Angles: Women Working in Film and Video (2000)

Cathy Cook You sense the people telling the stories are enjoying it. Did you hear about any bad experiences? There were some stories that were very disturbing. They were somewhat abusive. I chose to select the more positive stories. Most did not involve a partner. In other words, it’s not about having sex for the first time. It’s about discovering sexuality, your own sexuality. Did you make an effort to get stories from women of different backgrounds? Yes. I hope my films are pertinent to all women. One of my concerns is that there has been so much—and I’m not putting this down—but it happens right now that there is a lot of separation of gay and lesbian films. You have the category of women’s films and the category of gay and lesbian films. I want to make films that are representative of women no matter what their ethnic background or sexual persuasion or class, and that is a sharing of women’s perspectives of growing up. I go to a lot of gay and lesbian film festivals. One thing I notice in comparison to other film festivals is that the films are very strong in the erotic. I felt there weren’t that many films out there otherwise that dealt with women’s discoveries of the erotic. The images in the film don’t literally illustrate the narration, but complement it. How did you choose the imagery you did, such as the underwater footage of the stingray? I wanted to have images that were not literally connecting with the story line. I was hoping there would be some images that would be a common thread and give the film an overall feel. The underwater footage tells the story of my sexuality without really telling the story. That is I used to go scuba diving, and I also grew up around a lot of water. I think water is terribly sensual. I think underwater is the ultimate in sensuality. It’s where I turn into a fish, where I turn into another identity. I am part of the underwater world. I find all creatures are incredibly sensual, the weight of the water and everything else that goes along with it. The feeling I’ve had swimming underwater is phenomenal. I never feel so free as when I swim. That was the feeling I wanted to put in the film. How does the eroticism in your films, which is at times voyeuristic, fit into feminist thinking? I didn’t always agree with the theorists’ point of view—that is, in what I consider to be the old feminist thought of the late 1970s. When I was in school then, I felt there was a new erotic feminism that had not been brought out. That’s when I started seeing that a lot of gay and lesbian films had this erotica. There was a lot of debate about what is pornographic and what is not, where that fine line was. And debate about female pleasure in general. From a feminist perspective that was always very challenging to me. I found myself in conflict with a lot of issues. That was basically what got me started on the exploration of this theme. I think there is an interesting new feminism that’s come about that incorporates sexual pleasures and discoveries. What kind of response do you get to the film? One of the things I was hoping for, and so far it’s worked, is that the film triggers a lot of discussion. After I’ve screened it, a lot of women will tell me their stories or they'll pick a story and say, “Oh, I used to do that.” So they start talking about it and it seems to be fun for everybody. The other thing is I’ve had a lot of men really enjoy it because they actually learn a lot. When I looked at sex education films, I found the approaches to explaining sexuality to boys and girls were very different. In most cases, sexual pleasure was explained to the boys. Sexuality was not discussed in the films for girls. So I realized there was a big void. Most people I know didn't get any guidance. VOLUME 4. NUMBERS 2&3 @ 9