I love that you had that freedom and what came out of it, like the now-iconic and hilarious scene and the ))<>(( symbol of “pooping back and forth,” which has become a popular tattoo and a favorite quote for many. Because it’s so risky as a scene and you were playing with taboos, what was your process as an artist, to know how far you wanted to or could push it.
The thing I was interested in was a child’s understanding of sexuality. That was something that you could explore in a movie, a fiction, a safe world that you’re creating. In a way, you could let a child have authorship within the story, retain it and not have anything bad happen to that child [while also] allowing them to have their own understanding of what sex and the ultimate intimacy is.
For a five-year-old, the most taboo thing would be described with these butts, pooping into each other’s butt holes back and forth forever. It’s funny. In some ways, a woman talking about shit is probably the most taboo thing about it. What I didn’t want to have get lost was this idea of a child’s right to their own conception of sexuality. I came up with the symbol, the back and forth forever symbol, specifically to brand it. I was aware that with something as slippery and as easily negated as this concept, it needed a logo. I was totally conscious. At the IFP premiere, I had already had them make t-shirts that had the logo on it. No one had a tattoo of it yet. The movie hadn’t come out yet. And, by the way, the internet also didn’t really exist in a way that it might be shared; not in the way that we know it today, [with] social media or anything.
I was looking back to the old concept of a meme, which I had read about. It was the idea that you could start something, but it had to be consumable. That was interesting. The same side of me that would want to make art in the form of an app, you know, was also interested in that. So on top of trying to make a movie and tell a story, I think you could already see an interest in what was possible as far as different ways to share ideas. You could share it both through the movie and through a meme. Now a meme is a whole [thing], it’s been claimed in another way.
What was it like working with Brandon Ratcliff? How much did you have to explain to him about what was going on?
A child has basic acceptance of [things]. You don’t get into long musings on what it all means. It’s just like, “Do your part and then you take a break.” It’s simple like that and he was preternaturally mature. His lines were all memorized. One reason why we cast him, besides that he’s just completely an adorable star, was that he actually had it together. Some of the older kids that would have allowed us to work longer hours, were, in truth, going to be more work. He just had a special mind and it was easy for him. Then also he’s a kid and would do all kinds of ridiculous things and look in a particular direction with a particular expression on his face. We loved him as a crew and as cast. Regardless of how anything else was going or how any of us felt about each other, we all loved him. I think his magic was real. You can see it in the movie and it also inspired all of us working with him.
While I was re-watching this movie (or when I engage with any other type of art you create), I found/find myself feeling a little exposed, with a license to think and feel the things that are perhaps a little off, dangerous or silly that I would never admit or talk to anybody about, except perhaps my therapist.
Well, I think it’s what I want for myself, what you just described. I’m trying to do that for myself and seek out art, people, and books that make me feel really, really alive. Even to the point where that feels dangerous or I don’t know what to do with it or what’s going to come out of me. Like you said, being consumed in that feeling is what I live for; this totally swept up feeling where I channel all the struggle, all the craft behind it at the same time. [That’s] really interesting to me, you know?
Hopefully, it feels like a dream and casts a spell, but of course, when you’re making it, you’re still wide awake. I always love that interplay, that mix between this incredibly rigorous feeling like you’re like a Navy SEAL, or an astronaut, or someone really highly trained. Then, also, the boundless dreaminess.
We see your character Christine, the artist, at work frequently in this movie. She responds to every situation or object in her immediate surrounding, seeing them as opportunities to turn into art with bigger stories to tell. Is that how your mind works as an artist that creates in various disciplines?
Yeah. I guess it is a bit like that. I get to learn how to have this very tight focus. I can’t be wide open all the time or I’ll just get completely distracted. There are times that feel like that; where I just literally, again and again, throughout the day, have to write down what exactly I’m doing.
My child was imitating me today and he said, “Robot get dressed,” because, I guess, I say that to myself all the time. I say, “Robot, get dressed.” Or, “Robot, do the dishes,” because I’m the robot, because I can think pretty deep into nearly anything. So I’m constantly having to reroute myself towards the next step.
What are you hoping that artists pay attention to in the wake of this pandemic that has opened up a lot of discussions? What are you paying attention to, are you thinking along these lines at all?
I think in part we were able to pause as a species with such solidarity because we were afraid, so we just did that. But I also think things were not going very well and that we sensed that. There’s a little bit the feeling that we don’t want to come out and have things be as they were before. We want to have changed and we want this to have been worth something and there to be some kind of transformation.
That’s, of course, on a nuts-and-bolts level. We didn’t want to go in and we really want to come out. We didn’t want to stop working and we want to go back to work. That’s all true too. But I think there’s layers to what’s happening and I think that’s one of them, because I look around in LA and I’m surprised people are following orders as much as they are. I understand that in New York it’s hard to leave your building without potentially getting exposed, but there’s so much space here and there’s fewer cases. I just look around and I think that there’s maybe something else going on, like some loftier or deeper desires that had to do with where we were [before] this. But this is how cultures change or how consciousness changes. It does. It does, historically. It’s not just something that a meditation app invented.
Historically, consciousness has changed and it’s been changed by things like this. The brain itself has been changed. Maybe one pandemic won’t do that, but certainly, a generation that grew up going in and out of lock down is going to be impacted. My job is to stay put, as I’ve been told by our doctors, and to sustain that and to help other people sustain staying home. So I think part of what you do to do that job is, you just wonder. You wonder about it. These are some of my wonderings.
