Barbie sexy

Michael Venus: So why don’t you tell the readers who haven’t heard of you about your films and what has been happening with your filmmaking.

Lisa G: My name is Lisa G. Some may have seen my stop-motion Barbie movies set to solid, pop culture soundtracks (Sweet Prince Charming; Three Things My Mother Never Told Me; Blue Tuesday; Unravelled, She Said). They have been screened in queer video festivals in Canada, the United States and all over Europe. My personal coup was having Blue Tuesday screened at our own Vancouver International Film Festival. Queer festivals are so important, but the VIFF has greater potential for expanding minds that need the expansion.

I also recently got to be on the other side of the camera acting in a fun little Maureen Bradley flick called You Fake. In traditional film you often have to choose a department and I find that limiting. I love all aspects of making a video; that’s why digital movie making is so interesting to me. Small budgets, less waste, down-and-dirty storytelling. The Danish Dogma movement makes sense to me. I hate when money dictates what you can and can’t do.

MV: How did you get into making short films and where is it going?

Lisa G: I was guilty of being a bored drummer in a rock ‘n roll band on the road looking for something to occupy my time in the hurry-up-and-wait lifestyle. The first Barbie movie I made was for a queer video night put on by a Vancouver group called the Queer Punk Collective, and as we were screening the videos we noticed a lot of them were sad. I decided to make a happy queer movie called Sweet Prince Charming.

Where is it going? Let’s face it: I like to entertain myself. I hope what makes me laugh and cry in the privacy of my own home can entertain everyone. Festivals are great and I would enjoy travelling with my videos, but I also want TV. I don’t watch a lot, but I sure would love to contribute. Everybody does not love Raymond. The inevitable fusion of television and the web is also very exciting.

MV: What have been your favourite aspects and highlights about the process?

Lisa G: I love telling a story that I think isn’t out there. One of my favourite scenes I have ever shot was a lesbo sex scene in the red bathroom of The Lotus where it gets a little rough and one female character is having her period. It is still so beautiful to me. I love colour. I love trying to make every frame like a photograph or a painting.

I also really enjoy sitting in the dark, hearing an audience respond to something I made. It is so unlike performing live. At that point my job is done so I can sit back and watch like everyone else.

MV: You currently have a short on wayoutwest.tv which is gaining tons of international praise and press. Tell us about that film in particular because it is so beautiful, yet very sad. For example, how long did that kind of stop-animation type of filmmaking take to complete?

Lisa G: Blue Tuesday. For this short I loved the idea of having a sexy opening masturbation scene and I hoped everyone would get all sexed up. And then I wanted to one-two punch them into sadness. I think there is a fine line between sorrow and joy-and between happiness and madness.

I spent a few weeks planning it, I had to make the bed, plan the costumes-Pocahontas had to have a tuxedo fitting. I used lite-brite in the dancing sequence. I filmed it over a weekend. I had my friend Maija Martin edit it at Video In. As I said, I am so excited by Internet TV. It really turns my crank that people all over the world can watch this thing.

MV: Why is it still so important for more and more queer film and video artists to continue to produce work for the world to see and digest?

Lisa G: Who better to generate queer story lines than people who live it? Having a cross-section of viewpoints is far more interesting than this fucking boring white, middle-class bullshit. There is definitely a place for it, but enough is enough. I like having queer characters just being part of the regular world, because we are. There, of course, is a place for the coming-out struggle and all that (I could watch Show Me Love a million more times) but I just want people living and joking, sleeping and shitting who happen to be queer.

MV: How would you describe the sexual aspects of your work?

Lisa G: Pornography is so much a part of our daily lives. Advertisements for clothes and music and carbonated beverages are all highly sexualized. I think it makes for some pretty fucked-up, one-way ideas of what is sexy. I constantly check in on my desires-what part is shoved down my throat and what part comes from inside me? The idea of taking a children’s toy and sexualizing it is interesting. All kids play that way: experimenting with sexuality. I think we are all still so uptight around sex and what we want to teach or not teach children. I mean, Mattel cracked down on a Spanish Barbie short that was all into SM. That is funny to me since I am pretty sure some seven-year-old won’t see it anyway, and besides, why don’t we want to teach children the play part of sex?

There is also the whole pornographic shape to the dolls. Like so much of the generic porn that is out there with the fake tits and the silicon lips and everything is so pink and shaved and clean. I laughed while I made these movies because I found I was getting all hot while moving the dolls around.

MV: You also moonlight at Vancouver Film School. What exactly do you do there?

Lisa G: I am so lucky. I work on what is called the production services team, which for me means I get to keep my hands on the software and get to work with the animation students in 3D and 2D. And Maija helps edit their work, so some great stuff is being churned out of there! I get to embrace the organizational and archival nerd that I am, but most importantly, I get to spend time with intelligent and inspirational people. Jobs for me are a little bit about money but mostly about personal contact. If I didn’t have an official job, per se, I fear I would never leave my house.

MV: What would you say are your political motivations while creating?

Lisa G: Right now I guess my politics are gender politics. This binary gender system is boring. I think it fucks so many things up. Some people fear what they can’t categorize or label. I got a haircut from a barber one day and it was hilarious. He kept asking me questions like do I want the back/side/front to be like a girl or like a boy? I didn’t have the faintest idea of what constituted a boy-style or girl-style. I ended up with a little of each and that is how I perceive everyone.

I enjoy many different kinds of people. Period. However individuals want to manifest themselves is interesting. Being true to yourself gets my vote and I think we all need to practice more of it.

I have a short story in this year’s Hot and Bothered 4 and it was inspired by the experience of being attracted to a person, not necessarily a gender. I am convinced that this act of coming out is such a waste of time and often so traumatic. If we could only be taught from the beginning that it is okay to love whoever it is you want to love.