Reviewed by:

• Sex and Consequences by Isabella Rossellini
• Shelby Brewster

In Isabella Rossellini’s short film “Praying Mantis,” the actress dons a green bodysuit with extra legs and wings attached. She describes her life as a male praying mantis: “I can turn my head almost 360 degrees without moving any other parts of my body. I can change color to camouflage myself and hide in nature.” She describes her mate, a humansized mantis puppet, as a cannibal. But Rossellini-as-mantis will mate with her anyway. She hops over to the puppet, narrating her actions, and demonstrates mantis mating. Suddenly, the musical underscore turns eerie, playing high-pitched strings as Rossellini cries, “She would snatch my head off.” The mantis puppet devours Rossellini’s head as she yells, “She would eat me, but I keep copulating. Nothing stops me. I keep going.” The film abruptly ends as Rossellini hollers, “SEX!”

Isabella Rossellini sports her “Fly” costume, complete with wings and an extra set of limbs. (Photo: Jody Shapiro.)

This short film, from Rossellini’s 2008 collection Green Porno, usefully encapsulates the mission of the actress’s oeuvre of solo performance, including her most recent piece, Sex and Consequences, a streaming performance that combined clips from her previous film work with intimate live segments of [End Page 240] the actress in her home, the working Mama Farm in Long Island, New York. Rossellini created the show with director Paul Magid (best known as one of the founders of the Flying Karamazov Brothers) and streamed it over several weeks in the fall of 2020. Although the COVID-19 pandemic was the primary reason for the show’s virtual nature, the streaming schedule allowed audiences in multiple locations and time zones access to this informative and hilarious performance, which featured not only the illustrious actress Rossellini, but also a variety of puppets and even live animals. The combination of Rossellini’s playful mannerisms with the madcap aesthetic of recorded performances, featuring her dressed up as a wide variety of nonhumans, created an amusing and informative peek into the strange world of animals’ sexual habits. Rossellini’s cheeky demeanor took on an almost conspiratorial tone as she granted viewers access to her private life, like seeing a teacher outside of the classroom; this sense was only heightened by the forced isolation that characterizes the pandemic.

Rossellini, who holds a master’s degree in animal behavior and conservation from Hunter College, has long been focused on communicating scientific knowledge to audiences via film and live solo performances. She began this effort with a series of short films produced by Sundance TV. The result was Green Porno, which launched Rossellini into viral stardom. Each film sees Rossellini portray a particular animal via simply constructed costumes and vibrant, colorful makeup. She uses first-person narration to describe the animal’s behavior: “If I were a salmon, the last act of my life would be making love”; “If I were a bee, a queen bee, I would be very fat, and do nothing else but lay eggs.” Her scene partners are most often puppets or other objects standing in for members of the animal kingdom. The films’ campy aesthetics, coupled with Rossellini’s serious and scientific tone, are simultaneously informative, hilarious, and a bit weird. She went on to create two more film collections, Seduce Me (2010) and Mammas (2013), and a stage monologue, Green Porno Live (2014).

Each work takes an unabashed look at the wild ways of animal mating and have been rich material for ecofeminists and queer theorists. Rossellini brought this same zany affect from her shorts (like “Praying Mantis”) to the live segments of Sex and Consequences, most specifically through a stuffed human-body puppet. The lumpy white puppet, whose human features are limited to two arms, two legs, and a faceless head, she named her husband, Roberto. Throughout the performance, Rossellini manipulated Roberto’s stuffed, pale limbs in a cheeky rehearsal of human courtship, underlining the connections that her work makes between human and animal behavior. At one point...

审核人：

• 伊莎贝拉·罗西里尼的《性与后果》
• 谢尔比布鲁斯特

在伊莎贝拉·罗西里尼 (Isabella Rossellini) 的短片《螳螂》(Praying Mantis) 中，这位女演员身着绿色紧身连衣裤，上面有额外的腿和翅膀。她将自己的生活描述为一只雄性螳螂：“我几乎可以 360 度转动头部，而无需移动身体的任何其他部位。我可以改变颜色来伪装自己并隐藏在大自然中。” 她将她的伴侣，一个人形螳螂傀儡，描述为食人者。但无论如何，作为螳螂的罗西里尼都会与她交配。她跳到木偶身边，讲述她的行为，并展示螳螂交配。突然，音乐下划线变得怪异，在罗西里尼喊道时演奏高音弦，“她会抢走我的头。” 螳螂傀儡吃掉了罗西里尼的头，她大叫道：“她会吃掉我，但我一直在交配。没有什么能阻止我。我继续。” 影片突然结束，罗西里尼喊道：“SEX！”

伊莎贝拉·罗西里尼 (Isabella Rossellini) 穿着她的“苍蝇”服装，配有翅膀和一组额外的四肢。（照片：乔迪·夏​​皮罗。）

这部短片来自罗西里尼 2008 年的系列Green Porno，有用地概括了这位女演员的个人表演作品的使命，包括她最近的作品《性与后果》（Sex and Consequences），这是一部流媒体表演，将她之前电影作品的剪辑与[第 240 页结束]这位女演员在家中，纽约长岛的工作妈妈农场。罗西里尼与导演保罗·马吉德（最著名的是飞行卡拉马佐夫兄弟的创始人之一）共同创作了该节目，并在 2020 年秋季播出了数周。尽管 COVID-19 大流行是该节目虚拟性质的主要原因，流媒体节目表让多个地点和时区的观众都能观看到这场内容丰富、热闹非凡的表演，表演中不仅有杰出的女演员罗西里尼，还有各种木偶甚至活体动物。罗西里尼俏皮的举止与录制表演的疯狂美学相结合，将她打扮成各种各样的非人类，创造了对动物性习惯的奇怪世界的有趣而丰富的窥视。罗西里尼厚颜无耻的举止几乎带有阴谋论的意味，因为她允许观众进入她的私人生活，就像在课堂外看到老师一样；这种感觉只会因大流行所特有的被迫隔离而更加强烈。

罗西里尼拥有亨特学院动物行为和保护硕士学位，长期以来一直专注于通过电影和现场独奏表演向观众传播科学知识。她从圣丹斯电视台制作的一系列短片开始了这项工作。结果是绿色色情，这使罗西里尼成为病毒式明星。每部电影都看到罗西里尼通过简单构造的服装和充满活力、色彩丰富的妆容来描绘特定的动物。她用第一人称叙述来描述动物的行为：“如果我是一条鲑鱼，我这辈子的最后一件事就是做爱”；“如果我是一只蜜蜂，一只蜂王，我会很胖，除了产卵什么都不做。” 她的场景伙伴通常是代表动物王国成员的木偶或其他物体。电影的野蛮美学，加上罗西里尼严肃而科学的基调，同时信息丰富、搞笑，而且有点怪异。她继续创作了另外两个电影集，Seduce Me (2010) 和Mammas (2013)，以及舞台独白，Green Porno Live (2014)。

每部作品都毫不掩饰地审视了动物交配的狂野方式，为生态女性主义者和酷儿理论家提供了丰富的素材。罗西里尼从她的短裤（如“螳螂”）中将这种滑稽的效果带到了性与后果的现场片段中，尤其是通过一个填充的人体木偶。这个笨重的白色木偶，人类的特征仅限于两条胳膊、两条腿和一个没有脸的头，她给她的丈夫取名为罗伯托。在整个表演中，罗西里尼在人类求爱的厚颜无耻的排练中操纵罗伯托苍白的四肢，强调她的作品在人类和动物行为之间建立的联系。在一个点上...