated running water ripples over beer cans in mid- > stream. The same technology will be used for point-of-purchase displays at Bloomingdale’s cosmetic counters. > "S Twin Art Productions is a business. Its business is art and its sion, decide who gets to keep the idea.) WHEN DO YOU GET PAID? art is “purely television.” Twin Art is Lynda and Ellen Kahn, identical twins in their early thirties who have combined their artistic ability and marketing skills in the production of video art. They cite their influences as Pop/Warhol and their inspiration as daytime TV. Their work is fast-paced, with a strong graphic sensibility edited to new wave music. Twin Art began as a jewelry business, an endeavor the Kahns contend turned more of a profit than current sales from their earned income for 1982 increased 60% over 1981. videotapes. Video, however, is their future. “It’s a big risk,” admits Ellen, outlining the increasing stakes. Their first project, “Instant This Instant That” (1978), was shot on Betamax. The budget for the four-minute tape was about $500, including stock, editing, dubs, and miscellaneous expenses. They used their own camera and deck. Most services were donated. thing that can be reproduced so easily and so democratically.” “It didn’t matter it was shot on Beta,” says Lynda. “It didn’t matter that it didn’t have effects. It didn’t matter that technically it did not hold up, because people were interested in new ideas.” But now the twins find themselves competing with video art that has a much more commercial look, loaded with effects and of a high technical quality. They point to the work of Kit Fitzgerald and John Sanborn as an example. The Kahns perceive the current video art market as public sec- mercial TV and people need money to continue working.” tor funding. Grants bestow legitimacy and prestige—factors related to the eventual value placed on an object. Declining public sector support, however, cannot compete with commercial budgets in terms of hard dollars. A typical budget for a four-minute rock video promo produced by a major label for MTV (Music Televi- exploring different ways of getting it seen.” sion) is $40,000. The twins doubt any granting body will allocate so much money for a short video work. On their current projects they rent BVU 110 decks and Ikegami HL79Ds, state-of-the-art equipment. They intend to use sophisticated post-production techniques. “What we’re trying to do as artists is make something better than MTV with no budget,” explains Ellen. Both women work professionally as producers in the industry, avenue is still open in New York. where they can trade services and gain access to necessary tools. Yet within the business they often carefully refrain from referring to themselves as “video artists.” “Artists mean trouble because they are independent thinkers and they want to redo the system,” Ellen points out. When an executive producer at MTV viewed her reel, containing Twin Art material as well as her freelance commercial work, he told her “artists shouldn’t have jobs in television.” Ironically, MTV exploits the term ‘“video artist” -in their promotional material. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms = F: l The Kahns find themselves leaning closer and closer to the label of independent producers, yet their strategies for distribution encompass both the art world and television. Theit most successful commercial venue thus far was inclusion of their work into the “Video Artist” series of “Night Flight,” a late-night youth-oriented variety program aired on the USA Cable Network. Sixteen artists were included in a package deal co-produced by EAI. Each artist received $750 for a 15-minute slot, with any number of repeated showings over a nine-month period. EAI took a 30% cut. Overall, the twins estimate their share at approximately $2 per minute and, while they were glad to get the work out, they would like future projects to be more lucrative. PLAY A GAME: SELECT A DELIVERY SYSTEM, DESIGNATE METHODS OF DISTRIBUTION, À MOVE A PRODUCT. DIRECT-BROADCAST SATELLITE, LOWPOWER TV, INTERACTIVE VIDEO DISC, CABLE TV, VHS/BETAMAX CASSETTES, MDS, REQUEST TELEVISION, SUBSCRIPTION TV, PAY PER VIEW, UHF, FOREIGN BROADCAST, FOREIGN CABLE, SATELLITE MASTER ANTENNA TELEVISION. In the lobby of the Berkshire Place Hotel on 52nd between “So much for the dribbles and drabs; you have to really bite for it,” says Lynda. Their present goal is to make “the best tape that’s Madison and Fifth, a lot of media deals go down. I observe, I eavesdrop, I listen, I surveil. ever been made,” distributing the project to museums as an instal- On the pay phone in the marble enclave a fat man swings a lation, then getting it out on cable and network as much as possi- deal. “Yea, yea, I'm still trying to get the Fonz. I think he'll do it.” ble. “The art world has been our largest distributor, but I don’t want to limit myself to the art world—it’s obscure,” Lynda comments. The twins are undecided about whether home distribution I keep hearing the words “bottom line” and visualizing those rolling numbers quantelled all over a TV