What is the thought process behind your independent female-centred reaction to misogynist mainstream pornography?
I think pornography is often misunderstood. Obviously there are some very misogynistic people out there that tell only a particular male point of view. My argument has always been that different people should be entitled to different points of view. The trouble is that the female point of view is often missing. The way you fight hate speech is with more speech – you don’t censor it. And I think a lot of pornography is not the extreme material that the anti-porn movement often highlights. It takes so little account of the fact that the whole thing is based around pleasure. As film directors, we are saying that this is a performance that should be treated with separate rules.
So is there political intent behind your work?
I wanted to be a feminist filmmaker before I took on pornography and the way I’ve felt since graduating from Central Saint Martins has been that campaigning against bad pornography is not useful at all for feminist filmmaking. Instead I want to make something for women that will expand their own imaginary landscapes.
I am very political and in fact was the 2010 Liberal Democrat candidate for Gravesham. It does remain an important strand in my output. When I moved into a Southwark council estate I was inspired to make a film called Hug a Hoodie. I think we have seen a real backlash from the Conservative government over pornography. I am setting up a website, weconsent.org, that aims to present the sex industry realistically for opinion formers – journalists and politicians. We need to move away from the rhetoric of the 1980s and prevent moral panics. Nothing is going to change the fact that the horse has bolted and pornography is here to stay. The government’s move towards an internet service provider opt-in system will do nothing to stop underage people accessing pornography.
How does the creative process play out in your films?
It’s a very fluid thing, much like documentary filmmaking. I will start off with a specific inspiration. For instance with my film Pound a Punnet, I was walking down London’s Berwick Street and noticing all these really sassy women working in the market. From there I will think through various variations and put in reality checks that tie the film to its location. So in my films Southwark Sugar and Hoxton Honey I would make sure to put the White Cube in and other local details. It’s a very flexible process right up until the day of the shoot. Often an actor will be replaced at the last minute and I will be faced with a domineering rather than submissive actor. I will have to go away on the morning of the shoot and rewrite the whole thing in my head. From the very first film that I made at Central Saint Martins in 1997, I have engaged with the problem of the script. You can’t have a script in pornography, where it is much more about capturing the moment.
Is it possible to inject a feminist aesthetic into pornography?
The way that I define myself is that I take a female-empowered point of view in my work. Nothing can’t be done from a female perspective. An important flavouring in my films is how women are shot such that they are in control. I am very keen on re-inserting a female-centred camera angle back into pornography. A great emphasis on reality is also an important part of feminist pornography. My film Hand of the Law for example was police-themed and so I made sure to get realistic police outfits from the same outfitters used by The Bill, and used locations to make some very realistic stories, mostly.
