Hey what's up hello! This week Kayla and Sarah talk about what it's like being a queer woman in a position of power. They talk about how being a woman has affected their leadership style and how their experiences of directing a musical and a movie were influenced by their identities!
Episode Transcript: www.soundsfakepod.com/transcripts/queer-women-in-positions-of-power
Donate: patreon.com/soundsfakepod
Follow: @soundsfakepod
Join: https://discord.gg/W7VBHMt
Buy our book: www.soundsfakepod.com/book
Hey what's up hello! This week Kayla and Sarah talk about what it's like being a queer woman in a position of power. They talk about how being a woman has affected their leadership style and how their experiences of directing a musical and a movie were influenced by their identities!
Episode Transcript: www.soundsfakepod.com/transcripts/queer-women-in-positions-of-power
Donate: patreon.com/soundsfakepod
Follow: @soundsfakepod
Join: https://discord.gg/W7VBHMt
Buy our book: www.soundsfakepod.com/book
[00:00]
SARAH: Hey, what’s up, hello! Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aro/ace girl (I’m Sarah, that’s me) -
KAYLA: And a demi-straight girl (that’s me, Kayla) -
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don’t understand.
KAYLA: On today’s episode, being a queer woman in a position of power.
BOTH: Sounds fake, but okay.
[intro music plays]
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod!
KAYLA: M’eme. It was ‘meme,’ if you didn’t -
SARAH: Oh…
KAYLA: It was meme.
SARAH: She said that earlier and I didn’t want to ask because I didn’t want to encourage her.
KAYLA: I - yes. Along with this, some announcements.
SARAH: We have some announcements.
KAYLA: Yes. Along with the m’as - it’ll come, i promise, it works - so we’re going to be doing a special livestream episode on May 17 at 5:30pm -
SARAH: Eastern time.
KAYLA: Eastern time.
SARAH: So, for those of you in, like, Germany, Italy, France, that area of Europe, that’s 11:30 at night for you. UK, that’s 10:30 at night. West coast, that’s 2:30 - that’s not as fun.
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: Time Zones. What’re you gonna do.
KAYLA: But it’s also going to live - I think we’re probably gonna end up doing it on YouTube.
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: And we’ll have it on our website and linked everywhere.
SARAH: And we’ll be posting that pod as usual on Sunday.
KAYLA: Yeah. So it’ll be an audio recording, but we also wanted to do the actual livestream episode, like a video version, so you guys can see our faces.
SARAH: Finally be able to tell who’s talking when.
KAYLA: And before Sarah and I don’t live together we were like, “we should do this at least once.”
SARAH: And in that episode, we’re also gonna be explaining what’s gonna happen moving forward with me and Kayla not living in the same place.
KAYLA: What’s like - what are we, ya know?
SARAH: What is this?
KAYLA: We’re gonna be DTR-ing. Me and Sarah are gonna be DTR-ing finally.
SARAH: Ok.
KAYLA: But in terms of the m’s, I have a special visual one all set up for that.
SARAH: She showed me and I hate it.
KAYLA: Yeah, I'm very excited about it. So.
SARAH: Yeah, and you’ll get to see our office.
KAYLA: It’s Sarah’s bedroom.
SARAH: My room.
KAYLA: We’ll get to sit next to each other again like old times.
SARAH: We don’t usually sit next to each other.
KAYLA: We used to. Me and Sarah used to basically just lay in my bed and record. We’d start sitting up and slowly we were just like worms. We don’t sit next to each other anymore.
SARAH: And we have another piece of news.
KAYLA: Yes. We are mothers now.
SARAH: Sounds fake but okay now has two official mascots. They are cows.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: Their names are Georgie and Herbert. Georgie is mine, Herbert is Kayla’s.
KAYLA: Mhm. They are the softest fucking -
SARAH: They’re crazy.
KAYLA: It’s like insane how soft they are.
SARAH: My lovely cousins gave them to us -
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: And - thank you Kate and Abbey. And my Aunt Jeanie who’s a Patron.
KAYLA: Yes, we love Aunt Jeanie. She got stickers, she’s a Patron.
SARAH: But they gave these to us, and Kate had been telling me about them for a while, she wouldn’t tell me what was in the package, and I finally got the package.
KAYLA: I received a picture from Sarah, she was like “Look what we have received” and I was like “oh my god.” It was a very exciting text.
SARAH: So by the time this episode is up you’ll be able to find Georgie and Herbert on our social media. They’re adorable. They’re the softest things I’ve ever felt.
KAYLA: And they have a full-blown photoshoot later today. We have a lot of plans.
SARAH: You know, it’s like the squishiness of these things is - it can’t be defined.
KAYLA: It's kind of like a stress ball type of squish, like you know when you put sand or whatever in a balloon, like one of those. It’s kind of like that but plushier.
SARAH: It’s a stuffed animal.
KAYLA: I don't - it’s insane. I think they’re Kelly Toys, yeah Kelly Toy.
SARAH: If you’re in the US you can get them at Walgreens.
KAYLA: Probably even Amazon have them.
SARAH: They’re amazing. My cousins have a bigger one, which is how she discovered I love these things. She brought them at Christmas or something and I love it.
KAYLA: It’s insane how soft it is, I want 20.
SARAH: But they’re our mascots!