screen. My TCD5M audio cassette and Sennheiser binaural microphones unsuspectingly record the nomenclature as I stand casually in the corner. A should be issueđd as a limited or unlimited edition, yet pirating of harp playing “Bring Out the Clowns” in the hotel's tearoom can their video is not a concern. As Ellen emphasizes, “Part of the be heard in the background. From a stall in the Ladies’ Room I overhear a conversation be- work is to get it into every home.” tween two women discussing the sale of television rights on a children's book. At the sink I strike up a conversation, turning into a friendly chat. Advice is cheap, sometimes invaluable. IN USE Theodora Sklover has an overall understanding of the entire market spectrum. As a lobbyist for public access in the early 70s, she established a nonprofit access studio called Open Channel, where community groups could produce cable programming. Sklover served as Executive Director of the Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development for the State of New York. She now teaches at New York University and through her own Unlike Maxi Cohen, Dara Birnbaum, and Lynda and Ellen Kahn, who all have fine art degrees, Robin Schanzenbach has a de- firm, TKS Associates, she has done consultancy work for both gree in mass communications. Two weeks out of Florida, Schan- public and private sectors on packaging and marketing strategies. I waited a total of five hours on three different occasions in the zenbach landed a job at CBS. Within one year she quit, upon real- lobby of the Berkshire Place Hotel to connect with this woman. Sklover’s understanding of video art places it more or less in a izing the time involved before she would be able to achieve her ambition—to be a director at the network. Since 1977 Schanzenbach gallery context..In contrast, she perceives the current market for has freelanced as a producer/director/editor. At the same time she television as narrative. That is what people want, what people has produced her own wrk by doing what she calls the ‘video hus- understand, and what she likes, especially well-crafted, emotive, tle,” trading favors with friends and providing any necessary funding herself. To date, Schanzenbach has not received a grant, but if she ever does, she wants to produce in a one-inch format. Most of her past work can be categorized under the heading “video music,” although the term is an irritant to her now because Hollywood movies. If an independent can put a narrative in a can today, one produced for around a million and a half or up, they’d have to be “deaf, dumb añd blind” not to make a profit on it, according to Sklover. The film Smithereens, produced by Susan Sidelson, is a of what she terms “exploitation” by commercial entrepreneurs: noted example. The budget for that film ran $80,000. In two “Video music has become so popular and commercial. I don’t months after its release in November 1982, the film grossed ap- have the contacts with the record companies and I’m not being paid to do it.” proximately $118,000. i “It used to be there were seven banks where an independent Schanzenbach’s one major attempt at mass distribution thus could go,” Sklover adds. “If they didn’t give you the money you far was the production of a pilot for a video music series called didn’t make your feature. And there were four television networks. “Teen Etiquette.” As she explains, “I was upset with program- If they didn’t giye you the money, you didn’t make your program. ming for teenagers. They’re vulnerable as an age group and yet That’s changed.” they’re so influential. They spend an enormous amount of time in There has never been so much competition in the marketplace, front of TV watching violence, so why not give them a little break, Sklover concludes. While some experts contend the pie is being cut provide a release from programs about teenage alcoholism.” Her into smaller pieces, other studies claim the market is growing. pilot was a subtle parody on etiquette books published during the People are watching more TV. The investment community is ner- 50s that taught teenagers to stand up, shake hands, and say “how vous about so many new technologies because of uncertainty relat- do you do.” “They always gave you a perception of, and a peek ed to the degree of diversification and questions about when the into, the adult world.” HBO was not interested in the project, nor were other commer- market will eventually level out. Sklover anticipates some interesting possibilities regarding new cial outlets. According to Schanzenbach, her name lacked visibil- technology. She encourages younger artists and independents to ity. The natural showplace for her work at that point was the club investigate the areas of interactive video disc, video games, and scene. Danceteria became her marketplace, offering exposure as video music—areas she labels as ‘“hot,” some being very experi- remuneration for playing her tapes. mental. At present Sony is marketing two- to five-minute audio At present Schanzenbach has completed a series of video por- cassettes like 45rpm singles. She expects