For My Mother, Earth.  On Mother’s Day. 

JD Salinger Is My Tap Water (but I still love a Hollywood ending) ;

From Ramrod To Eve N’ God This Female Is Not Yet Rated ;

The Ironies & Ecstasies of Escalating Risk in Film, Art, Life or How I Spent International Women’s Day 2024 while John Robert’s So Called Supreme Court Revoked Women’s Rights “ 

©️ Cali Lili all rights reserved

Part 1

Introduction

How I Spent International Women’s Day 2024

while

John Roberts’ so-called Supreme Court revoked women’s rights

I swear I was minding my own business, putting together a plan for our impending appearance at a screening of the cult movie classic “Vice Squad” (1982) co-starring my awesome partner movie icon Wings Hauser and top Actors’ Studio Coach Gary Swanson.

The producers of the upcoming documentary “Wings Hauser Working Class Actor, “ Matt Verbois, Dan Mckeon & Cyrus Voris asked me to join the guys at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood for the screening sponsored by American Cinematheque and La-La Land Records. 

My role that night was to discuss my partnership with Wings Hauser, my own work as a 21st century actress, director and singer-songwriter and founder of my hand-built up-cycled “sustainable studio” floating in the Venice Beach Canals where we make signature movies, music & books that we describe with mottos & logos relating to either hydroponic farming / aquaculture / organic cuisine or other inspirations from sister arts such as “sustainable fashion” or visual arts.

As we are authentically indie, it’s difficult to pigeonhole my projects, which is part of the purpose for our existence. That’s why we often include terms like “organics,” “sustainable,” “farm to table films” “small batch” and “single source” such as :

“handmade

to

make a difference ™️ ”

Cali Lili’s : Eve N God This Female Is Not Yet Rated (with original soundtrack) 

March 8 2024 happened to be International Women’s Day during women’s history month at this particular moment in HERstory and as the film Vice Squad depicts scenes of unusually graphic violence against women my goal was to prepare some ideas in this vein. 

What you are about to read began as a simple practical exercise to clarify my thoughts. And then it happened again. I felt a “meditation” coming on. Some might call it an essay but my mind is a collage, so poetry & lyrics are my jam. 

At first I planned to illustrate the ironies and ecstasies of casting as my metaphorical “God” (Doctor Goddard) in my Oscars 2020 Contender “Eve N’ God This Female is Not Yet Rated,” the legendary actor, Wings Hauser, who immortalized one of the most evil cinema villains in history, a vicious white pimp named Ramrod.

Of course Wings Hauser is also known for a variety of eclectic powerful and even comedic roles in films & television over the course of his legendary 50 plus year career, including roles in films advocating for diversity in Hollywood. He’s known for his role as “Lieutenant Byrd” in the Oscar nominated movie “A Soldier’s Story,” as well roles in movies by two important African American artists, “Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling” by the genius, Richard Pryor and “Tales From The Hood” by innovative actor/writer/ director Rusty Cundieff, who, in my opinion started his own genre.

I’m SO honored that my feminist interracial LGBTQIA musical fantasy “love is love story,” “Eve N’ God This Female Is Not Yet Rated” was featured in a panel next to those amazing films.

I am in pre-preproduction on my next film and album so I REALLY couldn’t justify lending time to write anything other than the next draft of my current new screenplay. Nevertheless “she,” this chapter, persisted and when a simple bout of note taking, snowballs into a longer group of sentences and then paragraphs, on rare occasions like this one, I reluctantly give in, consenting to explore the meditation into unknown territory.

So it was, the following paragraphs wrote themselves into a chapter and the chapter barged in and wrote herself into my book. Like all good meditations, this became a journey toward an unanticipated destination.

Whether unwittingly or consciously, artists often explore recurring themes in our work. This trip unexpectedly returned me, toward the destination of my constant worry that cultures must find ways to redefine success away from our current violent supremacy / dominance model so we can relocate the coordinates to our humanity. The perfectionisms we worship, to the detriment of our work/life balance are a symptom of our supremacist bias and that perfectionist model can often erode the spirits of our better angels and lead us, to exactly where we are now. My worry is not just that as a culture, many of our citizens (and citizens of many other democracies) have not only lost the location of our humanity, they, we, have also lost the compass. When many of our fellow citizens see violence as a viable option for the illusion of problem solving, the entire culture suffers and thereby, the world, the very earth & water & sky suffer, as do all living beings. Of course violence never solves problems, it only creates more problems.

But even here, the conclusion is not really the point, it’s all about the journey (as the protagonist “Eve” in my indie film says).  As mentioned, for me, poetry & lyrics spill more easily than prose, so besides the Pacific Ocean, the following “stream of consciousness” is the way I surf. 

Grab a board.

Here we go. 

Part 2

JD Salinger is My Tap Water

So, it’s way too late on a school night and I’m way too young to be riding the New York City subway alone when some guy decides to make some stand against his own demons by opening up a zippo lighter very close to my face. He screams in that spine altering guttural octave, that I should “GET OFF HIS TRAIN.”  

I don’t budge. I just give him the “green eyed burn” staring right back at him with the kind of steely resolve I should not possess at the tender age of 12. But I’m a New Yorker, JD Salinger is my tap water and Holden Caulfield could’ve been my brother. 

Subway guy brings the lighter even closer to my face. I am a little blonde girl with a little mermaid backpack full of books tucked under my dance shoes and he is a wounded  middle aged black man.  Little did we both know, I’m not quite “white,” I’m just a rose gold shade of multiracial multi-continental coral-pink. And I’m already nursing a few wounds myself.

If I get off “his” subway car now I will be at a lonely subway station not even close to my final Jackson Heights destination in the middle of the night. There are very few people in the subway car and I’m the only girl. 

But the violence I have been navigating in my childhood home has taught me to stand my ground. I’ve seen a man bully and beat a woman, I’ve stood in between them as an unfortunate referee only to fail in my efforts as he throws her out of her own home. I’ve helplessly seen her sleep in the park downstairs. I’ve tiptoed to the apartment door to let her back in when he’s asleep. I’ve even called the police to intervene between my parents. So no motherfucker on a train is gonna tell me what to do.

Little Little did I know, subway guy probably saw the movie “Vice Squad” on DVD and wanted to play out a Wings Hauser zippo scene with me. Something about me, triggered him into that retro zippo moodand something about me, triggered him into that retro zippo mood tonight. When I stared him down, he backed off. The look in his eye was a combination of shock, disbelief, determination, pain, and acquiescence. Finally another man on the train ushers the zippo wielding man away from me. But zippo man never takes his eyes off my eyes staring him back into his territory, telling him I know the jungle too. I would experience several other encounters like that in the big apple, but this was my first bite. 

Part 3

But I Still Love A Hollywood Ending

Just a few years after the NYC subway incident, I’m in Los Angeles, sharing the anecdote with my partner, Wings Hauser who is amazed. He tells me about the zippo lighter scene in “Vice Squad” when Ramrod the pimp confronts a woman on the street in exactly the same manner, suddenly holding up a zippo lighter to her face. Most on screen pimps were portrayed as black men and Wings was told black audiences appreciated seeing a ruthless white pimp on the screen.  Subway zippo guy might have been emulating Ramrod years later when he encountered a vulnerable blonde kid with whom he could play out the scene. 

My formative years were characterized by such hauntings, echoes in the NYC air not unlike that of almost any urban playground complete with sprinklers in the park and a lonely sandbox for those of us who wished we could go to the beach in summer like the “happy” kids do.

At NYU I studied the works of many master artists, including “master of suspense,” Alfred Hitchcock, who was once asked:

“what is your idea of happiness?” 

His answer:

“a clear horizon, no clouds, no shadows.” 

In a filmed interview, by Richard Schickel (“Film on Film” 1973), Alfred Hitchcock relates a childhood story in which his father, a green-grocer, sent young Alfred to the local jail with a note for the chief of police, who promptly led the boy down a long corridor, locked him in jail, returned ten minutes later, and released him saying “that’s what we do to naughty boys.”

Hitchcock remembers the “clang (and) solidity of that cell door” (“Film on Film” 1973).

Without warning, an unsuspecting victim is wrongly punished or accused of some wrongdoing. The accuser reveals a previously hidden intention of evil which has now risen to the surface. The victim screams innocence on the wind to the world, but “life goes heedlessly on and we hurry to join it” (Film On Film, 1973 ).

As the audience, we, the “other witnesses” in the scene can “enjoy the suspense” literally “suspended” in time, no matter how disturbing the story, as long as we are assured the movie will end, then, we’ll go to dinner or drinks or traffic, or just go to sleep in a “hurry to join”  life going “heedlessly on.”

