Lizzie B o rd en : Tells it like it is
Not one to pull her punches , she demystifies some old myths.
B Y
E L E A N O R
M A L I N
he has caused lots of Fireworks in the
past, and she’s not going to hang back
because people might be hostile.
After her First feature Film, Born in
Flames, Lizzie Borden received much
criticism by feminists, who made
comments such as, “ Women don’t use
weapons. Men use weapons,” as though,
Borden says, “Men invented cars, let’s let
men drive cars.”
She admits to liking pornography, and
for a bit we shoot the breeze about the
relative possibility of ever making the
world a safe place for Five-year-olds.
Borden’s new Film, Working Girls, was
made after extensive research into the sub
ject of middle-class prostitution. Borden
knew some women who were working
their way through college in this, actually,
time-honored way. (One of the women,
who became a doctor, still saw a couple of
the men she had met while working during
college, after she started her new job as a
doctor.) Borden went to some of these
places, and talked to the women, who
were more open with her, since she was
making a theatrical Film, not a docu
mentary. She found the women com
municative, mostly concerned with
Financial goals, not undereducated and
hopeless derelicts, as mostly portrayed by
the media (since those are the only “ work
ing girls” being mentioned by the press).
We chat some more about the relative
nonsense society goes through relegating
these women to the underworld. They are
not criminals. They are not stupid. Some
women would prefer to make $880 in one
long day with only maybe 15 minutes of
actual sex during that time; should we in
sist they get a job at McDonald’s instead?
Must we overburden our police force with
patrolling for these types of behaviors,
which seem natural (female monkeys trade
favors for bananas), when, most espe
cially, we can’t be with everyone during
the times when they are in private. Who
knows what deals may be going down
everywhere, from the poor girls on the
street, whose real crime is being undere
ducated. and getting into trouble, to the
women who choose to marry for money,
which person should get to weigh which
person's values, and to what extent must
we be obliged to try to change them? It
takes a lot of bananas to make it in the real
world, today.
Borden has produced a Film from the
feminine angle regarding the oldest of pro
fessions, that of the prostitute. There will
always be a calling for this type of work,
and there will always be women who try
this, and some who succeed at it, no matter
what. No matter how much we think it’s a
bad idea, and people would be really dumb
to do it, some will. They will Find ways to
rationalize the work they do (mostly by the
funds the make), and ways to stand the
job, make the time pass, deal with the
bitchy madame.
Borden is a young woman, not afraid to
think thoughts outside of the politically
correct mainstream. She is a pragmatist,
and has done a good job of putting across
the idea of her image (the woman's image)
of a bordello. I'm sure it is right on, and
Borden says whenever working girls have
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Lizzie Borden.
attended the Film, they have been enthu
siastic and supportive.
Borden mentions the typically male
stereotype of the prostitution situation:
Violence, degradation, shame. Actually,
that’s likely the male’s overactive imagi
nation. For example, she cites Klute, in
which the early “ sessions” were right on,
then later, Bree is stalked by a psychotic
killer. Actually, the average bar maid
would probably be more apt to be stalked
by a psychotic killer, and the average
hooker in a middle-class bordello would
be insulated by the privacy of the environ
ment, and the screening of customers, thus
less likely to.
At any rate, Borden's Film is provoca
tive politically, realistic sexually, rather
warm from the standpoint of sisterhood.
We are all in this together, and if some
sets of people reject other sets of people,
that doesn’t make for eradication of the
“ unwanted” element; merely in the
cosmetic treatment of going undercover.
Borden’s point is that the middle-class
bordello, run by a madame, is not like
what you think it is. The customers are not
like what you think they are. The girls are
not like what you think they are. And she
makes her point.
Working Girls
Directed by: Lizzie Borden
Starring: Louise Smith, Ellen
McEldufT, Amanda Goodwin
Now Playing at: KOIN Center Cinema
his film lays it on the line.
If
you’ve ever wondered about the
ambience of a middle-class brothel
in Manhattan, this sure looks like the real
thing. What is presented here is a perfect
microcosm — encapsulated, subdivided
(the “ jungle room,” there’s a towel room,
a kitchenette and a mini living room,
whose most prominent feature is a stair
way up and down which these “ working
girls” traipse, leading their johns.
Yes. the women are in control here. The
customers bring lots of money, and swag
ger or tell awful jokes to cover their embar
rassment. The women, on the other hand,
have united in disregard for the men who
rent them for sex. They set the prices and
collect the fees, and do set the limits
beyond which they will not go (which
seems to be based on each individual's gag
reflex). The whole process is one big
negotiation; from the basics of the
madame. here terminal yuppie, Lucy,
(played by Ellen McEldufF), with the land
lord, paying fees to the doorman, for ex
ample, who monitors the trafFic allowed
up to this poshly appointed, yet dismal
love nest.
The sex scenes are explicit, but not
especially appealing, nor are they meant to
be. Thè message here is that these young
women are disappointed sexually, it's al
most a self-fulfilling prophecy, by these
guys, nice though they may be, who are
nevertheless a pretty pathetic lot. The men
are paying exhorbitant prices for the favors
of these women, who resent them as un
welcome interruption to an otherwise bor
ing job, with a bitchy boss. For what the
women are renting, they are not getting
paid enough, and for what the men are
getting, they are getting ripped off. Still it
goes on.
Some of the women save the money to
start businesses, go to college; some sup
port their children. Others want to make a
lot of money in not so many hours, for
freedom in the schedule.
And, yes, good citizens all, many
young women, nice young women do this,
(and not a few old broads, too).
As Molly, Louise Smith seems convinc
ingly feminist, artsy, liberated, even.
She’s pretty, in a girl-next-door sort of
way, and enjoys a position of some promi
nence in the closely-knit sisterhood.
There’s a young loudmouth. Dawn,
played by Amanda Goodwin. She man
ages stress with sarcasm and tightly woven
expletives. She creates it the same way.
She hates the men. and will practically not
do anything, even answer the phone. Her
tough exterior only plays up her vulnera
bility and frustration.
The female characters are nicely drawn,
and the men are, (I'm guessing here),
fairly represented. They are not viciously
obnoxious, but embarrassedly obnoxious.
They have their hat in their hand; none is a
raving lunatic, ready to commit mayhem.
Still, as the project goes, there was a
directness to the political positioning that
seemed a little overdone. I would have
preferred a little subtlety. In places, one
almost felt as if cue cards were being pre
ferred, and in a somehow femininely
equitable way, each of the women is given
her point or two to make. To her credit,
however, Borden has at least taken some
unusual, daring even, viewpoints.
Unlike those poor girls who start work
ing the street because they can get there,
and you don’t need any education, women
who work in an upscale arrangement, will
be more careful, control the situation, not
get worn out (not much physical happens,
at least not for very many minutes), and
though this oldest profession may fall off
during the AIDS crisis, many “ nice girls”
you would never guess have been making
a lot of money performing this form of
entertainment.
This Film was made on a slim budget, in
the apartment of the director. The produc
tion values are a bit shaky, and there aren't
any special effects. There’s quite a bit of
humor, though, and the acting is passable.
But in the last analysis, it is in the concept
and the carefully put across images about a
world many of us never get to see, that
I makes this Film worth viewing.