video will follow suit. traits designed as a gallery/museum installation, altering her “Video disc hasn’t been around very long. I don’t care what you've popular mode to a more “classical” approach. The piece deals done before, you’re not an expert in it. Everybody has to start with form, movement, and lyrical image. “It’s nice to be serious,” thinking differently. I love to look at it almost like a grid. It’s not she reflects, “but hopefully not too boring.” just linear with a beginning, middle, and an end. You have to pre- -— O 000 37 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms AO TR E ne package it in 20 different ways.” Although the ‘great expectations” of cable have not been met in this country, due to spiraling interest rates and economic recession, the growth of cable is still phenomenal. For example, the franchise agreement for the City of Boston requires 102 channels, 30 under their own city corporation. From Sklover’s perspective, “The more information you have, the more it can serve you. The less information you have, the less it As a new broädcasting entity (in operation since November 1982), Channel Four offers alternative programming. It receives government/support as well as commercial revenue from its sister channel ITV Three. Ratings from Channel Four have not yet gleaned spectacular support. Its sometimes controversial programming, such as material dealing with gay topics, is known to raise eyebrows in the more conservative sectors of British society. Schoolman explained the agreement between the Kitchen and will serve you and the more it will serve someone else and their Channel Four regarding the Ashley project: “They will pay us a market considerations. And the people who get the information lump sum upon delivery, some of which has been defined as buy- will be the ones to manipulate it.” Technology, she believes, is a ing points. It was a straight arithmetic proportion. We defined tool and tools have to be acted upon to make something happen. exactly what we thought was required to make the piece and exactly In her opinion, the movement of the studios and networks into the new technologies and the cable marketplace is a positive sign because they bring more money to the table, generating more dollars for smaller productions. DEFINITION OF PRE-SALE A producer, usually one with some kind of track record, can sell a production to one or more distribution systems before it is ever produced. The producer can then take that guarantee to an investor in an attempt to negotiate financing. A pre-sale is also called a licensing fee. how much we thought it was worth on the marketplace. Those were two different numbers. The points they earned were based on that proportion of their contribution over and above their straight license fee.” She added that the more pre-sales the Kitchen can line up in other territories, the more production money they can show potential investors, emphasizing that one of the most essential aspects of the negotiations was the right by the artists involved to exercise final cut. “Kid Carlos,” a half-hour documentary being made by Barrat, deals with kids in the South Bronx involved with boxing as a life- Sklover notes, “I know a film producer in upstate New York style. Barrat has worked extensively during the last decade with who makes features for kids. He pre-sells to German TV and cable. similar subject matter, but much of the work was shot on half-inch He doesn’t make millions, but he makes enough to continue the black and white portapak, technically unsuitable for most broad- programming he wants to produce.” There are numerous cable cast situations. “We’re working on a program that is a culmination outlets for children’s programming, such as Nickelodeon, Calliop, of the unique relationship she has developed with the kids she’s and the Disney Channel. Sklover points to public access as an out- been taping over the last 10 years—but from the point of view of let for younger producers to establish a track record; it’s a place television today, not from the point of view of guerrilla television where programs can be made using any form, any content, one shot, or in series. 10 years ago,” says Schoolman. According to Arlene Zeichner, former director of the Media Bureau at the Kitchen, most video art in the past has lacked production value suitable for broadcast and mass audience appeal. “We've had projects that were fascinating in terms of art world language, but someone in the general public would have no interest Real profit in the television business, how the industry has in them. We have to figure out what would work for a broader traditionally maintained itself, is through syndication. A series of audience if that’s our goal, not to say that we’re going to leave the programs that gain attention, like “M*A*S*H,” can be sold to artists who are doing more obscure, esoteric stuff that is interest- several markets. The industry has always operated on deficit financing. “I know as a producer I will not make money on the first go around,” explains Sklover, “but if the program continues for