Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power(2023)

1h 47m
- Documentary

Release Date: Oct 21, 2022 | Limited

Investigates the politics of cinematic shot design, and how this meta-level of filmmaking intersects with the twin epidemics of sexual abuse/assault and employment discrimination against women, with over 175 movie clips from 1896 ...

Releases

Original Release | Oct 21, 2022

Box Office

Results

Opening Weekend US & Canada:
$7,409
Total US & Canada:
$28,826
Total International
$17,251
Total Worldwide:
$46,077

Director & Top Cast

Nina Menkes
Director

Other Details

Country of Origin: United States

Summaries

Plot Summary

"Startling...destined to forever change how its audience watches films, (Brainwashed) encourages not just a new way of looking but a new way of seeing." -- IndieWire.Feminist film theorists have been exploring the "male gaze" and its various nuances and implications for decades. The term was first used in 1975 by Laura Mulvey-- who is also a key interviewee in BRAINWASHED. Almost 50 years later, we're still wrestling with the issue. With #malegaze on TikTok hitting 300 million views (and climbing), Lena Wilson, Playlist and Tiktok film reviewer wrote, "You may think that on-screen sexism is a thing of the past, or that it can't possibly affect our society... Menkes is here to tell you, emphatically, that you are wrong." ~~~~ BRAINWASHED builds on the vital work of Mulvey and other essential feminist writers including Judith Butler, bell hooks and Angela Carter. Integrating interviews with 21 remarkable women/nonbinary experts (plus one man!) and almost 200 canonical film clips from 1896 through the present, independent filmmaker Nina Menkes exposes, in precise detail, how shot design itself (POV, framing, camera movement, lighting, and even sound) has perpetuated the sexist binary throughout cinematic history. BRAINWASHED then connects these gendered "laws" of visual language to the twin epidemics of sexual harassment/assault, as well as employment discrimination against women.Deconstructing our accepted sense of who women are versus who we are "allowed" to be, BRAINWASHED gives viewers specific tools for consciousness about their experience of legacy filmmaking and its serious implications for our real lives.

Storyline

BRAINWASHED: Sex-Camera-Power is about the politics of cinematic shot design, and how this meta-level of filmmaking affects and intersects with the twin epidemics of sexual abuse/assault and employment discrimination against women, especially in the film industry. BRAINWASHED contains over 175 clips from A list movies from 1896-the present, as well as interviews with important women professionals including Laura Mulvey, Julie Dash, Penelope Spheeris, Rosanna Arquette, Charlyne Yi, Joey Soloway, Catherine Hardwicke, Eliza Hittman and many others.