ISSUES OF VOICE, CHANGES OF HEART:
PERSONAL AND POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF WOMEN ' S FEATURE FILM
PRODUCTION IN CANADA
by
Adeja Chrisara
B.A., University of British Columbia in association with Okanagan University College, 1995

THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
m

GENDER STUDIES

© Adeja Chrisara, 2002
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA
April 2002

All rights reserved. This work may not be
reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or
other means, without the permission of the
author.

UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN
BRITISH COLUMBIA
LIBRARY
~nee George, BC

ABSTRACT
Within the already colonized realm of Canadian film production , fictional
narrative films made by women are further marginalized, for the most part
going unseen and unacknowledged. This thesis examines thirty-four English
language films by and about women, representing the work of twenty-seven
filmmakers , in the context of a 'cultural circuit', encompassing interviews
with the filmmakers , a consideration of the stories told in the films, and input
from viewers. In their quest to present realistic, yet optimistic, portrayals of
women's lives, the filmmakers succeed in producing empowering stories of
women which provide an alternative to the damaging and stereotypical images
most often found in mainstream cinema. Addressing various aspects of
feminist film theory, it is argued that storytelling through film is a powerful
communicative force, and it is vital that women's perspectives be seen and
heard in this arena if ours is to become a more enriched, inclusive and
equitable society.

11

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract

11

Table of Contents

ll1

Acknowledgements

IV

Introductory Quotation

v

Introduction

Canadian Women Filmmakers

1

Chapter One

Women Shooting Women: The Filmmakers

18

Chapter Two

Women on Screen: The Films

44

Chapter Three

Women Watching Women: The Viewers

81

Conclusion

Renegotiating the Social Contract

113

Notes

124

Bibliography

140

Appendix 1

147

Film Details

111

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Sincere thanks to my most patient, supportive and brilliant thesis supervisor,
Dr. Julia Emberley, and to my equally kind and talented committee members ,
Dr. Robert Budde and Dr. Angele Smith. I very much appreciate the
participation and contributions of my External Examiner, Dr. Dee Horne. I
thank Dr. Kathy Lewis for the time and care with which she Chaired my · ·
defence.
Deep felt thanks to Naomi and Lawrence McPherson for the Groovy
Goodtyme Garage, and all the 'above and beyond' that went with it.
I am especially grateful to my family, especially daughters Jenni and Julie,
and to my wonderful friends for their unswerving support. Thank you for
believing in me.
A special thank you to the participants who gave so generously of their time
and thoughts, greatly enriching my thesis and the experience of pursuing it.

IV

In the area of Industrial Relations, recommendations tend to demand that
women share equally with men; that they have the same work opportunities;
that they be represented in equal numbers in the workforce; and that they have
the same pay scale. In other words, the demand is for a redistribution andreallocation of the tangible and intangible resources in the industry.
Issues of Voice, the difficulties of public creative expression for those whose
lives and persons do not conform to the institutionalized structures of power
within our society, run like a subterranean river beneath the industrial
relations material. And since issues of voice do not yield easily to dollar and
hard number quantification, it is exceedingly difficult to highlight them when
recommendations are being structured. Furthermore, unlike industrial
relations, recommendations which rest on the more comfortable ideal of
gender equality, issues of Voice lead to one of the most contentious items on
the political agenda today- Entitlement to Difference. And, to truly address
Entitlement to Difference in the context of our industry, would require the
redefinition of all existing notions of power. As a result, it is fair to say that
future breakthroughs in industrial relations may well depend on changes of
policy; but breakthroughs in the area of voice will depend upon changes of
heart.
Annette Cohen, Producer
Forward to Changing Focus: The Future for Women in the Canadian Film

and Television Industry, 1991

v

Introduction
Canadian Women Filmmakers

"Are there any?"

In the absence of data about women's participation in the Canadian film and
1

television industry, Toronto Women in Film and Television (TWIFT) commissioned a
project in order to gather just such statistical information. The resulting report, A Statistical

Profile of Women in the Canadian Film and Television Industry (1990), provided evidence of
the continuing marginalization of women in the industry, including the fact that
[i]n the key creative areas of producer, director, scriptwriter in Telefilmsupported English and French projects in 1987-88 the figures were 10 per cent
women producers, 9 per cent women directors, and 14 per cent women
scriptwriters. (TWIFT 1991:161; taken from page 72 of the Statistical Profile)
While the compilation of numbers is revealing, it is only truly effective in so far as it forms a
basis for further study in order to find out what such numbers represent -- the causes and the
consequences. A year later the group released Changing Focus: The Future for Women in

the Canadian Film and Television Industry, a publication which explored the reasons behind
the statistics and offered recommendations for change. What had begun as essentially a
study of employment equity proved to encompass larger and more complex social issues, all
the more vital because of the influence exerted by the industry itself:
while the film and television industry is an industry like any other, producing
products for sale, it stands apart from others in that, in Canada, it provides one
of our most important means of communicating with one another ... the film
and television industry has a tremendous impact on our culture; it creates
imagery that permeates our unconscious and provides role models for our
young people. With this in mind, if we recognize a need to have women be
full participants in the fabric of our society, we cannot afford to continue to
exclude a female presence and perspective. (TWFT 1991:viii-ix)

As this statement suggests, there are indeed substantial implications in the fact that our most
influential , and incidentally (or rather, pointedly) most expensive, form of storytelling is
dominated by (primarily white, middle class) men , and these implications can only be
understood in a cultural context, not as isolated phenomena.
Each film, whether seen as an object of art or entertainment, is in itself a cultural
artifact. Anthropologist Elizabeth Traube (1992) observes that cultural narratives such as
film develop in relationship to other meaningful social practices, all of which emerge from an
ideological framework (2). Graeme Turner (1991), too, sees filmmaking and film watching
as cultural events, firmly implicated in the ideologies and structures of the cultures within
which they are formed, which they may then serve to reveal, to challenge, or to reinforce
(xiii).
The connection between film and culture is becoming more and more prevalent in
Canada. Loren Lerner (1997), in her introduction to Canadian Film and Video: A

Bibliography and Guide to the Literature (xiii), cites film above all other art forms as a
means of understanding and engaging our cultural identity. In the foreword to the same
publication, Pierre Veronneau notes the lack of research and scholarly discourse on the
subject of Canadian and Quebec cinema, and poses a number of questions: "Is this
underrepresentation the result of cultural colonization? ... Is it a judgement of the nature and
quality of works being filmed here? .... Is cinema looked down upon in this country?" (xi).
Following Peter Harcourt, he addresses these questions by pointing out the crucial need for
more research on cinema in the Canadian context in order to "increase our knowledge of our
own culture and serve as an impetus towards more in-depth study" (xi).
In the Canadian context, an even greater concern than the Jack of study is the fact that
we may never have the chance to see our films at all. Peter Harcourt (1978) laments the
2

inaccessibility of Canadian films to Canadians: "[a]s a collective cultural artifact, as
something that informs and influences our lives on a day to day basis, the Canadian cinema
remains an invisible cinema. Films get made but are scarcely seen" (48). While the situation
may be somewhat improved since his writing in 1978, largely due to the accessibility of
videos 2, for the most part things are the same. Reporting on the 2001 Gemini Awards in
January, Globe and Mail Arts Report Michael Posner wryly notes that "[t]ypically, few of the
winning films have been seen by Canadians." 3
Concern with the cultural colonization of Canadian movie screens (and television
screens) looms large in writing about Canadian film. As Loren Lerner (1997) observes,
because we are most often exposed to the cinema of other countries (mainly the United
States) for the majority of Canadians our own film "seems like a foreign language"(xiii).
The editors of Gendering the Nation: Canadian Women's Cinema observe that our position
alongside an America media empire which dominates the feature film industry has "ensured
the invisibility of Canadian films on Canadian screens" (Armatage et al1999:13-14n5).
With American corporations controlling Canadian distribution and exhibition networks, Kay
Armatage (1991) notes that 93 per cent of the films which appear on our screens are
American, while 4 to 5 per cent come from other countries, leaving 2 to 3 per cent Canadian
(140). Films by women occupy a very small part of this already small percentage. 4
The situation remains virtually unchanged since Rhona Berenstein wrote in 1989 that
"[i]n all instances, she [the Canadian female spectator] and Canadian spectators in general
face the relative absence of films by women on their screens" (48). Moving Pictures:

Canadian Films on Tour, an excellent program which offers perhaps the best opportunity for
Canadians to view Canadian films, offered nineteen English Canadian feature films in 2001.
Only three of those were by women filmmakers: Shirley Cheechoo's Backroads (1999)
3

(particularly notable as it is the first Canadian fiction feature film made by a First Nations
woman), Andrea Dorfman ' s Parsley Days (2000), and Lynne Stopkewich ' s Suspicious River
(2000).5
As suggested above , films are cultural artifacts, and the ways in which these artifacts ·
need to be understood with respect to women have occupied feminist film studies over the
past three decades .6 In her extensive review of feminist research methods, Shulamit
Reinharz (1992) discovers that feminist research is a "dialectical process ... whereby former
solutions become current problems" (240). Her description of the process, where critiques
are developed concerning the status quo, and are then critiqued, after which these new
critiques are critiqued, and so on is well illustrated in this field.
In the 1970s, in the context of the women's movement, feminist media studies were
concerned primaril y with content analysis , an approach from which emerged quantitative and
descriptive considerations of the predominance of sexism and sex-role stereotyping and the
Jack of "positive" images of women . Such a focus succeeded in calling attention to male
dominance in the images, and in the industry behind the images, and to the objectification,
repression and denigration of women in the media, a vital project that remains important
even now. This perspective has nevertheless been criticized for a number of shortcomings.
In this view , the media simplistically reflects reality (ie. a patriarchal , sexist society) to an
impressionable audience, and therefore the goal becomes one of filling the media with
"correct" images in order to provide good role models and socialize the audience "correctl y."
Feminist film critics adopting thi s perspective found optimistic evidence of social change by
tracking the emergence of strong, independent heroines in Hollywood films . Meaning, then ,
is seen as simplistically embedded in images : "good" meanings in "positive" images or "bad"
meanings in "negative" images. Aside from the obvious problem of who decides for all
4

women what the "good" image is, there was neither an attempt to look deeper into the
sociocultural and ideological structures that are deeply embedded in the production of such
images nor a consideration of how the audience negotiates the meanings which may be
conveyed through media products (Walters 1995:29-49).
It was this tendency to oversimplify the relationship between film and its social
context which, according to Elizabeth Traube (1992), allowed the more analytical practice of
psychoanalytic film criticism to "temporarily displace" the sociological approach described
above (8). In fact, the mid 1970s saw the rise of the use of analytical approaches drawing not
only upon psychoanalysis, but on structuralism and semiotics as well, all concerned with
discovering how "woman" is constructed through representations in a patriarchal society
(Walters 1995:49). This "Althusserian-Lacanian-semiological paradigm," as Deborah
Knight (1993) describes it, often referred to as contemporary film theory, examined texts to
determine their power as instruments of the dominant ideology. While the earlier approach
"called for immediate documentation for purposes of political activism, consciousnessraising, self-expression, or the search for 'positive images' of women", this new paradigm
"insisted on rigorous, formal work on the medium ... in o.rder to analyze and disengage the
ideological codes embedded in representation" (de Lauretis 1991:133-34).
Applying Emile Benveniste's linguistic categories of l'enonce (the utterance) and

l' enonciation (the enunciation) to classical realist Hollywood films, a number of film
theorists conclude that this form imposes dominant ideology on viewers through its
"transparency" and "covert positioning of the viewer by the camera" (Traube 1992:6-7).
Undoubtedly, the most influential and controversial model at this time was that proposed in
Laura Mulvey's now famous essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975).
Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis, Mulvey (1989:25) argues that "[w]oman as
5

representation signifies castration , inducing voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to
circumvent her threat." In this view , then , cinematic conventions work to either denigrate
women (motivated by a sadistic voyeurism) or to fetishize them (by displaying them as
beautiful objects of desire) as a means of allowing the male spectator to manage the
castration anxiety which must inevitably arise at the sight of a female form (Traube 1992:89). Women in this approach are afforded no power. On screen, they are mere symbolic
representations of male psychic processes. As "the gaze" is inexorably male, women in the
audience are contributing to their own suppression as patriarchal subjects. As B. Ruby Rich
poignantly complains:
[a]ccording to [Laura] Mulvey, the woman is not visible in the audience
which is perceived as male; according to [Claire] Johnston, the woman is not
visible on the screen .... How does one formulate an understanding of a
7
structure that insists on our absence even in the face of our presence?
In the 1980s, a number of feminist film theorists worked to modify this model with respect to
the female spectator, arguing that the dominant "repression of female subjectivity" could be
resisted, and that multiple spectator positions were possible (Traube 1992:9). Still, the
various proposed models continued to draw from psychoanalytic theory and were built upon
an assumption that the asymmetry of gender follows from "Oedipal socialization" (11), an
assumption which denies a historical , social context of viewing.
A group of Canadian feminist film theorists (Kass Banning, Brenda Longfellow ,
Janine Marchessault, Marian McMahon , and Gillian Morton), writing under the epithet WS,
note in 1989 a "state of crisis and transformation [in feminist film theory] ... brought on
specifically by the growing disenchantment with the psychoanalytic model" (31).8 They
criticize thi s theory with respect to its "exclusion of any consideration of the social , of its
monolithic reduction of difference to sexual difference ... and of its reluctance to develop .. .

6

analyses of institutional determination which act on the cinema" (31). Similar criticisms
have surfaced in the writing of many feminists . In their introduction to Multiple Voices in

Feminist Film Criticism, editors Linda Dittmar, Janice Welsch and Diane Carson call
attention to "the tendency of psychoanalysis to draw film discourse into a phallocentric orbit
and ascribe to identities an aura of universality and inevitability that can lapse into an
essentialist view of gender" (Dittmar et al 1994:7).
The implications of such an essentialist view of gender are problematic for feminist
analysis. As Jane Gaines (1994) notes, this focus on the binary opposition of gender can
work to obscure "other structures of oppression" (177), with the result that there is no
allowance for differences such as race and class. Thus women of colour, for example, are
effectively erased from analyses and white middle-class values are consistently reinscribed as
the norm. Lesbian critics, too, have pointed out the limitations of theory which assumes a
heterosexual explanation of pleasure and desire (179). It is imperative, Judith Mayne (1994)
asserts, that feminist critics "rethink dualism itself' (50).
Suzanna Walters (1995) finds a great contradiction in the way in which film feminists
have so eloquently addressed the representation of "woman" while refusing to discuss

"women": "[i]f it has always been a patriarchal strategy to represent woman as image, as
symbol, as metaphor for all desire (as the feminist film critics so thoroughly point out), then
it behooves us to do more than reiterate this point (woman as 'lack ', as 'absence' , as
. signifier)" (158). She further insists that feminists must not overlook the issue of
accessibility, for "if the image so often mystifies and degrades us , our criticism of that same
image should not - must not - participate in further mystification" (50). This mystification
attains, she continues, when analyses employ language which are so removed from

7

experience and dependent upon jargon that most consumers of the cultural texts being
examined are unable to comprehend the discussion .
Both B . Ruby Rich (1994) and Noel Carroll (1990) have questioned the uncritical
acceptance, in contemporary film analytical approaches, of the seemingly neutral , scientific
authority of the models from which they are constructed. Film theory thus ' legitimized' by
'objective' scientific scrutiny, according to Florence Jacobowitz (1986) , denies feminists "the
means to describe pleasures and desires which are not easily articulated in precise
mathematical terms" (30). Deborah Knight (1995) warns that we must remember that theory,
including feminist film theory, is an evolving sociohistorical practice, that there is a
"tradition of thought that leads from Nietzche, Freud, and Heidegger to Lacan, Barthes,
Foucault, and Derrida" (44). Similarly, Suzanna Walters (1995) finds that analyses which
seek to explain representation through the "grand signifier" of the Oedipal model have lost
sight of the fact that the Oedipal metaphor itself is a social construction (149). Lucy Fischer
(1989) maintains that there is no need to look to Oedipal or Electra! explanations for the
motivations of women's art as alternative to a patriarchal canon. In a tradition which has
worked to silence women , she argues "we envision women ' s art as engaged in an
oppositional struggle with the patriarchal tradition ... out of a wish simply to speak at all" (9).
If, as Graeme Turner (1991) suggests, "[f]ilms .. . both as systems of representation

and as narrative structures, are rich sites for ideological analysi s" (132), contemporary film
theory again proves problematic in its understanding of ideology. The focus within
contemporary film theory upon the power of the text and its ability to "position" its
spectators "promotes a general overevaluation of the ideological effects of film" (Traube
1992:6). E. Deirdre Pribram (1988) points out that the feminist psychoanalytic concept of
patriarchal ideology as 'monolithic', thus a "unified and unyielding" structure, is very
8

restrictive for feminism, in that the meanings in the text of the film are "seen as closed, fixed
in the playing out of the Oedipal drama over all time and in all instances, unavailable to
alternative, variable or multiple readings" (3). While it may be constructive to see patriarchal
and feminist cinema as opposing discourses, Lucy Fischer (1989) maintains that it is also
important to acknowledge that there are "contradictions within each mode that deny their
status as monolithic or coherent systems" (19). Florence Jacobowitz (1986) states that if art
is to be used to examine "conditions of experience" in order to bring about change, an
analytical approach which assumes an "inability to challenge governing ideological 'norms " '
is problematic if not impossible (23). Clearly, the concept of a monolithic, all-powerful
dominant ideology which is imposed upon helpless audiences does not allow room for
transformation. Many feminist cultural theorists therefore apply a concept of ideology
influenced by Antonio Gramsci's model of hegemony. In this view, ideology is a mutable
and contested terrain wherein subjects struggle to form and reform their reality and, while
situated within a dominant social structure, can resist its influence: "thus realism and identity
are not ideologically predetermined, static, invested in the status quo, but involved in the
process of historical change, in which we as subjects, working from specific social and
political positions, can intervene" (Gledhill 1994: 121). Such a concept, which concedes the
existence of ideologies coexisting with the dominant paradigm, allows for the possibility that
minority or alternative groups can work to bring about changes in the larger society (Pribram
1988:3). Florence Jacobowitz (1986) maintains that the assumption of a mutable social
world is crucial to feminism :
[g]iven that most people have been educated and socialized in a patriarchal,
class-structured and racist society, feminism requires an entire reorientation learning new ways of seeing, thinking, evaluating and representing. (21)

9

Such a reorientation requires social subjects who can learn to see critically and thus reject
some ideals and choose others, effecting social change.
Dismissing the possibility, or even the desirability, of attempting to define a single
unified theory to explain complex cultural phenomena such as film, Gary Edgerton, Michael
Marsden and Jack Nachbar (1997) call for a pluralistic approach which allows for input from
"diverse critical voices," and in which various theories may act as "fluid, framing device[s]"
to guide studies (2). This sensibility has emerged in film studies. In response to the
limitations of contemporary film theory, many feminist film and cultural studies theorists ,
and I number myself among them, do not advocate a complete rejection of this perspective
and its various permutations, but rather a combination of textual (or intertextual) and
contextual approaches, a strategy which Graeme Turner (1991) vows "has enormous
explanatory power" (130-31).
As Walters (1995) notes, while the image and signification approaches have proven
"interesting and illuminating to a great extent" (152), both have suffered from an "evacuation
of social relations", so that the images under consideration are isolated from the social
context in which they are produced, distributed and received (144-45). For B. Ruby Rich
(1994) the critical move is to restore the feminist concern with process to film studies by
supplementing attention to the critical text with attention to the process of production (who is
making the film , how, and why) and reception (how is the film being distributed and
received). Elizabeth Traube (1992) draws on the concept of the cultural circuit, in which
cultural commodities, their production and their use are understood with respect to the
sociohistorical conditions which shape them. Walters (1995) maintains that in a textualcontextual approach

10

an emphasis on some sort of (nonempiricist) empirical research should be part
of the project, particularly if one attempts to tum the feminist phrase 'the
personal is political ' into a methodological principle. Methodologically, this
approach would entail a move away from the focus on either the isolated text
or the aggregate viewer and a move toward an engagement with the lived
experience of actual women. (159)
It is within this theoretical and methodological perspective that I locate this study and from
which I address some of the issues that have proven controversial in feminist film criticism,
particularly considering issues of narrative and spectatorship, with reference to "the lived
experience of actual women." This is a study in which women's voices are accorded a
central place of great respect. My goals are varied: to acknowledge and celebrate the talent
and accomplishments of women directors; to look at films made by women about women in
the Canadian context and see what they have to suggest about women in this time and place;
to talk to women who watch movies, gaining some understanding of and insights into their
experiences and opinions, and according the voices of 'non-experts ' a place in the discussion
of film .
Throughout the following investigation, I continue to address some of the questions
raised by feminist film critiques. In the provinces of theory, it is futile to pursue the
impossible question , "Is it true?" One can only delve into the theoretical depths and extract
strands, which can then be laid out, their effects surveyed in order to ask more productive
questions: "What does it reveal " or, most importantly, "What does it conceal?" To address
these questions it is vital to enter the contested territory, to arrange the strands around the
lived experiences of real women in the realm of fictional narrative cinema. Always a partial
picture will emerge, but here lies at least the beginning of understanding, and understanding
gained without this component must remain suspect and unfulfilled. What is explored here
above all else are relationships -- relationships among women who make the films , the films

11

themselves, and women who watch them -- relationships between feminism and film ,
between theory and reality. This holistic approach necessitates a move away from the
controversial and impossible concern with a theoretical image of 'woman', instead exploring
the processes through which woman is recreated in her own images.
Through personal interviews with two emerging filmmakers, Roz McKitrick and
Sandy Tait, and published interviews with more established filmmakers, including Christine
Browne, Deepa Mehta, Patricia Rozema, Mina Shum, Lynne Stopkewich, Anne Wheeler and
Sandy Wilson, I explore in Chapter One their ideas about and experiences within the film
industry, examining their reasons for filmmaking and their strategies for achieving this end
given the constraints and possibilities inherent within the historical , social and (multi)cultural
context of Canadian film .
One vital area not addressed here, although emphasized by most of the filmmakers, is
the collaborative nature of filmmaking. Throughout our interview Roz McKitrick talked
about the essential contributions of Producer Kulchera Madsen , Director of Photography
(D.O.P.) Doug Brown and the actors and crew that took part in her shoot. She enjoys the
collaborative aspects of filmmaking immensely:
Those two days that I was on the set, it was just like the perfect environment.
The first shot was in my basement in this little cement workshop thing ... very
cramped. And it was just like 'Ah! '. It was just such an amazing experience.
Working with people that really want to help you and who are trying to create
your VISIOn.
She remembers that while she was at Women and Film in Vancouver, an established
filmmaker (possibly Lynne Stopkewich) told her that she had to "find her team". She says
"that's what it takes, it takes that feeling, that team . ... You can ' t, obviously can't, do it on
your own."

12

My rather auteure approach has eluded this teamwork. As one member of the local
Okanagan Society for Independent Filmmakers reminded me, "Everyone on the set is a
filmmaker. " On reflection, I have decided that given the space and focus of this particular
study, there is nothing to be done about this beyond confessing it, and acknowledging that
my interest in focusing on directors and the value of their work is not intended in any way to
undervalue the considerable contributions of the actors and production crews involved.
For some feminist film theorists, such as Laura Mulvey, the answer to the destructive
portrayals of women in Hollywood cinema lay in an utter rejection of traditional ' patriarchal'
film conventions and the establishment of a counter-cinema, in which feminist avant-garde
filmmaking works to disrupt the narrative conventions of realist cinema. To conclude that
women cannot make meaningful or empowering statements in narrative film, however,
effectively excludes them from the most popular, accessible and therefore influential means
of communication available to us today.
In Chapter Two, focusing upon English-Canadian fictional narrative films made by
women, about women. I explore Florence Jacobowitz' s ( 1986) assertion that " [t]raditional
forms of communication can be used to communicate very untraditional representations of
gender relations" (31 ). It is of course vital to delineate a manageable area of study, but it is
also important to note, as Rhea Tregobov ( 1987) asserts, that "[a]s soon as we select, we
exclude" (7). My selection necessarily excludes many excellent and worthy films: films by
women featuring male protagonists (Deepa Mehta' s Sam & Me (1991) and Patricia Rozema' s

White Room (1990), for example); experimental, documentary, and made-for-television films
by women, about women; all films by men; and films by Quebecois women and men. (The
reason for excluding Quebecoise women ' s films about women has mainly to do with the
different social , cultural and historical contexts for French language film production). 9 All of
13

these areas have been little studied and are deserving of vast attention. Also excluded,
because they were not available, are a number of newer films: Shirley Cheechoo 's Backroads
(1999), Andrea Dorfman's Parsley Days (2000), Rosemary House ' s Violet (2000), Lynne
Stopkewich's Suspicious River (2000), and Anne Wheelers Marine Life (2000). Like most ·
Canadian films , they have not come, nor are they likely to be "coming to a theatre near me" ,
or near most Canadians, for the reasons discussed above.
The films considered here are Christine Browne's Another Planet (1999), the first
Canadian film written and directed by a black woman, Deepta Mehta's Camilla (1995) and
Fire (1996), Patricia Rozema's I've Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987) and When Night is
Falling (1995), Mina Shum's Double Happiness (1994) and Drive, She Said (1998), Lynne
Stopkewich ' s Kissed (1996) , Anne Wheeler's Loyalties (1986), Bye Bye Blues (1989), and
Better Than Chocolate (1999), Sandy Wilson's My American Cousin (1985) and American
Boyfriends (1989). In addition to looking at fictional feature films by established
filmmakers , I will be looking at a number of fictional narrative short films, all of which were
made in the 1990s by emerging filmmakers. A review of the films shown on two of the most
easily accessed venues for short Canadian films-- WTV's Shameless Shorts and the
Knowledge Network 's Independent Eye 10 --over a three month period resulted in nineteen
shorts that fit my criteria. In addition, I have included Sandy Tait's student film, Flying
(1998) and Roz McKittrick's first short dramatic indie 11 Everything's Rosie (2001), a film for
which I successfully auditioned for a supporting role, which afforded me the opportunity to
experience the process of filmmaking from the inside.
Clearly, such a survey approach, addressing thirteen feature length and twenty-one
short films, does not allow for a comprehensive investigation of any one of the films. In her
examination of 'Film Tradition and Women's Cinema' , Lucy Fischer (1989) evokes the
14

concept of the filmma!Gng technique of montage 12 to describe her approach, suggesting that
through such a "collision" of films "certain new meanings are created that might have
remained submerged without the act of collocation" (23). In just this way, I look at these
films to see what emerges in their collective examination. If it is true, as Graeme Turner
(1991) suggests, that "[i]t is possible to apprehend social change through changes in thematic
or formal trends in narrative over time" (79), then such an examination should reveal much
about how women see themselves here and now and what this might suggest about the future.
As the preceding discussion indicates, gaining some understanding as to why the
films were made and what stories they tell reveals only part of the picture. How audiences
respond to these films is a vital consideration, one which I address in Chapter Three.
Elizabeth Traube (1992) considers the recent attention to actual, social audiences in addition
to "textual spectators" as critical to feminist cultural studies: "[w]hat is restored to film
criticism with this refocusing is the social world in which films are produced and received"
(11). I received input from seven women , through personal interviews and telephone and
email conversations, regarding their experiences with the films under study and film in
general. My intention was not to attain a random sample or in fact any 'meaningful' (in
terms of statistics) sample, but rather to listen to and present the voices of real women (as
opposed to 'theoretical' women, about whom one could debate endlessly as to what they

might be doing or thin!Gng).
While each chapter, then, constitutes a study in itself, taken together the three
perspectives constitute a cultural circuit, contributing to a holistic and revealing
understanding of the complex interrelations between women and fictional narrative film in
this country. Feminism, says Walters (1995), "is both a way of understanding the world and
a politics" (153). If art and cultural theory are to be "politically effective", Jacobowitz
15

(1986) says , they "must never lose sight of the real" (31). In my engagements with women
in this study, in the heady and satisfying experience of being on set as part of a team
producing a film , in volunteering at our local Canadian film festival and interacting with
dedicated film makers and film supporters, I was constantly reminded that human experience
is diverse and complex, not easily slotted into categories or reduced to neat theoretical terms.
These activities served to ground this study in an actual social world, to ensure that I did not
'lose sight of the real '.
Reporting on the 2000 Atlantic Film Festival for the Halifax Daily News, in an article
purporting to celebrate the "promising female directing talent" at the festival, journalist
Marla Cranston writes that Canada' s top directors are "Norman Jewison, Atom Egoyan,
David Cronenberg, Denys Arcand, Robert Lepage, Don Mckellar, Bruce McDonald,
Francoise Girard, John Greyson , Clement Virgo, Gary Bums, John L'Ecuyer, [and] Jeremy
Podeswa" 13 . She adds, dismissively, that "[t]here are women-- including Anne Wheeler and
Sandy Wilson --but their features are comparatively few and far between." 14 This statement
is worth noting, not because of its truth or realistic transmission of information . It is in fact
untrue and misleading, committing errors of both commission and omission. Anne Wheeler,
for example, is one of Canada' s most prolific filmmakers . What emerges here are beliefs
which persist in our society even in the face of evidence to the contrary, beliefs which are
linked to a continuing tendency to undervalue women ' s work and women's voices. In this
case, the message is that filmmakers of note are men , 15 that because women do not stand with
the important or 'real ' filmmakers their contribution is not substantial. Such persistent
beliefs and resultant practices may explain the response to this thesis topic. In various social
situations, replying to inquiries about my thesis, I would say, "I'm writing about Canadian
women filmmakers and their films ." Occasionally, the person had a favourite film or
16

filmmaker and responded with interest, but most often, after nodding and smiling politely,
the inevitable, apologetic response was "But -- are there any?"
While my original impulse to undertake this project was fueled by a personal passion
for these films which offer me hope and inspiration (as do the women who make them), it
soon became much more important to address their apparent invisibility in mainstream
Canadian culture, to answer that question -- "are there any?" -- with a vengeance.
Paraphrasing Marx, Walters (1995) notes that "up until now, cultural critics have been
content to read a text; the point, however, is to write a new one" (152). Through this study I
hope to participate in writing that new text.

