Working in the Holes: A Third-Wave Feminist Filmmaker’s Take on Labor is an article I wrote for Cinema Journal.  It discusses in essay form several of the issues I explore in my work-in-progress storytelling piece, Warrior 3: A Tale of Meager Transcendence.

Warrior 3, a comedic multimedia “live documentary,” is about a San Francisco-based filmmaker struggling to reconcile her life as an artist who supports herself meagerly with a blue collar job, and as a third-wave feminist who has inherited upwardly mobile aspirations from her second-wave feminist mother.

“Kara” confronts her bruised ego every day as she clocks in as an audio visual technician setting up media presentations by and for the rich, famous and powerful. As a child, she listened raptly as “Mom” read her feminist books such as Free to Be You and Me [1] and Girls Can Be Anything [2]. The latter featured eight-year-old girls in a variety of jobs, such as President of the United States, brain surgeon or astronaut. Growing up with such plucky encouragement, Kara never imagined she’d end up working as an AV tech taping down electrical cables so that Hilary Clinton wouldn’t trip at the podium.

But Kara hunkers down because the job provides the “holes,” the openings in her daily work schedule, that she needs to make her own films.

Warrior 3, like my article, explores the tension between two generations of feminists and their differing values regarding class, labor and creativity.

[1] Thomas, Marlo and friends. Free to Be You and Me. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. 1974

[2] Klein, Norma. Girls Can Be Anything. New York: Dutton Books. 1973