About the Film

Building on her influential cinematic talk, Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Cinema, film director Nina Menkes takes us on an eye-opening journey through the gendered politics of shot design. Using more than 175 film clips from canonical Hollywood favorites and cult classics as well as interviews with filmmakers and scholars, Brainwashed reveals a sinister framework of misogyny and paternalism that, from early cinema to the present day, infiltrates some of our favorite movies.

Brainwashed is a mesmerizing journey that compels the casual moviegoer and cinephile alike to confront how the visual language of cinema is used to disempower women at the most fundamental level, with real-life, tangible consequences including sexual assault and employment discrimination.