"Tying the Knot"
In collaboration with Anna Lunday

With the prevalent discourse from the #MeToo movement to the male loneliness epidemic and manosphere, this stop motion animation primarily utilizes a split screen to visualize the social construction of gender and the harmful impacts of patriarchy under late stage capitalism. Drawing inspiration from Emily Martin's egg and sperm piece as a departure point, we challenge the socialization and projection of gender norms at conception. We start with the egg and sperm in the beginning as the gender binarization/increasingly entangled socialization starts to form and return to it in the end by showing the reinforcement of the binary and its consequences (the female protagonist is giving testimony in a trial for sexual assault/rape and the male protagonist/his peers are headed to war).

The entangled rope is a recurring motif, and by the end it is such a mess that it cannot be simply pulled apart and unlearned, which also inspired our title “tying the knot” to not only reference this central metaphor but to also act as a double entendre and refer to a colloquial phrase used to denote the act of getting married. We conclude the animation with the protest sign that goes from saying “Down with the patriarchy!” to directly ask the audience “Are you down with the patriarchy?” (Are you complicit with systemic oppression or will you fight it?).

All elements featured in the video were handmade.