Female Misbehavior is a compilation of four short documentaries by feminist film director Monika Treut (Seduction: The Cruel Woman, Virgin Machine, My Father Is Coming). Each film is a portrait of a woman who could be termed “misbehaving” or unconventional. Each short was made at a different time (the earliest, “Bondage,” in 1983) and later grouped together as this feature. No attempt is made by Treut to connect the separate profiles other than titling the assemblage Female Misbehavior. They stand together as rare screen examples of female transgression — sexual transgression. The first is “Bondage,” a portrait of lesbian S&M proselytizer Carol, who tells of the warm, secure feelings she receives from breast torture. She speaks unabashedly to the camera of her sexual pleasures and we get to watch her attach the alligator clip of the microphone to her nipple. Often repetitive and with poorly recorded sound quality, the follow-up portrait, “Annie,” comes as a fresh beginning. This is a glimpse of ex-porn actress reborn as feminist performance artist Annie Sprinkle (also one of the stars of Treut’s My Father Is Coming). We see her convert herself into the character of Annie Sprinkle and bits of her stage act, as well, in which she uses her large breasts as props and shows everyone, including Treut’s camera, her cervix. Next comes “Dr. Camille Paglia,” certainly the most lively section as we listen to Paglia speculate why she turns off lovers and pontificate on numerous other subjects. If you are only familiar with Paglia’s writing, this live-action informal lecture is instructive. It becomes apparent that Paglia’s transgressions may not be so much the content of her ideas as the devastating speed and force of their delivery. With the same stroke with which she debunks liberal thinking and feminist humanism, she narcissistically installs herself as one of the great intellects of all Western civilization. It becomes clear why it has been so difficult for people to disassociate Paglia’s ideas from her persona. Last up is “Max,” a forthright interview with Max Valerio, a heterosexual lesbian and Native American in the process of undergoing a female-to-male sex change. We learn the effects of testosterone, the surgery options, the costs (female-to male is outrageously more expensive than male-to-female). Max’s candor about his experience and continually shifting perspective is engaging. Still, when all is said and done, there is little connecting these primitively constructed short films other than their overriding examples of female sexual transgression — a kind of Profiles in Courage from the sexuality wars.
This article appears in April 9 • 1993 (Cover).
