253 E. Houston St
New York, NY 10002
PROGRAM:
GB Jones, The Lollipop Generation, Super8 and video, 70mins, 2008
Dirty Looks celebrates its second anniversary with a screening of legendary queercore epic The Lollipop Generation. Shot over the course of thirteen years, this defiantly lo-fi first feature from Canadian DIY filmmaker and queercore trailblazer G.B. Jones records and celebrates the fierce, unruly subcultural ethos of a generation of queer troublemakers. A riotous mix of grungy, grainy Super8 and fuzzed-out video, The Lollipop Generation follows teenage runaway Georgie as she traipses across North America, with her lollipop-licking band of misfit queer street kids. Along the way, they turn tricks, rob perverts, run from a mysterious red van full of “horrible homos” with a taste for underage flesh, and make a lot of porn.
The film, shot “one Super-8 reel at a time”—whenever Jones could afford to buy another cartridge—emerges as a social diary, documenting an anarchic generation of underground performance and avant-garde practices, and starring a host of queer, punk, and zine luminaries, among them zinester and Yo-Yo Gang star Jena von Brücker, original riot grrrl Jen Smith, writer Mark Ewert, queer artist and filmmaker Scott Treleaven, Jane Danger of queercore band Three Dollar Bill, K Records founder and indie rock torchbearer Calvin Johnson, Joel Gibb of The Hidden Cameras, and the incomparable Vaginal Davis.
G.B. Jones is a Canadian filmmaker, artist, musician, writer and publisher of zines, and a founding figure in the queercore movement. She has directed and appeared in several underground films. In addition to The Lollipop Generation, her own films include The Troublemakers (1990) and The Yo-Yo Gang (1992). Most recently, she was featured in the documentary She Said Boom!: The Story of Fifth Column (2012). Jones is a founding member of the post-punk band Fifth Column, a seminal influence on the development of the queercore and riot grrrl movements. In addition, J.D.s, the fanzine she published with Bruce LaBruce from 1985 to 1991, is largely credited as the catalyst that launched the queercore scene. Jones has had solo visual art exhibitions at Feature, New York and Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto, among others. Her work has been reviewed and featured in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Village Voice, Artforum, Flash Art, and LTTR. Jones lives and works in Toronto.