Ovidie, French actress and director.
-
BALTEL / SIPA
The free documentary web-series
!
d'Ovidie is visible on Arte this Wednesday.
20 Minutes
interviewed Ovidie, who tells us about his favorite episode, "Hide this blood", with a "vagina dentata".
“When a man sends a dick pic, it's to establish his domination,” explains the director and documentary maker.
She is a documentary filmmaker, doctor of letters, feminist, and specialist in sexuality issues.
20 Minutes
interviewed Ovidie, who is presenting his documentary web-series
Libres!
on Arte, produced with Josselin Ronse and enhanced with humor by the actress and journalist Sophie-Marie Larrouy, based on illustrations by Diglee.
An entirely animated adaptation in ten four-minute episodes even funnier and more alive of their book of the same name, subtitled
Manifesto to free oneself from sexual dictates
.
And above all a way to kick the butt of prejudices about sexuality and the female body, menstruation deemed "disgusting" to the canons of skinny beauty that feed the eating disorders of thousands of women.
“Free!
"
is a real work of deconstructing sexist stereotypes, with at the same time a lot of information, a real scientific rigor, and a lot of humor!
What is the goal, to train a new generation of feminists?
(smile)
No !
I don't pretend to!
(laughs) But the idea of
Free!
It is good to propose a reflection around injunctions of a sexual nature, and to ask the question of the representations that surround us, in our cultural and media universe, and how they have repercussions even in our intimate practices.
From hair removal to dietary restrictions: how does it impact our intimate lives?
Tell us about your favorite episode.
One of my favorite episodes is "Hide the Blood", where there is my favorite shot of the whole series, which is a dive into a "vagina dentata", a toothed vagina [a myth according to which the vagina of some women would be endowed with teeth], and in a long tunnel [see episode below].
I completely believed in this plan, and we had to fight a bit to make it stay.
We are still not quite advanced on these issues.
In recent years it has changed a bit on the blood of the rules, we have had the Vania advertisement which showed a red liquid and not a blue liquid, but a certain number of people nevertheless seized the CSA [nearly a thousand of referrals].
We can see endless cumshots in porn,
bukkake
, cum in every scene, but we will never see an actress with her period, when it is a hyper banal thing to have sex during her rules.
One of the episodes looks back at “mommy porn”
Fifty Shades of Gray
, the clichéd soft SM that seemed in fashion for a while.
What is wrong with these scenarios?
Soft SM has become more democratic with
50 Shades of Gray
.
But
mommy porn
is not a fleeting phenomenon.
It was already there before.
When we look at a good part of the pornography of the 1970s, or the erotic comics of the same period, or even the novel
Histoire d'O
, we realize that the initiatory scheme of the young white goose which turns out to be a big whore in the arms of an experienced man, a man of power, a rich man - because if he's a proletarian it's not funny - this pattern was already in our culture.
[The author] Camille Emmanuelle wrote a lot of
mommy porn
under a nickname, and said that they were as responsive as if Zemmour wrote porn.
In the specifications, for example, the heroines were not allowed to masturbate, it had to be a man who made them discover the pleasure.
It is a rotten scheme, worn to the cord, but which is still present.
We do not find in the romances of unemployed guys ...
You say in the series receiving a lot of "dick pics", photos of penises.
What is the “dick pic” the symbol of?
When a man sends a
dick pic
, it is clearly not to excite the other, it is to establish a state of domination over the person.
Just as the exhib in the street does not try to excite the women to whom he shows his little bird, he does it to shock.
I shock you by showing you my cock unsolicited.
We're so used to receiving
dick pics
, we know everyone gets them, it gets mocked.
But for a girl who has never received it and is not aware of it, it creates a state of stupor.
And a chick spontaneously never takes a picture of her pussy.
Because the vulva is under-represented compared to the cock.
There are so-called “phallic” representations everywhere.
You ask someone to draw a vulva, you will have a moment of absence, while a cock, we will draw it without problem.
We do not speak moreover of "vulvar representations" [versus "phallic representations"].
