Calm The F**k Down

RESEARCH STATEMENT 

The Research Question

Exploring a documentary approach to the topic of male violence against women and children within the ethics approval environment of the academy.

Background to the Research Question

This project has been developed from research generated by a 2020 faculty engagement grant received by myself and VCA FTV colleagues Dr Angie Black and Siobhan Jackson. The applicants had been affected by male violence against women and children and wanted to explore a feminist filmmaker response to it. In this research grant collaboration, the question was raised— why? What is going on in the minds of the men who commit acts of violence against those they purport to love?

Methodology

This project applies a Creative Practice Research methodology.

Research & Creative Process

My response to this query as a documentary filmmaker was to film with perpetrators. However, in discussion with my colleagues it became clear that the ethics environment and requirements within the academy made approval for this approach highly unlikely. Working with actors as a response became an option that led to the notion of putting the male perpetrator experience in the female body.

This evolved into a collaboration with theatre maker Penelope Bartlau, to develop a performance-based exploration that was also to be filmed as a documentary.

Research Stages

1) CONSULTATION/LITERATURE REVIEW with key organisations, experts, researchers, and practitioners in the Family Violence and Men’s behaviour change sectors.

2) DEVELOPMENT/Planning of Creative process in response to the research material, which resulted in the design of a three-day workshop with four female actors, to be directed by Penelope Bartlau and filmed by me.

3) APPLICATION OF PROCESS was through the filming, delivery and completion of the 3-day workshop.

4) THE FINAL OUTCOME is an edited stand-alone 40-minute documentary.

Discussion

• What happens in the articulation of the male voice in perpetration of male violence against women and children when it is embodied by actors and in the female form?

• What does the process of the female actor embodiment as a way of “seeing” this behaviour through a non-male lens bring to our understanding of the topic?

• What does this approach bring to the application of documentary filmmaking to social and political enquiry in the academy?

Impact

The relevance and urgency of the project topic—male violence against women and children —are made clear in the findings of the Australia’s first Royal Commission into Family Violence, commissioned by the Victorian State Government and delivered in 2016. In 2024 the federal government declared violence against women and children a national emergency (Elfy 2024).

My research indicates that there is little filmic or performative discourse that seeks to articulate the interior male voice— the perpetrator voice— on this issue. One example is the New Zealand feature film Once Were Warriors (Tamahori 1994) which provides an extremely powerful portrayal of male violence against women and children in a family setting that does provide a window into the world and mind of the perpetrator. Filmic treatments of this issue tend to explore the female experience. Some examples include the television series on SBS TV in 2021 based on Jessica Hills book on domestic abuse See What You Made Me Do (Hill 2020) that emphasises the experience of women and children. A narrative fiction exploration of the theme, once again from the female perspective, is A Question of Silence, a 1982 Dutch drama film written and directed by Marleen Gorris, regarded as an “art“ film and well received. The topic has moved to the more contemporary mainstream platform Netflix with the series Big Little Lies (Valee & Arnold 2017) which has a main story line throughout of male violence against women and children, once again from the female perspective.

This project seeks to contribute to the public discourse, and fill this gap, by utilising a provocative performative approach —the embodiment of the male voice in the female form. One reference that provides some indication of the power of this approach is the recreation of Donald Trump's “Access Hollywood” tape by comedian Sarah Cooper and actor Helen Mirren (The Daily Beast 2020). By combining this approach with the tradition of observational documentary, the project aims to provoke a series of questions and insights:

• What thought processes provoke a man to be violent toward those he purports to love?

• What if women in everyday life behaved the way that the female actors in this project did?

• How much does society rely on women NOT behaving in this way and how much does that give permission to men to engage in the violent behaviour?

The project also proposes a way through the ethics approval process of the academy for documentary filmmakers working with contentious material and vulnerable participants. Whether it is successful in its endeavour and repeatable are issues for discussion.

