AN OPEN LETTER TO DAVIS AURINI AND JORDAN OWEN UPON THE RELEASE OF THEIR FIRST SARKEESIAN EFFECT TEASER
Hey guys, big fan here.
Just watched your Sarkeesian Effect teaser video. An outstanding job! Even though this is, I know, a rough and unfinished trailer using raw footage from the first couple of days of shooting, it’s clear that this film – this epic journey into journalism, if I might coin a phrase here (you can totally use it!) – will more than live up to your earlier work.
And that’s saying something, as I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ten-minute libertarian suit-wearing-ninja parkour dance fight film better than Davis’ “Lust in a Time of Heartburn.” And obviously – obviously – I’ve never seen such a gritty depiction of YouTube jackass despair as Jordan’s minimalist masterpiece “Dude Lying On Couch in Messy Apartment Complaining That People Aren’t Giving Him Enough Money.”
I just wanted to give you guys some “notes” on it, as I know it is still early in your process.
First off, the production values are a-maz-ing. I realize that after spending money on airfare, hotel rooms, rent, samurai swords, white turtleneck shirts, and whatnot that you probably only had about $25 left to make the actual film. Well let me tell you this: every Canadian penny of that $25 is there on the screen. It’s RIGHT THERE.
Second, SOUND. I will admit you’ve made a bit of an unorthodox choice here. Most documentary filmmakers obviously go for “clean” and “crisp” sound in which you “can actually make out what people are saying.”
But you guys! You zag when everyone else is zigging!
Not since Birdemic: Shock and Terror and, of course, Davis’ own “Lust in the Time of Carpark,” have I seen such an innovative use of sonic muddiness. You guys know that in real life you can’t always tell what other people are saying. Especially if you have a lot of wax in your ears. And fellas, listening to the interviews in your film I felt like I had a whole beehive’s worth of wax in my ears. And possibly a bee or two, though I think that might be a problem on my end.
Ok, I’ll be honest, that’s definitely a problem on my end. I might as well admit it: My apartment is full of bees.
Third, the CINEMATOGRAPHY. Again, the zigging and the zagging. In a time of cheap digital cameras, it is easier than ever for even the most incompetent filmmaker, or, say, any 14-year-old filming a friend lighting his farts, to achieve pristine image quality.
But, like David Lynch, who turned his back on the latest digital technology to make his confusing surrealistic masterpiece Inland Empire with a cheap, consumer grade standard definition digital camera, you have eschewed pristine picture quality in favor of well, let’s just say that it doesn’t look like trained professionals had anything to do with it.
I don’t know if that was what you were going for but if so, NAILED IT!
Oh, and I wouldn’t worry about the blurry white smudgy stuff in the edges of the shot in that Justine Tunney interview. NO ONE WILL NOTICE IT. Seriously, it’s like a five-minute static shot, why would anyone notice anything in the edges of the frames. Was that vaseline? I think Bob Guccione at Penthouse was known for his vaseline on the lens technique. You guys weren’t using the camera to film porn earlier in the day, were you? I kid! What a question! Of course you were.
Speaking of static shots, your choice to film most of the interviews as static two shots – another brave choice. Most people filming interviews would have given us closeups of each of the people in the interview, and cut back and forth, and thrown in some of what the snooty cinephiles call “reaction shots.” You guys boldly went for static shots of two people sitting in chairs.
And that time when you cut from one static shot of two people sitting in chairs to another static shot of the same two people sitting in the same chairs from a slightly different angle? YOU GUYS BLEW MY MIND WITH THAT ONE.
It was also super cool when you did one interview in one particular room with two chairs and followed that up with another interview in the same room with the same two chairs, almost as if you had booked the room for the day and were just running people through it without bothering to change anything up or even move the camera or anything.
That’s the kind of PURE FILMING EFFICIENCY that’s going to enable you to bring this masterpiece on budget. Like Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash used to say: REAL ARTISTS SHIP!
Some thoughts on the performances.
Jordan Owen was completely Jordan Owenish. I totally bought his character. Jordan, you are a MASTER of whatever it is that you do. Keep it up!
But Davis, you sly dog, I should have figured that someone who looks like a budget version of Anton LaVey would have some tricks up his sleeve! Or should I say “his white turtleneck?” Yes, that’s my way of saying that the costuming was PER-FEC-TION. Not every Anton LaVey impersonator can pull off a shiny suit and white turtleneck but, wow! That’s all I can say: Wow!
As for the performance itself, again some counterintuitive choices here. Most interviewers try to react to their interview subjects a little in an attempt to show “empathy.” Your decision to instead sit stock still and stare relentlessly at your interview subjects was a little jarring – but a good kind of jarring. That’s how you get the good stuff out of your interview subjects! And murder suspects. Stare them into submission!