17

Chapter One
Women Shooting Women: The Filmmakers

"How come you're not famous?"

From the considerations of contemporary film theory emerged feminist filmmakers
who rejected the conventions of traditional, fictional narrative film as irretrievably
patriarchal. They turned away from mainstream cinema and its apparently ineluctable
collusion in masculine pleasure to explore antirealist, avant-garde forms in order to define an
alternative, feminist aesthetic. For some, there can be no redemption-- the case is closed.
What was once a theoretical way of looking at film has become 'truth'. Deborah Knight
(1993) discusses at some length the process by which these theories become, for a new
generation of advocates, "self-legitimizing" (333). Thus we find that what were once
analogies or concepts, tools with which to examine certain phenomena, are now, for some,
facts which require no further interrogation. Lisa Carwright and Nina Fonoroff (1994), for
example, unproblematically equate narrative with patriarchy, disdaining it for reasons which
are held to be axiomatic. They address without question the "present impossibility for
women to represent themselves properly, accurately" (137) through narrative film . Setting
aside for the moment the problems inherent in such a statement (once again, who decides
what the proper and accurate representation of women might be?), the greater problem is
how such assumptions, in the name of feminism, deny the work and experiences of vast
numbers of women . Cartwright and Fonoroff conclude that to be feminist, a film must be
experimental: "it is necessary to open up the possibility for making and viewing of films that
provide a 'kind' of pleasure that does not depend on the patriarchal narrative mode (nor on its
inverse in the form of a 'neofeminist' use of film for 'different' representations of women"
18

(138). The authors do, in this article, make a number of worthy points regarding the potential
of pushing boundaries and presenting alternative visions through experimental film; it is their
conversion of theory into fact that renders their argument, for me, untenable and in fact unfeminist. Once one has condemned all mainstream film made by women, consigned all such
filmmakers to a 'neofeminist' realm where they at least are ineffectual and at worst have
been co-opted into the service of the patriarchal order, and summarily dismissed the many
women who enjoy watching such films as misguided, it is impossible to ask questions about
an area of cultural production which encompasses a significant place in our society. To
relinquish such an influential site, as E. Deirdre Pribram (1988 :5) has pointed out, is hardly
in keeping with feminism's political mandate to bring about tangible social change in the
public consciousness and manifestations surrounding gender.
This position is also flawed in that it does not acknowledge the ways in which
experimental film can present or reinforce patriarchal order. Clearly the solution cannot be
simply a matter of form. Florence Jacobowitz (1986:28) argues that there is a difference
between content and the mode, or language, used to present it; that the formal devices of
realistic narrative (such as symmetry) cannot be inherently masculine nor can modernist,
polyvalent texts be invariably feminist. Thus, since films which cannot in any sense be
considered feminist may also use devices which disrupt the classic realist narrative, it would
seem that the problem lies not in the forms and techniques themselves but rather in how they
are used, by whom, and with what intention. 1 As a cultural artifact, a film is constructed by
someone, for some reason(s). Someone might make a film because it is their job, or because
they are being well paid, or because the project is meaningful to them in some way. I believe
the motivation behind the creation of films has not often been addressed or considered

19

important, but it is not trivial. It is in fact vital to understand the reasons , to make visible the
processes and motivations which drive production.
That traditional narrative cinema has often been, and continues to be, the site of
patriarchal ideology and harmful portrayals of women is not in question; the evidence is
overwhelming. But to disown narrative because it can be used in this way is a severe
overreaction . For many it is rather an argument that women must enter the arena and
produce a different kind of story within cinematic conventions which can have a significant
impact. If feminism seeks political and social change, it cannot afford to accept a position on
the fringes of cultural production, where the converted make films for one another.
Filmmaker Michelle Citron (1988) reaches this conclusion with considerable
trepidation, presenting her reasons for ' going mainstream' with mixed feelings. Noting, as
many others have done, that the experimental filmmaking that arose from contemporary film
theory privileged the intellectual over the emotional, and was accessible only to an educated
minority, she concludes that women must participate, be it cautiously, in narrative
filmmaking. There is a definite difference in approach with women coming from the
contemporary feminist film theory background and the 6Immakers under consideration here.
While Michele Citron, for example, worries that choosing to reach a large mainstream
audience "may be questionable as a political strategy" (55), for filmmakers like Anne
Wheeler, who sees herself as primarily a storyteller who uses the medium of film in order to
communicate with people, seeking a wide audience is the point: "I see film as a means , not
an end .... film just happens to get the largest audience, so I chose that." 2
In presenting the views of Canadian women filmmakers I have used as many direct
quotations as possible, attempting to let the women speak for themselves-- to let their voices
be heard. I am not offering a transparent 'slice of life'. In selecting and arranging the quotes
20

I could hardly avoid letting my personal agenda, conscious and unconscious , affect the
outcome. There was also a variance in interviews available for the filmmakers . Higher
profile directors such as Patricia Rozema and Anne Wheeler have attracted a great deal of
attention; for some others, very little was available, so there is not an equal balance of voices .
A survey of their statements, a 'montage' if you will, though imperfect and incomplete
nevertheless reveals important and useful information. They express their decision to tell
stories through fictional narrative film and never question their right to do so. In this, they
display an independence and tenacity that can be seen in the women who were present at the
beginnings of filmmaking.
The idea that traditional cinematic forms are the sole possession of patriarchy is
somewhat ironic, given that women played a significant role in its creation and development.
The history of the development of narrative fiction film begins with a woman, Alice Guy
Blache, who wrote, directed and produced her first film La Fee aux chaux in Paris in 1896.3
She initiated and experimented with many filmmaking techniques which persist today,
moving to the United States where she created a studio in 1910 and made some 300 films
which "focused on strong female protagonists who took charge of their lives and their
destinies" (Seger 1996:7) . Like almost all women who contributed to the development of
cinema, her many accomplishments in film have gone unacknowledged until recent attention
by feminists (Brownworth 1997: 11). The history of the development of film is itself a
narrative that is being retold by feminist researchers and the contributions of women in the
silent film era (late 1890s to early 1920s), as well as their contributions in other times and
places, is increasingly coming to light. Women like Alice Guy Blache were prevalent at the
beginning of the cinema, heading their own studios as independent filmmakers and employed

21

as highly respected screenwriters and directors. In 1916, the highest paid director at
Universal Studios was Lois Weber (Seger 1996:8).

4

In the Canadian context, as professor and filmmaker Kay Armatage (1991) observes,
the history of women in Canadian cinema is a "blank canvas", largely ignored by film
historians and scholars (133). Nell Shipman was Canada's first independent woman
filmmaker. Born Helen Barham in Victoria, British Columbia in 1892, she began directing
in 1914. Nell wrote and starred in Back to God's Country (1919), shot in the Lesser Slave
Lake area in Alberta, before leaving her producer husband Ernest Shipman to establish a
successful production company in Priest Lake, Idaho. There she made adventure films in
which she played the heroic lead who overcame enormous obstacles and inevitably saved the
day. True to character, she snow-shoed some twenty-one miles to show her completed films
at the nearest town, thus raising money to travel to New York City and sell the film on l4 1h
Street, known as 'film exchange row '. Like most independent filmmakers and virtually all
women , she disappeared from the filmmaking scene with the monopolization that
accompanied the rise of the centralized studio system (Arrnatage 1991 , 1999; Seger 1996).
The Hollywood studios controlled the production, distribution, and exhibition of films, and
were accompanied by the establishment of exclusively male technician ' s unions (Armatage
1991:134). The only woman director surviving into the new system was Dorothy Arzner.
Women working in wardrobe were virtually the only women on sets for some time to come,
although women, including Nell Shipman, continued to write scripts.
Here follows a gap in the history of Canadian women ' s film production that
continued until the emergence of documentary filmmaking by women hired by the National
Film Board, established in 1939. The gap in Canadian women' s narrative feature
filmmaking persists somewhat longer. Writing in 1981 , Barbara Halpern Martineau notes
22

only three English-Canadian feature films directed by a woman : Sylvia Spring' s Madeleine
Is (1970), Joyce Wieland's The Far Shore (1976), and Janine Manatis ' I Maureen (1978 ).
5

She observes further that none of these women went on to direct a second feature film (29).

Women's entry as a persistent presence on the English language fictional feature filmmaking
scene begins in the mid-eighties and continues into the present, although in 1990 only 3 per
cent of feature film budgets were accounted for by women filmmakers (Armatage
1991 :140). 6
Noting in 1989 that for Canadian women directors, filmmaking is 'a calling, not a
career' , journalist Judy Steed identifies Patricia Rozema, Anne Wheeler, and Sandy Wilson
as "the hottest trio of directors in the country." 7 Unlike their counterparts in the 1970s, all
three have continued to work and are still very much a presence in Canadian film.
With a background in journalism, Patricia Rozema made her first short film Passion:
A Letter in 16mm in 1985, followed in 1987 by I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, a feature
film which won the Prix de Jeunesse at the Cannes Film Festival and went on to critical and
commercial international success. In her article "Pourquoi Filmez-Vous?" (1998), she
examines her reasons for making films:
I'd lose my little mind if I couldn't tum around, point and say, hey, look what
I did, what do you think? I need to make a difference. I need to have some
effect. ... There's a very distinct rush I feel when I see the pictures move
before my eyes the way they did behind my eyelids, when I see a whole group
of people frozen in reverential silence as we film an instant of compassion ...
when people laugh, when people speak or write and I know they've felt what
I've felt-- these little proofs that I've had an effect overwhelm me. (6)
Anne Wheeler began making educational and documentary film in the mid-seventies
as part of a collective, subsequently working for a number of years at the National Film
Board. She made her first dramatic short, Shall We Dance, in 1978 and, in her own words ,
"sort of evolved from documentary into short dramas, and from short dramas into features ." 8
23

In her decision to leave the NFB to become an independent filmmaker, she exchanged
financial security for greater creative control:
I guess one has a great sense of freedom and a sense of adventure. Having
been on staff at the National Film Board and having been a freelancer,
certainly I was richer as a staff person than I am as a freelancer. But things I
initiate, I feel get rolling because I get out of them what I put into them. . .
Whereas working for a large organization, like the Film Board, I never quite
felt in control of .what I was doing. It seemed like everybody else, or some
other structure, was taking over my life. 9
About the transition from documentary to narrative filmmaking , she says that she began to
feel exploitive in the former endeavours:
It' s a format where you ' re really exploiting other people ' s lives , and the more
emotional or the deeper you can dig into a person's life, the better the
documentary .. .. doing dramatic films you know that everybody is there
because they want to be there, and they're all being paid, and what you ' re
going to say has been thought out in the long pre-production and the writing
of the script ... And you hope that you ' ve based it on truth, and on reality, and
that you're not exploiting anybody. 10
Sandy Wilson had never considered being a filmmaker until she was introduced to the
field while taking English and History at Simon Fraser University: "I took a filmmaking
class and immediately got hooked on the image." 11 She made a number of successful
documentaries based on her own life before making her first feature film, My American

Cousin , in 1985. The film was a huge success, garnering six major Genie awards and rave
reviews in the United States. 12 For her, the transition from documentary to dramatic
filmmaking was a matter of scale:
To me, whether I am directing a feature or a documentary, the concerns are
still the same. You need food on the set, you just need more. I want to be
able to tell a story so people will watch it. When you are doing a
documentary, you want to be dramatic as possible. When you are making a
dramatic feature , you want it to be as real as possible. Oh , yes. It is the same.
Only bigger and more terrifying! 13

24

Deepa Mehta, like Anne Wheeler and Sandy Wilson , began as a documentary
filmmaker, first in India and, in the 1970s, through her own production compan y in Canada.
Her first feature film , Sam & Me (1991) , which focused on an unlikely friendship between a
young man recently immigrated from India and an elderly Jewish man , was met with criti cal
success. As it was for Anne Wheeler, the move to fictional narrative filmmaking was for her
a move toward greater creative control and freedom:
Film is really such a powerful thing, so coming from documentary and going
into dramatic film, you Jearn about the power of script. You can actually
control something. You can create it. You can shape it. ... You can make
14
something that has the power to reflect what you think and what you feel. "
Emerging filmmaker Roz McKitrick raised the money to produce her first short film ,

Everything's Rosie, a story which developed around the "idea of an escape from the ordinary
and a rebirth into something extraordinary." She subsequently applied for and received a
grant to develop the script into a feature film script with the help of a mentor, an established
director. Script complete, she is now seeking development money to make the feature length
film. She became interested in filmmaking while a theatre major at SFU, however, being a
single mother she took "a creative U-turn" and decided to get her degree in teaching to have
a more reliable means of support. At this point, she began to focus her creative expression
on writing, starting with short stories and then turning her focus onto screenplays. "I never
really meant to go out and actually make the films", she says. "I just wanted to hand them
over to somebody and say 'Here. Would you make this and make me a million bucks' ."
This, however, did not work:
That became quite a frustrating experience because I would spend these hours
and hours and I'd be up all night writing and think "Wow. I've finished. I've
accomplished something. I have this story and it's fabulous and ... it ' s making
a real statement about something", and then nobody wants it, or nobody feels
the same about it. 15

25

This was particularly true about the script that later formed the basis of Everything's Rosie:
When I started writing the script... it just hit a real chord in me, because of the
subject matter and I just felt really close to it and felt that I just couldn't give
it over to anybody ... . you've got that vision and you really want to just see it
exactly the way you have it in your head. I mean, it doesn't always tum out
that way, obviously, but ... it's a drive .
It is indeed a drive, one which all the filmmakers in this study have acknowledged. Sandy
Wilson says:
[My American Cousin] became a real obsession with me. I knew it intimately,
I could see it finished .... I'd think 'I know there's an audience out there if
only I could get this film made.' You can see it made, and you keep going
towards it. 16

This compulsion, according to Patricia Rozema, forms one of the themes of I've Heard the
Mermaids Singing:

I also wanted to make the point to anyone who wanted to listen that artmaking is not about being excellent. It's about doing what you have to do. If
you absolutely need to do it, you ' ll probably be neurotic if you don ' t, so just
17
do it and fuck them if they don't get it.
Such a drive can become overwhelming. Deepa Mehta, discussing the obstacles encountered
in making Sam & Me, says :
I knew at that point that I had to make this film no matter what it took, that I
would have a burning anger inside of me for the rest of my life if I didn't. It
was very difficult to get it done. It was a labor of love. Passion. Pain . Some
people call their films a labor of love, I call this one a labor of anger. 18
It was such a drive which prompted Sandy Tait, after working for many years as a
photographer and writer for a college, to attend the Vancouver Film School in her fifties .
She was the only student in her class selected to direct her own script, Flying, a semiautobiographical story which she describes as "kind of a metaphor for a part of my life." Her
desire to make films is motivated by a number of things: a love of film ; admiration for the
work of Canadian filmmakers such as Anne Wheeler; a desire to reach wide audiences, and

26

to challenge the hegemony of a small group gatekeeping for the larger public. While
emphasizing that she is seeking a varied audience, not specifically made up of women but
"pretty well everybody", she says more films about women are needed, and notes the lack of
good scripts for women. In her film , she changed the character of a psychiatrist, based upon
a male psychiatrist she had known, to a woman . "I mean, from my life, the psychiatrist was a
male but I chose to make it a female in this. Even though, you know, the psychiatrist kind of
screws up really, but-- so what? It was a great role for a woman." 19 She does not apologize
for showing the fallibility of a woman, in fact explains that through her film she "wanted
people to look at the strengths and weaknesses of women in different situations."
In a 1987 interview with Bruce McDonald, Patricia Rozema also addresses the ways
in which women have, and have not, been portrayed in film, and her response to this
situation:
So far, I've liked drawing female characters because so often they are not
drawn very respectfully or intricately and there ' s so much that's yet to be
done. They're seen as adjuncts to the action rather than as the movers and
shakers, so I suppose I'm responding a little bit to the history of women in the
cinema as just being the love interest to the essentially male action. 20
Like Sandy Tait, she is not interested in creating icons of idealized womanly perfection:
I was seeing so many images of powerful women around and I thought that it
was as oppressive as only seeing images of weak women. So I wanted to
focus the story on an unsuccessful career woman, someone who doesn't really
deserve a lot of attention. 21
About Polly, the central character in I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, she says "I just
wanted to create this little person, who ordinarily, we wouldn't pay any attention to and to
take a look into her vast intemallandscapes." 22
Roz McKitrick is also interested in exploring the inner lives of 'ordinary' women .
The theme of Everything's Rosie concerns:

27

people who have hidden away from creativity their whole lives ... that there 's
always something inside those people. And I think for Rosie, she had quite a
few things against her. ... her marriage, her class, her sex, her feelings for
another woman and her lack of being able to do anything that she really
wanted in her life due to whatever constraints, whatever easy road she thought
she was taking. It's not a new story. That's something that ... has been part of
the whole feminist revolution the past forty, fifty years, or longer even. But
there are still women that are within those confines.
Mina Shum, in the "Director's Note" to the official press release for Double Happiness ,
remarks:
I ... felt it was important to create a new type of female hero. One who's
smart, irreverent, got her shit down, but is also vulnerable to her heart and
ambitions. She's goofy at times, and can even be downright mean. Jade is the
type of hero that has been affected by her environment; she has not come out
unscathed. Yet she's just trying to get by, find love and her place in the
world.
Sandy Wilson , commenting on the lack of stories about teenage girls and her interest in
presenting them, strives for reality in these presentations. She has described the teenage lead
in My American Cousin as a "blend of obnoxiousness and precociousness." 23
Both Christine Browne and Anne Wheeler are very much concerned with presenting
characters who are grounded in reality, and whose stories have seldom been told in film .
Christine Browne, whose independent feature Another Planet (1999) is the first to be written,
directed and produced by an African-Canadian woman (and the third black feature film to be
produced in Canada), comments that:
[t]he kind of stories that we (black filmmakers) want to tell are very different
from the mainstream ideas of what' s out there. And in terms of when we have
black characters, they ' re very different from the black characters that have
been seen in the past ... I think Hollywood and the film industry have a very
narrow view of what a black film should be.Z4
Anne Wheeler, who makes "films about real people" 25 , says that "[t]here are people who
draw my curiosity, make me want to understand them. Their stories haven't been exposed.
Their issues haven't been clarified." 26
28

This concern with very real and often overlooked characters is not surprising, given
that these filmmakers maintain a very personal connection to their work, which is
consistently and consciously affected by who they are and what they have experienced.
Asked if her films 'reflect a woman ' s or East Indian ' s point of view ', Deepa Mehta replies:
"They must. I am what I am. I am a woman. I am an East Indian. So my films must reflect
that. Whether I'm making Sam and Me, which was a male cast, or Camilla , which is
dominated by a female cast, I'll always bring my sensibilities with me .'m
Many of the filmmakers have displayed this kind of awareness and acceptance of the
influence of their gender and ethnicity on their work. Sandy Wilson, asked about the
perspective in My American Cousin , responds: "I would hope that my film is identifiabl y
from a women's point of view . I am a woman.'' 28 Mina Shum, discussing Double

Happiness, states that her ethnicity is "an undeniable part of me. My respect for people and
my value system comes from being Chinese. One of the things in my own culture is to
always try to do the best you can, find inner strength and use it to do good.'' 29
Most of these women have expressed the fact that their personal history informs their
creative expression:
Christene Browne: I tend to do things (films) that are very close to me. 30
Patricia Rozema:

I feel that in order to do something urgent and vital , I have to deal
with my own experience ... For me, it ' s a process of trying to
hang on to what you dared to tell yourself, what you dared to
write in the middle of the night, because it' s embarrassing in
front of all these people.31

Anne Wheeler:

I think it is important for filmmakers to make films about things
they know very weli. 32

Sandy Wilson:

... it seemed like a good idea to keep telling stories that I knew
something about, stories from my past. 33

29

While drawing on personal experience, the films these women make are not simpl y an
exercise in self-expression. "When a film takes three years to make", declares Mina Shum,
"it has to be something of value ." 34 Sandy Tait maintains that "[e]ven if I was working on
artistic film I would really want it to have a social impact. I'm not interested in [onl y]
entertaining people. I think there' s plenty of ways people can get entertained." Anne
Wheeler reveals the same sensibility:
I have to hang on to [the] belief, that films have to be rooted in some sort of
historical truth, or reality of the present. I mean I'm not in it to be making a
lot of money or to produce pure entertainment. There ' s got to be some
substance to my films , and if there's to be depth it' s got to be based on some
area I feel confidence in making a statement about. ... just to make up a
fantas y story for pure entertainment and monetary reasons is not interesting to
me.3s
Roslyn McKitrick, while denying specific political implications in her film , strives to reach
audiences with a balance of elements:
I think I would be more of an activist with something like a documentary ... I
was quite conscious of that whole idea that I didn't want [Everything's Rosie]
to be this 'hit-you-over-the-head' with the theme . .. .If anything what I was
going for is emotional levels. I wanted there to be a connection on an
emotional level with the audience, that' s my main thing. I think there needs to
be different levels in a story, so I think just having this big social statement is
not enough. It ' s ... like those great films that you· see that were all of those
things . They're entertaining, they ' re interesting, they make you think.

In a 1993 interview with Janice Cole and Holly Dale, Patricia Rozema states that she does
not see herself as a 'political filmmaker ': "No, I'm not reall y .... I see myself much more as
an artist, and I think that a political agenda sometimes interferes with art-making. It ' s not the
highest thing on my agenda. I don ' t know if I'm proud of that or embarrassed by that, but
it ' s just not my automatic tendenc y"(l78). She does say, however:
I'm distinctly feminist. My films assume feminism. That ' s the best way I can
say it. They assume feminism , it' s in their foundation . All of the assumptions
of the characters and everything that happens assumes that women clearly

30

have the right to do whatever they want to do - clearl y have the ri ght to own
property, to run the world, whatever. 36
Her own definition of feminism as it appears in her films has not been shared by all criti cs.
She responds to criticisms that her work is 'anti-feminist ':
There ' s a strain of feminism that seems to suggest that you can only create
heroic female characters. And that is the death of fiction ... All I can do is
react to my environment. I'm not a polemicist or a moralist. I don ' t promote
certain behaviors. I look and write in reaction. My job is to feel as acutely as
I can and hopefully transform that into a form that seems to serve some
purpose, either pleasurable or painful or somewhere in between, for the
viewer.... It' s so clear to me that there have been major injustices against
women for centuries. That has to be changed, is changing and hasn't been
37
changed enough. That's feminism. That's all.
Anne Wheeler, too, has a complex relationship with the concept of 'feminism ', in her life
and in her work. With respect to an anger she finds in much feminist work, she believes that
"[a]t some point you have to celebrate being women and recognize our strength and
relationships and make very positive films." 38 In a 1986 interview with William Beard she
addresses this issue:
I call myself a feminist but I always flinch when other people call me a
feminist, because I'm not sure that I know what their definition of it is. I
don't know why Loyalties would be called a feminist film -- or if it was,
would Rambo be called ... whatever the opposite of feminist is? It happens to
have two female characters who are the lead characters , and it ' s maybe

dealing with an issue primarily of importance to women - but I would hope it
is relevant to all people. So I flinch when people call it a feminist film ,
because that is immediately going to limit the audience, and I hope that it
brings in a broad audience, not just a converted audience.39
More recently, on the set of the CBC television special The Diviners, she reiterates this point.
While acknowledging that her own experiences gave depths to the film that a male director
could not have brought, she resists the idea that this must consign the story to a restrictive
category- "As soon as I say it 's a woman ' s film , whether or not it is , it' s like hurting my own
child. You start printing, 'It ' s a Woman 's Story' , and I'll lose a lot of the audience ." 40

31

Sandy Wilson has made the same observation: "I think that an y time something gets
prefaced by 'Women ' s Whatever', it narrows it. It is a very corsetting term . It does limit the
potential for a lot of people to just relax and watch the film ."

41

Mina Shum believes that women ' s stories are of interest to a diverse audience , if the y
are given the opportunity to see them :
A lot of men have come up to me and told me they can relate to Double
Happin ess, which is one woman's journey. If you can just get your work to
the consumer and let them judge. It' s just that some people in marketing, and
42
they are often not women , tend to categorize towards gender.
'Getting the work to the consumer' is a complex proposition with many sociopolitical
implications, particularly for women. Asked about the chances of realizing their filmmakin g
ambitions, both emerging filmmakers expressed optimism. Roz McKitrick finds that "there's
definitely funding available. And it' s really a matter of ... being organized and putting it
together." Sandy Tait thinks that being a filmmaker in Canada is a definite advantage:
I suspect that in Canada it's probably better than most places in the world for
women ... . I think there are more women filmmakers in Canada- I don ' t know
this for sure, but it seems to me from .. . looking at the films that come out, that
there are probably more women filmmakers in Canada than the States or
Europe.
When asked why this would be so, she laughed and replied, "maybe because the independent
film industry in Canada is all we ' ve got."
As it happens, she is right. Victoria Brownworth (1997) has noted that there are very
few women directors in cities, such as Hollywood, Bombay, London , Rome and Berlin ,
which are home to well-developed studio systems. Many Canadian filmm akers have
commented on the advantages of filmmaking in Canada which are not to be found where a
studio system rules the filmmaking mileau.

