Ninja Thyberg (Gothenburg, 1984) saw his first pornographic film at 16 years. Outcome? She became an anti-porn activist, she did not like what she saw reflected there, that is, how women were degraded and sexualized to the delight of men, so she began to train on the subject, she entered a feminist collective, in the university studied genres and wrote an essay. His fundamental interests focused on the roles of domination and submission within that industry and the male gaze that transforms women into an object.
When he started working as a filmmaker filmed a short film, ‘Pleasure’ (2013) that would become the germ of his debut. In her, invites you to blow up a good series of taboos, to break down moral barriers through this controversial issue and to scrutinize what would be the place of women in this toxic universe.
“When I began to delve into these issues, I focused on women as victims, until I realized that it could be treated from other perspectives,” says the director during her visit to Madrid to present this film that got the Cannes seal in its pandemic edition and that is now premiering on our screens.
Far from the cliché
Indeed, the protagonist of ‘Pleasure’, Bella (the magnetic debutante Sofia Kappel) escapes any kind of cliché. She has just landed in Los Angeles from her native Sweden and wants to become a ‘pornstar’. He knows practically nothing about this industry and will soon discover that, to rise within it, he will have to sell his soul to the devil, in this case, to a patriarchal system that uses women as objects to satisfy its desires and spread the macho seed. . Doesn’t this all really look like real life? “Indeed. When I started making the film I realized that this microcosm was actually an allegory of the society we live in, and that the porn industry is not so far removed from the operation of any other sector. At the end of the day, it is a power structure in which men rule, they are at the top of the pyramid, “continues the director.
“For me it was important not to victimize, women have the power to confront patriarchy in very different ways”
The question is, how can a woman empower herself within this flawed mechanism and take charge of her life? That’s what ‘Pleasure’ is about. “For me it was important not to victimize, women have the power to confront patriarchy in very different ways. In this case, the protagonist has her strategy and manages to take charge of her own story. It is an object, true, but also a subject “.
The film also deals with other topics that are present in our day to day, such as racism, classism, machismo and exploitation. Also the poisoning that has always exercised ‘the American dream’ and its most perverse side, as well as all the hypocrisy that it entails.
Not easy look
‘Pleasure’ is one of those films that does not make it easy for the viewer, since it forces them to face difficult situations to assimilate, such as videos being filmed simulating rapes that are actually very close to being rape, or that the protagonist has to feign pleasure with a double anal penetration when in reality she is tearing herself apart. “It is a problem that the sexual education of young people is based on these images in which women are abused. That is why I decided to undertake this fight, and the important thing is that I have never been alone, sisterhood among women is increasing and fortunately nothing is seen with the eyes of the past. ”
That erect penises appear in the movie it was almost a political question for the director. “We are used to seeing women naked, something that has to do with the male gaze in general within the art world. And what about penises? The myth of the male genitalia is something that they have created themselves. We have the idea that the penis implies power and it is about turning all that around“.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.