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Interview with Cheryl Dunye, Producer/Screenwriter/Director of The Owls and The Watermelon Woman

05/21/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

Cheryl Dunye, a native of Liberia, received her BA from Temple University and her MFA from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts. Dunye has received numerous national and international honors for her work in the media arts. Her third feature film, Miramax’s, MY BABY’S DADDY, was a box office success and played at theaters nationwide. Dunye’s second feature, the acclaimed HBO Films, Stranger Inside, garnered Dunye an Independent Spirit award nomination for best director in 2002.

Dunye wrote, directed and starred in her first film which was the first African American lesbian feature film, The Watermelon Woman. It was awarded the Teddy Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and best feature in L.A.’s OutFest, Italy’s Torino, and France’s Creteil Film Festivals. Dunye’s other works have been included in the Whitney Biennial and screened at festivals in New York, London, Tokyo, Cape Town, Amsterdam and Sydney. Dunye currently teaches in the Department of Film and Media Arts at Temple University and is at work on a slate of new projects in the US and abroad.

Dunye is showing two films in the upcoming Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film & Video Festival. The Watermelon Woman. In this film Cheryl (Dunye plays the lead) discovers an actress who played “mammy” roles in 1930′s Hollywood but isn’t credited in most of her films, known instead as “The Watermelon Woman”. As Cheryl unearths details about the actress’s life and sexuality, the filmmaker’s life takes a turn for the wicked as she falls for a rich, white girl (Guinivere Turner of Go Fish), straining her relationship with Tamara.

Dunye will also show her film, The Owls. Ten years ago, Iris (Turner) was a singer in the lesbian punk band The Screech, which dissolved because of dyke drama and rock ‘n’ roll excesses. Now the broke and alcoholic Iris is back in L.A. to sell the house she once shared with ex-lover and bandmate MJ (Brodie). Lily (Lisa Gornick) also sang in The Screech, but her drug habit almost destroyed her, and it was only when she hooked up with the peaceful Carol (Dunye) that she got her act together. But Lily and Carol, who are planning to have a baby, are slowly drifting apart.

These four older dykes may seem like Owl’s older, wiser, lesbians – but don’t let their maturity fool you. They are barely keeping it together while hiding a secret, one that the androgynous stranger named Skye (Cooper) is poised to uncover.

Lezgetreal: The Watermelon Woman was originally released in 1996. Why show these two films at the festival? Is there a connectivity or continuity that you are trying to hint at?  

Cheryl Dunye: The Watermelon Woman was made in 1996 and The Owls was made this year. This is the 20^th anniversary of the Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film & Video Festival and has shown it there in the past. Both films are seminal works of an African American lesbian director and it’s important for them to include this to speak to African American queer culture. These subjects are important. The Watermelon Woman is about the discovery of identity and The Owls is about complications years after that discovery. So you could say that’s the common thread.  

LGR: There was a lot of controversy around The Watermelon Woman. Specifically because it was attacked on the Senate floor by a conservative congressman, why do you think the film provoked such a violent reaction from conservatives?

CD: Well what we don’t know, we don’t want to have around. We see this happening now and this was what was happening then. So I think there is a lot of uncomfort-ability for a film that received federal funding. Lee stood on the house floor and said the same thing that I said, that art is a plural form and you don’t have to like it but you have to accept it.

LGR: You act and direct in both The Owls and Watermelon Women, do you like being in front of the camera or behind the camera better?

CD: A bit of both, there are times you need to be in front of the camera to perform and add that extra edge of visibility. While being behind the camera gives you that control. In Stranger Inside I did a smashing job as a director behind the camera [without acting in it]. I actually was nominated for an Independent Spirit award for that.

LGR: Is it a challenge to direct yourself as an actor?

CD: Because I’m there at initial development concept and conception it’s not too much of a challenge. When you get on the set and there are people asking directions from the director and people telling actors where to be, it’s a bit more complicated. In post production, there is a challenge for some people to watch themselves. But I understand that the creative process doesn’t always look good, but it’s important.

LGR: How have you grown or changed as an artist between making The Watermelon Woman and The Owls?

