Director's Cut

>> We're a queer... >> R&B... >> We are an Americana Duo. >> Punk-ish, sort of... >> Blues. >> Some people think I'm writing a musical. >> Indie. >> Hip-hop. >> Alt-Folk. >> What stories do I tell? >> Welcome to Director's Cut. I'm your guest host, Doug Gordon. That was a clip from the feature documentary, "Riot

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Flaunting Gender Deviance in Music Performance." The film is a trans-fabulous rockumentary that chronicles the multifaceted lives of transgender and gender variant musicians. We are joined today by Simon Strikeback. Simon is the co-producer of "Riot Acts." Thank you so much for joining us today, Simon. >> My pleasure. >> Congratulations on the film. It's a wonderful piece of work. You co-produced the film with Madsen Minax. >> Right. >> Madsen actually directed the film. What inspired you and Madsen to make "Riot Acts"? >> Well, in 2006, we started playing music together. I lived in a rural community in Tennessee and played Bluegrass. He had been playing in Chicago bands. And we met, and wanted to start playing music together. We started playing, had a great time, thought let's go on tour. Then we realized that we didn't really know who to play with. We didn't really know any other transgender musicians in the states. Madsen happens also to be a filmmaker by trade. We thought, well, wouldn't it be funny if we made a sort of guys on the road sort of mockumentary. >> Mm-hmm. >> While we were on tour. As we sort of got the names of people and kept trying to figure out that it's actually a pretty serious endeavor that we were working on. We decided to make a real film out of it. >> You and Madsen had some specific goals in mind, in terms of what you wanted to accomplish with this film, "Riot Acts." Can you tell me what you and Madsen were hoping to achieve. >> Yeah, well, at the time, this was 2006-2007, and I think the still same holds true, is that there's not a lot of representations of trans people that aren't tragic. We, Madsen and I, we're not, we don't live tragic lives. We have hardships, but our lives are not tragic. We don't come from a community of tragedy. We wanted to more accurately reflect how fun and creative and big our community is. >> Why do you think the mainstream media tends to dwell on the tragic? Is it just laziness, or is it because tragedy sells? >> I mean, I think it's a combination, but I think it's also, I mean, it's trans phobia, right? I mean, the idea that trans people, like other marginalized people, don't have complete lives, right, that somehow who we are and what we are makes it impossible for us to live outside of shame, or to have joy, or to find love, or to have sex, or to have families, or to be geniuses. Somehow, the trans-ness is so bad that we can't fulfill, sort of lofty achievements. >> Right, kind of a fear of the unknown, or if you're not mainstream, if you're not doing what everyone else, the majority of people are doing, then there's something kind of wrong with you. >> Yeah. >> You're not living to, you're not fulfilling your life. >> Yeah, but I mean, in some ways, it's more like "TransAmerica," or "Boys Don't Cry." I mean, those movies, right, like violence is terrible, and ostracization and trans phobia is terrible. But because there are so few representations, that becomes the sort of spokes model of what it is to be "trans." And we wanted to offer something completely different. >> And you definitely did. >> Thanks. >> Speaking of which, let's take a look at another clip from "Riot Acts." This one focuses on a group called "Sister Act." Let's roll that clip. >> We go on missions. >> We do a lot of missionary work. >> Raise awareness about different issues at the church. >> Like homosexuality. >> Yes, and some sort of gender non-conformity business that we don't really understand, but... >> We don't condone it, but we love everyone, because God loves us. >> Hate the sin, love the sinner. So we try to keep that close to our hearts. We're Systyr Act, and we dress up as nuns and sing songs about Jesus or God. >> There's this local gig in town, Tranniwreck, and she turned it into a contest show called Wreckage, so anybody can perform. So we were, like, ok, we're totally going to do that next Wreckage contest. >> We won!

