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Miranda July’s Joanie 4 Jackie

In the years after the Riot Grrrl movement but before YouTube, feminist artist, writer, filmmaker, and one-time Rihanna interviewer Miranda July began working on a video project named Joanie 4 Jackie. Based in feminist resistance against the male-dominated world of film, July conceptualized a “chain letter” tape made by girls experimenting with film, and sharing their diverse voices, vulnerabilities, and experiences.  

With a DIY attitude, she handed out promotional pamphlets at community centers, colleges, and grocery stores aiming to inspire girls to make films for the first time. She even gave boxes of pamphlets to bands like Bikini Kill so her message could be spread throughout the country. These pamphlets read: 

A Challenge and A Promise: Lady, u send me yr movie + $5.00 & I’ll send you the latest Big Miss Moviola compilation (that’s 10 lady-made movies including yrs.)

The Getty Research Institute has just acquired the Joanie 4 Jackie archive. It joins other archives of feminist and queer artists such as the Guerrilla Girls and Robert Mapplethorpe. July has also launched Joanie4Jackie.com—an online record of the project including original recordings, press, and supplemental ephemera surrounding the work.

“When her father was governor of New York, he and his wife proposed that Alice attend a conservative school for girls in New York City. Pulling out all the stops, Alice wrote, ‘If you send me I will humiliate you. I will do something that will shame you. I tell you I will.’”

“Her father took office in 1901 following the assassination of President William McKinley, Jr. in Buffalo (an event that she greeted with “sheer rapture.”)“

“During the cruise to Japan, Alice jumped into the ship’s pool fully clothed, and coaxed a congressman to join her in the water. (Years later Bobby Kennedy would chide her about the incident, saying it was outrageous for the time, to which the by-then-octogenarian Alice replied that it would only have been outrageous had she removed her clothes.”

“She was dressed in a blue wedding dress and dramatically cut the wedding cake with a sword (borrowed from a military aide attending the reception)”

“When it came time for the Roosevelt family to move out of the White House, Alice buried a Voodoo doll of the new First Lady, Nellie Taft, in the front yard.”

“Later, the Taft White House banned her from her former residence—the first but not the last administration to do so. During Woodrow Wilson’s administration (from which she was banned in 1916 for a bawdy joke at Wilson’s expense)…”

“As an example of her attitudes on race, in 1965 her African-American chauffeur and one of her best friends, Turner, was driving Alice to an appointment. During the trip, he pulled out in front of a taxi, and the driver got out and demanded to know of him, “What do you think you’re doing, you black bastard?” Turner took the insult calmly, but Alice did not and told the taxi driver, “He’s taking me to my destination, you white son of a bitch!”

This is Alice as an older lady. The pillow says “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.”