Following on from my review of Galaxy 360: A Woman’s Playground, I asked the film’s creator and star Anna Fishbeyn to tell me more about it.
“Sex in Mommyville. My Stubborn Tongue. Happy Hour Feminism.”
The film Galaxy 360 took 5 years to make with all its technical effects. How did the idea come about?
I have been creating gender-reversal art since I got married and had children. I found the state of motherhood to be an invisible period of my life.
I wrote an essay called, The Secret Life of the Artist Mom, about thinking, creating, writing while changing diapers and being seen only as a milk-producing machine – while my brain felt entirely neglected.
While my husband at that time was thriving at work and everyone wanted to know about his achievements, when it came to me, I was asked about my breasts, my baby-food making abiliities, and my children’s sleeping schedules.
I loved motherhood, I adored my children, but every time I spoke about an intellectual topic or voiced a career ambition, outside motherhood I felt the need to say: “I love my children” because wanting a career and being a mother remains a complicated controversial topic to this day.
The idea that a woman would shine any light on herself during motherhood seemed selfish and egotistical, and yet there I was, a woman who had a PhD, writing a novel, and wanting to perform on stage, and that felt revolutionary at that time.
I noticed the first inequity in the playground on the weekends when the mothers and fathers went out with their newborns and competed with each other for slides in New York city playgrounds.
When everyone spoke to the men, they asked them what they did. The men said, “I’m a lawyer,” “a doctor,” “a painter,” “a writer,” “a finance bro,” but when they asked the mothers, they invariably said “I am a working mom” or “a stay-at-home mom.”
The women identified as mothers first, careers second, whereas for the men the term “dad” existed as a fun concept, as an ancillary role rather than a primary one. I remember thinking how fun it could be to have a show where the roles are reversed: the dads competing with one another for the best dad prize – working dads vs stay-at-home dads.
I wanted men to experience the same sense of responsibility for their children as we do – specifically through self-identification.
What was your first film project?
This was the inspiration behind my first film project, the web series – Happy Hour Feminism.
We had episodes called Lipo-Draining Beer (dieting beer for men), The Wolf Period (Men dealing with their own hormonal upheavals ), and our most popular episode, winning awards for best comedy and best short film was an episode entitled War of the Dads, where two dads went head to head, each claiming to be the best dad in the world.
The fifth episode of Happy Hour Feminism was supposed to be a male beauty pageant, and that’s how Galaxy 360 was born. Through the trials and tribulations of motherhood, I found myself creating art and redefined myself as a mother-artist in the parents’ playground.
Has the film evolved over that five-year span?
In terms of the idea behind the film, yes, the film continued to evolve over the last five years. I have been in post production on the film and created many different versions of Galaxy 360.
The original film, called Galaxy 360, featured the same concepts but was shot on a white wall and the experience of watching it was very different – it felt more like a political piece and a poignant message. Even though I set it up as a futuristic film, it felt very much rooted on planet earth.
But during Covid I studied Adobe Premiere, animation, special effects, and started working with an architect, Jordan Feinstein, who became our director of Special Effects, and that’s when everything changed.
Once I created psychedelic pink and purple and yellow sci-fi backgrounds, and Jordan created a stage in the shape of Georgia O’Keeffe’s flowers, we were able to transport the audience into a fully realized female fantasy.
I renamed the movie as Galaxy 360: A Woman’s Playground – to emphasize the fact that the audience is now entering a fully conscious woman’s world. The main concept remained the same but suddenly magic started to happen: when we screened the film in theaters in Toronto, Cannes, and New York, audiences were cracking up and telling me that this was the funniest movie they’ve ever seen, which is when I felt the film was finally ready to be birthed into the world.
During those five years, more products were being aimed at women’s looks – and there seemed to be more and more work involved in staying beautiful and young, and so we would introduce new commercials for men that would keep men looking young and hot. That too added to the humor and the feeling of being in a parallel universe.
You [director Anna Fishbeyn] have described the film as ‘Barbie – After Dark, with a sexy twist”. Do you see it as having appeal to Barbie fans or as those who enjoy more cult fare?
I think both for sure. There’s a speech that America Ferrara makes at the end of Barbie which resonated with a lot of women. My film is quite different in that – I take that speech about all the pressures placed on women – and simply place them on the heads and bodies of men and let them deal with it.
The result is ribald comedy but the main message is still the same resounding quest to exist and thrive in a world that objectifies women. Galaxy 360: A Woman’s Playground is more campy and raunchy than Barbie – the women in my film are unapologetically sexual and desire men openly.
In that respect, I do believe we can become a cult fan favorite in the same way the Rocky Horror Picture Show was sexually unapologetic and campy.
What’s the international distribution plan for Galaxy 360? We plan to expand to Europe and Australia currently, and go global once we stream online.
How much AI was used in putting the film together, and did this make it easier to make?
I introduced AI into the film only in 2023 after I became well versed in AI animation. After I created the animated series, Anteriya World, with a short film, called Cyborgs in Love, I realized there is a lot of comedy in these AI animated robots, especially if you put them into interesting human environments.
So I introduced AI robots into the film, who weirdly vibed with my sense of humor. All of the writing for the AI robots is my own – I do not use AI for fiction writing.
Ironically, the robots became incredibly important to the film: they became the overseers, the neutral observers of this world, but some of them turned out witty and judgy and sarcastic, as if they are truly part of this upside down universe, and in total synchrony with futuristic female domination.
The publicity blurb mentions Rocky Horror and I can see why – were there ever any plans to make Galaxy 360 a musical?
Not originally but now there is! Glad you asked! And there are also plans to create the first ever male beauty pageant on EARTH – singing and dancing included!
Describe Galaxy 360 in three words for the uninitiated.
Unapologetic. Fierce. Queendom.