43

Patricia Rozema originally visualized

Mermaids as a television movie, but instead took advantage of newl y established film funds

32

to make it a feature film. "Really ... it became a feature because there was feature

ne

~~

She, too, finds that women have more opportunities in Canada than in the United States:
When film is considered an art form, women are allowed to play .... From
Alice Munro to Margaret Atwood, a lot of our key storytellers have been
women , and here there is a higher percentage per capita of women as writers
and directors . We're not a big, macho, testosterone-driven superpower. We ' re
not quite as obsessed with virility, but with integrity, honesty and telling a
45
worthwhile story.
In a 1986 interview, Anne Wheeler, too, acknowledges the importance of funding institutions
in her career. "I suppose the whole theatrical element wouldn't have entered my life if the
situation in Canada hadn't swung around in the last two or three years. Now it ' s feasible to
make features -- there is government support and interest in developing a feature film
industry. And that really enabled me to make features." 46 Six years later, she commented
that "[i]t' s easier in Canada for women to be directing at all. There are good support systems
like Telefilm and places like the NFB and CBC where women can make smaller films to gain
experience and confidence and a sense of their own voices." 47
This is not to suggest that there are not substantial obstacles and challenges.
Although getting a film made is challenging for any independent filmmaker, women do face
obstacles that are unique. 48 As Kay Armatage (1991) has discerned, "[t]he feature film
industry remains the segment of film production most resistant to women" (140). Sandy
Wilson has experienced this resistance:
I think it's a little bit tough, because a lot of the power, and the money, and
the control is watched over by men. And a lot of those men don ' t yet feel
comfortable in dealing with a woman on an equal footing . They' re far more
used to having women as images up on the screen. 49
Christene Browne, describing the difficult process of funding Another Planet, finds that the
problem is not confined to gender:

33

I had to fight tooth and nail to get that money ... There ' s a problem with the
cultural barrier for minority filmmakers. [Funding organizations] have no
idea what you're talking about and there is a reluctance to get involved in
something they don't understand.50
Anne Wheeler comments on the problems she has faced:
I think, there is just a sense that women aren't leaders of great numbers of
people, and that the stories that we want to tell aren't commercial. And the
people who are putting the money into the film are often men or people who
don't have the confidence in our stories. I think it' s a tremendous undertaking
to take on a feature film project, and a tremendous financial risk, and people
are just not at the stage where they have the confidence in women directors
yet.s1
As her statement reveals, even where the director has proven herself, the story she wants to
tell can be seen as a problem. She went to "dozens and dozens" of producers who did not
support Loyalties because it was a story about a friendship between two women, which was
perceived as non-commercial and thus not saleable: 52
It's still very hard to make movies about women, about their friendships,
about being brave together, having adventures ... . people think of Thelma and
Louise and say, 'Oh, it's been done'. Meanwhile, you have endless movies
about male buddies being churned out every day. We have to fight and claw,
and I still don't feel we have much control over what stories are being told. 53
Citing the case of the very successful film, Black Robe, a story about a Jesuit priest in
seventeenth century Canada, she says that "Alliance took a big risk and spent a lot of money
to promote it, and I certainly give them credit for that. But I also thought, 'I know I couldn't
have sold a story about a nun in the Canadian wilderness in a million years ' ." 54
In spite of the sterling track record of director Anne Wheeler and the recent feature
film successes of writer Peggy Thompson and producer Sharon McGowan , it took five years
to raise the money for Better Than Chocolate, a story focusing on the lesbian community in
Vancouver. It went on to become the second highest grossing Canadian film for 1999 and
was among the top thirty box-office draws in North America in that period.55

34

With the advent of Free Trade and a decided political tum to the right, capitalist
concerns, 'the profit motive' , are becoming the main consideration in Canadian filmmaking .
Sandy Wilson, arguing against Free Trade, says: "There are other considerations besides just
profits. I think it's very important for any culture to be able to see itself reflected in all the
art forms- and especially for Canadians, because we are so overshadowed." 56 On the set of
her newest film, Show and Tell, Anne Wheeler comments on the changing economic focus in
filmmaking. Where the director and writer once had the most control, the producer and
distributor, the people who "write the cheques", are increasingly calling the shots. As a
result of a growing concern with profit-making, and the corresponding predominance of
American films being shot in Vancouver (now dubbed 'Hollywood North '), she says, "[t]he

industry of filmmaking has grown tremendously. The art of filmmaking has been a bit
thwarted." This affects her most acutely in the fact that she is given very little time to shoot,
sometimes completing as many as seventeen scenes in one day, which doesn't allow her the
creative freedom she would like to have. It also manifests in the fact that those in financial
control are looking for tried-and-true money makers. "It's hard to get people to take a
chance on something that ' s new and different." 57
Still, Canadian women filmmakers remain optimistic and continue to make films in
greater and greater numbers . Lynne Stopkewich retained complete creative control over

Kissed by selling shares to raise production money, ignoring funding structures completely.
More recently, new filmmaker Jennifer Barr did the same. Unable to sell her script, she
stepped outside of the system to finance We're Women, We're Crazy herself, raising half a
million dollars for the production. Her cast and crew supported her by working on deferral. 58
She thinks anything is possible because of the supportive film community in Vancouver,

35

where many people are willing to help a filmmaker fulfill her or his vision. "Anybody can
do whatever they want. If you have a dream, just do it." 59
Patricia Rozema expresses the same view: "It's easier for me to carry on by ignoring
any barriers. I take the attitude, by whatever means, get it done. I think it ' s much more
encouraging to point to women who have succeeded. The most eloquent feminist statement I
can make is a good film." 60
This sense of optimism and determination rises again and again. Commenting on the
acclaim garnered for her first independent feature film, Parsley Days, Andrea Dorfman
expressed annoyance when media attention focused upon her gender: "It's great to stand out
as one of the few women who has made a Canadian feature film this year, but it's not
something you particularly want to be known for... Like any other filmmaker, I had a story I
wanted to tell and I had the determination to go out and do it. And never along the way did I
feel that being a woman either hindered or helped me." 61
Coming from an extensive experience in the film industry, Anne Wheeler concludes
that "we're very fortunate as women in this day and age making films because there are so
many films that haven't been made because there haven't been the women to make them." 62
Sandy Wilson avers that "it's the women who have the stories that come from the heart, and
it's the women who are very committed and won't be stopped." 63
Accompanying the sheer determination evident in all of the filmmakers here, whether
just starting or well established, is a deep sense of integrity, a determination to tell the stories
they want in the way they want -- an integrity that cannot be compromised for financial
reward. Roz McKitrick says:
on the surface I'd often say 'Oh, I'm going to sell this screenplay .. . and make
a million bucks, and I don't care what they do with it'. Well, that's just not

36

the truth, and I think when people say that ... they ' re either not close enough
to their work or they haven't gone deep enough with it.
According to Patricia Rozema:
The point is to make films that are 'great persons ', films that have so much
personality, such a life, so much truth, and a genuine nature. That has to be
your highest goal of all. Try always to remember that the kernel of the story,
the initial thing that caught you, that affected you, that gave you emotion,
that's the thing that you have to fight tooth and nail to hang on to all the way
through. Only do what you're proud of... if at all possible try to resist doing
things that you're not really, really proud to have your name on, or that reflect
64
your soul and your personality.
Mina Shum and Lynne Stopkewitch both studied film at the University of British Columbia;
both went on to make extremely successful first feature films, Double Happiness (1994) and

Kissed (1996) respectively; both were subsequently courted by Hollywood.
Mina Shum describes her response:
I'm getting offers for romantic comedies that could make me a lot of money
(up to $300,000 US), if I wanted to do them .. .. but I'm not interested ... I
never ever in my whole life want to produce something bad. And that' s
what' s wrong with the seduction of Hollywood. The money is good. But
there's a high percentage probability of doing that. " 65
David Spanner, reporting for The Province, notes that following the success of Kissed, Lynne
Stopkewich received "a couple of hundred" offers from Hollywood, including high profile
projects such as Girl Interrupted with Winona Ryder, Ever After with Drew Barrymore, and ·

The Next Best Thing with Madonna. She turned them all down.
None of those projects meant anything to me. It's one thing if I can make all
of the dough but it's another thing to be standing in the rain telling an actor
what the scene's about. If it doesn't speak to you, how are you going to speak
to the actor? I need a connection ... I don't have the personality to say, 'Yeah,
give me the money, I'm going to go and direct tits and ass, part 2'. That's not
who I am. 66
Sandy Wilson likewise received offers from Hollywood after the success of My American

Cousin, but states:

37

I am not interested in big blockbusters. The bigger the budget, the less voice
you have. You can make wonderful films with very little money, a good
script and some teamwork. Those are the films I am interested in. I can only
67
see myself working in L.A. if I could keep my voice.
Anne Wheeler has turned down Hollywood offers because the scripts are undemanding or
unrealistic, where often, she says, "more happens in one scene than in a lifetime"

68

:

I go down to the States and I show them my resume and they say, 'How come
you're not famous, how come you stay there? I tell them I stay there to save
my soul, I guess. I wouldn't want to get pulled into the game where success is
measured by dollars and cents." 69
Which is not to say that she eschews commercial success, if it is on her own terms. She cast
Cybil Shepherd as the lead in Marine Life for strategic, as well as creative, reasons. While
not compromising in her choice to work with a talented actor who would do justice to the
role, in choosing an established 'star', she is increasing the chances of the film's commercial
success. (thus the chance that more Canadians will see a Canadian film, and that more people
in general will watch a 'woman's story'). "It lifts your international profile ... Plus, with a
star in your cast, other [Canadian] cast members become stars." 70
As the above comments make clear, these filmmakers maintain a clear distinction
between what they do and the Hollywood commercial formulas. Patricia Rozema maintains
that "Mermaids is structured not to conform to the stereotypical American movie with the
invariable message that trying hard enough brings success. Hollywood would have given
Polly a big exhibit or taken over the gallery. And I wanted to say that success is internally
defined. Don't listen to the authorities . Trust yourself." 71
Among the elements of conventional commercial filmmaking that have been severely
criticised by feminist film critics, two salient issues involve the portrayal of sexuality and
narrative closure. In her comprehensive examination of women in film and television , Linda
Seger (1996) suggests that "[a]s women write and direct more sexual scenes, the images of
38

sexuality will change. The differences in approach will become more apparent"(202).
Sandy Wilson believes her approach to erotic scenes differs from that of her male
counterparts: "Women are far more subtle. Far steamier in their subtlety."

72

Canadian actors

who have worked with women directors have commented on such a difference. Sonja Smits,
playing Morag Gunn in a 1992 CBC television production of The Diviners, says that "Having
a female writer [Linda Svendsen] and a female director [Anne Wheeler] and a female
producer [Kim Todd], you are going to have a different take on the character' s sexuality. It ' s
not 'Let ' s stop the story and watch two people make out and then go back to the story ' ."

73

Actress Molly Parker, star of Lynne Stopkewich's Kissed and Suspicious River says" I
would never have done either of these movies if it hadn ' t been her that was ma!Gng them ....
Both ... deal with darker sexual scenes and it's just not a place you want to go without
knowing there ' s someone there who's telling the story in a respectful way and in a way that
respects you and respects the character and respects women ." 74
A major objection to the patriarchal use of narrative closure, what Mikel Koven
(1999) sums up as Hollywood's 'enigma-resolution' formula, is that it most often serves to
put women in their place and seal them there for a "happily-ever-after" eternity. 75 As
explored further in the next chapter, narrative closure is conspicuously absent in the films
under discussion here . For some filmmakers, this is very much a conscious choice.
Sandy Tait, despite some pressure from colleagues and instructors to change the
ending of Flying, refused to resolve it: "I wanted some ambivalence there. I wanted people
to wonder and perhaps write their own ending. I didn ' t want to tie up the loose ends for them
for sure."
Roz McKitrick, who works to "avoid that American commercial filmma!Gng thing",
comments on the traditional "let' s get married, let ' s have a relationship" ending: "I like to
39

try to avoid those endings because I always think that letting a person be alone is such a
stronger choice. It ' s a difficult choice ... in mainstream films . They want it all pat and all the
ends tied up." This is not, she goes on to explain, a negative comment.
I like that idea of somebody embarking on their own ... it ' s not that it ' s 'Oh ,
gee. I'm alone again '. It ' s like 'I'm this person. I'm me! I'm off on this
route to do whatever. ' ... there 's a lot of hope and it doesn ' t count on ... being
half of a partnership.
This theme of self-discovery is present in much of the work of these filmmakers. Concerning

I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, Patricia Rozema emphasizes that the "primary relationship
in Mermaids is between Polly and herself and her learning to come to the point where she
can trust herself. " 76
Sandy Wilson also challenges the standard romantic endings to be found in many
films. In the conclusion of My American Cousin she effectively undoes a resolution which
has endured as a powerful cultural myth which still informs many narrative films: "Someday
my prince will come? Sorry, no prince. He ' s not coming. You have to get out there and do
·
" 77
. yourseIf on your own steam. Forget about pnnces.
It
Anne Wheeler acknowledges that "[a] lot of people come out of [Loyalties]
wondering what's going to happen after the movie. But you know it's going to be a very
hard battle, and if it weren ' t for Lily ' s money, Rosanne wouldn ' t have a hope in hell... We
wanted to leave it on the note that they were at least going to begin the fight together. How
far they would take it is , then , open to question ." 78 Addressing the choice to instil optimi sm
in the ending, she says:
I usuall y feel like I've got to leave some strength and hope at the end of a
film , and a sense of growth. I guess that' s what gives the films a right to exist,
in a way . .. . I hope by looking so closely at these two individuals that you
have a sense that certainly it could have gone the other way - and probabl y in
real life it would have gone the other way- that is, that Lily, having stood by
this man once, will continue to stand by him . I mean , statistically, that' s the
40

truth . So the film is the exception. We played around a lot with the idea that
Lily was going to call the police on this woman, and revert back to her old
values. But it just seemed to lose its purpose by doing that. 79
Patricia Rozema, too, sees an optimistic element in filmmaking . "I really do believe that we
come to films for the same reason we go to religion: We want stories that tell us there is
order. Although there ' s conflict, we come out okay in the end. Go ahead, leave the theater,
it's worth it to keep trying." 80
Here it is again necessary to remember that the identification of particular themes in
the above discussion should in no way suggest that women ' s filmmaking is monolithic .
Anne Wheeler is very clear on this point:
I try not to stereotype men and women as different kinds of filmmakers. I try
to take them as individuals, and I think I'm as different from Sandy Wilson as
I am from many men ... . I think we have different stories to tell but I think our
.
1 are d"1verse. 81
styes
1 are as d1verse
as men , s styes
Keeping this in mind, there are themes which arise in the approaches which the filmmakers
have discussed. These are clearly filmmakers who have 'never lost sight of the real ' ,
whether that be the social, political and economic environment they must negotiate in order
to make the films , in the characters they portray, or in the stories the y are telling. They are
very astute and determined women who, I believe, it would be quite impossible to describe,
in their choice of making fictional narrative films about women , as co-opted by dominant
ideology. While filmmakers coming from contemporary feminist film theory seemed
concerned with finding the 'correct ' forms in which women should work, there is no sense in
the interviews studied and conducted here that these filmmakers do so. They each seem
concerned with finding and expressing their own truth, but not with a larger project which
would dictate what women as a group should do. Deepa Mehta remarks that:
[w ]omen should be free to do any movie they want. ... if a woman wants to
make Death Wish Seven, then fine . There ' s a feeling that women can ' t do
41

action films-- or shouldn't because they ' re betraying their gender in a way.
But the very fact that a woman can control a large-budget film in itself
82
changes perceptiOns.
0

Patricia Rozema resists being seen as an example:
I hate representing anything. Because unless everything that I am can be
represented, I don ' t want to represent any one thing. I don ' t want to represent
just Canadian film, or just Dutch Calvinist immigrant film , or females or pink,
fair-haired people. Unless all of it can be taken together, I'm not interested in
being a symbol for anything.83
With regard to other filmmakers , she says: "/fyou want to make money, yes , do that. If you
want to make people feel really good in their skins, do that."

84

While filmmakers immersed in contemporary film theory were motivated by a
powerful political agenda, this is not evident in the approach of the women studied here.
Anne Wheeler' s earlier comment about the opportunities for women in Canada to 'find their
own voices' is telling. For these filmmakers this seems very much the project, not looking
for 'a voice' but each finding their own. They readily confess to the personal nature of their
filmmaking. Here I reiterate that the personal is political , that it is the very fact that their
stories come from their own lived experiences that give them political power. While a
political agenda may be absent, I argue that the political effects of their work, if 'effect ' can
be understood as having the potential to bring about social change, are much greater. That
the filmmakers strive for such effects, whether or not they categorize them as 'political' or
even 'feminist ', is evident.
Deepa Mehta' s hope is that, through film , " [i]f people can see minorities as real
human beings, complexities, flaws and all , then maybe we ' ll all be able to talk to each
other."

85

Asked what she wants people to walk way from her films with , Patricia Rozema

responds:

42

[u]ltimately, the best thing would be that people felt for people they ' ve never
felt for before. I think that's the highest purpose that fiction can serve, is to
create empathy in a place that you ' ve never felt empathy before. To slip
inside the soul of the most unlikely person is something that fiction can do in
a way that almost nothing else can .... I would like them to walk away with
. 86
un derstan dmg.
Mina Shum has said that through watching the journey of the young lead in Double
Happiness:
I hope that a few eighteen year old girls might not feel so alone, that if the
courage is lacking to follow one ' s dreams, perhaps, and I realize that this is a
87
very high hope, perhaps Jade can give them that courage.
Lynne Stopkewich also sees film as having the potential to bring about change: "To me , the
interesting thing is if the work can affect you in any way or change the way you see the
world in any way." 88 Sandy Tait sees filmmaking as a way to bring "real people's stories" to
a wide audience to bring about social change: "I think once people understand, see first hand,
it impacts them in a different way. They're involved then." Anne Wheeler's view of this
issue is both poignant and practical: "certainly I see film as a medium which will help
promote a universal understanding which hopefully will make for a better world. I can ' t see
going through all this just for the heck of it." 89
To return to the question of whether or not it is possible for women to create
alternative, empowering visions of women, deal effectively with women ' s issues, and/or
address a female as well as a male spectator in fictional narrative film , I argue that women
have been doing it for some time, and offer as evidence the following films.

43

Chapter Two
Women On Screen: The Films

"Maybe I like not knowing."

In a 1973 Chatelaine editorial titled "Why We Need Women Making Films About
Women", Doris Anderson acknowledges a decade of women's non-fiction film production in
·Canada and the consciousness raising thus accomplished, but draws attention to the lack of,
and essential need for, fictional narrative films made by women . Movies to this point, she
says, have allowed women three basic roles : "the sex object, woman-going-mad, the bitch
goddess" (1). Noting the heretofore male dominance of fictional film production she
continues :
[w]e' re not sure what kind of movies women are likely to produce. But some
will surely bring a special viewpoint that is now missing from movie screens.
It' s for that special insight we need movies made by women . Women need to
see and recognize themselves , and men need to see women-- and themselves-as women see them. ( 1)
Although there is not yet anything approaching an equal offering of such films , there are now
enough that we can begin to examine what "that special insight" might entail.
Identifying such a unifying concept in the films must not, however, condemn them to
the realms of a 'women ' s film genre ' . As some of the filmmakers stated in the abo ve
discussion, consigning films by and about women to a separate genre is undesirable in the
extreme. The fact that a film is by and about women and addresses women ' s concerns must
not ghettoize it. Those who employ this term, even with the best of intentions, are
reinscribing the damaging dichotomy between women's work and men ' s work-- women ' s
films are private, enclosed, marginalized while men ' s films are public and universal. 1
Graeme Turner (1988) describes the genre of ' women ' s films' in this way:
44

Unlikely to offer itself as fantasy, the women's film usually presents a main
female character who learns to find herself (preferably, but not always)
without the assistance of a male .... Mostly, such films are careful not to mix
genres; certainly, they tend not to be easy to mistake for comedies and they
are usually loath to risk not being taken as socially truthful by foregrounding
their fictionality, their story-telling function. (174-75)
There is some truth to his statement. Films by and about women, certainly the ones
considered here, often address the theme of a woman 'finding herself', but such an
exploration is not confined to the rather sober form he describes. In fact, many films
by and about men deal with a man coming to terms with himself, and could be
described as 'not mixing genres', 'not easily mistaken for comedies ' and so on. Why,
for example, would a film like Silkwood, the story of a person daring to stand up
against corruption, be 'a women's film', while All the President's Men is 'everyone's
film'? While the entire concept of genres may be problematic, this particular aspect
is most troubling, and will not be reconstructed here.
Much has been written in feminist film criticism concerning the portrayal of women
in mainstream films. Researchers addressing mainstream movies in the 1980s and 90s have
discovered that women do not fare any better than they did in Doris Anderson's assessment
of the portrayals of women up to the 1970s. In her analysis of Hollywood films of the 1980s,
Elizabeth Traube (1992) finds that "[u]nlimited ambition in women continued to be
constructed as a threat, requiring either their subordination to the appropriate men or their
expulsion from the imagined community" (98). Suzanna Walter's (1995) examination of
Hollywood 'backlash ' movies of the late 1980s and early 1990s revealed similar results:
One of the classic ways Hollywood tells a woman to get back in the kitchen and obey
her master is by punishing her for wayward behavior. Hollywood films include
countless examples of single women, working women , women who are not fulfilled as
wives and mothers, sexually active women, and just plain feisty women being
summarily killed, humiliated, or simply beaten down. (140)

45

Both researchers relate their findings to the sociohistorical environment surrounding the
production of the films , with particular reference to the political tum to the right, its
reinstatement of "family values" (meaning white, middleclass nuclear families with
traditional gender roles), and the accompanying setbacks for women's and civil rights.
Elizabeth Traube (1992) draws the parallel between film and political discourse:
Hollywood joined New Right leaders in directing socially rooted discontents
against independent, upwardly mobile women. Movies as well as political
discourse attacked uncontrolled, ambitious women as the cause of a moral
crisis that, given its definition , called for a strong, authoritarian patriarch. (20)
This patriarch is most commonly reinstated through the device of narrative closure. A
prominent feminist critique of classic realist Hollywood cinema, "with its pattern of unitydisruption-resolution" (70), is that the resolution most often involves narrative closure which
entails, as Suzanna Walters (1995) observes, "bringing woman back into line through some
sort of punishment (death , disgrace) or through marriage and the safe enclosure of the
nuclear family" (71).
The critique of damaging images is a vital project; perhaps even more important is the
creation and examination of alternatives to these. Elizabeth Traube has defined her work in
film analysis as a search for a 'contending vision'. Similarly editors Linda Dittmar, Janice R.
Welsch and Diane Carson (1994) , in their introduction to Multiple Voices in Feminist Film

Criticism, note the encouraging emergence of films that may be implicit in women ' s
"progress toward empowerment", that "show women's capacity for articulation and selfdetermination" (12). It is just such a quest, within a context of feminist film theory less
concerned with representation of women as objects than with the self-articulation of women
as active subjects (14) , that prompted this study and guided the decision to search out as wide
a cross-section of English Canadian women's fictional narrative film as reasonably possible.

46

My examination of feature films was limited to those accessible on video, which
proved to be most, if not all , of the English Canadian films by and about women produced
between 1985 and 1999 (with the already noted exception of Shirley Cheechoo ' s Backroads) .
Over a three month period Independent Eye ran fifty-one short films , twenty-three made by
women, while Shameless Shorts offered a total of twenty-nine of which twenty-three were by
women. Of the forty-six films made by women, forty-two were by Canadian women .
Eliminating animated, mixed media and experimental film, and films that were not about
women, resulted in nineteen fictional narrative shorts meeting the parameters of this study,
all of which were made in the 1990s. These are discussed along with Roz McKitrick's

Everything 's Rosie (2001) and Sandy Tait's Flying (1998).
It is important to remember that those films appearing on television did so only after
navigating a selection process. As Independent Eye had already ceased production, with only
reruns showing, I was unable to get any information about what their selection process had
been. Liz Janzen , the producer of Shameless Shorts, explained that "the aim of Shameless

Shorts is to showcase short films by women directors, producers and writers." 2 While some
films by men or international films are presented, the focus is on films by Canadian women .
When asked if she particularly tries to present empowering images of women, she replied
that the idea was more to present a large range of topics and perspectives, as well as a variety
of genres, although she stressed that they would certainly not show anything that was
degrading to women .3
This study is little concerned with specific techniques used in the films but rather with
the stories themselves. Just as I did not select certain films for their themes or content, aside
from being by and about women , I did not at first look for specific elements or themes in the
films . My mandate was simply to record the opening and closing scenes and to describe the
47

main characters and the story. It was after all of the films had been viewed in this manner
that particular motifs were identified and related back to theory and research.
Perhaps the most outstanding feature to emerge was the absence of narrative closure.
Although conspicuously absent in the Hollywood formula, what might be described as
narrative opening is a distinctive element in traditional women ' s storytelling. Mikel Koven
( 1999) finds that folklorist studies of storytelling have identified elements of women's
narratives including the fact that women's stories, as compared to men's, tend not to resolve
themselves neatly but remain "open-ended" (295). She further reveals that "the major
themes in women's narratives are oppression experiences and self-discovery" (296). These
tendencies are clearly realized in the films under discussion here, together with a number of
aspects which represent a definite departure from mainstream cinema.
Lucy Fischer (1989) sees women's films "as addressing ... [and] revising works from
the dominant canon" (15). This effect is most clearly evident in Karethe Linnaae's Off Key
and Maureen Davinik's Dames. 'The gaze', so often attributed to men, is most definitely
reversed in Off Key. It is Agnes, a professional photographer, who controls the environment
into which the reserved and proper Eastern European pianist, Vladimir, comes for a photo
shoot. His formidable manager lays down a number of rules, but Agnes quickly dispenses
with him and proceeds to guide the shoot exactly as she desires. The attractive male pianist
is convinced to remove his clothes and is then displayed provocatively for both Agnes and
the audience. The scene where he leaps about naked flourishing a broom in an attempt to
scare birds off the skylight goes a long way towards demystifying the phallus. Throughout
the film, there is an emphasis on her "look", the female gaze, which is both appreciative and
bold. She 'calls the shots', leads the flirtation, and remains fully clothed while he, clearly
enjoying the seduction, poses coyly for her, and for the camera.
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Maureen Devanik appropriates film nair, telling the story from a woman ' s point of
view . In Dames, the typical shadowy, nighttime street scene is established and, just at the
point where the traditional hard-boiled male voice takes up the story, it is instead the voice of
the competent and wise Roxie who narrates the action. In a seedy basement nightclub , Floyd
and Jimmy discuss business and their women with a nai·ve certainty of their masculine
authority, while Roxie, who has already decided "There' s more to life than mink, matched
pearls and men" tells Jimmy' s fiancee Vera "Marriage is an over-rated institution, don ' t you
think?" Vera: "What else is there?" Roxie: "Women like us deserve something better in this
world." In a delightful twist on the usual film nair narrative, the 'bad' woman gets the
'good' woman while the guys get left out in the cold.
"Someday my prince will come", a cultural myth which maintains a persistent, if
diminishing, presence in this society is addressed and undermined in some of the films.
Mina Shum's second film , Drive She Said, is a road movie which seems to follow a
conventional plot, albeit with surreal twists, only to go beyond the expected resolution.
Nadine's mother tells her child that if she walks straight enough, long enough and hard
enough, she will get to China-- a place which then becomes for Nadine a symbol of wonder,
an escape from the conventional. Nadine comes to the big city and proudly lands the first job
she applies for, as a bank teller. The story begins at the place many fairytales end, as Nadine
"met Prince Charming." The first clue that this film intends to challenge assumptions is in
the person of a gun wielding bank robber who is a very normal looking, middle aged woman ,
someone who would more commonly be cast as a nondescript wife or mother. Nadine ' s
'Prince Charming' disarms the robber, almost accidentally, although he is treated as a hero
and has won Nadine's admiration. Here the fairy tale ends and the film begins. Immediate
flash forward to the 'prince ' and 'princess' in therapy five years later, because he does not
49

want the romance and commitment she longs for. Bored with her job, discouraged with the
pursuit of "a husband, a life, blah, blah, blah", she is confronted, and charmed, by an
unconventional mechanic named Tass who, appearing at her station at the bank, asks her the
meaning of life. After entering a few figures on her calculator, Nadine tells him the meaning
of life is forty-seven . Tass represents for Nadine a possibility of escaping her conventional
life and the very good, but ultra-conservative, Jonathan . This turns out to be literally true, as
a masked Tass later robs the bank, taking her as hostage. She agrees to travel across country
with him in his journey to visit his sick mother and pay her hospital bills, and they embark on
an exciting fantasy-filled, sometimes hilarious romp, which suddenly turns tragic when she
shoots a police officer who is pursuing them on a motorcycle. Wrenched back into a grim
and frightening reality, Nadine calls the ever-faithful Jonathan, who rushes to her rescue.
She has had her adventure, is exonerated from the shooting (the police officer will recover
and her actions are attributed to the stress of being a hostage), Jonathan has realized that he
wants to make a commitment, and they move in together to play out familiar scenes of giddy
domestic happiness. Here many films end, but Nadine cannot "hide" in this way. She has
had Prince Charming, she has had a dangerous fling with an exciting stranger, and she is still
not content. Though she "tried to bury it" and be "normal", she must face the truth . She
leaves Jonathan , who immediately assumes she is going back to Tass. "No," she says, "that
won't save me either." As the film ends, she is driving down a road by herself. Reaching a
fork in the road, marked by a sign bearing the prophetic number forty-seven, she turns to the
right and then stops, contemplating her choices. Saying "why not?" she backs up and
proceeds down the left branch, the road less traveled. She says, in the voice over, "If I walk
straight enough , long enough and hard enough , I know I'll get there." She has explored the
choices that society has laid out for her and her quest for something more is just beginning.
50

Sandy Wilson's My American Cousin and its sequel American Boyfriends follow
Sandy Wilcox from adolescence to adulthood. As a rebellious twelve year old, she sees the
arrival of the attractive and exciting Butch, her American cousin, as a means to escape from
her dull life on Paradise Ranch into a life of adventure. While she is determined to go
through with the plan to run off together in his red convertible, he leaves her at the gate to the
ranch, shrugging helplessly as his mother drives him past. "Somehow" Sandy says, "my
dreams about a Prince Charming coming to rescue me were badly battered." She instead
drives to town with her mother, who offers a small piece of wisdom which Sandy declares
proved to be true: "Boys are like buses. If you miss one, another one comes along before you
know it." Rather than discovering the joys of love, she discovers that she has to take
responsibility for her own life. About her mundane existence on the ranch , she says "I never
gave up planning my escape."
In American Boyfriends, Sandy has at last escaped to Simon Fraser University.
Disgruntled that so many of her friends are opting for ' love and marriage' , particularly by her
close friend Thelma' s imminent wedding, she looks forward to broader horizons while not
really understanding what these might entail. She is at this point a very unsophisticated
product of a sheltered upbringing, being undecided between a career in the Peace Corps or
interior decorating. A brief weekend adventure to the States to attend her cousin's wedding
soon becomes much more. Sandy's friend Lizzie becomes the first of the friends to lose her
virginity, an event much discussed and anticipated by them all. While the scene unfolds in
the back seat of a car, a quite conventional setting, the perspective is that of the young
woman --a very fresh and unusual view to that usually presented on film following this
momentous event. While the young man breathes ecstatically "That was terrific", Lizzie's
disappointed response is "You mean ... that ' s it? It's over?'' When Butch unexpectedly
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gives the red convertible to Sandy, she and her new friend Julie decide to realize a long time
dream and drive to California. Julie, worldly and politically astute, provides a different kind
of role model for Sandy, in contrast to her family and friends. After getting a glimpse into
'broader horizons ', undergoing a political awakening in a country tom by the war in
Vietnam, Sandy decides her role is indeed to change the world. She drops out of university
to hitchhike around Europe, and after suffering through her duty as Thelma ' s bridesmaid,
"never went to another wedding again." As with Nadine, Sandy' s conclusion that marri age is
not her goal is not the common resolution in the majority of mainstream films.
Andrea Robertson ' s ALTARations begins with a woman trying on wedding dresses .
Loaded down with purchases for her wedding, she wanders into a deserted movie theatre,
playfully holding her flowers and pretending to step grandly down the aisle as a bride before
settling into a seat to watch a movie. Here follows a juxtaposition as her ideal fantasy
relationship (refined, elegant) is projected in black and white on the screen, set against her
own thoughts regarding the reality of her relationship with her unromantic , unsophisticated,
couch potato boyfriend, who proposes by leaping at her in rabbit ears to present her with a
"two carrot" engagement ring. Becoming more and more agitated as she faces the realit y of
the relationship, she eventually leaves the veil and ring on the theatre seat, tosses the flowers
on top, and strides purposefully out of the theatre. While this could be read as a tale of a
nai"ve and hopeless romantic who has been duped by Hollywood romantic images, the
satisfaction and surety of her manner suggests a woman who will not settle for less than she
wants. Her prince has come, it seems, only to have her realize that there are a lot more
princes where he came from. She chooses to be alone rather than accepting the unacceptable,
and strides confidently towards a new, if uncertain, future.

