Alison Sudol talks about Queenie’s femininity and feminism

I wanted to know from you, in the age now of you know, feminism, any quality and all that, what does Queenie say? How does she speak to that in the modern times even though she is placed in almost hundred years ago?

Alison Sudol: She’s a modern day girl in the 20. She is timeless really. I think femininity has gotten a bit confusing, you know, all over the years. Because in learning how to be strong as a woman and find her own way in the world, first it’s like in order to be strong, you have to kind of act like a man. You have to kind of divorce yourself from the characteristics that make us women in order to succeed and in order to not be seen as weak. You have to be like hard and be tough. It’s almost like the qualities that make us women were considered weak. What I love about Queenie is that she is as feminine as you get. She is a woman in every sense of the word. She is a woman in that she has extraordinary intuition. She is resourceful. She is warm. She is nurturing. She is light on her feet. She is full of joy. But she is also insightful. She sees things as they are. She is strong. I think that as women, our greatest strength is in our womenhood and being all the things we are. We are full of contradictions as women as well, you know, like you can be vulnerable and incredibly strong. I think we felt historically in the past that you have to be hard in order to be strong. That means you are impenetrable. If you ever see the trees in the wind, they sway. And the ones that are tough and rigid, they are the ones that go down first because they don’t adapt and women are supple and I find that we need to see more layered and complex women at nowadays and women are not afraid to be lovely and it’s not for anyone else. Queenie doesn’t get into her dress so she can seduce the two men in the apartment. Queenie would get into her dress like that if nobody was around because it’s a wonderful way. If you would get dressed that like or just like pull on your dress, which one would you choose? It’s a way of making every bit of life delicious and wonderful. I felt it was really healing for me to get in touch with that side of my femininity as well. Something that I hadn’t really allowed in my own life very much. Now I’m much more feminine than I used to be because of her.

Obviously a lot of young girls will see it. Do you think that the contrast between Queenie and Tina-how do you think that will affect them? Do you think they will judge her by what they see instead of kind of going deeper inside?

Alison: Girls, we need to creat a sisterhood now more than ever. I think that this idea that there’s only room for so many girls alike or that a certain type of girl is less than another or you feel threatened. Queenie is love. Queenie loves Tina with her whole heart and it’s incredibly painful when people just see some idea of her that isn’t true. They miss her humanity because the way that she looks. I think that society is hard on women and it makes you feel like you have to choose. You are either smart or you are pretty or something like that or not even like pretty, but you are smart or you are feminine and that’s really not fair and growing up, girls are really mean to me frankly. I didn’t understand it whatsoever and I felt ugly and I felt chubby and I felt weird and I wasn’ t funny and I wasn’t cool and I had a hard time making friends and then on top of that then like girls would look at me and they started - I remember so vividly I was eleven years old and I got to a new school and these girls saw me and they started a rumour about something like I was wearing lipstick or something. I was like “Such a stupid thing”, you know, but I remember how isolating it felt for me. When I saw these girls, I just thought like “You’re so pretty and you’re so cool and you are smart and I wanna your friend.” and they didn’t wanna be mine. It scarred me. I think you never really know what’s going on inside another girl’s mind and to assume just because of the way that they look, they are certain way, I think it’s really unfair.