Nina Menkes discusses the criticisms she received for her new documentary, and why people feel the need to defend how movies have historically depicted women.
“We’ve had a lot of rave reviews, but we’ve also been attacked and it’s unbelievable to me that women would attack this film,”Menkes also teaches film production at California Institute of the Arts. He spoke to The Wrap. “It’s just like the whole way of cinema being based on these kinds of beautiful, fragmented female bodies seems to be like something people are dying to defend.”
The documentary’s premise is that male and female actors are often shot in very different ways regardless of the context, decade or genre of film, Menkes explained. Camera shots help sexualize females, for example, by focusing on select body parts such as their breasts and butts, while that’s rarely done for men. In addition, the female is often the object of a shot — the one who is being looked at through a heterosexual male gaze — rather than the subject who’s doing the looking. The lighting used to bathe females is more like that of a male fantasy, and not 3D lighting with depth and shadow.
Menkes stated that this system of shot design is like an undercurrent throughout films in such a way that it often goes unnoticed.
Menkes now calls attention to this powerful dynamic by using around 200 film clips in her documentary. “a lot of people are all upset about it,”She spoke. “You know, ‘How dare you say these things about cinema!’”
The L.A.-based filmmaker said it’s hard to believe this would be open to debate in 2022. But “the world is still in the Dark Ages as far as misogyny,”She continued.
It’s also reflected in other ways in Hollywood, too. She noted that Harrison Ford, who’s 80 years old and has wrinkles to show for it, is set to star in “Captain America: New World Order” and is considered sexy while a woman’s acting career in Hollywood is often considered over at 40 or 50.
“If your primary value is as a young sex object, then obviously if you’re like 50 and over, it doesn’t really work,”She spoke.
Menkes’ first feature film was Magdalena Viraga (1986) about a sex worker in East L.A. who has been imprisoned for the murder of her pimp. The film, which Menkes shot and has been hailed as a staple of feminist cinema, showed only the protagonist’s face during sex. The protagonist, played by Menkes’ sister Tinka Menkes, also never takes off her clothes on camera.
The film was awarded a Los Angeles Film Critics Award. It was also shown at numerous film festivals. But, the director claimed that she couldn’t find another Hollywood film to finance.
“People were very freaked out by the film in the industry,”She spoke. “And it seems like people are still freaked out when you confront ‘the male gaze.’ It’s very contentious. It’s very, very ingrained in the way that cinema is made by male and female directors.”
“Brainwashed”Executive produced by Tim Disney and Susan Disney Lord. Funding was provided by the Disney family.
Menkes believes it got funded largely because of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation into allegations of Hollywood’s discriminatory hiring practices against female directors that launched in 2015 and the force of the #MeToo movement.
She said that raising awareness about these issues is part of the solution. Menkes believes in the future “Brainwashed” will be able to do just that — despite the pushback the film has gotten in some reviews.
Though in Elizabeth Weitzman’s review of “Brainwashed”For, she believed the documentary was a must-see. “If you’ve ever watched a classic movie and wondered why no one else seems uncomfortable with its portrayal of female characters, you’ll want to see ‘Brainwashed’ as soon as possible,”She wrote. “And if you haven’t — well, that may be all the more reason to seek it out.”
“What I hope from ‘Brainwashed’ is that the awareness of this and how pervasive it is will make people think twice instead of just automatically shooting in this kind of way,” Menkes said.
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