Labor Relations

AN INTERVIEW WITH LIZZIE BORDEN

by Lynne Jackson

on both sides that there must be a way in which we can

then went on to write art criticism for Artforum. establish a dialogue which is not against women who
Lizzie Having then Having
Bordenevolved
went evolved
more as ona critic
studied
thantoas more write painting as art a critic criticism at than Wellesley for as Artforum. a painter, College work in this way. I wanted to eliminate that automatic
a painter,
she feels school ruined painting for her. Borden decided sense of degradation for women who have worked as pros-
to teach herself filmmaking in order to maintain the titutes or done anything like it.
"necessary naiveté to just do something and let it be as When you start meeting women who 'work' and get
silly or as crazy as it could be." Born in Flames, Borden's over your own moral reaction, you start to see how close
first feature film, is a science fiction fantasy about socialyou can come yourself to being able to do it. You start to
transformation, set ten years after a socialist revolutionwonder if you really want to be doing a horrible job for
in the U.S. It seemed to ask, "What if women of all races,very little money. What are your options? That is where it
classes and sexual persuasions banded together against starts becoming very personal. I mean, I would certainly
the patriarchy?", which in the film still maintains therather work in a house for two days a week than work as
position of power it has today. Borden was criticized . . .well, I've had teaching jobs that were very unpleasant.
from all sides, from feminists who condemned her filmI have also had waitressing jobs and worked on a low level
for embracing violence to critics such as John Corry whoin film jobs or even in an art museum where I was a
attacked the film in The New York Times for its produc-lackey.
tion values, politics, and even the Public Broadcasting Cineaste: What research did you do that makes you feel
System's decision to air it last year. Still, Born in Flamesqualified to make a film about prostitution? Born in
has become a feminist classic and is praised by many as Flames was made collectively in the sense that many of
one of the most important feminist films of the Eighties. the main characters wrote their own dialogue. Was
Borden's new film, Working Girls, is creating a similar Working Girls done this way?
commotion. Can a woman condone prostitution and still
be considered a feminist? Borden situates prostitutes
solidly in the realm of work, presenting the women as
'employees' in the sex industry. Although many ask if
this is enough, Working Girls does pose some important
questions, not only about prostitution but also about
many related social issues. Lynne Jackson spoke with
Lizzie Borden about her new film shortly before its New
York City theatrical opening.

Cineaste: How did the idea for Working Girls develop?

Why prostitution?
Lizzie Borden: A lot of my theoretical position on prosti-
tution developed during the production of Born in Flames
because of women who worked on it like Flo Kennedy and
Margo St. James of COYOTE. That film came out of con-
tradictions I saw in the feminist movement where white
women, black women, Asian women, lesbians, prosti-
tutes, and others were just not working together. Many of
them didn't even consider themselves feminists, although
they were all engaged in separate but similar struggles.
The whole point of Born in Flames, then, was to create a
microcosm in which they all worked together.
With prostitution there is a parallel. I had been inter-
ested in it theoretically but was aware that groups such as
Women Against Pornography were really putting work-
ing women - not just prostitutes but also other women in
the sex industry - in a bind. The conventional social criti-
cism, of course, says that, "These are bad women, fallen
women, degraded and victimized." Then the feminists,
who criticize these women for perpetuating the sex in-
dustry, also tell them that they are victims. Many working
girls, however, have chosen their jobs and do not feel like
victims. Women in the sex industry have been so reviled Lizzie Borden (photo by Judy Janda)

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 Louise Smith (left) and Marusia Zach in Working Girls