Does it still happen to you?
Honestly, I haven't received it for years.
But it has also been years since I have been harassed in the streets less.
And I think that reinforces what I feared a bit: it goes hand in hand with age, the younger you are the more vulnerable you are considered to be, the more you are harassed, online or on the street.
So I'm not getting
dick pics
anymore
but because in guys minds I've almost passed the expiration date.
While the 15-18 year old girls that I meet in my speeches in high school, they all receive them.
And then when you use the term "pro-sex feminist" [a current which is particularly opposed to abolitionist feminism which wants the end of prostitution], you have all the horde of cracks who imagine that you can. more and you only think of the ass.
While that just means you make the choices you want, including the choice not to fuck at all.
Some men have confused pro-sex feminism and open bar ...
The series is adapted from the book you produced with Diglee, “Libres!
- Manifesto to free oneself from sexual dictates ”.
What does the series add to the book?
A little more immediacy: finally the mass is said in 3 minutes 30. And I found it interesting to put images on this speech: it's more digestible than just reading a militant text.
The DNA of
Libres!
the book is still there but in the book there was a division between text and images, we had five pages of text, then a board.
There, the image accompanies the speech all the time.
And we have a way to reach more people more quickly.
There is a whole generation of young women who can be reached through a web series, it allows us to pass our ideas on to as many people as possible while remaining accessible.
And [unlike a book] it can be seen together, if you're a straight couple it can give rise to a discussion with your guy.
There is a hint of English humor that works very well.
Where does it come from?
There was a bit of that in the original text but I think it was Sophie-Marie Larrouy who brought the dose of humor.
Me, I'm not a funny person!
I have a monotonous voice.
When I saw the first pilot, I was not thrilled, I wanted someone to come and shake me up from time to time, to make raises, to break this monotonous side.
Suddenly there was a moment when, in March, I called Sophie-Marie Larrouy, and I told her “you have to help me!
".
After #MeTooInceste and #MeTooGay, we see that the #MeToo movement continues to scratch even deeper layers of taboo, that new layers and spheres are explored.
When will we see a #MeToo for porn?
I'm not necessarily in the best position to talk about it because I'm no longer there [Ovidie has played in and shot porn movies] and I no longer work on the subject.
But I follow these questions, I do the day before on Youporn and Pornhub and I'm interested to see what happens now.
And what I saw anyway was the #pornhubgate, which forced the platform to release millions of videos from their sites.
Visa and Mastercard have cut off their means of payment.
The traffickinghub petition has been signed by over 2 million people.
So there was still this thing, which is not nothing.
And in France there was the Jacquie and Michel affair, with indicted people.
I heard that you are organizing a Dog Film Festival.
Where did you get this crazy idea?
(laughs)
I watch a lot a lot, movies with dogs, and I like watching them with my dogs!
(laughs) It's a festival set up in the Charente, in the open air, and for three with Benoît Delépine and Frédéric Felder, from the Groland clique.
For the moment we did an edition, in 2019, very
peace
, the dogs were very calm, and last year it was canceled because of the Covid.
But this year we will not only do the festival but also a university “dog colloquium” with the University of Limoges where I teach.
It is very serious !
(laughter from both sides) We will have multidisciplinary specialists, sociologist and philosopher, who work on the dog.
And for the festival, the idea is that you can watch films in which at least one of the heroes or heroines is a dog, and that you can do it with your dog.
And these are not just children's films, there are author and author films with dogs.
It is July 2 and 3 in Charente.
There you have it, you know what you are going to do with your early summer!
That's it, the Dog Film Festival is over, see you next year!
pic.twitter.com/k5P794HNTb
- Dog Film Festival (@FilmsChiens) July 15, 2019
Media
"Gaze", feminist magazine with a raised fist and a multicolored look
Justice
Jacquie and Michel: "We are going to collaborate with the justice system", assures the marketing director of the pornographic platform
Feminism
Discrimination
Porn
Sexuality
Body
Series
Culture