{"id":1257,"date":"2013-11-26T13:40:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T21:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chukyoeibei.org\/mag\/?p=1257"},"modified":"2018-04-15T20:33:06","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T04:33:06","slug":"1257","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chukyoeibei.org\/mag\/?p=1257","title":{"rendered":"NFB’s Studio “D” and the Reflection of Feminist Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"If<\/a>Since the first Academy Awards in 1929, no woman had ever won an award for best director until 2010.\u00c2\u00a0 Kathryn Bigelow with The Hurt Locker<\/em> (2009) was the first and only woman to win the award, and only the fourth woman ever nominated, out of more than four hundred nominations. For many years, women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role in the film industry has been limited. In Canada, in the 1960s, some women worked at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), but mainly they were working in supporting positions, such as secretaries. They rarely worked as producers or editors. However, influenced by the second wave of feminism in 1960s and 70s, women at NFB challenged the male-dominated film world by persuading the NFB to create the first and only government-funded female filmmaking unit, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Studio D.\u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00c2\u00a0 Studio D reflected feminist ideas of the 1970s in its most important films: Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography<\/em> (1981) and If You Love This Planet<\/em> (1982).<\/p>\n

The feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s, which was sparked by Betty Friedan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Feminine Mystique<\/em> (1963), inspired feminists to make organizations for women and translate their ideas into media. In terms of documentary filmmaking, women entered from two directions: one in which feminists believed that film was an effective \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tool for raising consciousness and for implementing social change\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, the and one in which women already working in the film industry \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chose to explore their own feminist consciousness on film.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Studio D, the new studio \u00e2\u20ac\u0153by and for\u00e2\u20ac\u009d women,\u00c2\u00a0 was established in August 1974 by three women filmmakers; Kathleen Shannon, Margret Pettigrew and Yuki Yoshida. The studio had two objectives: to project women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspectives in its documentaries\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153create opportunities for Canadian women in a field traditionally dominated by men.<\/p>\n

The challenge of creating a women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s studio had occurred when Shannon recognized that the NFB did not express the opinion of women who made up fifty three percent of population, that means half of Canadian population, and failed in its mandate to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153interpret Canada to Canadians and the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

In addition, Shannon had felt that women were still unequal even at the NFB. Although the NFB treated women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s issues in its films, technical areas had not been opened to women because of a gender bias that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153women don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand electricity\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153women don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have physical strength. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153 She thought the male-centered film industry should be changed, and that a place was needed where women could express their voices and have access to responsible positions. Indeed, Studio D did not receive enough funding and additional staff, so her plan to make an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153all-women\u00e2\u20ac\u009d studio was not achieved until 1985. However, she played a great role in bringing filmmakers together and giving them opportunities to create and share their feminist voices through films. Until its closing in 1996, Studio D produced more than one hundred fifty films, including one of its most important films, Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography<\/em> (1981), and won more than one hundred international awards including three Academy Awards for I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll Find a Way<\/em> (1977), If You Love This Planet<\/em> (1982) and Flamenco at 5: 15<\/em> (1983).<\/p>\n

Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography<\/em> (1981) is one of the most popular and controversial documentary films made at Studio D. The film was directed by Bonnie Sherr Klein and produced by Dorothy Todd H\u00c3\u00a9naut and it aimed to raise women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s consciousness about pornography. In the film, on-screen director Klein and stripper Linda Lee Tracy explore the various areas of the pornography industry, such as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153porn shops, sex booths, live sex shows, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hard-core\u00e2\u20ac\u009d magazines, and photographs of women in bondage\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and present many different insights on pornography through interviews. They hear the opinions of workers in porn industry, such as Suze Randall, an erotic photographer for Penthouse, feminist writer Kate Millet, Susan Griffin and reformed porn actor Marc Stevens, talk about the degradation of women caused by the industry. In addition, Klein and Tracy actually visit a red-light district in New York and their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153graphic, sleazy events\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are shown by \u00e2\u20ac\u0153intercutting hard-core pornographic film clips and photographs.\u00e2\u20ac\u0153 Klein uses voice-over narration and presents the fact that the combined circulation of sex magazines Playboy and Penthouse is greater than that of TIME and Newsweek put together, that the pornography industry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s annual income has grown from five million to five billion dollars in a dozen years and that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153it is larger than the conventional film and music recording industries combined.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Moreover, she argues\u00c2\u00a0 that there are more than twenty thousand pornography outlets across North America which is four times as many as MacDonald\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s restaurants.<\/p>\n

A notable point of the film is the change in Tracy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s view on pornography. In the beginning of the film, it seems she already has some questions about pornography,\u00c2\u00a0 but Tracy explains, with the footage of her comedic performance of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Little Red Riding-Hood,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d her act as stripper is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a parody\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of eroticism and she does not consider that it is degrading women because she \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is in control of her act and aware of her sexuality.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d However, as Tracey learns more about pornography through the interviews and experiences, her views on pornography gradually change. Finally, at the end of the film, when she is asked by Randall to pose for a pornography magazine, she finally realizes women are humiliated \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to satisfy men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desire for dominance\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 and begins to question her own work and its contribution to the exploitation of women. Feminist critic, B. Ruby Rich, read the film as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153religious parable\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in The Village Voice. Others questioned Tracy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s honesty in reconsidering her attitude to the pornography industry. In an interview published in the Haymarket newspaper, Klein commented:<\/p>\n

I think that such a criticism is extremely condescending to Linda. She actually continued to work as a stripper for six months after the film was\u00c2\u00a0 completed to be sure of her decision to quit. She finally realized that she had been lying to herself. Linda started to hate her work and to lose her sense of humor about it. She actually became physically ill from it.<\/p>\n

Due to the sensitive subject, Not a Love Story<\/em> (1981) received much criticism. Even though Klein intended to show that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pornography is not about sex or eroticism, \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6but a power relations between men and women\u00e2\u20ac\u009d through the film,\u00c2\u00a0 it was banned from theaters by the Saskatchewan and Ontario Censorship Board because of its sexual content. However, when the film screened at limited educational venues, more than forty thousand audience members were attracted within a year in Ontario alone. Furthermore, the film succeeded in provoking international debate on the issues of pornography and censorship\u00c2\u00a0 and brought a discussion of pornography to mainstream Canadian politics. Therefore, the film had an impact on society beyond the women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s movement .<\/p>\n