Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video (Visible Evidence)

358 Pages·2001·17.35 MB·English

by  Alexandra Juhasz

Women of Vision
VISIBLE EVIDENCE
Edited by Michael Renov, Faye Ginsburg, and Jane Gaines
Public confidence in the "real" is everywhere in decline. The Visible
Evidence series offers a forum for the in-depth consideration of the
representation of the real, with books that engage issues bearing upon
questions of cultural and historical representation, and that forward the
work of challenging prevailing notions of the "documentary tradition"
and of nonfiction culture more generally.
Volume9 Alexandra Juhasz, editor
Women of Vision:
Histories in Feminist Film and Video
Volume8 Douglas Kellner and Dan Streible, editors
Emile de Antonio:
A Reader
Volume7 Patricia R. Zimmermann
States of Emergency:
Documentaries, Wars, Democracies
Volume6 Jane M. Gaines and Michael Renov, editors
Collecting Visible Evidence
Volume5 Diane Waldman and Janet Walker, editors
Feminism and Documentary
Volume4 Michelle Citron
Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions
Volume3 Andrea Liss
Trespassing through Shadows:
Memory, Photography, and the Holocaust
Volume 2 Toby Miller
Technologies of Truth:
Cultural Citizenship and the Popular Media
Volume 1 Chris Holmlund and Cynthia Fuchs, editors
Between the Sheets, In the Streets:
Queer, Lesbian, Gay Documentary
VISIBLE EVIDENCE, VOLUME 9
Women of Vision
Histories in Feminist Film and Video
Alexandra Juhasz, Editor
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
For information about the video Women of Vision, contact:
The Cinema Guild, Inc.
1687 Broadway, Suite 506
New York, NY 10019-5904
[phone]
http://www.cinemaguild.com
Copyright 2001 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a re-
trieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the
publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Women of vision : histories in feminist film and video / Alexandra Juhasz, editor.
p. cm. — (Visible evidence ; v. 9)
ISBN 0-8166-3371-1 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8166-3372-X (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Women motion picture producers and directors—United States—Interviews.
2. Feminist motion pictures. I. Juhasz, Alexandra. II. Series.
PN1998.2 .W666 2001
791.43'082—dc21
00-011270
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my children, the next generation,
Simone Irene Dunye and Gabriel James Robert Juhasz.
May their feminist histories flourish.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction i
1 • Pearl Bowser 47
2 • Carolee Schneemann 61
3 • Barbara Hammer 77
4 • Kate Horsfield 9 5
5 • Margaret Caples 109
6 • Julia Reichert 121
7 • Michelle Citron 137
8 • Vanalyne Green 153
9 • Constance Penley 167
10 • Susan Mogul 183
11 • Carol Leigh 197
12 • Juanita Mohammed 211
13 • Wendy Quinn 225
14 • Victoria Vesna 235
15 • Valerie Soe 249
16 • Yvonne Welbon 263
17 • Frances Negron-Muntaner 277
18 • Cheryl Dunye 291
19 • Eve Oishi 307
20 • Megan Cunningham 319
Afterword 327
Notes 331
Contributors 341
Preface
When one of my interviewees failed to show up to be videotaped, I didn't
want to waste this precious hour of crew and studio time. My associate
producer, Megan Cunningham, agreed to interview me. On camera, she
asked me to reflect on the process of making my documentary Women
of Vision: Eighteen Histories in Feminist Film and Video. / had always
planned to include my own voice in the documentary, given my feminist
commitment to a self-reflexive methodology. So I spoke about what I had
learned.
I include this excerpt from my video interview (and another as the book's
afterword) as a preface to the written aspect of this project to mirror the
reflexive feminist process of the originary video documentary, to include
some of my "live" recorded voice in the book so that I speak through the
same technology as do the book's other interviewees, and to set out the
book's central theme—the reclaiming of power through interactive remem-
bering of feminist media history.
MEGAN CUNNINGHAM: What have you learned while making this
documentary*
ALEX JUHASZ: I learned some things that surprised me even though I teach
women's studies and spend a lot of time with younger feminists and
women who don't call themselves feminists. Two things rarely happen:
First, we as women rarely get legitimate documents—documents on
television, documents on video—that recount the lives of strong women
who preceded us. What is so beautiful about the interviews that we have
shot is to see articulate, self-controlled, self-confident (and sometimes not
so confident), bright, committed women living their lives. They don't pre-
sent themselves in all the demeaning, and painful, and violent ways in
ix