Borden: In Working Girls I wanted to explore middle

Borden: Not really. I scripted it after I had done a lot of re-
search - meeting many women who worked, going to class prostitution because the only visible prostitutes are
houses, hanging out, talking to different madams, differ- street hookers and there is already a highly developed cin-
ent johns. Some of the women were already friends of ematic imagery about them. When you see a hooker on
mine, so it wasn't as if I were going into a totally strangescreen, you know she is going to be punished for being a
situation and having to gain trust. bad girl - either beaten up by her pimp, arrested by the
The structure of Born in Flames likewise evolved from police, or killed by a john. A more romantic cinematic
meeting a lot of black women, working with them image and try-is that of the high class call girl like Jane Fonda in
ing to create a film that expressed more than Klute. my own In these movies, prostitution is presented less as an
point of view, to make a bigger statement than I couldquestion than a psychological one - once the
economic
make on my own. Making a film always seems towoman be about undergoes analysis and falls in love, she can quit
transgression on some level, about finding your 'the way into
life.'
something that you don't know anything about. Born I wanted in to place prostitution solidly in the context of
Flames was about black women, a group that was closed
work as opposed to sex since, for prostitutes, it is not
to me. In some ways, the world of prostitution about was the sex at all. Most people think that prostitutes must
same kind of thing, though certainly of quite a feel different
something sexual or 'get off in their work, but that's
nature.
not true. Prostitution is a business transaction, pure and
Cineaste: How would vou describe uour approach in simple, between prostitute and john. Even many women
this film? have a prostitution fantasy because the prostitute repre-

Lizzie Borden's first film, Born in Flames,

introduced her to the women who inspired Working
Girls. Abandoning the agitprop collage style of her
debut, Borden's new film takes a deromanticized look
at the work ethic and labor relations of a brothel
without belaboring the feminist issues. In the
following interview, Borden discusses Working Girls
and its controversial portrayal of the economics and
morality of middle class prostitution.

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 Öf y Klevel Bí's ironicparallels
y Klevel parallelsother
thatparts
otherofprostitution
our culture parts
such asof on our this culture middle such class
K singles bars. In a way, the film is much less about
B prostitution than about heterosexual codes and rituals
Kin our culture. In this context, I wanted the film to
m bring up, by implication, all the times women have mm
K slept with men for other than romantic reasons,