Hitchcock’s recurring themes include victim-protagonists who consider themselves innocent, but the director says:

“our evil and our good are getting closer together… In today’s sophisticated era you can barely tell one from the other ; evil can intrude anywhere” and one “can’t hide from the world” (“Film on Film” 1973).

Hitchcock confides:

“I’m afraid of everything” and explains his intentions toward his audience:

“they must be provided with the knowledge that death may appear at any moment” (“Film on Film” 1973). 

In “The Birds”  Hitchcock’s lead character pleads 

“innocent of crimes against nature. Nature is disordered … in revolt…

In Hitchcock’s universe, no-one is innocent of something like original sin” (Film On Film, 1973).

So what does all this have to do with movie icon Wings Hauser, who played  the sado-misogynistic, coat-hanger wielding , castrating devil spawn character named “Ramrod” in the 1982 movie “Vice Squad,” along with an excellent cast, including the powerful Gary Swanson and beautiful Season Hubley ? 

What does it have to do with me, casting Wings Hauser as my version of a flawed but ultimately redeemable metaphorical “God” in my sustainable, green, all female crew production of the 2020 Oscars Contender “Eve N’ God This Female is Not Yet Rated” an interracial feminist fantasy, LGBTQ love is love story & rock n’ roll epiphany? 

Glad you asked. 

Part 4

From Ramrod

to

“ Eve N’ God ; This Female Is Not Yet Rated “ 

At first it was just a great casting choice that also felt like a fun bit of future cinema trivia. But the idea bloomed upon examination through my particular set of lenses.  Whether we movie lovers consider ourselves “high brow” or “no-brow,” whether we love horror, genre movies , authentic art house cinema, documentaries, Hollywood classics and beyond, whether we music lovers crave death metal, rap du jour, global rhythms or any era, any culture, any iteration of singer songwriters, our common bond, in my humble opinion, lies in our desire for freedom (yeah democracy) our admiration & inspiration from independent thinking, our demand that individuals DO MATTER (in spite of the corporate-mind-pablum we are over fed) and we are genuine supporters of that oft-imitated, more often appropriated, rarely achieved “indie” status of the truly “independent” artist. We bond over our disdain for injustice. We don’t want to be told what to read what to watch or what to “like .”

My educational background was so eclectic & interdisciplinary spanning from pre-law & anthropology to physical disciplines like multicultural dance & other movement methodologies, I often feel like I am purposefully bridging a variety of intercultural disciplines.

In this case, my thoughts were riffing on connections between sci fi fantasies, thrillers, horror movies, theatrical adaptations for film, nerdy performance art methodologies and political science scenarios in which the yin/yang balance of power between males and females becomes the central focus. Oh, and I was also thinking about the current insanity marking the John Roberts’ So Called Supreme Court’s dalliance with dictatorship.

One key theme in my film is an exploration of a line of dialogue spoken by “Eve,” our protagonist.  In the middle of her 21st Century “epiphany” she contemplates :

 “the original –

original sin”

In “Eve N’ God, This Female Is Not Yet Rated,” as in Hitchcock’s cinematic universe, even god , like Hitchcock’s characters, “is not innocent of something like original sin,“  to paraphrase the previous quote from Richard Schickel.

Meanwhile in the 1982 world of  “Vice Squad,” we have Gary Swanson’s gritty portrayal of a cop named “Walsh,” representing for us, the forces of “good against evil” as a good cop.  We also have Season Hubley’s powerful portrayal of “Princess” the classic “hooker with a heart of gold” who is also a young single mom. 

While wildly different from Vice Squad, my film also happens to grapple with the “Yin-Yang” balance, the “Tao of Eve,” the “Tao” of good versus evil. My story also happens to center on a triangular structure of central characters inhabiting a 21st Century post industrial, post modern, post Edenic world of riddles, illustrated by triangles, spirals, formulas on the walls & metaphysical codes found in nature and art. I could not shy away from allowing our allegorical protagonist, “Eve,” (Cali Lili) to illustrate a “Girl Gone Wild” PHD style.

When I wrote and shot my film, I hadn’t seen the other movies exploring “Eve.” Each of the other “Eve” themed films illustrates uncanny similarities, much to my surprise. 

That subject deserves its own essay which I feel obligated to write, but for now, suffices to point out that each of the “Eve” movies addresses this theme :

“girl gone wild ”

Well, of course we gone wild.  The making of my film is in itself, an example of a 21st Century “girl gone wild,” and a risk.

My version of a counterculture indie is riskier than most because it does not rely on the normally bankable genre of horror, gratuitous sex & violence. A risk because while I do include love scenes and some violent imagery, my counter culture project relies, mostly on my own auteur style, dialogue, acting, and the intellectual curiosity of the intelligent audience. A risk because the protagonist is not only a woman, she talks a lot. In fact, she “breaks the sound barrier,” as over 51% of the movie dialogue is spoken by a girl.

That’s a risky film.

Our “Eve” is a contemporary version of “a stripper with a heart of gold“ who multitasks as a surfer chick in Venice Beach, putting herself through school, earning a PhD in gender studies and supporting her no good husband named “Adam.” 

In a nutshell, my story can be described as :

“One day

in the epiphany

of a 21st Century Girl,

Who Kissed A Girl.” 

The movie takes place in one day, “today.” Today is the day “she” finally has “the talk” with our version of a metaphorical, flawed “Dr. God” / “Doc” (Wings Hauser). 

Doc is Eve’s PhD advisor and head of the gender studies department. 

During that long overdue conversation, Eve demands accountability & answers from “God .“

She needs answers to many of the questions women and girls (and those who love us) have debated in our own minds, hearts & souls for centuries, including , biblical restrictions to the nature of female sexuality, girls’ reproductive & healthcare rights – oh – and also – whatever happened to “Lilith,” the original “Eve,” our “Mitochondrial Eve,” originating in Africa, but conveniently erased from our collective memory? My Eve asks “Dr. God” to answer for that long lost sisterhood.

Here I feel obligated to detour for a brief mention about the 1956 classic “Eve themed” movie I just saw a few weeks ago for the first time. Directed by Roger Vadim starring Brigitte Bardot, the title is : “And God Created Woman” ( “Et Dieu … crea la femme “). I was struck by some of the shocking similarities between some aspects of that production and mine, but I was even more gobsmacked by the differences in how we ended our films.

While my allegorical fable ends with Eve setting herself free (like many of the other Eve themed films) thereby also setting our metaphorical Dr. God, free too, the 1956 Vadim movie ends in a vastly different manner. After the Bardot version of a character named “Juliette” who’s persona screams of “Eve,” performs her “wild dance” for freedom to the rhythm of African bongo drums, she is “tamed” by her white “Adam,” who SLAPS her back into “her place” as “his woman.” The Vadim movie portrays Juliette/Eve feeling “relieved” and sexually aroused by that slap. Her “Adam” then, leads “Juliette /Eve” back “home” (Eden?) by the hand, happily into her future humble domicile.

For those of us looking closely, we think we see a twinkle in Juliette/Eve‘s eye, indicating that no walls can hold her to this home with Romeo/Adam. But who knows, maybe she wants the security of a cage while also enjoying the makeup sex? That’s what this 1956 movie appears to say. I’ve always believed every relationship crafts its own vocabulary. While I was personally disappointed in how the Vadim movie ends, I must admit that it’s none of my business how this couple, or more to the point, this female, gets her “kicks.” Of course it’s far more questionable when couples choose to raise children in patriarchal environments where the female is chronically dominated. Sound familiar?

Bardot’s complex portrayal of “Juliette/Eve” is a powerful display of self-knowledge & determination along with moments of fragile vulnerability & compassion. Like my version of “Eve,” “this female” too, is an authentic rebel. In my movie our patriarchal “God” figure asks Eve, “so, you got a cause Lady Rebel ?” To which Eve responds “Don’t need one, but yeah, I got cause.” Similarly, I saw the Bardot version of the Eve archetype as the 1956 female version of James Dean’s 1955 Rebel. For any rebel, the “cause” “lies so deep in the cultural fabric, “ it is, as my Eve states “in the stitches.”

For our 21st Century rebellious fable, our Eve is a burlesque dancer / stripper who performs her own version of eVe’s liberation “dance” where she rips her stripper pole off its base, revealing wispy branches connected to the “tree of life.” Our Eve dances with a stripper pole that is actually the “tree of life.” As evidenced by the May 2024 cross examination of a sex worker named “Stormy Daniels,” who very bravely “takes the stand,” bearing witness under oath to stand up for herself, and for our democracy, yet our contemporary backwards culture, continues to slut shame women, blaming every “Eve” for her own victimization at the hands of a misogynistic supremacist culture.