KAYLA: Yes. We have new mascots and when we take a lot of pictures I really want to get small graduation hats for them and take them on our photoshoot for graduation. I have a lot of thoughts. And then hopefully when I move, I’m gonna take Herbert with me. We might do some flat herberting.
SARAH: Yeah. It’ll be like - for those of you who are familiar with Flat Stanley -
KAYLA: It’ll be a round Herbert.
SARAH: Around the world. And I’ll be bringing Georgie places.
KAYLA: Right. Yes.
SARAH: When I was in second grade we made flat Stanleys and then over spring break we brought them places. Mine was named Flat Mikaela and I brought Flat Mikaela to Chicago and it was great.
[05:00]
KAYLA: When I went to youth group, we had Jesus pillow, who was - you’ve seen Jesus pillow.
SARAH: I think so, yeah.
KAYLA: I get made fun of a lot about Jesus pillow, but it was like Flat Stanley, it was a pillow of Jesus, and we sometimes when youth group went on vacation, they’d bring Jesus Pillow and take pictures. So there’s pictures of me and my sister in New York with Jesus Pillow.
SARAH: Nice.
KAYLA: So it’ll be like that ‘cause I might try to go - there’s a conference, like an asexuality conference type thing in New York which is close to where I’m living, so I’m thinking about going to that, so I’ll bring Herbert.
SARAH: Bring. Herbert. Bring Herbert.
KAYLA: It’ll be the only way you can tell who I am because we don’t have merch yet. It’ll be like, “Oh, that girl’s a cow.”
SARAH: That girl’s a cow. I’ve known people who have like been to cons and they’re like people I know from the internet and this one person, her schtick was that no one knew her real name and no one knew what she looked like. She stuck with that. And so when they did meetups of the fandom at cons, she would be like, “I have this stuffed animal. This is where I’m going to be. Find the stuffed animal, the person with it is me.”
KAYLA: Honestly I might do that. I might be like, “I have Herbert, if you see Herbert, it me.” I don’t know if anyone who listens to this would be there, but if they are -
SARAH: It would be cool.
KAYLA: It would be cool.
SARAH: Awesome.
KAYLA: And I can take notes and come up with new podcast ideas. I have big plans.
SARAH: So, TL;DR: Live stream. May 17, 5:30pm Eastern.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: Mascots. Georgie and Herbert.
KAYLA: Yes. Not in love.
SARAH: No. Kayla asked me if they’re in love and I said no.
KAYLA: I think they are in love.
SARAH: They’re in love in a platonic way.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Okay, cool.
KAYLA: Anyway.
SARAH: Anyway. What are we talking about this week, Kayla?
KAYLA: This week, we’re going back to our roots. We’re winging it.
SARAH: I have some notes that I made a long time ago.
KAYLA: I don’t have anything. But we are in the midst of finals season so - ya know, this is how it is.
SARAH: But we’ve had this idea for a while.
KAYLA: We have.
SARAH: We just were waiting to do it until we got more experience.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: So this week we’re talking about being a minority person in a position of power, whether that be aspec or whether that be the fact that we’re both women.
KAYLA: Women.
SARAH: And we’ve both had some experience with that.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: So, Kayla, tell me about what experiences you’ve had with that.
KAYLA: I think the biggest experience I’ve had with being in charge or in power is when I directed our musical. We’ve talked about it before but Sarah, last year, wrote a musical and it was about asexuality. One day, hopefully, it’ll be somewhere you guys can see it.
SARAH: I dream of that day.
KAYLA: I also dream of that day. Anyway, tea. I directed it and it was, it took a semester. Sarah wrote it over a long period of time, then we had a semester to cast it and get everything together. So that was the most I was ever in charge because it was like, what, 40 people I was in charge of. It was all of the actors, I had to do all of the tech and the crew and the props and all of that. Just a lot of people managing.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: That was interesting because it was a musical about asexuality and a lot of the cast people didn’t really know what asexuality was when we first were going into it. It was like the theme of the musical, so I had to make sure everyone understood. So for that one, it helped that that was my identity, because I was kind of coming at it as an expert, kind of, or more knowledgeable than the people below me, I guess. But I think definitely the biggest impact it has for me in other places that I’ve been in charge or in a leadership position, being a woman I think is the more difficult part.
SARAH: Yeah I would definitely agree. And I think that has to do with this concept that we’ve talked about before of the fact that aspec identities, at least our aspec identities, are a little bit more invisible so they can fly under the radar and not have as big of an impact. When you were directing Bloom, a lot of people who were in it were already our friends.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: Was that an issue for you? Did you struggle with that?
KAYLA: Yeah, I remember there was a few times when I was having trouble with some people. It felt like they didn’t respect me as much. If I told them, like, “hey, can you quiet down,” or try and do stuff they wouldn’t, and I think it was ‘cause we were close friends. I remember there were a couple times when I asked you to talk to this person ‘cause I just can’t. So I think it was hard being strict with people that were my friends when I’m already someone that worries that everyone hates me. So that was more of a personal thing, but I think it also comes with being a woman. I was afraid to be kind of more strict or just more, like, blunt about things.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: And yeah, having people that were my friends definitely was hard. It also made certain things easier.
SARAH: Yeah, ‘cause you know how to deal with people, you know how certain people will react to things.
