Coming to Amazon Prime Video today, Monday, March 8:
UNDERPLAYED
Director:
Stacey Lee
World Premiere:
Tribeca 2020 (unscreened)
Select Festivals:
Toronto, Glasgow, Dublin, Athena
About:
An exploration of gender inequality in the electronic music world.
Electronic dance music, or EDM, has long been wildly popular around the world, attracting millions of fans, particularly at concert and festivals. As demonstrated in Stacey Lee’s illuminating and well-produced film, however, it has been overwhelmingly dominated by straight white men – despite the contributions of women and people of color both historically and in the present day. Focusing primarily on gender inequality, the doc offers significant statistical and anecdotal evidence to show how women have rarely been booked at festivals or recognized on tastemakers’ lists, perpetuating a chauvinistic, self-fulfilling status quo cycle of marginalization. Lee’s project is decidedly survey in approach, which permits her to profile a broad range of female DJs, performers, and pioneers, but at the same time limits her to only providing brief sketches when some figures clamor for more development. Still, the project fulfills its mission as an informative call to action, for the already converted and the uninitiated alike.
what (not) to doc 