For my Eve movie I felt that casting the actor who immortalized “Ramrod “ as my flawed but redeemable “God Figure” at this time in herstory was both poignant and irreverently funny.  I shared this with Wings when I nervously asked him to read the script and more nervously asked him to consider playing the role (he doesn’t do favors and I don’t want favors). He loved it & did an awesome job as always. His best ever, in my humble opinion. Until our next one.

Flashback to Hitchcock , who himself was a sort of “God” figure, with a preference for the “Bardot” type, also known as “The Hitchcock Blondes” : 

“The world today is full of brutality but it’s developed into brutality with a smile … We live in a chance universe, we are victimized by accident, saved by accident (and) the artist has to make the invisible a little hard” (Hitchcock 1973).  The man who longed for a “clear horizon, no shadows,” the man who could be viewed as a self-proclaimed paranoid, employed the shadows of cinema to bring evil hidden clouds to the surface and project them, in a collision course, onto the screens of our emotional minds, now full of unprecedented doubt and fear as we navigate the 21st century on our interplanetary swimming pool. 

Here we are 2024. The 21st Century. “Age of Aquarius,” yet we find ourselves saddled, still, on the edge of our seats & sanity, brought there by those who wish to return us all to the dark ages.

Now THAT’S – suspense. 

It would be one thing, if such individuals or groups preferred to live in their own darkness. But they prescribe it, demand it for others. We are living through an unprecedented time when AMERICA, yeah, the country with the Statue Of Liberty holding up that torch, is approaching an election with one of two major parties, espousing a platform advocating an agenda for authoritarian dictatorship. 

Not just ”Orwellian,”

positively “Hitchcockian” – ain’t it? 

In the semi-edenic mindscape of my movie “Eve” points out to Dr. God, that he is “the MOST SUPREME Court. “ Then she goes on to ask “Where’s the female version of you?”  

As we ride through 2024, this question about the “Supremacy” of the current iteration of John Roberts’ So Called Supreme Court and others who place themselves above the law, rings especially loudly because it originates in the “origin story” many of us rely upon for our notions and behaviors related to  “faith“ and  “justice.”

The book of “Genesis” is one particular biblical “origin story,” (many cultures retell their own origin stories) forms the basis for a cultural fabric held together by “the stitches” (referring again to another bit of dialogue from my film) of our legal & political institutions which have their own set of origin stories like “The Code of Hammurabi.“ Once again, contemplating “the original, original sin“ seems to me, a worthy theme that keeps on giving. 

Alfred Hitchcock thought HE was living in precarious times. Oh boy, do we have a movie to show him. Imagine good old “Hitch” watching any segment of news today?

Then imagine him comparing it to the media of “alternative facts,“ where he would recognize our contemporary version of innocence sacrificed on the altar of evil. 

Jump cut – forward to “Vice Squad.” 

It was Wings’s brother, Erich Hauser (Rest in Power) who reminded us there had been an earlier movie entitled “Vice Squad” circa 1953 starring Edward G Robinson (full disclosure while I’ve been told I am possibly distantly related to Edward G. I have no idea if it’s true. Erich thought it was an amazing coincidence and so did we). Both Vice Squad movies brought the audience into a world not unlike that of Hitchcock’s characters. Both Vice Squad movies challenge our expectations, both warn us that even the good guys and girls might bend rules and both movies highlight the exploitation of women. 

It’s likely the Edward G. Robinson version had a similar effect on the audience of his day but in the case of Wings Hauser’s now iconic free form portrayal of actual mayhem in one living specimen, “Ramrod,” there is a far more disturbing aspect to the suspense we experience when faced with Ramrod’s “brutality with a snarl.“ 

Wings Hauser’s performance of a malignant narcissistic sociopath in action – not only brings us to the edge of our seats, it DRAGS us to the edge of sanity. Drags us into a world of such chaos that we might forget our future ability to walk away from the theater and join the flow of “life ongoing heedlessly” as prescribed by the “master of suspense “ himself. 

The tone of Hauser’s performance takes us – beyond the scope of mere suspense, it matches the tone of increasingly risky circumstances we all find ourselves in these days. Of course, abuse is far more difficult to confront in “real life.” 

Ramrod in your house is a whole other animal. 

That’s why the sacred art of acting, the Holy Spirit of drama, might  continue to foster our healing through catharsis, “if we can keep it” as Ben Franklin famously said about our young Democratic Republic. 

Cathartic Drama is an older goddess than Democracy but they inform each other well in the process of civilization. 

Another good example is the play “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams who co-adapted it for the screen with  director Elia Kazan. 

Uncomfortably, “we” (the audience) watch Brando throw down Stanley Kowalski’s brand of misogyny, yet our culture venerated the “STELLA” moment as though it were a monument to “bull in a china shop passion,” instead of a revolting, infantile cry from a homophobic wife-beater, reeling his lusty willing victim, Stella (in a very difficult role played beautifully by Kim Hunter) back into his dirty grasp, before raping & institutionalizing her sister Blanche Dubois (played by the genius Vivien Leigh, who is herself a miracle, performing miracles on screen with every role she breathed life into) the only kind and refined soul to fly accidentally into the light of the voracious furnace we laughingly call “society,” eventually to be burnt at its stake.

Stanley is likely suffering not just from the ptsd he suffered in the war but also his own homoerotic impulses, yet none of that is the driving force for his “deliberate cruelty.” Blanche says : 

“some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable! It is the one unforgivable thing, in my opinion, and the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty.”

Stanley’s need for superiority, absolute power as “the rightful king” of his domain, is his “why.” 

Was our culture AS uncomfortable watching Wings Hauser’s Ramrod perform far more sadistic acts of cruelty than Stanley Kowalski? 

Or were we gradually desensitized by a culture increasingly tolerant of the “deliberate cruelty” Blanche Dubois called out on behalf of Tennessee Williams, whom no doubt, was mourning our loss of the American “Belle Reve,” the lost “beautiful dream,”drained of innocence by ever increasing levels of tolerance for the “deliberate cruelties” of authoritarian violence, abuse, misogyny, homophobia, racism & environmental abuse, like so many famous experiments exposing human capacity for inflicting torture on command?

At least some progress was made when the screen version of the Tennessee Williams play showed us a  “Stella” who, (perhaps against the will of the author?) unlike the theatrical version, refused to go back to her abuser at the end of the film. On screen, Stella finally rejects the abuse she was willing to tolerate on stage.

Luckily, we also get to see the brilliant Karl Malden, and other excellent actors who play Stanley’s army & poker buddies, transform from their blind obedience to Stanley, into a Greek chorus, eyes open for the first time, recognizing Stanley’s corruption. We recognize it on Blanche’s behalf, and ours. Blanche, of course, is the symbol of liberal democracy. She hangs in there advocating for poetry, flattering lighting, romance, love, justice, beauty, acceptance and the “kindness of strangers.” Blanche is even kind to Stanley, who neither deserves nor “desires” her kindness. Stanley has no time for the humanity of streetcars, he’s a freight train with a “napoleonic code.” Having buffed up his physique toward an authoritarian ideal for so long, the “bread lines” for desire & democracy no longer hold power over his behavior. This makes Stanley a danger to anyone & everything he touches. He is fueled by the goal of supremacy, fueled by cruelty, the only thing in the world Blanche rejects, the only thing she can never forgive. 

Good for her.

Blanche is a Shero. She may look like she’s going away to some loony bin, but I say she escapes the loony bin for a better place, leaving the lunatics like Stanley and his enablers in their bin. Like our contemporary Eve, she hasn’t been kicked out of Eden, she walks out.

You Go Blanche. 

You Go Eve.

Fast forward to the  “Vice Squad” universe, Ramrod,  like Stanley, seems to “get away with everything” for most of the movie & many viewers seem to  “love to hate him.” An apt metaphor for our times. But it’s not just that cliche at work here, you know, the one about how “we love to hate “any given character. 

The staying power of Hauser’s performance, like Brando’s, lies in our civilizations’ nervous adolescent worship of male-flavored superiority and dominance. I have written elsewhere that I believe we must quit our addictions to superiority and dominance or risk incubating smarter and more effective wannabe dictators. 

Our culture and many others also seem to worship ever violent (often misogynistic) films that are referred to as cult counterculture “edgy” films when they are young movies (often directed by males) and then referred to as cult classics when the films grow up. But these movies are the furthest thing from counterculture because they are the closest thing to our cultural biased norms. 

That’s why I decided to take the risk of making what I felt could be a truly counterculture film. A movie in which 51% of the dialogue was spoken by a woman. In researching gender studies & women in STEM, I found scientific studies proving evidence that most males and some females find it very challenging to listen to the voice of a woman for any significant length of time and retain what she says. I don’t think that’s nature. I call that “socialization” of the most destructive kind.