KAYLA: Yeah. It was interesting because last year I directed the show and this year I assistant directed the show, and I found myself having a lot easier time being hard on people when I was the assistant director. And I don’t know if it’s just ‘cause it wasn’t my thing so I was a little bit removed from it, or if it was that these people know me better now. Maybe it was like, I’m graduating now, so if they hate me that’s their problem ‘cause I’m leaving.
SARAH: Also, and this is jumping a little bit forward, but my assistant director helped me a lot when I was directing this semester and I think it was in part because she was not the one who was tasked with being the spearhead.
KAYLA: Yeah.
[10:00]
SARAH: And so she could say things and do things that I was a little bit more nervous to say and do. It’s just a different world.
KAYLA: Yeah. So I found myself having - and my director for that was not as willing as me to be hard on people ‘cause she was worried about how they would then see her - but for me it didn’t matter because my role was mostly to support the director and not do whatever with the cast. Also, I think it just has stuff to do with how much I’ve grown since last year and everything. It definitely was interesting.
SARAH: Yeah. So in our theatre org, (I feel like this is an interview), in our theatre org, it is majority women and non-binary identifying people.
KAYLA: Very few men.
SARAH: Very few men, and very few straight men. Very few straight white men.
KAYLA: Yes. Wild.
SARAH: So did that impact things at all, do you feel?
KAYLA: I mean, I do think it makes it easier to talk about certain things, I guess. These are people - especially since they were almost all already queer or queer adjacent, I guess, kind of in the culture of it (theatre is very gay) - I do feel like it made things easier. I wasn’t worried that anyone was gonna come at me and be like, “well the theme of this musical is stupid, ‘cause it’s asexuality, and I don’t know about that.”
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like, there’s also already so many ace people in that org.
SARAH: That is the place where most of the ace people I know are.
KAYLA: It’s an incredibly high proportion. It’s kind of insane. I feel like it made that easier. I still think even though it was other mostly women or non-binary people I was working with, I do still think that part of why I was afraid to be strict or have people be mean to me was because I’m a woman.
SARAH: You don’t want to come across as a bitch.
KAYLA: Right. And I’m very aware that I do come off that way sometimes, and so yeah. I’ve said this a lot to different people - I don’t think I would be as insecure about my personality in general if I was a man because I am a very outspoken person.
SARAH: I think that would be the case, yeah.
KAYLA: Yeah. And so I think if I had the same personality as a man I’d probably think it was normal, but I worry a lot about how outspoken and opinionated I am. And I think a lot of the reason I worry about it is because I’m a woman, so that came into play. Worrying about how I was talking to people when I was directing them.
SARAH: Yeah. Lit.
KAYLA: Indeed. I think it also came with good parts, because my leads were women, and so being able to relate to them and … there was a lot of stuff about like love and romance and sexuality and so me being able to relate to them woman to woman about that I think made it a lot easier. Especially, like, there were a lot of emotions in this show and, I don’t know. It’s a stereotype that women are more emotional, but I think I’m probably much more emotional than the average man so I think that helped too.
SARAH: I found - again jumping forward to my bit - but when I was directing, I was much more comfortable directing women than men. And my professor said, I mean that’s often the case that you’re more comfortable with one gender or the other or another (because there aren’t just two genders).
KAYLA: There’s actually none.
SARAH: There’s no genders. But he said that it usually is the gender that you identify with that you tend to be better at working with. And that’s true in my case. I think that’s especially true of female directors because I just… one of the actors I had known for a little while. I didn’t know her well but I had interacted with her. The other one I had never met before this experience, and although the two male actors we had -
[15:00]
SARAH: - one of them I had known for a little bit longer, too. One of them I didn’t, I was still more comfortable talking to both the female actors in a direction manner. When I was just talking to them outside of things it didn’t make a difference.
KAYLA: It’s weird to tell a man what to do. It is. For me, I was a pretty physical director, like I would get in there with them and be moving them around and touching them. And I think I was a lot more comfortable doing that with the women than I was with the men.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Also what I realize was somewhat similar between our two experiences is - so your movie that you directed -
SARAH: Yeah, hold on. Can we preface it with what I was doing as a director?
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: I directed a film this semester. Actually, that was it. I directed a film. Sorry, continue.
KAYLA: So what I see as a little bit similar is you had a full-on sex scene in your film.
SARAH: I had two of them.
KAYLA: She had two of them. I did not have a sex scene but there was this song we did that was like, kind of a metaphor basically for this girl just having sex with a ton of people.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So the one actress, who’s our dear friend Asritha - and she was such a trooper with this ‘cause she was also uncomfortable - but we had her basically dance, ya know, sexually with some men, and I was too uncomfortable to stage the scene myself. So our friend Erin who wrote the music -
SARAH: Who’s also been on this pod.
KAYLA: Yes, she was on the bisexuality episode. Who is just like much more comfortable with her body and her sexuality than I think I am (sexuality just in terms of like, having -)
SARAH: Not your identity.
KAYLA: Not your identity, like the sex. So I had her do it and it ended up really great so I’m glad I did ‘cause I liked the scene a lot. But I was uncomfortable asking them “Can you grind now? Thank you.”
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: It was weird.
