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 100 clips from A list movies from 1896-the present, as well as interviews with important women professionals including Julie Dash, Penelope Spheeris, Rosanna Arquette, Charlyne Yi, Joey Sol... (Full plot summary below)
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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 100 clips from A list movies from 1896-the present, as well as interviews with important women professionals including Julie Dash, Penelope Spheeris, Rosanna Arquette, Charlyne Yi, Joey Soloway, Catherine Hardwicke, Eliza Hittman and many others.
Leave your thoughts about Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power.
| The PlaylistLena WilsonThe film is accessible, engrossing, urgent, and horrifying. |
| Film ThreatRay LoboAfter watching the documentary, I hope that as critiques of the male gaze become more and more mainstream, audiences will see through the many cliches and understand the ideology objectifying women in cinema. And as they gaze back, I hope we all realize that they have complex stories to tell. |
| The GuardianPeter BradshawBrainwashed is a bracing blast of critical rigour, taking a clear, cool look at the unexamined assumptions behind what we see on the screen. |
| The Film StageDavid KatzCriticism can be poetry, but in Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power it is definitely prose, reserving the expressiveness for her own oeuvre. |
| IndieWireKate ErblandMenkes will often admit that many examples might be the result of unconscious choices — a particularly useful and astute notation when dealing with films directed by women, plenty of which contribute to the same gendered way of shooting — but rarely engages with the possibility of a different intent by the filmmakers whose work she is unpacking. |
| SlashfilmEthan Anderton"Brainwashed" isn't so much of a shocking revelation as it is an eye-opening wake-up call to be more thoughtful about how women are depicted in film and how that translates into our everyday lives. |
| Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganBrainwashed doesn’t deliver the opposing views you might like to see aired in a film like this - it’s not a debate for her, even though some film professionals still think it is - and Menkes shows possibly too many clips from her own films (as illustrations of the right sort of take), particularly as this lucid documentary draws to a close. Yet still it’s vigorous, often brash, and full of information. |
| TheWrapElizabeth WeitzmanIf you’ve ever watched a classic movie and wondered why no one else seems uncomfortable with its portrayal of female characters, you’ll want to see “Brainwashed” as soon as possible. And if you haven’t — well, that may be all the more reason to seek it out. |
| Slant MagazineClayton DillardNina Menkes’s documentary comes dangerously close to inhabiting its own title. |
| Austin ChronicleSarah JaneIf this film is a jumping off point into more and, quite frankly, better discussions, then I guess it is worth watching? |