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While these films focus upon women emerging triumphant from 'near marriage '
experiences, other films explore married life. The perspectives which are presented are
complex. Contrary to traditional rhetoric marriage is never presented as a source of ultimate
fulfillment for women.

Camilla, directed by Deepa Mehta, offers perhaps the most conventional view of
marriage to be found in this study, although there are differences which prevent it from
reinscribing traditional roles. This is primarily a road buddy film, where an old and a young
woman who share a passion for music embark on a quest of personal transformation ,
escaping from an insensitive and controlling son and husband, respectively. Freda proposes
the trip as an adventure before she returns to her husband (which she describes as 'turning
herself in'), not realizing that she is asking Camilla to return to the site of the most
devastating moment of her musical career. The women experience increasing adventure and
freedom, beginning with Freda's car slipping off the back of a ferry and sinking with
everything she brought for the trip and continuing through hitchhiking, fishing and skinny
dipping together, sleeping in a train station, and playing their music for a wide variety of
interesting, sometimes dangerous, characters. As they search for the women, Camilla's son,
Harold, and Freda's husband, Vince, form a friendship and begin to examine their
relationships with, and behaviour toward, Camilla and Freda. There are numerous stories
within this story. Camilla and Freda, exploiting their newfound freedom to its heights , create
increasingly outrageous stories about their fame and romantic lives. More importantly, it is
by telling each other stories of critical moments in their lives that the characters gain insight,
coming to understand themselves and each other. Freda, discovering the actual failure and
public humiliation which lay under Camilla's story about her astounding success, is not
disappointed in her friend and mentor. She instead tells Camilla that it isn ' t what she did or
53

didn't do that counts-- "What's important is that you kept yourself- you know , your self;
going." The neurotic Harold at last lets his mother go without guilt to live the life she
chooses, reuniting with the lover she gave up for duty in her youth . Freda ' s marriage
continues on a new footing, but it is not the runaway wife who has been tamed; it is the
thoughtless husband who is redeemed by learning to accept her as she is.

Vince has

progressed from someone who belittles her composing and demands that she follow him and
his work because "that' s the way it works" to some one who has come to understand the line
from the song she wrote: "If I could give you anything, I'd give you back yourself. "

4

Anne Wheeler' s Bye Bye Blues opens in colonial India, where Daisy is herself
colonized, the epitome of the 'good' wife and mother- blushing, pregnant and very
dependent upon her husband Ted. Her relationship to music is established from the
beginning, both her love and insecurity, and when Ted goes to war and she returns to her
family in the middle of a bleak Canadian prairie winter, she brings her piano with her.
Desperately needing money, she sees an opportunity to parlay her pi ano playing into a job,
and stubbornly persists in doing so in spite of the scorn of the bandleader and the outrage of
her father. When her father shouts, "while you ' re in my house you ' ll do as you ' re told" , her
response is to rent a house and move out, embarking on a life as a single working mother,
gradually becoming stronger and more sure of herself. From a marginalized minor addition
to the all-male band, Slim Godfrey and the Stardusters, she becomes the star of Dais y Cooper
and the Stardusters, confidently playing and singing, and clearly loving it, as the band moves
from success to greater success.5 It may be instructive to contrast the story in this film to a
Hollywood rendition of a similar subject. Swing Shift (1984), while addressing the
competence of women working in a war plant, soon shifts its focus to the relationship
between Kay, whose somewhat domineering husband has gone away to war, and the
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attractive and roguish musician Lucky, an interlude of passion after which Kay realizes the
error of her ways and repents her infidelity. While there is a peripheral romantic element in
Bye Bye Blues, as the sexy and talented American trumpet player pursues Daisy, first

playfully and then seriously, it is never the centerpiece of the film. While Swing Shift
provides the obligatory bedroom scenes, it is not clear in Bye Bye Blues whether or not Daisy
actually gives in to her colleague's advances and her own desires. If so, the viewers are not
voyeurs of that particular event. There is more intimacy in her relationship with her sister-in-

law than with her possible lover. The focus remains firmly upon Daisy herself, striving after
years of not knowing whether Ted is dead or alive to be faithful, dealing with the stresses of
being a single working parent, finding her vocation and revelling in it. She has evolved from
an insecure woman, pleased to be paid at all, even if at a lesser rate than the men , to an astute
business woman who knows her worth and refuses to be exploited. On the eve of the band' s
departure to move to the city where they have been offered their own radio show , Daisy
receives word that Ted is indeed alive and returning horne the same evening. Here follows
what appears to be a typical Hollywood ending. Wife and husband are tearfully reunited at
the train station to the strains of sentimental music , returning horne together where he
tenderly begins to relate with his children. It does not stop here, however, but goes beyond
the ' happily-ever-after' scenes to reveal the ambiguity and reality of the more difficult real
life after the Hollywood ending. While he is joyfully reunited with his mother and sister in
the final scene, Daisy is sadly watching the band ' s bus disappear down the road without her.
While Kay in Swing Shift seems content to return to her former life of domestic bliss,
seemingly little changed by her experiences in the factory , such an outcome is less certain for
Daisy. She has changed and is unlikely to repress these changes. Ted does not have his

55

adoring and adorable former wife back, and how they will negotiate their life together from
this point forward is open to question.

Walk Foot Man, written by Dolly Reisman and Margaret Gouldboume and directed
by Jeanette Lambermont, is set in the context of a West Indian community in Toronto.
Furious at her husband' s philandering, a betrayed wife resolutely disrupts his plans to meet
another woman. While he grooms himself meticulously in the bathroom for the date, she
angrily dumps one of each pair of his extensive shoe collection into the kitchen sink and fills
it with cold water (incidentally bringing his shower to a scalding and abrupt conclusion). She
replaces the soaked shoes in the closet, and he steps unsuspecting into one and discovers her
plan with explosive rage. Unimpressed, she smugly packs a case with the dry shoes, takes
his car keys and leaves him sulking on the porch with one bare foot as she joins her friends at
a church supper and regales them with the story. The shoes are eventually used as the table
centrepiece, the final shoe handed around from woman to woman in a ritual manner before
she holds it up and says "Today me save me soul" and places it with the others. The women
join into a chorus of 'Amen' and then burst into joyous celebration, a strong community of
women sharing their triumph and empowerment. The musical Caribbean patois throughout
this film is a rare and welcome reminder that the storytellers in this Canadian mosaic are
many and diverse, that many stories have yet to be told.
Anne Wheeler's Loyalties looks into much more sinister recesses of an unhappy
marriage. Although the story centers around the severely dysfunctional marriage of the
repressed Lily, it is Roseanne, the Metis working class woman, who serves as the role model
and with whom, as Robin Wood (1989) has noted, the audience begins to identify. Brenda
Longfellow (1999) has pointed out the "subversive shaping of identification" accomplished
here, whereby narrative conventions are such that a largely white , middle class audience
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comes to identify with a non-white, non-middle class woman. Roseanne refuses to let herse lf
be beaten, Jet herself be taken care of, or to give up her own dreams. Lil y is herse lf the
character in the story she reads to her children -- a beautiful and rich princess who has one
wish, for a friend who likes her for herself. Roseanne, more than any one in Lily's life, sees
her as she really is, and dares to reflect that vision back to her. Through Roseanne 's keen
and honest observations, Lily begins to re-examine her life. When David rapes Roseanne 's
daughter, Lily has progressed to a place where it is impossible to escape the responsibility for
her own choices, including her complicity in hiding his past and allowing this to happen .
Under Roseanne's influence, Lily has begun to find herself, but she is not yet capable of
standing on her own, in spite of her 'pots of money' . She has taken a step, but her
dependence, like her loyalty, has at this stage been transferred from her husband to
Roseanne . Lily needs Roseanne ' s strength, and cannot yet stand alone. Yet the women have
forged an unlikely friendship , and through that alliance have taken a stand against male
violence. Like the other films featuring married women , there is a greater emphasis on the
friendship between women than on the relationship between wife and husband, and it is this
friendship which supports life and growth for the women.
Four of the short films , like Loyalties, explore the theme of women at risk in a violent
world of men. Kathryn Martin's stunning Through My Eyes is a powerful examination of
rape. Miss Aimee, a beautiful young Asian singer, has remained silent, neither talking nor
singing since her violent rape at the hands of a man she knows and is able to positivel y
identify. In the courtroom, as her lawyer presents the evidence-- the violated, shredded,
dirty clothing, the photographs capturing the massive injuries she incurred when she was
beaten-- the jury is appalled. The prosecution of Mr. Ramone, her attacker, seems certain .
Then begins his defence, in which he does not speak but rather dances. His beautiful,
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forceful movements gradually entrance and win over the jury, the judge, and even Miss
Aimee' s own lawyer. Our appreciation of his graceful movements and pleading expression
is disrupted by the satisfied sneer the camera captures when his back is to his audience, and
by the cuts to the flashbacks of the violent rape. With Miss Aimee, we grow increasingl y
appalled at the realization that he will get away with this crime. She stands! She struggles to
find her voice again, and at last begins to sing, compellingly, beautifully, pulling the focus
from his dance to her passionate protestations. A storm gathers in the courtroom, her singing
accompanied by a fierce wind which disrupts the proceedings, blowing papers awry to beat
against the judge and jury. Mr. Ramone stops dancing. But the judge, the white male voice
of authority and the establishment, silences her. Pounding his gavel he intones "The jury is
to disregard Miss Aimee's outburst. She has spoken out of turn." The haunting notes of
classical music begin again and Mr. Ramone completes his dance, not only exonerated but
applauded and adored, as tossed flowers fall at this feet. He is found not guilty, but the story
does not end on the trope of social injustice alone . As he readies to leave, Mr. Ramone turns
an arrogant gaze on Miss Aimee. Hands on hips, she returns his gaze steadily. He has fooled
them, but she sees him clearly. She has been brutalized twice, by the rape itself and by the
silencing of the judge, but she has found her voice again , and in her strong stance at the end it
is clear that she has not been defeated. This film brilliantly addresses many levels in which
the differences in power are exposed: he is 'Mr.' , she is 'Miss ' ; he is white, she is Asian; his
art form is the bastion of cultured white society, hers is consigned to a 'folk' or multicultural
margin. In all cases, the ending holds at least the possibility that the last word may yet be
hers, on all levels.
Elizabeth Murray' s moody Vancouver 37 explores the vulnerability of a woman
alone. Stranded at the side of a deserted road on a dark and rainy night after her car breaks
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down , a woman decides to hitchhike and is picked up by a large and possibly dangerous man ,
who immediately reaches past her to lock her door. She finds that she can ' t open it, and
begins to panic but he reassures her-- "I'll let you out." Throughout the ride, particularly as
they slow to pass the scene of an accident, she deals with her uncomfortable feelings as their
conversation wavers precariously between safety and threat. He finds it strange that she has
no "old man" or kids, but is on her own, and his comments feed her fear: "it's not safe for a
woman", he tells her, and later "bad things can happen, you know." Eventually she gains
control over her fear and begins to relate to him in a more friendly way. "I don ' t want to live
like that", she states. "Always afraid." As the headlights disappear into the dark night, she
asks him his name and he replies "Moose. Like a wild animal. Moose." Like a wild animal
he is unpredictable, and her future is uncertain. He is in the driver's seat and whether he
intends to help her or harm her is left open to the viewer's speculation.
Jane E. Kim's Crickets is a loss of innocence tale. A spirited young Korean girl loves
to catch crickets in a jar in the open fields around her home. While playing hide and seek
with her best friend, Jeff, she is attacked and forced to the ground by a teenage boy. Jeff
witnesses the scene but runs away, later pretending that he never saw the incident. The
exciting ideas of romance she has gleaned from television tum out to be very different from
the reality of the attack. Subdued, she returns home and releases her crickets. The final
scene returns to visions of her former self, running freely and joyfully through the field. This
is perhaps a memorial to something lost forever, or may be a hopeful suggestion that her
essence has not been damaged and that she will move beyond this experience and recover her
freedom and power.
Blind, written by Kim Clements and Deborah Day and directed by Deborah Day,
addresses the dangers of meeting through personal ads. Convinced to finally meet the man
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she has been talking to on the phone for weeks, a young woman is totally concerned with her
appearance -- she changes clothes a number of times, fusses over her hair and makeup,
checks herself out in the mirror from a number of angles. As she gets into her car in the
underground car park, life suddenly becomes much less superficial, as two men begin to fight
on the hood of her car. Trapped inside as the violence escalates, she is terrified. She has one
moment of hope as a man crosses the car park and sees her, but he unemotionally gets into
his car and drives away. The fight culminates in a shooting, the shooter running away while
the victim falls onto the hood of her car, splaying blood over the windshield. Frantic, she
drives off, dumping the dying or possibly dead man onto the pavement and rushing to her

rendezvous at the Cafe Societa. Perhaps it is in her mind to appeal to her date for protection
and assistance, but on arrival she recognizes him as the man who left her stranded in the car
park. She leaves. Like the young girl in Crickets, she has been abandoned by the one who
could have helped her. Perhaps wiser, certainly she is on her own and must decide what to
do herself. In this and all of these films which examine the vulnerability of women, there
will be no rescue by a man, whether that be a friend, potential lover or representative of
social institutions.
A number of the films explore alternative relationships of women and violence. Love

Interruptus by Carole Ducharme also concerns a witness to violence, although her reaction is
quite different to that of the woman in Blind. This woman , missing her lover, is increasingly
tormented by the sounds of lovemaking from the apartment over her head. One night she has
had enough , and charges up to the apartment to complain, but finds that what has distracted
her this time are the sounds of a violent attack and the subsequent murder of her upstairs
neighbour. She runs back to her apartment, picking up the phone to report the crime, when
she hears the sounds of the man running away followed by peaceful silence. At the climax ,
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she does not find her voice but rather chooses to say nothing, hanging up the phone with a
little smile and returning to her studies in peace. This conclusion is somewhat puzzling. It
isn't clear, to me at least, why she does this-- perhaps she is relieved that there will be no
more lovemaking above her head. In any case, this response does provide an alternative to
the hysterical reaction accompanying such scenes in film and television, and highlighting the
parallel between the sounds of lovemaking and of violence offers an interesting comment on
the connections between the two.
In contrast to this rather benign reaction to violence, the protagonist in Katie Tallo's
Split Shift chooses a much more active, though equally unexpected, response. Sue is a
waitress who tells tales of the abuse and disrespect she constantly deals with from customers
and staff alike. What is it in herself, she wonders , that allows her to continue to take it?
Having been physically attacked by her boss, she escapes to the bathroom to smoke a
cigarette and fantasize about being a successful singer, practicing her award acceptance
speech and singing for her imaginary fans. She comes out to discover that another waitress , a
very timid woman who is also harassed and belittled throughout the story, has just struck
their boss in the back with a knife before running off. He is still alive, weakly struggling, the
bags of money from the daily receipts scattered around him. Sue kneels beside him , takes a
careful grip on the knife blade and pushes it in further. He ceases to struggle and lies still.
His body lying in the background, Sue calmly completes her story, directing it at the
surveillance camera behind the bar. "In the end", she concludes, "you're only left with you."
She picks up the moneybags and leaves. Unlike Thelma and Louise, she has not set off on an
inevitable course of self-destruction. She is not "brought into line through death or
disgrace." We learn in a radio voice over as the credits roll that she has made it as a singer.
She is neither caught nor punished, but succeeds in pursuing her dream.
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Knives figure prominently in Eva Colmers No Problem , dedicated "In admiration to
all those people who leave what they have to start a new life at a new place." It seem s at first
to be a case of the helplessness of an immigrant woman at the mercy of a fast talking
salesman who persistently and brutally tries to manipulate her into buying his knives .
Although he maintains that he is aware of the "horrors" she has suffered in her country,
assuring her that she is safe in a "free country" now, he continues to bully her, himself a
representative of the horrors of capitalism. Although he knows she has a university
education from her home country, his attitude is patronizing and belittling. In the end she
displays more wile than he, manipulating him by first threatening him with his own knife,
and then threatening to cut her own throat. He runs away, and she has the knife she needed.
At the end, she happily hugs her son , declaring her victory a step in securing a good future
for him. The story effectively disrupts ideas about immigrant people being less intelligent
just because they don ' t speak the language clearly, while ironically highlighting some of the
attitudes and assumptions they must suffer in this "free country".
Susan Taylor's chilling Still relates the tale of a young photographer who, fascinated
by dead bodies and sexually excited by male corpses, finds it increasingly difficult to warm
to her boyfriend. Returning home one day to find that he has discovered her private
photographs and, thus, discovered her secret, she murders him. In death , he becomes the
man of her dreams . Contentedly snuggling up to his dead body, she has found a way to make
the relationship work to her satisfaction.
In Kissed, Lynne Stopkewich also fearlessly follows the theme of being true to self
into the taboo realms of necrophilia. As a child, Sandra Larson is fascinated by death,
carefully dissecting and reassembling dead animals, touching, tasting, needing to experience
them , burying them with elaborate ritual. It is not until her best friend runs away in horror
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during a chipmunk funeral, where Sandra sensually rubs the dead body over her skin, that she
understands that she is different-- "for the first time I saw myself the way others might. "
This realization does not, however, cause her to repent. She follows her impulses without
question, getting a job in a funeral home and eventually studying embalming. Having sex
with the corpses of young men in the funeral home, which consists of a ritualistic dance
around the body after which she mounts them and somehow achieves a sort of cunnilingus, is
presented as very respectful and almost spiritual. She can see the transformation between life
and death, "watch[ing] their lives flow out"; she "sees bodies shining like stars." She calls
this act "crossing over" and for her it is both glorious and addictive. She is not looking for
anything beyond this, but when a young man, Matt, pursues her, she goes along for a time.
After sex with Matt, she realizes that she can never give up crossing over. An important
element of this film is that Sandra is never presented as in any way sick or unstable. While
she remains calm and centered, sane and strong throughout, it is Matt who progressively
becomes more obsessed and agitated, finally killing himself because he knows that only by
being dead can he truly have her. And he is right. As she continues to live life in her own
way, the relationship with Matt continues in a sense, as it is him she sees in all of her
subsequent encounters.
While the theme of 'finding the right man' is conspicuously absent in these films ,
'finding the right woman' is a reoccurring theme. The films centered around lesbian
relationships, though, seem as much or more about empowerment and finding the freedom to
be oneself as they are about finding a partner.

Wilma's Sacrifice, by filmmaker Kat Lanteigne, takes place in Eden, population 532,
a domain ruled by patriarchy in the persons of the formidable local Pastor and of the
undisputed and sadistic head of Wilma's family. Life becomes very hard for Wilma after she
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is discovered in the bam with her female lover, an 'outsider'. Scrub as she might, she
cannot, in her father ' s eyes, wash away her sins. When she struggles to find some
understanding or hope, her medicated, oppressed mother only tells her sharply, "We don ' t
leave this place." Wilma, however, does just that. She is not cast out of Eden but rather
packs her bags and leaves. Her mother follows her onto the porch , not to stop her but rather
to press money into her hand, seeming to gain some hope and happiness in her daughter' s
escape. The story is as much about freedom from patriarchal authority as of finding Jove, as
the headlights of the truck carrying Wilma and her lover into a new life vanish down the
road.
Similar themes emerge in Frances McDermid's Wink and Lisa Hayes' Dike. Wink
tells the story of a high school girl who resists her true nature. Cautioned by her mother that
'girls don ' t ride motorcycles' and 'life is all about getting married and having a family', she
tries to dress 'like a girl' and accepts a boy's offer to a school dance, rejecting the advances
of a female classmate to whom she is attracted. She eventually abandons this duplicity and
comes to accept herself, buying her motorcycle and dressing as she pleases, in spite of the
caustic comments of the girls at school. The potential lover that she had rejected in her
pursuit of 'normalcy' returns, and drives her home after school one day. They decide to just
'keep on driving' and the jeep disappears down the road.
In Dike, a clever play on words which talks about lesbianism in terms of a structure
that holds back water, a young woman is plagued by a truly horrific perspiration problem
which constricts every area of her life and leads her to drastic measures in the effort to hide
her problem from others. In the middle of a party, following a number of embarrassing and
uncomfortable experiences, she breaks. As the narrator explains, "she couldn't hold it back
any longer." (This statement is accompanied by pictures of a great tide of water gushing
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through a dike). "Her function was not to confine or control water", continues the narrator.
"And that was her moment of clarity." Henceforth she accepts hersel f, enjoying li fe to the
fullest, and reliving all the former embarrassing moments as her new , free self. In the fin al
scene she walks hand in hand down the street with her "really cool girlfriend". Again, the
emphasis was not getting a girlfriend, but rather the fact that in being herself, she found
happiness. This film also offered a rare look into the reality of women's lives , and the reality
of women ' s armpits, as the young woman battles valiantly with the perspiration problem in a
number of distinctl y unglamourous ways , a refreshing contrast to the flawless beauties who
so often grace our television and movie screens.

Below the Belt opens on a scene in which two young women, Jill and Dona, are
sparring in a boxing ring, an activity that escalates into increasing violence as they argue
about Jill ' s experimental sex with a man . As they return home and begin to reconcile their
differences , the emphasis is on their love more than their gender: "Tis but thy sex that is my
enemy. Thou art Jill , though not a man . What is man ? Man is - blah . What is sex ? Jill , off
this label which is of no choice to thee, and take me." When they begin lovemaking onl y to
be interrupted by Jill ' s mother, who is unexpectedly home, and more unexpectedly, has been
in bed with a young colleague from work, the focus shifts to the relationship between mother
and daughter. Jill and her mother have both stepped outside the sociall y sanctioned sexual
norms , the mother by sleeping with a younger man while her husband is away (not because
she fell in love with the man , but simply because, she says , she "needed it" ), the daughter by
loving another woman . Discovering each other' s secret, the women first confront each other
but come to form a closer bond of acceptance and understanding. The story ends with the Jill
and Dona once again sparring, this time playfull y, in the boxing ring. Thi s exchange now
takes place on common ground, a gi ve and take in which neither dominates, or tries to ' win '.
65

While addressing censorship and intolerance, based in part upon the very real confli ct
between the Vancouver bookstore Little Sisters and Canada Customs, Anne Wheeler' s Berrer

Than Chocolate6 concerns the importance of accepting and being true to self.

7

As she herself

has said, "This is a film about censorship --not just of books , but of one ' s own emotional and
sexual self." 8 This is perhaps most poignantly portrayed through the transsexual Judy, for
whom the cost of being herself is huge. Not fully accepted in mainstream or gay society,
ultimately disowned by her parents, Judy does not conform but persists in establishing a li fe
which is meaningful to her.
All of the main characters travel this path in one way or another. Li!a, having
discovered her second husband' s long running infidelity, has left him. In a rather neat
reversal of the 'going home to mother' scenario, Lila goes home to her daughter, bringing her
son , Maggie ' s brother, with her. During a 'very liberating' introduction to sex toys, Lila,
who gave up opera because she "couldn ' t be the best", now sings, probably for the first time,
not for approval but for herself, expressing joy and delight. (For her, it is not a case of
finding the right man, but rather the right dildo) . Maggie, having left university and her
plans to be a lawyer to pursue a career as a writer, sleeps on a cot in the backroom of the
bookstore where she works, and has not 'come out ' to her family. As she has no home, and
her new lover Kim lives in a van, she must quickly secure a home before Lila and Paul's
arrival, a temporary sublet.
This film deftly handles scenes which might in other circumstances be potentially
exploitive. When Paul peeks through the curtain and di scovers Maggie and Kim making
love, he does not stay to watch . Surprised and amused, he returns to his bed-- thi s is
important. Had he stayed, if we saw the lovemaking through his eyes, the purpose of the
scene would then shift from their pleasure to the titillation of Paul, and the spectator.
66

Another example is Maggie's impassioned decision to chain herself to a pole, naked, in the
window of the bookstore. She clearly understands that while the media cannot be rallied for
justice, it will indeed take notice of spectacle. A scenario which has often been used for male
pleasure, woman displayed as an object of desire, is in this case a powerful and very
conscious decision by a woman who knows how to exploit the media to get their attention
and make a point.
It is interesting to note that most of the primary characters in this film are transient. It
is only Judy who seeks the traditional trappings of a cozy home and a beautiful wedding
(both envisioned and realized in shades of taupe and lime) and subsequent connubial bliss.
Lila finds redemption not in a third husband but in fulfilling her dream of being a singer.
Kim and Maggie go on the road together and Maggie succeeds in becoming a writer,
publishing a novel.
Patricia Rozema's When Night is Falling concerns the sexual awakening of Camille,
a conservative professor at a Christian college. While Martin, her lover and colleague,
lectures that society is tired of constant change and is looking for certainty and immutable
eternal truth, she is in the next room telling her class about transformation, the human need
for change, progress and movement. Her future seems set. As a "fine Christian woman" she
is being considered, with Martin , as joint-head of the college. Martin " loves her more than
anything" and wants to marry her, a personal but also politically advantageous decision for
him. Through the unexplainable death of her beloved dog, she begins a relationship with
Petra, a free spirit who performs in the bizarre Sirkus of Sorts . The chaotically creative
milieu of the Sirkus could not be a more complete contrast to the conservative environs of the
college, and Petra leads Camille into a growing consciousness of her own desires and
passions. After coming close to death, Camille abandons her old life, joining Petra and the
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circus as they travel to their next venue. As Camille and Petra are on the road, pouring over
maps, Camille's dog arises from his grave in the snow , resurrected to a chorus of hallelujah
as he bounds joyfully over the fields, a symbol of freedom. A subplot serves as a reminder
that this is Camille's personal journey. In a nice contrast, Tori, who dreams of conventional
suburban bliss, finally realizes her dreams by running away from the circus.
Set in New Delhi, Deepa Mehta's Fire concerns the transformation of two tradition al
wives, their relationship with cultural duties and personal needs. Radha has given herself to
a life of duty in a joint family, serving and obeying her husband, Ashok, caring for his
mother, and working tirelessly in the family business, a routine which is disrupted when her
husband's brother Jatin marries and brings the young Sita into the family . Both women are
neglected by their husbands. Ashok has chosen a spiritual life following Swamiji and his
only interest in Radha, other than her household duties, is to have her lie in his bed
occasionally in a humiliating ritual whereby he tests his spiritual devotion by seeing if he can
still master his desires. Jatin has married Sita to fulfill his duty to bring a "baby-making
machine" into the family although he is still in love with his Chinese mistress . The occasion
of sex, the first for Sita, is brief and brutal , after which Jatin rolls over to sleep as Sita scrubs
the sheet clean of the resulting blood. Although Radha has accepted the situation , it soon
becomes clear that Sita' s spirit is different. Left alone in her room while her husband rushes
to his mistress, she puts on his trousers , lets her hair loose and dances wildly while
pretending to smoke. She gradually begins to rebel against the expectations put upon her in
her new role, and encourages Radha to question and rebel , too. As she recovers her power,
Radha challenges her husband and begins to enjoy life, taking time away from her duties to
shop or dress up and dance with Sita. Friendship grows to love, and the women eventually
come together fulfilling each other' s needs for understanding, gentleness , sensuality and
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sexual fulfillment. When their secret relationship is discovered, they vow to leave together
and make a life somewhere else. Radha confronts her husband with this pl an. He is outraged
that she is not rather touching his feet and begging his forgiveness , and when her clothing
catches fire , and the fire quickly spreads, he saves his mother and deliberately leaves her to
the flames. Nature intercedes in the form of a torrential rainfall , and Rahda escapes safel y to
the meeting place where Sita has been waiting. Like the Sita of legend, which is reinforced
throughout the culture, and the film, by plays and movies, she has come through the trial by
fire and proven that she is pure, that she has not sinned; however, by her very nature she too
must be exiled anyway.
A salient feature of these films is the 'happy ending'. In all cases, the women
overcome whatever obstacles society or they themselves have erected, and are poised to
begin a new life together. Jean Bruce (1999), in her analysis of the film Forbidden Love
(1992) , finds that the "happy ending" , in which the protagonist "has not only survived but
will actually flourish" (285), is a deliberate contrast to the lesbian pulp fiction tradition and
its "often tragic narrative resolution" (ibid). These films also reflect such a " utopic revising".
Are these then an exception to the 'narrative opening' found in the other films ? Can
this be seen as a kind of gender-adjusted narrative closure? I would argue against this
conclusion. With the exception of Below the Belt and Dike, the women embarking on their
relationships and life together are homeless and rootless , on the road together to some kind of
different existence. While there is a sense of new beginnings, there is no culturally ingrained
pattern that suggests all is now settled as there is a learned deduction that heterosexual
marriage assumes a 'happily-ever-after' existence. How Radha and Sita will survive in a
culture which doesn ' t even have a word to acknowledge their relationship seems uncertain .
The Sirkus can , at best, provide a precarious future for Camille and Petra. Better Than
69

Chocolate seems to provide closure in its revelation at the end regarding the lives of the
people involved, but these are not as final as they seem. Carla and Paul ' s entry to a Tantri c
Cult, Lila's return to the stage, Maggie ' s first novel-- none suggest a completed circle but
rather invite the question "Then what?" Only Judy and Francis get married, but the very
unusual nature of the marriage guarantees this does not constitute the 'safe enclosure of the
nuclear family ' .
While all the films discussed so far can be seen to concern women ' s relationship with
themselves , several take this as their main focus , addressing women alone without reference
to romantic relationships. In Patricia Rozema' s I've Heard the Mermaids Singing , the
lesbian relationship between Gabrielle and Mary is not the focus of the story but peripheral to
it. The focus is on Polly, the insecure and 'organizationally challenged' Person Friday who
tells her story to a video camera. Living alone since her parents died, her few forays into
dating proving unsuccessful , she lives a mundane and solitary life made rich by her fantasies
and photography. Finally finding a position with Gabrielle, the sophisticated owner of an art
gallery who seems to be everything Polly dreams of being, she finds the courage to share her
photographs, only to have them brutally rejected, labelled "trite made flesh" and "simple
minded", the term that so devastated Gabrielle when applied to her own work. Soon after,
Polly discovers that her idol has achieved her newfound fame by, albeit reluctantly, taking
credit for her lover Mary ' s artwork. Outraged, Polly reaches out blindly and grasps the
closest thing, which happens to be a cup of hot tea, and flings it into Gabrielle ' s face. In the
ensuing video confession, Polly decides to leave before she is arrested or sued or "whatever
they do to criminals", yet reveals that her new status as criminal is surprisingly liberating.
Although she behaved badly, and may have severe consequences to face, she admits to the
camera that it felt good to act, to be powerful. "It' s this feeling ... like I'm out of breath or
70

something. It ' s a really wonderful feeling . I mean, I know I should feel guilty about it. But
it's a wonderful guilty." Polly explains her feeling by describing herself alone in the gallery
as the siren of an ambulance disappears into the distance. Suddenly she is confidently,
flamboyantly conducting a symphony orchestra. She is grandly, magnificently in charge.
Before she can leave, Gabrielle and Mary come to her to apologize, to speak to her on an
equal footing, and in the final scene she leads them into a surreal environment through the
door to her bathroom/darkroom. Instead of trying to fit into their world, she is now showing
them hers. Moving from a place of critiquing her art with the formal principles of artspeak
(which is parodied hilariously in the film), they can now see it and understand it for what it
is. The concept of narrative closure is disrupted most literally here, as the final scene of the
film is interspersed with the closing credits, going back and forth between the fantasy of the
story and the reality of getting it made.

