VID: Pretty Girls [Confirmation + American Crime Story]

[runawaynun]

Pretty Girls
Music: Pretty Girls - Neko Case
Source: Confirmation; The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story

Notes: Premiered at wiscon_vidparty. Redemption of demonized '90s women. Thanks to chaila for holding my hand and reassuring me that this vid was demonstrating what I wanted it to.

Stream (Vimeo) || Download (145.4 mb, .mp4) || Subtitles (.srt) || Youtube

password = play

Pretty Girls from kb on Vimeo.

Comments

[chaila]

The year of the redemption of the demonized 90s women is so interesting to me, and I love how you've drawn them together in this vid, and how your righteous feelings about them both are all over this. It's such a good mix of media/political criticism and character portraits, anger and sympathy. I sort of equally love and am incredibly frustrated by the feeling that I just want to get REALLY MAD and they want to get really mad, but they mostly can't, because everyone is watching. And even when Marcia can get mad, behind closed doors, it's at how ineffectual everything is. And I love how the men are so sparingly used here, just as background dressing or to set the stage, not to tell their story, because its the women's turn to tell their stories, finally.

And, in my head, Marcia Clark and Anita Hill totally met and went out for a few beers and it was great.

[runawaynun]

I think it's so interesting that TV is giving these women from the '90s a chance to tell their stories but leaving a strew of dead fictional female characters behind at the same time. And of course, the most demonized '90s woman is going to be the Democratic nominee and my mind is just boggling. What a strange world.

And their stories are so much bigger than the men, I think. Thomas and Simpson both where the catalyst that propelled them into the public eye, but then the structures of society went into gear to ground them both down. There was the part in Confirmation where Anita Hill's legal team was watching her testimony and one of them said, "Should she be more emotional?" and another of the women replied, "If she were, they'd say she was too emotional." And it really became two women who were damned no matter what they did, but had to suppress that anger and frustration and sadness they were feeling.

They totally did and they so deserved those beers.

[isagel]

Ooooh! I really like what you're doing here. You really had me with the "they blame it on you pretty girl" at 1:10, with the camera spinning around to Marcia, and by the end I had a lot of feelings. Excellent work!

[runawaynun]

Oh, good! That lyric really stuck with me, especially after an interview with Gil Garcetti said that he didn't actually want her on the trial because she was too emotional and that she lost it when she didn't listen to the guy helping with jury selection. Luckily the show gave me a gorgeous shot while she was listening to the mock jury call her a bitch.

I'm glad you had feelings - I had a lot of feelings I wanted to pour into the vid!

[brainwane]

This is so wow -- I am a big fan of vids like these that ambitiously tell feminist historical stories and use fannish approaches to foreground women's stories, illustrating arguments with sources outside the scifi/fantasy discourse. (I am biased here given that my own "Pipeline" is an example.) Are you planning on offering any making-of or vidder's commentary notes?

[runawaynun]

I'm so glad you liked the vid! I'm still a bit disappointed with it because I feel like I didn't get across that Anita Hill was disadvantaged by how Congressmen and the press treated her awfully both because she was a woman and because she was black. But I still love it even with its shortcomings.

I wasn't planning on doing any commentary on it. I'm currently working on a Marcia Clark that is trying to squeeze 22 years of fangirling and thoughts into it. But if you would be interested in reading some commentary, I could do that after I finish my current project.

[brainwane]

I wasn't planning on doing any commentary on it. I'm currently working on a Marcia Clark that is trying to squeeze 22 years of fangirling and thoughts into it. But if you would be interested in reading some commentary, I could do that after I finish my current project.

Oh goodness, I look forward to your current project and to any thoughts you are interested in providing on "Pretty Girls". Also, given the subject matter (including the mass media's obsession with political women's appearances), you might be interested in Genevieve Valentine's novels Persona and Icon.

[brainwane]

Now I've gotten to see the new project and I will be commenting there! But first: I meant to mention how much I loved the way that (in your vid) Hill's story closes with the mountain of letters from other people thanking her for breaking her silence and telling her truth. Do you feel as though your vid is, figuratively, one of those letters?

[runawaynun]

I never thought of it that way, but it is absolutely a thank you letter to her for telling her story and letting other women know they are not alone and letting those of us who were yet to grow up and be in the workforce that we should not be treated like that. After her testimony, work places started to at least address the issue of sexual harassment. We're far from perfect on the issue but Hill's testimony gave it a name and a national voice. I mostly ended with those letters because those letters showed how she changed the world.