One of my cats has a similar technique when she wants food, or attention, or, well, let’s just say she’s gotten me to confess to a couple of murders, if you know what I mean, and what I mean is NO I DIDN’T MURDER ANYONE WHY DID I EVEN SAY THAT, CRAP, HOW QUICK CAN I PACK, IS THERE GAS IN THE CAR?
Also I think it was a good idea to mix up the sitting and staring stuff with that whole “erupting into unnatural and exaggerated laughter” schtick. Totally sold your character as some sort of primitive cyborg trying to pass as a human.
Also, amazing prop work with that disposable coffee cup. You gripped it so hard I really BELIEVED that if you let go of it you would have flown off into space — you know, like George Clooney in Gravity. Oh, whoops, SPOILER ALERT.
This is how good your film is: I’m comparing it to freaking GRAVITY. I’m comparing it to freaking Davis Aurini’s “Lust in the Timer of Clambake.”
Oh, and the foley work was spot on as well. That … sound that happens at about 6:10 in? You know, the thing where it sounded like someone was dragging a large rock over cement just out of shot, or maybe like you had swallowed your microphone and your stomach was having troubl edigesting it? That sound is going to haunt me for weeks. I don’t even want to know how you did that. Sometimes mysteries are best left unsolved.
Anyway, outstanding job. I really can’t say anything about any of what your interview subjects were saying, or even remember any of their names except for Justine Timberlake the Slavery Lady. I think it was a combination of that wax-in-ears sound quality and their complete inability to say anything interesting in response to your stupid questions.
But with everything else going on in this film – the static shots, the white turtlenecks, that white stuff at the edge of the shot in that one interview that NO ONE WILL NOTICE, I PROMISE THEY WON’T EVEN SEE IT … well, anyway, with all that going on in the film no one is even going to care what any of your incredibly boring interview subjects said or who they are or why on earth you decided this was a good subject for a documentary or why you even thought you were remotely capable of making an actual professional quality film.
Anyway, I’m sure all of the people who gave you literally thousands of dollars of their own money because they assumed you might actually come up with something that looked vaguely professional will be very proud of you.
I’m assuming, of course, that your final film will be about 4 minutes long, and that half of it will be libertarian suit-wearing-ninja parkour dance fighting to the sounds of Yakety Sax. If not, yeah, no one is going to be able to sit through this crap.
In other words LOVE IT!
Sincerely,
Your Biggest Fan
The food service analogy is comparing sex-workers that choose to provide sexual services to workers that choose to provide food services. The worker in both analogies are offering a service chosen by their own volition. Trafficked sex workers are non-consenting and are more closely analogous to illegal immigrant farm workers, who may not be as severely exploited are nonetheless often coerced into unsafe working conditions, long hours and low pay under threats of deportation. A consenting sex-worker should not be treated like an exploited illegal immigrant or a victim of human trafficking as this labels them a victim of their own choice and attempts to remove agency under the pretext that she doesn’t know what choices are good for her. Obviously this is not representative of all sex workers, but legislation and issues surrounding it should consider perspectives from all affected by those laws. Do not all women deserve the freedom to be heard and considered as well as respected, especially pertaining to issues directly affecting them? Or should we only listen to women that are victimized in these issues? That would effectively victimize all women by not considering those that are privileged enough to be previously unvictimized. Valuing one’s perspective less if they are not victimized is a form of victimization, and hostility towards an actual sex worker voicing her relevant concerns is victimizing. You see how this is a self-contradicting view? Now that she has been victimized by being silenced with hostility, can we now consider her opinion? Too often feminist’s have dogmatic approaches to issues which is evident by the open intolerance to a consenting sex worker’s opinion that goes against a dogmatic doctrine that sex workers are victims. Feminist’s would probably find more success advocating for all women and promoting empowered women more often as focusing solely on victimized women makes women out to be weak and inferior and valuing opinions of victims while disregarding relevant opinions of privileged women directly affected by these issues paradoxically values female victimhood. Disregarding a consenting worker providing food services to a consenting worker providing sex services because women are not food implies that the women providing sex services is herself sex. Neither wmen is food or sex. If consenting they are both women exercising their free agency to provide a chosen service in exchange for a means of subsistence. If respecting the free choice of consenting women I see no problem with the analogy of sex service worker orvfood service worker or the comparison to a consenting taxi service worker for that matter.
I’m sorry you had to put with that emotionally abusive ex of yours, marinerachel.
Have you gotten better at not feeling sad and/or missing him as much as you did in the past (if my question was inappropriate and you don’t want to answer, then I understand).
Guys, I had the most horrifying dream last night. I dreamt I was being stalked by Davis Aurini.
I…may be spending to much time here.