SARAH: I was extremely uncomfortable dealing with the sex scenes, plural. And they weren’t even that explicit. It’s basically what happened is it’s two sex scenes that are being intercut with each other so they’re basically one. And because of the intercutting we don’t have to show anything, it’s all implied. They were really just like making out for a hot second, but I was so uncomfortable.
KAYLA: Mhm.
SARAH: And I knew going in that it was going to be something that I was not going to be good with, and I texted both of the actors individually beforehand, also because my professor was like, “It’s a sex scene, you want make sure you know what their boundaries are.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so I texted both of them and I was like, “alright, full disclosure. I’m ace. Here’s what that means. That is going to influence how this happens.” And I never actually had a conversation with them about that aspect of it, but it was important to me that they knew, even though I don’t often just come out to people.
KAYLA: Yeah, that’s very rare for you.
SARAH: I feel like it’s important for them to understand where I’m coming at this from. There’s a lot of different things that were intertwined of why it made it so hard.
KAYLA: Mhm.
SARAH: One of the things that made it hard was I find that the more technical aspects of directing, like blocking and figuring that kind of stuff out, like working with my director of photography, I was not as good at. And that is, I would say, mostly experience. I just don’t have the experience there. I didn’t anticipate directing this film this semester. My professor really pushed me to do it, which I’m glad that he did, but I didn’t have any intentions going into this of directing a film. And so I wasn’t prepared for that sort of thing. Also, looking at the gender split of my crew, it was really cool because almost everyone who was above the line, which means like producers, assistant director, that group of people -
KAYLA: Yeah, your production team.
SARAH: Yeah. Very heavily female. My head producer was female, my assistant director was female, my second AD was female…
KAYLA: Your writer was female.
SARAH: My writer was female. One of my other producers was female. The other producer we had was male but he identifies LGBTQIA+. So that was something that was a big deal. And in the class that I did this production in, two films were produced, and the other film also had a female writer, female director. Which is very cool.
[20:00]
SARAH: And then all of them had female leads which was just a fun time. There were a lot of women on the team. But then if you looked at the more like “in it” production staff, like if you’re looking at the camera crew, the editing crew, art, it was very much divided on gender lines. My lovely, lovely DP who I owe my life, is a guy. The entire camera crew were male.
KAYLA: Which I think is very common for those more crew roles.
SARAH: Gaf, so lighting, male. Our onset sound guy, male. Our post-production sound person was female. One of the editors is female, the rest of the editors are male.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: We had two art people, both female. So there were definitely distinct lines. Our unit production manager, who’s like - he was acting as a producer but also he was dealing with the money - male. Making sure the sets were running on time, that’s kind of his job. Male. And so that was, as great as it was that we had made these steps into getting more women above the line, there was still a pretty distinct gender split. And I think I became very aware of my gender in the moments when I didn’t know the technical stuff, ‘cause I was like, “there aren’t a lot of women who do the technical stuff.” So I am very aware of the fact that I had no idea what I’m doing.
KAYLA: Mhm.
SARAH: For some reason I’m really bad at blocking. Blocking is like where people go in scenes and where the camera’s gonna be and where people are gonna move. I think that’s partially just because I have trouble visualizing it. That’s partially just my own brain and not my gender, but there were aspects that I relied heavily on my DP for. And I’m very glad I did because he is the light of my life. But if you’re listening, hi Trevor.
KAYLA: Hi Trevor.
SARAH: I was very aware of my gender in those moments where I was like, “I know nothing about the technical stuff. And it was just like I wish I knew more, but also I know it’s not my thing. I know that.
KAYLA: Yeah. It’s not what you’re as interested in.
SARAH: Exactly. So it was kind of like this weird in between of like I want to be better at it but also it’s not, I don’t want to dedicate my life to it. So that was interesting.
KAYLA: I didn’t know that you did this, that you texted the actors and were like, “Hey, I’m ace.”
SARAH: I mean, there were a lot of other things in that text, too.
KAYLA: Yeah, but for you, you really don’t do that often. I totally get why it was important to put that out there for them to know and everything, but what was that like?
SARAH: I considered not doing it. I considered sending them that text without that information in it, but ultimately, I decided I see no reason why either of these people is going to be a dick about it. I see no reason why that would happen. And it’s important to me that if I - ‘cause I got thrown into this directing thing. It was a steep learning curve that got steeper as it went, I think. And I didn’t want them to think I was completely inept. I wanted them to - if I was struggling - I wanted them to understand what was going on.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I think that was a big part of it. Also, I just felt like transparency was important given that this was the scene where I’m about to make you, like, they weren’t wearing shirts. So I was like, if you’re going to be doing that I should be transparent with you, too. So that’s what happened. In terms of the blocking of the sex scenes, my lovely AD who also saved my life approximately 100 times a day, I love you Austen, hello.
KAYLA: Hello.
SARAH: She and one of the male crew members who was about the same height as the actor, they acted as stand-ins and they did a lot of the, figured out a lot of the blocking themselves, bless their souls. It was awkward, but they did.
KAYLA: Sounds like it.