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Can you believe it? >> We totally won. >> And we won like 50 bucks and a gift certificate somewhere. >> Which we probably spent that night on beer. >> Yeah, probably, for sure. Except it's, like, $2 beers. >> And that night that they like, invented Systyr Act, my band at the time, Secret ###, were selected to judge the show. I mean, I knew they were performing, but I didn't know what they were doing, and I was, like, floored, like, wow. Inspiration, much? But yeah, I mean, they had my vote. >> That's a great clip. One of the members really seems to be channeling Dana Carvey's Church Lady character from Saturday Night Live. "Sister Act" is doing something kind of different from the other musicians you profile in "Riot Acts," in terms of adding this element of religious satire. I'm curious, Simon, what do you think of "Sister Act"? >> That was the most fun interview that we did, because we couldn't stop laughing. They're a hilarious trio, and together they make their act funny. They're funny. It was a great night. I think what I love about "Sister Act," is that they are taking the sort of seriousness of being trans, and a seriousness of sort of religious, sort of, you know, um, persecution, or sort of the fear of religious hatred against trans and queer people, and really just throwing it to the wind. Right there in Boston, a very Catholic town. Greg, who's the sort of more spokesperson type, he's from like a more Bible belt environment, shall we say, and I think that being able to really combine humor and all of these sort of drag elements, it was a fabulous interview. It was so much fun. >> The camaraderie among them was really apparent in that clip. Just to get back to what you were saying, they straddle this kind of fine line of dealing with serious issues, but at the same time having fun with it. Yeah, they're great. How did you track down all the subjects for "Riot Acts"? >> We used a combination of Wikipedia, MySpace, and word of mouth. So, one thing that Madsen and I, I think we can say confidently, is we helped form a sort of more cohesive community of trans musicians in the states. That didn't exist. Like I said, before, we didn't know who we were going to play with when we went on tour. So, we had to go to a town, play a show, ask some people, who should we play with in Seattle, or who do you know in Minneapolis? We're going to the East Coast, can you introduce us to people? Then, once we started traveling, more names and more acts sort of came to our attention. >> You conducted all of the interviews, right Simon? >> I did. >> How long did you spend talking to each of the subjects? >> Oh, hours. I mean, we had a really ragtag setup. You know, we traveled by car. It was Madsen, a videographer, and I. We would play a show with the band the night before, stay at their house, generally sleeping on the floor or futons, wake up in the morning, and then that's when the videographer would sort of transform their living room into a studio. I would talk with them. We would make breakfast. We would drink coffee. So I got to have a sort of really easy repartee with the interviewees. So by the time we actually hit camera, we had already established a really good connection. So then, we had a lot to talk about, right, since they were feeling comfortable. Anywhere from three to six hours. We spent a long time. Sometimes, we'd go out and we'd bring the camera along. We had a lot of fun. >> You had to frame the questions in such a way, because it's worth pointing out that there's no narration. Was that difficult at all, to get people in your interviews to speak in the complete sentences that you could edit pieces and combine? >> Well, Madsen is a genius editor, so that helps, right? But we did, we framed out those questions before we left on tour. So we had a sense of how the questions led into one another. Like I said, once people were comfortable, they were more articulate. I think that just sort of goes without saying, but I think is really true. Also, as I got more comfortable and confident as an interviewer, their answers got better. So what you don't see in the film is my first and second interviews. Then we had to go back to catch. We had lighting problems. We had sound problems. So at the end of our process, we went back to places like LA, where we went first, and sort of re-took a lot of the shots. >> Let's take a look at another clip from "Riot Acts." This one has to do with the issue of voice dropping. Here's another clip from "Riot Acts." >> When I hear recordings of my voice I'm like a little disturbed. I'm like, wow, I sound so feminine, and that's not how I think I sound. And I think a lot of the time I do sing lower, and I think I limit my range because I'm not comfortable singing in a higher voice. Sometimes I think that's kinda limiting but... >> You know, it's weird, I don't think it was really a very conscious thing that I did about my voice, but from the albums that I had before where I was solo, I was identifying as female, to when I listen to my voice now, I kind of feel like my voice has deepened, and these guys would agree with me because I feel like I'm loosing my high end and I complain about it all the time. And I'm not on testosterone and I'm not planning on doing that any time soon because I know that I will effect my voice, or apparently it will, and I don't really want to risk that. >> If I'm on T, what the hell is my voice going to sound like? Music is such a big part of my life, like, what if I can't sing anymore? Or like, what is it going to be like for the first couple, maybe even years of taking T, if that ever happens and like people come to shows and, what is my public identity going to be like? >> In terms of building my career as an artist, you really want somebody to hear your voice and say, that's that person, that's Geo, that's Novice Theory singing right now, but your voice is changing it's sort of, it's challenging. To the mountain With our scabbard And our cross You were right Beside me then You were strength And I was mischief... >> That's a great clip. It provides evidence of Madsen's editing genius, that you were talking