Yu Gu is a filmmaker and visual artist born in Chongqing, China and raised in Vancouver, Canada. Her previous credits include hybrid documentary “A Moth in Spring” and feature documentary “Who Is Arthur Chu?”
“A Woman’s Work: The NFL’s Cheerleader Problem” will premiere at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival on April 27.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
YG: This film is at the intersection of several worlds, including football, women’s rights, and labor rights. At the heart of it all, “A Woman’s Work: The NFL’s Cheerleader Problem” is about women who are brave enough to stand up and rebel against the only community that they’ve known since childhood in order to do what’s right. They stand up against a toxic tradition, a multi-billion, male-dominated corporation, and the religious fervor of America’s favorite pastime. They said no, I will no longer be exploited and these are not my values.
Through this risk, they not only gain what the law could afford, but also the reward of self-knowledge. They come to know their strength and resilience. They learn what it means to fight for their own rights and the rights of women they’ve never met before but share a common bond with.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
YG: All my life I’ve felt like an outsider, as a girl and only child in China, as an Asian woman in the West. When I came to the United States as a graduate student, I fell in love with American football. It was marvelous to me that every Sunday, millions of people from all ethnic and economic backgrounds come together to watch this game that champions hard work, resilience, and competition — principles of the American dream.
The cheerleaders on the field are the most visible, celebrated, and glamorized women in this man’s world. When Lacy first filed her lawsuit alleging that she was paid less than minimum wage in 2014, I suddenly saw so many parallels with my own experience of being devalued.
Asian Americans in the United States have been trapped by the model minority myth. You will be accepted and rewarded only if you agree to blindly toe the line. The cheerleaders were told that this is not a job — it’s a privilege to dance on the field, to be seen as this cultural and sexual icon. I was fascinated that Lacy and the other women rebelled and became outsiders for the first time in their lives — something I knew a lot about. How will they rebuild themselves? How will they change and grow through this fight?
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they leave the theater?
YG: I want the audiences to reflect on themselves. Do you value women’s work? Why or why not? If you think of yourself as a feminist, are there still biases within yourself that separate you from other women? Women, are you perpetuating the same toxic power dynamics and cultural norms of the patriarchy that hurt you? Irrespective of political allegiances, what are your values when it comes to gender equality and how can you better live those values? Collective identity is important, but does that collective serve to uplift all its members?
I want people to understand that in order to change a system that hurts us all, we have to act collectively.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
YG: This film has been extremely difficult to make. It’s so personal to me, and yet on the surface so foreign in the sense that I’m the one who’s foreign. I was shocked by the amount of stereotypes and prejudices I encountered both against my characters, who are former cheerleaders, and against myself, an Asian American woman filmmaker.
During one of the first interviews we conducted with a six-year veteran cheerleader, her husband sat [my producer Elizabeth and me down] and told us point blank, “If these women want money to dance half-naked on the field then they’re whores.” As we continued to apply for funding, we found it difficult to reach funders who were primarily liberal middle to upper class. Ironically, some also dismissed the women in our film because to them, these women chose to objectify themselves, and in a way “asked for it.”
Though it wasn’t necessarily spoken out loud, funders questioned my ability and perspective as a filmmaker to tackle such a mainstream subject, the implication being how dare I conflate women’s rights and labor rights with America’s favorite pastime? The holy altar of sports shouldn’t be tainted, especially not by you. Because of all this noise around me, it was hard for me to focus on my vision — on how I wanted to tell this story, and to believe that my perspective matters.
For women of color, we already carry so much generational trauma in our bodies, as well as the brunt of everyday micro-aggressions. Over the five years of making this film, with the help of mentors, my team, and great filmmaker organizations, I learned the discipline of focus. I focused on the affirmations, on digging deeper within myself, on my relationship with the women I was following, to channel my anger and doubt into my passion for making this film. I’m proud of myself and my team.
W&H: How did you get your film funded?
YG: The first funder to ever believe in our film was the Independent Television Service (ITVS), the independent branch of PBS. Their diversity development fund was the first money in. When they brought our cohort of filmmakers of color to San Francisco for an orientation, it was a powerful and exciting moment. I felt that I had a seat at the table with this film.
After that, we got many rejections, but then we received funding from Sundance Institute, Tribeca All Access, and Firelight Media. At the start of post-production, ITVS funded us through their Open Call process. Most of the major documentary networks turned us down, but it was the independent documentary funders who believed in us and took a risk on us.