My project was made with an all female production crew at a time when this was rare. I tried to create an all female music crew, but it was not to be. By the time we completed the soundtrack though,  I was beyond happy that the sound crew was authentically “integrated” with regard to gender, cultural backgrounds and sexual orientation. 

I must take an extra moment for a BTS Note. My project would prove to be an authentic counterculture product from the moment I put an advert out, inviting female – and LGBTQ identified crewmembers – to submit resumes, explaining in the advert that we would be hiring with an aim toward diversity. The hate mail flowed in immediately and it was vicious from the start. We are now all , unfortunately accustomed to some of the rancor we see in society these days, purposely normalized by those who seek to harm democracy and civilization by dividing us from within but as recently as just a few short years ago we were truly shocked by that level of misogynistic homophobic poison. Some of the infantile comments left where my movie is playing on demand on various platforms also illustrate how counterculture this project truly is. We sure seem to have “disturbed the comfortable” while making a project intended to “comfort the disturbed.” I’m glad. That was a real risk worthy of a contemporary “rebel” with a cause so deep, it’s “in the stitches.” Mission accomplished. 

I’ve written elsewhere, I believe we need a new definition for success. Our shy admiration for characters like Stanley & Ramrod, who will stop at nothing to assert their dominance, speaks volumes for who we are as a culture. Considering that our culture is currently toying with the idea of authoritarianism and that our legal system, our political system, and our economy could use some improvements in delivering our ideals of “equal justice under law” along with rights to pursue happiness for our most vulnerable citizens, by the people, for the people, it seems to me that the archetype of pure evil embodied in such characters can serve as teachable moments for our times. 

This is one of the reasons I was so interested in portraying a “flawed deity,” played by the actor who immortalized Ramrod. 

It’s one thing to watch a character go balls out to achieve his goals in a work of fiction but of course it’s quite another to live with or endure such an abusive character in your own home, your own workplace, in your own country or online where cyber bullies or self-appointed critics and “reviewers” living in mommy’s basement (or in the lap of our culture’s luxury class) can wield sociopathic amounts of influence over other people’s thoughts, minds, hearts and lives.

Perhaps many of us have not experienced abuse directly, but I can assure you it ain’t no movie. If Republicans get their way and manage to destroy American Democracy, more of us will join the unfortunate club of unfortunate people who’ve directly experienced abuse.

These days, in light of current events, the terror of Hitchcock’s description of the jail door slamming, is now fully felt by the audience at a time in history / her-story when our precious democracy is threatened by some people’s twisted fantasies of success for the few. 

The sheer unbridled rampage of evil claiming supremacy above any “Rule Of Law” as “ Ramrod “  eludes “ Walsh “ and claims his spot as an “archetype of abuse” is a useful “story-lesson in fear.” A story illustrating the horrors of abuse of power, way too uncomfortably mirrored on the nightly news. When it comes to a character as thoroughly evil as Ramrod (imitated by other actors after that performance), an examination of his popularity with audiences is worth a second and third consideration in light of our times.

Supremacy is in fact, completely unsustainable, without violence, which is why it is an unworthy, dehumanizing goal.

Unlike the bank robbers (sometime murderers) portrayed in the movie “Bonnie & Clyde,“ the character of Ramrod in “Vice Squad” is uncompromisingly cruel, whether indifferent or enjoying his crimes, he’s always “efficient” at delivering human suffering, like the dead eyed ruthless efficiency of a shark swallowing limbs whole, never deterred except for an occasional pod of angelic dolphins. Ramrod doesn’t even bother to get angry like Stanley did in “Streetcar.” He doesn’t waste energy with emotion. Like a corporation, he swallows up the territory & spits out the bones as an afterthought, another acting choice by Hauser (often imitated by actors who took their cues from Hauser’s performances of Ramrod and a few other similar iconic roles he’s played.)

Ruthless efficiency at all costs is a familiar cultural aspiration. Sports teams are touted as having “dominated” their opponents. We tell each other to “crush it” as  we approach a challenge at work or play. As swathes of our culture contemplate voting for an authoritarian in 2024, we must finally admit it, we do worship superiority, and dominance. The current state of affairs of state, is the reaping of that worship. That Frankenstein we incubated.

May I please, humbly suggest (as my protagonist “Eve” suggests) we need a recovery program for this addiction or it will swallow us whole. 

The rules of logic lead us to an uncomfortable truth. When a culture worships dominance and superiority, it must, logically, incubate and give birth to superior dominators. “Move Fast Break Things” was the early motto of Facebook. Personally, I always admired & now mourn the loss of Google’s early motto “don’t be evil.”  Growing up these past few years I’ve often thought if people who worshiped dominance were exposed to abuse on a personal level, they would favor “don’t be evil” over “move fast break things.“ 

Our admiration for dominance (which we’ve unfortunately exported) surely incorporates our appreciation of characters who display 100+ percent commitment to a goal. We are an economy and culture based on results. As I write this, I realize the concept of “taking risks” is often associated with “commitment to goals,” the ultimate American aphrodisiac. Touchdowns, home-runs, 401 K’s, Teslas.

I’m suggesting we consider taking “cathartic risks for the power of good causes” – AS POWERFULLY – as those who take such risks for the sake of power.

Ramrod’s sado-misogynistic cruelty is also tinged with a hint of his own possible latent homo erotic tendencies. He is the embodiment of unbridled evil and abuse of power but Ramrod, like other abusers, like Stanley, who derive enjoyment from inflicting pain on women – might just need a boyfriend? 

If it wasn’t so terrifying it could be funny, like “SNL,” or poignant, like “Brokeback Mountain.” 

As I’ve written elsewhere, survivors of abuse share an unfortunate lesson in wisdom that is worth heeding as a culture. Any abuse, whether it be domestic , child abuse, animal , environmental abuse, or civil rights, human rights abuse, all abuse is an abuse of power. 

Power is the abusers’ desired objective. Without absolute power, the abuser cannot survive. 

Like the shark who must keep moving and devouring to stay alive, Ramrod, the quintessential portrayal of cinema villain archetype is both, abuser and dictator. He will never submit to “ Walsh “ or to any law or “rule” except his own. He makes the rules and no other rules exist for him. That’s the “real trick” to “staying alive” on the streets, to paraphrase the “Vice Squad” poster.

Ramrod is almost omnipotent. He will never concede, admit or even recognize his own vulnerability, eluding capture & death for as long as possible. He’s a never ending high speed chase and the audience is suspended in that liminal space, “enjoying” the hating of the character as long as they know the movie will end and they can “join life heedlessly ongoing.“

But in “real life,” we, the people, we the audience, witness, digest & become desensitized to abuses of power on the nightly news, becoming “addicted,” dependent upon, the outcome. Some of us hope for a “Hollywood ending,” others rooting for “the bad guy.” We, the people, the democracy, the republic, the nation need the good guys to prevail. 

Don’t we ? 

I felt reality show Survivor, was grooming us to accept increasing levels of cruelty & injustice & now SCOTUS considers green lighting an immunity idol for less than 1% of us while allegedly “supreme judges” already claim that very immunity for themselves, as they refuse to recuse for the sake of Equal Justice under law.

Throughout the history of storytelling, we have always shared scary stories, fables, fairytales and fantasies, including sci-fi, which provide our cultures with a form of “healing through fear. “

As an actress, the most satisfying acting moments involve some form of improvised, imaginative playing with “danger” and risk-taking on the word “action” within the “safe” context of “the play” & “the rules” of a profession, the craft of acting where the consequences of any action are unexpected and spontaneous, if we are doing our job.

Of course I don’t mean actual or “real” danger. But as Hitchcock mentioned years ago, our imagined danger, and our real dangers are drawing dangerously near each other (including on-set safety). I don’t believe it is a good sign, but I do believe we can learn some lessons as we navigate the toxic “reality show culture“ currently endangering every aspect of civilization from education to arts, politics, of course, rule of law, decency, democracy, and Mother Earth. When I saw the reality show “Survivor” for the first time (years after its inception) it scared me. I felt that this show was grooming our nation to normalize cruelty and betrayal while glorifying one notion of success above all : “supremacy.”

What could be scarier than losing the freedoms of democracy? And thereby losing hope for the wellness of the planet? Whether it be actual prison or psychological, legal, societal imprisonment under authoritarian rule – or massive earthly devastation, the road to freedom is determined by our willingness to stand up for our rights. 

In Vice Squad , detective Walsh must be wondering to himself throughout the movie, “what the fuck does it take, to take this Ramrod thing down?” 

And then when he gets the chance to nail him, he utters an iconic line most of us associate with Clint Eastwood :  “go ahead, make my day.” 

Way before the Eastwood line, came the origins of that famous quote. The first iteration uttered by Gary Swanson as “Walsh” who said it to Wings Hauser as “Ramrod,” when Ramrod’s rampage finally ends. 