PEER REVIEW 1 

Domestic violence and violence against women are perennial topical issues that cross cultural, geographic and social divides. The choice to explore this topic through the female actors’ lens is an interesting experiment to conduct. The reason this creative treatment was taken by Gaynor is also highly relevant to the academy: instead of exploring the actual subjects (perpetrators), as was the filmmaker’s first inclination and in accordance with well-established documentary practice, Gaynor needed to devise an approach to the subject matter that would satisfy the research ethics requirements of the academy. The discussion point Gaynor raises in relation to this is a useful one to consider. And, while not the original intention of the research, the film is also relevant as a learning resource for student filmmakers in its portrayal of actors’ intellectual, physical and emotional processes.

In the research statement, Gaynor points to the potential impact this “provocative performance approach” can have, referencing comedian Sarah Cooper’s “Access Hollywood” lip-sync with actor Helen Mirren. In Gaynor’s work, utilising female actors to answer the question, “What is going on in the minds of the men who commit acts of violence against those they purport to love?” is thought-provoking and intriguing in its potential to uncover pathways to understanding and for impacting change. However, the most interesting aspect of Gaynor’s exploration is, to my mind, less about female actors who embody the psyche of male DV perpetrators, and more about the actor’s actual journey of discovery in this process, and the discussion this generates between the participants. Their descriptions on what they see as the limited “bandwidth” available to these men in processing their emotions does go some way to exploring and answering the question the study wishes to raise.

If the experiment were with male actors seeking to comprehend the violent acts of their fellow men, the process and ensuing discussions may prove just as illuminating, and possibly more so given the perspectives and experiences they uniquely bring. However, I imagine, given the all too often tragic outcomes we are familiar with and know statistically to be true, the performances would likely be more chilling and viscerally felt by an audience. Considering this, having females in place of males in this role does create more room for an intellectual exploration without instinctual fear possibly dominating the viewing experience.

Calm the F**k Down is a well-made and eloquent documentary film observing the process of female actors each tasked with performing the character of a male DV perpetrator. This novel approach was devised to enable the filmmaker to offer a portrayal of these men from their perspective, and to do so within the ethics framework of the academy. The research question raised by Gaynor, the documentary film and the subsequent discussion points articulated in the research statement all work together to offer rich material from which to explore an important and timely topic. How the film and this practice may be best utilised to achieve much needed change is ripe for further interrogation.

PEER REVIEW 2 

The project’s concept is, without a shadow of a doubt, both interesting and provocative. It foregrounds a feminist response to male violence by using a workshop of female actors to embody male perpetrators—a method that feels urgent and brave. The performance-based documentary approach is compelling, combining rehearsal, improvisation, and documentary techniques to interrogate gendered violence. What particularly resonated with me is the style, which recalls the improvisatory, character-driven tradition of 1960s New York independent cinema. Cassavetes’ Shadows (1959), filmed with actors from his own method workshop, comes to mind. That legacy — blending realism, theatre, and documentary — is present here and enhances the work’s power. The film is accessible to both academic and broader audiences, generating a cathartic response that invites reflection on the “mystery” of recurring violent behaviour in men. The creative experiment succeeds in stimulating insights and further questions in equal measure.

The ambition of the research — to explore the inner life of perpetrators through a feminist lens — is both ethically sound and theoretically rich. The project is timely, responding to what Australian authorities have labelled a “national emergency.” However, while the choice to cast only women creates a strong feminist counter-narrative, it may limit the project’s potential to genuinely explore male psychology. The absence of male voices — aside from a Zoom intervention by a sociologist—risks reducing the complexity the project aims to uncover. To address this, I suggest two potential directions that would not compromise the feminist position but might enrich the methodology: 

1. Introduce short interviews with male viewers after screenings, to explore their perceptions of the female-performed male roles. 

2. In future stages or iterations, consider involving male actors to perform the same texts or to embody female responses — opening another interpretive layer. These are not criticisms but suggestions for expanding the dialogue the film initiates.

