i went and saw
WHO'S AFRAID OF KATHY ACKER?
last night...
but:::
A couple of weeks ago, one of my lecturers asked me to describe Kathy Acker to the class... I said that she was a feminist writer who explored dream/women's (or at least her own) experiences of sex and childhood sex/incest.
My teacher's face contorted, 'mmmm, I don't think that's what she did...'
I freaked out, embarrassed at my now seemingly 'wrong'/'sexualized' reading of Acker. I went home, couldn't sleep and stayed up all night reading My Mother:Demonology:A Novel. By sunrise, I was satisfied that my description of Kathy Acker was, at least, not inaccurate.
Who's Afraid Of Kathy Acker is a documentary written and directed by Barbara Caspar, released in 2008, which contains heaps of footage and photos of Acker, and interviews with her contemporaries and lots of interviews with students and men who had slept with her saying things like, 'she was like an androgynous little girly sex kitten'.
To start with, Kathy Acker was/is an North American writer... performer, pornographer who died in 1997 of breast cancer. This documentary... seeks to construct Acker as a feminist writer warrior who is simultaneously an outsider punk type, and a brilliant intellectual.
The documentary has its weaknesses, pretty much all interviews take place in front of book shelves, or, if its a musician being interviewed, in front of record collections. There is even some boring footage of Acker being interviewed by some clueless dude on Radio National in Australia... which is just kinda boring and pointless.
And there was footage of her at early readings, and her experimental porn movies, so if you're worried about nudity, prepare to see some vaginal close-ups.
A friend who I watched the documentary with asked, why make such a linear, ordered documentary about a woman who said that very quickly she was bored of standard biography form?
I must say that I loved seeing footage of Kathy Acker, I loved all the seemingly randomly inserted excerpts from her work that made it into the movie, I loved the construction of big bad New York City as a main character in the movie, but I didn't like the sexual banter from the men... many of whom didn't actually seem to know Acker significantly apart from instances of sex! Go and see it if you can. Its not brilliant, but its got rare footage, and you will probably be inspired to write or make some porn or something by the time the movie is finished.
YAH AYHA YAH!!!
also kathy acker interviewed the spice girls just before she died, this is tha link!!1x
