Candida Royalle

the interview with Olivia de Court

Part Two

CANDIDA: You're right. That's a very good point, by the way.

Olivia : Thank you. On your web site, there is some material about the details of your film. One that struck me, in particular, was "Urban Heat." You said of that, film, "... in a genre that seems to endlessly drive home the idea that only young, perfect-bodied women are sexually desirable, it’s a welcome to see a woman of age and substance set a scene on fire."

What I’ve noticed, both as a musician and as a feminist is that so much of not only adult entertainment, but also mainstream media persist in clinging to extremely limited and limiting images of women. Do you think it's pure economics on their part, or do they have a, perhaps a polar opposite agenda? Do you think it’s that sinister? Or well thought out?

CANDIDA: No. I don't think it's sinister or well-thought-out. (Laughs). I think it's clinging to the obvious. If you listen to the anthropologists, they will tell you that the young woman tends to still be the object of desire because she's fertile. And men have this very primal (instinct) leaning to young women because they continue to be fertile. I think that some of that still exists. There is a very primal aspect to this.

But I think also, that the field of entertainment is one that exploits whatever it needs to exploit, in order to be commercially successful. They are not looking to socially advance humanity. So they're going to go for what is obvious and what's easy. It's much easier and more obvious to go for the very traditional forms of beauty. And so, I think that commercial entertainment, like Films and TV, tend to exploit our fascination with youthful beauty. The big studios couldn't care less about exploring the new, evolving role of the older woman as desirable. As long as they get enough people to pay to see that movie, that's all they care about. And if more people would rather pay to see a young, beautiful woman than an older beautiful woman, they'll put the young, beautiful woman in the movie.

Just like pornographers will make the more obvious kind of pornography if it brings in more money. So I think we're really just looking at economics and commercial viability.

Olivia : Right. Sort of the bottom line formula, what’s worked in the past.

CANDIDA: Yeah. Exactly. And we do have this incredible obsession with youthful beauty. And it's so strange to me, because in a way, I see it as a very cruel, masochistic thing, we've forced it on ourselves. Because, if you think about it, it's like that old Chinese proverb: "A beautiful young woman is a gift from God. A beautiful old woman is a creation of herself."

To worship beauty that we can only be born with is extremely cruel. We really don't honor and reward, people who keep up their health, and, for lack of a better word, their beauty. Instead we worship only those with youthful And that's a pretty cruel thing to do to ourselves.

Olivia : Freaks of genetics.

CANDIDA: Yeah, or just, you know, what is easy. There's no way that, as a woman in my forties, can compare to a woman in her twenties. And so it's almost like making us feel helpless.

I think it's what pushes us to extremes to try to maintain that youthful beauty. If we were a society that really honored women of substance and age, and rewarded us with respect, it's a very frustrating thing, and it makes us desperate to maintain the signs of youth.

Olivia : I agree. Moving to the technical realm, in terms of filmmaking there is a couple of differences that I've noticed in the male oriented porn world in contrast to what you do. You had said regarding responses from the established porn industry at the time that Femme Films started that, "... the guys didn’t seem to think that women were very interested in visual erotic entertainment. This is something that I've heard men say a lot, that women are more about sound and men are about vision.

I think it was Annie Sprinkle who said that one of her friends noted the difference between erotica and porn is all in the lighting -- (Laugh) -- which is very pithy and funny, but I'm wondering, as a filmmaker, do you, think that‘s part of it?

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