Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research

Blood on Screen: Red Moon

August 2nd, 2010 by Giovanna Chesler



Red Moon: Menstruation, Culture and the Politics of Gender may have crossed your path as The Moon Inside You (its original title prior to 2010 its current distribution through Media Education Foundation). It is a film that has enjoyed wide release, with exhibition on French television and inclusion in an EU showcase of films that circulated last year. The broad exhibition strategy of Red Moon is fitting; it has a casual, heartfelt and humorous style that should appeal to many.

The purpose of Red Moon, as articulated by the filmmaker Diana Fabianova in voice over, is to answer this question: “At any given time, 25% of the female population is menstruating. Invisible. Discreet. Why is this normal, biological function taboo? There must be some deeper meaning.” There are problems with this statistical framing device – 25% is an over inflated number that eliminates girls and post-menopausal women as “females”. It also glosses over females that do not menstruate because of gender transformations and amenorrhea. Outside of this statistical malfunction, there are a few other facts provided through voice over which are not supported by specific research or attributed directly to any menstrual researchers. However, beyond these slights, Red Moon has great potential to make a taboo subject approachable.

Adventures in Menstruating cycles through New York

April 14th, 2010 by Giovanna Chesler
Sarah Thomasin at Bluestockings, photo by Chris Bobel

Sarah Thomasin at Bluestockings

Last Sunday evening, at the Lower East Side bookstore (and feminist Mecca) Bluestockings, Chella Quint attempted to begin her 5th installment of a performance built from her zine Adventures in Menstruating. However this piece, Here’s The Science Bit, was quite rudely interrupted by Mother Nature, in tweed, presenting a pink and red wrapped box. Mother Nature who typically appears in Tampax adverts, exclaimed “It’s your monthly gift!” Chella seemed pleased to accept it. This confused the woman. “But…but, she stammered. It’s your monthly gift?!” Chella reminded her that she was quite happy taking it, thank you very much, and proceeded to open up the box (wondering why boxes are a running theme in fem care advertising.) For the next hour, as the paper flew and big red bows zoomed around the room, the gifts kept coming from Chella and co-performer, Sarah Thomasin, now donning lab coats.

Chella (a contributor to this blog) and Sarah’s writing on the fem care industry is spot on. Since 2005, they have produced the zine and now a blog which attempt to poke and prod the hawkers of pads and tampons out of their shameful marketing strategies. This evening they re-examined ads from the 1950’s for Zonite, a douche so powerful yet “safe to tissues” (??!) and Modess, a menstrual product pre-wrapped (i.e. disguised) in plain brown packaging. Of course, as Quint pointed out, the only other product to be wrapped in this manner were bombs.

The IUD Makes a Comeback?

April 9th, 2010 by Giovanna Chesler

copper IUDIn our pill popping economy, the go-to option for long term birth control has, since the late 1970’s,  been the pill. In the 1970’s the copper IUD (Intrauterine Device) fell out of favor after recalls, cases of infection and cases of sterilization. However, this recent Newsweek article, The IUD Reborn by Meredith Melnick suggests that the IUD is on the rise. The article cites both ParaGard (the copper IUC) and Mirena (the hormonal IUD by Bayer) as making comebacks, building from a Virginia Commonwealth study that “surveyed women with clinically defined “high-risk” sexual behavior (one third had documented histories of sexually transmitted disease), and found that modern IUDs do not increase the rate of pelvic inflammatory disease or infertility among women who have multiple partners or contract STDs. Some of the study’s data suggested that the Mirena actually protects against STDs by causing an overproduction of cervical mucus, which can act as a barrier to pathogens.”

Blood on Screen: The Runaways

March 23rd, 2010 by Giovanna Chesler

Last July we posted photos from an unnamed film set where Dakota Fanning stood, ready for camera, with blood running down her thighs and a blood stain on the back of her skirt. Were these menstrual markings or the next era of horror film misogyny? The answer can be seen in the newly released film The Runaways, a drama about a 1970’s all girl rock band fronted by Cherie Currie (played by Dakota Fanning) and guitarist, Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart.)

