Dazzled by Hypnotic GIF Novels
I Want to Make a GIF Novel Like Dennis Cooper - Wherein I Discover a Dearth of Femme GIFS
I stayed up nearly all night… “reading” Dennis Cooper’s GIF novel, Zac’s Drug Binge — a novel created entirely with vertically stacked GIFs, which create all the characters, the plot line, all of it. It’s like taking mood boards into the Shakespearean and of course, the pornographic-surreal.
My blog software won’t let me “stack” the GIFs like Dennis does, where each one is tightly-matched, no white space, pure-diptychs— but here’s an approximation of two examples from his novel:
“ZAC’S DRUG BINGE represents an evolution in the GIF novel form that Dennis Cooper invented with ZAC’S HAUNTED HOUSE (2015) and further refined in 2016’s ZAC’S FREIGHT ELEVATOR.
“Taking visual cues from an imaginary drug binge, and following a secretive narrative that is meandering, raucous, blissful, hallucinogenic and uncontrollable, Zac’s Drug Binge abandons the scrollable templates of the previous GIF novels to offer a new way to read and interact with this innovative genre.”
I know that’s a mouthful of a press release, but it’s quite accurate!
Cooper’s themes are harrowing, erotic, horror-esque— as fans know. They’re poetic, lyric, Rimbaud’s-heir, existential rabbit holes. And if you’ve ever been on a drug binge… this is the most hallucinogenic reenactment EVER.
Where are the Girl GIFs?
If I made a GIF novel, which I now want to do very badly, my themes would be like me. Therein lies my question.
My vibe about wide world of GIFS out there on the internet is that it’s likely “a man’s world.”
Might I be mistaken? Is there a dyke or femme or badass-chick GIFs gallery?
Gay and straight men make most of GIFs I see, and collect most of them.
Now, some of those themes are universal to humanity, of course.
If I want an explosion, or Mike’s Steam Shovel, I know where to go!
But what if I wanted a GIF of a woman menstruating who happens to be ironing a shirt? Like a Tillie Olsen GIF.
Or, how about a girl putting on white gloves to attend church for her first communion? —Maybe the singular surreal months of pregnancy and childbirth?
I’d like one of an old woman boiling a kettle when there is no one left in the house. I look at my hand lifting a lipstick-stained coffee cup to my lips, and I want a GIF of THAT.
I want GIFs of domestic life, of corporal women’s existence, our bodies as lived in, and also our fandom— women’s great passions en GIF.
These missing images, and more, are why women filmmakers, visual artists, eroticisms, have been trying to create original material forever.. there’s still so little of it.
Like, how about a GIF from Phyllis Christopher’s photography book, Dark Room? It’s the erotic and anarchic story of dykes and allies in San Francisco in the 80s/90s.
Will I find the images, the GIFs I need, for my aspirational GIF novel? Or, do I need to make them?
I started with GIPHY, at my friend Crystal’s recommendation. A huge repository, certainly. She showed me an example, searching for the word “feminist.”
As you’ll see from that search you get mild, uplift-lite girl power images, such as one might find in corporate or NGO pamphlets about “leaning in.”
Uh, no.
I tried searching for “lesbian” and wow, what a throw-back. There is very little, most of it is rainbow-flaggy. I am indebted to the GIF-maker, a 70s softcore fan, bless his heart, who created this little gem, unique in my search:
Dennis Cooper recommends that to find appropriate GIFs for his theme, you look at the basic noun— like say, “giraffe”— but if you don’t see the results you need immediately, add more colorful adjectives, like “weird giraffe.”
He is absolutely right on the adjective-maneuver, but there is still no love for fem-centric GIFs, no matter how you describe them.
Most of the GIFs for “lesbian” are sweet moments from the 1980s landmark lesbian romance, Desert Hearts. There’s a handful, nothing racy — the film itself was wholesome, the barest whisper of an R-rating (a woman’s bare chest is insinuated).
However, here’s a list of search words where you find ZERO results, as of this writing:
Dyke
Bulldyke
Bulldagger
Butch
Butch Femme
Vulva
Clitoris has some results, but most are similar to Planned Parenthood pamphlets.
Keep in mind that if you search for “Penis,” you would be: INUNDATED.
The number of clitoral GIFs are in two figures, whereas the penile GIFs are in the hundreds of thousands. Am I making myself clear?
I’m going to start collecting a gallery of the handful of artistic, non-banal, female POV GIFs I’ve found so far.
Anyone else want to improve our odds?
Further Reading
New Yorker: How Dennis Cooper Creates Fiction from GIFS
Vice: A Haunted Composed Entirely of Animated GIFS
Fast Company: Are GIFS the future of novels?
Dazed: Dennis Cooper’s New GIF Novel Might Be His Weirdest Work Yet
The Download: Dennis Cooper’s GIF Novels
Clearly it’s time to start screencapping !