Shakedown: An Interview with Leilah Weinraub

Documenting the rise and demise of the legendary Shakedown underground parties, founded by and for queer black women in early-aughts L.A.

It’s March 2020, and discounted Pornhub Premium has, thus far, occupied your COVID-19 isolation; you clock Shakedown by Leilah Weinraub, the site’s first non-adult film. Suddenly you’re fingers deep in a noir art-doco, boxed inside the legendary L.A. black lesbian club night of the early 2000’s. The film—itself a grinding Digicam collage—is a utopian playground; dreamy and seductive by way of factual-fantasia. In the words of Mrs Mahogany, one of the 19 ‘Angels’ in Shakedown; “I want you to make me horny but then I want you to make me wonder”.

Writer/director Leilah Weinraub initially set out to document utopian moments during her ‘Jordan Year’—aka, when you’re 23 and believe yourself boundless. She began filming Shakedown’s turbo striptease nights, a pit of quasi-nude Olympic dancing where being naked isn’t necessarily a goal but a calculated step within tight choreography. The film’s performances evoke a sexual ballad; each night a host of dancers were cheered on by a packed and largely queer audience.

Shakedown’s lifespan has been impressive, from gallery hopping to festival selections, to its month-long residency on Pornhub. No other documentary has better squashed the traditional film rollout by inventing its own neo-distribution model. Seeing the film’s footage reminds us how touching has become nostalgic. What better time to relive our longing for touch, now taken for granted, before a pandemic forced us to abstain, than with Leilah Weinraub’s film now available to view for free on The Criterion Channel. A quarantined Leilah speaks to André Shannon about queering the arthouse, her neo-noir documentary, and filmmaking as consciousness raising.

Miss Mahogany has a line that says “make me horny but then make me wonder...” It made me think; how do you make a work that treads the line between facts, information, and eroticism?

I know. I mean; I love fantasy. I love people [whose] job it is to create a fantasy world in a way. As a filmmaker, that was part of the job—to accurately portray these bubble fantasy moments that were happening every night at Shakedown. In the film, you really get to feel it, like what it was really like to be there. Also, at that time there was something really cool that I felt was running the whole world, which is just this high femme female persona, and Mahogany talks about that, Egypt talks about that. I love that.

What pressures did you feel as an archivist, someone documenting a niche part of history?

I had a lot of anxiety for a long time about this film coming out and it being the first of its kind, you know? There's a lot of pressure for representation when you're, like, the first. So you have all this heavy weight of representing the entire community. I think that there are a lot of things that changed culturally, for me, and it just seemed like there weren’t enough examples of black lives. I was definitely always worried about publishing the work in a very racist world. We worked on the film for a really long time, and I feel really confident about the work itself, and at this point I’m no longer the steward of it—the work exists out there and it's really about the conversation that it was placed inside of which I think has been very handheld and careful.

"I feel really confident about the work itself, and at this point I’m no longer the steward of it—the work exists out there and it's really about the conversation that it was placed inside of which I think has been very handheld and careful."

I got this impression the film was juggling being haunting neo-noir and being cute, but not in a soft way. It shows the sisterhood and the family unit, and the sacredness of the space.

There's something about this place; it's like the end of America. It's still the Wild Wild West, and sometimes you're like “where am I?'” or “what is this place?” There's a haunted feeling about Los Angeles. The material that I used in the film was—for tech nerds out there, or video cam nerds—it was Canon GL2, which shot mini DV tapes. It was interlaced footage, so it's this technology that lasts literally for 5 minutes, and at that time I used it. It just really stamps the image in exactly that time.

Did you feel like making Shakedown was a way to find a place for yourself, or for others?

[Thinks] Well, I have to give you the honest answer about that. Making Shakedown was an experience for me of utopia, you know? When I started to film at Shakedown I had no idea what was going to happen. I think that originally my work was just to document it and just to make sure that people knew it existed. And, I guess, that's what the film is for.

I think there's a lot of people that have been looking for this kind of feeling that was at the club. The shows at Shakedown were like an invention on how to be a woman, and how to be in public and have a sexual experience that is risky and respectful at the same time. That information needs to be communicated. There are ways to do strip clubs that are very sexy, where the performer is in charge, and commanding the show, and the room and the energy and space. I guess it was about letting people know that this was happening, that it exists, that it's possible.

"Making Shakedown was an experience for me of utopia, you know?"

How do you want to impact your world? Is that something you even think about?

Of course! It's embedded in the way that I think about things. I guess I was trained in this place where it was about 'consciousness raising', and so everything is part of that. I kind of grew up in gay night life. It's so hard to answer that question [laughs]. Sometimes I'm like, “Is it gay propaganda?” And in a way it is, but then does good propaganda work if you call it 'gay propaganda'?

I'm hesitant to call it exactly that, but there have been moments that have been so exceptional that I’ve been able to witness at night. I guess I’m trying to remember those, and remember those feelings and those lessons, and republish them, put them out again, continue to put them out and press that. And just keep continuing to invent options on how to be, how to interact with other people. Sometimes the world feels very hard and challenging and I just want to continue to publish different ideas on how to exist with other people.

"With the collaboration with Pornhub, I was able to work more in an art space and have an unlimited audience. Right now, it's really up to people. Whoever wants to watch it, it's available."

How do you feel about Pornhub releasing the film, and Shakedown having the potential to open the floodgates to arthouse film on a porn streaming service?

Well, really, my intention was to open the floodgates to women participating in this space. I want to open the conversation to women, like—“how do they feel about that?” The film has been out. It did the festival circuit already. I don't think I would have been able to talk to you about it unless it was on Pornhub, you know? I feel like they let me create a space on that platform in exactly the way I wanted to, and also have just enough power to be able to tell people that it's there to watch it. There are so many institutions and industries that are shifting because more women are involved, more people of colour are involved. Once places become truly looked at, once there's a light shined on them, then you have an opportunity to re-work that space and make it something that is generative.

I think also that whole concept of arthouse film is really like—I don't even know what that is anymore, you know what I mean? Like, does that mean only 5000 people want to watch your film? Does it mean that you only want people that have already seen all of Godard's films to see your film? [laughs] I'm just excited for women to become makers. There already are so many, but to become one in all these industries and really guide the culture, you know? I just wanted to kind of escape the constraints of what the film industry might do with my film and put it in an arthouse space and limit its viewership. With the collaboration with Pornhub, I was able to work more in an art space and have an unlimited audience. Right now, it's really up to people. Whoever wants to watch it, it's available.

Poster artwork, director's photo and film stills supplied by The Film Collaborative.