The female leads. From left to right: Clementine (Kate Winslet) of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Focus Features, 2004) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel) of (500) Days of Summer (Fox Searchlight, 2009)
Kailyn Warpole: How did you first hear about Film Matters and what inspired you to submit your article?
Brenna Williams: I heard about Film Matters through my department’s listserv. They sent out the call for papers. I had always thought about getting published and I thought my paper was a good mix of classic film theory focusing on something fun and contemporary. I thought other young media scholars might find it interesting since I know I so often tend to focus on whatever I think seems most traditionally academic.
KW: What did you gain from the experience of getting published in Film Matters?
BW: By getting published in Film Matters, I gained experience really living with an article. By the time the paper was published, I had probably written it more than a year before and it was probably twice as long as it ended up being in Film Matters. The editing process was a great learning process.
KW: What was the response to your article and how did you react?
BW: An old professor added my original paper to his syllabus for Film Theory, so that was great. My parents were obviously proud. I also heard from a handful of film students in years after me who were interested in getting published—it’s not really something our undergrads focus on in the Film and TV department at Notre Dame.
KW: What path have you taken since getting published in Film Matters?
BW: I was accepted to Film Matters shortly after graduating college. Since then, I’ve moved to Washington, DC, and started working in TV journalism and public affairs programming. I worked contracts at NBC News and NPR and currently work for C-SPAN. I’m considering going back to grad school.
KW: Please tell us a little about the inspiration for your article; what sparked your interest in this unique topic?
BW: The paper was inspired by the fact that [Laura] Mulvey’s works were always a hot debate topic in my film classes. It seemed like most of the examples we read or analyzed focused on older works, nothing contemporary. I saw a hole there—surely we couldn’t learn about feminist film theory without taking into consideration the evolution of film narratives. I liked both Eternal Sunshine and (500) Days because of their female characters. Yes, they’ve been maligned for their manic-pixie-dream-girl traits, but I think my paper shows there’s a lot more to the films and their characters than meets the eye. Looking at those popular films through the lens of a film student really informed my reading of the films. If nothing else, I figured updating an analysis of Mulvey’s arguments by using films my classmates and I willingly watched outside of class on our own would give the topic some life.
Brenna Williams is author of “Mainstream Mulvey: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and (500) Days of Summer as Alternatives to the Feminist Avant-Garde” (Issue 3.4). Interview conducted online via email, May 28-30, 2014.
Author Biography
Kailyn N. Warpole is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, studying Creative Writing, Film Studies, and English. She has served on both the Editorial Board (Fall 2013) and the Design Board (Summer 2014) for Film Matters. When she’s not writing, editing, or reading novels, she also enjoys watching quirky indie romance films.