Walsh To Ramrod : 

“C’mon scumbag, make your move and make my day.“

Although Walsh represents the “good” part of good v. evil, this line of dialogue, that cinematic moment , indicate to us, that always looming in the context of any human story is the borderline between the two. Certainly this is not an exhaustive list of examples but both the 1973 film “Serpico,” starring Al Pacino directed by Sidney Lumet and the 1991 movie adaptation directed by Lili Fini Zanuck based on Kim Wozencraft’s novel “RUSH,” clearly illustrate the limitations of officers working in “Vice,” which is why their duties are often limited to specified periods of time, lest they become too cozy with the ways and means on the “bad” side of town.

Part 5

THE IRONIES 

and 

ECSTASIES

of

Escalating Risk in Film, Art, Life. 

As our 21st century culture witnesses one unacceptably unaccountable atrocity after another, throughout the world, including our own United States Supreme Court, we are desperately in need of “the good guys” and girls. 

Posted :

“WANTED :

Heroes & Sheroes.

Now Hiring. 

Must be bold

non-violent

risk-takers

for ‘good trouble’ (to paraphrase the great hero congressman John Lewis“ )

My version of “Eve,” stands up to an omnipotent “Doctor God,” performed with the same ruthlessness and commitment by the actor who portrayed the seemingly omnipotent “Ramrod.” 

Both “God” & “Ramrod” assert what they believe to be their absolute right to absolute power. 

Those who believe it is their right to remove the rights of women in this country, in the name of a “God,” they pretend to speak for, are far more devilish than Ramrod. 

Eve, who has been shamed & slandered by Adam, forced to forget her soulmate, Lilith, finds herself vulnerable and alone on a planet “where everything eats everything else,” summons up the courage to challenge “God,” to “become a better man.” 

My allegorical fable  about a contemporary Eve, the interracial love story between Eve and Lilith as two women of color, and the long overdue conversation between “Eve” and “God,“ is a response to our cultural and judicial solipsism. A dreamscape that seeks to awaken us from nightmares and challenge us to heal our very real opportunity for a kind of “paradise” on Mother Earth, where air might be safe enough to breathe and water, safe enough to drink, and endangered species, including democracy, might once again, dare to thrive in harmony as we spin forward splashing through space. 

A cultural space where an independent filmmaker might thrive while taking creative risks for the sake of a healthier culture. An entertainment eco-system that nourishes and supports the independent artist and the audience, with nourishing “food for thought,” instead of appropriating and then attempting to diminish genius as disposable corporate collateral damage. 

A cultural , legal and legislative landscape, even a tax structure that rewards the independent artist for taking intellectual risks and making art based in our democratic ideals as much as it rewards Wall Street box-office smash hits dominating corporate theaters – and as much as it might reward her for making babies. 

My background in yoga & wellness, inspired me to create a sustainable studio that could “farm & harvest” what I consider to be “aqua-culture” to “nourish” culture.

My background in pre-law, is what I relied upon to understand the evil performed by the 21st century iteration of the so called “Supreme” Court. The John Robert’s Years. 

My background in anthropology & performance studies led me to explore the physicality of metaphors like “standing up “ for a principle. 

In considering moments of risk in performance in relation to moments of risk in everyday life, the common denominator is the human being, the actor, equipped with a vulnerability of mind and body.

In this era of contemplating the permutations of artificial intelligence, as a human artist, an actress, dancer, as a singer and also a practitioner of the ancient ancient art of yoga, I find it helpful to turn towards the interplay between our very human,  mind-body mechanism and the performance, the art we render. 

The mere act of  “standing up” as in “standing up for ourselves “ involves a struggle: 

“When we are merely standing still, a great deal of coordinated muscular activity is being carried out invisibly. We have to fight against the force of gravity, and this requires energy” (Atlas of the Mind and Body). 

Existence is a continuous struggle and this lesson can be learned, as many lessons are, from the elementary example of the human body: 

“Much of the body’s muscle movement is involuntary. Our hearts, digestive tracts, the walls of our arteries, lungs, eyes, skin, and bladder, operate on a kind of dual control system where dilation alternates with constriction”

(Atlas of Mind and Body).  

This alternation is a struggle of two opposing forces , a yin – yang, in service to the same function.  

“The interplay of muscle groups is initiated by brain activity but is not necessarily always ordained by conscious will. The passenger standing in a train for example, swaying but remaining upright does not have to think about the muscle actions needed to keep him on his feet” (Atlas of Mind and Body) and yet “although the activities of involuntary muscles are largely beyond our conscious control, in some cases we can override the instruction of the autonomic nervous system…” (Atlas of Mind and Body). 

In this case we have another form of struggle, the “involuntary,” or unconscious workings of the body with the conscious will. The “content” of the brain’s conscious and unconscious struggle depends on various permutations of “chance” genetic and environmental factors in this “chance universe” ( “Film on Film” 1973) where good and evil may sometimes wear the same mask.

Unlike mainstream culture, where obvious delineations between “good“ characters & “evil” ones are clearly defined, “counter culture” projects offer the artist new options. Empowerment of girl power, social & environmental justice and the questioning of societal norms including faith & marriage,  women’s & lgbtq rights and democratic as well as environmental freedoms is the foundation for my sustainable movies and music.

Although “Eve N’ God ; This Female Is Not Yet Rated” was shot before Covid, two of the three main characters speak to each other via zoom and many of our themes are now, in 2024 – topics of intense conversation and daily debate in every form of media. 

My “Eve” character seeks to “give voice” to women everywhere, to “the global girl” and to characters like “Princess” in “Vice Squad” along with the many other cinematic “sex workers with hearts of gold.”

Currently our culture is navigating an old “minefield” where decency squares off against notions of superiority elevating some living beings above others. 

Superiority is not sustainable. 

Neither is a culture that refuses to cooperate with its own best interests. Just consider the fact that a portion of our citizenry willingly enable threats to fellow citizens like Ruby Freeman & her daughter Shaye Moss who volunteered their time to the sacred work of our guaranteeing our fair elections or E Jean Carroll, Stormy Daniels, and others who stood up for themselves against bullies. Consider too, that instead of condemning the bully, those who enable the bullying, call the bully “a god” and gleefully participate in assaults on democracy, endangering the nation and the planet, for what ? For their own benefit. For power. For supremacy. The “gentrification of culture” has caused us to vote against our own best interests. 

The great screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky showed us to ourselves in his genius film “Network,” which illustrates what happens to a culture that conflates news with entertainment. The ironic genius of Chayefsky showed us our reality culture before we got here. He warned us. 

Chayefsky and other artists of his generation employed irony to bring us to our senses. Irony is like that strong cup of coffee in the morning or that early morning workout, clearing your head, out of the fog into the light. Irony, because it leads to ecstasy. I know it’s not dead. This is probably an excellent time for the Renaissance of irony. And please don’t confuse my idea of “Renaissance” I’ve been mulling over since I mentioned the expression “ 21st renaissance in the works“ in a previous essay, with the current appropriated use of the word “Renaissance”

in corporate “pop” culture. Nor should my humble sustainable studio be confused with the equally appropriated “humble beginnings” stories offered by corporate stars in order to obfuscate the obscene money hoarded by the 1%.

I’m saying we get back to using our brains when we experience art. One way we can use our brains is by embracing the ecstasies of “irony” as illustrated by so many of our brilliant predecessors. Yes they would be very OLD if they were alive and active today. Old and wise, even though not very old person is a wise one, we could use a little Paddy Chayefsky. Chayefsky was very close with director Bob Fosse, who directed the film “Lenny,” about the late comedian, Lenny Bruce. Fosse looked up to Chayefsky and considered him his best friend. If you take a quart of jazz, blend it with some post modern irony and then shake it up with 21st Century political dirty tricks, what have you got ? You got that OLD thing called “the blues.”

The origin story of the “blues” is the origin of the human cry. Add an American twist and that’s how we got a Langston Hughes’ poem :

“ I wish the rent

was heaven sent”

The blues has always been a cultural coping mechanism. The African American experience was a sisterhood & brotherhood to the Jewish immigrant experience, the Irish American , the Mexican American experience and that of many other immigrants. There is a wry sad smile everywhere and lucky for American culture, some of our immigrants were capable of capturing the feeling.

A feeling called “the blues.”

Chayefsky said “the worst kind of censorship is the kind that begins in your mind before you sit down at the typewriter.” That’s what happens when authoritarians rule but it’s also what happens when an artist tailors her own thoughts, to suit “the suits” and the alleged “marketplace.” In fact, nobody knows what the audience will love, but corporations decide what to “feed”

the culture. They decide it from the prix-fix “menu” on “the A List.” 

Who writes the “A List” menu ? 

