Beth B

Intro: Beth B is a feminist, experimental filmmaker and artist who is based in the city of New York. She considers herself a “humanist” rather than a feminist, and translates her values of equality, normality, and beauty onto video, paintings, photography and sculpting. Beth B’s work has no limits and targets any individual despite their background. She wants her audience to experience her art in their own way, but wants them to question the norms of society. Beth blew up in the 70’s in New York, and has a collection of over 30 films- experimental, documentary, and narrative. Today, she continues to explore the ideas of humanism through different mediums, and her ideologies have been topics in different novels and documentary films. Beth currently teaches fine arts at the School of Visual Arts in New York and film at Montclair State University. The works discussed in this interview include only a few of her variety of works - her award winning documentary, Exposed, the video installation, Hysteria, and her sculpture Monuments.

Iran M: I first want to thank you for giving me this opportunity of interviewing you and the time you've given up for this. Let’s begin with you telling me about yourself and your views on feminism.

Beth B: Feminism is a pretty complicated subject in this day in age because it has a long history and I feel that there have been many stages of feminism. There was sort of the radical feminism of the 60’s in the images of women. Women in a way, felt like they didn't want to be women, and kind of tried to adjust themselves physically to be able to inhabit male society. And there was a whole denial of women's sexuality during that period of time. Women were wearing suits and ties and short hair, and I think a lot of women needed to do that and discard a sense of sexuality in order to in a way to protect and dispel the notion that all women are there for. Right?

Iran M: Right. Yes. Yes.

Beth B: So there's that sort of wave of feminism that is really important. And I don't think we would be where we are, or I would be the person I am, without that history. It had to be, in a way, radical. I think you have to do something extreme in order to find for each individual where they feel comfortable. And I think that that's the objection I sometimes take to the word feminism. Because it seems to get in to categorizing, stereotyping, and limiting who we can be as women. And personally I am very against that.

Iran M: Yes. I agree with that.

Beth B: And I think in the late 70s, women of my generation were really looking and confronting and combating the prior generations notions of that. We had to rally against the man, and in a way obliterate our sexuality to, in a sense, prove our independence and power. And I feel for me, I feel feminism is about embracing all aspects of myself. Feminine, male, animal, creature, whatever it might be, I feel like I identify as a human being and I feel like there is already so much alienation, and - What would it be called? Help me out here, Iran.

Iran M: Already so much oppressions, discriminations?

Beth B: Yes. Discriminations and oppressions. Discrimination is oppression that we and I are limited to all the open possibilities. And, well, I think that when you start putting labels on people, that limits who they can be, what they can do, and how they can think. Because then you start saying, when I’m a feminist, “I can't do that or I can't think like that or I can't look like that.” So when you have great images of women being sexually explicit, you begin to think, “yeah. That's OK. That's a part of who some of us are. And looking at how men and women, women and women, men and men relationships, there are those dynamics of submission and domination. But we don't have to get into the male domination over the female. Unless a person wants it. Do you know what I mean?

Iran M: Yes. I see where you’re coming from.

Beth B: So who are we to judge people's identities and their desires and know who they are.

Iran M: Agreed. Amen to that.

Beth B: Yeah. So in a way, you're asking me a loaded question because as much as I consider myself a feminist, I consider myself really more a humanist because I don't want to be tied so severely to the issues that are embedded in that culturally and historically.

I have a daughter and she's very, in a way, a total feminist, but she would say, “I am not a feminist. I don't think that these ideas are so great Mom.” Of course she believes in total female power, but attempts to be, in a way, this social warrior, It becomes rhetoric, and it does not allow for individual contemplation of self. Because, you're trying to fit into a mold.

Iran M: Wow. Well said.

Beth B: What do you mean, “Wow.”

Iran M: Just because your words are very powerful. Especially, how you said feminism is closely related to only female, and how you just translated its values into the term, “humanist.” That being human means being equal, and that hit me. I felt its power, its intensity.

Beth B: Well, did that answer all your questions?

Iran M: It answered a big portion of my listed questions, but I wanted to ask you more about the alienation and discriminations you mentioned that are in our society. How did those oppressions shape you to become a feminist? Especially one who translates their views into different art forms such as film, sculpting, and photography?

Beth B: To me that's what an artist or creative person is about. It's trying to take my own personal vision of who I am ,and what I would like to see the world around me become. It has to deal with who I am and my notions of humanism. That's what my work has to be about. I mean I would be dishonest to myself if I was making work that did not reflect my own personal conflicts and disturbance, and sometimes issues of identity, as a woman, in the culture that we live in. Which is so fraught with oppression and suppression of a female point of view. I mean everything that we see, the female gaze when there is no female gaze, or to work in magazines and you look in advertising and you look at our government campaigns, it's all the male gaze. So for me in my creative life, it's critically important for me to bring a different gaze to some of the issues that I see around me in the world. And so in a way there is a sense of political protest in my work. Each project that I do is totally different - whether I decide to use film or sculpture or installation - so much is the idea dictating the form.