[25:00]
SARAH: And so it helped me a lot to be able to have other people be like, “okay what feels natural here? I don’t know what feels natural here. I know what I’ve seen on TV, ya know?” I just don’t have a good instinct for what … I mean, I could probably figure it out, but it’s easier coming from someone who’s done this before.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so I put a lot of trust in them to figure it out. Also the actors were very all in. They were like, yeah, we’re just gonna do it and it’s gonna be fine. Which was wonderful. And luckily it ended up being a lot of like - there is blocking to be done. Because there were clothes that were being removed, it was like, okay, you need to take this part off at this point. And then you need to do this thing. So I was able to look at it a little more objectively in those situations. Luckily, we did the shorter one first, so I kind of dove in on that.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And then the second time I was like, I feel a little bit more prepared. But I did panic. I panicked a lot that first day that we shot the first part of the sex scene.
KAYLA: Was it uncomfortable while they were shooting it?
SARAH: Not really, because we also made sure that - one of the things the actors wanted was they wanted to make sure that there was an equal number of men and women in the room, so we made sure we had an equal split and everyone else was in another room where they couldn’t see anything, and everyone was doing their job. The camera team was focused on camera stuff. I was looking at the monitor. Sound guy was doing sound. So in it, I mean I can’t speak for how the actors felt, but they were very professional about it and I mostly just felt bad for them ‘cause it was fucking freezing in that building because we found out after we got there that there was no heat. It was about 35 degrees fahrenheit that day, which is just above freezing.
KAYLA: Yasss.
SARAH: So I felt so bad.
KAYLA: The nipples must’ve been very nipply.
SARAH: I mean, we had pasties.
KAYLA: Good for her. Yeah, that’s just wild, I don’t know.
SARAH: Yeah. But I don’t know, in terms of directing in general, one of the first things that really I remember very clearly that I was like, “ah, gender,” was we were in rehearsals with the actors and my professor just basically threw me in head first and I was terrified. And at one point in rehearsals towards the end, like towards close to when we were gonna start shooting, my professor was like, “stop asking the actors if they want to do things. At this point, you need to tell them to do things.” And I was like, “I didn’t even realize I was asking.” And at the beginning I think it was partially just because I was like, “I don’t know what I’m doing, I want to hedge everything I’m saying if it ends up being stupid.” But eventually I had to be like, “This is what I want you to do.” And that was something that was weird for me because as a woman that doesn’t often happen where I have to just tell someone what to do.
KAYLA: It’s funny because thinking about it, I don’t remember exactly how rehearsals went for me for the show I directed, but thinking about how I would ask someone or tell someone to do a certain stage direction, my instinct would be to say, “Can you go over here and do this?” And like, that’s not really asking someone, but -
SARAH: It’s kind of asking permission.
KAYLA: It’s hedging. It’s not really saying hey go over there and do this, it’s still a very polite way of directing someone.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And that’s like, I’m sure that’s what I did the whole time 'cause I can’t fathom saying, telling someone, “Hey go over there do this.” I would say, “Can you,” ya know? I just can’t fathom doing that.
SARAH: Right. One of my biggest issues - it’s two related issues. And it’s all related to gender, so it’s three related issues. I’m a very indecisive person. The director is the person who makes all the decisions. And so people would come to me with questions and I would be like, “AHHH.”
KAYLA: Did you find yourself still indecisive in that situation?
SARAH: Mhm. I got better at it, and the reason I got better at it is because I had a wonderful group of people around me who were like, “Sarah you need to do these things.” And the other half of that problem with the indecisiveness is that I’m not a very assertive person.
[30:00]
SARAH: I think that’s in large part because of my gender. I think it’s partially because of my personality but then it’s like, where is there a line between personality and gender? They influence each other, or at least gender influences personality.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I’m not very assertive. And specifically my AD and my DP, they’re lovely lovely souls, were like, they basically kind of pushed me to be like, “You need to be more assertive, you need to make decisions. If it’s the wrong decision, we can change it, but you need to just make decisions. You need to just do things.” I think that was like halfway through the filming process that they did.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: They didn’t even mean it as like an intervention. I think we were just talking about other things.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But it just kind of made me realize, like, okay this is a weakness I have. I need to fix it.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so I tried to, and I improved, I know I did. I have a long way to go, I know that. But like there was definitely a learning curve that I think I wouldn’t have become aware of the learning curve if it had not been for those people who kind of pushed me in that direction. So I’m very grateful they did that, but like the reason I was struggling with those things has a lot to do with my gender.
KAYLA: Mhm. What I think is interesting is I am also quite an indecisive person, but I think I’ve found that when I was directing that didn’t really come up. But I think that’s because a lot of my indecisiveness comes from worrying about other people not agreeing with me, and even like deciding where I want to go to dinner with someone. I don’t want to decide because what if what I pick isn’t what they want and then they’re upset? Blah blah blah. When I was directing, it was kind of like, okay if I want to make the scene go this way or I decide I want the set to look like this, is anyone gonna be upset with me? Probably not. And if they do it’s not their job, so it was interesting that it didn’t impact me as much in a position that you’d think it would.
SARAH: There were also times where I was letting too many opinions come at me and hearing from too many people at once and not being like, no, I’m the director, this is what’s happening. At one point someone told me, “I have no idea how you could handle that, I would’ve snapped at someone by now,” and I didn’t even realize that was happening. That was just how I operate. I’m not usually in charge of things and so I didn’t even realize that I was … it wasn’t that I was letting people walk all over me, that’s not what was happening. They were genuinely trying to help and contribute and I welcomed help and contributions, but I didn’t know where to draw the line of this is my decision and this is what’s happening and we’re doing it now. And there were a couple times towards the end where I got to that point after probably talking about it for too long where I was like, “no this is what we’re doing.” And they were like, “okay.” But I mean that was something I struggled with, especially if it was people who were outright disagreeing with me on things.
