Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power
Director: Nina Menkes
Writer: Nina Menkes
Seen on: 26.5.2023

Content Note: rape

“Plot”:
In her documentary based on one of her own talks, Menkes examines the construction of gender roles in film, especially with camera work, and the way it is both shaped by and shapes the general gender hierarchy. With plenty of film clips and interviews with (mostly) female directors and actors it sheds light on discrimination and the way filmmaking impacts gender differences.

Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power is an impressive documentary that makes some excellent points, even as it sometimes is a bit too quick and not all examples it provides are that well-chosen.

Brainwashed is at its strongest when it outlines how women and men are shot differently in films, breaking Mulvey’s theory about the male gaze that constructs the man as the subject that watches and women as the object that is watched down to a technical level: camera position, framing, lighting all work together to create this effect and Menkes has countless examples to show how pervasive this kind of construction is.

She is less successful in citing attempts to subvert this construction. She mostly references her own work when it comes to trying to differently shoot sex scenes in particular, and while I can’t fault her for this impulse – and there certainly aren’t that many filmmakers who try to do just that – she could have tried a broader approach here. Plus, a few examples she gives trying to prove the general point are actually attempts to subvert it – like Titane.

I have spent my fair share of time analyzing films, both on the micro-level like the shot analyses that Menkes does and on a bigger scale that allows us to consider narrative trends better and I could still take away a couple of new things from Menkes’ documentary. One of the most interesting moments for me was her analysis of Mandingo where the white woman gets the cinematic staging of the man as she rapes a Black slave. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t stick long with race as a (gendered) factor – I would have liked a more intersectional approach here.

When Menkes tries to draw a direct line from filmmaking to labor discrimination and inequality, things get a bit more tenuous. Not because those two things aren’t related at all, but because it is more complex than a simple cause-effect relationship with only a handful of factors and Menkes is a bit too quick to draw conclusions here. But with the interviews with the other directors and actors, it becomes very obvious that there is a definitely a real effect outside of films as well.

Summarizing: interesting and insightful, albeit not perfect.