Iran M: Now let’s talk about your film style. It is known that you are an accomplished experimental filmmaker. So how do you put the words experimental and feminists together. However, instead of using the term feminist, let’s use your term “humanist.” Which opens the values of equality to all humans, rather than equality only for females.

Beth B: I do experimental films as well as narratives and documentaries. I feel like the kind of filmmaking I'm doing right now is documentary, but it's kind of a hybrid with news and experimentation in it. I don't see film as a chronology. Even the film about Lydia Lunch. It's not like I'm following her through time. She began here and then she ended up there. I'm not really into linear sort of traditional storytelling, I am much more into an experimental, emotional, transformative experience that I think that you can have in any work of art. I think I choose very carefully who and what I make films about because they're an enormous monumental endeavor. I have to be very careful about how I'm approaching things, and who and what I want to focus on. And so I focus on things that I feel are brutally offensive to me that I have to speak out about.

So again, it comes back to this idea of art being a form of protest. And to me the outcome -- it's not like I have a specific outcome that I want or a solution. What I want is for people to get stirred up and upset. I want to get them upset. I want to give them a little laugh room for laughing, but I want them to walk away with questions. Questions about who we are in this culture today. So that they say, “That really upset me.” Why does it upset you? We are all here in this world together, and by gathering in a room watching film, there are interconnections between each of us because we've all had some experiences that dovetail into each other. So when you're in a room and people are watching a film, and there's something really tough going on in the film, some people in the room are going, “Oh my God! That's happened to me, I feel that I feel it.” That's the humanist quality that I want to bring to my films, where in a way, we are gathering in a form of therapy, communal therapy, to feel more connected to each other. That we're not isolated in our problems and in our disturbance. That we can actually hear other people articulate it and protest and scream about it even if we are not able to do it ourselves.

Iran M: Now I wanted to get into your documentary exposed.

Beth B: Ahh yes. Okay.

Iran M: Yes. Well that was a very, very powerful film, and I was speechless throughout the whole screening.

Beth B: Why? Well, where did you grow up Iran?

Iran M: Well I was born and raised in a border town called, Calexico, and it's between Mexico and California. So I grew up into a very strict culture, with a closed-minded community, and no ethnic diversity; 100% Mexicans. I was only exposed to my Mexican culture and roots. However, moving to Davis and attending UCD has just opened my mind to so much more. I feel like now, I am so open to everything and I love it. I admire how everyone here is so accepting and welcoming despite your background.

Beth B: So your mind is being blown.

Iran M: Super blown. So watching your film, especially seeing how you use nudity in your documentary, I was shocked, yet amazed. I've never seen such exposure in a film. And that word, exposure, just perfectly defines your documentary, Exposed.

Beth B: Yes. Exactly. So what do you want to know?

Iran M: During the film each artist interviewed explains their purpose when they were performing or why they are performing, and they say it's to create a space of acceptance or it gives them the ability to breathe or even to critique the injustices of society. So what was the purpose of this documentary? Was it only to share their experience in breaking the norm to create equality, or are you also delivering your own message while sharing theirs.

Beth B: I think it's just this wonderful journey of misfits and weirdos that you enter appalled and shocked. And then you start to realize, “Oh my God. You know what. I can empathize with them. I can identify with them.” They're extremely brilliant performers, and they are able to articulate what it is they are doing. In such a way that it's giving the audience permission to allow for diversity, allow for difference, allow for disturbance. You know? Am I right?

Iran M: Yes. Completely.

Beth B: Yeah. So, again, that kind of communal experience of watching people who at first you might think, “Good God. You know this is very extreme,” but then use it to feel. And then we come back to dehumanizing.

Iran M: Mhm.

Beth B: Here, with the film, it humanizes them and it shows that they are quite like us. So when they’re doing something, like how Rosewood says, “When you see the same thing ten times, it's not so shocking anymore.” You know when you see something 10-20 times it's not so shocking anymore, and I intentionally put her doing the Hasidic scene that focused on her penis.

Iran M: Yes, I remember that scene.