The submission demonstrates a clear practice-led methodology, grounded in creative development, collaboration and embodied performance. The workshop process, actor direction and observational filming are all integral to the research. The film exemplifies how knowledge can be generated through staged performance, improvisation and filmmaker proximity. That said, the research statement would benefit from a deeper reflection on the limitations of this methodology. For instance, why was an all-female cast chosen? What does this choice clarify or obscure? Could the researcher’s presence in the film — as a silent camera operator — be reconceived as an authorial intervention, adding a philosophical or confessional layer? These are not weaknesses per se, but elements that could be more fully developed in the written statement. The research would also benefit from theoretical contextualisation: the “female gaze” as discussed in feminist film theory, and a clearer link to traditions in documentary theatre and Cassavetes-style improvisation.

Please provide feedback/suggestions for changes to the research statement or creative work

• Expand the reflection on the decision to exclude male participants.

• Clarify the philosophical implications of using female actors to embody male perpetrators.

• Consider whether the filmmaker’s silent presence could be turned into a more explicitly reflective, authorial role.

• Include references or framing from feminist film theory and documentary-theatre history to support the methodology.

• Deepen the research statement’s conclusion; currently, it feels less developed than the film’s exploratory power suggests.

RESPONSE TO PEER REVIEWS

I would like to thank the reviewers for their thoughtful responses and the questions they raise about the filmmaking process and the areas that could be further explored in both the work and the research statement. 

I agree that the issue of documentary filmmaking in the academy requires further interrogation and that this project is a useful tool in the expansion of this discussion and practice. Catherine Gough-Brady’s video in Sightlines Journal 6 – 2024, ”Questioning Creative Practice Human Research Ethics”, articulates this tension with great clarity and provides a framework with which to consider the topic in relation to Calm the F**K Down. 

The questions raised by the reviewers about the choice of women to embody the violent male — what this provokes, could be taken further, fails to address and succeeds in revealing — are salient. As the project was undertaken as pure research with no commissioning editors or investors to answer to, it really was an experiment, and I had no fixed idea as to the outcome. I did not know if I would even have a screen-able documentary. There was in fact no conscious theoretical framework. Rather, I drew on my practice as an observational documentary filmmaker and performance-led drama director. The most powerful influence was, in fact, the tension between my documentary practice and the ethics environment of the academy, as explored so well by Catherine Gough-Brady (2024). The expansion of the concept to interrogate the outcomes of the experiment and the gaps it reveals about the process I chose, as suggested by the reviewers, are exciting. I can feel another round of research grant applications coming up to put them into practice.

REVISED RESEARCH STATEMENT

The Research Question

Exploring a documentary approach to the topic of male violence against women and children, within the ethics approval environment of the academy.

Background to the Research Question  

This project has been developed from research generated by a 2020 faculty engagement grant received by me and VCA FTV colleagues Dr Angie Black and Siobhan Jackson. The applicants had been affected by male violence against women and children and wanted to explore a feminist filmmaker response to it. In this research grant collaboration, the question was raised —why? What is going on in the minds of the men who commit acts of violence against those they purport to love?  

Methodology  

This project applies a Creative Practice Research methodology.   

Research & Creative Process  

My response to this query as a documentary filmmaker was to film with perpetrators. However, in discussion with my colleagues it became clear that the ethics environment and requirements within the academy made approval for this approach highly unlikely. Working with actors, as a response, became an option that led to the notion of putting the male perpetrator experience in the female body.  

This developed into a collaboration with theatre maker Penelope Bartlau, to develop a performance-based exploration that was also to be filmed as a documentary.

Research Stages

1) CONSULTATION/LITERATURE REVIEW with key organisations, experts,

researchers, and practitioners in the Family Violence and Men’s behaviour

change sectors.

2) DEVELOPMENT/Planning of Creative process in response to the research

material, which resulted in the design of a three-day workshop with four female

actors, to be directed by Penelope Bartlau and filmed by me.

3) APPLICATION OF PROCESS was through the filming, delivery and completion of

the 3-day workshop.

4) THE FINAL OUTCOME is an edited stand-alone 40-minute documentary.  

Discussion

• What happens in the articulation of the male voice in perpetration of male violence against women and children when it is embodied by actors and in the female form?

• What does the process of the female actor embodiment, as a way of “seeing” this behaviour through a non-male lens, bring to our understanding of the topic? 

• What does this approach bring to the application of documentary filmmaking to social and political enquiry in the academy?