sents sexual freedom. I wanted to show women what pros- tique that sex is so intimate.
titution is really like, to deromanticize it. There are problems involved in prostitution, but I
There is also much more middle class prostitution than wanted to strike a balance in Working Girls between, on
people think, and the kinds of women involved in it run one hand, demystifying and demoralizing it, without, on
the gamut from students to working mothers. Middle the other hand, making it look like the best job in the
class prostitutes never get counted because they don't world. But it sounds like you have a lot of reservations
identify themselves as such, they never get in the policeabout the film.
records as prostitutes, and they never come out and talk Cineaste: Isn't validating something that we shouldn't
about it. Many women have done it for short periods of have to do in the first place like the snake that eats its
their lives and many other women have traded sex for a tail? If they didn't have to do it for money and they could
lot of things. Women who have worked as prostitutes choose to do it. . .
don't emerge as walking basket cases. Many women Borden: They wouldn't do it if they didn't need the
whose names I could never mention have worked. You money. Any working girl I have ever met, except the
would know who they are, they are in our mutual madam who A
world. was making too much money to get out,
lot of women who consider themselves feminists work. In would stop the second she got enough money to get out,
some ways, this is what Working Girls is all about. period. There is no question about it. No looks back,
Molly's whole stance as a working girl is as a feminist.
nothing. The standard idea ,Js that if money changes
She is living with a woman and she doesn't particularly hands for sex, the woman is automatically victimized and
need men, although she doesn't hate them by any stretch
this makes it worse than other service jobs like being a
of the imagination. When she sees a client, it is on secretary
a con-or a stewardess. I personally don't see that
trac tuai basis- X amount of time for X amount of much difference.
money.
She can deal with it, be nice and do what she has to do. It's ironic that prostitution on this middle class level
Cineaste: But why no analysis, particularly of con- parallels other parts of our culture such as singles bars
sumer relationships? and how we as middle class women have been educated to
Borden: The consumer bit is implicit. It is there in the make men feel comfortable. Even the same conversations
fact of what money buys, in the madam who is the ulti- - "Can I get you a drink?" "What do you do?" "How was
mate consumer, selling these girls and constantly going your afternoon?" - that very rote way of doing all the in-
out shopping. I didn't want to get into any psychological teractional shit work in conversations with men, is all re-
analysis, because then it becomes too easy to make a flected in a place like that.
cause and effect relationship to explain why a characterCineaste:
is So you see your film portraying a parallel
working. Prostitutes don't all have daddy problems, they with more general power relationships between men
don't all hate men, so to get into anything heavy aboutand it women in society?
would be false. People insist that working as a prostituteBorden: Yes, exactly. In a way, it's much less about pros-
has got to mean something more, but it doesn't really. titution than about heterosexual codes and rituals in our
Many women do it and the reasons all come back to money.culture. In this context, I wanted the film to bring up, by
I wanted to try to neutralize prostitution a bit because itimplication, all the times women have slept with men for
is such a loaded issue. If a woman works forty hours a other than romantic reasons. Everybody has had that
week, being paid $4 or $5 an hour, even though she may happen at least once. It happens in gay relationships, too.
have a degree in something, why is that any different? You go too far with someone, flirt and mess around, and
Why is it amy less obscene that she comes home at the endthen you say, "Oh God, how do I get out of this?" In high
of the day, with no creative energy left, and cannot do school and in college, for instance, there is a lot of social
anything but turn on the TV? Many feminists, Flo Kenne- pressure on you to like someone you may not really be at-
dy among them, have pointed out that when you marry tracted to. Or someone takes you out for an expensive din-
someone you are selling your body, but when you are ner
a and you're supposed to sleep with him. A momentum
prostitute, you are simply renting it. A lot of women who is set up, so you end up having some kind of sex and you
work do it because they would rather give up something
wonder, "Why am I not feeling anything?"
in the rental of their bodies and have extra time or more What's the difference, for that matter, from a husband
money. who forces his wife to have sex with him? He wants it a lot
A parallel situation exists for those people who sell their
but she doesn't. She thinks, "If I do it now, he'll be asleep
minds, which is just as difficult, although less tangible. I
in a half-hour. If I don't, he'll be bugging me for the next
know people who have been destroyed by the advertising five hours." Every woman has had an experience like
business, serious writers who couldn't write again, or peo-so the disjunction of sex from passion is something
that,
ple who have been destroyed by other ways of prostituting which happens in a lot of relationships. I would love one
their talents. I don't think either kind of prostitution day to do a film about eroticism - where eroticism re-
should exist, but they do. In that context, I don't thinkmains
the free and not rote within a relationship. Most rela-
body has to be put on such an extraordinarily high level. tionships
I in our culture end up policing and framing sex
guess the horror about selling sex is based on the mys- to a level of routine. Marriage, in particular, seems to end

