Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power

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.

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!

Authors and guests dive deep into every aspect of film making and history, to find "patriarchal" elements. There are a lot of axioms, which are not defined, but can be perceived through their comments. For example, predatory behaviour comes from men and patriarchy. They set very clear divide between two sexes with many generalisations, which might be true(statistically speaking), but same people would never accept the same treatment if real statistics were used as counter arguments. It's the cat and mouse game between generalisation and specialisation. They usually take whatever suits them best, for a particular situation. Authors don't want to discover, research, learn. They want to impose, in a very "patriarchal" way. Here lies the ultimate truth. Within is the answer they refuse to accept. Every person is a microcosmos. A combination of the worst and the best humanity offers and everything in between. We are biologically separated by combination of X and Y chromosomes, that govern our physical traits but all other characteristics fall into a spectrum. Some are very common and some fall generally more on one side. None of them is inherently good or bad. It's all about the context. Even when we use archetypes from psychology, like "tyrannical father" and "devouring mother", gender is used just as a description, not a permanent label. A man can behave as a "devouring mother". It's sad to see all these accomplished and grown people not being able to behave as adults.

This is a must watch film. It is raw, honest and critically important. BRAINwASHED creates a much needed awareness in the film industry and describes how camera angle and other filmmaking elements contributes to issues that effect women: sexualization, employment discrimination and even the rape culture that sadly exists in our society. A must watch!

This is especially important for the younger generation of film makers, as they are the ones who can truly make a difference and show that it is possible to choose differently when filming the female body in a way that is engaging but not sexualizing.

It's interesting to see the different opinions from the comment sections. I saw someone made a comment and it goes something like "yes women are being objectified but they are also doing so on their own accord..."and they (sorry to assume but i guess there is 89% chances that they are a cis-gender heterosexual man) used examples if instagram influencer and models...

Utterly speechless, why so defensive? This is a desperate try to distract people and themselves from the actual issues at the core of this film which is extremely poignant. If we are talking about male gaze, and the objectification of men toward women, we are talking about an oppressive troupe which put women in a passive position, dehumanizing women, ignoring their subjectivity and voices while fragmenting their bodies, privileging the male gaze. Influencers and models are a different issue here, what they suggest that is women dont have autonomy and sense to empower themselves by displaying and posing their bodies on sns in their own way. Cuz whatever we do is to cater your gaze and perpetuate male oppression right?

Women have the freedom to choose whatever the way the want to celebrate and display their bodies, its about being comfortable in one's own skin.

And also why not think of why women feel the need sometimes to cater or as they suggest perpetuate the objectification? Its patriarchal pedagogy and propaganda which a lot of us have to unlearn. Its structural, still pinpointing to the cultural of female objectification. Stop being defensive, look inward. Or else you are not getting any point of this documentary.