Beth B: I mean we see the penis and it's like, “Wait a minute.” I think at a certain point the audience thinks, “oh it's just a part. We've grown used to it. We're all nude underneath.” Like, what are we so afraid of. And that's what the film for me was really also trying to dispel the repression that we have around nudity and sexuality, and kind of putting it in people's face, but yet also saying it's okay - you can enjoy this. You enjoy eating, you enjoy pissing and shitting, although we don't ever show that. Why not enjoy all the different aspects of who we are as human beings? And sexuality is a wonderfully pleasurable part of it; nudity. When you go to museums, the museums that still show it (nudity). You see that the old masters were painting nudes. They were sculpting nudes. So how is it that we have gotten so backwards in our culture that we are so, so afraid of nudity. And that's what I wanted to question in the film, to in a way, empower each of us individually to embrace all the pleasures that we can find in the world and in each other.

Iran M: And how does that projection of nudism affect the impact of your story? What reaction did you attend for your audience?

Beth B: I never intend a reaction from my audience because all audiences and each person is different. For one person seeing a penis might be horribly shocking, and for another, they might start laughing and find it quite funny. The same as a vagina. So I do not intend a reaction for the audience. I take it back to hoping to enlighten or to provoke questions, rather than having a result. I don't want to sow anything up. I don't want to say this is how it should be. Each individual person who watches one of my films, I really have great respect for them to have a different reaction from the person sitting next to them because so much depends on how we grew up and that's what grows who we are today as adults. For each of us, our childhoods, form who we are. Some people don't want to look at that at all, but that is really at the core of how we react to things. So in a way it's saying, we want to, liberate your mind and your body.

Iran M: I feel like that openness to see the documentary in your own perception allows the audience to connect deeper with their individuality while understanding the different standards of normality.

Beth B: Exactly. Exactly. So I would never project a reaction to the audience.

Iran M: Also During the film, one of your interviewees states that the performance destroys the male gaze and opens the female gaze. Would you say that in your documentary the story is told through a female gaze or through what point of view?

Beth B: I think it portrays the individual gaze, without attaching a gender.

Iran M: Why not target a specific gender?

Beth B: Well because gender, in term with these characters, some of them, their genders are fluid or they're in between. They're in transition. It's each individual's journey. I don't think that I could say all the characters are trying to do this or that or are viewing things through a female gaze or a male gaze. I feel like when I was making the film, I was not doing it through a female gaze, although I am female, but I was making the film through a humanist gaze. So I'm seeing them as humans, human beings, and as individuals whom break away from the opposition that is usually inherent in female versus male. Because that's what defines us. You know, that's what makes wars. That's what oppresses people. It’s that division between males and females. There is a great scene (in the documentary) with Rosewood, where she is in the Hasidic, and says something like, “I could never imagine having to be a Muslim male or a Jewish woman.” The idea of categories like religion and genders that create one to be restrictive. Like labels. Labels are the death of us. Categories, labels, they're the death of us. All they do all they serve is so that people can better digest things or it can be glamorous and conveniently advertised or sold. That's all that labels and categories do and they don't serve us in any good way except perhaps shortening your sentence or explanations.

Iran M: Next, I wanted to talk about your video installment, “Hysteria.” I am curious, is it originally a video installment or was it more of an in-person experience?

Beth B: An in-person experience. Did you see the video that I have online?

Iran M: Yeah. The one on your website?

Beth B: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it was very complicated. I was trying to look at where women are today with the reflection and backdrop of our history.

Iran M: Mm yes. I can see that reference to the past through the use of old technologies of experimentation.

Beth B: Yes. So that was kind of the impetus for the project to really kind of analyze and also put into perspective female neurosis.

Iran M: And how do you think the message and experience differs from watching it online versus in-person.

Beth B: Oh! I mean I love doing large scale installations but I had to stop because they’re too expensive.

*Both Laugh*

Beth B: But what I love about that kind of installation that “Hysteria” was is this that the viewer really became a participant, and there was a live performance of women in the nude. You had to kind of navigate your way through these different aspects of the installation. There were videos that were inset into this padded wall and people took a pause. And I think everybody experienced it differently because it wasn't like there was a clear path that they had to follow to experience it. And then there were the doors. Then you’d have to choose to open the door or not. That becomes also an element of participation and decision making on the part of the participant, whether they want to actually continue through the installation and go to the final room which where a video was shown. And women spoke about the nude and how they felt about their bodies. And for me that is the contemporary hysteria that I see in our society where some of these women, their bodies were gorgeous. They were extraordinary, and yet every one of them could find this flaw, and that flaw, and they hate this about their body and they hate themselves. And that is the neurosis that we are sitting with in contemporary society, but it is embedded with the history of the way that women have been manipulated, and the way that their bodies have been controlled and medicalized so that in a way they were not able to create their own vision of who they wanted to be physically, sexually, or intellectually.

