Mythology, Sex, and Cinema: A Conversation with Deborah Kampmeier

Abstract

While it has been nine years since her second feature film, Hounddog (2007), was released in theaters, filmmaker Deborah Kampmeier has been at the forefront of a movement to include more female directors in a male-dominated profession. With few exceptions, it has been difficult for women to penetrate the film world. In her 2015 New York Times article, "Lights, Camera, Taking Action," critic Manohla Dargis wrote, "Women in film are routinely denied jobs, credits, prizes and equal pay." (1) Kampmeier is no stranger to the struggles women face in the film industry. Her position as an established director with a star-studded film that premiered at Sundance did not make it easier for her to produce her third film, SPLit (2017). Perseverance on her part, as well as on the part of her supporters, paid off, and Kampmeier's striking and provocative new feature film is now on its way to the public realm. SPLit is, to quote film critic Matt Fagerholm, "An arrestingly raw howl of fury at the global stigmatization of female sexuality." (2) It tells the story of a sexually repressed stripper who lands the lead role in a play about the Sumerian goddess Inanna's descent into the underworld. Kampmeier's protagonist becomes so immersed in the play that she, in a sense, becomes Inanna. As Inanna, through her descent, finds herself slowly stripped of her garments, Kampmeier's protagonist finds herself peeling away the layers of sexual repression imposed upon her by our patriarchal society. As a member of the Film Fatales, a global organization of female filmmakers, and the creator of Full Moon Films, Kampmeier continues to fight for female directors while making films that provoke closer inspection into the sexual lives of women. The following conversation took place via email on January 25, 2017. EMMA EDEN RAMOS: You have spoken openly about your anger over how female sexuality is portrayed in film. You argue, and I agree, that women are too often depicted as the object of desire, instead of as beings who have sexual cravings of their own. Is one of your goals as a female filmmaker to dismantle the misconception that women are sexually passive by nature? DEBORAH KAMPMEIER: I wouldn't call it a direct goal, but I think the dismantling of all of the misconceptions that the male gaze and male fantasy impose on the true expression of female sexuality is a direct outcome of a woman telling her story instead of a man telling her story. I'm trying to give voice to my story. And a big part of my story is my relationship to my own sexuality. The journey I have taken to reclaim it and move from a performed sexuality for the male gaze or male fantasy, to an embodied and authentic sexuality that is in response to my own desire and my own pleasure, is revealed in stages through all three of my films. I think the fact that approximately ninety-three percent of feature films have a man behind the camera (3) means there is a constant perpetuation and reinforcement of a false representation of the female experience. It is so much the current language of our storytelling, that we as women don't even know we are trying to mirror ourselves to it. We immediately assume there is something wrong with us when we don't feel like we are living in our own skins as we try to occupy these images that are projected upon us. The more we have women, of any orientation, sharing their experiences of their sexuality, in whatever form that takes, the more opportunities we will have to identify with who we really are, to feel seen and heard, and perhaps to discover more about ourselves. EER: Critics talk about women being objectified and sexually stifled on screen. You took an enormous risk when you wrote and directed Hounddog. Not only were you showing your audience the face of authentic female sexuality, you were exploring something even more controversial: the often-taboo subject of child sexuality. What inspired you to tackle an idea that has been dismissed as perverse? …