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Girls Behaving Badly AWARDS NIGHT FEATURE
Talking activism with the ladies of Outfest’s Itty Bitty
Titty Committee.
By Lawrence Ferber
In an age when Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie are considered role
models for a generation of young women, it’s refreshing
to see the young radical activists of Itty Bitty Titty Committee,
director Jamie Babbit’s “punk feminist fairy tale.”
Working at a Beverly Hills plastic surgery clinic, despondent
18-year-old Anna (Melonie Diaz) finds new passion and fire after
meeting Sadie (Nicole Vicius), leader of a punky feminist action
group dubbed the C(I)A (Clits in Action). In between artistic
guerrilla actions—defacing billboards and placing statues
of feminist icons in public spaces—romance flourishes between
Anna and Sadie, as well as infighting among the gang. Can the
group—with help from sexy butch dyke Calvin (Daniela Sea)—pull
off a grand action to end all actions, or will it disband forever?
Vicius, Babbit and producer Lisa Thrasher of POWER UP—the
film world’s women’s empowerment organization—spoke
to us about activism, chicks with mustaches and, sigh, Paris Hilton.
Is there a real life C(I)A?
Jamie Babbitt: It’s an amalgamation of a bunch of feminist
microgroups I’ve been to, one of them being the Golden Feminists,
which is a group of filmmakers, and the USA’s Guerilla Girls,
who deal with the art world. Also P.E.T.A. because they do things
like throw urine on people and tofu pies in faces.
Was the C(I)A always envisioned as a nonviolent group
or did you consider having them engage in kidnapping, assault
or murder?
J.B.: There was an earlier draft of the script where they kidnapped
a guy and put him in a public fountain [with] a sign next to him
that said “public art,” and the guy’s screaming.
I realized I didn’t want it to become like Fight Club.
Nicole Vicius: I think the C(I)A have a pretty good way of going
about it. ... it’s in your face without being violent and
all that.
I love how Aggie has a mustache. At first, I thought she
was played by JD Samson of Le Tigre, whose mustache is an object
of serious worship.
J.B.: I think a lot of chicks dig mustaches on chicks. ... We
asked JD to play that part, but JD was unable, so we went to JD’s
MySpace page and saw who her friends were and ended up getting
Lauren, and she has a mustache! But we put mascara on it to make
it thicker.
Do you want Itty Bitty Titty Committee to become an interactive
experience? Like people can do their own C(I)A protests?
Lisa Thrasher: We definitely wanted to spark off ideology and
discussion. Power Up! really is about freedom and giving voice
to people who don’t always have access. And we’ve
been talking about setting up a C(I)A website as part of the Power
Up! website.
Is Itty Bitty ultimately a call to Paris Hilton to get
politically active?
J.B.: Everyone out there! It doesn’t matter who you are.
You can work at a plastic surgery clinic, you can be a shopaholic,
be totally vapid and have no political consciousness at all, and
you can change ... I hope people are inspired by that.
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