about earlier. This is something that I never even thought about, voice dropping. It didn't dawn on me. That's one of many things I learned from watching "Riot Acts." Voice dropping is a real issue among transgender and gender variant musicians, isn't it? >> Yeah, I mean, absolutely. It works for voice, in general, for trans people, in general, is a giant issue. We talk about it all the time. We think about it all the time. For musicians who are on stage, and singing is their primary instrument, it's a real concern, because it's how you're identified when people hear your band, hear your music. So what Geo says, if that's changing, who are you even listening to when you pop in your CD or you're listening on your iPod, track after track after track. You get a sense of the person's voice. If that voice changes from album to album, that's nerve wracking, right? And for trans women, right? So, another part of the film is when one of our interviewees says well, trans women, we don't get the upswing, right, which means that trans women's voices don't sort of "naturally change" through hormone transition. So, a lot of people choose to take voice lessons, or they choose to sing in the voice that's most comfortable for them, right, and so, everyone's got something to think about when we talk about voices. >> Yeah. If you don't mind my asking, has voice dropping been an issue for you in your music career? >> Well, it has more like what Ryder was saying, where when I was singing earlier, and I was feeling more sort of apprehensive about my trans identity, and how did I look, and how did I sound. I did sing lower. I didn't like to sing high, because I thought it sort of revealed that I was somehow female, right? But as I get more confident and I get older, I just sing with what my voice sounds best at, and it's not low, you know? But I had to do that sort of self work, in order to feel comfortable to say, you know what, my voice sounds great at this level, at this tone, and that's where I'm going to sing. >> You mentioned that you collected many hours of footage. Do you have a ballpark figure of how many hours of footage you collected? >> We shot on digital, we shot on video, we shot on Super 8, and we shot on 16mm. So I think total we have about 130 hours. >> Wow, that's a lot. That brings me to my next question. How did you and Madsen go about deciding which footage to use? >> Well, Madsen being the editor, he made the sort of executive decisions. But I think it became very clear which interviews went well. And of course, we had our themes. >> Mm-hmm. >> The film sort of followed those themes along. So, you know, things that were great but didn't fit anywhere in the movie, sadly, we couldn't keep. But the articulation, moments where people, it seemed like they were really discovering something about themselves for the first time, were beautiful moments. We tried to capture those, and things that really flowed, because that really made the movie cohesive. >> Madsen has talked about taking an intuitive approach to editing. I'm curious, did you have a chance to look? As Madsen was editing, would you pop in from time to time and offer feedback, or was Madsen pretty much left to his own devices? >> He really, his ability to focus is incredible. I was in graduate school getting my master's at the time. Luckily, he was able to sort of, through putting odd jobs together, really spend a tremendous amount of time working on the film and production. >> Okay, well let's take a look at another clip from "Riot Acts." This clip looked at the idea of appearance, as it relates to transgender and gender variant musicians. Let's roll that clip. ...Like it was mine too I was a female singer/songwriter and a queer female singer/songwriter, and now I'm kind of a straight male singer/songwriter. I don't really like that word, we don't act straight, but we just sort of look it sometimes. I am so used to being the one person in the room of... Whatever I was, I was it. And I was noticeable. And, you know, nowadays, I'm no longer noticeable in some circles. >> Kitty's roommates were watching us play. And they told her that she passed the best out of all of us. >> They thought that everyone in the band was trans? >> Being in a band that's called Trannysaurus Sex, multiple times we've played I have been asked, so who in the band is trans? >> Exactly. >> It was like there was no line when we pulled up, right. We drive in, there's no line. But by the time we walked from the car to the bathroom there's this huge line. And these whispers start in the line, you can hear it, this atmosphere in the line. This buzz is starting. And somebody says... By the time we had used the bathroom and came out, as we were walking out, you could hear them behind us saying, there was some men in the bathroom! Oh my god, there was some men in the bathroom! >> As I was watching that clip for the first time when I was watching "Riot Acts," it struck me that, again, this is something I hadn't really considered, this idea of passing or not passing. How important is it to members of the transgender and gender variant community? >> Well, that's a sort of historical question, maybe surprisingly so. But that, in terms of the whole community, right, it's hard for one person to speak. >> Definitely. >> But because I do trans history, it's helpful, so I can give a little bit of illumination to that. That's actually changed over time. I would say in the past 10-15 years, the idea of passing, which is about having the general public and people that you don't know not assume that you are trans, right, and just say, oh, there's a person. I'm not going to think about their gender. Being able to walk through the world and have that happen for you is desirable for a lot of people. That's sort of that feeling of, you know, like I'm not walking around as a marked person. That's really comfortable for a lot of people. It has been sort of a requirement to access things, like hormones or surgery, or other ways of just becoming more comfortable in your own body. But now, because those sort of requirements have loosened, and I think maybe in concert with trans people, a lot more trans people are saying, you