Everything's Rosie, Roz McKittrick's first film , explores the awakening of a
housewife who discovers her husband's infidelity and ultimately discovers her self.
Aimlessly dreaming her way through her daily routines, most of which revolve around an
encompassing sensual relationship with food and with trying to please her disinterested
husband, Rosie is brought into shattering reality when she discovers her husband's affair.
She returns to the woman who loved her in her youth, although she did not at that time have
the courage to pursue the romance, only to find Lulu happily settled with another woman.
With nowhere else to turn , she drives her car into a lake and lets the water take her-- yet
something happens before she dies . As the car rolls into the lake, the people from her past
life are gathered to watch her, waving goodbye. In releasing them, she releases her old life
and is redeemed by this letting go. Suddenly, she is a beautiful , glittering figure , swimming
gracefully for an adoring crowd. Emerging from the lake which has become a graveyard for
71

her car and personal possessions, she is , in a sense, reborn . Sitting alone on the beac h as the
sun sets, she has chosen to survive, finding both peace and herself in the process. Letting go
of her old life, but not life itself, she is poised on a new beginning.

Bemice, another short film by Elizabeth Murray, is about a middle aged woman who
works in a flower shop, and her relationships with two older women : her aunt who is
growing old most painfully, resentfully and rigidly, taking no joy in life, and Betty, an agin g
former performer who still dances and teaches dance in her parlour. The eccentric and
brightly dressed Betty urges Bernice to dance, but she replies , "I was never one for dancing."
Bernice negotiates between the images of her brittle, colourless aunt and the vibrant Betty as
she does between the dead petals washing down the drain in her shop and the living flowers
she brings to both older women . While visiting her aunt in the hospital room, Bernice
whistles the tune she has heard in Betty's parlour, when Betty danced for her. Her aunt says,
"I know that tune . I danced to that tune." For the first time she is happy, and expresses
appreciation for the beauty of the flowers Bernice has brought. Close to death , she has come
to learn what Betty has known all along-- it' s the flowers and dancing that make life worth
living. Later, standing alone in Betty's hall after Betty has left her with the promi se that
"next time you come we shall start your lessons", Bernice tentativel y, with a kind of timid
joy, tries a few dance steps. Rather than finding her voice at the climax , she finds her ability
to dance, to live life and express herself. She has decided that it is not too late to open herself
to new possibilities.
Flying, Sandy Tait ' s student film , centers around Karen , a woman in her 40s who has

carved out a successful career as a daring photojournalist. Suddenly, upon the death of her
grandmother, she is struck with a debilitating fear of heights which threatens to end her
career just as she is offered the story of a lifetime -- "I want that story" , she tells her
72

therapist. "My entire career has been leading up to that story." With the guidance of the
very young Dr. McKenzie, Karen examines her childhood and the mystery surrounding her
sister who died at the age of three, remembering at last the horrible family secret which has
been buried in her subconscious. At the end of the film, she stands strongly and surely
perched on the edge of a rocky crag high above the ocean, arms outstretched. Whether she
has conquered her acrophobia and stands triumphant, or whether she has decided to resolve
her life by flying off the same cliff as her sister did so many years before, is not clear. In
either case, she has chosen to free herself, as the bird circling in the final scene suggests .

Killing Time, written by Tanya Henley and Paula Tiberius and directed by Paula
Tiberius, takes us through a day in the life of a woman , Kate, who is suddenly left homeless
and possessionless, except for a lamp and the pyjamas she was wearing when her apartment
building burned down . After a number of solicitous but nevertheless unhelpful encounters
with her eccentric friends , and with a homeless man who assures her that she doesn't need
anything more than she has in the present moment, she sits alone on a park bench, the clothes
she has just bought in a bag on her lap. Questions raised throughout the film -- "Are you
going to stand there all day?" "Are you going to sit there all day?" -- underscore the
definitive and more esoteric question . Where is she going?
Karen Yarosky's Feeding the Set: Murmurings of a Craft Service Girl is a light
hearted romp through the very trying day of a woman living alone and making a Jiving as the
craft service girl on the set of a pineapple commercial. The unusual perspective, from the
view of the least powerful person on the set, offers many pointed observations about gender
relations. While the male director is a prima donna insultingly concerned with the weight of
his star, it is the efficient female assistant director who handles everything and gets the job
done . Surviving a horrendous day, the craft service girl arrives home and collapses on her
73

floor, only to hear on her answering machine that they want her to "do it again". Such
unglamorous service industry jobs are real life for many women. Like them, her life will not
be transformed by a Hollywood miracle. It ' s up to her. Will she continue or will she change
her life?
Jade ' s opening monologue in Mina Shum' s Double Happiness prepares the viewer
for the fact that they will be seeing something different as she tells them about her famil y:
"Just forget that they' re a Chinese family . Just think of them as any old family-- any old,
you know , white family ... although you could probably just turn on a TV set and see that. "
The film offers insight into a Chinese Canadian family, the tensions between the old and new
traditions, the frustrations of being a talented actor who is continually typecast, and the
assumptions both cultures make about one another, but it is mainl y the story of a young
woman deciding to follow her heart and pursue her dream at all costs. When her friend asks
"what do you want?" she replies that she wants to win an Academy Award, to pursue her
chosen career and be respected and acknowledged for it. She does begin a relationship with
a man, but it is incidental to her goals for herself, and is more a symbol of following her own ,
rather than her family ' s, aspirations . She has safety, security and love in the family , but also
suffocating restrictions . When Jade has finally, painfully, come to the decision to strike out
on her own , even though it means being disowned as was her brother before her, Jade's
mother says tearfull y "Now , who knows what will happen"? Jade replies, "Maybe I like not
knowing. " The viewer, looking at her through the window of her new apartment, is closed
out as she hangs up her new 'movie star' curtain and claims her space and her life. As Kass
Banning (1999) has noted, the use of scenes where individual family members address the
camera directly to tell stories from their own lives disrupts the assumption that thi s somehow

74

represents an essential Chinese-Canadian experience, allowing each one to be seen as a
person affected by her or his personal history .
The narrator of Christene Browne's Another Planet is Cassandra, a feisty and
imaginative young black woman living in a low-income area of Toronto, and inspired by a
film featuring African Princess and revolutionary, Princess Dior. She is ever after obsessed
with connecting with her African roots (although her mother points out that she is from the
West Indies). The film opens with God, a "Majestic Black Woman" walking down a road
into the camera. Cassandra's world is tougher than those portrayed in the other films here.
Mary, her mother, is on welfare, continually praying to a cardboard cut-out of Jesus that she
will win the lottery, and her brother Patrick is into drugs and other criminal activity. We are
plunged very quickly from a humorous consideration of Cassandra formulating "resolutions"
to guide her life ("Resolution Number Two -- NEVER eat brown stuff from the fridge EVER
AGAIN"), to a heart-wrenching scene where Cassandra and her mother learn that Patrick has
been shot, to a warm family celebration in the hospital to celebrate his recovery and
Cassandra's acceptance into an exchange program which will take her first to a pig farm in
Quebec and then to Africa. Disappointed and resentful of the chauvinistic farmer and the
sheer hard work on the farm, she waits for her counterpart in the exchange program, sure that
he will be her "African Prince", her "saviour". He does not live up to these expectations
when he arrives. Instead, he is as chauvinistic as the farmer, Luc, but she adjusts her
expectations to see him still as a "tutor" into African ways , and indeed they become tutors for
each other. Dreaming of leading revolution in Africa, Cassandra leads one on the pig farm ,
going on strike and taking Luc's wife Sylvie and Jean, the couple's son, with her. Her
revolution does serve to raise consciousness and bring about changes for all of them . This is
a story that challenges assumptions at every tum . God is a black woman; the government
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agent's black wife, appearing to Cassandra as a real African Princess, was born and raised in
France and, as the agent tells Luc , is "more French than we are"; Diallo thought there were
no black Canadians; Sylvie, the repressed housewife, has travelled extensively, living in
Africa and China, and has a very deep understanding of the world, which she is delighted to
share now that someone is willing to listen to her; Luc , the patriarchal and crude pig farmer,
is deeply concerned when Cassandra becomes lost and delights in playing his saxophone
while the others dance. 9 The conclusion is shocking and fatalistic. Having finally won the
lottery and looking forward to a better life, Mary and Patrick are killed in a car accident on
the way to see Cassandra before she leaves for Africa. Devastated, Cassandra runs into the
hills where she is comforted by God. We last see her in Africa (real or imaginary is unclear)
dressed as her "hero" Princess Dior, calmly accepting the transition from life to death -- now
it is that land, the land beyond death, that she wants to find, but she cannot. In the end, she is
resolutely in control of the story, summarily dismissing the viewers when she wants it to end,
much as does Polly when she turns off the camera at the end of I've Heard the Mermaids

Singing. She lifts a rifle, points it at the camera, and shoots the screen into a blackout upon
which the credits run . The spectre of death represented in the person of the mythological
Moko Jumbie, who has maintained a persistent presence throughout the film , returns in the
final scene. Walking down a road on his stilts, moving further and further away from the
camera, he is a reminder that all life is transitory, yet in his fast-action retreat he is more a
figure of comedy than tragedy.
As Graeme Turner (1991) has suggested, in the narratives and meanings of film "we
can locate evidence of the ways in which our culture makes sense of itself' (xiv-xv). What
then might this montage of cultural artifacts, Lucy Fischer's "collision of films", reveal about
women in this culture at this time-- their real or possible lives ? By their very existence,
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considering the talent, time, money, persistence, dedication and just plain grit necessary to
get them made at all, they testify to the importance of women and the value of their stori es.
Clearly, these films, employing a realist narrative form, do offer counter narratives -a 'contending vision', or more correctly 'contending visions' --to stories of women which
are informed by a conscious or unconscious patriarchal sensibility. These films present the
stories of women of varying ages , body types, ethnicities and appearances --a much wider
examination of real women than mainstream cinema offers. Many make reference to the
power women find in the courage to pursue art, whether through music , dance, and literary or
visual art forms. Several , including Better Than Chocolate, Camilla, and Mermaids , directly
address the theme that it is not important that a woman 's self expression through art is
deemed successful by outside authorities, but that she do it for herself, to realize her own
dreams and desires. The focus is often upon friendship and love between, or among, women ,·
with no competition between women for a man or for anything else. Whatever the
relationships explored in the films , it is the relationship to self that most surely forms their
core.
Contrary to most big budget mainstream film and, it must be said, independent film
informed by conscious or unconscious patriarchal values, not one of these women was
redeemed by the 'love of a good man '. Where sexual pleasure was sought and found, it was
never associated with the supposed symbol of woman's pleasure-- the penis. Quite the
contrary. In a discussion encompassing both Off Key and Kissed, Lee Parpart (1999)
addresses theory that suggests that 'dominant' culture is protected by keeping the penis
hidden, thus preserving a kind of mystical phallic power that is not challenged by the
physical presence. She says:

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If Lehman is correct about dominant representations of phallic masculinity
needing to keep the male body and particularly the genitals out of sight, then it
is worth considering what motives or possibilities might exist for revealing
the male body from the feminist margins of an already industri all y
marginalized national cinema such as that of English Canada. Could there be
something about the 'Canadianness' of English-Canadian feminist film , in
other words, that is especially conducive to foregrounding the vulnerable,
mutable foundations of phallic authority? (.255 )
Certainly, as her analysis suggests, both films serve to reveal , thus demystify, both physical
and esoteric manifestations of the phallus. Indeed, phallic authority is either absent or
resolutely challenged in all of the films .
To revisit the topic of narrative closure, Robert Cagle (1999) is yet another researcher
to note the ideology implicit in this device :
The classical Hollywood film usually ends with the resolution of some
narrative conflict that results in characters being put into their 'proper' (i.e.
culturally defined as normal) places. Indeed, most Hollywood films end with
the pairing of male and female characters after each has taken on traditionally
established 'masculine ' and 'feminine ' traits, respectivel y. (188)
This classic formula cannot be found in even one of the films under discussion here . The
women in these stories are concerned, not with finding a mate, but with finding their way.
Far from settling into conventional roles, most are poised on the edge of the unknown or
embarking on a quest for something more. 10 If women are traditionally linked to 'hearth and
home ', it is interesting to note that many of these women , by the end of the films, have
neither.
Where male/female relationships do prevail, such as in Bye Bye Blues and Camilla , the
success is rather dependent upon the women discovering their strength and the men
becoming more open and recepti ve.
What does this narrative opening suggest? It may serve as a reminder that the story is
still going on . The ambiguity at the end of many of these films may be seen to suggest the

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ambiguity facing women in this sociohistorical moment. Where progress as marked in
increased awareness of inequalities and growing choices and opportunities for women must
be measured against a political move to the right, social backlash, and the rise of
transnational capitalism, the consequences for women are uncertain . The future is much less
assured than that offered by traditional cultural myths about marriage, but, to paraphrase
Jade, maybe we like not knowing. Not knowing is perhaps preferable to the security of a
designated and confining place.
While women ' s positions may seem precarious, these films suggest that women
remain hopeful. Interviewing Mehta Deepa in 1993, Janis Cole and Holly Dale remark that
her films "often reflect a sense of optimism within realism"(138) . This is a phrase which
may readily be applied to all of the films under consideration here. If these stories are indeed
informed by a sense of 'optimism within realism ', this is no weakness, no case of denial
hidden by rose coloured glasses. The scenarios they present are perhaps not always probable,
but they are certainly possible. 'Optimism within realism ' is a phrase which could be applied
to the feminist project itself, for surely feminism is an exercise in imagining possibilities
while immersed in realities .
These findings would be interesting enough if these films had been searched out and
selected as examples of particular elements. The fact that instead they have emerged in what
is very close to a survey of fictional narrative feature films made by Canadian women about
women between 1985 and 1999 and all such short films shown over a three month period,
representing the work of twenty seven filmmakers, is even more telling. And here there is
need for caution . This is where the analysis could falter, should the temptation arise to thus
ascribe these features to the essential nature of 'woman ' or of ' women's shared experience ' .
Not all women, or all Canadian women, make these kinds of films. 11 It is preferable to
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examine them for what they suggest about what is going on for some women in this society
at this point in time. While I have noted the connection to folklore studies and a history of
women's storytelling, an area which invites further study, this is not to ascribe a biological
component or an essentialized and false 'shared experience' to these similarities, but rather
may suggest a sociological-historical similarity in the position of women in their cultures and
how their stories reflect or rebel against that position and work to express their experiences
and identities. Elizabeth Traube (1992) examines movies in an attempt to "map the resources
that are provided ... for reinventing gender identities in daily life"(24). This concept may be
useful here. This study does not represent an effort to create a new canon or to designate
ideal images of what a 'women's film' should be, but to map the resources these films may
offer to think differently about women's lives.

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Chapter Three
Women Watching Women: The Viewers
"I don't usually go to movies to escape ... I go to get something."

Suzanna Walters (1995 ) traces the history of research concerning viewers , beginning
with the early conservative quantitative approach with its simplistic tendenc y to count and
categorize, through the more sophisticated psychoanalytic and semiotic analyses , which
focus upon the text itself which is seen to 'position ' an implied spectator in a subconscious,
deterministic manner, to more recent sociological and anthropological perspecti ves and
methodologies which concern themselves with the processes of viewing and the "complex
histories, knowledges, and interpretive skills that are brought into play as we engage with
particular kinds of images" (104) . In both the quantitative and psychoanalytic-semiotic
approaches, viewers are seen as passive-- as 'empty vessels' waiting to be filled in the
former, as theoretical 'spectator positions' in the latter. Christine Gledhill (1988), while
acknowledging that psychoanalytic analyses have provided an explanation for the
"alternative misogyny and idealization" of cinematic representations of women, points out
that they offer no positive consideration of women viewers, offering only "colonized,
alienated or masochistic positions of identification" (66). As E . Deidre Pribram (1988) notes,
"psychoanalytic-semiotic theories do not distinguish the subject formulated by the text from
the spectator-subject viewing the text. The intention of the text and the reception of textual
meaning are defined as one and the same" (4). Such an approach , wherein the supposed, to
use Elizabeth Traube's (1992) term, "ideological potency" of films is seen to be inalterably
imbedded in their formal 'codes ', does not concern itself with real women and their reception

81

of films because they are seen as powerless constructions of the text and its presentation .
One does not investigate a question when one believes it has alread y been answered.
E. Deidre Pribram (1988) reviews the work of a number of feminist film critics wh o
are moving away from this theoretical paradigm and its accompanying "' unproven '
assumption that female spectators exist as subjects"; she concludes that "cultural analysi s
from a feminist perspective yields greater benefits for women when we attempt to reconcile
women's lived experiences with their 'cinematic' experiences" (11 ). Here, in the realm
where women ' s lived experiences and their perception of films meets , resides the research
which interests me the most, which addresses the complex and contradictory processes of
viewing and thus offers, I believe, the most practical implications and applications. It is a
challenging realm. Janet Staiger (1994) explores its intricacies:
my notion of the reader is that her response is a complex combination of
differences, including how she chooses to use a text in relation to notions of
reality. We do treat 'art' differently than we treat reality. Yet, as with art, we
experience and interpret everyday events. We use both types of experiences
and interpretations in a process of continual adjustment and change.
Furthermore, in order to make an art object meaningful , we employ (through
comparison and contrast) our sense of reality. Perhaps we can never fully put
our experience of art work into a (coded) response, but, then, our cognitive
comprehension of our experiences of reality is as incomplete. (205 )
As her discussion suggests, this approach is unlikely to offer definitive conclusions . While
analyses which focus upon the text and address the viewer only as an 'implied subject' or
'position ' may allow for the development of smooth arguments and well-ordered
conclusions, the introduction of real voices disrupts an esoteric and erudite discourse in , I
think, the best possible way. Talking to these women about film continuall y opened my
study to new possibilities, took it in directions I never would have considered, and kept thi s
project grounded in 'the real '.

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My intention in bringing real viewers into the discussion was to gain qualitative, not
quantitative, information, thus my recruitment of participants was fairly simple. I asked
some women I know if they would like to participate and they in tum suggested other women
who might be interested. Seven women participated in all , five in the Okanagan Valle y, one
in Victoria, one in Toronto. All are in their mid-forties to fifties. Three are married, three
divorced and currently on their own, one is single but in a committed relationship. Six of the
seven have children . Six participated by watching at least some of the films discussed above ,
while one, who was also interviewed in relation to her role in Everything's Rosie, did not
watch these films but discussed her experiences as a viewer in general. I conducted three
personal, taped interviews, and one telephone interview with participants; the remaining
three participants responded in writing, either through email or letters. The personal
interviews proved very useful in that the exchange of ideas sparked new insights, and the
ways in which these women continued to think about the films after seeing them was
illuminated to a great extent. The written responses were also effective, in that they allowed
the viewers to explore and consider their responses with no interference. The telephone
interview was the least effective method used, as I was not able to tape it and ended with
pages of notes in which the only direct quotes I was able to record were words or short
phrases. As I wrote about this woman ' s experiences, I felt uncomfortable in that I seemed to
be 'speaking for' her as I filled in the gaps .
While I had some questions and indicated areas of interest, I encouraged the
participants to guide the research by watching the movies they wanted to (or could gain
access to) and by talking about whatever they chose. Gaining access proved to be a salient
consideration. Several viewers reported that finding the films was a challenge. One woman ,
calling the video outlets in her city, said that "[v]irtually all of [the stores] made comments
83

such as: 'we don ' t have many foreign films', or when I explained that all ... were Canadian,
'Well , we don't carry obscure films' ." 1
Each participant filled out a brief survey to determine her familiarity with the subject
matter of the study. Results demonstrated very little awareness of the films, and even Jess of
the filmmakers. Three of the participants knew of some of these films as a result of a
conscious decision to go beyond Hollywood fare and search out foreign and Canadian films.
The others did not recognize the films . However, often they remembered that they had seen
some of them, usually on television, as I began to describe them. Most did not know the
filmmakers names, but indicated that they didn't know any filmmakers names, beyond 'star'
directors like Stephen Speilberg or, in Canada, Atom Egoyan. 2 As one woman put it, after
realizing that she had indeed seen several of the films, "So I've heard of Anne Wheeler, then,
but I didn't know it. " 3
For one viewer the very concept of filmmaker was not clear.
What is a filmmaker? I mean, the opening credits name the executive,
associate and co-producers, the director, the major actors, the director of
photography, the writer, sometimes the costume designer, the music
composer, the editors. But where is the 'filmmaker'? There are no Oscars for
Best Filmmaker. (Notice I use Oscars --I don't even know the Canadian
equivalent. ... is it Genies?) How does one know? 4
Her very perceptive comment served as a reminder to me to define more carefully the terms I
was using and explain how I was using them, to avoid the assumption that "everyone knows"
a particular term.
A word about that special class of viewers known as critics is needed. An
examination of the reviews of these films constitutes a study in itself, one which reveals both
latent and blatant ideology concerning gender, class, ethnicity, Canadian - American
relations 5 , and what constitutes a "good" film. While I cannot address all of this here, I will

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make the point that viewing is clearly a subjective experience. If there were some 'artistic
standard' one would expect to find at least a number of similar assessments of the films, but
there is almost no agreement. Thus we read that Better Than Chocolate is "smart" and
"funny" 6 as well as "clumsy" and "not very funny." 7 As another example, Double Happin ess
is both "beautifully acted" 8 and "filled with amateur acting" 9 ; it "doesn't add up to much" 10
and is "actually about something which has substance in our multicultural country." 11 For
every opinion offered, its opposite can be found if one searches long enough. After reading a
large number of reviews in succession, I conclude that reviews reveal more about the
reviewer and her or his worldview than they do about the films that they purport to explain .
Still, the matter of their influence requires further study. One viewer, commenting on
a negative review of Camilla, a review she did not agree with, stated ''I'm glad I didn't read
him before I watched the film. I knew nothing about it so had no expectations." 12 This tacit
admission that the review may have altered her experience of the film suggests that the place
of critics in the complex culture of watching films cannot be overlooked.
As it is permissible, even desirable, in feminist research to reflect upon one's own
experience, I present my self as the first viewer from whom I learned much about the
complexities of this behaviour. Like most Canadians, while watching film and television has
constituted a fairly significant area of activity in my life, I had never been particularly selfreflexive about the process until this study focused my attention upon it. It is impossible to
deny the emotive quality in watching films. Repeatedly, when I returned to a film to confirm
a particular action or quote, I would get drawn in again and watch for the sheer pleasure of it.
Viewing is a multiple layered experience, and my own notes taken while watching the films
display an interesting juxtaposition of responses. To take one example from Double

Happiness , interspersed on the page are diverse observations regarding a scene where Jade
85

throws off her coat and runs as fast and as hard as she can, screaming and crying, and its
aftermath :
[analytical response] "While the theme is far reaching, it is more intense given
the multicultural context. She can no longer take the tension between trying
to meet her family ' s needs and expectations and her own."
[emotional response] "My heart is beating faster, I'm running with her. I
know what it's like to ignite because I can no longer bear suppressing who I
really am."
[psychological/social response, looking to the character as a model of
empowerment] "I am empowered with Jade when she makes the move to do
what she has to do, even though it upsets her family , even though it ' s hard.
And that makes me feel like I can do it too."
This kind of multi-faceted response was typical of the women who participated in this study.
The film which elicited the greatest response, for the reason that four of the
participants chose to watch and comment on it, was I've Heard the Mermaids Singing. A
viewer who thought Mermaids was "wonderful" suggested that the reason a film such as thi s
is not a commercial success is that it doesn ' t conform to the simplified formula which people
are usually "fed" . It doesn ' t offer a lot of action or any pat answers and the heroine is not the
"typical Bay Watch" woman with nice hair and lots of makeup. For herself, she found the
main character, Polly, to be complex and interesting-- "nai've, innocent and perhaps not very
intelligent", yet with a "curious mind". 13
Two others commented positivel y on this character and her development, at the same
time acknowledging the work of the actress who played Polly. One woman writes :
I loved Sheila McCarthy' s performance. She was so engaging, wistful and
kind . ... Polly' s genuine goodness and Jack of guile or pretension was at the
heart of her character. 14
This viewer noted the development of Polly' s character in fairl y conservative terms:

86

I ... felt that [Polly] grew during the course of her relationship with the
curator. She became more self-assured and confident. She started to
recognise more about herself and her desires .
Another describes her relationship with the character in the following terms:
[a]t the outset I was immediatel y engaged with the main actress ... . . Her
quirky manner and sense of timing was so natural , so unself-consciousl y selfconscious, that I instantly suspended my disbelief, and believed completel y in
her.I 5
For this participant, the climax where Polly throws the tea in the curator' s face represents
"her dawn of self-realization", after which her transformation is significant: "[s]he suspects
she is as good as/ better than the curator. She is independent of the opinion and judgement of
others."
The fourth viewer had quite a different response:
I didn ' t find anyone particularly likeable. I didn ' t particularly like Poll y, you
know. She ' s not somebody that I would be interested in spending time with. 16
This woman saw little or no character development at all : "I don ' t even get the sense at the
end that she was an y further ahead. Not reall y." While she admitted there were "subtle
changes", she felt that Polly ' s defiant climactic act was not the sign of a transformation, but
an impulsive act after which Polly more or less reverted to type, continuing to seek
empowerment from outside of herself even at the end of the film : "in a sense she was being

given some of that power back. It ' s not like she found it. I mean, it was there all along and
these people I suppose were just finally acknowledging it, but I still didn ' t get a sense that
she had internalized [it]."
These four women commented upon the fantasy scenes, where Poll y imagined herself
as confident and sophisticated, from differing perspecti ves. The first took a professional
interest in these scenes. As a therapist, she looked at them as a realistic and therefore
interesting portrayal of how thi s woman , through her photography, found a way to cope with
87

her loneliness. The second viewer made a more personal connection to this aspect of the
film : "I can relate to that because it makes me think of all the 'rehearsal' inner talks I have
that eventually become an external part of me. It's like trying on the roles to see if they fit."
The third looked at these "monochrome escapist sequences" analytically,relating the formal
techniques used in the film to the story being told:
[t]his framework was successful in creating a character one-step-removed
from the 'real' world .... It lent itself well to the flights of fantasy/ dream
sequences which compensated for her self-assessment as "unsuccessful".
For the fourth viewer, these sequences represented isolated and frustrating anomalies in the
story. About the falling/flying scene, she says, "I don't quite know what she was climbing
that building for. See, some of these things didn't make sense. That didn't make sense."
She compared this experience to a film she had recently seen and enjoyed, Crouching Tiger,

Hidden Dragon, in which she had connected very strongly to the flying sequences, mainly
because they were presented in a believable manner as part of the special martial arts training
the characters had mastered. Having taken martial arts training herself, she was willing to
suspend her disbelief and thoroughly enjoy the scenes where "they're literally leaping and
flying from building to building and tree to tree." In the context of Memwids, although she
understood the scenes were symbolic in some way, she was unable to relate them to the story
in a manner which was meaningful to her: "I just couldn't put it all together. ... each scene
seemed to be disconnected."
Making a personal connection to the story seems to be an important consideration in
the enjoyment of a film. One participant commented on the way in which her enjoyment of a
scene was directly related to an important moment in her own life. She explained that she
was particularly "charmed" by the scene where Polly conducts a symphony orchestra,
because it connected strongly with a fond memory from her own life, when her daughters ,
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having seen and loved Amadeus, would jump on the couch conducting imaginary
orchestras. 17
Two viewers commented on the ways in which the film presented a somewhat
different perspective on love between women. One viewer appreciated the way in which the
film did not focus on the lesbian relationship as something "special", but rather just presented
it as a natural part of life. 18 Another remarked on Polly's relationship with the curator:
[a]nother thing I thought about this morning, regarding Mermaids , was how
Polly fell "in love" with the curator but didn't sexualise it or label it-- it was
just love, for the person, regardless of gender. ... I like that because it allows
for us to be more open about loving, and gives us an infinitely bigger world of
people who we can love. 19
These two viewers had no problems ' getting into' the film, but for one participant,
appreciating the film required a special effort:
[t]his film did not impress me the first time I watched it-- I couldn ' t figure out
what it was trying to say. On second viewing the next day, knowing I had to
comment on it, it was like studying a good piece of literature. The film drew
me in and I appreciated all kinds of things that I didn't 'get' on the first
.
.
20
vtewmg.
While she ultimately found the film worth the effort, another viewer, who was not 'drawn in '
but rather felt closed out by the film, admitted that a second viewing might change her
experience, but she didn't feel there was any reason to do so: "I would have no interest in
watching it again ... because there was nothing in it that made me feel like I needed to spend
more time with that movie."

