“Gritty” and “Morally Ambiguous” Student Film Just Sexist and Racist
By Charlie McCollum
SAN CLEMENTE, CA –– SCA Film Production student Marcel Caspér promised his audience to expect something “new,” “thought-provoking,” and “controversial” with his new short’s premiere at the Orange County Virtual Film Festival, but it turns out that the project is just sexist and racist.
The short, entitled “Baby Girl,” revolves around a man obsessed with the woman who lives across the street from him. With its gruesome fight scenes, moody monologues, and pretty blatant microaggressions, the project has received plenty of attention from not just the Academy, but also multiple student film ethics committees.
Though Caspér intended female love interest “Voluptuous Annie” to be the next iconic femme fatale in the cinema zeitgeist, sources report that her character was woefully underdeveloped and completely shrouded by the male gaze. In a scene many theater-goers describe as “unnecessary” and “deeply problematic,” Voluptuous Annie has gratuitous oral sex with a taxi driver, who is also played by Caspér. In a disturbingly artful shot, Caspér also sucks her toes.
When discussing his approach to filming this raunchy rendezvous, Caspér said “I just wanted to lay down humanity to its bare essentials. We are all erotic, perverted, and violent flesh prisons haunted by existential dread; a dread perfectly articulated by Sarte, Bergman, and Josh & Benny Safdie.”
Sources claim another lowlight occurs at the beginning of the film, where the protagonist mansplains his deeply racist personal grievances with highly contrasted black and white images of the protagonist pouring himself a drink that’s “99% vodka, 1% blood” overlaying the screen. Caspér also boasted that his cast and crew consisted of “all lives,” which didn’t sit well with USC’s student body but won over the Orange County panelists.
“I thought it looked great for my reel,” said actress Jane Wilson, who played the role of Voluptuous Annie. “It’s not every day you can do something so patronizing for some cold hard industry experience.”
The film will be released and featured in an SCA hallway this spring.
