interview by Lara Monro

Carly Randall is a visual artist, filmmaker and creative producer. Her work explores issues and themes that specifically impact women in modern society. These include knife crime, online bullying  and filter culture, as seen in her multi-award-winning dance film, FILTERFACE: Double Tap to Like, which examines how social media filter culture affects the mental health of young women. 

In 2022, Carly was awarded a Develop Your Creative Practice grant from Arts Council England to create a 2-minute-long, educational art film that exposes the language men use to talk about women’s breasts, highlighting the ubiquitously misogynistic and objectifying attitudes. Carly set up a hotline for teenage boys and young men to share their honest opinions on women’s breasts via voicemail. She created posters to promote the hotline, strategically placing them in prime locations around London’s East End Borough of Hackney (sometimes up to 200 a go), and shared with universities, colleges and friends who posted them in city centres nationally to ensure a diverse response that fairly depicts the breadth of the UK. To accompany the voicemails, Carly worked with a casing agent to bring together a selection of women from around the UK to shoot and film their breasts—those which our patriarchal society have deemed “undesirable": too flat, too big, odd nipples…

Carly has created a unique social experiment that creatively dramatizes the disparity between the ‘fantasy’ and the ‘reality’ of women’s breasts as a result of unrealistic representations created by the porn industry, perpetuated across social media and reaffirmed by patriarchal conditioning. I spoke with Carly about her motivations behind the art piece, how Playboy inspired her backdrop for the art film, and her main takeaways from listening to the voicemails. 

LARA MONRO: When did you get the idea to create a film that examines how young men of today view women’s breasts and what would you say were your biggest motivations for making the film? 

CARLY RANDALL: The film was conceived one evening whilst watching the Edgar Wright documentary on the weird and wonderful Sparks Brothers. On hearing their 1970s track “Tits,” I was struck by lyrics which, exposed a man’s disappointment at his wife’s breasts no longer being “a source of fun and games” having been repurposed to nourish his newborn son. It made me curious to explore to what extent the male gaze still exists within society today.

I’m also fascinated by technology’s impact on the growth and development of young people. A few years ago we looked at the effect social media was having on young girls' mental health with our film FilterFace: Double Tap To Like and it felt timely to turn our attention to young men, especially with the rise of toxic influencers like Andrew Tate. In the age of the iPhone, sexualized imagery of women is readily available to young men whether streamed through sex/porn websites, shared on Whatsapp and Snapchat, or disguised as an innocent influencer dance on TikTok. I wanted to create an educational art film that exposed the language men use to talk about women while presenting a cross section of what real women's breasts look like. The aim was to encourage young men to interrogate their current perceptions, or those of their peers, by debunking the unhealthy and unrealistic depictions society places on the female form.

MONRO: What do you want viewers to think/feel as a result of watching TITS? 

RANDALL: I think it will elicit different reactions. Some people may find it amusing, some disturbing, some embarrassing and some offensive. It’s uncomfortable watching because you are being shown these beautiful headless nudes whilst hearing audio that is quite crude and coarse. The comments range from being quite innocent and playful to being a bit creepy, but ultimately, they boil down to the female form being objectified by the opposite sex. 

MONRO: This film was made possible through an Arts Council England grant, can you tell me more? 

RANDALL: The Arts Council has a DYCP grant which enables creative-minded people to develop their artistic practice, whether that’s poetry, dance, filmmaking, or any other medium. It’s an incredible opportunity to set aside some time to carry out research and development into your practice, and then craft and hone those skills.

MONRO: What was your casting process for the women? 

RANDALL: I worked alongside the casting agent, Lane Casting, to find the women featured in the film. Lane reached out to women through multiple channels, including through their network, through flyering, and also researching specific groups on Facebook with responsive audiences like arts, modeling and even some nudist groups. It was important to make it clear to everyone what the film was about. This way, we could be sure to attract people who connected with the project.

In addition, I posted a series of Instagram stories and had some female friends re-share on their profiles. I had such an incredible response and quickly developed a one-on-one dialogue with the women who had reached out. It was great, as I was able to get an idea of their stories from early on in the casting process.  

Off the back of this, I held Zoom interviews with each of the women to find out about their breasts. Due to the sensitivity around nudity, I was not able to actually see any breasts until the day of the shoot. This made the zoom interviews incredibly important as I was essentially casting blind and relying on our conversations to understand their insecurities around their breasts.

MONRO: What was your process on shoot day? Did you have a specific way of working with the women: guiding them on how to position themselves or was it more intuitive/organic? 

RANDALL: Prior to shooting, I researched 1920s pinup posters, which back then tended to be illustrated where a woman would pose for an artist. Typically, these depicted over-sexulaised images of women with small waists, large, pert breasts, and curvaceous buttocks. I was keen to flip the narrative and hijack these poses to depict real beauty so each woman was assigned a pose, which would celebrate their particularly unique breasts. Working with my co-director we then drew up 3-5 camera moves, which complemented the nuances of each set of breasts.

On the day of the shoot, I wanted the women to feel at ease and like they were entering a safe space where they could relax and let go of their inhibitions. For this reason, we had an all-female film crew, closed set, and music. The entire crew brought a great energy on set which made filming fun and laid back. With only 30 minutes per woman, we had to move fast, but working with 16mm film means you spend more time planning, and less time shooting as the film is so precious. Ailsa [Aikoa], our DP, was incredible and captured each of the ladies with a real sensitivity.

Working with real people, you need to be empathetic and nurturing when directing, so it was really important to develop a relationship with them ahead of the shoot. In addition to this, I was mindful that they were being asked to perform nude, which would make anyone feel vulnerable, so I was conscious to check in that they were feeling comfortable and maintained conversation throughout filming. 

MONRO: Can you tell me about your stylistic approach to the film set? 

RANDALL: The red backdrop was inspired by Playboy Magazine who adopted the color from its launch in 1953, and used it heavily throughout their sixty-seven years. It was featured on their iconic masthead within wardrobe as well as a backdrop behind scantily clad women. Through the use of this red-colored backdrop, I wanted to take the power of the Playboy red, a color used to promote sexualized imagery of women, and subvert its use to showcase real female beauty.

In addition to this, I used simple cuts of fabric to drape under or behind the women to create a softness to the environment that contrasted the crudeness of the audio voice messages. 

MONRO: You set up a hotline for teenage boys and young men (16 - 30) to share their answering machine messages on how they view breasts. Was it popular and were there any messages that stood out (for good and/or bad reasons?)

RANDALL: We received roughly 500 calls ranging from 5 seconds to 2 minutes. Some people just wanted to shout “tits” down the line, while others went into great depth sharing their unfiltered thoughts. It was a really intriguing and eye opening experience sifting through hours of audio ranging from the complimentary to the crude. There were also some very similar themes (unsurprisingly) most men seemed to like round, squashy, big, pert or jiggly breasts. There was also a couple who rang in that definitely sounded like they were getting off as the boy described his favorite breasts and a girl giggled in the background—it was all getting a little kinky before the line went dead.

MONRO: What were your biggest takeaways from the hotline and the messages that were left? 

RANDALL: People like to talk about breasts. Considering the limited distribution of the hotline posters, lots of people happily gave up their time to call in and share their views. It was interesting to discover this was clearly a subject matter that people want to express their opinion on. 

MONRO: What did you enjoy most about this creative project? 

RANDALL: The unknown. We were totally at the mercy of the material organically gathered.

MONRO: You recently became a mother. Did this experience impact/influence how you approached the film?

RANDALL: I was expecting a baby boy at the time of developing and filming TITS, and in the back of my mind I was wondering what kind of young man he will grow up to be, and whether he would be influenced by the world around him.

MONRO: Will there be a sequel to TITS? 

RANDALL: You Betcha! I can’t divulge too much, but I’ll just say we’re thinking of switching things up a bit.