An audience with the pope
Filmmaker Michelle Mama has finally finished her documentary Antidiva: The Carole Pope Confessions, a long-overdue chronicle of the Rough Trade singer’s life and legacy as a lesbian icon. The film opens the Hot Docs Festival later this month.
It took six years for director Michelle Mama to complete her documentary on Carole Pope.
Antidiva: The Carole Pope Confessions is a labour of love — a lesbian filmmaker capturing the life and times of Canada’s first openly lesbian rock star. It’s a captivating, moving and celebratory film that sheds light on an elusive figure. It will debut as the opening-night film at this month’s Hot Docs Festival.
We spoke with Mama as she was gearing up for the film’s premiere, and delved into the challenges of capturing the life and times of a 79-year-old queer icon.
How did the idea for a Carole Pope documentary come about?
It was 2020 during COVID. My friend Allison Grace and I met on a bench in Trinity Bellwoods Park in Toronto for a chitchat. I had gotten to know Carole socially through a friend and we had been saying, gosh, we can't believe there's no doc on Carole Pope yet. How is it possible? Allison would say, “You should make it,” and we’d laugh. And then finally, on that bench, she said, “You're making this film and I'm going to help you. We're going to produce it together.” And that's what happened.
Was it difficult to convince Carole to make the film?
No. Carole was ready. Carole was waiting for someone to do it. I think there were a few attempts previously, I don't know why they didn't work out. But it’s a story begging to be told. Here we have this 79-year-old — she'll be 80 in August — icon. She's here. She's vital. She's got all her marbles. She's still running around the world with her little carry-on bag to do little shows. I couldn't believe that no one had done it yet.
It’s one thing to get Carole on board, but was it difficult to get her to engage openly with you as a filmmaker?
Carole's got a reputation for a reason, like she doesn't suffer fools. I was very conscious of that. I was a straight shooter with her from day one. You can't play schmoozy games with her. You must be direct and that's what I was. She knew I was coming at this from the right place. It wasn't about money or exploitation. I mean, God knows Canadian docs are not a way to get rich. I was a queer woman standing in front of one of my idols, saying, “Why hasn't someone done right by you?” And I always feel like, you know, time's ticking, anything could happen at any time.
Carole played with sexuality and, with her hit song “High School Confidential,” she expressed pure lesbian lust that was groundbreaking. How important is that song to queer culture?
She inspired not just queers. In the last six years I’ve talked to mechanics on Vancouver Island, to construction guys on the East Coast. When they heard I was doing this film they’d freak out. The biggest surprise for me is how much straight men are obsessed with Carole Pope. It's so interesting because if you think about the era, any song, any nod to any kind of sexuality was going to do it for guys, right? They were like, you’re hot and you're talking about sex. On the radio!
The film pays tribute to this lesbian icon, but it’s also a meditation on the aging artist.
And a woman artist.
Yes. You show how hard Carole works to make a living and ply her trade.
My point was to do this cold open where it's Carole Pope, the bee’s knees, in her crappy little apartment in L.A. The contrast was the point. It was to say everybody who thinks Carole Pope is living high off the hog of “High School Confidential” is wrong. It could not be more untrue.
And this isn’t just a film about Carole. It’s the story of Carole and Kevan Staples, who formed Rough Trade back in 1968. Was it hard for Carole to talk about Kevan?
I would argue that Kevan, and the ballad of Kevan and Carole’s love story, is the beating heart of Rough Trade and the film. We had a whole version of the film that just wasn't cutting it. The film itself worked, but Carole wasn't being forthcoming. So, we had to do a final two-day mega interview where we went deep and I had to say to Carol, listen we're going there. It was uncomfortable, and in that interview she admitted maybe my songwriting wasn't as great without Kevan in the 1990s. It's just one line.
It's a very revealing line.
Yes, for her to admit, maybe my best work was with Kevan, is what she was saying. Going solo maybe wasn't the greatest plan in retrospect.
Has Carole seen the film?
Carole has seen it, and she likes it. It was a very emotional time when she saw it because Kevan had just passed away. I had been racing to get the film to the hospital to have Kevan see it, and it just didn't happen. So, it was just this horrible time. I invited Marilyn, Kevan's wife, and Carole to both watch it together at our edit facility. The prevailing emotions were about Kevan at that time, and it was very, very emotional. Everyone was crying.
What do you hope audiences take away from the film?
You can look at this film like a prism, see it in completely different ways. It’s a long-lost hero film; people in Canada know who Carol Pope is. Straight men will watch it and love it. The baby gays will watch it and learn something and love it.
And when we’re talking about pop culture, we’re talking about a flame that lights another flame that lights another flame. I just went to see Peaches a couple of weeks ago, and you can draw the direct line between Carole and Peaches, but then you've got all these new kids coming out 20 years after Peaches. It's a third generation of queer kids, where we've got Chappell Roan and Reneé Rapp. All these young, proud sapphic singers who are talking about women and loving women. And I just think, wow, here's a godmother of yours you can meet.