“Status quo” industry practices with built in biases “train” our minds on “what to expect” when we “expect” the plot or style of any movie, the “sound” of any song, the “vocabulary” and structure of any article, essay, or book. It’s not so much racist or misogynistic or homophobic, though it is, but it’s FAR MORE about “the art, of the deal,” so to speak.

And THAT is how we got here. This moment in history & herstory, is a corporate-Hollywood moment.

But we don’t have to abdicate our story. We can write our own happy ending.

When my project was in preproduction, we put out an advert asking for female & lgbtq crewmembers to send in their resumes, making it clear that our hiring practices are based in diversity. We  received so much hate mail, intended to force us to curtail our innovative hiring and “put us back in our place.” But we knew it was not purely racist, misogynistic and homophobic. We knew that we were being called out for being free. We were being called out for being independent, for being individuals, for being humans who chose to make a human film with humans (not corporations) 100% at the helm.

My “why” for building my studio was all about “being the change I wished to see.”  

We are “handmade to make a difference” ™️ and my studio logo is designed in the form of an “ingredient list,” a menu of sorts. 

I’m dedicated to creating projects that “nourish” a healthier culture. 

Now like an avalanche, parts of our culture hurtle away from humanity toward some unknown destination teeming with artificial intelligence, all too disrespectful of human intelligence.

Caution:

Nerdy Performance Studies Detour Ahead

I debated whether or not to include the section below about performance theory and its ensuing network of ideas. Ultimately, I decided, hey, I’m talking about taking risks so what’s wrong with taking a few intellectual risks too? So, please exercise caution as you navigate the next section of this winding road. You might enjoy it? It might bore you? But unless you are a true performance art, performance studies nerd, I don’t think you’ll be reading about this anywhere else. Give it a shot.

I wonder if Chayefsky, or Tennessee Williams, or Marlon Brando , or Elia Kazan, were aware of theater  experimentalist Jerzy Grotowski who was “interested in the actor because he is a human being” (Grotowski 1968). Grotowski employs the “give and take” of muscles in our bodies as a theoretical principle. His actor training involves the constant “give and take” between one part of the body and another part, the mind and the body, one performer and another performer, director and performer, performer and text, and performer and audience. 

The body functioning in harmony with mind as a result of struggle, like the Japanese Zen ideal, is Grotowski’s “method” : 

“When I tell you not to think, I mean with the head. Of Course you must think, but with the body, logically and with precision and   responsibility. You must think with the whole body, by means of actions” (Grotowski 1968). 

Grotowski expects human actors to push themselves to the limits of their potential, “bypassing the half measures of daily life” (Grotowski 1968). 

Grotowski says: “It is far less risky to be Mr. Smith all one’s life than to be Van Gogh.” 

This is partly true, provided that Mr. Smith does not, in his own way, spend his life consciously asking “why” and placing his mind and body in risky situations in order to approach answers to fundamental questions of existence – in Grotowski’s terms “struggling with one’s own truth” (Grotowski 1968).

Intentionally placing oneself in the midst of the ongoing struggle, either physically or psychologically, is an act of admitting the “yin-yang,” the “Tao” of the human condition.  Our vulnerability is our power as human beings. 

The “difficult” road, rather than the contented or apathetic one, is open to all humans (including Mr. Smith) and it can be understood in terms of the Japanese Zen journey to “satori,” or enlightenment:  

“What is truly difficult is to become conscious of what you have in yourself and be able to use it as your own” (Suzuki 1965). 

“Action” in Zen, which is using “what you have in yourself,” is to be taken with “no mind,” like Grotowski’s logic of the body. The practice of swordsmanship was very closely linked to Zen philosophy and this art is an extremely risky one, in which “the problem of death (is involved) in the most immediately threatening manner” (Suzuki 1965). The swordsman in action “must come right out of his inner mechanism.” He must act instinctively and not intellectually” (Suzuki 1965).

Grotowski’s  interpretation of Antonin Artaud’s notion of “cruelty” is this : “cruelty is rigour” (Grotowski 1968). The artist who is “cruel” to himself has examined his art and his mind/body with rigor.

Grotowski, the theater artist, has “cruelly” defined the domain of theatrical art.  The risks taken on stage are analogous to those taken in life. 

In a theater, both performers and audience “acknowledge a risk that things might not go well” (Macaloon 1984).  Here, Macaloon describes an area of risk when what occurs on stage and how it occurs may not correspond  exactly to the “pre-formed program of activity (Macaloon 1984). “

Macaloon also mentions risk in performance in relation to behavior in daily life: 

“This element of open risk incorporated into the dialogue between the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ is universally present in cultural performances and it separates performance from most of everyday behavior…. This is scripted action and therefore, it…is different from everyday behavior” (Macaloon 1984) . 

Performers struggle against the “pre-formed” form of theatrical action each time they engage in the act of performing. However, the intensity of the struggle, the “how” – very much like the intensity with which one engages everyday behavior, varies greatly from individual to individual. The higher the intensity, the greater the risk, and the greater the possibility for intense satisfaction or intense failure. 

Grotowski comments on risk:

“Part of the creative ethic is taking risks. In order to create one must, each time, take all the risks of failure” (Grotowski 1968) return for the risk involved in stripping the self physically (in body technique ) and psychologically in the “poor theater” and the seemingly histic “shock” technique, both the actor and audience can “experience human truth” (Grotowski 1968). 

The “ethical” actor,  in the “poor” theater according to Grotowski, achieves “great satisfaction:

“After self-sacrifice beyond all normally acceptable limits, (he) attains a kind of inner harmony and peace of mind. He literally becomes much sounder in mind and body and his way of life is more normal than that of an actor in the rich theater” (Grotowski 1968)

What does Grotowski expect of his “ethical” (or “holy”) actors?

“If the situation is brutal, if we strip ourselves and touch an extraordinarily intimate layer, exposing it, the life mask cracks and falls away….” (Grotowski 1968)

“It is much more difficult to elicit the sort of shock needed to get at those psychical layers behind the life mask” (Grotowski 1968).

The “life mask” of Macaloon’s “everyday behavior” is not safe in Grotowski’s theater. 

Similar to the ritual sacrifice described in Richard Schechner’s

Ritual and Performance (1986) where “a victim is selected, a surrogate, scapegoat,” Grotowski’s actor sacrifices him/herself as a kind of “homeopathic” cure (Schechner 1986). 

Grotowski speaks of sacrifice:

“If he does not exhibit his body but annihilates , burns it, frees it from every resistance to any psychic impulse, then he does not sell his body but sacrifices it” (Grotowski 1968).

In place of the “courtesan actor” (Grotowski 1968) who “exhibits” and “sells” the self, Grotowski trains a “holy” actor who sacrifices the self for the community. This actor trains himself to endure past the point of fatigue and then provokes the community, requesting their participation in the ritual. 

Macaloon’s  “acknowledgement of risk,” where something may not proceed according to script, is no longer in focus. The relationship of actor to audience is more “difficult” and the nature of risk is also more “difficult.” 

A new kind of liminal sphere is opened up for both actor and audience when endurance for a creative ethic becomes the focus.

In my projects, I explore this territory, especially minimalism which informs my signature style, along with the “poor theater” & particular forms of Japanese aesthetic practices which I have studied so deeply, but for now, I will focus on a few simple examples. 

Grotowski’s aesthetic choice is “poor theater.” For many performers “poor theater” is usually a necessity as well as somewhat of a choice.

In “ Choices: Making an Art of Everyday Life (1986), “ Marcia Tucker describes performances which “challenge and upset (her) preconceived notions of art….” (Tucker 1986). 

The “performance art” described in “Choices” involved artists who took physical and emotional risks in the name of their creative ethic and according to Tucker, “much of the work … was seen by the public as masochistic” (Tucker 1986). 

An example of the work discussed in “Choices” is that of Chris Burden’s performances. 

Tucker lists some of these: “(He) locked himself in a 2’x2’x3′ locker for five days (1971), crawled through fifty feet of broken glass with hands held behind his back (19/3), had himself crucified on the hood of a volkswagon

(1974)…, (Performed) Shoot (1971) in which a marksman accidentally shot Burden in the arm and Prelude to 220, in which he was strapped to the floor by copper bands next to two buckets of water containing live 110 lines… (These) were…public pieces which specifically incorporated a very real danger to himself despite the fact that the odds were against his actually being injured….” (Tucker 1986)

Burden comments: “I don’t think I am trying to commit suicide. I think my art is an inquiry, which is what art is all about” (Tucker 1986).

Like Grotowski’s experiments with the mind/body of the human actor, many

“auto-performers,” who are often classed as “performance artists” and work in galleries conduct

experiments which raise the stakes of inquiry to an extraordinarily high level. 