CD: I don’t know exactly how, but I have grown and changed. Many Cheryls ago was The Watermelon Woman even the Cheryl that made The Owls is a different person already. Everything we do changes us. I’m a different person already because all the experiences, the dialogues, all have their impact on who I am as a person. When I made The Watermelon Woman, I was not a parent and now I have two teenagers. I’m in a different space, working at a different space .

LGR: Your movies are very personal. How much of The Owls is based on your personal experiences and how much is political?

CD: My trademark is to do that. So I guess the personal is political as we so hear in the activist cultural creative community. So there is no percentage in mind, but most of what I do is that mix.

LGR: You are such a pioneer in the space of sexuality and race, there aren’t a lot of ‘people who came before’ you to look up to or serve as role models.  Who are your influences?

CD: Plural as they are plural. I would say folks like Goddard and pioneers in sexuality like Annie Sprinkle, Michelle Parkerson and Rob Epstein who is my colleague now. People who deal with melodrama like Doug le Circ, runs the gambit. Right now I’m studying Peter Bogdanovich, from “Whats Up, Doc?,” a comedy. Actually one of my favorite comedies, featuring Barbara Streisand. I’m working on a comedy porn of this.  [ed. Note: Stay tuned to lezgetreal.com for updates on this project.]

LGR: There is a lot of debate surrounding the lesbian community and the question of racism within it. Do you think the problems are getting better or worse?

CD: I think in general racism has grown a wee bit [better] since we have so many leaders in the world who are of color. In my country, I was born in Liberia, there is a woman president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. In America, we have of course, President Obama and there was also Nelson Mandela and we know the narratives involved in that. I think we need some groundbreaking moments, but once we see a familiar face like the Cosby show we get used to it

LGR: Guinivere Turner is in both of the films that you will be showing at the Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film & Video Festival. She wrote for “The L word” which has been criticized for not addressing the complexities of women of color. Do you feel this is a fair criticism of it?

CD: I can’t speak of “The L Word” because I was living in the Netherlands at the time. But I heard all the camp and pomp and circumstance about it. Being in the community I know the backstories. The L Word was a revelation that has changed the population globally.

My casting her [Guinivere Turner] was to unite. She is a very accomplished woman who represents a certain politic and visibility. As well as Brodie who is her partner in Go Fish and Lisa Gornic who is a representation of both Guinivere and myself. I wanted to put in people who have made their mark in lesbian culture.

LGR: This is a question I ask a lot, because I really like to know and because I feel it’s relevant, especially with the Newsweek controversy going on. I don’t know if you have heard about it, but basically Newsweek attacked gay actors, saying they can’t play straight. It’s certainly hard enough for queer actors to find work, is the sexual orientation of an actor something you think about when you are casting?

CD: Yes and no. I think that I’m a maker of queer work so I want queer performances. I have not worked with straight actors playing gay so much except when I did “My baby’s Daddy,” that Miramax film, where there was a straight actor playing gay, there were none [gay actors] that the studio would approve. I ran into this issue in the real world. If you want to make Hollywood cinema you have to play by those rules. You can do whatever you want if you don’t. So, I do whatever I want.

 Nobody knows what to do since there is this digital revolution going on. It’s changing how we make films and subjects of films. You play by the Hollywood rules, you won’t get what you want. Maybe they [Hollywood] want us to remain invisible. The folks that I deal with won’t abide by that and make their own art.

LGR: There has been a lot of talk about language lately, the terms we use to describe ourselves and our sexuality. Some people don’t want to use the words, queer or dyke even amongst ourselves, some people don’t want to include intersex and allies the LGBT moniker. Where do you stand on that debate?

CD: Ohh.. I am just Cheryl and just an artist and I really try to stay out of that labeling arena.  Even though my last film delved into the confusion I felt about the labels, when I lived abroad labels weren’t as clear. Issues of class and race are more global. Class, race, economies hold a bigger candle than some of the politics that I think campaign around labeling of the LGBT community. We can put our energies somewhere else sometimes.

LGR: Is there anything you want to tell our readers?

CD: Just, enjoy yourselves and make your work and follow your dreams.

If you would like to learn more about Cheryl Dunye’s career, you can visit her website www.cheryldunye.com

Cheryl will be leading a panel discussion at the Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film & Video Festival, click here to find out more http://www.insideout.ca/20/index.php