We also successfully ran a Kickstarter campaign for finishing and distribution in which we almost doubled our original goal.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
YG: My biggest inspiration is my family. Since I was a child, my parents and my grandparents always told stories about their experiences living through the Communist revolution, the Cultural Revolution, surviving labor camps, and standing up for freedom of expression. They never sugar-coated anything. My family’s emotional honesty taught me that our stories, our dreams, our fears, and our memories matter — they’re beautiful and worthy, even if there are those who seek to erase them.
As a teenager and young adult, I filmed my family in China every chance I got. Since then, filmmaking has become my way to understand the world around me, to connect with people and myself. Because I am a foreigner both in my birthplace and in my chosen home, I need to make my own truths, and filmmaking helps me to envision a place where I belong.
My dad is a visual artist and he inspires me to continue making films. He’s sacrificed a lot for his art and always describes his work as a practice. I adopted that from him — I too see my filmmaking as a lifelong practice.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
YG: Best advice: I will always remember this moment. It was the first time I went back to China, and I was spending Chinese New Year with my maternal grandmother, who lived alone in a tiny apartment. At night, fireworks resounded from every corner outside, great loud booms as if we were in a war zone. I was filming her with my DV camera. She said into the camera, “What are you waiting for? Go outside! Go outside and see.”
It was such a simple thing to say. It was the unassuming, matter-of-fact way she said it that betrayed her complete confidence in me. She didn’t need to understand what a documentary was, or why I was filming. She just knew and she supported me. She told me to follow my humanity and my curiosity with no fear, and to never look away — even when you don’t like what you see. That spirit is my sweet spot as a filmmaker. Maybe I’ll get myself in trouble, and maybe I’m naive, but I’ll always know that I have what it takes to learn and grow.
Worst advice: “You shouldn’t make this film because no one cares about this story or these people.” Fact is, if you care, and if you care passionately, then there will be someone else who does too. The worst advice I’ve gotten comes from those who speak from a place of their own ego, ignorance, or insecurity instead from a place of helping others. There are those who seek to dismantle you, consciously or subconsciously, and you have to protect yourself by differentiating between the good and bad.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
YG: Know yourself and know your worth. Take every opportunity to push yourself, to think outside of the box, and to get out of your comfort zone. Put in the work and prioritize how you feel about yourself and your vision over others’ subjective evaluations.
Never take others’ truths to be your own because they have status or influence, always test it, question it, and find out for yourself. This work can be so exhausting, but try to find your way back to the joy of filmmaking. When I feel like a child at play, that’s when I have the best ideas, and when I’m most true to myself. Even if it’s only for five minutes in a day, enjoy it and treasure it.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
YG: Mina Shum’s “Double Happiness.” When I was growing up in Canada in the ’90s, I mainly watched pirated underground films from the Chinese New Wave that my parents bought. Though I was inspired by the their bold experimentation, literally none of those filmmakers were women.
In 1995, “Double Happiness” came out. My parents rented it for me from the local Blockbuster and I immediately fell in love with Sandra Oh and her character. It was the first time I felt a sense of excitement that I could be a filmmaker, and that female characters can be quirky, funny, heartbreaking, rebellious, and responsible all at once. It was a celebration of everything I was trying to navigate in my pre-teen life — my hyphenated identity, and my desire for self-expression and self-esteem.
Looking back, Mina Shum must have overcome a lot to bring that film to audiences, and it inspired me and many others.
W&H: It’s been a little over a year since the reckoning in Hollywood and the global film industry began. What differences have you noticed since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
YG: When I started this documentary, it was 2014. We used the word “patriarchy” in our funding treatment, and the feedback we got was that that word was too strong and we should change it. After the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements erupted, people are no longer surprised when we talk about the themes in our film, and they’re more open to listening.
I hope that this is just the beginning. We also need to keep talking, and keep bringing attention to every part of our lives. At the heart of any inequality or abuse of women, whether it’s sexual harassment or wage theft, it’s about an imbalance of power. We cannot afford to be short-sighted, complacent, and simplistic in our thinking.
Now more than ever, there are people and funders who are paying attention and supporting films and filmmakers that tackle these themes, and that definitely gives me hope. In the film community, I see more alliances and unity across race and class. But we need to do more to shift our culture, to change both the written and unwritten rules that govern our lives.