21

The missing ingredient, as compared to her experiences with

films she would like to revisit, can perhaps be understood with respect to the complex nature
of pleasure.
While the concept of 'pleasure' for women in the cinematic context of fictional
narrative film is suspect in the contemporary feminist film theoretical view, Florence
Jacobowitz (1986) finds it to be an important consideration : " [i]n terms of the cinema one
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might ask, how does the female spectator achieve pleasure?"(26). It is clear that the women
in this study do gain a great deal of pleasure through watching films . It is equally clear that
the pleasure, whether emotional or intellectual, is achieved and interpreted differently-- an
individual thing.
Even among viewers who enjoyed a film , there are differences in those aspects which
they found pleasing. One viewer's only objection to Mermaids concerned scenes which
"dragged a little - mostly the ones that were scanning scenery.'.n She related this disinterest
to her attraction to character and story over more esoteric themes: "[m]aybe I just didn ' t get
the imagery or symbolism but I found it took me out of the story and I was always anxious to
get back to the characters ." For another viewer, this very aspect of the film was a source of
pleasure: " [t]he camera panning over the urban landscape, overlapped with [Polly' s] still
camera shots caught my attention -- the part of me that likes visual artistry.' m
Similarly, while one simply did not like the depictions of the pretentious "art scene",
declaring it to be "a whole world that I just couldn ' t connect to"

24

, for another this was a

source of pleasure and insight:
I enjoyed the dialogue between the curator and Clive ... as they critiqued in
esoteric terms the work of another artist. It was a great send-up of how
seriousl y artists (wine connoisseurs, gourmands , critics in any rarefied field )
take themselves . .. . But here ' s the kicker, the iron y: that's what I'm doing
right now-- judging, analyzing, dissecting, critiquing.(" ... and the beat goes
on " ) .25
The intellectual nature of the film was itself at the root of the first viewer' s dislike of
the film as a whole: " [m]aybe that was the problem, is the writer and the director were being
as pretentious as the characters in the movie . ... it's an artsy intellectual film. " For the other,
this very essence was the basis of her delight in the film. For her, the label "artsy
intellectual" is perceived as a positive statement:

90

[i]n conclusion my assessment is that this is not a movie of general appeal.
This is a movie for film connoisseurs who want to delve, analyze, search and
reflect. For people like me who like the challenge of discussion and critique
when there ' s something of substance to be found.
This distinction can be further illustrated through an examination of the responses to
the title I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, a subject of significant interest to three of the
viewers. One, saying she thinks titles are important and that she is often drawn to films by
their titles, could not make sense of this one and asked what it meant. Upon hearing that it is
taken from T . S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which I described as "one of
those long, modernist poems about a guy who just doesn't fit into society", and that the full
quotation is "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each/ I do not think that they will
sing to me", the whole film took on a new perspective for her. She had not particularly
enjoyed it and had not understood many aspects of the movie, but says "if I'd known that in
the first place maybe I would have looked at the movie a little more from Polly 's perspective,
a little bit deeper into her stuff." 26 While she was rather annoyed that the meaning of the title
had not been made clear, another viewer was simply puzzled:
I've always looked to titles as the nutshell , the core, of what the author is
trying to say. I'm usually very good at seeing why an author (filmmaker)
chose a title, but in this case it was just too oblique, in fact, opaque. Yes ,
there are the beautiful female voices singing in the fantasy/ dream sequences,
but ... so? Why mermaids? Would angels have worked as well, or fairies ? Or
"Myself' singing? The mermaids bit escapes me entirely. 27
For yet another, contemplation of the elusive title was a source of pleasure. 28 She related it
to the Ulysses legend, and thought that one interpretation was that Polly was lured into her
hero worship of the curator only, like the sailors lured by the calls of the sirens, to crash upon
the rocks. Alternatively, she felt that the story was a kind of siren voice luring the viewer.
As well as offering clues to the different perceptions of pleasure, these discussions suggest
that understanding the story, identifying a meaningful theme, is an important part of viewing,
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for some women at least. As one viewer insisted, "there ' s got to be a thread that pulls it all
toget her.

, 29

This thread or theme, for most participants, must offer more than sheer entertainment
--as the above viewer remarked, "something of substance". While there may be an escapi st
component to the pleasure and satisfaction to be found in watching films , this is not enough :
Often I'm tired of the crazy world I live in and I just want to escape, quit
thinking of my problems for a while. I want to be entertained, but I want the
message, too. I feel more fulfilled, like I've accomplished something bigger
in my loafing around. And if there is no message, if it doesn ' t leave me
thinking, I feel cheated of my time and my money and consequently would
not call it a good movie or film. 30
I'm appreciative of movies with substance, something to reflect on , a
'message ' if you like, or a character that changes and grows as a result of
experience, movies that provoke one to mourn the human condition and to
rejoice in the human condition . Something that gets to my gut or my soul. 3 1
It can be an escape. Sure it can be. I don't usually go to movies to escape
though , I usually go to get something from them.32
One viewer reported that her film viewing has "evolved" as she has gotten older. While as a
"wildly busy" working wife and mother, she turned to films in order to be entertained, to
"take stress off', now that she is newl y retired she wants "more challenge". She looks for
films that make her think, where visions from the film remain with her months after.
Regarding characters in films that have had this kind of impact on her, she says "those people
are still in my head." 33
For the two participants who watched Double Happiness for this study, thi s kind of
connection with the characters was a prevalent aspect of their response to the film :
this was a film about people, and their complexities. We saw so man y sides
of them ... I cared about the people, about Jade and her family. 34
I usually identify with a character. In this movie I identified with everybody .
. . . You could understand each one of them. 35

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Interestingly, although these viewers had had completely different reactions to I' ve Heard the
Mennaids Singing, they described their responses to this film in similar, sometimes almost
identical terms. This observation demonstrates that many factors influence the viewing
experience, that there can be no simplistic shuffling of viewers into "types" of people who
like "types" of films .
The first participant writes, "I ... really, really loved it. It is so nice to watch a film
where there are no 'bad guys' and where people care deeply about each other, even if they
disagree with each other." The other viewer, who said she "loved it. Absolutely!" also made
the observation that "you didn ' t have that good versus evil type of dichotomy going on":
[w]ell, you could think of the father as being a bad guy because he was so
stubborn, but at the same time you can sort of understand where that's coming
from and how difficult it is for both him and the mother to change.
Both viewers commented positively on the device of inserting into the story scenes where
each member of the family told their story to the camera, thus directly to the audience, and
felt this was one of the reasons they were able to relate to each character so completely. As
one said, "[i]t made them fuller, richer, more real, and also easier to empathise with." 36
Their strong emotional connections with characters in the film was evident
throughout their analyses . Both commented on the tragic story the mother told of a formative
experience in her young life: "Her story about the mute woman from her childhood was like
a morality tale. It was painful to hear and what a scar it would leave." 37 Said the other, "she
told that incredibly poignant story ... and you could see her pain ." 38
Both appreciated the close relationship between Jade and her younger sister, and
contemplated the inner life of the young Pearl as if she was an acquaintance:
Remember the scene after Jade says she is going to move out? One by one
everyone leaves the table and Pearl is left, sitting alone. I wonder what was

93

going on in her mind. I expect she felt very lost and a little afraid. I know she
will miss her sister. 39
You could really feel her pain when her sister left and the hole that was left
for her because now she was left to deal with her father and her mother
40
without that strong older sister.
Both negotiated easily back and forth between this kind of intense relationship with the
fictional characters, the fictional 'reality' of the film, and the outer reality of the processes of
filmmaking. One drew a parallel between the technique used by the filmmaker and its
effects:
I wonder if it's a woman thing, but I noticed that this movie and Mermaids
both use the technique of having characters talk to the camera. Do you
suppose it is to create a sense of intimacy, to draw us into the relationship
more? 41
She also analyzed the effects in terms of the relationship between the main actress and the
audience: "I think Sandra Oh was brilliant in the role and that many women, of all races and
cultures, could relate to her feelings and struggles."
The other viewer speculated on the environment on the set:
they must have had a ball making that film. And I think you see that, and that
is a gift in a sense to the audience because you're drawn into the joy that they
seem to be having. Like when ... they're looking at the camera and they're all
waving . ... can you imagine just doing that? The camera's just at them ,
there's nothing else going on. You know that. It's all staged but ... you got
42
part of the fun there.
She also distinguished between what may have been present in the film and what she was
reading into it from her own experience. Talking about the final scene and a kind of sadness
she was feeling for Jade, she says "I don't think she had the pain that I was projecting on
her... I think there's always that emptiness, feeling of loss in my life, and I was projecting it
on her. I don't think she felt that."

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While the story ends with Jade being disowned by her father and banished from the
family, as was her brother before her, both viewers saw a more optimistic outcome for the
family than that which the film suggested. One woman concluded that "I think they will be
okay .... It just might take some time." 43 The other said about the "whole disowning thing",
"I don't think it would have happened in this family, I really don't, because the love there
was so incredibly strong." 44
What is interesting here is the manner in which each of the viewers projected beyond
the ending of the film to speculate on what may have happened afterwards. As Christine
Gledhill (1988) has observed, while theorizing can be presented in neat packages, viewing
films is a complex experience not as easily understood: "[t]he notion that the last word of the
text is also the final memory of the audience ... derives more from the exigencies of the
critical essay than from the experience of films, which has no such neat boundaries"(73).
Several of the women I talked to continued to process their interpretations of and responses
to the films as the discussion progressed. In fact a sense of 'narrative opening' analogous to
that seen in the films is very much in evidence in the participants' stories about their
experience of the films.
One viewer, still working to understand the ending of Mermaids, gained insight
during her discussion of the film:
I just couldn't make sense of [it]. They open the door and they go out... she
says, 'Let me show you more', so I gather from that-- . Oh! A little light went
on. It was, 'OK, let me show you my world'. So they walked out into her
world. 45
Regarding Camilla , which she had seen some time ago, she put her own interpretation on the
relationship between "the Jessica Tandy character and Hume Cronyn." The film ends with a
scene where the two are together on a beach while Camilla plays the violin that her lover has

95

made for her. There is no overt indication as to the nature of their relationship, but thi s
viewer supplies her own interpretation: "she didn ' t want him there as a permanent fi xture in
her life ... Oh , I think they saw each other but I still don ' t think anything changed for her. I
mean , I don ' t think she was prepared to give up everything even as an elderly woman."

.

Again , about the relationship that has been established but not clearly defined at the end of
Double Happin ess, this viewer has her own ideas:

I didn ' t see the relationship with Callum [the actor who played Jade ' s
boyfriend] really going anywhere. I just saw that turning into a friendship that
... was like a stepping stone for her. I didn't sort of see the Hollywood ending
that they were going to live happily ever after.
Another viewer discusses her speculations about what may have happened after the
rather ambiguous conclusion to Bye Bye Blues :
I was moved to tears by his return and his acceptance that things would not be
the same. I'm not sure I was happy that she sacrificed her career to stay
"down on the farm" and the scene at the end with the band driving away was
rather ambiguous. Would she regret her decision and later come to resent her
husband ancl/or her choice? Would she decide to follow Max and the boys ?
Or would she settle into the life of wife and mother and find happiness and
satisfaction there? Kind of hard to imagine after a taste of the limelight and a
46
certain amount of fame and public recognition . ... I guess we ' ll never know .
This viewer then related the story to her own experience, the tensions and contradictions she
herself, and other women in this society, continue to face :
I was , however, kind of glad she chose to stay with her farrtily -- at least see if
they could make it work -- but I would also want her to have the flex ibility
and option of continuing her career. The film really pointed out how difficult
it is for a woman to do both -- family and career. I felt how tom she was ....
This seems to be a woman ' s continual struggle. How do you balance work
and home and not feel guilty? ... I think it is somewhat better for women now
but I know I have al so felt tom between my own needs and dreams and those
of my famil y' s.
One of the most interesting examples of narrative opening in the viewing context, of
negotiating a new relationship with a film after the fact , involved a viewer who was talking

96

about her love of Double Happiness and admiration for Jade in comparison to her rather cool
reaction to Mermaids and accompanying dislike of Polly. 47 While she at first stated that she
could not get involved with any of the characters (was not "drawn to" any of them) in

Mermaids, and that she "didn't particularly like Polly", she continued to say things that
suggested that she had made a connection with the story and the character. About the scene
where Polly comes to the curator's party, she says, "I was uncomfortable with that whole
scene for Polly's sake", after which she decided that she did in fact admire Polly "in that
'Wow, that takes courage' ... not to leave, to be so determined to be there." This viewer' s
sympathy for and identification with Polly emerged throughout the discussion:
It' s like there ' s this great depth to the movie that I didn ' t see, but the one thing
I did see was that Polly had incredible gifts, and she was the only one who
didn't recognize it. ... the pictures were great. I mean, no, they weren't
anything spectacular, but they were from her heart .... she had such a passion
for it. My heart broke when she tossed the camera off [the ledge].
Through a process in which she weighed her reactions to Jade and Polly, this woman arrived
at a very interesting, and very personal, assessment:
maybe that's the difference with these two characters .... One had this really
strong ego and, for me, that 's what I want to see because that's what I'm
striving for, is not to be beaten down by these arrogant people, like that hard
woman when [Jade] couldn ' t read Chinese .... And then [Polly] just was
crushed when her pictures were tossed aside - to the point where she [said] ,
"That's it. I'm terrible. I'm not going to do this any more" and she just threw
it all away. I mean, it was such a contrast of ... the strength of these two
women .... So maybe that was part of what I found difficult. If I'm
personalizing it, ... 'That would be me!' you know. (laughing) Sort of trying
to remember to stay focused, stay strong, know that you can do it.
She concluded that while Jade was "a role model", Polly was for her "a reminder" , adding
ruefully, "I don't need this kind of reminder, all right?"

97

This tendency to seek role models in film seems common to many of the participants.
Two viewers talked about their earlier relationship with film and the influence of movies in
. younger 1"1ves.48
the1r

I'd have to say that the two most profound [movies] of my teen years were
Isadora and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie . .. . Both characters in these .films
were larger than life, independent, adventurous and unafraid to be themselves .
... what most struck me, and impacted on me, was their ability to just follow
their hearts and do what they needed to do without concern for the
49
conventions of their times. I have always wanted to be like that.
The other viewer remembers that she was "totally mesmerized" by movies and
television when she was young, which offered her an escape into a fantasy world
where she was the heroine:
[w]hen you mention childhood movies, my thoughts immediately tum to Walt
Disney' s Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. I loved these animated films. I was
raised in an alcoholic and abusive family and these two films let me know if I
just hung in there, if I was beautiful and pure of heart, if I sacrificed and
worked my buns off, someday my Prince Charming would rescue me. I spent
a lot of my life waiting and people pleasing. 5°
For her, television was also an important instrument of socialization: " [f]amily shows, like

Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best were models . I knew I would grow up to be the
perfect mother and housewife and have the perfect family-- like theirs ." She describes the
way in which this influence continued:
[a]s I got older and Hollywood films got glitzier, I identified with the skinn y,
gorgeous women portrayed on screen. They were my guidelines as to how I
should look, what I should wear, how I should get a man . Movies were my
model as to how to live my life. After all their lives worked, and so would
mine if I modeled them . Right?
While she had been a willing consumer of the ideology offered by these visions , her own life
changes and rising consciousness have resulted in a change in her enjoyment of films and in
the characters she seeks as models: "Now I look for 'powerful woman ' movies as I strive to

98

be a more powerful woman. " As an example of the kinds of images she enjoys now, she
mentioned a recent viewing of Ever After with Drew Barrymore:
What a delightful rendition of the Cinderella story. Cinderella becomes a
powerful , kickass woman in charge of her own destiny rather than the martyr
who gets rescued by Prince Charming. We see that she can make it on her
own regardless of her situation, even to saving herself from the evil what ' shis-name. I love it because it shatters the original meaning I absorbed as a
child from my first contact with the fairy tale. Sure, she still ended up with
Mr. Prince, but we can see she would have been just fine without him .
Sometimes, although a film may not have had a particularl y strong impact, it can still
exert a subtle influence. A viewer can extract those elements from the whole which she find s
useful, as in the following example. Commenting on Miss Congeniality, a film which she
didn ' t particularly like and which she felt was plagued by unrealistic acting, one woman
related an incident where she used one scene to make a connection that was meaningful to
her:
[A male character] is trying to take this kind of a masculine ... girl [cop] and
tum her into a ... beauty star. And so he said, 'Walk with your head high' and
she was walking. It was quite hilarious how she did it.. . it wasn ' t that
hilarious , but it was kind of funny how she did it. And when I was walking
home tonight from work, I thought 'Walk with your head high! ' and you
en ~ you f eel even more
know, you just lift your head and all of a
beautiful. I don ' t think women remind themselves that they are feminine, and
they ' re beautiful. 51
The two who discussed Better Than Chocolate reveal how much personal context can
affect the viewing experience. The circumstances under which she viewed the film seemed,
for one participant, to very much influence her reception of the film:
I discovered my 17-year-old daughter had bought [the video]. She told me it
was made in Vancouver and that it was ' good' . Upon later viewing it on my
own I realized she had bought it for the story, the subject matter. She is open
with me about her exploration of her sexuality, which recently has included a
girlfriend and a foray into lesbianism. (She declared about a year ago that she
thinks she is bisexual-- she likes guys , too). I commented to her that the Jove
relationship in the film did not seem to be based on anything deep or true, just
a sexual attraction , and that I could not believe they were trul y 'in Jove '. My
99

daughter agreed that she thought the story jumped too quickly there, then
commented that many heterosexual movie relationships did exactly the same
.
Wh IC
. h IS
. true.52
t hmg.
Other characters and issues addressed in the film did not draw comment from this viewer.
She concludes her review of this film by declaring that she "want[s] to see a foundation in a
love relationship." Being unable to make this, or any, connection with the subject matter, she
dismissed the film as a whole .
While this film was barely worthy of note for her, for another viewer it was somewhat
of a revelation . She found in the film all the elements of good filmmaking, including the
ability to effect change in social attitudes: "I think this movie is definitely a great work of art,
entertaining yet thought provoking and educational to the masses ." 53 She specifically
remarked on the presentation of sexuality in the film, in that it "wasn't your typical
Hollywood seduction mode- display the woman's body titillation" and that it differed from
"the erotic male fantasy depiction" of lesbianism.
This film blew me away. It was a beautiful depiction of lesbianism, their
love, their trials, their natural draw to each other. ... The movie truly revealed
how their relationship was not different than a heterosexual relationship other
than the persecution they faced for daring to be who they are, 'different ' from
the so called norm. It revealed the emotions and turmoil of how a
transgendered person feels , how do they survive in the world. It brought up
the straight woman ' s naiVety and vulnerability and challenge of living her
dreams and being who she truly is in a man ' s world-- something I identify
with.
The above discussion suggests that the power of film to impose ideology on viewers,
or even to influence them, is not as straightforward as earlier research may have suggested.
Anne Wheeler has stated that she intended Better Than Chocolate to offer insight into lesbian
culture and thus increase tolerance and understanding. While the film succeeded in this
regard for the second viewer, it missed the mark for the first, who raises the following
question :
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I found myself wondering, since both this film [Mermaids] and the only other
one on the list I've seen, [Better Than Chocolate] incorporate lesbianism: do
all Canadian films about women dabble in this theme? Is it the flavour of the
month? 54
Another viewer was similarly unimpressed with the portrayal of a lesbian relationship in
Wh en Night is Falling. She found the character of Petra "so pushy and very unsubtle" in her

pursuit of Camille that she formed a negative impression of lesbianism: "Is that what it 's like
in the gay world?" 55
Only one viewer watched and commented on Kissed, and this serves as a very
interesting contrast between an isolated analysis and the interplay that results from consulting
real viewers . While I had concluded that Sandra's acts of necrophilia in the film were not
exploitive but rather respectful and even spiritual, this viewer had a totally different reaction :
"Can ' t say I liked this one very much . Too creepy. And I guess I just could not relate to or
in any way empathise with a woman who would crawl on top of a dead body and ... well , you
know ." 56 She went on to comment that she attended two funerals , both open casket, shortl y
after viewing Kissed and that this made the film "doubly distasteful " to her: "[s]eeing those
real dead bodies lying there, so vulnerable, really got to me." Although disliking the film , she
did not reject it out of hand, but attempted to analyse what was missing for her:
there was no sense of why this young woman was so weirded out over dead
bodies or why the young man who fell in love with her would go to such
extremes to win her love. We never really got a sense of them and I don ' t like
not knowing why-- or at least having something to speculate on .. .. Perhaps if
more depth of understanding was given to the characters I could have felt
more for them. Then again , I think NOT.
Nevertheless, the film also brought forth positive memories of elaborate funerals , complete
with marble headstones, that she had given deceased pets as a child: "I remember enjoying
the funerals of these pets. I think it might have been a way of dealing with something way
beyond true comprehension." In the end, she concluded that the movie had "triggered a lot"
101

in her and that she found it valuable to be "opened up" to films which she would not have
seen in the usual course of things.
As with the viewers who did not like I've Heard the Mermaids Singing and Better

Than Chocolate, the failure to identify with the characters seems to be a major factor in this
woman's experience of Kissed. When this connection is present, it contributes to the
enjoyment of watching. Her pleasure in Camilla, for example, had a great deal to do with her
attraction to the characters, their "human weaknesses" and "the celebration of their gift of
love":
I was totally charmed. I think it is a lovely story of two generations of women
meeting, becoming friends, caring about each other, learning how much they
have in common and even transcending shames and regrets from the past. I
57
kept thinking how wonderful it would be to have a friend like Camilla.
One viewer has used Loyalties as a teaching film in a Social Worker program because of the
realistic portrayal of family dynamics and the relationships and tensions between Native and
non-Native peoples. More recently she wanted to use it for family assessment with first year
students who are not yet ready to deal with real families, but was unable to find it. She
enjoyed the film herself, and related it to another Anne Wheeler film, Bye Bye Blues, which
she enjoyed mainly for its "examination of a woman who could feel her own power."
Although she noted that she appreciated the fact that women are not portrayed as objects in
Anne Wheeler films, they are, for her taste, too mainstream and commercial, too
"Americanized. " 58
Another viewer could find no fault with Loyalties, declaring it "better than any film
I've seen since." 59 She found it to be "chilling" and "riveting", declaring that "[t]his movie is
fifteen years old and I can give you flashes of detail still. It never left me, it was so
powerful." As the viewer above did, she commented upon the realistic properties of the film :

102

what I loved about this movie was it's realism-- the environment and it ' s
people of the north, how the story slowly developed ... from the beginning
knowing something was going to happen and not knowing how it was going
to unfold or how horrible it would be or how good.
This realism allowed her to care about the characters. She identified with Lily ("Oh , my
God, there ' s me! I mean I just see myself in little bits of her") and particularly appreciated
the relationship which developed between two women who were "so different" that initi all y,
mainly through their class differences , they couldn't "fathom each other. And yet, the
beautiful friendship grew in reality."
Noting that her daughters ' feminism strongly influenced her film viewing, a
participant remembered that she had seen Fire at the suggestion of her youngest daughter,
and had found it "visually and emotionally very powerful", encompassing "many levels" .
She connected with the story through the way in which it showed the pain people were going
through and the very believable progression through which the women turned to each other
because they had "nothing else in their lives." She found satisfaction in the story and the
characters in her admiration that they were brave enough to try to escape.60
While Cynthia Scott's The Company of Strangers (1990) is not formall y included in
this study, in that it does not follow a strictly fictional narrative format, I did include it on the
survey as I consider it to be somewhat of a landmark film, focusing as it does wholly and
intimately on ordinary, elderly women . Four of the participants indicated that they have seen
it. Of these, three brought up the subject of the film in the course of their interviews . While
one simply mentioned it in passing as a "delightful" Canadian film 61, for the others it had a
stronger impact.