KAYLA: Mhm.
SARAH: That was difficult to handle for me. But I basically had to be like, no, I’m the director. The other thing I kind of struggled with was I was very insistent on not being a diva director. Part of that is definitely my personality.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I don’t want a ton of attention. I don’t want people to go out of their way to do stuff. But part of it was because I didn't want to be construed a certain way as a director. And a lot of male directors, I think, are diva directors, but they’re not seen as diva directors because they're men. And I was very conscious of that. And then there were some times where someone was like, “Do you want this?” And I’d be like, “I don’t wanna be a diva director,” and they’d be like, “No, I’m gonna do this.” I felt bad that they were doing it, and was it useful? Yes. But I just felt guilty that they were doing stuff for me even though that was their job, and they were helping me do my job better because I just didn’t want to be that person who was asking for too much. Sitting on my high horse being like do this for me, do that for me.
[35:00]
KAYLA: See, I had no problem with that.
SARAH: We’re just very different people in that respect.
KAYLA: Well, yeah, and I think the situations were different, too. The club I was directing for, I had seen a lot of directors before refuse help at all, and do everything themselves, and I saw how it impacted certain things and like how stressed it made them. Then I was going into it, I was like, “I’m not gonna do that.” So there were a lot of times when I would get things in and I would immediately delegate them and say like, “No, I’m not. I will not take the time to do this when I know someone else could do it.”
SARAH: Yeah. I think it was also just that I didn’t go into starting my film degree being like, I want to direct. And I think I mentioned this before, but a lot of times previously when I had been on set, it was mostly to get experience on set and to get a feel for how things work. I was never assertive enough to be like… I was like, “It’d be cool to direct,” but I didn’t feel like I had enough passion for it to be assertive enough to be like, “No. I’m gonna direct.” So I did the jobs that no one else wanted to do. Part of that is because, yes, my interests do lie more in writing. Part of that is because, I think, of my gender. I think there were other people who may not have been dead set on directing either, but they ended up directing because they stepped up and they were assertive and they were like, “no, I want to try it,” and I just never did that. Also because there were - I’m thinking of one specific situation when we were in a group of seven and I was the only girl - I had written the thing and I had already dealt with that, and I was like, “the thing i want most is to be a writer so if you let me do that I’ll do whatever.” But I definitely don’t know that I would have acted differently or had a different role had I been, if I were a man. ANd so I never really paid attention to directors too closely before, because I didn't anticipate doing it, and then when I was encouraged to do it, then I felt super unprepared because I hadn’t considered doing this. Then I also felt kind of guilty cos I knew how long people had wanted to direct, and the fact that I was chosen even though I didn’t even apply to do it in the first place, I felt a little guilty about. You also have to find the right person for the project and I think it was really important to them that they have all female directors.
KAYLA: I just think it was funny ‘cause the year before you directed this movie, we did Bloom. ANd I remember you saying, “I do not want to direct.” You were like, “I want nothing to do with directing, that's not what I want,” and I was like, “Well, I want to do it. You write it, I’ll direct it.” And you were so involved in the process, but I remember you saying, “I don’t want to direct.”
SARAH: Yeah. I think that was in part because I know the dangers of directing your own thing. I would, I mean, watch me eat my words later, but I never see myself being writer/director on anything. As somebody who has directed someone else’s stuff, you have to make choices, and it may not be exactly what they imagined, and my writing is my baby, and I cannot be the person to be like, “Well this isn’t gonna happen. I’m gonna have to change this.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I just don’t think I could do it. I also just didn’t feel equipped to direct, I think also. And now here I am. Well, when my professor was trying to get me to direct I initially said no, then he pushed me again and my mom was like, “Sarah you should do this.” And then I ended up doing it. But I had to be pushed to direct. People had to push me into it and had those people not done that, I wouldn’t be there. I wouldn’t be where I am, I wouldn’t have the experience that I’ve had, I wouldn't have a film premiering in a film festival, there’s a lot of things that would be very different and I’m grateful that those people pushed me to do better so that I could be here. But historically, women haven’t been pushed to do those things. And that’s the tea.
KAYLA: Indeed.
SARAH: DO you have anything else that you have to say about being a woman in a position of power? Being a queer woman?
KAYLA: I mean, not really, I think we mostly said it all. I think for me, definitely me being a woman impacts stuff a lot more than me being queer. The most that being queer does is relating to the other people I’m in charge of, maybe. Or it just doesn’t come up at all.
SARAH: Mhm. The other thing that I felt good about when I was in this position of power was that I got final say on casting, which meant I got to give myself a diverse cast.
[40:00]
SARAH: And I mean, you’re obviously limited to who you have audition, but it was important to me to do that. The two lead characters, like the actors, are white, but the other two characters are not white, and it is not the greatest that both of the leads are white and the supporting characters are people of color, but it was important to me that we had people of color represented, and so I fucking did. And I was like, “This is cool, I’m glad I get to do this.”
