Kiva Reardon, creator of the feminist film magazine Cléo
IN RUBRIC "BUSINESS" we introduce readers to women of different professions and hobbies that we like or are simply interested in. In this issue is the creator and editor-in-chief of the feminist online film magazine Cléo Kiva Reardon.
Honestly, I was initially a bit shocked to see how few female film critics go to shows in Toronto, the city where I live and work. Men, of course, can also be feminists, but I wanted to think of a place where novice film critics could write. After all, what can I say, the weekly reviews of the mainstream are not written from a women's point of view. And so, in principle, it should be, but when you want to read the feminist review, Cléo comes to the rescue.
For me, cinema is politics, and my personal politics is feminism. I watch movies and read using exclusively the feminist point of view. I always think: how is it from the female side? We are not the first to work in this field. Firstly, there is a London professor, film critic and feminist theorist Laura Malvey, who actively wrote in the 70s. Then - American film critic and feminist Molly Haskell. She reviewed movies for Vogue. And, of course, Bell Hooks, a radical defender of women's rights, who demands that her name should always be written in lower case, because she believes she has no right to her own name, while millions of her “sisters” have no rights. But the very first and most important is the magazine Camera Obscura. It all started with him, and he is much more successful than ours.
Cléo is such a social manifesto. Its function is to correct the gender imbalance that exists in modern film criticism. There are, of course, more important feminist conquests. We, alas, do not save lives. But our region is also important, something positive can be done in it. There are not so many feminists among modern female directors. And the task of breaking stereotypes is not only for them. In the last issue of Cléo, I did an interview with Athena Rachel Tsangari. And I started my first question with a quote from Claire Denis about the expectations placed on women directors. According to her, “there are vast territories” of research for them, in the cinema and in art in general.
I was asked to name male directors who created complex and memorable female characters. I had to think
Who cares about the female question from the male half of filmmakers? I recently discussed this topic with friends. They asked me to name the male directors who created complex and memorable female characters. I had to think. But I remembered a couple. And we even wrote about them in Cléo. This is Soderberg and Todd Haynes. Well, and perhaps Harmony Corin. It is not at all news that there is a double standard for Hollywood actresses: either succeed in their work - or sleep with a director or producer. Otherwise, they will put pressure on you and force you to leave. Cléo is interested not only in the indie scene, but also in Hollywood. But there is not much to do with feminism. For example, this summer there was a release of only one mainstream film, in which women play the main roles, “Cops in Skirts”. Now in Hollywood, a decline in interest in female characters, and few writers, producers and directors are interested in this topic. Much less than, say, on television.
The image of female sexuality on the screen is still the dominant theme in Hollywood. Even more: sexual exploitation per se takes many forms. When you watch a movie, you identify with the main character, not necessarily by gender. For example, the proof of this is Carol Clover’s “Final Girl” theory, which found that while watching horror films a male audience identifies itself with the “last girl” left alive. However, the truth is that there are few women on the screen and most of the stories revolve around men, and this is really a problem. I do not think that there are any universal women's stories, but there is a lack of complex female characters in the main roles in the movie.
Should we divide people into men and women? This is the fundamental question of any rights movement. Of course, recognition of identity is a key human right. But people also have differences, and they affect their lives. That is why I do not believe in the myth of the post-racial and post-feminist era. The goal of feminism — or, rather, one of the goals — is not to eradicate the differences between the sexes, to “make women look like men,” but to show how gender is socially constructed and how it is used against women. Men can also become authors of Cléo. For example, among our critics - Adam Cook. But the more women writing, the better. I advise novice feminists to look at everything and look for a female theme in this. Although the "Daisies" Vera Chitilova worth to start to see everything.
Photographer: Valeria Stepura