Jessia Epstein’s filmmaking budget back in 2007 was as slim as the models being airbrushed in the first documentary in her series about body image. Now she plans to expand the eleven-minute film, which is called Wet Dreams and False Images, into a one-hour documentary thanks to a grant from the Chicken and Egg Fund. She plans to combine the extended version with her other short documentaries The Guarentee and 34x25x36, as well as one she is working on about teenage girls and skin tone to create a broadcast-news style documentary that can be used in universities.
All the films give an in-depth look at media and body from a variety of perspectives. Wet Dreams and False Images captures a barber’s sense of outrage that all the perfect female images he loves have been retouched. The Guarantee is a true story, narrated by its protagonist, about a boy whose ballet teacher convinced him to get a nose job, while 34x25x36 shows the inner workings of a mannequin factory and the musings of the people who decide what they should look like.
Kathryn Robertson: Why did you want to make a series about body image?
Jesse Epstein: I knew I wanted to study film and maybe try to challenge other media messages. So much of what we’re told in the media is about how people should look, and there’s so much pressure put into certain ways of looking.
When I was growing up, for two years I lived in Africa, and when I came to the U.S. I was a preteen, so I was really confused because in Africa there was a certain way for people to look. Women wanted to be big and strong, but here all my friends wanted to be skinny, so it was very confusing.
KR: How did you come up with the ideas for 34x25x36 and The Guarantee?
JE: I knew I wanted to make a film about body image and airbrushing. I was teaching an all-girls video class in the Lower East Side, and I brought in some magazines and asked if they knew how much it takes to make those images look the way they do. They had no idea, so I just think it’s important for people to know what they’re taking in.
The main goal was I wanted to make a film about body image, not just about eating disorders. I think it’s easy to just talk about extreme cases, but I think this [body image] affects everybody. I’m trying to figure out new ways of discussing these issues. I want to make a series of shorts that can be used by teachers in classrooms so they can start discussions. They’re meant to just raise questions because I don’t have the answers.
KR: Well you must have some opinion.
JE: The idea of perfection is very interesting. No one can be completely perfect, so why are we always surrounded by images of perfection? And I guess on some level, these things are unattainable but they keep us going. Ultimately we get something out of it, but I think it’s still a problem when people think there’s something wrong with them and there isn’t.
