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.
While this negative menstrual imagery may be viewed as harmful to educating girls about the cycle, I see this film as realistic. Though we’d like to believe that all girls are open to seeing their periods and their bodies as positive and beautiful, this is far from the case (see years of Carol Gilligan’s work if you need a refresher on this fact.) A Period Piece greets many girls where they are at and it can work to begin a conversation with a young girl who is unable to open up to a well-meaning elder. Please contact production company Cinemomma directly for your copy and watch the trailer here: https://www.cinemomma.com/