KAYLA: Casting is fun. I definitely like just -
SARAH: Having the power.
KAYLA: There is something empowering about like, being the one in charge. Remember when we were casting for Bloom, at one point we were talking about - I don’t remember who it was - but we were talking about casting a certain character. And I was like, “This is who I think it should be,” and Erin (who was casting with us) was like, “Alright, well, you’re in charge, so that’s who it’s gonna be then.” And I was like, “OH.”
SARAH: There were a couple times at the beginning when people would ask me questions and I’d be like, “I don’t know, we should ask some…” and then I’d be like, “me. I’m in charge. This is why you asked me.”
KAYLA: I’m the one to ask!
SARAH: Like, what? I have no one else! What? Then I would turn to my AD and be like, “Austen, help me.”
KAYLA: It is cool having that final say.
SARAH: TL;DR….
KAYLA: Being a woman sucks.
SARAH: Being a woman in a position of power is hard, but I think it’s great, and it’s worth doing. And if you have the opportunity to do it, or if you have the opportunity to push someone you know who you think would be good at it to do it, do that. Because I think a lot of women might have great potential in doing something, and they’re not gonna do it on their own because they’re a woman and they have certain expectations of what they should do and what their assertiveness level is. And they need to be pushed to do stuff, which is how I ended up here.
KAYLA: Yep.
SARAH: So yeah.
KAYLA: Yay.
SARAH: We just did a gentle hi-five.
KAYLA: Indeed.
SARAH: Okay. So what's the poll for this week?
KAYLA: I don’t know. I was just thinking about that. Maybe, like, women? Yes, yes, yes, and yes?
SARAH: That would be a secondary poll, I think. Primary poll, how about this? How about, I want to ask some sort of question about - whether or not a person has been in a position of power, they’ve had other people in a position of power over them. So I guess, I kind of want to know what the gender split is. Like people who have had bosses and people who have had directors, I think teachers are a different situation because teaching is a heavily female …
KAYLA: Lots of women.
SARAH: … ‘cause of all sorts of stereotypes. But I am curious to see in terms of bosses, directors, presidents of groups and clubs - fun thing on our Quidditch team, last night we elected our first ever female head captain and it was very exciting. We have had female captains before but never head captains. It was super exciting.
KAYLA: I thought it was exciting and also what was exciting was the fact that people brought up like I want a woman as a head captain. I want that. ‘Cause it’s a co-ed sport.
SARAH: I also found out last night that most teams don’t have as many girls on them as ours does.
KAYLA: Oh yeah.
SARAH: I didn’t realize that our team is pretty much 50/50 and that’s not true of other teams.
KAYLA: It’s not common.
SARAH: So I found that out last night and was like that’s fucking cool. I like that.
KAYLA: Indeed.
SARAH: Cool. What question are we gonna ask?
KAYLA: I don’t know. Well, the women one is definitely gonna be one of the polls.
SARAH: The primary poll might have to be open ended ‘cause I don’t know how to give options. So the primary poll, we’ll be asking about your experience with people in a position of power and the gender breakdown. For example, in the United States, we’ve never had a female President or a female Vice President.
KAYLA: True. Okay I'll figure the wording of that out.
SARAH: Cool. Secondary poll is women? Yes, yes, yes, yes. We’ll see which one wins. I’m excited.
KAYLA: It’s like when people do the twitter polls that are like, snail races.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: [Gasp.]
BOTH: Cow race?
KAYLA: Tertiary poll.
SARAH: Cow race. Can we do Herbert vs. Georgie?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Cool.
KAYLA: But wait, no I don’t want to hurt their feelings. But also what if people -
[45:00]
SARAH: I don’t think it’s gonna be a referendum on us, I think it’s gonna be a referendum on their names.
KAYLA: I still - okay, we can, but I’m gonna be upset.
SARAH: Or we can just do a cow race. We can just do a cow race.
KAYLA: We’ll just do a cow race.
SARAH: Okay. What’s your beef of the week? I know what my beef of the week is.
KAYLA: Go.
SARAH: Speaking of women. My beef of the week, well not all women, and also - whatever. My beef of the week is menstruation. That’s all.
KAYLA: Oh! Me too. I’m - that’s also mine. My boyfriend recently experienced me having cramps for the first time. He truly - it was very sweet - had no idea what to do. He was like, “Do you need anything?” And I was like, “No I can just actively feel blood come out of my body and I’m in a lot of pain.” I was like squirming, my feet move around a lot when I’m in pain. But I said that and he was like, “I’m eating right now.” And I was like, “So am I and there’s blood coming out of me. So you don’t think I’m grossed out?” I would also like my beef of the week to be menstruation.
SARAH: My beef of the week is menstruation. And anyone who is out there who menstruates, you probably understand.
KAYLA: Anyone out there who doesn’t … I want to be you.
SARAH: That’s so offensive.
KAYLA: I asked my male friend the other day - it was Perry - I asked him what it was like to never have a period. And he was like, “Pretty great.” And I was like, “Fuck you.”
SARAH: Imagine being able to go play sports, go swimming, go on vacation, without ever having to think about the fact that you might start bleeding.
KAYLA: It’s something that you just think about all the time. The week before my period started this month I was like, “I feel it coming. I think I have like a day or two.” And you just feel it and know. But I had to think about that! I’m feeling this way, this is happening, I probably have this many days. It’s insane.