Impact

The relevance and urgency of the project topic  male violence against women and children — are made clear in the findings of the Australia’s first Royal Commission into Family Violence, commissioned by the Victorian State Government and delivered in 2016. In 2024 the federal government declared violence against women and children a national emergency (Elfy 2024).

My research indicates that there is little filmic or performative discourse that seeks to articulate the interior male voice —the perpetrator voice —on this issue. One example is the New Zealand feature film Once Were Warriors (Tamahori 1994) which provides an extremely powerful portrayal of male violence against women and children in a family setting that does provide a window into the world and mind of the perpetrator. Filmic treatments of this issue tend to explore the female experience. Some examples include the television series on SBS TV in 2021 (Hill 2021) based on Jessica Hill’s book on domestic abuse, See What You Made Me Do (Hill 2020) that emphasises the experience of women and children. A narrative fiction exploration of the theme, once again from the female perspective, is A Question of Silence, a 1982 Dutch drama film written and directed by Marleen Gorris, regarded as an “art” film and well received. The topic has moved to the more contemporary mainstream platform Netflix with the series Big Little Lies (Valee & Arnold 2017), which has a main story line throughout of male violence against women and children, once again from the female perspective.    

This project seeks to contribute to the public discourse, and fill this gap, by utilising a provocative performative approach - the embodiment of the male voice in the female form. One reference that provides some indication of the power of this approach is the recreation of Donald Trump's “Access Hollywood” tape by comedian Sarah Cooper and actor Helen Mirren (The Daily Beast 2020). By combining this approach with the tradition of observational documentary, the project aims to provoke a series of questions and insights:    

• What thought processes provoke a man to be violent toward those he purports to love?   

• What if women in everyday life behaved the way that the female actors in this project do?   

• How much does society rely on women NOT behaving this way and how much does that give permission to men to engage in the violent behaviour?    

The finished project addresses some of these questions, but others arise: Does the choice to cast only women limit the project’s potential to genuinely explore male psychology? Does the absence of male voices, aside from a Zoom intervention by a men’s behaviour change specialist, risk reducing the complexity the project aims to uncover? Given the intentionally experimental and provocative nature of the research project, this outcome was to be expected, providing provocations for further filmic and scholarly exploration of this approach to address this chronic societal issue. 

The project also proposes one way through the ethics approval process of the academy for documentary filmmakers working with contentious topics and vulnerable participants. However, the methodology again raises as many questions as it answers. A central issue is the disregard for, or irrelevance of, established ethical frameworks of documentary filmmaking and experienced documentary practitioners by the academy’s ethics approval system. Another is the self-censoring that may be occurring in the research environment of the academy, which, to an extent, the framing of this project is an example of.   

REFERENCES

Hill, Jess 2020. See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse. Black Inc.

---. dir. 2021. See What You Made Me Do. Australia: Northern Pictures. TV Series. 

Gorris, Marleen, dir.1982. A Question of Silence. Netherlands: Quartet Films. Feature Film.

Gough-Brady, Catherine. 2024. “Questioning Creative Practice Human Research Ethic” Sightlines Journal 6. https://www.aspera.org.au/sightlines-contribution/questioning-creative-practice-human-research-ethics

Looby, Tosca, dir. 2021. See What You Made Me Do. Aired May 5, 2021, on SBS. https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/see-what-you-made-me-do

Scott, Elfy. 2024. “A major review declares family violence an 'emergency'. Here's what it says needs to change.” SBS News, August 25. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/a-major-review-declaresfamily-violence-an-emergency-heres-what-it-says-needs-to-change/z4ag5ttj3 

The Daily Beast. 2020. “Sarah Cooper and Helen Mirren recreate Trump’s Access Hollywood Tape.” October 27, 2020. https://www.thedailybeast.com/watch-sarah-cooper-and-helen-mirren-recreate-trumps-access-hollywood-tape/

Tamahori, Lee. dir. 1994. Once Were Warriors. New Zealand: Footprint Films. Feature Film. 

Valee, Jean-marc Valee and Arnold, Andrea, dir. 2017. Big Little Lies. US: HBO, 2017-2026. TV Series.