Not taking a missionary position to the Mars and Venus paperback junk, Jacobson tells the story of the birds and the bees like it's never been told before — stripped down-to-earth, pure and punk. Through the wide eyes of a 17-year-old girl, she candidly explores sexuality with just enough real(world)ism for her film to speak for an entire generation of young moderns. Mary Jane is most definitely a retaliation to any movie with the name John Hughes in the credits. You could call it Gritty in Kink.

I caught the Sarah buzz in Jacobson's hometown of Minneapolis (the photograph was taken at the Loring Bar; Sarah's on the left), just before Mary Jane's sweetheart showing at the world-renowned Walker Art Center on Valentine's Day, and shortly after its screening at the Sundance Film Festival. (Sarah is currently at the South-by-Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, where Mary Jane is being shown.)

Note: For a longer, unedited version of this interview, which includes a conversation with Sarah's mom, click here. The full interview contains everything below plus more, so if you're in for the long-haul, go straight to the unedited conversation. For the condensed version, keep reading...

Tripod: How did it go at Sundance?

Sarah Jacobson: Basically I wanted to see where Mary Jane stood in the world of the industry. It still seems like the industry is not open to girl stuff.

Tripod: Really?

SJ: Yeah. I was really vocal about saying I think it's time to organize a girl market. Before Sundance I met with all these L.A. executives, and I said I really believe there is a group of girls that makes decisions on their own, that doesn't have to wait for their boyfriends to decide what they're going to do, what kind of music they're going to buy, what movies they're going to see. And they all basically told me that they didn't believe me. They honestly don't think that there's a girl market out there.

Tripod: And then the demise of things like Sassy, that backs up their philosophy.

SJ: Yeah, and the cancellation of "My So Called Life." It's like no one has faith. For stuff like that to get by, you need faith in it. One thing about girls is, I don't think they trust the media as much as they trust word-of-mouth from their friends. You have to give it time to let word-of-mouth grow. If they had let "My So Called Life" go on for one more season, it would have gotten huge because everyone was really starting to discover it.

Tripod: I think Mary Jane goes beyond just the girl audience. If we're going to talk marketing, it hits that "slacker" audience. It hits on many different levels.

SJ: But I just don't see that there's a girl mind-set or girl aesthetic in anything mainstream. That's why I made the film. I was really tired of having my views and my experiences ignored. No one can really stop me from being a filmmaker. And no one can stop me from getting the film out. They can stop me from making money, but I have something to say.

Tripod: Do you consider yourself a feminist?

SJ: Yeah. I have no qualms about saying that I'm a feminist at all.

Tripod: How do you define feminist?

SJ: Well, it's almost like punk, now. I think there are so many different factions. I have this theory that it's when you DON'T have to support every single other girl — feminism is really working. It's gotten to the point now, where there are all different sorts of girls out there — some of them I love, and some of them I can't stand, and some of them can't stand me.

That's what splinters feminism a lot: Everyone acts like we have to have all this solidarity and think the same, and act the same, and vote the same. Let's just face it, I don't think that's realistic and it robs people of their perspective. I don't think gender is the ultimate equalizer — it's more how you were raised. Class systems are probably more influential than race or gender when it comes to that kind of stuff.

Tripod: Feminism is so affiliated with hardcore beliefs.

SJ: It's affiliated with no sex. It's like, "oh my god if I say I'm a feminist, I'm never going to get laid." I think people are afraid of feminism. It seemed like in the '70s, feminism was really strong. Then in the '80s, there was a lot of stuff that kind of undercut what feminism meant. You know, like man-hating and not having sex. I don't know, I think feminists are the biggest sluts that I've ever known.

At Sundance everyone made this huge deal that there is this lesbian niche market. I don't have anything against lesbians, but I get really offended when guys say "oh there's this lesbian thing going on, so that's sufficient for a girl audience." Look, lesbians are like ten percent of girls. Just because there's that, doesn't mean that that's going to be sufficient for all girls. I think that's insulting to lesbians, and it's insulting to me. Go Fish is not my manifesto.

It's important to realize that. I also think it's more safe for guys to say, "We'll just push that over into the lesbian corner, and then we don't have to deal with the fact that these same women who fuck us are the same kind of women who have these opinions."

Tripod: What kind of men do you find yourself with? And how do they deal with your perseverance and your strengths?

SJ: Some of them are turned on by it, maybe just for a little bit. A lot of guys are threatened, that's for sure. If it comes down to my relationship or my film, of course my film's going to win. There's not too many relationships where I'm jealous of a girl. I always feel like in relationships, women have to compromise a lot more in terms of their career. And I'd rather just jack-off all the time.

Tripod: Both Serial Killer and Mary Jane deal with women's perspectives and women's issues, but Serial Killer is single-mindedly focused, whereas Mary Jane is explorative and also multi-dimensional: It deals with guys, dating, and sex. From a personal perspective, what made your focus grow and change?

SJ: I think it was the challenge of filmmaking. I was in school when I did Serial Killer. Part of me was like okay, I'm really pissed off and I want to get it out of my system and onto celluloid where it belongs. And so it was a very angry movie. And then I thought, "Wow, that worked so I want to go to the next step and I want to deal with actors," because that was something I didn't explore with Serial Killer.

So it was definitely a goal of mine to have the acting be really good and have the people be realistic and have the characters be real, because I think girls just don't get that in films. There are so many characters that are not real, so many situations that are not like how we experience them that I wanted to go for this hyper-realness. The biggest comment on the film is "God, it feels so real, it almost feels like a documentary," which is such a compliment to me. Cool — that's what I was going for.

I wanted each character to represent a different part of sexuality and how it relates to a girl growing up and what it means to her. Like, "Wow, it's not easy for guys," or, what happens when you're gay, and what does virginity mean for that?

I also think the concept of virginity is kind of stupid, so I wanted to make a movie that really focused on what's good about sex. Obviously everyone's having it, and everyone just treats it like something you have to buy or own or acquire. You have to buy these CDs, you have to have sex. But no one ever talks about how sexuality is such a huge part of your personality. You have your physical, your intellectual, your sexual, and it's a huge part that gets so warped in how it's portrayed in media. I definitely wanted to tackle that, and I thought the best way would be in this hyper-real situation where everyone's talking about it. Otherwise, it gets the shaft. No pun intended.

Want some more? You can still get the full-strength, unedited conversation with Sarah and her mom. With this version, you'll learn about the basis of Sarah's feminism and the driving force behind Sarah's visions. Here it is. Sarah Jacobson's Web site Mary Jane film information

Photographs by Julie Swenson.

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