Performance artists can project their hidden violence to the audience in the form of images or in the form of theatrical reality, which is action in the “here and now.”

Given the “reality show horror” projected onto our nightly news (I’m told by my elders, that it’s not all that different from the nightly news of yesteryear), theatrical reality in performance is becoming closer to “everyday reality” (as in Performance artist’s “making an art of everyday life” Tucker 1986) and consequently, the risks taken in theatrical reality are also closer to potential risks of everyday life. 

Aside from horrific accidents taking place on movie sets, that are then reported on the news, the tension of risk lies in the extension of a theatrical violence, born of the violent material in the artist’s (or con artist’s) conscious and subconscious mind – inching its way back into the “everyday” world and testing how far out into the world it can go.

The continuum of risk factors to the human being either in performance or in daily life now includes climate related risks to life, permanent and/or temporary physical/psychological damage, physical/psychological discomfort, embarrassment, or pain, to unsatisfactory fulfillment of a personal goal. 

The common factors of risk in life and in performance are the human mind and the human body. Each factor of the risk continuum must also be seen alongside a continuum of perception and/or action/behavior on the part of the risk-taker. 

The human being in life and in performance can be either a “risk-seeker” or one who shuns risk. 

According to psychological studies on the subject of risk-taking,

“thrill-seeking often produces the best achievers, but it can also create the worst criminals…. For some, the thrills are mainly mental, for others physical, and for still others they are a mix of both” (Farley 1986). 

According to researcher Frank Farley, the level of “thrills” that each individual seeks is closely related to levels of arousal in the reticular activating system which “controls our body’s level of arousal” (Atlas of Mind and Body).

Farley explains: “We all seek unconsciously to maintain optimal level of ‘arousal’ or activity in the central nervous system, particularly in the… reticular activating system….If arousal is too high or too low, we try to adjust it to some middle ground” (Farley 1986)

The middle ground is sought by “average” individuals who seek “soothing environments ” (Farley 1986) when arousal is too high and “stimulating environments” when it is too low. 

However, some individuals have unusually low or unusually high arousability.  Farley names people with unusually low arousability  “big T’s” as opposed to the high arousability “little t’s.”

Big T’s tend to be more creative and extroverted, but they also tend to be more delinquent, hyperactive, and reckless drivers (Farley 1986).  In the action/behavior area of the risk spectrum these individuals are sensation seekers and perceive the risk factor, but their attitude toward the known or unknown source of possible consequences, such as death or breaking the law (which could result in physical/emotional damage and/or discomfort and/or failure to achieve personal goals), is one of disregard, reverence, or increased pleasure at the high stakes of the risk.

In a study focusing on anxious and reckless drivers, psychological researchers found that the reckless driver, the low arousability sensation seeker, has “difficulty internalizing norms” (Shoham, et. al. 1984). 

The anxious driver, on the other hand, “(deeply) internalizes traffic norms (and is)… less willing to take risks” (Shoham, et. al. 1984). The reckless driver will view the prospect of punishment as a source of pleasure since “punishment will raise their desired feeling of tension”  (Shoham, et. al. 1984) .

Reckless drivers, and psychopaths, are described as having “low ability for avoidance learning (Shoham, et. al. 1984), while the anxious driver is said to have a “high learning and conditioning ability and low impulsivity level ” (Shoham, et. al. 1984). 

It is interesting to note that much of the most recent actor training “methods” since Stanislavsky have stressed the qualities of the “impulsive” reckless driver and psychopath, who do not internalize norms but seek their own road. 

Examples of such texts are Viola Spolin’s  “Improvisations for the Theater”  and Grotowski’s “Towards a Poor Theater. “ These texts downplay the “learning,” “conditioning,” and “internalizing” aspects of the “anxious” driver who resemble a

Stanislavsyesque (since we can’t compare the actors who worked with the man to those who work with his texts) “method” actor trained in “emotion-memory.”

An example of risks involved for an unaware victim of risk who behaves normally in everyday activities is the potential victim of a natural, weather or nuclear reactor hazard victim. In this case, the government and media function as the director of a suspense film (“thriller”). 

Hitchcock says: “the essential factor to get suspense is giving them information” (“Film on Film” 1973). He offers an example of the increased effectiveness of suspense in a scene where the audience, in possession of knowledge that a bomb will soon explode, watches two men discuss baseball, over the same scene of the conversation when a bomb suddenly explodes without the audience’s prior knowledge. 

In the case of a potential climate catastrophe or nuclear hazard:

“If an individual has formed strong initial impressions about a hazard results from cognitive social psychology suggest that those beliefs may structure the way that subsequent evidence is interpreted…. The people lack strong prior opinions about a hazard…they are at the mercy of the way the information is presented” (Slovic, et. al.

1984)

In the case of any risk, including risk from weather events or disease, the study Behavioral Decision Theory by Slovic, et. al., stresses interpretation and perception:

“(the fact that) differences in how risks are presented can have such marked effects suggests that those responsible for information programs have considerable ability to manipulate perceptions and behavior” (Slovic, et. al. 1984) 

The director, like the government or media program, has the power to organize information in such a way that the actor is unaware of the various possibilities of risk to his mind/body. However, in examples of performance where risk is, in itself, a major theme to be explored in the act of performance, the actors are individuals willingly devoted to an ethic or ideal and willingly subjecting themselves to varying levels of risk. 

Guerrilla and Radical/Political theater in the U.S. during the 60’s, and other forms of “outlawed” and “revolutionary” (in the broad sense of the term) performance have occurred all over the world.

The stakes have become increasingly higher to match the increasingly risky nature of our “post-modern” / post millennial world in which the ultimate disaster – annihilation of the human race and most forms of life on planet earth, is no longer a hidden evil.

Our capacity for enduring the concept and visualization of violence becomes higher as society becomes addicted to its portrayal.

The “thrillers” of today are not as tame as Hitchcock’s “thrillers.” The raging characters described back in the 80’s on the cusp of a new century when instagram & AI were  just a twinkle in the corporate eye, are the majority of the stories civilization is now hooked to, the stories future generations grow up on, the global language of video. 

The high level of tolerance and enjoyment of violent images is a perfect match for the actual and potential violence which is a factor in the existence of every human being on earth. 

This information is available to us in our everyday lives through all forms of media.

Long ago and far away (it seems much longer than it really has been) Constantin Stanislavsky stressed the actor’s work of probing the psyche for genuine emotions which would allow the play’s text to come alive.

Stanislavsky provided actors with a much beloved safe “circle of light” with which the actor could surround him/herself and forget the audience in order to do the job. 

It was later on in life that Stanislavsky paid more attention to “physical actions,” but the region of the psyche remains the territory of Stanislavsky’s texts. 

As if in reaction to Stanislavsky text, Grotowski (who claims Stanislavsky as a “teacher”) developed a “psycho-technique” which stressed the body as the most honest (genuine) form of human expression.

Although the element of improvisation, present in various forms in both Western actor training and in the work of a master of Asian performance (Schechner 1985) and the element of possible failure have always presented a risk to the performer and entire performance, the element of risk is quite a different matter for avant-garde performers. Realization of Grotowski’s “sacrifice” of the body by many avant-garde artists (not necessarily directly influenced by Grotowski’s work) heightens the performer’s  potential risk.

Similar to Hitchcock’s conception of the slow merging of good and evil is the increasing approach of a risky “action” in performance to a risky “action” in daily life. There are no more magic circles to hide in. 

As Hitchcock presciently put it, “you can’t hide from the world.” 

While the corporate artist (or the non-corporate individual con-artist-thief) shamelessly steals fresh ideas plucked from social media where “the poor artists” share ideas, today’s 21st century authentic artist is almost forced to be “ethical” in this time of extreme uncertainty.

Painfully aware of what Richard Schechner calls “the end of humanism “ ( Schechner, 1982) and far from retreating from the risks of an artist, in a necessarily poor theater functioning, in the underfed outskirts of a hugely, materialistic and overfed, (mostly, Western) society, the post-modern / post millennial artist commits him/herself to the task of asking the relevant questions of the time. And with nurturing from an informed caring audience, together, the individuals that create the culture might nurture the culture so she can heal herself.

I’ve written elsewhere that I believe we are participating in a “Time of Useful Consciousness.”

It so happens that our time in history / herstory involves very high risk to humanity as a whole and the questions formulated by artists match their society, social atmosphere, and cultural ecosystem. 

In Japanese culture, for a samurai warrior, a swordsman, a Zen priest, a kamikaze pilot an action should ideally be performed without the accompaniment of conceptual thought. 

Intuition is the catalyst of action and Zen philosophy urges action to be carried out immediately after intuition is perceived. Zen philosophy has also  produced seemingly paradoxical performances in which subtle poems in praise of beauty are composed by Samurai warriors who then, lay down their ink brush in favor of the sword to perform the violent ritual of suicide, Harakiri. The actor divides his body from the belly upward and his companion completes the act by cutting off the head. 

