User:Cbschramm/sandbox

Evaluation of the Marion Morgan article

 * I think everything in the article was relevant, nothing distracted me. However, I felt like there were a few topics that could have been expanded on (if possible), for example Morgan's son and her relationship with Dorothy Arzner
 * The article seems mostly neutral, except, perhaps, for words such as "passionate personal relationship"
 * I believe this goes back to my first bullet point, some topics could have definitely been expanded on
 * When I tried to click on reference #7, it did not do anything? I am unsure as to why, but the clicking on the link was completely useless. Coincidentally, this was also the reference used for the "passionate personal relationship" quote. Possibly a red flag pointing at a bad citation?
 * I don't believe any information is out of date, given that Morgan has died many years ago and therefore nothing in her biography could have changed
 * Unfortunately, there is not conversations at all going on about this article
 * It is rated C-class and it is part of 7 projects, including WikiProject Gender Studies, and WikiProject LGBT studies
 * We haven't really talked about Morgan in class yet, but we did talk about how Arzner was clearly not heterosexual

1. Nisha Ganatra
1. Dishing Up Comedy Spiced with Chutney by Dennis and Joan M. West


 * A short interview between Ganatra and Cineaste about what Ganatra truly wanted to express through her film Chutney Popcorn and what kind of parallels she draws on within it

2. HOLLYWOOD Velvet. by Nicholas Snow


 * Some more background on Ganatra, plus a description of Chutney Popcorn and the history of its success

3. COSMOPOLITAN (Film) by Ronnie Scheib


 * A review of Ganatra's film Cosmopolitan from 2004

I couldn't find a lot on Ganatra's personal life, other than where she went to school etc., which already exists on her Wikipedia page. I wish I could've found more interviews with her about her life and why she decided to make the films she did, together with perhaps any updates on what she is doing nowadays. However, I did find a lot of reviews and analyses of both her films Chutney Popcorn and Cosmopolitan, which were fascinating in terms of highlighting some of the many layered messages Ganatra included in her works, especially Chutney Popcorn.

2. Barbara Hammer
1. Nitrate Kisses by Michael Atkinson


 * A review of Hammer's film Nitrate Kisses

2. Barbara Hammer Reflects on a Life of Filmmaking by Cassandra Langer


 * An interview with Hammer about her style of filmmaking in general and the publishing of her book HAMMER! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life

3. HER STORY LESSONS PART I by John Esther


 * Another interview with Hammer, where she talks about her origins as a lesbian filmmaker

I found a very high number of analyses of many of her films, yet rarely anything personal about her. However, I also found a lot of reviews of many of the art exhibitions she's done, both in terms of photography and other forms of visual art. Given that there were so many 30+ page papers about her various films of hers, it shows just what an impact Hammer has had on the LGTBQ art community and how important she still is in modern times (many of the interviews and reviews are rather recent (2010 etc.), where she was about 70 years old and still talks about her films and what makes them special).

3. Céline Sciamma
1. Scenes of Hurt and Rapture: Céline Sciamma's Girlhood by Emma Wilson


 * A lengthy, but extremely informative and well written article about Sciamma and many of her films, analyzing both her and her films in great detail

2. TREATING GENDER WITH KID GLOVES by John Esther


 * An interview with Sciamma about her life, prompted by her film Tomboy

3. GIRLS IN THE HOOD by Thirza Wakefield


 * Another incredibly detailed article about Sciamma's films Girlhood and Tomboy with a bit of compare and contrast between the two

For Sciamma, I also had trouble finding many personal things about her and/or her life, but there were - as with the two filmmakers above - many great and highly detailed analyses of her films Girlhood, Tomboy, and Water Lillies, ranging from 10 to about 15 pages, if not more. Reviews of her films were also abundant, as well as interviews with her, given that she is a rather young filmmaker.