ing intellectually.” Zeichner perceives a difference in emphasis between younger artists and the video artists of the last decade: “Those people two or three years, then goes into syndication I’m going to have under 30 are doing very commercial work and what’s happening is money in the backend forever.” that they’re working 10 hours a day at Digital Effects and the Satel- PLAY A GAME: FROM WHAT YOU HAVE READ AND WHAT YOU WILL READ DETERMINE WHAT IS TOTALLY TRUE, WHAT PARTS ARE ELABORATED FANTASIES, WHAT HAS BEEN EXAGGERATED FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT, AND WHAT LEANS TOWARD PUBLIC NAN RELATIONS. lite News Network and it drains their artwork. They get on better equipment and it looks cleaner, but they don’t have the energy to put into their own work, the hours of thinking and developing, because they’re punching the buttons on a CMX.” Through statistical evidence, advertisers and marketing experts have determined that a commercial must be viewed three times before the average consumer can make a proper product identification. During the last three days, three girls have talked to me about Lacan or post-Lacanian film theory and three boys have told “If you’re feeling optimistic and you’re willing to look forward, me what personal computers to buy. The New York Post advertises the market for video art is everywhere and it’s totally wide open, the Commodore 64 at $369. If I buy a package with peripherals I but in moments of somber reality I have to ask: What market- think I can pick up the main computer for around $300. The pack- place?” comments Carlota Schoolman, associate director in age will cost considerably more. The three cornerstones of capi- charge of broadcasting at the Kitchen Center for Video, Music, talism are men, money, and machines. William Paley, the 82-year- Dance, and Performance in New York. According to Schoolman, there are two programs the Kitchen markets “aggressively” to cable and broadcast television markets —Robert Ashley’s “The Lessons,” a half-hour highly experimental video music tape with an underlying narrative premise, and Joan Logue’s “The Spots,” a series of 30-second “commercials” made in collaboration with artists like Joan Jonas, Laurie Anderson, Bill T. Jones, and Arnie Zane. The Kitchen is involved in. television co-productions with both these artists, as well as with Martine Barrat, a ‘guerrilla journalist,” and Robert Longo, a new wave artist. With the Ashley project, “Perfect Lives Private Parts,” a seven-episode opera, the Kitchen was able to negotiate a contract with Channel Four in London. old chairman of the board at CBS, was unavailable for comment although I attempted to arrange an interview with him more than three times. That’s still the bottom line. FILL IN THE BLANK: PROJECT WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE THE FUTURE OF VIDEO ART AND/OR TELEVISION TO BE. Joan Jubela, a New York video artist, also works commercially in the television industry. Graphics by Ellen Kahn «== Special thanks to Julie Harrison, Barbara Mayfield, Karen Singleton, and Richard Concepcion. 38 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Lois Weber was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in 1882— three years after Eadweard Muybridge stimulated international inventors to develop motion pictures by patenting his method of taking sequential still photographs of objects in motion. Weber’s was a strongly Protestant family, and her parents’ intense religiosity would influence the rest of her life. After a short career as a concert pianist, she became a member of the Church Army, an organization similar to the Salvation Army. As a “Church Home Missionary,” she sang hymns at the rescue mission, on street corners, in industrial slums, and in the red light districts of Pittsburgh Weber was dedicated to this work, and the impression it made upon her is visible years later in her choice of subjects for her films and her vivid depiction of prostitutes, waifs, working girls, and drunkards. There is some evidence that Weber next tried a career as an opera singer in New York City, living on little money and financing her voice lessons by playing the piano for her instructor’s other pupils. ” Sometime between 1900 and 1903 Weber’s uncle in Chicago convinced her that she should try the theatrical stage. As she recalled it: Uncle overcame my many arguments and finally landed me on SACRED i the stage. As I was convinced that the theatrical profession needed a missionary, he suggested that the best way to reach them was to become one of them, so I went on the stage filled with a great desire to convert my fellowmen. 8 The rationale that persuaded her that this work had a higher moral purpose later became part of Weber’s philosophy about her film Repentence came too late. The Portals were never again to work. open to her. Throughout the years with empty arms and guilty ' conscience she must face her husband's unspoken question, “Where are my Children?” 