Devotion to an ethic or ideal is the element that drove many Japanese men to perform according to intuition.

“I am indifferent to the cold of winter,

It is the frozen hearts of men that frighten me.

I know that my end is approaching ;

What joy to die like the shining leaves that fall in Tatsuta, Before becoming tarnished by the rains of autumn.”

Written by Saigo, 19th Century leader of a peasant revolt, before committing Harakiri (Yourcenar 1983).

This intensity of dedication and realization in action of innermost intuition is identical in quality to many of the “riskiest”performances that sometimes occurred in the Western world.

“Carbone 14,” a Canadian theater group, refer to their acting and training method (which becomes their “method” of everyday behavior) as “Kamikaze acting.” 

Mr. Brass, one of the founding members of the company, says in an unpublished interview:

“ I think theater is there to ask questions….We relate ourselves to Kamikaze pilots…. (The work) is very physical, sometimes it’s very rough, sometimes very violent, and it takes total committment from each of the actors…. Our whole lives revolve around the theatrical act and that’s what I mean by Kamikaze” (Babcock 1986).

These actors have performed “suspended fifty feet in the air from a net attached to two silos in En Toute Securite …, balanced precariously on chairs fifteen feet off the ground in Le Titanic…, (and) setting themselves on fire in Le Rail….” (Babcock 1986). 

The way in which these actors use the word “improvisation” and “risk” is very different from an older form of tension between scripted action and realization of action in the “here and now” when death was not present at any moment.

The performers, as if in a race for time, have pushed both the scripted and realized action toward the very limit of danger to human existence. 

My protagonist, Eve, in “Eve N’ God This Female Is Not Yet Rated” defends her PHD thesis by stating :

“ there are no conclusions, we’re in the beginning”

But why take risks with performers’ lives ? 

Mr. Brass says:

“For us it is a necessity…I go through periods of sheer conviction and moments of…total doubt…all at once” (Babcock 1986) 

These performers need to exist in a difficult atmosphere because, in terms of Grotowski’s “via-negativa” (Grotowski 1968), they resign from not doing so. Their intuition demands that these human beings violently reject contentment or apathy. They do it, for the culture. They do it for the good trouble.”

I have attempted to formulate the questions of performers who have devoted their mind/bodies wholly to performing.

Performers who sacrifice the notion of personal “quality of life” in terms of family, home, and security, in Grotowski terms:

“the poor theater does not offer the actor the possibility of overnight success. It defies the bourgeois concept of a standard of living (Grotowski 1968 ). 

Such performers feel compelled to ask the most difficult questions of our age, “the end of humanism,” employing most dangerous means. 

For some of these performers, the long lost comfort of the “magic circle“ of theater is inaccessible to any theatrical artist using human body as a sacrificial “hostage “while he/she asks us to leave our own comfort zones in order to consider basic questions of humanity. 

The artist seeks a community willing to participate in the ceremony and join in the rejection of apathy, acceptance of humility, respect for intuition, and join the artist in a resignation from inactivity.

Today’s risk as filmmakers, artists, but also as movie, music & art lovers – are no less visceral. But perhaps they are not as noticeable?

All day long our eyes and ears are bombarded with messages from those whose jobs are literally to “capture eyeballs and eardrums” through marketing campaigns in every flavor, on every level of society. 

The messages used to “sell,” will stop at nothing, including plagiarism, in order to sell, for the few, who are already in power.

As I’ve written elsewhere, I believe we’ve strapped ourselves to the ticking time bomb of so-called success as if we were riding it rodeo style like actor “Slim Pickens” in Kubrick’s 

”Dr. Strangelove Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb.” He rides it downward toward mutually assured doom.

And we’ve defined success, using the status quo vocabulary of supremacy and dominance. That’s why we are facing a reckoning with the rise of authoritarianism, the bastard child of supremacy and dominance, whose right brain functions as abuse, and whose left brain demands submission from every living being, every eco-system landing vulnerable in its path, subject to its will. 

All authoritarian systems rely on submission. 

Personally, whenever I am asked to “submit” my self as an artist or “submit” my work of art, I get physically nauseous. 

Everywhere we look, we are ordered to “submit.” We have allowed our cultural minds, hearts & souls to be moulded by the corporate idols.

We “submit.”

Like my “ Eve, “ I say NO. 

I won’t submit. 

Because I agree with the genius of that “OLD GUY” author, screenwriter, thinker Paddy Chayefsky:

“The worst kind of censorship is the kind that takes place in your own mind before you sit down to a typewriter”  (or keyboard or microphone or camera).  

Most of us have experienced rejection at one time or another. Many of us have experienced or witnessed the toxic haters, bullies & nasty jokesters hiding behind fake avatars online who take pleasure in denigrating the work of an artist or the life of a vulnerable soul they happen to encounter.  

Wealthy corporate mind-moulders and non-wealthy toxic grievance-holding hater bullies alike, share a world view which has unfortunately saturated global culture. They both subscribe to the cultural mental illness that worships superiority-dominance models of success. Whether violence is invoked or hinted at, it’s inherent to the supremacy-dominance model. And it’s killing civilization, draining the innocence & life out of our arts, cultures, societies, just as sure as the hands of a stone cold killer would drain out the life from his victim. 

Daily we witness a real life horror movie with a “moral,” a teachable moment worth heeding. 

It’s an addiction worth quitting.

How far will the human “race” advance in the era of technology if we lose all value for the existence of all life forms? 

How much longer will the forgotten living beings, whole populations of people and species of wildlife, including artists, endure the real role of sacrificial victim before the real blood already spilled on  corporate altars makes a difference, to you?

Does the artist who may not qualify as a commercial commodity have a strong role in advanced technological society? 

Is her existence deemed necessary ? 

Or is she disposable, like you? 

And who is the deemer? 

Who

Writes

The

“A-List” ?

Cui Bono ?

Who benefits from the list?

It’s not you.

Who will decide whose “freedom of speech” is honored & protected? 

Same people who write “ The A Lists “? 

Is there an “A List” for “speech” ? 

For “rule of law?” 

These questions are necessarily suspended in a precarious area of risk between matters of life and death for artists – and all fellow humans.

We too, run these risks “by choice and or, by chance” as Hitchcock warned. 

In my film, our protagonist, Eve rediscovers her long lost lover, Lilith. Eve decides she must leave “Eden “ in order to join Lilith on Earth for a taste of paradise. In doing so, she saves not only herself, and Lilith, but she also saves “God” by redeeming Doctor Godard’s innocence. 

We all know he’s capable of veering off into devilish Ramrod territory on occasion. 

My Eve seeks to restore our innocence by reminding us that misogyny, defined as : 

“hatred for all things feminine, vulnerable, wild, and free,” 

is in fact the original, “original sin.”

In choosing to unite in the healing of true “original sin” and restoring our innocence by embracing our feminine, our endangered vulnerabilities, our wildness and our freedoms, we too, can save ourselves by cherishing our siblings, including every species of wildlife and sealife life roaming, swimming, flying on our beautiful, blue planet, our sacred Eden , our paradise, our mother, Earth, spinning into infinity, swirling and surfing the multiverse on our interplanetary swimming pool.

I have written to congress & the executive branch on behalf of independent artists and I will continue my efforts to secure human artist rights in an increasingly corporate monopolistic ecosystem.

I believe this effort to speak up for the independent human artist, yields dividends for the survival of every living being threatened by the indifference of corporate conglomerates & the greedy few who have hoarded humanity & comfort for themselves alone, to the detriment of the people and the planet.

My team and I make these projects with individuals, by individuals, for individuals and we make these projects for – you – because we love you.

I hope, my team hopes, you will consider supporting my efforts to bring awareness for independent artists by purchasing the movies, music & books we release direct from the Cali Lili Indies ™️ and by sharing them widely, adding more positive ratings & reviews wherever you see us speaking up for every one of a kind individual (you) with our handmade single source, sustainable indies.

Thank You from the heart, for all the support you have already shown us !

Thank you!

Let’s make up a better world,

Truli*Cali*Lili™️ “

© Cali Lili ™️

all rights reserved Courtesy of Cali Lili @ Cali Lili Indies ™️ Excerpt from upcoming book by Cali Lili

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Continue reading “Cali Lili : “JD Salinger Is My Tap Water (but I still love a Hollywood ending) “ ©️ “The Ironies & Ecstasies of Escalating Risk in Film, Art, Life ; Or How I Spent International Women’s Day 2024 while John Roberts’ So Called Supreme Court Revoked Women’s Rights “ ©️ Cali Lili all rights reserved” →