Here, menstruation is a framing element, as the film begins with a screen sized image of a red blood drop falling to the pavement. Cut to Fanning wiping blood from her thigh in disbelief. Her sister, Marie rushes her to the bathroom to attend to their first period, for Marie whines “Everything happens to you first!” Cherie packs her undies with paper towels, ties a sweatshirt around the stain, and in stunned disbelief of what has just transpired, tags behind her sister and her sister’s creepy dude date. He leers at her, “You’re a woman now.”

Later that evening, Cherie crops her hair, paints a David Bowie red streak across her face, and begins to come into herself. Becoming a woman in this film, does not include being soft and desirable for boys. Rather, menarche signifies entrance into glam rock iconography.

As Cherie meets up with Joan, and the two launch The Runaways, Cherie’s early entrance into womanhood seems to have come too soon. Still a child, Cherie is pushed into the front of a stage and asked to groan into a mic about her bursting sexuality in the song Cherry Bomb. The demanding manager, Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), yells at her to give more to the song “This isn’t woman’s lib. It’s woman’s lib-ido.”

In the coming weeks on tour, Cherie will partake in her first kiss, first sip, first line, first pill – revealing how womanhood has not “dropped” upon her. It arrives in waves through her choices, or her inability to make them. And there is still more growing to do.

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Bravery and Intellect Over Easy: Scrambled

March 12th, 2010 by Giovanna Chesler

(This post also published at the blog g6pix.)

I’ll try not to sound too fan-girlish here as I write about the documentary Scrambled: A Journey through PCOS by Randi Cecchine, but admittedly, it is a difficult task. For in this film, which chronicles Cecchine’s struggle with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, we meet a filmmaker brave enough to show us, wart-hairs and all, the challenges inherent in this disease embodied. She does so with humor, with information, and with space for personal reflection.

As Cecchine and the health practitioners she speaks with share, PCOS is a condition that affects 8% of women but that goes under-diagnosed. Though largely undetected in the women who have PCOS, the first sign of something wrong is the absence or change in the menstrual period. According to Cecchine’s participant Dr. Geoffrey Redmond, an endocrinologist who has studied female hormone problems for over twenty years, PCOS generally shows up during puberty or shortly during the menarche period. In his interview, he argues that a delay of fifteen years in diagnosis typically occurs because “people who care for teenagers are typically not clued into this condition.”

The Eco-Vag: Natural Lubricant with Umbra

February 12th, 2010 by Giovanna Chesler

Umbra Fisk is a character developed at Grist TV (and performed by Jennifer Prediger) who brings a surprising smile to a movement more familiar with a Green grimace. Her Ask Umbra videos appear often enough to remind us how to bike to work safely or enlighten us on growing food in your apartment.  In her latest video, she describes how to make lube from flax seed. As she explains, personal lubricants are loaded with petrochemicals that one might otherwise find in brake fluid and antifreeze. The recipe is as quick and easy as her messages and welcome humor. Thanks Umbra for bringing on the Omega 3’s and helping us all avoid “Toxic Hoo-Ha Syndrome.”

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Blood on Screen: MENstruation

November 4th, 2009 by Giovanna Chesler

I often hear women state that men would be uncomfortable if they overheard our discussion of menstruation. Many women work to keep men out of the menstruation conversation. But… surprise! Men are ready to participate. And very often, I hear men say that they want to learn more about menstruation. In studies by Jane Ussher and Jane Perz they found that women in lesbian relationships that are more egalitarian, empathetic and satisfying have different PMS experiences than women whose male partners misunderstand their PMS symptoms. That is partially because their lesbian partners understand the experiences of menstruation, even if they do not share the same symptoms. Imagine, straight ladies, if a male partner were also aware of your PMS symptoms through the information you impart? And that through this conversation and hopefully, through different behavior on his part, you could potentially change your PMS experience?

Or…what if he understands those symptoms through his own experience?! Last year, Angelique Smith, then a student at Marymount Manhattan College in a course called Social Construction and Images of Menstruation (co-taught by David Linton and myself) made MENstruation. This video was inspired by Gloria Steinem’s 1978 Ms. Magazine article “What if Men Could Menstruate?”. As Smith asks her participants Steinem’s question, “What if men could menstruate,” their answers  reveal much about cross-gender consciousness.  It screened as part of the Blood on Screen series at the Spokane SMCR conference.