1 As the house lights were switched on, the last title card, summarizing the film’s narrative, remained in the minds of the audience. Once again Lois Weber had provided an entertaining photoplay with a serious message. Few of the viewers were surprised, though, since by 1916 silent picture audiences had come to expect a Weber film to use cinema’s emotional power to dramatize a social issue. In the early decades of the twentieth century a Weber film was as recognizable as a Griffith or DeMille; her contemporaries compared her to Griffith, citing her technical innovation and artistic ability. During her 26-year career Weber made at least 150, and probably as many as 400, films—most of which have been lost or destroyed.? Some were ‘one-reelers”—quickly produced and often used as “chasers” between film showings or vaudeville acts—but many were features and among the biggest box office attractions of the silent film era. Almost all of Weber’s films were melodramas dealing with controversial subjects such as capital punishment, opium use, child labor, marriage, divorce, economic injustice, and birth control. Frequently, Weber collaborated with her husband, Phillips Smalley, in writing, directing, and acting, but by 1915 she had come to be known as Universal’s top director, and the majority of the couple’s films credited Weber with the direction. Although some pictures were ambiguously billed as ‘by the Smalleys,” one journalist reported that “Phillips Smalley came to her for advice upon every question that presented itself.” 3 In 1917 Lois Weber Productions (Weber’s own company and studio) was created, and she signed with Paramount to distribute her films for the then incredible sum of $50,000 per film plus half the profits.^ At the time Weber’s films were both noted and notorious, yet changes in American society and in the film industry itself contributed significantly to the decline of her career. She died in poverty in 1939 and today is only rarely mentioned by film historians and critics. Those who have begun to examine Weber’s life and films tend to see her either as wholly conservative or as the archetypal “new woman” promoting modern ideas and working in the public sphere. $ When one considers Weber’s self-perception and definition, as well as the beliefs she both internalized and questioned, and her motives for directing films, she is less easy to label. How Weber became a director and how she was publicly presented as such reveals the transitional nature of her ideas. ©1983 Lisa L. Rudman While working as an actress in comedies and melodramas, she met and married Phillips Smalley. In 1908, when Smalley was out on tour and Weber was in New York, she began to work in films at Gaumont. She worked on the early experiments with ‘“sound-oncylinder” talkies, writing the short scenarios and the dialogues which were recorded on phonograph records and synchronized with the action. Yet, like other companies at the time, Gaumont soon abandoned the idea of developing sound pictures in favor of perfecting the silent movie. Weber’s main task became acting in the films; Smalley also joined Gaumont, to play leading parts opposite Weber. Given the technological and unfamiliar qualities of film, most stage performers viewed film acting with disdain, but as film historian Richard Koszarski has noted, Weber saw something special in films: She was one of the first to recognize the persuasive power of narrative cinema and put it to use.? By writing, acting, and eventually directing. Weber was able to give cinematic sermons to a broad audience. In a 1915 article entitled “How I Became a Motion Picture Director,” Weber described how, as she began to work in close collaboration with Herbert Blaché at Gaumont, she ‘discovered little defects here and there; a chance to improve the action occasionally; a new line to etch in that strengthened a character, and a hundred and one other things that enlarged the scene and gave it finish.”’10 Although she attributed her separate director status to the company’s expansion, Weber underlined such “attention to detail” as one of the director’s highest responsibilities. Indeed, according to one report, Weber personally went over every inch of her films, ‘scrutinizing each tiny picture closely, keen to detect a face obscured or any false trick of the camera or error of the actor.” !! In addition to stressing women’s valuable attention to detail? in her public discussions Weber used the Victorian definition of woman as inherently emotional, religious, sensitive, and morally superior to account for her success as a director. Both she and her interviewers frequently pointed out her “natural” talent for depicting emotion and romance, as well as her skillful ‘“mediation” between script and realized film or between the various production team members.!? Weber’s arguments reflected and affected the public’s perception of her as a woman and as a filmmaker. Motion Picture Magazine’s 1920 article entitled “The Domestic Directress” included a photo of Weber complete with apron and skillet, reminding the reader: Domestic hours are well interspersed in the life of Directress 39 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms For Husbands Only (19718) by Lois Weber. Where Are My Children? (1916) by Lois Weber. Weber and her efficiency behind the megaphone in the studio early life, it is clear how Weber could see herself as a motion pic- fails to interfere with her efficiency in her well ordered home.” ture “missionary” whose motivation was neither personal fulfill- Weber and her publicists wanted to assure the public that although she was a successful and controversial director, she was still a “real woman.”