62

One particularly liked the realism, and the fact that every time she

watches she sees herself or someone she knows in the characters, which leads her back to the
film to make new discoveries:

103

[y]ou know how some movies, you like to see again and again and again.
That's one of them .... It ' s women, it ' s wonderful, it's beautifully put
together. ... I could just -- oh, I could cry. 63
It was also the realism, and the power of the film as a model, that affected another viewer:
I just loved that story. I loved the relationships in that story, I loved the
characters, I loved all the women and ... the transformations that happened. I
really wanted my mom to see that, in a way to break her out of her 'poor me '
sort of 'I'm no good' syndrome. Just to say, hey, here's a bunch of elder
women that are just so empowered. Finding new strengths that they never
knew they had, and being able to sleep on a floor with just a rough blanket
over them and find food and just relate to each other. ... take their teeth out,
take their wigs off, throw their pills away ... and just be rea/. 64
Her thoughts on this film led to a discussion of other films she had seen previously on
television, wherein she was able to sum up quite succinctly what the main points were that
stayed with her from the films over the intervening years. About Loyalties, which she
remembers as a "tough" but "interesting", what she remembers is the friendship that
developed between Roseanne and Lily which resulted in a shift in Lily 's loyalties ("there's
your title right there") and leads to the downfall of the husband: "the neat thing about that is
that he gets dumped out in the cold. He doesn't get away with it. His money, his status, his
colour-- none of that [helps him]. .. that's what I like about that movie." In Bye Bye Blues
she remembers enjoying the growth of the main character as she finds "this part of herself
that she didn't even know existed, and this love [of music] that she probably already had ....
beyond being just a housewife and the sort of 'gofer' for the husband, she becomes a
respected integral part of a group." Recalling her reaction to Camilla from a prior viewing,
she relates that what she loved about the film is that "it's about women that find their inner
strength and they don't need to fall back on [a] male." In response to my comment that many
of these films seemed to be more about a women finding a relationship with herself,
regardless of whether she finds a relationship with a man , she replied, "which is maybe why

104

... I can identify so much with them, because that ' s been my own path. I mean , I think it 's all
of us , but some of us are a little more aware of it than others .. .. You're the one th at doesn' t
leave [yourself]."
Several commented on the fact that Canadian film does not necessaril y meet the high
production or slick entertainment standards of mainstream cinema:
I thought the dialogue [in Mermaids] was very stilted, which is unfortunately
very typical of a lot of Canadian films .65
The sound quality [in Mermaids] bothered me in many instances, as if the
mics weren ' t working, or that there was only one mic suspended in an echo-y
room. It reminded me of the sound quality I used to associate with Canadian
movies years and years ago. 66
Many of the Canadian films I have seen attempt to convey a deeper message
or meaning, which I like, but sometimes to the point of losing the
entertainment factor. 67
Technically I found the film [Kissed] very "Canadian" and by that I mean , it
had a kind of --can ' t really describe it in words-- almost amateurish quality.
It wasn't, by any means, but there was something about the filming that
seemed unpolished. Now that doesn't really bother me . I can kind of
appreciate it, in fact. 68
This elusive sense of Canadian film arose in several interviews. In one case, a viewer simply
summed up her reaction by saying "Well, they're kind of Canadian-ish . There is just that
Canadian flavour about them." 69 We both laughed, exchanging a kind of funny-fondembarrassed look, both understanding what it meant but neither able to articulate it.
In spite of perceived shortcomings, most viewers find Canadian film preferable to the
more polished Hollywood productions. Noting that most of her experience has been with
Hollywood movies, one woman says "I don ' t find today' s movies have that much depth or
have that much story." While such films can be "beautifully done and very entertaining", she
finds them not at all "deep or profound".70 Says another:

105

I don ' t go to a lot of movies these days. Most of them seem to be action films ,
violent, unrelational and gimmicky. I mean , ho w man y cars do we need to see
blown up or, worse, heads blown off? ... I like European films the best. They
tend to be more idiosyncratic, about real people and relationship driven . I
guess that ' s what I like, stories about people. 7 1
One viewer who finds American film superficial ("ordinarily it' s all flashy white, straight
teeth and nobody throws up, nobody flushes the toilet") says "if I know it ' s a Canadian film ,
I'll go for the Canadian one every time. I find it way more real , more intriguing, .. . more
complex." 72 Another remarked upon both the simplistic and artificial elements of Holl ywood
films, saying that in non-Hollywood fare she finds "people who look like real people", who
have complex personalities and, unlike Hollywood characters, can be seen as "real people
living through a real experience." 73 The comparison between Hollywood and Canadian film
can be understood, she says, in the differences between comic books and novels. While the
Hollywood 'comic book' film is often catchy, it is superficial, while the Canadian 'novel '
film offers depths and meaning for the viewer. Another viewer has noted such differences :
I'm not too familiar with a lot of Canadian or British films , but those I have
seen, seem to be more realistic , more true to life ... My 'body beautiful '
complex is not at all threatened by their films. The people seem real and not
so totally glamorized .. .. Guns , glamour and sensationalism don't seem to be
.
as pre dommant
a f actor. 74
Observing that the kinds of films under discussion in this study do not offer the "mindless
release" of mainstream films , one participant suggests that they engage the viewer to a
greater degree : "you have to listen , think, watch. There 's a lot of dialogue and not a lot of
action. " 75
For many, the greatest source of discontent with Hollywood films seems to be the
portrayal of women , which is perceived as somewhat less than inspiring.
I can't comment much about women in today's American films . Are there
women in American films? It seems that if there are the y are usuall y just
decoration , the "good" wife waiting a home for hero hubby (see any Harrison
106

Ford film ) or else the y' re just there for the obli gatory sex scenes . Films that
do feature or star women don ' t seen to get the media coverage.76
One woman says , "it' s crazy" that women are inevitabl y presented as beauti ful , perfect,
skinny objects and not seen as real people.77 "What turns me off', says another, noting th at it
doesn't often happen in Canadian film , is "pretty women , like voluptuous fourteen year olds
that have fifty pounds of make up on and silicon implanted breasts and three inch waists."
She views the 'double standard' in this regard with contempt: "Like Sean Connery picks up
some twenty year old. Give me a break!" 78 Another participant made the same point:
Hollywood films often portray women as a sex object. Most focus on
beautiful people, beautiful bodies --especially in women. The men can get
away with being a little paunchy, a lot ugly. We see a lot of movies where the
older (40-60 year old) men get the young 19 year old women . This sends a
great message to thetr au d'tences .79
0

One participant, from her perspective as both viewer and actor, had an interesting insight to
offer into the way in which people have expectations about women in film and the ideology
around 'movie stars ' :
[t]he one thing I want to say about getting ready for the movie [Everything's
Rosie] that was really interesting to me was people ' s reaction to me being a
star in a movie, because I'm fifty-five and I am overweight, and I think I'm
really just a beautiful creature but a lot of people view me as not so beautiful
because I'm getting grey-haired, and I'm getting older, and I find that a lot
with the younger girls . ... when they found out I was going to be a ' movie
star', they couldn 't believe it.80
One woman says , "I think film is a ... parallel to our society and there could be lots of
power films for women. " 81 In her opinion , big budget American movies do not offer thi s
kind of vision because "it ' s hugely patriarchal. It' s owned and run by the big dollar men ."
She concludes that "we have a responsibility to our youth , for our young women , to
everybody, to show that this victim shit has gone on long enough." Another takes a simil ar
position in the matter of women and film :

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I believe it is important to have more good films by/about women . Men have
taken the lead in our patriarchal culture in just about everything, and it is time
for women to be educated on how to live in their own power. 00. We need
more films sensitive to women's issues, hopefully written by women who
82
know what they are talking about.
The qualification at the end of her statement is worth noting, in her assessment that it is not
enough simply to have stories written by women , but that the message those women are
presenting is vital. This viewer is very clear on how women should be represented in such
films:
I like to see women portrayed as powerful and thus have their beauty rise out
of that power. I like to see them outrageous and free, living their 'wild
woman ' selves. If they are portrayed as weak, it should only be a message to
other women that this is not a natural state.
While the issue of gender identity is clearly important to these women , the matter of
national identity was addressed as well.
It's like we are all brainwashed by the elite American culture. I, personally,
would like to see more of a balance where we could have easy access to
Canadian as well as international films. 00. I realize American film is far more
heavily funded than Canadian film , but their saturation of the Canadian
market only serves to make Canadian hazy about their own culture. 83
If this is an important concern, why have these women not seen more of these films? The

answer to this seems to lie in a combination of awareness and accessibility. Canadian
filmmaker Rosemary House, when her film Violet opened for a limited release in St. John ' s,
commented that one of the film ' s biggest challenges would be Canadian audiences : "The
British support their film industry. People go to British films in Britain . We have a real
problem here and it's very difficult to get beyond it-- Canadians just won ' t go ." 84 She cites
two reasons for this, the poor distribution of Canadian films and the fact that "people are
completely seduced by the American blockbuster, by the blow- 'em-up, shoot- 'em-up."

108

One viewer has given this situation a lot of thought and is politically astute about
Canadian film. As many analysts have noted, she points out that while money is available to
support making films, very little is spent on marketing, with the result that theatres take a loss
because "nobody shows up. Cause no one's seen it, nobody ' s heard about it, nobody knows
what's going on." 85 Regarding the fact that Canadians often don't watch their own films,
she says:
it's not because we have lousy movies, it's because we're not marketed and
anybody in business knows marketing is a big, big part of getting ahead. ... I
hate being owned by the States. Probably why I resent American movies. I
really resent that fact that ... they're trivial or they're useless, and they spend
billions of dollars.
Canadians, she points out, are inundated with advertising for American movies: "that's pretty
hard to compete with, but if they'd spend those millions on marketing our work .. . we'd be a
richer country culturally."
She feels change could really come about if the films were seen and promoted more,
either through more film festivals like Moving Pictures, by showing Canadian shorts before
the big blockbuster movies in theatres so that directors and actors can become known, or by
government subsidized theatres and television programs which show only Canadian films.
Pointing out, as Rosemary House did, that other countries are much more active in protecting
and supporting their indigenous film industries 86 she suggests that there is a need to "legislate
stricter Canadian content laws so we as Canadians have a chance to see how great we are."
Another viewer also thinks that if people had easier access to these kinds of films,
they would come. She "gets the sense that many people are getting tired of Hollywood" and
are "starved for good film." In attending the local Cineplex every second Monday for Film
Society movies, she notes that the Canadian or foreign films attract a huge line up, while only
a few people can be seen going into the mainstream Hollywood films. 87
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Comments by two of the viewers seem to support her position -- that if they knew
about the films they would watch them. One admitted she has not "been exposed" to
Canadian film , and after hearing synopses on several of the films by Canadian women , she
responded "I would probably become quite enthused and quite interested and quite keen on
all of that, cause that ' s what really turns me on, too. I learn from stuff like that. " 88 She
noted, however, that it would be necessary to promote such films, make them visible and
accessible so that people like her could have the chance to experience them. Another made a
similar observation. While she had seen Independent Eye listed in the TV guide, she did not
know that it showcased films and says, "Now that I know that Independent Eye is movies , I
will pay more attention to it. It ' s just a matter of communication, of PR." 89
One woman admitted, "I like these movies, but I would probably have chosen the
blockbuster over one of these", and then asked, "now, is that conditioning?" 90 She, too, felt
that more exposure to and promotion of Canadian films could lead to a recognition factor that
would in tum generate more interest in Canadian films: "my first question when I hear about
a movie is 'Who ' s in it?' ... none of the actors in these movies are familiar to me." The
situation in Canada, she says, is "a two sided sword" :
[w]e don ' t know the actors so we don't show the films , we don ' t show the
films so we don't know the actors . So, yes , we do need to see these films in
Canadian theatres .
While she would like to see films by independent Canadian filmmakers of different
backgrounds which might "create a better understanding" in our society and "bridge a few
cultural gaps", she also pointed out that this is not a simplistic undertaking. First Nations
filmmakers would bring different perspectives to audiences , she stated, but in their honesty
they "could be brutal" , and she wondered if other Canadians are ready to face that. ''I'd like

110

to see more films about the people of Canada", she concludes, then raises the all too practi cal
question , "but would [they] sell ?"
Linda Dittmar, Janice Welsch and Diane Carson (1994) argue that "human agency" is
a vital consideration in film studies: "[m]eanings are not waiting to be uncovered in the text
but are constructed and reconstructed in response to forces at work at the time of a given
text's production and reception"(8). There can be little doubt that the women who
contributed to this study are not "empty vessels" waiting to be filled, but are active subjects
who "construct and reconstruct" the meanings of the films they watch.
Although some may find value in the kind of non-narrative alternative film advocated
by contemporary feminist film critics, it seems quite clear that such endeavours would not
take the place of fictional narrative film for these women. They have expressed the
importance of story and characters they can relate to, "make sense" of, although what this
might entail differs from person to person . There is a definite emotional component to film
viewing; these women want to be moved, to "mourn" and to "celebrate". Not only did the y
describe emotions they had experienced during the watching of the films (crying or laughing
out loud), but they also got tears in their eyes, lit up with joy, or broke into laughter during
the re-telling. They are not seeking escape but rather something that they can bring into their
lives , something relevant to them, something of substance. They prefer realism to the glitter
or sweetly condemning happily-ever-after of mainstream cinema, and there is some
consensus about the unrealism and undesirable nature of much Holl ywood film , particularl y
as it relates to the portrayal of women .
None of the participants identified 'optimism ' directly as a criteria in their enjoyment
of films , as they did realism, but this consideration arose through the discussions , in their
appreciation for women who prevail and for empowering images of women which can serve
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as positive role models, and in random comments scattered throughout their references to
films they "loved":
It was beautiful. ... it was nice that she won, she wasn't beaten into nothing ,
you know . How many women are beaten into nothing in our society anyway,
91
so it was kind of like, she won! !
It's a story of hope in a hopeless world.

92

The ending just said, 'She's going to be fine, no matter what happens. She's
going to be fine. 93
While shared qualities can be identified among the viewers, it is also true that each
woman's relationship to the films she watched was very personal, strongly connected to each
one's personal history and world view . It would seem that the project of film 'imposing
ideology' on its viewers is rather dependent upon how much the ideology in question
conforms to the viewer's worldview. As new information is received, as consciousness is
raised, if you will, the attitudes towards films and the meanings found in them changes.
While many studies are concerned with the ways in which women 'read against the
grain' of mainstream cinema, this particular approach does not apply here. I have argued that
these films offer 'contending visions' to most mainstream cinema, and thus should not
require such a procedure. Empowering portrayals of women constitute their 'grain '.
Nevertheless , consulting even a very small sample of viewers of similar age and background
has revealed that their reception is not uniform. The variety of diverse responses suggests
that 'reading with the grain' is an equally complex and divergent phenomenon, not easily
managed or ordered into a neat and concise analysis.

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Conclusion
Renegotiating the Social Contract

"That's what art is for."

While not denying that contemporary film theory has useful applications, this
discussion has challenged its status as an all-encompassing truth by illustrating that there are
many facets of filmmaking and film watching which do not fit within its parameters.
Although this approach has shed light upon existing power structures in our society, it has
not, as E. Deirdre Pribram (1988) points out, aided in subverting that structure by offering
alternative creations; the "ability to critique was not met by an equal ability to create" (4).
The ability to create -- new visions, a new social order-- is essential to feminism and social
change. With regard to theory, the greatest import may be, as Rhona Berenstein (1989)
insists, that less energy be given to determining which approaches are more correct and more
be given to employing all approaches in the service of bringing the culturally marginalized
visions of women filmmakers into the public arena (46) .
In the Canadian context, the national question most often eclipses the consideration of
gender and ethnicity. In a context where, as has been pointed out, only 3% of screen time is
devoted to Canadian films and very few Canadians attend even these screenings, ours is very
much, as Peter Harcourt (1978) has deemed it, an "invisible cinema". About those who
venture to research and write about Canadian films, he says , "within our own culture, we
work as archaeologists-- striving to find the suppressed traces of a civilization which , when
we have learned to recognize them, we might welcome as our own" (49). When the concern
is focused upon "unearthing" the "suppressed traces" of an already colonized 1 and
marginalized art form , those who are further marginalized within it get very little attention.
113

The 3% problem has been acknowledged by the federal government, which has
recognized and responded to the need to promote Canadian film through Heritage Mini ster's
Sheila Copps' $100 million per year Feature Film Fund, of which $11 million will be used to
increase marketing budgets. The goal is to "build audiences" ; the target to see Canadian film s
securing 5% of the domestic market by 2005 .2 While I share some of the optimism thi s mo ve
has generated, I am more concerned with how those funds will be allocated. It is not enough
that more Canadian films are made and seen if no attention is given to what those films are
portraying, whose voices are being heard. Indeed, Harcourt acknowledges that the fact that a
film is Canadian does not necessarily guarantee that it is different:
[w ]e must celebrate our own neglected product at the same time as we must
recognize that the ideological assumptions within our own films are often not
that different from the ideological assumptions that we would criticize within
those more available films that come to us from Hollywood. (49)
We need more Canadian films on Canadian screens, yes , but additional money spent to
reinforce dominant ideals does not bode well for women , or suggest the possibility of social
change.
The editors of Gendering the Nation (1999) relate that the making of women ' s films
in Canada has always been related to "the vicissitudes of state cultural policy" which ,
ensconced in a political and economic era strongly informed by the Multilateral Agreement
on Investment and the North American Free Trade agreement, prioritizes viability in the
global marketplace over all other considerations (Armatage et al: 11). This issue was
illuminated in an episode of B. C. Now which aired on the Knowledge Network on January
24, 2001. The filmmakers interviewed for the show talked about their creative vision , and
the effects of the increasing focus upon the " bottom line" on their work. Anne Wheeler,
filming a story about a woman who becomes involved with a younger man , was forced to

114

follow a very tight shooting schedule and to share creative decision making with her
producer and distributor to a greater degree than she had experienced before. Jennifer Barr
could not raise funds within the industry to make her film about five young women looking
for "Mr. Right", and had to raise the money herself. Wesley Lowe persists in telling stories
of immigrants although he knows they will not be widely distributed. Discussing the
problems in securing funding for such films , he wryly observes that "the only reason they ' re
not mainstream is because they' re not full of Caucasians." 3
British Columbia's Film Commissioner Mark DesRochers and producer Gavin
Wilding, on the other hand, applaud the current focus on commercial viability. Asked if he
had any concerns about financial considerations overwhelming artistic expression, Mark
DesRochers quips, "it's not show art, it's show business." He declares that Canadian films
will have no trouble competing with American films if they just tell "a good story." To him,
a good story must stand on its own merit and thus succeed. He uses as evidence the fame of
Canadian authors, choosing to ignore the fact that publishing constitutes a totally different
industry, one possessing a well developed infrastructure for promotion and distribution.
Authors can create their work without requiring teams of workers and major funds, and their
works are highly accessible. Nevertheless, he maintains that in films, as in books, "a good
story will travel."
In a similar vein, producer Gavin Wilding equates a good movie with one that is a
commercial success. "If a movie isn ' t making money" he says, "the fact of the matter is the
movie isn't good." His ideal Canadian movie would star "a Mike Meyers" (note that the
actor is considered a commodity) and cost $30 or $40 million, and make $150 million
dollars. He seems not at all concerned with what story such a film might present, only that it
would open the door to more such productions. For Wilding, then, Canada' s salvation lies in
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cloning Hollywood-style blockbusters. Both men reduce the complex issues of Canadian
filmmaking to a simplistic creed of creating "good" (i.e. profitable) movies , with no
reference to the actual social, political and economic structures and forces which influence
the making and viewing of films. 4 It is just such unfounded and, more problematically,
unexamined assumptions held by those with the power in the industry that make change
difficult.
Paula J. Caplan (1991) explores the assessment of "good" art, presenting a very clear
analysis of the way in which values and standards of excellence, in a society where white
middle and upper class males hold the political and economic power, are constructed
according to the worldview of those males. 5 Thus the worth or 'merit' of a project, or a film ,
is determined on the basis of subjectively constructed ideals which have been normalized to
seem not to be a male standard but to be an objective truth, "based on a set of eternal,
universal values" (148). As these standards are applied to art, the work of 'subordinates' is
marginalized, their voices are not heard, and both art and society are rendered "less vital , less
richly textured than they could be" (149). She concludes that:
[t]he full and genuine integration into film of standards, subjects, and
approaches that have been traditionally classified as female is of compelling
importance. It is the healthy course to follow, and it would enrich the world
of film and expand the possibilities for freedom and creativity for individual
filmmakers of both sexes. (ibid)
Women are making films which, in contrast to most mainstream movies, offer
possibilities for women beyond images of good wives and mothers or objects of sexual
fascination, and women are finding value in watching them. The project of locating and
immersing oneself in so many 'contending visions' can have the effect of creating a
somewhat false reality wherein empowering images of women prevail and it is perhaps the
socialized white bourgeois male who must scramble to secure a comfortable viewing
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position. A kind of culture shock ensures upon returning to the 'real world ' to find the
screens and lunchroom discussions dominated by the persistent representations of the
patriarchal dream. It seems that even those who are sensitive to feminist issues in the
sociopolitical arena do not necessarily notice inequalities in the realm of entertainment. As
an example, at the ideological heart of the hugely popular (and therefore at least potentially
influential) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) is a world where white women and
people of colour may participate (in that order), but the power remains securely in the hands
of the white males-- in the head of the university who is the most powerful of all wizards , in
the Quidditch team captains, and in Harry himself. Would it have been as successful, would
it even have been made, if it revolved around the adventures of Henrietta Potter and if the
most powerful wizard was a woman of colour? As one woman said, "I guess because that's
the way it is, we don ' t question it." The point is not that this and every film must inscribe a
world of empowered women and ethnic equality, but that this reinscribing of the status quo is
all pervasive because films are so often produced by people of similar background.
As Jacqueline Bobo (1988) has discovered through her extensive work with viewers
of The Color Purple , it is not that stereotypical or damaging images are perpetuated
purposefully:
[p ]reducers of mainstream media products are not aligned in a conspiracy
against an audience. When they construct a work they draw on their own
background, experience and social and cultural milieu. They are therefore
under 'ideological pressure' to reproduce the familiar. (96)
Producers of the dominant forms, in fact all filmmakers , whether mainstream or independent,
are as she suggests responding to their own background and knowledge. If the few continue
to speak for the many, if the vast majority of North American films continue to be created by
white males of a similar economic and cultural background, the resulting productions will

117

reflect and perpetuate a limited worldview. No matter how brilliant or insightful the movie ,
or how well intentioned, this must be so. If the marginalized tell their stories, also informed
by their experiences, a more balanced picture of society will be available.
Noting the lack of films directed by women, Dennis Sequin, writing for the National ·
Post, reasons that "as long as film continues to be our favoured source of stories, film
directors will be our most public storytellers. Surely, it's better to have the richest possible
variety of voices." 6 Canadian classics teacher and writer Margaret Visser (1991) agrees :
The world has heard comparatively rarely from women in the past; and when
modem women do give true artistic form and expression to their experience,
the results are electrifying .... It is my conviction that in Canada the audience
is hushed and waiting. Women owe it not only to themselves and each other,
but to the whole human race and to its future, to use the media and speak out
in their own unmistakable voices. (45)
It appears, however, that the "hushed and waiting" audience must wait a little longer. If

Moving Pictures does indeed represent the best chance that Canadians across the country
have of seeing Canadian film, women's "unmistakable voices" will not be heard. In 2002,
out of nineteen new feature film presentations, only two are by women-- Lea Pool's Lost
and Delirious and Laurie Maria Baranyay's Walk Backwards. Out of fifteen 'Canadian
classic' feature films, one is by a woman -- Lynne Stopkewich' s Kissed. Three out of thirtyfour is a troubling statistic.
This reality is sometimes met with a problematic pseudo-equity which might be
termed the "50% solution". Like the "3 % problem", the "50% solution" diverts focus from
the real issues which need to be addressed. The selection committee for my local
manifestation of Moving Pictures, (who admittedly had few films by women to chose from)
did demonstrate a sense of political awareness. In an attempt to achieve some sort of
equality, they chose films of which half featured male protagonists and half featured female

118

protagonists. This move reveals a certain level of raised consciousness, yet if seen to sati sfy
some political agenda it is ineffectual and even dangerous . Speaking about women is
equated with women speaking. What has clearly not risen to consciousness here is an
awareness of the importance of women telling their own stories for women and men to see
and hear. This is not because women are uniquely privileged to present "a woman ' s" point
of view (there is not one such), but because each film will reveal something of that particular
woman ' s experience and philosophy, and when we have many such to chose from , again , we
will have alternatives which will create a balance to the white middleclass male points of
view.
A tendency to confound a prevalence of female protagonists with progress for women
is evident in Critic Richard Corliss ' (2000) comment that "the prime maxim of modern
cinema [is that] Hollywood movies are about men (or overgrown boys); independent films ,
and most serious films from just about everywhere else, are about women" (62). Whatever
this observation is meant to convey, if it is somehow a tribute to feminism (as the context
suggests), it is a misguided one. It does not constitute progress that more films are about
women. What counts is how those women are being imagined-- who is telling their story
and under what 'ideological pressure '. Women have al ways been seen; now they need to be
heard.
As feminists have long since di scovered, the complex questions of equality and soci al
change cannot be addressed by a simplistic formulation such as "add woman and stir". It is
certainly not a case of women stepping into men ' s shoes. Placing women into the position of
directing the same old Hollywood fare , especially where their choices are dictated by
patriarchal producers who insist they follow the established formulas , is not helpful.
Penelope Spheeris, director of such American 'success stories ' (financially speaking) as
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Wayne's World, The Little Rascals, and The Beverly Hillbillies, indicates that her track
record does not allow her the freedom to create her own visions but merel y opens the door to
doing more of the same type of "goofy comedies": "[i]f I try to do anything remotely serious
I have to finance it myself." 7 Annette Cohen (1991) insists that the point is not that women
increasingly occupy the position of reproducing the products which men have been creating,
but that they bring a new vision and actually "alter the nature and the essence" of those
products (vii). This is vital, she says, because of the power of cultural products to "shape the
identities, the myths, and the values of our society" (vii).
Canadian filmmaker Norman Jewison (1993), in the Foreword to Canadian Dreams:

The Making and Marketing of Independent Films , also declares that films "create a country's
myths" (vii). In his view, they "express, through the filmmaker, the very soul of a culture"
(ibid). The soul of our culture is not monolithic, although its representation in film may
make it seem so. Our group soul , if it could talk, must speak in many diverse voices to create
new myths . Reporting on the lesbian and gay film festival Inside Out, Toronto Star reporter
Susan Walker says that it "falls mainly to gay and lesbian filmmakers to be the biographers
of their communities." 8 It may be that all filmmakers are biographers of their various
communities, and that the biographies of the marginalized need to be acknowledged.
When marginalized people make films about their own experience, Jane Gaines
(1994) says, audiences have the opportunity at least to "begin to learn about the people
whose history cannot be imagined from a position of privilege" (177). This learning is the
key. One of the women viewers who took part in this research said there was "no question"
that if more films made by "minority" groups (she included women as such a group, although
strictly speaking women constitute a marginalized majority) , understanding would be

120

increased. Such film, she says, challenges us to see things differently and to gain a new
understanding. In her assessment, "that' s what art is for." 9
Certainly Black American filmmaker Alile Sharon Larkin (1988) believes that telling
Black women's stories through film, undertaking the "seemingly never-ending task of
countering the negative images, the subliminally racist images that continue to flow from the
commercial industry" (168), carries with it the power to not only "heal and unite [the Black]
community" (ibid) but to "help create a new world ... to change minds, widen perspectives
and destroy the fear of difference" (172). Films do indeed exert a powerful influence in our
society, and it seems at least possible, as these women suggest, that stories from the margins
could work to effect social change -- to create a new world.
The question then becomes, will these alternative stories be told in the increasing
financial pressures of the global economy? The answer will not come from the dominant
culture or capitalist institutions, but from individuals. In reviewing the history of many of
the films discussed here, including the difficulties and obstacles overcome from preproduction through to distribution, it is clear that these alternative narratives exist because
their creators thought they were worth fighting for and persevered in their creation . An
equally passionate need in audiences to see them would produce exciting results.
Canadian author and former producer Susan Crean and Kim Todd, producer for
Atlantis Films in Toronto, have both observed that any improvements in the status of women
in the film industry have not been gained through "natural evolution" 10 or a "general drift of
society."

11

As they demonstrate, change happens because people work to make it happen . If

people are to become active in making changes, they must first become aware of the need for
such changes.

121

Florence Jacobowitz (1986) advocates consciousness-raising as a key element
whereby theory can lead to action , working to both offer distance on dominant values and
beliefs and to create alternatives (21). If theory, as she maintains, is accessible (both
physically and intellectually) to the public it can give audiences tools to become more
"critical, discerning and politicized" viewers. In this way their expectations and experiences
of pleasure may change: "[t]hose who are committed to social change will find overt
ideological constructions of gender/class/race unacceptable, and the dramatisation of
marginal experiences and oppositional figures of identification invigorating" (30-31 ).
For Janet Staiger (1994) the move away from the hegemony of the mainstream
cinema's 'canon' requires that people learn "strategies" instead of "interpretations", so that
we can look at films in ways which may "improve our human condition". Rather than
looking to outside authority like sheep following the shepherd, she says this entails "making
sure all of us are shepherds (of whatever variety) and none of us sheep" (206).
In keeping with one of the major themes traced throughout the forgoing discussion,
this thesis ends in a kind of narrative opening. Will more films by and about women, seen by
more women and men, begin to make a difference in social attitudes and conditions? The
potential exists, however as with all enterprises which may serve to challenge dominant
regimes and create social change, it requires that people want the change. As Elaine
Waisglass (1991) asserts, with regard to the Canadian film and television industry, " [a]
conscious effort on the part of both men and women to choose another path is our only hope"
(ix) . Producer Annette Cohen (1991), in the Forward to Changing Focus: The Future for

Women in the Canadian Film and Television Industry , proclaims that while it is necessary to
"renegotiate the Industrial Contract" to ensure equal opportunities for women, it is vital to
"renegotiate as well the Social Contract, which has kept their Voices to a whisper" (vii).
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While the former may be accomplished through "changes of policy, renegotiating the Social
Contract, as she indicates, depends upon "changes of heart". We must come to see what we
have lost and what we may yet gain --changes of mind follow changes of heart.
James Adams, in reference to the new government Feature Film Fund, concludes that
this may have a great effect over a number of years but that meanwhile "the notion of a
vibrant indigenous film culture, in English Canada at least, will have to remain in the realm
of dream rather than reality." 12 The greater dream is a vibrant indigenous film culture
wherein many diverse visions are seen and voices heard. As Annette Cohen (1991 ) has
observed, what is required to realize this dream is nothing less than the "redefinition of all
existing notions of power" (vi). This project, like the films themselves, will require an
'optimism within realism' , holding on to the dream while identifying the obstacles to it and
working persistently toward social change.

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NOTES
Introduction - Canadian Women Filmmakers
1.

Now called Women in Film and Television- Toronto (WIFT-T).

2.

Although many of the people in my study attest to the difficulty of accessing even videos
of films by Canadian women .

3.

Michael Posner. 2001. It's A Maelstrom at the Genie Awards. Globe and Mail30
January, A3 .

4.

It should be noted that of the other 97 %, a very small percentage are by women . Writing
in 2000, Denis Sequin states that "[a]ccording to the latest statistics from the Director' s
Guild of America ... women account for less than 7% of movie directing." He looks at
North American box office statistics for one day, August 29, 1999 and reports that "[n]ot
one film in the top 5% was directed by a woman . .. . none of the 49 more modestly
successful films playing that day was directed by a woman either"(And God Created
Female Directors. 2000. National Post 8 April , p3).

5.

