Nina Menkes: 'Cultural awareness has changed'

Has sexism in American cinema changed or become less in recent years?
Two major events affected sexism in the film industry, both are talked about in “Brainwashed”. The first one is the action that was essentially started by Maria Giese—when she took the terrible statistics about women film directors working in Hollywood to the ACLU, the most powerful union and civil rights organisation in the United States, who were shocked by facts—and then took it to the US Government. The federal government of the United States then launched a very serious investigation into the illegal sex discrimination practiced by all the Hollywood studios.. And they subsequently went into secret settlement negotiations, and this was what started to change Hollywood. Because the studios were threatened with millions, hundred of millions of dollars in fines if they would not start hiring women and repair their illegal hiring practices. That was in 2015,and it caused a massive international cultural upheaval. The second big event was the launch of the MeToo movement in 2017 which in many ways was buoyed and came out of the 2015 employment action. Both these things together caused a situation where we have-finally- seen some change. But I think if you want to bring it up to the present, the perfect example of how we’ve made some progress but at the same time, not a lot, is the two big films of the moment, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer”. “Barbie” obviously shows that there is a hunger around the world for a feminist message: here we have a Blockbuster movie that is giving a very strong feminist message that is about women being sick of patriarchal oppression. At the same time you have “Oppenheimer”, which features a cast that is entirely male, there are only two women characters, and most of the time they’re naked. This shows you that yes, we’ve progressed, but at the same time: not so much.

How do you evaluate “Barbie” in light of your documentary "Brainwashed"?
If you look at it from the perspective of the “Brainwashed” movie: Greta Gerwig most definitely does not use male gaze-style shot design for her women characters. We do not see close ups of any female butts, we do not see the camera panning the bodies of naked women, in fact we do not see naked women on display at all. So that’s pretty exciting. As far as the content, that’s something a lot of people have talked about, and you can analyze it in many different ways. But no matter what, having a big budget Hollywood blockbuster that also had a massive advertising budget, that is presenting a feminist message where the women are subjects and they’re talking about the problem of being a woman, whether you love every moment or not--whether you think it’s too simple and/or too capitalistic: there are various complaints you can make about this movie, but fact is, it’s a drastic shift from the usual macho blockbusters that we have been seeing until now. And I would say its a very welcome shift.

You outline the problem of sexism as a triangle: visual language of cinema - discrimination at the workplace (film set) and abuse/assault on site. How can we end this triangle?
The more awareness, the more light that is shone on the issue, the more change we will start to see. And we have seen change: since the actions in 2015 against the Hollywood Studios and the #MeToo movement, since so many people have spoken out about their experiences—the cultural consciousness has shifted. And right now, we are seeing change again, because the Labor Union movement that has now erupted in the United States has shown the huge unfairness and inequality for workers versus the very wealthy and exploitative corporations and of course of those corporations- 90 % of the people on the top- that really are raking in the profits are white men. So, all of this awareness, I do believe, is starting to make a change. You know, if people are unaware of something, it’s just going to sit there and it’s not going to move. But when you have a worldwide shift in consciousness, then it can start to make a difference. I mean, we're not all the way, there is still a massive amount of work change needed. But for example, if you go back even a few years, let’s say five years ago in Cannes, there were three women directors in competition. And if you go back 10 years, I think it was a hundred percent male, or even seven years. But Now, this year- they would be embarrassed, they would die of embarrassment if they had an all male competition They wont do it. So that shows that people in power have, finally, been listening. They are affected. They cant quite keep doing the same old, same old, although looking at movies like “Oppenheimer”, you have to wonder...

The case of Harvey Weinstein brought the extent of sexism and assault to the attention of the public. Could this be considered a turning point?
Definitely! The first turning point was obviously Maria Giese in 2015, the employment action which in many ways laid the groundwork for the #MeToo movement. But yes, the Weinstein story was huge, and it has changed the way that people act on sets. I think many people are now a little embarrassed, you know? Before, it was just a free for all. It was normal and expected that almost every young actress who walked on a set pretty much had to have sex with the producer and maybe also the director if she wanted to keep her job. But that has changed now.