!5 In 1917, one reporter commented on the feminine touch which ran through the new Lois Weber Studios: Its broad grounds, with rose bushes and shade trees, the swing in the backyard, the wide hospitable doors, and the long handsomely furnished reception room are all reminiscent of some Southern manor house. Miss Weber calls it “My ‘Old Homestead.’ 16 A writer for The Ladies Home Journal also remarked about the “feminine” studio and added that Weber ‘“treats her co-workers as a family.” While many writers portrayed Weber as an “ordinary” woman who happened to be a motion picture director, others felt more comfortable depicting her as an “exceptional” woman. Trying to ment nor self-aggrandizement. Weber’s stated purpose was to promote a moral way of life, yet her films often contained frank discussions of controversial social issues. Although traditionalists might agree with her moral stance, some objected to the “modern” way in which taboo subjects were openly dealt with in her films. Speaking of the highly controversial pro-birth control theme in Where Are My Children? (1916), Weber explained: The theme should be brought to the attention of every thinking man and woman, and if others, from prudery, are fearful of addressing themselves to such a topic, it is no reason why I should shirk what I regard as a sacred duty.” In defense of Hypocrites (1914), a film that shocked many by using a nude girl to represent the figure of truth, Weber told a reporter: “I merely held up the mirror of truth that humanity might see reconcile the tension between what a woman was supposed to be life.” 23 Of her film Scandal (1915) she said: “I trust that this play: and what Weber was, many commentators suggested she was extra- will act as a most powerful sermon and will accomplish much last- ordinary not because of her individual talent, but because she ing good wherever shown.” 24 possessed “masculine traits” in addition to her feminine nature. One article, entitled “A Lady General of the Motion Picture Army Although Weber’s use of film to teach the masses proper moral behavior can be seen as Victorian, many of her films were criticized —Lois Weber Smalley, Virile Director,” began by describing “the and censored. Her frustration with Victorian prudishness and the handsome woman who works like a man, and who turns out photo- lack of respect given to films as an art is revealed in her “modern” plays of supermasculine virility and ‘punch.’”® The author used and progressive response to censorship: military, royal, and ‘“masculine” metaphors throughout the, piece “Don't let the people have what they want,” is as pernicious a and then completely switched metaphors to reveal how “feminine” cry as its converse “Give the people what they want.” Both are she was in her own home. Another article quoted Carl Laemmle, parrotlike catch-words of limited meaning. “The people’ have head of Universal: always been reactionary in their ideas, and have fought progress Miss Weber has the strength of a man, all the hardness of a man. She has all the experience of a man, that enables her to in all its forms consistently. If ‘the people” alone were consulted, we should still be in the patriarchal stage, spinning and concentrate on her work—and all of the softness of a woman. weaving our own clothes, and growing and killing our own She is intensely feminine.’ food. That is the stage to which censorship would like to rele- This lengthy piece in Liberty: A Weekly for Everybody stated that “Her figure and her entire manner suggest unusual physical gate us. The “people” must be educated by example to want something better. Especially is this true in art? Censorship of her films highlighted the controversy surround- strength.” The author added: “Her mind is an admixture of masculine and feminine traits, with a man’s capacity for abstract ing Weber. Concerned with her marketability as a moral shep- visioning and the strictly practical, womanly ability to concentrate herd(-ess), the press, the distributors, and probably Weber herself on the thing at hand.”2! wished to show that although her involvement in a career made her atypical, she still held traditional values and beliefs, particularly While reviewers and publicists sketched the picture of Weber as “Domestic Directress’” or “androgynous” genius, Weber herself contributed much to the perception of her as a woman primarily carrying out a sacred moral duty, and only secondarily an artist. In about marriage. True to the Victorian code, which drew a solid line between love and passion, Weber told a reporter: We are all too apt to confuse happiness with passion. Love is constant