FEEDBACK: Jenni Olson's PopcornQ -- Queer Cinema Online
Ron Hogan
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NET DOT BABE: Jenni Olson, Queer Film Archivist
profiled by Ron Hogan (gri...@primenet.com)
Let's say you've seen some of the recent films about gays and lesbians,
like STONEWALL, IT'S MY PARTY, or GO FISH. Perhaps you want to find out
about other recent films, that might be available at your local video store.
Or you're interested in older films that deal with similar themes. Maybe
you're a filmmaker who's putting together a production crew, and you'd like
to hire as many gay and lesbian technical people as possible. The solution
to all these situations can be found in one website: PopcornQ.
Jenni Olson was a film student at the University of Minnesota in 1986, the
year she discovered Vito Russo's book THE CELLULOID CLOSET, the groundbreaking
history of cinematic images of homosexuality. "I started reading it because
I was interested in film," she recalls, "and then realized that I was
interested for other reasons as well." As she began to come to terms with
and accept her lesbian identity, she wanted to see the movies that she was
reading about in Russo's book. "These were films that would speak to me, to
my feelings, and I knew that other people would want to see them, too." The
only problem was that she didn't know how to get a hold of them.
Her first plan was to organize a short festival of gay films on campus, a
plan which the student committee agreed to -- if she would track down the
films herself. "I literally looked through an entire shelf of distribution
catalogs trying to find the gay films. When I went to the library's film
reference section, they had Native American filmographies, African-American
filmographies, Latino filmographies, but no gay filmography." Four years
later, as her final project for her B.A., she began work on a lesbian
filmography, which would include credits, short descriptions, and source
information for non-theatrical and educational exhibition. She took this
catalog with her after graduation, when she moved to San Francisco and
started working for Frameline, the organizers of the annual San Francisco
Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival, the oldest gay-themed film
festival in America. They agreed to look for funding which would allow her
to expand the project, which allowed her to do increased research in order
to add information about films dealing with gay males.
"I realized that a comprehensive catalog would have been impossible, because
there were so many films, with hundreds more every year," she says, "so I
narrowed the parameters to the films that had played at the San Francisco
Festival, so the selection of films would be highly diverse and still
representative." Along the way, she added a few hundred other feature films
that she felt were too important to ignore. "I would read a review and want
to include it; sometimes I directly asked other critics to contribute short
essays to the project." The filmography grew steadily, but as it neared
completion, Frameline suddenly announced that they would have to cut her
funding due to budget problems.
At that point, Tom Rielly stepped in. As a member of Frameline's Board of
Directors, he was familiar with Olson's research. He was also one of the
net's most visible gay activists, a founding member of Digital Queers and
the president of the online resource center Planet Out. He'd already had an
idea for a 'museum' of gay and lesbian film history online, and he invited
Olson to contribute her research to the project. She joined his team of
workers, and they quickly set about adapting her material to the web, making
full use of the medium's interactive possibilities.
The resulting site, PopcornQ, debuted in late June at the 20th anniversary
of the San Francisco Festival, sharing terminal space in the festival's
reception lounge with the newly launched Yahoo! SF Bay Area, the first of
Yahoo's city-based directories. Response from the filmmakers and press in
attendance was enthusiastic, and many first-time users soon entered themselves
in the directory of professional listings. "On the evening of 19 June," Olson
reports, "the site was listed on Netscape's What's New page, and our hits
totally skyrocketed." On the 18th, PopcornQ had only had 1200 page exposures.
The first day on Netscape's list boosted that number to 24,000, and by
25 June, the total was swiftly approaching 182,000 with viewers in nearly
every country in the world that had net access.
Olson's research has also been printed in the traditional book format by
Serpent's Tail as THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO LESBIAN AND GAY FILM AND VIDEO,
but
she promises that the website's growth has just begun. Listings for films and
film professionals will continue to expand, providing information for people
who want to see films that might help them understand their feelings, or who
want to make their own films about those feelings. In a political climate that
seeks to stifle any positive expression of homosexuality, online resources like
PopcornQ are sorely needed and greatly appreciated.
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Copyright 1996 by Grifter Information Technologies
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