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up routinizing sex for both men and women.
The reason brothels do such big business is because of
married men. Very often it's just the desire to do it with
someone different, or to engage in some kind of sex that
their wives won't do, and I'm not even talking about ex-
treme stuff. In fact, sex is such a small part of prostitution.
It is less about sex than about fantasy. The sex takes five
minutes out of a half-hour, and the rest is talk. Then they
spend another week fantasizing about it. It points out
such a contradiction in our culture that I wonder what
their wives are getting on the other end. They are still in
the position of being the good women in the virgin/whore
dichotomy.
All of these questions are not about trying to make the
job of a prostitute look desirable, but to take prostitution
out of the realm of over-moralization which I feel is totally
damaging. There is such a double standard. For example,
when a pimp beats up a prostitute, everyone may say that
this is sick, but they also feel the woman is getting what one long
she deserves. But when a wife stays with a husband who point, i
batters her, everyone sort of understands that - she's a stance.
victim, but it is her husband after aill. Both relationships humilia
are equally sick and, just as the battered wife needs femi- goals. F
nist support, so does the prostitute. But in our culture the or $10,
prostitute takes the fall for wives, girlfriends, mothers-in- was the
law, everyone. As the 'bad girl,' she gets everything tough,
dumped on her, whereas everyone else can manage to be made it look.
the 'good girl' and somehow be saved from that negative Cineaste: How do you reply to people who say prosti-
judgement. tutes aren't like those in your film?
Cineaste: In Working Girls the conflict is actually not so Borden: Those preconceptions are very hard to over-
much between the girls and the guys as it is between the come. That is why I wanted this film to be simple and to
girls and the madam. satisfy a basic curiosity. This is how a brothel works. This
Borden: Yes, I wanted Working Girls to echo other is what a session is like. This is how it feels inside a place
employment situations. For some people the film workslike that. Without giving such a detailed look, I didn't
on that level. They have had jobs where their battle wasn't think anyone would believe this film- they would just say
with the customers but with the employer, the conditions it was atypical.
of employment, and the manipulation that goes on be- Prostitutes aren't all stupid, drug-addicted, neurotic
tween employer and employee. women. I wanted people to come out of Working Girls
Cineaste: You have one scene where Molly becomes thinking they could relate to Molly. A lot of guys think she
very upset She almost has a breakdown , locks herself is like in
their sister or the girl next door. One of the things
the bathroom, and breaks out in a sweat that struck me about working girls is that they are very
Borden: I wanted to put it on the same level as amuch doublelike Molly or any of the girls in the film. After I cast
shift anywhere. I have had long editing jobs where I my film, the actresses came to rehearsals wearing what
couldn't stand up by the end of it. I was nodding out, they fantasized a hooker would have on. I made them all
freaking out, crying in the bathroom. Things weren't go- go to a brothel and apply for jobs, and they came back
ing right. Molly would have been fine if she had left at 6 shocked because the women there were like their college
o'clock when she was supposed to have left. roommates. It changed their minds about it.
Cineaste: It's the double shift, then, that pushes her Cineaste: Aren't there more dangers involved in prosti-
over the edge. tution than in other professions?
Borden: Yes. When a secretary or a stewardess comes to Borden: In a middle class brothel, there really aren't any
the point of questioning their job, they wouldn't say, "I'm more dangers than in any other place. Women who work
being humiliated and used. This is horrible. I'm going to in a brothel are probably safer than a bank teller, for in-
leave my job." Their decision to quit would be more over stance, because the number of times a bank gets robbed is
more often than the times anyone with a gun would come
into a brothel. You see, I wanted to do the opposite of what
most films on prostitution do. It is the traditional cine-
matic representation of prostitution - women in short
skirts and high heels being attacked by men- and not the
actuality, that is pornographic. People think that because
women are out their flaunting their sexuality, it drives
men crazy, so of course they kill. Thousands of women do
it but when ninety-nine percent of the movies about pros-
titutes show them getting killed, it's absurd. I wanted to
make a dramatic film, but not one that was dramatic in
the expected way.
Cineaste: But violence does happen.
Borden: Yes, it happens, but not to the majority of prosti-
tutes. Women aren't that stupid. Even street hookers
have a good sense of who is picking them up in a car and
they have much more control than films show. And as
I Ellen McElduff (left) as the madam in Working Girls horrible as the pimp/prostitute relationship is, the pimps

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 Ml ■ M m mìiat filmidentify
■ m film identifywithI find
Molly.interesting with Molly.
That is wonderful becauseis that That guys is wonderful who like the
M we as women have been forced to identify with men
Urn H//] films so often. There are no men to identify with in
^Vworking Girls, not one in the entire movie,

because I really wanted men to identify with Molly. »

