Sadie Benning through a cyborg lens

Sadie Benning

Sadie Benning began making videos at sixteen when his father, James Benning, experimental filmmaker, took a video camera for Christmas Pixel Vision. The Pixel Vision is a small, portable, black and white video camera for children marketed Fisher-Price at the end of 1980. The Pixel Vision no general market for the same reason has been a hit with experimental filmmakers: grainy pictures, the clang, and a picture frame. Benning videos can be described in a variety of ways, including the autobiography, ethnography, personal films, the films daily, "and the stories come out. Thematically, his films always condemn homophobia, racism, sexism, and against themselves, while the perspective of young people and women. (Spiro P.10)

Benning demonstrated a precocious ability to manipulate images and create sustained narratives. It culls from a variety of sources, including television, magazines, newspapers and popular culture. His latest work reflects many of the same themes explored at the outset, however, also show a greater capacity and maturity as a filmmaker. Recent films include The Judy Spots (1995), which aired on MTV, and flat is Beautiful (1998). His work continues to attract attention and is regularly at film festivals worldwide. (Smith P.14)

It's very personal and autobiographical videos document the dreams, desires, fears and fantasies of a lesbian teen in the process of defining their own sexuality, and identity. Delineate the social straightjacket and sexual girls are expected to meet, while developing strategies of transgression and rebellion in an effort to create a space of identity beyond the boundaries of heterosexuality and compliance gender. (Smith p28)

Cultural theory and Sadie Benning

Combining challenge with a childlike innocence and vulnerability, Benning responds to a world that simultaneously mocks and scares his refuge in the relative, but ultimately temporary safety of her bedroom and a form of self-imposed exile. Ultimately, the reality of violence cannot be escaped or ignored Benning and is forced to confront their own vulnerability in a world that is often openly hostile and threatening to women and lesbians. Ridicule and alienation in school are derived from their gender expression and sexuality androgynous lesbian. (Smith p28) However, she is quick to note that compliance with the standards of heterosexuality and the gender system, expressed it more visible to the image of "good white girl" is a representation that does little to give protective measures for women in society. (Masters P.19)

A film about the devastating loss of innocence, random violence and child abuse, A Place Called Heaven (1991) begins with a very personal account of her own victimization at the hands of Ricky, a neighborhood bully. Faced daily with their own experiences of violence, with sensationalist headlines in the papers that detail the abuse of child sexual abuse, mass murder and random accidents quickly recognizes that no one is immune to violence and tragedy: I was in my dad Chevy truck when I saw a van full of people turn around and fly. (Smith P.14) Fighting back against the neighborhood bully does little to calm ...