Finalizing Topic/Finding More Sources
Nisha Ganatra's website does not have a lot on it at all, so I have a lot to potentially add on. As insignificant as it sounds, I would probably start with a recent picture of her, as this is missing as well and I believe a good artist's page should always include a picture. Then I would like to add a couple of reviews of her most famous films Chutney Popcorn and Cosmopolitan, which explain not only the success these movies enjoyed, but also Ganatra's motivation for making them. Other filmmakers' pages have their own section for many of their movies, talking about themes within them or how they compare and contrast to the artist's other work and I want to add something like this to Ganatra's page. I also want to add how Ganatra's work was received by the LGTBQ+ community, as she is a lesbian filmmaker, which is rare enough, and will definitely have had some sort of impact on queer cinema. I also want to add how Ganatra was recently hired as the director for Late Night.

Chutney Popcorn
In an interview, Ganatra explains that her desire to create this film came from what she felt was an underrepresentation of Indians and Indian-Americans in cinema. She further explains that she felt as though there were not enough films that she or her brother could truly relate to while growing up, given that most films in mainstream cinema dealt with the pain of missing India and being away from home, while she had been born in Canada and therefore felt isolated from that community. Going forth, she wanted to portray Indians more authentically. Making the main character, Reena, a henna-tattoo artist was part of her doing just that, as henna is a part of the Indian culture but was then commoditized by the character, and was a way to show Reena's struggle of combining both cultural identities within her. Making Reena a lesbian also plays into that, Ganatra says, as the filmmaker mostly felt one can either "choose to be gay and then find that everybody in the gay group is white, or you can choose to be Indian and in the closet". In the end, however, Reena realizes that she is who she is, an Indian woman, and that she is no more or less Indian than her sister.

The five Hindu rituals in the film, such as wedding ceremonies, house blessing rituals, pre-birth rituals, or even bundles of herbs meant to be used as a suppository, are used by Ganatra to further portray Reena's isolation from her Indian culture and identity, as they are juxtaposed with scenes of Reena with her lesbian friends. Here, Reena is shown how much more comfortable she feels being around her queer friends than in the knowledge of how to perform these traditional rituals,, but there is more to it. By paralleling images of Indian rituals with scenes of Reena and her white friends, Ganatra said she wanted to make it clear that both Reena's family and her friends are communities, each with their own traditions and rituals. Certain cinematographic techniques were utilized to underline this idea as well, such as only showing Reena alone in the shot when she is with her family, but having her be in more group shots when she is with her friends.

Ganatra also uses Chutney Popcorn to show "women talking and just being themselves. Also to show an Indian-American person who didn't have an accent. And not to exoticize Indian culture." She wanted as many people as possible to relate to this story, so she made the film as specific as possible. She believed that any second-generation immigrant in America, not just Indian-Americans, could relate to this struggle of balancing two cultures and not knowing where you belong – especially if the parents also eventually start rejecting their original culture.

On sibling relationships and LGTBQ+ representation
Making Reena a lesbian character was a deliberate and conscious choice by Ganatra. Having Reena's sister, Sarita, be the "perfect child" by getting married to a man and then trying to become pregnant (although she turns out to be infertile) only highlights Reena's rebellious spirit as the lesbian and what she eventually comes to fear as the "less Indian" child. As touched upon above, Reena chooses to embrace her sexuality, but pays for it by feeling less connected to her culture and her mother. This makes her decision to become Sarita's surrogate mother even more conflicting: Is she doing this out of selflessness to her sister, or as a desperate attempt to reclaim her mother's love and approval? Because now it is finally her who can give her mother what her straight sister can't: A grandchild. Moreover, Reena's girlfriend Lisa never wanted a child and their relationship suffers under Reena's pregnancy, which was Ganatra's attempt to portray women who do not want to have children in a more normalized way: "I think in American movies women who don't want to have children are demonized to a certain extent. So I thought, what if this really cool lesbian woman who didn't want to have a baby was forced to? What would she do?" .

But Ganatra wanted to go even further: She wanted to make a film with Indian people that was not about being Indian, and that had queer characters and was not about being queer. To her, a film should always be entertaining first, and conveying a message later. Despite many intentional decisions and layers she added to Chutney Popcorn, she believes that "If you can move people and manage to entertain, that's a plus."