SARAH: I would always think about it in terms of tournaments and gymnastics meets and like, will I be able to avoid it? You can’t control it. But I would pay attention and be like, “Okay, looks like I'm safe for this tournament. This tournament might be an issue.” Our uniforms are white. We wear white shorts.
KAYLA: And when you’re in gymnastics, it’s hard. It’s like, what am I ….
SARAH: So that always stressed me out a lot.
KAYLA: Yeah. It’s not fun.
SARAH: Sometimes I just think about how men don’t have to think - don’t ever have to worry - they don’t even think about periods at all ever.
KAYLA: Don’t have to.
SARAH: Every day of the month, they can just do whatever they want without thinking.
KAYLA: I mean they think about periods in a different way.
SARAH: I mean, who? Get over yourselves.
KAYLA: No, I know. I’m just saying, like -
SARAH: It’s much worse for me.
KAYLA: Oh yeah.
SARAH: I don’t think I want to go into this. I’m really ace, okay?
KAYLA: No, just sometimes I will be asked where I am on my cycle just to know what can be done at that point in time. It’s just funny ‘cause I’m like, “this is the only worry you have about this.”
SARAH: That’s so frustrating. That’s so frustrating to me.
KAYLA: It’s not like I’m mad, but it’s funny.
SARAH: I know. It's not their fault.
KAYLA: It is funny that’s the biggest concern that people without periods have if they’re people that have sex, is this gonna impede my sex having for a week. And that’s the only reason they have to think about it. It’s not their fault, I’m not mad about it, but like -
SARAH: But I’m mad.
KAYLA: I’m jealous.
SARAH: I’m jealous.
KAYLA: Yeah, it is funny.
SARAH: Well, that’s upsetting. You can find our multiple polls and our cow race on our Twitter -
KAYLA: Should we do a cow race every week?
SARAH: I don’t know.
KAYLA: Maybe.
SARAH: @ SoundsFakePod. You can find all of our other social medias by - I mean, we’re SoundsFakePod everywhere. SoundsFakePod.com. SoundsFakePod.tumblr.com. SoundsFakePod@gmail.com. Hit up our social media if you haven't seen Georgie and Herbert yet
KAYLA: They will be there and looking cute.
SARAH: We will be using our social media to keep you updated on our livestream, once again that’s May 17th 5:30pm Eastern.
KAYLA: If you want to be kept updated on our lives as a lot of things change soon, a lot of you I tweeted that I had my last class ever, it was (for those of you who asked) it was my feminist class that was my last class.
SARAH: Oh my god are you no longer in a feminism class?
KAYLA: Well I still have a paper to write. But it was funny cos it was my last class and someone asked, “Was it a feminism class?” And I was like, “fuck.” But a lot of you liked my tweet and it was very sweet. And a lot of you said congrats.
SARAH: I’m @costiellie everywhere. Unfortunately. I still am trying to change it, but it could be years.
KAYLA: Probably. And I am Kayla_Kas.
SARAH: Yeah boy. Validate us.
KAYLA: Honestly please. Someone recently commented on one of my Instagram posts, a listener, and I commented back, and they like freaked out that I answered, and I was like, “I have like 3 followers on Instagram, it’s not, I’m not…”
SARAH: We’re not that famous y’all. We’re not famous at all, as a matter of fact.
KAYLA: Yet.
SARAH: The dream is to be slightly famous enough that I can have the little blue check mark that means I can get a handle that is my name. That’s literally the only reason I want to get verified. I want to be able to have my name as my handle on both my Instagram and Twitter.
KAYLA: I would like, I mean even with money (you can do that now, you can pay someone off), but I would like our social medias to be verified. Or, I think on Instagram it’s verified or over 10,000 followers and you can do the swipe up on stories that have links. We can’t do that right now and it’s so impeding. Can’t share fucking links.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: That’s what I would like. I also like free things. I’d like to be on PR lists.
SARAH: Okay…
KAYLA: Would you not?
SARAH: I just didn’t even think about it.
KAYLA: Oh, I would like to be famous for the free things mostly.
SARAH: Interesting. Alright. If you want to help us get famous? You can donate money to us.
KAYLA: Send us free money. That's a start.
SARAH: Through our PayPal or our Patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod. I just realized our Patrons aren’t pulled up. The Patrons aren’t pulled up! Panic! Panic! Our $2 Patrons are Keith McBlane, Roxanne, AliceIsInSpace, Anonymous, Quentin Pollock, Nathan Dennison, and Mariah Walzer. $5 are Jennifer Smart, Asritha Vinnakota, Austin Andrews, Perry Fiero, and my Aunt Jeanie (thank you for the cows), D, and Benjamin Ybarra. If you’d like me to pronounce your name correctly, hit us up. Our $10 Patrons are Kevin and Tessa, @dirtyunclekevin and @tessa_m_k, Sarah Jones who can be found @eternallolly, Arkness who’d like to promote the Trevor Project. And our $15 Patrons are Nathaniel White (nathanieljwhitedesigns.com) and Anonymous who would like to promote the end of the semester I believe, still.
KAYLA: Probably.
SARAH: Thanks for listening. Tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: And til then, take good care of Herbert and Georgie.
SARAH: Yeah.