do protect their women - they're watching and see the She doesn't get slashed or beaten.
guys who are customers- because if they didn't, they'd be Cineaste: Why are all the men in the film made to ap-
out of a job. pear so ridiculous?
Cineaste: What about diseases? Borden: Because they are tricks, and these guys aire called
Borden: Prostitutes in a middle class brothel are safer tricks for a reason. The women aire constaintly tricking
than women who sleep around. A woman who works in a giving more money for less, aind they airen't go-
them into
house is free to say to a john, "You have to use a ing condom."
to give amy thing they don't have to give.
The job is not completely free of danger, but to show Cineaste:
only It just seems like such a cheap shot. They
the danger is unfair. So is not showing the parallels weren'twith a ever likable. Was poking fun at the men your
woman who sleeps around. Look at Spike Lee's film, intention?
She's Gotta Have It, where a girl is sleeping with threeBorden: Not at adi. I wanted a whole rainge of men. Neil,
guys! Who knows who they have slept with? A woman is for example, the teacher who just wanted dating advice,
not always that comfortable asking a guy to use a con- was sweet aind sort of likable.
dom. It is not a sexy mode of birth control. There is a sceneCineaste: But he was so pathetic.
in Working Girls where the madam says, "You won't getBorden: Sweet and pathetic. The vulnerability of men in
busted, you won't get hurt and you won't get sick," andthat place is very appairent, and the thing that maikes that
one of the girls says, "That's because we take care ofplace work, as it does in every place of employment, is the
ourselves." In a house they do. They see a doctor once a sense of camaraderie aimong the women. The butt of their
month. They are cleaner than anybody else. Very often or- humor has to be the men. The vulnerability aind pathos of
dinary women might get some kind of infection but they men in relation to prostitutes is hardly ever seen.
ignore it and it gets worse. In brothels they take special What I find interesting is that guys who like the film
precautions and go through regular medical screening identify with Molly. That is wonderful because we as
procedures. I think it is as safe in many ways as any other women have been forced to identify with men in films so
kind of job. often. There aire no men to identify with in Working Girls,
Cineaste: But a prostitute is not free to say no to a not one in the entire movie, because I readly wainted men
customer. to identify with Molly.
Borden: Yes she is. One woman in the film kicks a guy
Cineaste: What do you think about the possibility of
out because her moral system was that she wouldn't uour filmkiss
obiectifuinq women's bodies and being a hand-
and she wouldn't do anything weird, like spanking maiden tosome-
titillation?
one with a ping pong paddle. That guy did something Borden: I think
she I undercut that by the way I shot the
didn't like so she gave him his money back andbedroom threwscenes,
him so that the female body never becomes a
out. sexuad object. In none of the scenes was the femade body
Cineaste: You seem to be saying that middle class pro- looked at by the camera in order titillate the audience. In
stitutes have a certain degree of control and power. fact, the intention was to make it as unerotic as I could.
Borden: The control in prostitution comes from the Cineaste: But titillation is in the eye of the viewer.
woman having power over the financial transaction. The Borden: It could happen, of course, but the impulse was
men enter the women's space and the women control thenot to titillate, and my experience talking to viewers is
timing of the sessions and all the activities. In brothels, in that it does just the opposite. Even guys who come to see
fact, the men are quite vulnerable. the film to get turned on, don't. I haven't heard of one per-
Cineaste: There are moments in the film where the son who got turned on. In fact, if there is a disappointment
prostitutes don't really seem totally in control. Molly and with the film, it is because it is not sexy. People who come
a few of the others become very humiliated. to see it for those reasons usuadly walk after ten minutes.
Borden: Women in a house would not have absolute con- The film demystifies sex and the female body. By the
trol, but the only time it got ugly for Molly was withend, theI wainted Molly to take off her clothes without ainyone
Asian guy because she couldn't speak with him. I wanted even noticing any longer that she is nude. Since the sex is
that to get very nasty. It was, "Ugh, get rid of him. shot from the women's point of view, it is the men who are
Just
give him a quick hand job and get him out." It also objectified.
got The one time Molly is objectified is the scene
heavy with Paul, the artist. His sadism, however, with was the musiciain, who objectifies her as a whore, aind this
similar to what could happen in a 'straight' relationship is shot in a very lyrical, romantic way. The bedroom
with a guy like that. The kind of mentad cruelty in scenes
thatau*e my favorites, in fact. I feel they succeeded ex-
session is not atypical of the kind of cruelty that goes actlyonas I wanted them to, pairticulairly since I was able to
between a man and woman where he puts her down or be very free with the caimer aind do wackier stuff thain
manipulates her into an inferior position. That was the downstairs, which was adi about horizontads and verticals
implication there. Molly was foolish enough to be at- in a 'normad' living space.
tracted to him. Since she lost her distance, she lost her Cineaste: So you aren't concerned that Working Girls
control. That's why she knows she has to leave the will implicate the audience as voyeurs in the way that
brothel. But that kind of humilation is the worst it gets. Blue Velvet operates, voyeuristically investigating sex-

