Events

How to Properly Portray an American Flag

with a discussion led by Jacqueline Stewart (Dept. of English)

<p>Loss Prevention (Finley)</p>

When:
Thursday, October 25, 2001, 7:00pm - 7:00pm
Description:
The Center for Gender Studies is proud to present "Art and SociChange," a film festival featuring media by women, girls and transgendered makers. How to Properly Portray an American Flag is an astonishing cavalcade of radical cheerleaders, errant grandmothers, taciturn cabbies, and civilly disobedient Puerto Rican citizens with US naval officers in-tow give broader dimensions to previous delineations of US identity. Films screened: Loss Prevention (Jeanne C. Finley, 17min, 3/4in) "In this astute psychological portrait, an elderly shoplifter recounts the events surrounding her first arrest, at age 79. Her tale is intercut with that of her daughter, who was a reluctant accomplice as a young child, and who now must squirm as she posts bail... Visually arresting and finely edited, it is an economical parable of compulsion and disgrace." - New York Video Festival Straight White Men and Me (Antonia Kao, 23:20 min, Beta) "Who and what are 'straight white men,' and who am I in relation to them?" Kao, an Asian bisexual woman, sets out on a journey to better understand society's stereotypical "oppressors" by hanging out with a few of them in their natural habitats. Killing Time and Fannie's Film (20th Anniversary Retrospective Selection, Fronza Woods, 1979, 15min, 16mm) Part of the mediamaking movement that first gave centrality to the voices and experiences of African American women during the late 70s and early 80s, these two re-releases are no less groundbreaking today. "Killing Time", an offbeat, wryly humorous look at the dilemma of a would-be suicide unable to find the right outfit to die in, examines the personal habits, socialization, and complexities of life that keep us going. In "Fannie's Film", a 65-year-old cleaning woman performs her job while telling us about her life, hopes, goals, and feelings. A challenge to mainstream media's ongoing stereotypes of women of color who earn their living as domestic workers, this seemingly simple documentary achieves a quiet revolution: the expressive portrait of a fully realized individual. Eighty Layers of Me (That You'll Have to Survive), (Tricia Creason Valencia, 11min, 16mm) Who would have guessed that cheerleaders, maligned as the airheads and sluts of the high school social scene, would grow up to be radical women? This high-spirited doc checks in with three cheerleaders-turned-community-leaders and the X-Cheerleaders, a group of performance artists who lead cheers about women's issues. Vieques: Un Pueblo Forjando Futuros / An Island Forging Futures, (Johanna Bermúdez Ruiz, 17min, vhs) "When the law is unjust, the law must be disobeyed, and here the law is unjust!" In the aftermath of the bombing death of Viequense civilian David Sanes, an alarming increase in occurrences of cancer, and insufferable environmental terrorism, thousands of demonstrators from all walks of life have convened on the island of Vieques to demand that the US Navy discontinue its paramilitary bombings and permanently evacuate the island. The Ride (Bill Basquin, 2000, 9 min) Sexual suggestion, intimate bravado, and emotional ambiguity underlie this meditative adventure story where the up-for-grabs gender of a small towncab driver is the conversation piece.
Co-sponsored by Center for Gender Studies