an article by Jill Reiter from Outpunk Magizne, about her 1994 film “In Search of Margo-Go”, that starred Kathleen Hanna.
“ In 1994, Jill Reiter began a feature starring Kathleen Hanna, called IN SEARCH OF MARGO-GO. Her playful synth-punk romp re-envisioned NYC club culture as an acid-hued comic book, equal parts LIQUID SKY and THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. Reiter recently collaborated with animator Katie Bush to finish the film after two decades. “
transcript under cut !
1 :
In Search of Margo-Go
The idea for the movie came about when Kathleen Hanna (of Bikini Kill) was visiting NYC a year and a half ago. We got dressed up like total freaks and called ourselves neo-new romantics and ran around the streets of NYC. We were discussing this zine that my friend Iraya Robles had done about the early punk days of the Go-Go's (Mark's in Time). I mentioned that Margot Olavarria, the original bass player for the Go-Go's, lived only three blocks away from my apartment. The title “In Search of Margo-Go” at first was a really random title, but as the movie idea developed, it came to mean: searching for role models that aren't the obvious ones – digging deeper and uncovering information about women who did a lot of cool stuff in the early punk and nu-wave scenes but weren't recognized because they didn't get famous, or maybe just cause they were women. A lot of their contributions are buried or lost because the records or zines are out of print. Some of the music wasn't documented at all, (i.e – film, recorded, written about.) We were all really into the Go-Go's as teens. But there is a lot we never knew about them. They were originally part of the late seventies punk scene, and Margot was the Go-Go that didn't want to sell out, so they kicked her out of the band and became “America's Sweethearts.”
The movie pays homage to a lot of things from the eighties that we were inspired by, such as totally wacked out do-it-yourself low budget music and fashion, and the comic book Love and Rockets. It also references the movies “Liquid Sky” and “The Hunger”. Those two movies were some of the few movies that had actual lesbian images of werido people we thought we could identify with more that those in “Desert Hearts”, but even those movies were sadly lacking in many [?]. In Search Of Margo-Go is also an antidote to the John Hughes movies like “Sixteen Candles”, “Pretty in Pink”, that so many freaky queer youth in the eighties watched, looking desperately to see themselves reflected in the media, but never quite feeling legitimized because on the lack of queers in films at the time. Imagine “Pretty in Pink” with Molly Ringwald as a dyke.
This movie is important to do because I want there to be movies for dykes that reflect my lesbian sensibility, which is quite different from mainstream lesbian culture. There are hardly any lesbian movies that are campy a la John Waters. I am really into kitschy aesthetic and it is really fun to make a movie about dykes that is crazy and colorful.
In Search of Margo-Go
is part tragicomedy, part costume drama, part queerpunk porno.
I wanted to talk about the idea of collective film-making that we are creating as we make the film. The whole film, from the writing to the planning and filming is a collaborate effort of many amazing woman (and a few cool boys). Most of the people involved other than some of the tech crew have never made a film before. We were into the process of learning by doing with women who had access to film school or have certain skills teaching other women on the set. It's Punk Rock film-making, proving that you don't have to be a film school graduate to make a film.
The Soundtrack.
Myself, Iraya Robles of the band Sta-Prest and Kathleen Hanna are contributing to the soundtrack. The soundtrack is exciting, because all these cool people are going to Nu-Wave music for the soundtrack, no matter what their normal music style is. Potential contributors so far are Kicking Grant, Cheesecake, Phranc (was in a punk bands Nervous Gender and Catholic Discipline). We want to expose unsung heroes in punk music by having a lot of all-female Nu-Wave bands that inspired us (Bound and Gagged, The Inflatable Boy Clams, and The Varve), on the soundtrack. We'd like to re-release their music from obscure out of print singles or albums. We also wanted to have some of these people do some new music for the soundtrack (Josie Cotton- who did “Johnnie Are You Queer” and was in the movie “Valley Girl”) and Robin Johnson (from the movie “Times Square), and others too exciting to mention.’
2: Kathleen and I did a little self interview about the movie, but I didn't have a tape recorder, so the stuff she says isn't in her exact words...
Kathleen – When I saw the John Hughes movies as a teen, it was really frustrating because the same sex characters always gave each other these longing looks, and so many of them appeared to be gay, but then at the end of the movie it was a total mindfuck and letdown, cause the boy and girl always ended up together. There was never any passion between the male/female characters, and it always seemed wrong that they ended up together.
Jill – Movies are a fantasy outlet to escape into and many mainstream movies have happy, ‘feelgood' endings. But Hollywood's idea of a happy ending is my idea of a horrible one – i.e the fag boy ends up with the tomboy girl. One reason to make this movie is to finally have control and to be able to make a movie end the way we want for once, and have the girl get the girl . It was so frustrating as a teen. I was really isolated from other gay people and I really looked to movies for role models and a legitimization of my freaky lifestyle. It was bad enough that I was surrounded by straight people and I could never end up with the girl, but to see these characters in movies that gave off gay signals or just that I was all crushed out end with a character of the opposite sex just made me feel even more isolated
ON MOLLY RINGWALD
Kathleen – When I used to see all the John Hughes movies with Molly Ringwald in them, I had to totally displace my emotions. I had this boyfriend and I was all jealous cause in my head I thought that he wanted to fuck her. Really I did, but I was too unconformable and anxiety ridden about queerness so I had to describe it internally in a het way.
The Need. Radio Sloan and Rachel Carns fused to create a queercore, post-punk, artistic masterpiece. #theneed #radiosloan #rachelcarns #chainsawrecords #killrockstars #mirandajuly #thecebebarnsband #outpunk
