Roses Are Red (my love)
I love the enticing little black mask MM wears in the movies. It has become the trademark of her persona. Not that you could ever not know that she is the one behind it, but the mask allows for a certain naughtiness and anonymity to deflect identity—and also, it's a nod to porn conventions. We made Trick Film (Peggy Ahwesh, US, 1996) in 1996 or so, an old-fashioned stag film in which MM wore the mask and wielded a crop. In the movie, she is a dominatrix enjoying a leisurely afternoon at home but has to discipline her pet when the pup makes a mess. Bad puppy! Around that same time, we made Teacher's Pet (Peggy Ahwesh, US, 2006). In this one, MM plays a stern school Mistress and I am the undisciplined student who has snuck comic books into the classroom and gets spanked with a yardstick. Bad student! Then, after graduation, the tables are turned and the student spanks the teacher. Even the teachers are bad! It was so much fun to make those films and also to satisfy our curiosity by dipping into the exotic scene at Paddles and other after-hours sex clubs of the city. Behind these closed doors, erotic charge, adult play, and the theater of the body were acted out nightly. MM and I bonded as seekers of the extreme and the experimental in film but also as escape artists from the decaying industrial towns of our working class backgrounds in Pennsylvania.
In 1994, MM came upstate to hand process 16mm footage for what became Soi Meme (MM Serra, US, 1995), and even though I developed it wrong, the footage turned out hauntingly beautiful. Serendipity followed MM wherever she went. Some months earlier, we had gone to a stunning sex performance by Maria Beatty and Goddess Rosemary at a big loft space in the East Village. [End Page 88] Naked, with bodies intertwined and moving gracefully in a dance with each other, Rosemary whipped Maria on the crotch with long-stemmed roses. Then Rosemary masturbated over Maria and ejaculated on her belly. Yes, some women can do that. It was fabulous. MM took it to the next level—deciding right then to make a film with Rosemary. The outcome was Soi Meme, a poetic document of Rosemary's ritualistic masturbation and what we soon learned was her specialty—ejaculation. Rare is a person such as MM who so wholeheartedly embraces what comes her way through chance encounters. That afternoon, the spray of that fluid was collected in a bowl and after the shoot, Rosemary allowed her slave, a hefty biker dude who was on all fours all afternoon, to drink it.
MM is always a participant in the world, never a bystander. She has a steadfastness and resilience that comes from her working class background. We took a trip to Jeanette, Pennsylvania, in 2001 to visit her dad Tony in the hospital, a few months before he died at the age of 94. The trip was not without the complications of family angst at the death of a father. Money woes, sibling rivalry, contested legacy—all were taking their toll—but it was the rich expression of MM's love for her dad and our enjoyment of the familiar PA landscape that accompanied us on the trip. She was able to say goodbye, and it was heartbreaking when Tony apologized for living so long! I knew of her devotion to Tony's principles—pride of physical labor, activism in the unions, and a tender gardener's green thumb. I felt at home with Tony. He reminded me of my father—a Syrian version of Tony's old-fashioned Italian family man. I sang Bobby Vinton songs to Tony that I knew he would remember. Roses are red (my love) and, of course, the classic and my favorite, Blue Velvet. MM was anxious and at one point cried out, "Don't leave me, Daddy!' Exactly what you are not supposed to say. She knew Tony was ready to leave the planet and the singing really did help to relieve the tension. It was just the right thing to do, and I recommend it, especially at these times when there is nothing to say.
Another road trip to Pennsylvania was in 2002 or so, with Angela, a German filmmaker who was making a doc on MM. Angela shot tons of DV footage over several months before abandoning the project for unknown reasons. She shot video as we made our way west with stops at the Bethlehem Steelworks, by then defunct and off limits, a local watering hole which hosted a lively clientele of retired gentlemen in the middle of the afternoon, and the famous Nisky cemetery where H.D. is buried. We finished up the video as MM Presents: Notes from the Lower East Side (Peggy Ahwesh & MM Serra, US, 2003). In it you can see that MM's social sphere was as expansive then as it is now. I continue to be amazed by her range of influence and interest, her self-confidence in her life choices and her skill at drawing people out. [End Page 89]
Memory is tricky—not fixed and static but a faceted thing that changes as time passes and perspectives shift. It's good to memorialize these past events before they slip away, and I apologize in advance if some of the details are fuzzy. Of course, there are many more tales to tell, but for now, I raise a glass and toast MM's exuberance, and I reaffirm our dedication to life, love, and experiments in cinema!
MM Serra in Trick Film © 1996, Peggy Ahwesh
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Teacher's Pet © 1997, Peggy Ahwesh
Teacher's Pet © 1997, Peggy Ahwesh
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Teacher's Pet © 1997, Peggy Ahwesh
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Peggy Ahwesh is a Brooklyn-based media artist whose work spans a variety of technologies and styles in an inquiry into feminism, cultural identity, and genre. The discourses of film theory are applied to themes of gender subjectivity and social relations through improvised situations, found footage, and low-end technologies, with work that turns the conventions of realism on end. Ahwesh is represented by Microscope Gallery, New York. In 2022, she received The Acker Award, which honors contributions to the downtown NYC art community. Ahwesh is Professor Emeritus from The Film & Electronic Arts Program at Bard College.
