82 SurfGirl Magazine
It’s 60 years since Hollywood’s Gidget first brought
the beach lifestyle and surf culture to the mainstream
consciousness. Set against the backdrop of a burgeoning
youth culture, the story is based loosely on the real life
experiences of a teen surfer, Kathy Kohner Zuckerman,
trying to make her way into the scene and into the line
up at Malibu in the late 50s – a time when men like Dora,
Tubesteak et al ruled the waves. “I couldn’t relate to the
girly thing,” recalls Zuckerman. “So when I found Malibu
I thought, this is it. I’m going to learn how to surf. I’ve
found my place.” While the film may now seem kitsch and
outmoded, its attempts to capture the surfing subculture- the language and lore – and it’s wider impact can’t be
underestimated. The teen rom-com heralded the start of
the surfing boom, which saw literally thousands of would-
be wave riders flock to the California coastline, and at the
heart of it all was a girl learning to surf on a $35 Mike Doyle
board. A year later, Surfer Magazine launched and surf
culture in print and in film began to take hold in earnest.
The 60s, 70s and 80s were punctuated by now iconic
surf movies from Endless Summer to Crystal Voyager
and Green Iguana. And while world-class female surfers
from Linda Benson, Jericho Poppler and Joyce Hoffman,
to Frieda Zamba, Pam Burridge and Rell Sunn featured
in surf films and documentaries of the times, often their
appearances were little more than cameos or novelties.
In 1991, all this changed and once again Hollywood
was the unlikely source with Point Break. Bear with me.
For the wave-riding world this Marmite film is at best a
pastiche of the scene – surfers robbing banks to finance
an endless summer. While Rolling Stone magazine called
it, ‘the greatest female-gaze action movie ever’, this is not
about Bodhi or Johnny Utah. Hands down, the coolest
and best-defined character was Lori Petti’s Tyler Endicott.
She worked a fast-food job to maximize her water time,
she ripped, she drove a beat-up Porsche 356 Speedster,
and saved Keanu Reeve’s character from drowning,
sending him in with the classic line: “You wanna commit
suicide, you do it someplace else! This pig-board piece of
shit! You got no business out here!” She had attitude and
grit, but underneath it had that surf spirit which means
you look out for others. The film was directed by Kathryn
Bigelow, who’d go on to win an Oscar for Hurt Locker. She
delivered us a female surf protagonist with a strong body,
a strong mind and a strong character – a female surfer we
could believe in and aspire to.
A decade later, spawned by journalist Susan Orlean’s
article in Outside Magazine about the ‘Surf Girls of Maui’,
Hollywood delivered Blue Crush. This served up a whole
raft of strong female surfers on the big screen, from actors
to the real deal pros like Sanoe Lake, Coco Ho, Keala
Kennely and Rochelle Ballard. As with most mainstream
takes on surfing, the merits of the film – equal parts part
rom-com and girl power – are debatable, but what’s
indisputable is the seismic shift in surfing and the global
boom in women taking to the water that resulted. “To
be a surfer girl... is perhaps the apogee of all that is cool
and wild and modern and sexy and defiant,” wrote Susan
Orlean and it captured the zeitgeist. “The Blue Crush
phenomenon” was real; surfing and female surfers were
everywhere.
Away from the bright lights of Hollywood, Thomas
Campbell’s ground-breaking trilogy of ensemble art films,
Seedling, Sprout and The Present, released over a decade
from 1999, featured the very best of female surfing from
the likes of Kassia Meador, Belinda Baggs and Sofia
Mulanovich, alongside male counterpoints from Joel Tudor
to Alex Knost and Rob Machado. These were not cookie-
cutter films with traditional models of representation, they
brought to the screen an alternative wave-riding mindset,
shining a light on the creativity that exists within surfing,
embracing a broad spectrum of board shapes, surfers,
locales and styles, and reflecting the changing landscape
of the line up. This inclusive, ensemble spirit has been
embraced by filmmakers such as Nathan Oldfield.
While ensemble surf movies began to level the playing
field, films like Dear & Yonder (2009), directed by Tiffany
Campbell and Andria Lessler, reset the stage. This brought
together a dynamic all-women cast of all ages, crafts and
styles including Linda Benson, Stephanie Gilmore, LeeAnn
Curren, Liz Clarke and Kassia Meador, to surf, shape, ride,
rip and ultimately traverse perceived boundaries.
Slipstreaming in its wake, the 2010 documentary First
Love followed three young female surfers on their journey
to making their passion their career. The movie ushered
in a new wave of female talent behind and in front of the
lens, including current WCT surfer Nikki van Dijk and multi
award-winning filmmaking team Clare Plueckhahn and
Fran Derham.
When ‘Leave a Message’ was released in 2011,
everyone was ready for it. Filmed over two years, featuring
the generation’s most radical female performance surfers
from Carissa Moore to Lakey Peterson and Laura Enever
in the very best waves, and set to a kick ass sound track