Sisters With Transistors - TERF Concerns

October 8, 2021 8:41 AM

I really, really want to enjoy this documentary but there are some red flags in it’s treatment of a prominent trans musician - should I recommend it to others?

The “Sisters With Transistors” documentary by Lisa Rovner is extremely my jam. However, the team’s treatment of Wendy Carlos is making me hesitate to recommend it to other people. In a perfect world Carlos would be one of the people front-and-center in this film, but she’s only mentioned briefly, partially dismissed, and is missing from the list of “pioneers” on the SWT website. That same website lists Suzanne Ciani as “the first woman to score a major Hollywood film,” which is only true if you ignore Carlos’s work. There is only one clip of Wendy in the film, and it is pre-transition.

What complicates my evaluation is that Wendy Carlos is an extremely private person and probably objects to being included at all in this documentary, if her objections to previous biographies is any indicator. So it’s very hard to discern if this is trans exclusion or just a ham-handed attempt to deal with Carlos’ desire for privacy. Ironically, many of the interviews with the filmmakers have featured Wendy Carlos’ work, so searching this issue mostly just shows those interviews.

Does anyone know more about the situation around this film, or anything about the history of the filmmakers? I can’t stop vacillating between enthusiasm and dread and would appreciate the insight.

posted by q*ben to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

There is only one clip of Wendy in the film, and it is pre-transition.

This feels like a red flag to me. Why include a pre-transition clip of someone who is well known to be trans? It seems like deadnaming.

I was evaluated for autism by someone who I learned later aligns themselves with TERFs. There were subtle signs of their sympathies during the assessment, but because I am cis, the assessor did not pursue their line of inquiry very far. I absolutely do not recommend them to anyone seeking assessment, cis or trans, and I went public about the experience on Twitter recently.

Find another doc to recommend.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 8:58 AM on October 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

The director is on Facebook; you could message her and ask.
posted by xo at 9:24 AM on October 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

Depends on who you're recommending it to--if this is a group of people who just don't know much about this genre and era of music you can recommend it with the caveat that it doesn't include Carlos. They probably don't know who any of these people are in the first place and it would be a good way to introduce them to Carlos and her works.

If it's a bunch of noise band aficionados then haaaaard no!
posted by kingdead at 9:27 AM on October 8, 2021

In addition to being a private person, Carlos is extremely protective of her media IP rights, and has a history of being aggressively litigious to protect them. So it's possible that the lack of inclusion of interviews is due to rights issues with the video. It would be unusual for Carlos to grant any use rights as she's resisted previous biographical efforts.

The "score a major Hollywood film" reference is more damning in my opinion. It might be hair-splitting though. Kubrick's films were technically independent productions, though they were distributed by major studios. And The Incredible Shrinking Woman beats Tron by one year. Again, hair-splitting, and potentially suspect hair-splitting.
posted by mr_roboto at 9:31 AM on October 8, 2021 [12 favorites]

Response by poster: On some additional searching it seems that that ”fact” was reported by Ciani, so you could shelve this under bad fact-checking I guess. Ciani from the film shows some dislike of Carlos’ work, so that would be consistent.

I think I’m going to enjoy the bits I can enjoy (Laurie Anderson! Eliane Radigue!) but will probably hold off from recommendations. Oh well…
posted by q*ben at 9:39 AM on October 8, 2021

There was a documentary about Robert Moog that came out about fifteen years ago, and if I recall, Wendy Carlos refused to be in it, and didn't want her name mentioned, and threatened legal action. It's a great documentary, but the lack of any mention of "Switched on Bach" certainly made it incomplete. From wikipedia:
"A biography by musicologist Amanda Sewell, Wendy Carlos: A Biography, was published by Oxford University Press in 2020. Although the author was unable to secure on-the-record interviews with the artist or anyone close to her"

I imagine the same thing happened here.
posted by jonathanhughes at 10:08 AM on October 8, 2021 [10 favorites]

I would recommend it with caveats about Wendy Carlos. It sounds like too good a resource for other subjects to withhold a recommendation entirely.
posted by lhauser at 12:48 PM on October 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

Data point: a friend of mine who is both an electronic musician and a trans woman mentioned this documentary to me the other day. She said it was pretty good, but she didn't like how it largely overlooked Wendy Carlos.

So yeah, maybe this isn't such a good documentary to recommend to people who are starting with little knowledge of the subject.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:48 PM on October 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

Will you be recommending other resources to share about the other women in the film? Because erasing them bc of a directors choice doesn’t seem fair or just either. They didnt see the big picture while they were sharing their knowledge and info and history for the documentary. I would give a big caveat but not hesitate to share this important piece of history.
posted by asimplemouse at 3:03 PM on October 8, 2021

Response by poster: I already recommend many of these musicians - hardly seems like erasure to not forward on a documentary. Very little of the information in this film is unavailable elsewhere.
posted by q*ben at 3:50 PM on October 8, 2021 [2 favorites]