hunger—friendship alone brings happiness of lasting this way Weber is similar to other women professionals and re- satisfaction. Life began to be more beautiful for me when I formers of the time who used the concepts of a uniquely “feminine” found friendship in my husband's love and we have developed sensibility and women’s supposed moral superiority to rationalize into the most wonderful friends in the world, so close in our their participation in the public sphere. When one considers her thoughts and sympathies that words are hardly necessary. The 40 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms touch of the hand, the raised eyebrow carrying a whole volume of meaning to the other.?7 The Columbus Dispatch cited the Smalleys as ‘one of the most illuminating examples of marital happiness.” After praising Weber’s work, the Ohñħio State Journal was sure to mention that “she and Mr. Smalley have been congenial co-workers,” and the Motion Picture Story Magazine called Phillips Smalley her “chum.”?9In an interview published in a syndicated column, which reached thousands of readers, Weber was asked if she believed in the possibility of a happy marriage. “She said she most emphatically did believe in the happy American household.” The interviewer then asked what was the one necessity for a happy marriage. “ ‘There is only one,’ she said, ‘Friendship. . ..… The successful marriage should be composed of nine tenths friendship and one tenth physical attraction. For then when the physical glamour goes . . (there remains the friendship, firm, unalterable proof against all batteries of wear and tear. And honor—a sense of honor of course.””30 While publicists recorded Weber’s “prescription,” they somehow failed to describe her full ‘“reality”—not until the end of her career did it become widely known that she and Smalley had divorced in 1923. | Marriage was in fact the predominant theme in many of Weber's films. Like Most Wives (1914), The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1917), and What Do Men Want? (1921) are Victorian in their preoccupation with the themes of marriage and morality, but 1. Title card fror reel 5, Lois Weber (Dir.), Where Are My Children? (Uni- versal: 1916, approx. 5,500 ft.). Viewed Feb. 16, 1982, Post Collection, Library of Congress. 2. The discrepancy in the number of films cited is due to several factors: The majority of her films are no longer in existence; some historians do not count many of her shorter ‘“one-reeler” productions; others add those films which she wrote or acted in to those she simply directed. 3. “Seen on the Screen,” Chicago Herald (July 1916), n.p. 4. Richard Koszarski, “The Years Have Not Been Kind to Lois Weber,” Village Voice (Nov. 10, 1975), p. 140. 5. The “new woman” is a phenomenon historians have only recently begun to address. 6. Koszarski, p. 140. 7. Gerald D. McDonald, “Lois Weber,” in Notable American Women Vol. III, ed. Edward T. James (Cambridge: Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 554. 8. Alice Carter, “Muse of the Reel,” Motion Picture Magazine, vol. 21, no. 2 (March 1921), appears to be p. 81, continued from p. 63; also quoted in Koszarski, p. 140. 9. Koszarski, p. 140. 10. Lois Weber, “How I Became a Motion Picture Director,” Paramount Magazine, vol. 1, no. 2 (Jan. 1915), pp. 12-13. 11. Ohio State Journal (Sept. 23, 1915), n.p. 12. It is interesting that other industries also tended to hire women for detail work, either at the beginning or end stages of production. See Judith they do not idealize marriage. Instead, they acknowledge the inter- McGaw on the paper-making industries in the 1880s (“ʻA Good Place to Work’: Industrial Workers and Occupational Choice: The Case of Berk- play of romantic love, economic factors, and class divisions in the shire Women,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 10, no. 2 [Autumn selection of a spouse and the success or failure of the marriage 1979], p. 244). itself. In some films, like A Cigarette, That’s All (1915), a flaw in 13. Alice Guy Blaché used a similar argument in “Woman’s Place in the wife’s morality is the cause of a failed marriage; others, such as Photoplay Production,” Moving Picture World (July 11, 1914), reprinted in Karyn Kay and Gerald Peary, Women and the Cinema (New York: Dutton, Hypocrites, subtly criticize the hypocritical Victorian view of a woman’s innate morality and passivity (although the woman was 1977), p. 338. Koszarski notes that Ida May Park used this rationale. seen as morally superior, as a wife her fate was determined by her 14. “The Domestic Directress,” Motion Picture Magazine, vol. 19, no. 6 husband’s immorality). In many of the didactic films of the silent (July 1920), p.67. era, “marital incompatibility and maladjustment [were] rarely 15. Carter cites Weber’s use of an analogy to dressmaking to describe in- hinted at and the unquestioned purpose of wedlock was Progeni- spiration and idea development. ture.”3! Yet Weber’s films, although often moralistic, did explore 16. Elizabeth Peltret, “On the Lot with Lois Weber,” Photoplay (Oct. “incompatibility” and “maladjustment” in marriage: Some por- 1917), p. 89. tray couples without children and many promote a transitional 17. Henry MacMahon, “Women Directors of Plays and Pictures,” The (and sometimes paradoxical) blend of Victorian and modern Ladies Home Journal, vol. 37, no. 12 (Dec. 1920), p. 13. values. Marriage as cinematic theme and as biographical reality 18. L. H. Johnson, “A Lady General of the Motion Picture Army—Lois for Weber is one aspect of the tension between who Lois Weber Weber Smalley,Virile Director,” Photoplay (June 1915), p. 42. was, what she believed, and how she was projected to the public. 