Iran M: I did see that the women were making these traumatic-like movements while on the table, would you say those gestures are a type of reaction towards these limitations and oppressions against women?

Beth B: What I'll just tell you about the installation is that the history of it really harked back to the late eighteen hundreds, when women were being put in mental hospitals for being mentally disturbed because they had certain behaviors that were unacceptable to the males. So these women were medicalized and basically told them that they’re hysterical, and they had all sorts of treatments for women. And you can see some of those devices in the installation that supposedly calmed the woman, known as Hysterics. Much of what was going on is that women were so oppressed before this time,-- moving forward to where if you enjoyed sex you were considered a prostitute. Women were corseted, they could barely breathe. Women would die sometimes because their organs were so compressed.

Iran M: That’s awful.

Beth B: It is. If they could not function they would die. There is this other installation that was called “Trophies” and I did a rib cage cast from a woman who had been corseted. Her rib cage was so compressed that she died at the age of 19.

Iran M: What cruelty in such savage times, especially towards women.

Beth B: Yeah. Yeah. So there is that history of the Victorian Age where women were basically put in to mental hospital, and there was this famous one in Paris there was a doctor called Dr. Charcot and he had all of these ways that he saw these women, and he would take some of them. And this is -- I'm getting to your question.

Iran M: You’re fine. Continue.

Beth B: He takes some of them and basically medicalized all of their behaviors, and labeled them. Then, he had men come in and draw the women in these different, physical gestures while they were naked. And that's what you see during the live performance of the women, “The Positions of the Hysteric.” I had women come in and do a live performance of “The Positions of the Hysteric” because I think that's where women continue to suffer because our bodies our very misunderstood.

Iran M: Very interesting in how you used the past to critic the present using these oppressions against women that have continued since then.

I know we're short on time, but I just wanted to touch up a little bit on your 10ft. torsos sculpture. Does it have a name?

Beth B: Oh yes. Those sculptures are called “Monuments.” So what do you want to know?

Iran M: How do the shape, size, and direction of the torsos have to say about feminism or women in general?

Beth B: You know after I went through doing installations that had a lot to do with the torture of women's bodies, I decided to do some installations and pieces that were really more of a celebration of women's bodies. So I did the portraits of women's vaginas, called “Portraits,” to be able to kind of bring a sense of beauty and preciousness and innocence to the part of our body that is often exploited and airbrushed and decimated. So in a way it was trying to bring sort of just this natural beauty and innocence to that part of the female body. From there, “Monuments” was in a way kind of a further celebration of the woman's body. I created these two fiberglass torsos of a woman and I don't know if you can see it in the photograph, you could actually walk inside of it.

Iran M: Yea I don’t think that was very clear through the photo.

Beth B: Yeah. The sculpture was just a shell. It was bringing back the sense of being in the womb of the woman. So it was really kind of inviting people to again, sort of looking at the façade of body and woman, but come further around and enter inside of that body and what that feels like. It was more asking the audience to enter into more of an experiential place of the body rather than taking action.

Iran M: Yes. Rather than commenting on social injustices and having the audience question it, it is more of this acceptance of peace and humanity.

Beth B: Yes. Yes. And also, I wanted to represent the female body is as being powerful but also being fragile.

Iran M: Is that fragileness why you decided to create them hollow from inside?

Beth B: Yes, so there's not just a static image to gaze upon. It’s one that you can enter into in a more complex way.

Iran M: Mm. I see.

Beth B: Wow. You’re asking me about work that is so old. That part of my brain is sort of turned off at the moment, but it’s great that you’re revisiting a variety of different work from the past than just a couple of the more current projects.

Iran M: Yea. When I was going through your work on your website, I was focusing on projects that appealed to me the most, and ones that I felt a connection to and that critiqued the society in which we live in today. But anyways, I would like to keep this conversation going, but I am afraid we are out of time.

Beth B: Yes, I believe it is that time.

Iran M: Well Beth, thank you so much for the privilege of interviewing you, and the time you’ve given up to make this happen. I was very delighted with our conversation.

Beth B: Iran, you are very nice and very formal, and I hope you begin to find the wild side to your life, if you haven’t yet.

Iran M: Trust me Beth, wait until we become well-acquainted. I’ll show you my wild side.

*Both Laugh*

Beth B: Well in that case, do me a favor.

Iran M: And what that might be?

Beth B: Do something extraordinary with your life.

About the Interviewer:

This interview was conducted by me, Iran Martinez Jr., over the phone from Sacramento, CA to New Jersey on November 2^nd, 2018. I am currently a third year student attending UC Davis and I am double majoring in Cinema & Digital Media and Communication. My interest includes portrait photography, cinematography, and storytelling through video.