(2020)
YOU SPIT WHEN YOU TALK, the longest film I’ve created.
The film serves as an exploration into five words and their meaning imposed on women: innocence, desire, satisfaction, shame, and vanity.
The girls in my film interact in roles representing the opposing sides of these enforced narratives. Internalized misogyny often comes out in the form of competition among your fellow woman. A desperation to be validated by men has you critique other women to have them fit into the box that is your prison. Out of envy, jealousy, rage or resentment, all fueled by the same patriarchal system. You become both the prisoner and the guard, the enforcer and the one it is enforced upon. You foster the very system that tortures you, with no means of knowing what’s on the other side, mostly fear of utter rejection.
Innocence - “you better impress me but not enough to intimidate me.”
You must be a commodity. Present me features of you that have value to me. Make sure you fit into the role I want you to play. Be wise enough to understand my humour but not funnier than me. Have your taste in music, but you’ve never heard this stuff before. Be my sex object but only mine. Be the Madonna and the whore. The person you were before me does not exist.
Desire - “you are only the object of desire.”
The doe in headlights, the picture in a gallery, the flower in the vase, the singing bird caged. You look beautiful; you sound lovely; your skin feels soft to touch. I perceive your beauty. I see you. Do you feel beautiful now? Do you feel seen? Good. Are you angry? Do you want to rebel? Because we’ll take that back as fast as we gave it to you.
Don’t you wish we still looked at you? Shine our blearing light in your eyes? Frame you and hang you on the wall? Cut you from the root and let you die in our kitchen? Listen to you sing your pretty song for our ears, look with our eyes, touch with our hands, kiss our lips only?
Satisfaction - “your satisfaction comes second.”
Don’t get me wrong, I want you to feel me love you. I want to watch my image form in your dilated pupils. I want to see me, satisfy you. Feed my insatiable hunger with you. So be willing, be wanting, make me want you, keep me wanting you; run on your hamster wheel and come out when it’s time to play. I love you when it’s time to play, I pet you, I tell you how cute you are. Playtime is just as fun for me as it is for you.
Shame - “feel ashamed for craving gratification.”
How dare you? When did you become so entitled? So selfish, the world doesn’t revolve around you. What makes you think that’s something you deserve?
Aren’t you worried about what people would think? Why don’t you feel good enough on your own? You don’t need him.
Does he want me? What if he doesn’t? What am I worth outside of that? Who am I if not the advertisement? What is my reflection if not through the eyes of the man in my head?
Am I broken? Used? Rotten?
Please let me see my reflection in your eyes.
Vanity - “be blindly beautiful, be modest.”
Beauty known is beauty tainted. Narcissist. Do you ever feel self-conscious? Sexy. Tell me all the things you hate about your far from the perfect body. Meek. In my eyes, they have a purpose—sugar-coated kindling for your burning subconscious. Why would I want sovereign forest fire? Pick, prod, pinching your skin, my sweet honey and bitter sting. Your beauty knows the bound that I will set. I will only move into a house of mirrors.
The film serves as an exploration into five words and their meaning imposed on women: innocence, desire, satisfaction, shame, and vanity.
The girls in my film interact in roles representing the opposing sides of these enforced narratives. Internalized misogyny often comes out in the form of competition among your fellow woman. A desperation to be validated by men has you critique other women to have them fit into the box that is your prison. Out of envy, jealousy, rage or resentment, all fueled by the same patriarchal system. You become both the prisoner and the guard, the enforcer and the one it is enforced upon. You foster the very system that tortures you, with no means of knowing what’s on the other side, mostly fear of utter rejection.
Innocence - “you better impress me but not enough to intimidate me.”
You must be a commodity. Present me features of you that have value to me. Make sure you fit into the role I want you to play. Be wise enough to understand my humour but not funnier than me. Have your taste in music, but you’ve never heard this stuff before. Be my sex object but only mine. Be the Madonna and the whore. The person you were before me does not exist.
Desire - “you are only the object of desire.”
The doe in headlights, the picture in a gallery, the flower in the vase, the singing bird caged. You look beautiful; you sound lovely; your skin feels soft to touch. I perceive your beauty. I see you. Do you feel beautiful now? Do you feel seen? Good. Are you angry? Do you want to rebel? Because we’ll take that back as fast as we gave it to you.
Don’t you wish we still looked at you? Shine our blearing light in your eyes? Frame you and hang you on the wall? Cut you from the root and let you die in our kitchen? Listen to you sing your pretty song for our ears, look with our eyes, touch with our hands, kiss our lips only?
Satisfaction - “your satisfaction comes second.”
Don’t get me wrong, I want you to feel me love you. I want to watch my image form in your dilated pupils. I want to see me, satisfy you. Feed my insatiable hunger with you. So be willing, be wanting, make me want you, keep me wanting you; run on your hamster wheel and come out when it’s time to play. I love you when it’s time to play, I pet you, I tell you how cute you are. Playtime is just as fun for me as it is for you.
Shame - “feel ashamed for craving gratification.”
How dare you? When did you become so entitled? So selfish, the world doesn’t revolve around you. What makes you think that’s something you deserve?
Aren’t you worried about what people would think? Why don’t you feel good enough on your own? You don’t need him.
Does he want me? What if he doesn’t? What am I worth outside of that? Who am I if not the advertisement? What is my reflection if not through the eyes of the man in my head?
Am I broken? Used? Rotten?
Please let me see my reflection in your eyes.
Vanity - “be blindly beautiful, be modest.”
Beauty known is beauty tainted. Narcissist. Do you ever feel self-conscious? Sexy. Tell me all the things you hate about your far from the perfect body. Meek. In my eyes, they have a purpose—sugar-coated kindling for your burning subconscious. Why would I want sovereign forest fire? Pick, prod, pinching your skin, my sweet honey and bitter sting. Your beauty knows the bound that I will set. I will only move into a house of mirrors.