In response to my email questioning the lack of women's films in the offerings, Festival
Director Michael Ghent replied that the committee of 12 who select each year' s films
from some 500 titles do try to balance the program as to style, content, regions and
gender. But, he writes, " [t]he reality at this time is that there are few women directors .
Many women work in film in senior administrative and creative positions, however,
directing still seems to be somewhat of a boy's club"(email , 8 March 2001).

6.

Suzanna Walters (1995:29) dates the period of feminist film criticism, in North America
at least, from the first women's film festivals in Canada and the USA (New York
International Festival of Women's Films (1972) and Toronto Women and Film Festival
(1973), and the appearance of books such as Marjorie Rosen ' s Popcom Venus (1973)
and Molly Haskell's From Reverence to Rape (1975).

7.

B. Ruby Rich, "Women and Film: A Discussion of Feminist Aesthetics", New German
Critique 13:87, (1978). Quoted in Teresa de Lauretis (1991) "Aesthetic and Feminist
Theory".

8.

They note in their own experience that this paradigm presented an exciting and
"extremely seductive invitation to enter the heady world of contemporary theory"(30) , in
contrast to the empiricism and practical concerns of the women ' s movement that had
prevailed to this point. They further suggest that the model was at first adopted
uncritically, both inside and outside of Canada, largely because of "the conceptual
difficulty of the theory ... and because film theory demanded a working familiarity with
the 'background' disciplines of psychoanalysis, linguistic theory, etc."(30) .
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9.

Quoting from the Statistical Profile of Women in the Canadian Film and Television
Industry, Margaret Visser (1991) notes that French Canadian women fare rather better as
directors than do English Canadian women: "the Assocsiation des realisateurs et
realistrices de films du Quebec report that 28 per cent of film directors are women ;
Telefilm funds went to women directors in the proportions 22 per cent of French feature
films and 25 per cent of French television drama, as compared with the figures 19 per
cent and 7 per cent for English language production"(44). She raises important
questions: "Are French Canadian women doing well in this area because the industry as
a whole is freer there from the tyranny of 'big bucks'? Is it because of a French tradition
of respect for relatively independent, director-conceived, low-budget films? It would be
interesting to know."

10. Unfortunately, Independent Eye has been cancelled, although the station is continuing
for the moment to air repeat broadcasts. Pam Morgan of the Knowledge Network states
that "due to budget limitations, we are no longer acquiring short Canadian films"( email
11 January, 2001).
11. 'Indie' is the current term in the industry for 'independent film'.
12. Montage is a technique of film editing, which entails "the physical joining together of
two separate shots by splicing the film"(Tumer 1988:27). This combination of shots
may be seen to "combine into a new concept, a new quality, arising out of the
j uxtaposition"(i bid).
13. Reel Women at Fest: Women Directors in Spotlight at Atlantic Film Celebration. 2000.
Halifax Daily News 22 September, p. 23.
14. Marla Cranston. 2000. Reel Women at Fest. Halifax Daily News 22 September, 23.
15 . Or perhaps that filmmakers are men, period. A woman studying filmmaking at a
prominent Canadian film school in 1998 opens her textbook to read that filmmaking
"involves a silent partnership between man and machine"(Scott 1975:1). Turning the
page, she is introduced to quotations from former publications regarding "great directors,
men of genius" and the auteur-director as "a man with his own 'camera-stylo', a man
who uses the camera as his personal fountain pen"(2). While the author of the book
hastens to critique the 'auteur' theory expressed in these quotes, he fails to note that
directors may also be women, and in fact, refers to the director as 'he ' throughout the
book.

Chapter One- Women Shooting Women: The Filmmakers
1 . As an example, I consider the most talked about and acclaimed Canadian film of this
year so far, Denis Villeneuve's Genie award winning Maelstrom. This brilliant and well
acted film winds back on itself employing a form wherein sequences are repeated from
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different perspectives, and the narrative is disrupted by the rather disturbing experiences
of the fish narrator. It cannot be considered 'classic narrative', but nor can it be
considered feminist. The female protagonist is careening through her directionless life ,
seemingly unable to make good decisions in either her personal or professional life,
while her best friend can't keep track of how many abortions she has had. The sexual
scenes seem to have little to do with her pleasure and everything to do with displaying
her body provocatively for the consumption of the (male heterosexual) viewer. Finally,
as one reporter put it, she "meets an enigmatic man with the power to lead her to
redemption and happiness"(Maelstrom Leads Genie Nominations with 10 Including Best
Picture. 2000. Canadian Press, 12 December). I admired many things about this film,
and it is not my intention to accuse the filmmaker of deliberate sexism, but rather to
insist that avant-garde techniques applied to filmmaking do not necessarily change the
ideology expressed. I presume, like other filmmakers, he is drawing upon his own
experience and socialization to create his vision, which serves to emphasize the point
that filmmakers with very different backgrounds must be given equal screen time if a
balanced representation of our society is to be achieved.
2.

Quoted in Cori Howard. 2000. Dipping into the Hollywood Cookie Jar. National Post
14 September, Toronto Edition, B3.

3 . In the 1920s the credit for the first narrative film shifted to Georges Melies, and is still
stated as such in most works today. Similarly, many of Guy-Blanche's other films were
attributed to her male assistants (Seger 1996: 12). Victoria Brown worth ( 1997) reports
that Guy-Blache's efforts to have her name credited to her films were "mostly
unsuccessful"(ll). Her life and work have been documented in Canadian director
Marquise Lepage's film The Lost Garden: The Life and Cinema of Alice Guy-Blache
(1995).
4. Linda Seger's When Women Call the Shots (1996) and the introduction to Judith M.
Redding and Victoria A. Brownworth's Film Fatales: Independent Women Directors
(1997) chronicle the contributions of women in the early years of cinema. Nell
Shipman's autobiography, The Silent Screen and My Talking Heart, written in 1925 but
unpublished until 1987, is an important and revealing documentation of this time .
5. For an excellent survey of Canadian women's work in documentary, animation, and
experimental or avant-garde film to 1980 see Barbara Halpern Martineau's
comprehensive Special Section entitled "Leading Ladies Behind the Camera" in Cinema
Canada 71 (Jan/Feb 1981): 17-32. See also Kay Armatage, "A Brief History of Women
Filmmakers in Canada", in Changing Focus: The Future for Women in the Canadian
Film and Television Industry (1991), and "Gendering the Nation" by Kay Armatage,
Kass Banning, Brenda Longfellow, and Janine Marchessault, the introductory chapter to
the book of the same name (1999).
6.

By 1996, in an international context, women made less than 5% of films (Brownworth
1997:16).

126

7.

Judy Steed. 1989. Reel Women. Toronto Star 9 September, M12-13 .

8.

Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993 :241.

9.

Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:246.

10. Quoted in Beard 1986:24.
11. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:252.
12. Commenting on the 'Canadian-American thing', Sandy Wilson recalls that there was a
lot of debate about how to best market My American Cousin in the US. "Finally," she
says, "we settled on, 'Winner of six Canadian Academy Awards ' . Funny, huh?" (Liam
Lacey. 1989. Places in the Heart. Globe and Mail7 October, C1)
13. Quoted in McKinnon 1985:21.
14. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:137.
15. Personal interview, 7 December 2000.
16. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:254.
17. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:177-78.
18. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:137.
19. Personal interview, 5 November 2000.
20. She concludes this statement with an ironic twist of humour: " I feel a little bad that I
have two male characters in Mermaids and neither one of them is particularly
sympathetic .... None of the action revolves around them. They ' re adjuncts" (McDonald
1987:14-15).
21. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993: 177).
22. Quoted in McDonald (1987):13 .
23. Quoted in McKinnon 1985:21.
24. Quoted in Tracey 2000:27 .
25. Quoted in Bertles 1986:28.
26. Quoted in Marke Andrews. 1999. Friend of the Underdog. Vancouver Sun 25 August,
C4.
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27 . Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:140-41.
28. Quoted in McKinnon 1985:20.
29. Quoted in David Spanner. 2000. Directing Her Own Life. The Province 17 September;
C31.
30. Quoted in Tracey 2000:27.
31. Quoted in McDonald 1987:14.
32. Quoted in Kupecek 1985:7.
33. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:253.
34. Quoted in David Spanner. 2000. Directing Her Own Life. The Province 17 September,
C31.
35. Quoted in Beard 1986:25 .
36. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:183 .
37. Quoted in Redding and Brownworth 1997:210-11.
38 . Quoted in Kupecek 1985:6.
39. Quoted in Beard 1986:26.
40. Quoted in Dwyer 1992:51. The subtitle to this article reads "A largely female crew
shoots a Canadian classic." This is news in 1992.
41. Quoted in McKinnon 1985:20.
42. Quoted in The Players: The Women of Canadian Cinema Move to Centre Stage. 1995.
Flare (September).
http://www .li b.sfu.calprinting/print_fi Itered/oko021/conv05541.conv.
43 . Michael Posner (1993:xii) notes that because of government funding institutions,
"independent filmmakers in Canada probably have a better shot at making movies than
do their counterparts anywhere else in the world." He goes on to explain, however, that
they have a very small chance of actually having those movies appear in Canadian
theatres, given distribution structures and the lack of money or attention given to
marketing and promotion.
44. Quoted in Posner 1993 :5.
128

45 . Quoted in The Players: The Women of Canadian Cinema Move to Centre Stage. 1995.
Flare (September).
http://www .lib.sfu.ca/printing/print_filtered/oko021/conv05541.conv.
46. Quoted in Beard 1986:24.
47 . Quoted in Turbide 1993:42.
48. For a detailed account of the filmmaking process with regard to funding in Canada see
Michael Posner's "The Little Movie That Did: I've Heard the Mermaids
Singing"(1993: 1-21).
49. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:252.
50. Quoted in Claire Sibonney. 1999. Funding a Different Kind of Black Film. National
Post 25 June, B6. Sibonney notes that "In Telefilm's 1998 Feature Film Catalogue, out
of 38 films it helped fund, only four were directed by people of colour."
51. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:243.
52. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:243.
53. Quoted in Turbide 1993:42.
54. Quoted in Turbide 1993:42.
55. David Spanner. 2000. Breakthrough Coming? The Province, 30 January, B2. In the end,
much of the production money came from German)', where it was released as a
'comedy' rather than as a 'gay and lesbian' film, and immediately attracted a large,
crossover audience (Marc Horton. 1999. Lots of Research Into the Gay Community for
Chocolate. Edmonton Joumal17 September, E2. Strangely, the film went totally
unacknowledged at the Genie Awards.
56. Quoted in Filmmaker Argues Against Free Trade. 1986. Globe and Mail4 January,
Canadian Press.
57. Quoted on an episode of B.C. Now which aired on the Knowledge Network 24 January
2001 .
58. Meaning that they agreed to work for free , getting paid only if the film makes money .
59. Quoted on an episode of B. C. Now which aired on the Knowledge Network 24 January
2001.
60. Quoted in Turbide 1993 :42 .
129

61. Quoted in Marl a Cranston. 2000. Reel Women at Fest. Halifax Daily News 22
September, 23 .
62. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:245-46.
63. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:252.
64. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:185.
65. Quoted in Bruce Kirkland of the Toronto Sun . 2000. Double Happiness: Good Girl/B ad
Girl Mina Shum Revels in Life ' s Anarchy.
http://www.canoe.ca/JamMoviesArtistsS/shum_rnina.html.
66. David Spaner. 2000. The Real Deal. The Province 30 January, Bl.
67. Quoted in McKinnon 1985:21.
68. Quoted in Koller 1987:18.
69. Quoted in David Spanner. 1999. Wheeler Finds Sweet Success. The Province 25
August, B1 .
70. Quoted in Howard, Cori. 2000. Dipping into the Hollywood Cookie Jar. National Post,
14 September, Toronto Edition, B3 .
71. Quoted in Jaehn 1988:23. Interestingly, the curator was originall y a man. Rozema
changed the role to a woman because "I found that I seemed to be making an antimasculine-authority statement, and all I wanted was an anti-authority message."
72 . Quoted in McKinnon 1985 :20-21.
73. Quoted in Dwyer 1992:51.
74. Quoted in David Spanner. 2000. The Real Deal. The Province 30 January, Bl. Lynne
Stopkewich had her actors sign a "nudity parity agreement", wherein female lead Moll y
Parker and male lead Peter Outerbridge agreed to equal amounts of nudity on screen .
She explained that she was " 'sick and tired of seeing naked women on screen while the
men always seemed to get out of it"'(Parpart 1999:262).
75 . It is not always the 'domesticated' woman who lives happily ever after. Women who
don't conform are often punished or destroyed, leaving society itself to enter this state of
eternal utopian bliss.
76. Quoted in McDonald 1987:14.

130

77. Quoted in McKinnon 1985.21.
78. Quoted in Beard 1986:26.
79. ibid.
80. Quoted in Redding and Brownworth 1997:210.
81. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:245-46.
82. Quoted in Turbide 1993:420.
83. Quoted in Redding and Brownworth 1997:208.
84. Quoted in Redding and Brownworth 1997:210.
85. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:135.
86. Quoted in Cole and Dale 1993:178.
87. Mina Shum. Director's Note to official press release for Double Happiness.
88. Quoted in David Spanner. 2000. The Real Deal. The Province 30 January, Bl.
89. Quoted in Beard 1986:26.

Chapter Two- Women On Screen: The Films
1.

Black American filmmaker Alile Sharon Larkin (1988) challenges the concept of
universality: "I have often heard it said that our films are not 'universal'. The
terminology is very important, because in a racist system universal has come to mean
'white', commercially viable, and therefore what one strives to achieve .... The fact that
our audiences are composed of a wide range of people disproves notions of ' universal '
and 'commercial"'(168).

2.

Email 25 January 2001.

3.

Telephone conversation 9 February 2001.

4.

One unusual and enjoyable aspect of this film is the multicultural casting. A variety of
cultures are represented in almost every scene, with great performances by George
Harris as Jerry, the feckless black ferry captain, Ranjit Chowdhry as Kapur, the
unflappable East Indian sheriff and popular First Nations actor Graham Greene as the
highly cultured and charming psychopathic would-be record producer. These were not

131

specifically 'ethnic ' roles , simply roles played to perfection by actors of varying ethni c
backgrounds. A rare occurrence in mainstream film .
5.

The very realistic nature of Daisy' s development has been noted as an ' un-Holl ywood '
strategy. "Actually, music is the esthetic backbone of [Bye Bye Blues]. .. and wh at is
'remarkable ' about Daisy' s transformation is that it isn ' t remarkable at all , just a
convincingly gradual metamorphosis from nervous amateur to competent pro. Repeat ,
gradual- the script scrupulously avoids the Big Hollywood Epiphany Scene; there 's
none of the magical hokum that instantly turns Edith Bunker into Edith Piaf'(Rick
Groen . 1989. Places in the Heart. Globe and Mail? October, C1).

6.

In yet another review praising the non-Hollywood approach of Canadian women ' s films,
CBC reviewer Don Irvine, of 'Definitely Not the Opera', writes that this is "a light
romantic comedy with heart and good intentions-- all that stuff that normall y gets taken
out of Hollywood romances somewhere around the second script rewrite"
(http://www .infoculture.cbc.ca/archi ves/filmtv/filmtv_08311999chocolate .html.

7.

On the subject of censorship, the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper refused to print
an advertisement for Better Than Chocolate. Spokesperson Dexter lePierre stated "I
didn ' t like the word Lesbian. We have guidelines and do not want words of a sexual
nature" (San Diego Union-Tribune Refuses to Run the Word 'Lesbian' in advertising for
Trimark Pictures ' Film 'Better Than Chocolate'. 1999. Business Wire 23 August.

8.

Quoted in Leah McLaren . 1999. Laughing on the Outside. Globe and Mai/1 2 August,
C3.

9.

Challenging assumptions is an eternal project. Writing about Another Planet, I was
going to point out the ways in which it was challenging, and less accessible , to a nonblack audience, when I read an on-line review of the film by Rose "Barns" Cooper.
While she identified with Cassandra' s desire to connect with her "Africanness", she al so
was puzzled by some of the references in the film. Why would I assume that being
black would make it all clear? In the same review , "Barns" notes the unpolished and, for
some, off-putting aspects of the film, but immediately puts them in perspective by means
of a humourous, but all too accurate comparison:
instead of being a celebration of self-discovery as told by an independent
filmmaker, in the hands of a big-budget writer/director, Another Planet would
probably have had Cassandra be a neck-twistin ' , gum-snappin ' hoochie mama
out to get pi-zaid, Patrick a gang-bangin' b-ballin ' playa, mother Mary a
neglectful crackhead, and Diallo a race-hating pimp. As I contemplated that
very nightmare while watching Browne' s film, I gained a greater appreciation
of the vast difference between most independent filmmakers and Hollywood' s
"finest" -- and the film came across much easier for that realization .
(http://www .3 blackchicks.com)

132

10. Among the short films I reviewed there were stories about women who seemed primarily
concerned with the search for love, romance and/or marriage, along with conventional
portrayals of ' housewives' , but these were by male filmmakers.
11. The immediate example that comes to mind is How to Make an American Quilt (1995) ,
directed by Jocelyn Moorehouse. It is hard to imagine a film made by and about women
that was more disappointing, and less satisfying, to my feminist sensibilities tban this
story which seems to say 'Forget about careers and passion. Find a 'good' man and then
stand by that man no matter how he behaves' .

Chapter Three- Women Watching Women: The Viewers
1.

Viewer 3 (V3). Email response 27 January 2001.

2.

One woman commented that she only knew of Atom Egoyan because he appeared on the
Academy Awards broadcast.

3.

Viewer 1 (Vl). Personal interview 30 January 2001. Interestingly, though they weren't
aware of directors, in two cases viewers mentioned films they liked or didn ' t like, which
turned out to be by the same filmmaker. One who enjoyed Loyalties mentioned also
liking Bye Bye Blues, unaware that Anne Wheeler was the director of both. In the other
case, a viewer who was explaining why she did not like the style of I've Heard the
Mermaids Singing alluded to another film she had seen on television which displayed,
for her, the same shortcomings. Further discussion revealed that this remembered film
was Partricia Rozema's When Night is Falling.

4.

V3.

5.

My favorite of these is the review by prominent American critic Roger Ebert, who in his
very positive review of Double Happiness relates that Jade's parents "try to maintain
Chinese traditions in the North American melting pot", into which Jade "would rather
melt." (Roger Ebert. 1995. Double Happiness. Chicago Sun Times 25 August.
Reprinted at http://www.suntimes.com/cgi-bin/print.cgi). In spite of the looming
presence of our neighbour to the south, the mosaic was still intact last time I checked.

6.

Marc Horton. 1999. Smart, Funny and Erotic as Girl Meets Girl. Edmonton Journal 17
September, E2.

7.

Christine Metropoules. 2000. Better Than Chocolate. Reel. com.
http://www .reel.com/movie.asp?MID=45688&buy=closed&Tab=reviews&CID=13.

8.

Kevin Thomas. 2000. Los Angleles Times . http://www.flf.com/double/reviews.htm.

9.

Barbara Shulgasser. 1995. Directing Debute Double Happiness Not Half Bad. San
Francisco Examiner 28 July, C7.
133

10. ibid.
11. Bruce Kirkland. Toronto Sun .
http://www .canoe.ca/j amMo vi esReviewwsD/daub lehappi ness.html.
12. Viewer 5 (V5). Email responses between 22 January 2001 and 1 April 2002.

13. Viewer 6 (V6). Telephone interview 1 February 2001.
14. V5.
15. V3 .
16. Vl.

17. V6 .
18. V6 .
19. V5.
20. V3 .
21. Vl.
22. V5.
23. V3.
24. Vl.
25 . V3.
26. Vl.
27. V3.
28. V6.
29. Vl.
30. Viewer 4 (V4). Written response 17 April 2001.
31. V3.

134

32 . Viewer 7 (V7). Interview 8 January 2001.
33. V6.
34. V5.
35. Vl.
36. V5 .
37. V5.
38. Vl.
39. V5.
40. Vl.
41. V5.
42. Vl.
43. V5.
44. Vl.
45. Vl.

46. V5.
47. Vl.
48. Reviewing the interviews where women talked about influential films from their youth, I
began to think about how this applied to me, and found that I was, quite unconsciously,
humming a tune from one of my favorite and incessantly viewed films when I was about
thirteen years old. The film is Summer Magic, the star Hayley Mills- a Walt Disney
icon for teenage girls in that era, and the song is 'Femininity'. To my amusement and
chagrin, I found I still know every word to that song, an ideological truth aimed at a
large group of young women of the time. These are the words of wisdom which have
been circulating through my subconscious for some thirty-seven years: "Let him do the
talking/ Men adore good listeners/ Laugh , but not loudly/ If he should choose to tell a
joke ... Be demure, sweet and pure/ Hide the real you ... That' s what every girl should
know/ If she wants to get a beau." I draw no immediate conclusions from this
observation, but offer it here as food for thought.
49. V5.
135

50. V4.
51. V7.
52. V3 .
53 . V4.
54. V3 .
55 . Vl.
56. V5.
57 . This viewer commented, as I did in my original analysis, on the unusual casting, where
actors of different ethnicities played roles that were not necessarily ethnic roles : "The
odd bit was Graham Green. I didn ' t quite get that bit but it was okay and kind of fun to
see him play against type . We need more of that in films."
58. V6 .
59. Viewer 2 (V2). Interview 11 December 2000.
60. V6.
61. V6.
62. I had the opportunity to talk about my thesis work with two women who were visiting
from Australia. While they said they enjoyed many Canadian films , the one film the y
could remember clearl y, and name, was The Company of Strangers.
63. V2 .
64. Vl.
65 . Vl.
66. V3 .
67 . V4.
68. V5.
69. V7 .

136

70. V7.
71. V5.
72. V2 .
73. V6.
74. V4.
75. Vl.
76. V5.
77 . V6.
78. V2.
79. V4.
80. V7 . She also noted that her desire to perform for people was very possibly influenced
by movies: "I was always reminded ... as a young girl that my dad called me after
Shirley Temple. So you kind of get into that 'Good Ship Lollipop' kind of thing, you
know. So maybe that could have had something to do with it."
81. V2.
82. V4.
83. V4.
84. Quoted in Mark Vaughan-Jackson. 2000. Romantic Comedy Shot in St. John ' s Head
for Release. Okanagan Sunday 12 November, C5. In a bold move, House took the film
back from the large distributor Alliance/ Atlantis to avoid the typical limited release
scenario, choosing the freedom, and the risk, of setting up theatrical releases in selected
cities in the hope that the film will find its audience , and the support for a wide
distribution , by word of mouth.
85. V2.
86. Journalist James Adams reports that " [I]n Germany, the odds that a filmgoer will be
able to see a German film are three in 20; in France, they are three in 10; in Canada, it 's
been estimated that a filmgoer stands only a 1-in-20 chance that he or she will see a nonHollywood production (from anywhere)." In James Adams . 2002. The Greatest
Movies You ' ve Probably Never Seen. Globe and Mail2 February, R4.

137

87. V6. She spoke to the manager, wondering why they did not run more of these types of
films, given this response, and his reply was that he had no control over the selection of
movies.
88. V7.
89. V3.
90. Vl.
91. V2.
92. V6.
93. Vl.

Conclusion - Renegotiating the Social Contract
1.

In fact, some writers have analyzed Canadian film in general (see Cagle 1999) and
Canadian women's film in particular (Nelson 1985) with reference to models of
decolonization.

2.

James Adams . 2002. The Greatest Movies You've Probably Never Seen. Globe and
Mail2 February, R4. The report upon which the Fund was based, The Road to Success
(Canada. Department of Canadian Heritage: 1999), although excellent in its assessment
of and recommendations for the Canadian film industry in general, makes no reference
to gender or cultural diversity. This report met with criticism from members of the
British Columbia film community for favouring Central Canada over the West (see
Brian Morton. 1999. Film Executives Say Report Out of Focus. Vancouver Sun 20
May, B7).

3.

Like Jacqueline Bobo, Wesley Lowe definitely feels that heritage has an impact on
filmmaking:
If it's a filmmaker of Chinese heritage it will be a little bit different than a
filmmaker of Italian heritage, even if they're talking about exactly the same
subject. That may not play out, let's say, in a minute but certainly in over an
hour and a half or two hours of a feature film , I think it will.

4.

Manjunath Pendakur's Canadian Dreams and American Control (1990) is an excellent
examination of the development of our national film industry, with particular reference
to "how the different priorities of American capital , certain sections of Canadian capital,
and the Canadian filmmakers' need to serve the Canadian people with films
autonomously conceived, produced, distributed, and exhibited have shaped the Canadian
film industry"(30).
138

5.

A close relative of the concept of 'merit ' is the concept of 'giving the audience wh at it
wants'. Elizabeth Traube (1992) points out that this simplistic rhetoric covers a complex
process which is constructed through unreliable research used to build a 'myth of the
audience' , the beliefs and values of the producing community, and capitalist strategies
which employ seduction as a means of social control. What ensues, as she states, "is not
reflection but a highly selective version of collective sentiment, the culture industry's
ideologically structured image of popular desires and fears" (69), which are then utilized
in "shaping the consumption ethic on which they depend"(95).

6.

Denis Sequin. 2000. And God Created Female Directors. National Post 8 April , 3.

7.

Quoted in Denis Sequin. 2000. And God Created Female Directors. National Post 8
April, 3.

8.

Susan Walker. 1999. Gay and Lesbian Fest Shows How Far They ' ve Come. Toronto
Star Final Edition 14 May, C2.

9.

V6 .

10. Crean 1991:50.
11. Quoted in Turbide 1993:42.
12. James Adams. 2002. The Greatest Movies You've Probably Never Seen. Globe and
Mail2 February, R4.

139

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APPENDIX 1: Film Details
Feature Films
AMERICAN BOYFRIENDS 90 min
1985/Sandy Wilson/Canada
ANOTHER PLANET 90 min
1999/Christine Browne/Syncopated Productions/Canada
BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE 101 min
1999/Anne Wheeler/rave film inc.-Trimark/Canada
BYE BYE BLUES 117 min
1989/Anne Wheeler/Canada
CAMILLA 94 min
1995/Deepa Mehta/Canada
DOUBLE HAPPINESS 87 min
1994/Mina Shurn!First Generation-New View/Canada
DRIVE, SHE SAID 93 min
1998/Mina Shurn!Behaviour Distribution/Canada
EARTH 110 min
1998/Deepa Mehta/Canada-India
FIRE 104 min
1996/Deepha Mehta/Trial by Fire/Canada-India
HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER ' S STONE 142 min
2001/Chris Columbus/Warner Bros/USA
I'VE HEARD THE MERMAIDS SINGING 81 min
1987/Patricia Rozema/VOS Productions/Canada
KISSED 80 min
1996/Lynne Stopkewich/Boneyard Film/Canada
LOYALTIES 98 min
1986/Anne Wheeler/Canada-UK
MISS CONGENIALITY 105 min
2000/Donald Petrie/W amer Bros/USA

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MY AMERICAN COUSIN 90 min
1985/Sandy Wilson/Canada
SAM AND ME 94 min
1991/Deepa Mehta/Canada
SWING SHIFT 100 min
1984/ Jonathan Demme/Wamer Bros/USA
THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS 100 min
1990/Cynthia Scott/National Film Board/Canada
WHEN NIGHT IS FALLING 94 min
1995/Patricia Rozema/Canada

Short Films
ALTARATIONS 8:00 min
1996/Andrea roberston/Lumbering Giants Productions/Canada
BELOW THE BELT 13 :00 min
1999/Dominique Cardona and Laurie Colbert/Tiger Lily Films/Canada
BERNICE 18:32 min
1996/Elizabeth Murray/Canada
BLIND 10:00 min
1999/Deborah Day/Canada
CRICKETS 12:00 min
1998/Jane Kim/Canada
DAMES 8:30 min
1995/Mauren Devanik!Urban Pictures/Canada
DIKE 8:05 min
1996/Lisa Hayes/Canada
EVERYTHING'S ROSIE 10:00 min
2001/Roslyn McKitrick/Peach Pit Productions/Canada
FEEDING THE SET 22:33 min
1994/Karen Yarosky/Too Hard to Swallow Productions/Canada
FLYING 10:00 min
1998/Sandy Tait/Vancouver Film School/Canada

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KILLING TIME 15 :30 min
1996/Paula Tiberius/Tapas Films/Canada
LOVE INTERRUPTUS 7:23 min
1995/Carole Ducharme/Witness Productions/Canada
NO PROBLEM 18:38 min
1998/Eva Colmers/No Problem Productions/Canada
OFF KEY 22:04 min
1994/Karethe Linaae/Big Nose Pictures/Canada
SPLIT SHIFT 20:40 min
1995/Katie Tallo/Canada
THROUGH MY EYES 14:00 min
1997/Kathryn Martin/Blazing Trail Productions/Canada
VANCOUVER 37 18:00 min
1995/Elizabeth Murray/Canada
WALK FOOT MAN 12:00 min
1995/Jeanette Lambermont/Dill Tomato-Notebook Productions/Canada
WILMA'S SACRIFICE 15:48 min
1998/Kat Lanteigne/Delaco Productions/Canada
WINK 19:45 min
1998/Frances McDermid/Pie in the Sky Productions/Canada

149