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 Working Girls

uai transgressions and forbidden sex? important issues for us to address than our sexuality?
Borden: Voyeurism implies some kind of sexual response Borden: I think Ruby was responding to the Women
and I wanted to satisfy people's curiosity as opposed to Against Pornography movement. I feel the same way.
eliciting a sexually excited response. I think the sex in my There is so much energy going into that instead of looking
films is not erotic and I did that purposely. One shot showsat the more fundamentad structures that generate those
Molly putting in her diaphragm. In another shot Gina problems. For me the problem isn't prostitution, the prob-
washes out her diaphragm filled with blood because, as a lem is capitalism and the employer-employee relation-
working girl, she is not allowed to have her period. The ship, the problem is the nuclear family, and all the prob-
film demystifies female processes, too, like Molly peeing lems inherent in being female in this culture. Born in
when she wakes up in the morning. How can anyone have Flames was in a way the desire to blow the whole world
an excited response to that? up and start something new. It was a hope. But it didn't
Cineaste: Have there been any problems with censor- deal with how the women in the women's army supported
ship in terms of the film's distribution? themselves, it didn't deal with work or the practical side of
Borden: The film's going out unrated because, even withour culture. We can't just wish something away.
no hard-core sex scenes, it would get an X-rating. It is so I think everyone shares a vision that one day prostitu-
difficult, so political, because the censorship boards aire tion will cease to exist, that the nuclear family as we know
not really fair. That is one reason why I am against censor- it will stop being so oppressive for women, that free child
ship on the part of women. Films like mine will get cen-care will be available, and that women will get equal pay
sored before violent films like those of Brian de Palma. I
for equal work. In our lifetime, however, prostitution is
couldn't even get a contract with the Screen Actors' notGuild
going to end. To invalidate prostitution, then, to sim-
because they read the script and said it was pornography.
ply say it is bad, that it shouldn't exist, truly hurts women
Cineaste: How was Working Girls/unded? who are in it because it doesn't give them any other op-
Borden: I shot it on about $120,000. Some of that came tions. We need to create a greater level of awareness about
from grants - The National Endowment, The Newprostitution York and less of a negative value judgement re-
State Council on the Arts, The Jerome Foundation, and so garding the women who work in it. A feminist position on
on. We also set up a limited partnership which kept one prostitution would involve getting more control over it.
step ahead of production, with $3,000 and $6,000 amounts Women have to start controlling the images about prosti-
coming in from time to time. Including the blow-up from tution and the conditions in which it happens. There has
Super 16mm, it ended up costing about $300,000. to be better protection for women on the street, there
Cineaste: Your film directly confronts a lot of the should be some kind of union. There must be some way or
moralizing that is going on in the white middle class protecting women instead of saying, "They deserve what
feminist movement, such as that at the 1982 Barnard they get." In this sense, I hope Working Girls will help to
Conference on the Politics of Sexuality. Do you want to ad-validate prostitution, or at least to raise some serious
dress people like B. Ruby Rich who says there are more questions about the way it is perceived in our society. ■

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