Carol

Description:
The 2015 Palme d'Or and Oscar nominated film “Carol” was eagerly anticipated by the film world because of Director Todd Haynes, and stars Cate Blanchett (also an Executive Producer) and Rooney Mara. Critics also fell over themselves to praise the production values, and how this would be a breakthrough for the lesbian community. It won some major prizes and some awards at queer film festivals. However, i, a working class lesbian, was puzzled by this schockfest. In the 1990s, Todd Haynes singlehandedly made the movie “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story.” It was an over-the-top, melodramatic retelling of the smooth-singing 1970s songstress’s battle with eating disorders. Haynes used modified Barbie Doll figures, and sets he hand made. He also did most of the voices. That movie was one of the reasons I started using toys and action figures in my movies. Imagine my surprise when such an original filmmaker trotted out this tired old cliché of rich people behaving badly with working class women. in my dismay, started dreaming up my parody of it WHILE I WAS STILL IN THE THEATER viewing it for the first time. The trope of the privileged rich person having temporary hijinx with an employee should not be on any screen in the 21st century.

I made the sets with construction paper and cardboard. I used Fisher-Price figures, but (happily) Blanchette and Mara also spent most of the movie with blank looks on their faces, so the figures actually worked out well. I would have liked to make rain-splatters or EVERY PANE OF GLASS, (like Haynes’ Director of Photography did to heighten the melodrama) but i didn't want to ruin my sets or my Flip camera. I found a royalty-free cello score that is as manipulative as the Haynes film’s score is.

Although the Patricia Highsmith novel might have had some allure in the 1950s, I was disappointed that Haynes, wouldn't see that the person who “overcooked the turkey" (actual dialogue from Haynes’ version of “Carol”) was him.

I’m excited to tell funny stories about, and to, working class people surviving the grotesque absurdities of 21st century life in the post-industrial northeast – state-sanctioned murderous xenophobia, a failed economy, adapting to aging bodies (our own and our parents). I’d like to make everyday queers like me, be very visible and seen as the force for good that we were raised to be. I’m talking with and about queer people who have never been to a film festival or an art gallery in their lives. I’m talking to and about those of us who have cousins who died of AIDS from dirty needles, can’t afford a place to live, oppose police brutality but who love our brothers who are cops, care about friends who struggle with addiction, and who have aging parents on public assistance.