Blood on Screen: The most popular title for menstrual artwork is…

October 14th, 2009 by Giovanna Chesler

A Period Piece

The third film in the Blood on Screen series is Camille Holder Brown’s award winning A Period Piece (2005). I know of at least two other films and one sculptural artwork that use this title. Yet despite the ubiquitous pun, each work has an equally clever take on the cycle (other Period Piece films include a music video by Zeinabu Irene Davis (1991), a documentary by Jennifer Frame and Jay Rosenblatt (1995,) and this installation by LaThoriel Badenhausen which was presented at the SMCR Conference in 2009.)

Camille Holder-Brown’s piece of the cycle is a fictional film portraying the awkward experiences of Sionne, a girl about to begin menstruating. From her earthy sex-ed teacher who gushes about the beauty of the cycle, to her friends and classmates at different stages of menstrual acceptance, to her mother who warmly and carefully introduces her to menstruation, A Period Piece is filled with menses-positive imagery. But Sionne’s overriding fear and her association of menstruation with shame clouds most of the film.

Blood on Screen: Truth or Dare

September 23rd, 2009 by Giovanna Chesler
Truth or Dare (Francois Ozon, 1994)

Truth or Dare (Francois Ozon, 1994)

Surprisingly this isn’t a post on Madonna, but another media artist interested in gender: Francois Ozon. His short film Truth or Dare (1994) welcomes us into the inner circle of four teenagers engaged in the game. As the two boys and two girls challenge each other with “Action” or “Verite” they address and trangress every taboo (sex between children, boys kissing boys, AIDS, girls fondling girls.) Yet one taboo will trump them all!

View a scene from the film here: http://www.francois-ozon.com/en/clip-truth-or-dare

As with most of his work, Ozon manages to engage in taboo with sympathy and emotion. He crafts films that are intimate, inviting the viewer to imagine their own sexual transgression. Screenings of Truth or Dare make a room of viewers squirm and titter with delight as they partake in the pleasure of watching this naughty game. Menstrual activists may not know whether to cheer or boo at the end. That is, of course, Ozon’s wish.

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Blood on Screen: Menstrual Movies

September 17th, 2009 by Giovanna Chesler

Despite the shame of menstruation, feminist media makers have often turned to the cycle for inspiration. At the 2009 Spokane Society for Menstrual Cycle Research Conference, I curated a screening of short films on the menstrual cycle. Over the next few weeks I will blog about these films. From there, I’ll regularly review film works made on and about the cycle.

These works fascinate me as they diversely render menstruation. In the words of fellow SMCR blogger, Elizabeth Kissling from her book Capitalizing on the Curse, “There is no shortage of blood in US Mass Media: News broadcasts nightly reveal the blood of violent conflict; movies display gallons of simulated blood in simulated explosions and attacks… But menstrual blood is never seen and seldom mentioned; acknowledgment of the fact that women menstruate remains rare. Menstruation is our ‘dirty little secret.” These films put blood back on screen and re-imagine blood as non-violent. Despite visualizing blood, however, these films see menstruation diversely. There is no single essential menstrual experience when these films are viewed together.

The film program included works by celebrated experimental feminist filmmakers Zeinabu irene Davis (Cycles, 1989) and Barbara Hammer (Menses, 1974) as well as new pieces by upstart filmmakers Marina Shoupe (Bounce, 2007) and Angelique Smith (MENstruation, 2008). To see these films, you will need to contact the makers and I will include links to their sites when they have them. However, to begin this blog theme, I’ll tell you about one work that has a maker I have yet to identify, but which is readily available for viewing. And I will call the piece “Menstruation Animation” (though after the screening, everyone called it “Blob.”

If you type “menstruation” into You Tube, this video is first to appear. This is an animated play on the classic sex-ed films which relentlessly detail the release of the egg and its journey to the uterus. However, this egg squeals with fear as it travels. It clutches the uterine wall, begging not to go as a chorus of “blob”s begins. What strikes me are the male voices singing “Blob. Blob. Blob.” And their goatee-d visages! This short animates the body as a trans-gendered space, and the cycle as a trans-event. With humor. Not derision.

If you wish to have your film reviewed on the blog, please mail it to me on DVD or VHS to: Giovanna Chesler, Marymount Manhattan College, 221 E 71st Street, New York, NY 10021.

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Readers should note that statements published in re: Cycling are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Society as a whole.