Aaahh!I had a WHTM-related dream too. It was blog posts. Just blog posts. No content, no details, just endless scrolling through lots and lots of blog posts. I woke up and thought, “Mate, you need to get off the Mammoth for a bit”.
Wow, did anyone else hate elle’s post? Gosh, I know I sure did. Especially the part were they try to dictate how all feminists should handle certain issues. It was bossy, socky and reminded me of mansplain’in.
I suspect that Elle is accustomed to being able to tell other people what to do, and a bit startled that doing so doesn’t work so well when the people you’re trying to boss around are feminists.
I can only guess that paragraph breaks killed her father and must now prepare to die, too, because ugh, my poor eyes.
Yeah, all I noticed were the lack of paragraphs. The words ended up just blending together.
If you’re going to spam us with trite, unoriginal content the least you can do is format it in a way that doesn’t make people’s eyes bleed.
Oh gawd, I forgot this was the sex worker thread with the epic splainathons. Even numbered bullet points are preferable to Elle’s eye-destroying wall-o’-text.
I liked the part where listening to trafficking victims victimizes all women. Deliciously specious word salad. Nom nom nom!
Tee-hee, Cassandra, regarding the paragraph breaks. Cripes, my eyes did cross when reading that wall-o-text.
To summarize, feminists should care more about the most privileged people in a group and less about the least privileged people, because that’s how you do social justice right, and if you disagree with my incoherent word vomit you’re listening to the wrong sex workers, because who the fuck cares about trafficking victims since they usually don’t have blogs.
Yes, that about sums it up. And metaphor abuse.
I’m completely fine with non-abusive consensual sex work, but bloody hell, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Azura was met with a harsh response because we’re all tired of threads devolving into completely unrelated sex arguments, combined with her use of terms like “W***e” and “[Feminists are] brainwashed”; do you really think that doubling down on that with a heaping handful of mansplaining will nab you a better response?
Also, learn to paragraph and learn to apostrophe.
@M: and in Shakespeare:
Feminists need moar moo. And we’re back to cows.
I give Elle’s essay on why feminists are doin’ it wrong an F.
But soft! What troll through yonder window breaks?
It is an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Elle totally has a point, though, youse guise. Trying to help people kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery could cause a few moments of inconvenience and frustration, even on a regular basis, for the infinitesimally small percentage of sex workers who have chosen the work from their many options. And that would be terrible.
Very few people in the food service industry are there because they love the work. It’s entry-level “unskilled” labor and people tend to do it because you need some kind of job to put food on the table. Meanwhile the job itself is physically demanding, frequently degrading, often exploitative, and without any kind of employee benefits.
In that light, yeah, it is kinda comparable to sex work.
People say that legal sex work leads an unacceptably high proportion of men to feel entitled to sex from all women, not just the sex workers. And it is true, an unacceptably high proportion of men feel entitled to free food service from all women, not just women employed in food service!
So there’s another good parallel, although not one that is favorable to sex work.
THIS. Even if sex work is empowering and lucrative for individual women, it is a net loss to women as a whole. On its own, that’s not a reason to condemn people for doing it, because it’s not fair to demand that people put The Cause above their own happiness and also, women do what they must to survive the patriarchy. But I can’t agree that sex work as a whole is something feminists should be supporting.
I actually believe that men feeling entitled to sex from just the sex workers is also quite problematic. Even if all non-sex-worker women were exempt from this feeling of entitlement, it would still be a problem.
As it is, I don’t really see how this analogy helps sex work at all. There is not any evidence of an epidemic of people forcing teenagers to make them hamburgers against their will, but there is overwhelming evidence of an epidemic of men forcing women to provide sex against their will. The analogy breaks down in most important respects, and the parallels that remain valid aren’t favorable to sex work legalization.
Isn’t that self-evident, though? Feeling entitled to someone’s body seems like a strange stance, regardless of the profession of the person someone is overruling the boundaries of. Maybe I’m missing a nuance.
Anyway, yeah. Sex work =/= food sales. I don’t understand why that comes up. I thought I had made a really sarcastic post about it earlier, yet it seems I haven’t, so I guess I can use this as a springboard to do so.
It’s a strange analogy that doesn’t quite apply.
Huh.
I, uh, don’t have a lot of sarcasm today.
Anyway, the “Parallels” don’t apply any more than the parallels between astrophysics and bureaucratic employment in the Cantonese government. Sure, you’re going to read a paper in both jobs, but it’s not the same paper, and it’s not the same job.
How so? Not the last bit, the first bit – I don’t see it?
Intersectionality isn’t a bucket in which you toss every description of yourself you can think of, that goes in the “people are complicated” bucket.
@pallygirl
The Shakespearean version was actually easier to read than their version. Excellent.
Also: