Viva La Vulva is a love song to a part of us that doesn’t get enough love.
Set to the iconic track ‘Take Yo’ Praise’ by Camille Yarbrough, it’s a lip-sync music video with a twist, featuring hundreds of vulvas of every shape and colour, all singing loud and proud to the equally diverse women who love them back.
The film subverts multiple taboos around the vulva on the way: celebrating conch shells, messy oysters, juicy fruits, embracing the much-shamed camel-toe, and even Barbie makes a cameo, outraged she doesn’t have a vulva.
The film ends on behind the scene interviews of the cast, opening up about the issue, the shame, the ignorance and reclaiming their bodies.
Cultural / Context information for the jury
For centuries vulvas have been censored, objectified, and erased altogether in the name of ‘decency’. Meanwhile the recent explosion of porn has pressurised young women to believe their genitals should look a certain way: the myth of the ‘perfect’ vulva.
As a result, almost half of women feel embarrassed by their vulva, 7/10 don’t know what normal looks like, many demand a ‘designer vagina’ (labiaplasty is the fastest growing cosmetic surgery in the world), or avoid cervical cancer tests out of embarrassment.
The intimate care category has historically been so clinical and euphemistic that it enforced these taboos - many women buy and use the products in shame, like a dirty secret.
Tell the jury about type(s) of animation used and summarise any relevant challenges or techniques.
Viva La Vulva is a love song to a part of us that doesn’t get enough love, featuring 450 animated vulvas in all shapes sizes colours and forms singing loud and proud to the women who love them back. Taking the lip-sync music video to a whole new place, visual effects were key to giving each vulva a personality of their own, not just getting the ‘lips’ to sync by opening / closing in time, but creating a convincing performance for each vulva. Techniques included stop motion with live-action plates (cupcakes, grapefruit, origami, embroidery, papaya, chalkboard, peach), rigged puppeteering (camel toe, buttons, products), performance puppeteering (fortune tellers, purses, puppets, paper vulvas), and even air jets to make the oysters sing in sync.