Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power

An essential film. A necessary film for every filmmaker. An essential document for future filmmakers but also for experienced filmmakers who want to apply the gender perspective to walk towards a better and more just world. A basic guide that should be disseminated in all film schools around the world. A meticulous and very careful job. Contains examples of films with a gender perspective film analysis. Very interesting interviews that open a new horizon to society. It is a courageous work very well founded and perfectly explained. That is why it can be very uncomfortable for the industry. Congratulations.

These days, everyone is a content creator and receiver. BRAINWASHED is a MUST-SEE film as we strive for equity and inclusion in today's world. You will never look at media in the same way again. In other words it will change the way you look at EVERYTHING! The film pulls back the curtain on cinematic history to reveal how our perceptions of women and men have been shaped over decades. An engrossing experience for anyone in content creation and for all of us as consumers of content. SEE it once... See it twice... Share it... Talk about it... and dare to bring your newfound awareness into you own life.

Once you see this movie, you can't unsee what it clearly demonstrates. Brainwashed is a giant step in bringing awareness to the subtle and not-so-subtle ways women are treated as second class citizens through cinematic process and technique. Brainwashed shows how consistent camera angles, lighting, and other shot design elements are applied exclusively to women, such that women are almost exclusively presented as objects of other's (men's mostly) desires rather than as their own subjects in the characters they portray. This below awareness process inculcates patriarchal codes! "If the camera is predatory, then the culture is predatory." This is a meta-level awareness game changer of a film! Must see!

Warning: this film may take you on a rollercoaster of anger-grief-hope. BRAINWASHED: SEX-CAMERA-POWER is striking in its simple, straightforward demonstration of power dynamics at play in the visual language of cinema, the impact of those dynamics on culture, and solutions for moving forward in a new way. Filmmaker nina menkes treats the subject in a calm and measured manner, walking the audience through the topic like they're attending a graduate film studies class. The audience is given a multitude of examples which demonstrate a visual pattern that is - whether intentionally or unintentionally - reinforced throughout a century of filmmaking, a pattern that most often objectifies women and minorities. The film links this pattern to the wider, societal implications, its role in contributing to the everyday objectification of women and minorities in workplaces and interpersonal interactions, and the inequitable economics of filmmaking. Then, rather than condemning the visual pattern, or shaming those who use it, the film plainly asks, "is this style of visual language effectively communicating the narrative?" and/or "is there another way to accomplish the goal that may be even more effective?" here, examples of alternatives are provided. By bringing the pattern into conscious awareness without any shame or retribution, the film allows the audience an opportunity to choose to heal the collective trauma wrought by the normalization of on-screen dehumanization, and to be free of the unconscious visual language so that it can be transformed into an entirely new system.

This film demonstrates how, for decades, a very small group of people have shown us who a woman is and how she's valued. This idea isn't new, but the visual representation is radical and as tears filled my eyes in the theatre I could literally see the way I've shaped myself and my characters around someone else's vision - without ever even meaning to. It's a visceral experience, it's a fair examination, and I'm convinced there's no other way to teach this. To anybody in film, this movie is anything but a call to war against the classics; it is an exciting invitation for innovation in a gripping and meaningfully uncomfortable way. This film says, "it's time for change" and even does the favor of showing us how. The power is in our hands.

The objectification of women is certainly a crucial issue that needs to be dealt with. However, if awareness of the problem is to be raised, it definitely requires a better film than this specious, sloppy, cherry-picked offering. Based on a TED Talk-style presentation titled "Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Film" by director Nina Menkes, the filmmaker makes the argument that objectification is a result of the way male-female interactions are typically staged in movies, a practice that reflects a phenomenon referred to as "the male gaze," a leering stare that, in turn, is responsible for things like employment discrimination in the entertainment industry and increased incidents of sexual harassment and assault. And, because films "reinforce" this, as Menkes insists, they're at fault for these troubling problems, a product that's a direct result of the decision-makers in the male-dominated movie industry. One might say this is indeed a plausible hypothesis given the proliferation of these filming techniques in motion pictures. There's just one problem with this theory - it's largely nonsense. To begin with, "the male gaze" has been around a lot longer than the movie business (like, say, all the way back to prehistoric times), a notion implied just by the very idea that movies are said to "reinforce" this practice, suggesting its earlier appearance in the history of the species. Second, males invoke the gaze with more than just women (just ask almost any gay man who's checking out another male at a bar or community event). And, third, this practice is engaged in by men who never go to the cinema (especially many of the somewhat obscure titles the director cites as examples to allegedly prove her point). The argument is further undermined by some of the film clips she uses in a failed attempt to add credence to her contention - pictures that were directed by women that incorporate some of the same filming techniques she criticizes. She even takes issue with the staging of a scene in the film "Bombshell" (2019), a picture whose very intent is chronicling the sexual harassment scandal at FOX News involving power broker Roger Ailes, lambasting it for employing some of the same filming practices that this production was seeking to expose. Of course, to demonstrate how things should be done, Menkes taps a number of clips from her own films (titles that I, as an avid cinephile, have never heard of and that include content similar to what she's criticizing, even if filmed somewhat differently). (Ah, yes, nothing like a little blatantly shameless self-promotion to help prove your point.) To its credit, this documentary draws worthy attention to the issues of objectification, employment discrimination in Hollywood and sexual abuse, but this film is a sorry representative of those issues, all of which are addressed much more effectively by releases like "This Changes Everything" (2018) and "She Said" (2022). Those other films are much more interesting than this snooze, too, a clunky offering that plays more like a seminar than a movie. It's truly ironic that Menkes asserts men have become brainwashed into this way of thinking by what they see in the movies, especially given that the only one who seems to have been brainwashed here is the director herself by her own material.

This so called documentary wants to deconstruct the human psychology and even genetics. All men are made in such a way that are attracted by women, by their look and their sexuality. Now the new feminism wants to deconstruct this and see it as a sin. When you as a male have something imbedded in you that makes you look after a beautiful woman this is as per the producers of this documentary wrong. The way they go with this feminism and some other ideas will turn against capitalist/progressist society they want to change it now. It all started with BLM and now goes to this thing that is against human nature.

For most of my life.. what was allowed to be told, portrayed and dramatized was waaaaaaaay different from what Hollywood did. And I always said: it's how these western folks operate, just watch a different kind of art. This is an eye opening examination cinema, from the perspective of half the world. How cinema is visually made and consumed by all of us. The film needed to make references to other films which contained nudity, but whenever that was shown, it didn't feel forced. In fact, it felt like evidence. I will show this movie to my son at some point. So that he too one day may watch movies with a knowinng eye.

In her documentary, Nina Menkes explores how the movie industry, through filmmaking techniques and male-centric visions and decisions, has been encouraging and approving the very toxic behaviors that same industry is shyly starting to condemn today. Not only does Menkes describes how systematically the "male gaze" treatment is applied to female protagonists even and especially in award-winning movie, but also allows her audience to identify the tropes that are being used by filmmakers to construct this sexualised and objectified imagery of women. Hopefully her matter-of-factly approach will help give her work credibility, given how tricky it is for women to be taken seriously on such controversial subjects.

This insightful, challenging feature-length documentary by veteran independent filmmaker and film school instructor Nina Menkes takes a hard look at the types of camera shots long used by directors and cinematographers to capture women on film. A must-see for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of the differences in the way women are visually portrayed on screen verses the way men are portrayed and what impact those differences mean to society. The documentary includes many clips from classic and contemporary films as well as interviews with fellow filmmakers, industry professionals, and advocates.