19. Charles S. Dunning, “The Gate Women Don’t Crash,” Liberty: A Weber’s ideas straddled two worlds, preserving one while illumi- Weekly for Everybody (May 14, 1927), p. 31. nating the reality and possibilities of the other. In the process she 20. Similarly, the Chicago Tribune (May 25, 1916) called Weber “an in- often adapted traditional attitudes to fit new realities. defatigable worker in picture making.” During the time of Weber’s career the lives of women and men were undergoing transformation and redefinition in a modernized 21. Dunning, p. 31. Notice that whereas Laemmle attributes the ability to concentrate to Weber’s “masculinity,” Dunning considers it part of her “femininity”!! American society. Although basic Victorian tenets such as in- 22. “Sensational Film Play Billed,” San Francisco Chronicle (Aug. 20, equality in marriage remained intact for many, the ideology of 1916), n.p. Victorian womanhood was challenged by the undeniable appearance of women who did not fit into the Victorian norm—women who worked outside of the home and pursued new activities during 23. M.L. Larkin, “Price of Success in Movies Is Sacrifice Says Thrill Creator,” Milwaukee Journal (Jan. 2, 1916), n.p. their leisure time. Rather than a radical break from Victorian per- 24. Koszarski, p. 140. Cf. the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (July 15,1915), which stated that ‘when Lois Weber undertook to produce ‘Scandal’ she ceptions of womanhood, “modern womanhood” can be seen as a was doing a noble work.” response to urbanizing and industrializing society, an adaptation 25. Mlle. Chic, ‘The Greatest Woman Director in the World,” The Mov- of Victorian ideology which permitted it to exist in a new context. ing Picture Weekly (May 20, 1916). Embodying both Victorian codes and modern mores, Weber’s 26. Many Victorian novels also made strong divisions between love and own beliefs about women’s roles, marriage, the family, and the passion while stressing companionship in marriage. need for social reform, as well as her view of film as a pulpit and an 27. Carter, p. 81. art, reflect her era’s ideological continuities as well as its changes. 28. Columbus Dispatch, (March 12, 1916), n.p. She worked her way up from writing scenarios, making suggestions, attending to detailed work, and adding the finishing touches, to managing the entire direction of a film. That the role of the director was more varied and less rigidly defined than it is today and that codes of behavior for women were changing were just two of the many factors that facilitated Weber’s success. Perhaps to 29. Ohio State Journal, (Sept. 23, 1915), n.p.; Remont, p. 126. 30. Pearl Malverne, ‘Romance Plus Common Sense,” Motion Picture Classic, vol. 16 (May 1923), p. 60. 31. Peter John Dyer, “Some Silent Sinners,” Films and Filming, vol. 4, no. 6 (March 1958), p. 13. her lasting credit, Weber has never been easily categorized: She can be seen as Victorian in the apparent meaning of her films and in her “moral purpose” for directing, but modern insofar as she was a major and controversial early director. Lisa L. Rudman lives in Vermont, where she is an independently unwealthy scholar, filmmaker, and proprietor of “Pluck Productions.” 41 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Wander through large quiet rooms An old friend says What are you doing here? IRENA worked as slaves tomake these rugs Think She shouts Why do you come here and SPOIL everything? This is pure civilization! Walk into church eN Aeoj delna yee) 18420 Tef ef iy erha ela a 1o) y=A Iya oe) b heo) astatel I start to weep IaM Nael: nuus ba SEC. I see a woman swimming and diving 11o AeL bhi T:N eraoo toetst u sy This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:12:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms A woman sits on a stage hunched over in the corner She calls up a friend from the audience Asking her Come and make love to me She does Ioonide Siale eea bhais) ne I CAN'T can’t hold you The last time was too [T3 OTT: e oJen fah eAt memories Woman on the bed shivers IEN she is angry smears spermicidal jelly on my lips No! Walk into church A bloody furry arm is torn rey ojertad etem olele Ae) t Fanabierteli Did it rip its own arm off? 43 This content downloaded from ff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms I make a second VE1sahetal beside my first one I look in surprise Which is the original? some man | Building a model house for Do it without getting paid IDYeN i wrong INe h Ntb 1a