Afrodite Superstar - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Afrodite Superstar is an American independent

Independent film

An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...

art film

Art film

An art film is the result of filmmaking which is typically a serious, independent film aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience...

shot in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

in 2006. The film has also been referred to as erotica

Erotica

Erotica are works of art, including literature, photography, film, sculpture and painting, that deal substantively with erotically stimulating or sexually arousing descriptions...

. The director also refers to the film as an experimental film

Experimental film

Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...

as the characters break the fourth wall

Fourth wall

The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...

, and there is a blend of satire. Afrodite Superstar was directed

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

by Venus Hottentot. Executive producer

Executive producer

An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...

Candida Royalle

Candida Royalle is an American producer and director of couples-oriented pornography and a former pornographic actress. She is member of the XRCO and the AVN Halls of Fame....

is also credited with directing the sexual scenes. Afrodite Superstar has been endorsed by American Association of Sexual Educators, Counselors and Therapists and premiere

Premiere

A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...

d in 2007 at the New School for Social Research with a discussion about women of color and sexual images. The film subsequently screened as part of an art exhibit called Hos, Putas and Dragon Ladies: Our Sexuality Remixed at the chashama Gallery

Chashama

Chashama is a non-profit organization that supports thriving cultural communities by transforming temporarily vacant properties into spaces where art can flourish...

in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

. Afrodite Superstar was nominated for 7 AVN Awards

AVN Awards

The AVN Awards are movie awards sponsored and presented by the American adult video industry trade magazine AVN to honor exceptional performance in various aspects of the creation and marketing of American pornographic movies. They are called the "Oscars of porn"...

in 2007 including "Best Director", "Best Screenplay" and "Best Musical Score." The film was referred to as "erotic" and "cerebral" in Essence Magazine, and was mentioned in the Village Voice's 2007 Sexy Gift Guide by sexpert Tristan Taormino

Tristan Taormino

Tristan Taormino is a feminist author, columnist, sex educator, activist, editor, speaker, and pornographic film director . She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with her Bachelor's degree in American Studies from Wesleyan University in 1993...

Director

Afrodite Superstar was directed by art filmmaker Venus Hottentot. She joins Larry Clark

Larry Clark

Lawrence Donald "Larry" Clark is an American film director, photographer, writer and film producer who is best known for the movie Kids and his photography book Tulsa...

, Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney is an American artist who works in sculpture, photography, drawing and film. His early works were sculptural installations combined with performance and video...

, John Cameron Mitchell

John Cameron Mitchell

John Cameron Mitchell is an American writer, actor, and director. He is best known for his motion pictures Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shortbus and Rabbit Hole.- Early life:...

, Vincent Gallo

Vincent Gallo

Vincent Gallo is an Italian-American film director and actor. Though he has had minor roles in mainstream films such as Goodfellas, he is most associated with independent movies, including Buffalo '66, which he wrote, directed, did the music for and starred in; The Brown Bunny, which he also...

, Michael Winterbottom

Michael Winterbottom

Michael Winterbottom is a prolific English filmmaker who has directed seventeen feature films in the past fifteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features...

and Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...

(Destricted
Destricted
Destricted is an ongoing project of films that explore the line where art and pornography intersect. The UK and US film releases had overlapping but different film lineups...

, Shortbus
Shortbus
Shortbus is a 2006 comedy-drama film written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. The plot revolves around a sexually diverse ensemble of colorful characters trying desperately to connect in New York City. The characters converge in a weekly Brooklyn artistic/sexual salon loosely inspired by...

, The Brown Bunny
The Brown Bunny
The Brown Bunny is a 2003 independent American art house film written, produced and directed by actor Vincent Gallo about a motorcycle racer on a cross-country drive who is haunted by memories of his former lover. The film had its world premiere at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival to boos and catcalls...

, 9 Songs
9 Songs
9 Songs is a 2004 British film directed by Michael Winterbottom. The title refers to the nine songs played by eight different rock bands that complement the story of the film...

and Caligula
Caligula (film)
Caligula is a 1979 American-produced Italian biographical film directed by Tinto Brass, with additional scenes filmed by Giancarlo Lui and Penthouse founder Bob Guccione. The film concerns the rise and fall of Roman Emperor Gaius Caesar Germanicus, better known as Caligula...

) as mainstream filmmakers who sought to make thought-provoking, intelligent films with explicit sexual content.

Venus Hottentot is a feminist art school graduate who wanted to make a film that showed positive sexual representations of women of color to directly contrast the images in pop culture music videos, films and magazines, while also employing comedy and satire. She chose the name Venus Hottentot to reclaim the spirit of a South African woman, also called Saartjie Baartman

Saartjie Baartman

Sarah "Saartjie" Baartman was the most famous of at least two Khoikhoi women who were exhibited as freak show attractions in 19th century Europe under the name Hottentot Venus—"Hottentot" as the then-current name for the Khoi people, now considered an offensive term, and "Venus" in reference to...

, who was sexually displayed and exploited in Europe. The film quotes Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem

Gloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s...

and Bell Hooks

Bell hooks

Gloria Jean Watkins , better known by her pen name bell hooks, is an American author, feminist, and social activist....

, and the director has been called the Zane

Zane (erotica author)

Zane is an African American author of erotic fiction who has written over two dozen novels. She is best known for her novel Addicted. In 1997, Zane began writing erotic stories to pass the time after her children went to bed. She was living in North Carolina and working as a sales representative....

of filmmaking. Venus Hottentot does not use the word "porn" to describe Afrodite Superstar as this term is misleading for this film. To this end, the film has drawn ire from those seeking to use it for pornographic purposes as porn/ audience arousal was not the director's mission. As an African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

filmmaker, her objective with this project was reclaiming the voice and expression of women of color, as well as raising sexual self esteem.

Venus Hottentot has been identified as TV host/novelist and art film maker Abiola Abrams

Abiola Abrams

Abiola Abrams is an American TV host, internet personality, art filmmaker, and author. She is the author of Dare, a love story retelling of Faust set in the hip hop world and creator of a lifestyle blog and web video series at AbiolaTV.com....

Plot

The satirical film spoofs several recent pop cultural It Girl

It girl

"It girl" is a term for a young woman who possess the quality "It", absolute attraction.The early usage of the concept "it" in this meaning may be seen in a story by Rudyard Kipling: "It isn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just 'It'."...

moments such as Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction and Ashlee Simpson's lip synching fiasco. It has also been called an African American Red Shoe Diaries
Red Shoe Diaries
Red Shoe Diaries is an erotic drama series that aired on the American cable television network Showtime from 1992 to 1997 and distributed by Playboy Entertainment overseas...

.

Afrodite Superstar evolves the standard fairytale of Cinderella

Cinderella

"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...

—girl gets her prince and a sense of self as well. The plot summary: Have you ever dreamed of being a superstar? Poor little rich girl AfroDite hasn’t—not until she runs into CEO, the mogul’s mogul of hip hop. Catapulted in to the world of made mega-stars, AfroDite quickly becomes a top selling rapper and nothing can keep her down – not wardrobe malfunctions, not lip synching fiascos, nothing! Well, almost nothing. Finding herself a little socially challenged in the love department, her secret crush CEO only seems to see dollar signs on her forehead. The principal questions are "Will AfroDite get her man" and "Will super-stardom turn out to be everything she never wished for?"

External links

On the Original Hottentot Venus

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