{"id":95,"date":"2008-06-15T09:56:34","date_gmt":"2008-06-15T13:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/2008\/06\/15\/sexy-an-important-short-film\/"},"modified":"2008-06-15T09:56:34","modified_gmt":"2008-06-15T13:56:34","slug":"sexy-an-important-short-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/2008\/06\/15\/sexy-an-important-short-film\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Sexy’ – an important short film"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Affiche_Sexy_inc_fr_lowres_FINAL.pdf<\/a>
\nSexy<\/em><\/p>\n

A report by Quebec’s Conseil du Statut de la Femme<\/strong> (Status of Women Council) published this week sounds the alarm. The stereotyping in the media and in advertising lead to the hypersexualisation of youth, young women in particular. The girls have to be seductive and do everything to please the boys. Their self-esteem is out the window, jeopardizing the advances made thanks to decades of feminist struggles. The Quebec media were – not surprisingly – very critical of the report.<\/p>\n

Filmmaker Sophie Bisonnette<\/strong> – who has made a number of feminist films, including Quel Num\u00e9ro<\/em> – What Number<\/em> – made a film on this subject last year. Seeing her film, it is obvious that there are some serious issues here. I asked her a few questions.<\/p>\n

The Council came out with its report now, but you were on to this much earlier. How long have people been aware of these issues, and who were the first people -or organizations – to bring them up ?
\n<\/em>
\nSophie Bissonette<\/strong> : The sexualisation of our environment has happened insidiously and it manifests itself now in all media and consumer products for children and youths. The Women\u2019s Y in Montreal, to my knowledge, was the first association to sound the alarm about it 4 years ago. In the youth programs the Y offers to girls to develop girls\u2019 leadership and self-esteem, the facilitators became aware that the girls were being exposed continuously to sexualized images in their environment and it had a negative effect on them. The Y approached the community services at University of Quebec in Montreal and they put together a research and training project called Outiller les jeunes face l\u2019hypersexualisation, to develop tools to help children and youths face the sexualisation of their environment. I approached the NFB who accepted to produce Sexy inc. which is the result of this collaboration.<\/p>\n

This is an important subject, but the film was made on a very mall budget. Why ?<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a complex issue and the consequences are many and quite dramatic. The subject deserves to be treated more extensively and with more resources. However, we worked with a strong feeling that we needed urgently to bring out a film about this phenomenon, especially because it is affecting younger and younger children. As you well know Magnus, financing a documentary can take several years. So I decided to do a short half-hour small-budget film so it could be done within the year. I feel it was a sound decision : the film is a blockbuster for the NFB. There is an exceptional demand for it.
\nI still believe the subject matter deserves to be treated more extensively, so I would really like to do another film to go futher on that topic.<\/p>\n

\"Sexy-director\"<\/a>
\nSophie Bissonette<\/em><\/p>\n

Did you make the film for a young audience, or for adults ? Can you do both at the same time ?<\/em><\/p>\n

The film is intended for an adult public, to help parents, teachers and all people responsible for children\u2019s well-being to understand the phenomenon and be better equiped to talk to children and youths about it. Corporations and marketers have targeted our children and teenagers to sell them sexualized and very stereotypical images. Our children are now immersed in this environment nos. It is crucial that parents and all those responsible for educating children react and act upon it to claim a territory we have lost out to private interests. The film also works very well for 14 to 16 year-olds but it is inappropriate for a younger public.
\nNo, it is not possible to do both. I needed in this film to make adults aware of the images their children were exposed to, including pornography, and to let social workers and doctors talk about the harsh realities kids are experiencing, including their sexual experiences.<\/p>\n

Could you make an effective film for a young audience on this subject, when they are already so inundated with messages with the other point of view ?<\/em><\/p>\n

Our children and youngsters are very uncomfortable with these sexualised images. They do feel under pressure, invaded by these images and resent that a very stereotypical model is being pushed on them, which may not correspond to their personal aspirations. We need to help them develop their critical thinking and to turn them into resistants to these images, we need to offer other models and alternatives (let\u2019s not forget that as parents we ARE their models). We also need to trust them and with them try to push back this phenomenon. It is true that we are facing big interests here, so we must all do it both on a personal level with our children but also collectively if we want to succeed. For instance we see in the film a mother who decides to do an activity with her very young children to dress up in a creative way the half-naked women of an ad by American Apparel on the back cover of \u00ab Voir \u00bb, a weekly magazine in Montreal and they send their art work to the companies. This seems to me to be a very inspiring initiative that could be taken up by others to create a mass movement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sexy A report by Quebec’s Conseil du Statut de la Femme (Status of Women Council) published this week sounds the alarm. The stereotyping in the media and in advertising lead to the hypersexualisation of youth, young women in particular. The girls have to be seductive and do everything to please the boys. Their self-esteem is … Continue reading ‘Sexy’ – an important short film<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}