know what, passing isn't as important to me, or isn't important to me at all. So you have a much, sort of wider range of investments in passing than I think you might have had 10 or 15 years ago. >> Well put, excellent answer, Simon. At the beginning of that clip we just saw, Joe Stevens of Coyote Grace talk about going from being the most noticeable person in the room to not being noticeable at all. Is that something that is a common struggle for the musicians that you profiled in "Riot Acts"? >> Yeah. So one thing that's important about "Riot Acts" is it's a queer community film, right? I would say that probably 90% or 95% of the interviewees in the film belong to the queer community in some way. So, that experience of sort of being immediately recognized as queer, as an outsider, sort of pre-transition, is a common experience for a lot of our interviewees. That change, especially for somebody like Joe, who's so "white guy," right, Joe is a handsome white man, right? And having never really experienced that sort of privileged position, and then really, all of a sudden, having it bestowed upon you, is very jarring. For some people, it's very jarring in a way that feels really good. For some people, even if they're getting a lot of benefit, it doesn't feel good, because what if that privilege slips away, what if someone finds out. So those are the sort of tricks of passing, as well. >> Let's take a look at another clip from "Riot Flaunting Gender Deviance in Music Performance." This clip explores the way the mainstream media covers transgender and gender variant musicians. Let's roll this clip from "Riot Acts." >> Because straight reporters, they might be, like, I don't want to touch you with a ten foot pole, but you make a good story. >> The guy who showed up to take a picture was just like the gray haired, straight, white gentleman who was, like, so... And I'm, like, dressed in a tee-shirt and jeans, and he's like, "So, are you ready for a picture?" And I'm, like, "Sure, It's fine, right? Let's find a place, its fine." And he's, like "Do you need to put on a costume or something?" And I was like "What kind of costume to you want me to wear?" You know, I guess I can whip something together. He's like, "Well, what do you normally wear when you perform?" I was, like, this is it, and he was, like, "Oh, well you just look like a college kid or something. I thought that you were..." And I was, like, "Oh, you thought I was a drag queen?" Right, this isn't actually about my music it is about, like, how freaky is the freak? Let's get a photograph of the freak. You know what I mean? >> The media tend to focus on that. I was reading an article the other day that said that I was using the fact that I was trans as a gimmick. I'm like, yeah, I'm sure I went out an spent, like, $6,000 on top surgery for a gimmick. And had, you know, a bunch of people in my community turn their faces away from me as a gimmick. Because, you know, I really enjoy all the hassle. It's not a gimmick. We're not trying to do anything here except be who we are. >> There's a kind of that whole ghettoisation kind of element to all this. Because like if we're pigeon-holed as just a queer band then nobody going to, people that are going to alienated by that are going to be completely uninterested. >> One of the ways that affects our audience the most isn't necessarily that the people who come to our shows have these pre convinced notions about what to expect or how they feel about it and what they think about it, but actually who's not there. What that kind of media coverage does, it's as though it's saying to everyone who isn't queer, this doesn't matter to you. You can skip this piece and not learn anything about this band, and definitely not come to the show and, like, you probably won't feel comfortable there anyway because its full of queer people and whatever, you know. And I think that's just really a shame. >> That's kind of depressing, that clip, the way that our mainstream media just reinforces these negative stereotypes. Hopefully, that's something that "Riot Acts" is starting to change. >> I hope so. >> Do you have a favorite scene in the film, Simon? >> Yeah, I do. It was one of our earliest interviews, which is why I think it was so poignant for me. We were interviewing Lipstick Conspiracy, the two women who are speaking in the really nice house with a lot of CDs. They were talking about what it was like to realize that they had all this sort of fear and shame that their voices were very low, and then realizing that that's what they wanted to be. They didn't want to be what they call "faking it." They didn't want to try to please anyone. They really were just going to sing from their authentic selves. And realizing that that was a process they were going through. They sort of had that moment on camera. It was just awesome to watch. >> Yeah, you can see that, that this is the first time they've ever had that conversation. We're almost out of time, but I have one final question, Simon. How has this whole experience of making "Riot Acts" changed the way you think about your identity? >> You know, the thing that I think is the most important is that I feel like our community is so big. Because you not only have the musicians, right, you have all the musicians you didn't see, you have all the fans, and you have all their friends, and you have all the people watching the movie and buying the movie, and watching it where their libraries have it. It just makes us seem like such a powerful, strong, diverse community, which makes me feel like part of something really big, and great. >> It's a great film. Thank you so much for joining us, Simon. >> Sure, thank you. >> Thank you for watching Director's Cut. For more information on "Riot Flaunting Gender Deviance in Music Performance," please go to wpt.org and click on Director's Cut. I'm your guest host, Doug Gordon. Until next time, remember, we can always fix it in post. If you like my rap, ### I'm a basket case Not concerned with the race Can't keep pace To save face Can't face to save the place --- I'll take the blame 'Cause I enjoy the attention I don't care I like any kind of attention Negative Whatever