When did sex become so serious? Artist and filmmaker Numa Perrier asks this question not because she doesn’t know the answer, but because she wants to engage in the power of the erotic to encompass a fuller human experience, with not only a seriousness of vision but also intentional and inherent playfulness. Her first feature-length film, Jezebel, premiered last year at SXSW to glowing reviews after developing the script through the Tribeca Film Institute’s Through Her Lens: The Tribeca Chanel Women’s Filmmaker Program. Shot in just 10 days, her semi-autobiographical film follows 19-year-old Tiffany as she starts to work as a cam girl. Perrier joined Dr. Terri Francis in the studio during her campus visit for the film series Numa Perrier: The Politics of Pleasure in September of 2019, to discuss Perrier’s early artistic beginnings, the legitimacy of sex work as work, Audre Lorde, Paris, and how art is borne out of memory and lived experiences.
Topics Discussed:
0:00-8:10 – Introductions with a reading from Audre Lorde’s essay, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” and a trailer for Numa’s Perrier's Jezebel
8:10-11:20 – “When did sex become so serious?” and reclaiming the playfulness and intimacy of sex.
11:30-15:45 - "anti-artistic upbringing", her history in the adoptive care system, and coming into herself as an artist.
15:55-27:45 - Relationship with adoptive mother, questioning her own femininity, processing grief through her art, reconnecting with her sister through filmmaking, and being artistically vulnerable.
28:00-32:40 - Life in Paris, Louise Bourgeoise, and Nicola L.
32:40-39:30 - Early Internet, life as sex worker, and the pornography tech boom, criminalization of digital sex work.
39:50-45:10 - Conversation on Spike Lee and Suzan Lori Park’s Girl 6 and how it relates to her experience as a sex worker. Audre Lorde and her quote “The power you are not using, is being used against you” and how it relates to her own firsthand experiences.
45:10-54:25 - The shifting climate in the film industry for black women, Black and Sexy TV, her own independent path as a creative, mentorship, the commitment to writing Jezebel, the fear of standing behind her own branding.
54:50-1:04:40 - Jezebel, the zero tolerance and transgressive attitude amongst her and her peers breaking into mainstream institutions and supporting each other and “fucking it up”.
Frame By Frame is hosted by Dr. Terri Francis
Theme music provided by BRZ with additional music from André Seewood and Deija Lighon
Production by David Carter, Deonna Weatherly and Bria McCarty
Notes and episode descriptions were written by Yeeseon Chae with additional assistance from David Carter
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