The D-Monster written & directed by Kinga Suto

writer & director: kinga suto
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
afi’s directing workshop for women presents: the d-monster
Over ten years ago I was an intern on a major studio lot.
I’d watched the academy awards every year and
dreamed one day I’d be working in the film business.
The excitement wore off on my first day at work. I found
myself working long hours in a dark dirty basement
racing forty other college interns to a red phone for the
chance to run a beverage to a paid executive upstairs.
Once upstairs I was submerged into an office culture that
exhibited irrational behavior: execs firing assistants for
giving them the wrong soda. Higher-ups expecting
assistants to decipher their inaudible mumblings,
becoming irate if someone asked them to repeat
themselves and bosses firing assistants for using the
restroom.
When we are just starting out we are most vulnerable if
placed in a morally unscrupulous environment, yet this
is when most of us enter the workforce. How would you
know that a superior has crossed the line, even if you
instinctively felt it was wrong, if the entire office culture
has deemed their bad behavior not only acceptable but
also an attribute of their success, would you still question
it? Lack of life experience puts you at a moral
disadvantage, how do you weigh the costs of your choices
when you are not fully formed as an adult?
I wanted to go back to that time, when I was starting out,
when I was impressionable and morally ambiguous. I
remember feeling that things were inherently wrong but
I questioned myself: maybe it wasn’t them, maybe I didn’t
know how adults behaved.
I was intoxicated by the Barbie-esque executives: young,
successful and popular. I had never seen women like
these before. I wanted badly to be one of them; I ignored
the little voice in my head that questioned their
behavior. I told myself I would never be like them, I
needed to make it because I was gonna be successful
and nice. But by moving up in an environment like that
absorption of some bad behavior is inevitable.
Years later, as an executive myself, on an incredibly
difficult day, riding on lack of sleep, too much coffee and
low blood sugar, my intern walked in with a salad. It
had croutons in it. I hated croutons. How could he not
know? I lost it. I threw the salad at the wall and fired
the intern. When you do wrong, on a certain level - you
know it instinctively, yet you don’t always admit it, you
placate yourself and fabricate an embellished version of
the event, a “story,” that makes it out to be the right
choice. Bad people don’t think they are bad; they create
their own version of the story, one where they are the
heroes. But not even I could spin this in a good light. I
stared at the mosaic of creamy crushed lettuce and
croutons as they slid down the wall and realized I was at
a true low point in my life. It made me question myself:
was it the environment that had pressured me to
change? Or was I a bad person to begin with?
In making the d-monster I wanted to explore the idea of
nature verses nurture. Can an environment really
change someone, forcing them to choose to adapt or be
fired? Or do we have a natural affinity for
environments that allow our true self to come out?
- Kinga Suto, April 2010