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Sarah Jacobson didn't discover her clitoris until she was 20. She went to high school outside of Minneapolis, listened to R.E.M. and attended Bard College, but she never had an orgasm. This may seem shocking, but ask around and you'll hear plenty of similar stories. Teen-age girls rarely talk with each other about masturbation, and they certainly don't bring it up with boys or their parents. If you don't have an erect penis reminding you what to do, it can be tricky. Jacobson says, "A lot of women have these clits that are really tucked inside. If it's buried really deep, you might not know. I had to go to Planned Parenthood to find out about mine." Instead of bitching about the unfairness of girlhood, Jacobson decided to make a coming-of-age flick about a smart, inexperienced high school senior, Mary Jane, who loses her virginity to a loser--as he relentlessly humps her in the cemetery, he jokingly asks, "You come yet?" At the independent movie theater where Mary Jane sells tickets after school, her older co-workers tell their lost-virginity stories and eventually teach Mary Jane how to masturbate, which she begins to do fervently whenever she can. During her quest for carnal knowledge, Mary Jane (played by Lisa Gerstein from My Life's in Turnaround) gets ample opportunity to swill whiskey in the basement with the boys. Her male co-workers are good-looking, smart, affable and pretty fucked up. At first, she's flattered to feel a part of the boys club, but she quickly figures out that their brand of Bukowski-like intellectual self-destruction is a strictly masculine construct. "Girls have no place in that scene unless they're fucking some guy," Jacobson says. Women have to figure out ways to be a beatnik from scratch, just like they have to figure out that pesky clitoris. The fictional Mary Jane and Jacobson now face the same problem: where to go with their new discoveries? Mary Jane decides on college in Boston; Jacobson plans to start shooting Sleeve, a film about an all-female band in Missoula, Mont. Armed with connections--Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth eventually helped fund Mary Jane; Jello Biafra performed a cameo--the 26-year-old Jacobson hopes to avoid some of Mary Jane's chaos when she shoots and edits Sleeve. "Right after filming Mary Jane was one of the worst times of my life," she says. "I was broke and homeless with no job, no energy and no favors left. And I had to figure out how to get the money to edit the film. It was horrible. Finally, I got a boyfriend who fed me and a job directing a Man or Astroman music video." Jacobson broke up with the boyfriend during editing, and her recently divorced mom came to the rescue, becoming her travel buddy, co-producer and publicity machine--Mrs. Jacobson became notorious at Sundance for her chocolate-chip cookies and Not a Virgin stickers. "Feed the actors unlimited cookies" (especially when they're working for free) was an important mantra that Jacobson learned on Mary Jane's set. She also realized that gonzo filmmaking--Mary Jane was shot in a month in San Francisco--requires extra responsibility. "I didn't want to use an actual 17-year-old to play Mary Jane because I didn't have the resources to deal with the potential effects explicit sex scenes would have on a young woman," Jacobson says. "The actors were always sober, in part because I didn't feel equipped to deal with altered mental states. I thought it would be irresponsible. Plus, movies where the actors are fucked up usually don't turn out very good." Staying in control means more to Jacobson than not getting high on the set. To her, taking responsibility for her movie seems like a natural progression from taking responsibility for her sexuality. Instead of turning over her product to producers and distributors, Jacobson personally brought Mary Jane to festivals, including this year's Sundance, where it earned raves and Jacobson got to be a celebrity for a few days. Now, instead of sitting at home, trying to hear news of how her movie's doing at theaters, and guessing at audience reaction, Jacobson is on tour with Mary Jane the old-fashioned way--in her car. |
