According to Martel, telephone companies were before their time in hiring industrial psychologists to work out exactly how to lure women into the job. Companies cast the job of an operator as a wonderful thing by suggesting it bestowed a heightened femininity. Not only could being an operator help them act out their feminine roles, but it can improve them as women.
With this type a self-affirming identity as an operator it's no wonder, Martel says, the women objected strongly to being downsized at the end of the 1990s. Never mind that they were guinea pigs in an industry that would foreshadow many of the century's industrial practices and abuses, such as mass production, management surveillance and job-related physical ailments like carpal-tunnel syndrome.
So, while the operators worked seemingly behind the scenes, they were in fact at the forefront of the last century's technological revolution and all of its attendant social, cultural, economic and even physical phenomena. Phantom of the Operator does a commendable job in making this clear and at preserving a record of a mostly unseen culture that is fading rapidly into memory.
Film festival notes:
What: The 4th Taiwan InternationalDocumentary Festival.
When: Until Friday.
Where: Showtime Cinema (欣欣晶華影城), 247 Linsen N Rd, Taipei (台北市林森北路247號).
Spot-Taipei Film House (光點台北), 18 Zhongshan N Rd, Sec 2, Taipei
接線生魅影
卡洛琳瑪黛
加拿大多倫多國際影展
溫哥華國際影展
本片取材自1910至1989年間，北美洲的電話公司所攝製的影片，從中剪輯而成。它帶領我們回顧電話接線生的沿革，她們猶如無限擴張的宇宙裡的流星。超過百部工業、廣告與教育影片的資料，是本片的原始靈感來源。這些影片儘管被電影史所忽略，它們卻讓人們看清楚過去一個世紀裡，企業界、科學界與普羅大眾的想像世界。片中描寫無數如幽靈般的婦女，在通訊系統中服務，而今這個系統已經把她們給吞噬光了。或許這些影片裡，也紀錄了她們消逝的蛛絲馬跡。
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