Numerous filmmakers said that Weinstein’s behaviour had been an open secret for years. That is a big problem, isn’t it?
I have to emphasise again how much of a change Maria Giese and the MeToo movement have caused. Suddenly there was an awareness for the fact that producers, film directors and people on a film set in general were 95% white males and that many of those people had abused their power. For so long everyone had accepted a situation that is actually not only horrible but also completely illegal. It was a shock, you know, that it was finally said out loud and in public. Because with all that came the conclusion that of course, if you’re an actress, you would have had have to sleep with Harvey Weinstein to keep your job, but he was just one of many. He became the poster boy for sexual abuse/assault but of course thousands of other men did the exact same thing. That’s a big problem, but the employment action against the studios, the #MeToo movement and the fact that a lot of big names finally came forward to say “this happened to me” have caused a shift. Once it was out in the open, it could never be the same--and that is where we return to my point from before, once you shine a light on something, it changes, it can’t keep happening. Now everyone knows and people are talking, in public, on social media, in court, so it this routine cannot continue in the same way it used to, and that’s great, of course. Better late than never.

How should we actually evaluate the testimony of Rose McGowan, who publicly accused Weinstein but ultimately did not submit any evidence? The court later dismissed her case, and McGowan has not taken on a project since.
I cannot say anything about this specific case because I have not followed it closely. I just don’t know all the details. What I can say about the women who have shared their experiences is that coming forward to face a powerful man or a powerful organization is very, very scary and very, very uncomfortable. You’re putting yourself in a position where you’re going to be attacked, where you’re going to be laughed at, where they are going to try to destroy your reputation in every way possible. So, the women that have come forward should really be congratulated for their bravery.

Is there too much emphasis on good looks in cinema? There are actors who are not considered as (objectively/generically) good looking as other A-listers, yet they got offered good roles.
Let’s make a very important point that it is male actors who do not have to be classically good-looking: tall and perfect. There are so many examples of that, from Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino to many others. Even older men like Clint Eastwood, though he was once more classically handsome, is still acting in his nineties and many people think that’s really sexy and exciting. Harrison Ford at age 80 was called the new, sexy star of “Captain America”. The being perfectly beautiful and never being over 40 in order to qualify as an exciting, hot actress, that’s reserved only for women.

Do we even need beautiful people in film and television if the script is good?
That’s one of the important points I wanted to make in “Brainwashed”. In general, you can say that men, from the time they are born and the way they are raised, learn to think of themselves as subjects, as full-on human subjects. And this subject consists of a lot of aspects, they might be good looking-or not-, they might be rich, they might be talented or funny or strange or powerful, they might be a lot of things. All of those elements work together, the way the men look is only one part of the whole male human person. But women, who have systematically been pushed into the object position exist generally and mainly in relation to a subject, the subject who is looking at/using/evaluating the object. The definition of beautiful object is that you are there for someone’s visual and other pleasures, --women have internalised this and lived their/our lives with the idea that being a powerful, incredible, interesting person is okay, but the number one really important thing to get ahead in life on multiple levels is to be beautiful. Even to be loved, you really need to be beautiful, that’s why billions of dollars’ worth of makeup and plastic surgery are successfully sold to women—men buy only a small fraction of these products and services.

In "Brainwashed," you also address the camera work that creeps up on butt-level. Is the stylistic device suboptimal for cinema?
Well, my personal approach is not to tell people what to do. I don’t like to be the police that tells you how to make your film. What I am asking people to do is watch “Brainwashed” and think about the way that shot design has been gendered, the way that male actors and female actors have been shot differently, and then decide if you would like to continue shooting that way or not. It’s not for me to say how to shoot your movie, just take a look and then decide. What I am calling for is consciousness and awareness. And then what people do with that awareness of gendered shot design is their business.

You have observed that white men in particular want to keep to themselves when working on set and employ other white men. Why do these people want to keep to themselves?
To be honest, I think it’s almost a “natural” reaction. If you’ve been on film sets, and all you ever saw was a bunch of white men, and you’ve been on a hundred film sets and they are all exactly like that, and you are also a white man, then when you hire someone, you’re just going to do the same thing. It really takes a strong person, a strong mind, to say “wait a minute, something’s wrong here". And of course, the people who notice it are the people who have been excluded. The white guys usually don’t notice it, but we notice it.

Why were women degraded to objects? You address in your documentary that they were not given speaking roles.
I don’t know if we’ll ever know the exact starting point, but if you take for example the history of painting, if you walk into the Louvre, you’re going to see a lot of naked women on the walls and most of those paintings are painted by white, heterosexual men. So, this problem went back way before cinema, it’s the idea of, you know, this famous line “what women desire is to be desired”. This whole crazy concept is something that has been with us for a very long time and it’s very, very hard to get free of it.