“Underplayed” documentary: An Interview with Stacey Lee

By Dominic Wren

Once again, Bud Light Canada has invested into the EDM industry to add another piece of art that will hardly be forgotten. Underplayed is a documentary that discusses the topic of gender equality within the electronic music industry. Set to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City in April (though it’s been postponed due to COVID-19), the documentary is directed by Stacey Lee who has amassed a wide range of successes, such as picking up awards from Cannes, One Show, D&AD, AWARD and ranking 9th in the world at the Young Guns Advertising Awards. To check out some of Stacey Lee’s past projects: https://vimeo.com/staceylee.

I had an opportunity to have a chat with the film director, Stacey Lee, about her new documentary Underplayed. This isn’t her first film for the music industry. Stacey has made short films and music videos and for various musical artists in the past and has mentioned that the film industry and the music industry have many parallel gender issues when it comes to integration, opportunities and access. Her last input in the EDM scene was her project with Black Coffee where she directed a music video for the DJ about four years ago and mentioned that when Bud Light approached her about the Underplayed documentary she thought “surely things have gotten better since last time.” The fact is that not much has changed at all in the EDM industry.  In the 2019 DJ Mag Top 100 list of 2019, 5 women had made it onto the consequential list. Furthermore, a study from the Annenberg Institute show that women make up less than 3% of the production and technical roles in the music industry and that in the top 150 clubs, the annual rate of females DJs in around 6% according to Djane Magazine. “These stats are concerning”, says the director.

Stacey Lee

To create the documentary, Stacey followed and studied many female DJs, such as Nervo, Alison Wonderland, Suzanne Ciani, and many more during the 2019 festival season. Lee mentions that during her time following the artists, it was very important to her to hear all of the different perspectives like Nervo’s birth of their babies, Rezz and Alison Wonderland’s new found success in the modern age of electronic music, Tokimonsta’s long road to the top, and more. “This film isn’t about the negatives of the issue but more about the solutions,” states Lee.

The film director mentions that there are many artists who appear in Underplayed that push to help the issue in different ways, such as Alison Wonderland who played her original songs with an all female string and percussion band at her 2019 Temple of Wonderland at Red Rocks in 2019. Lee also points out Suzanne Ciani for “connecting her legacy” to show that women have been there all along and others of the like who will refuse to play at events that don’t have enough females names in the lineups. “Tools like these create pipelines where it gives women more opportunity” she says while also adding that “it’s not about putting women there because we have to, it’s about allowing women the opportunity to be there.” Raising awareness is her intent with this film.

The title of the film, Underplayed, serves as a symbol of the under representation of women in the EDM industry. Lee affirms that it is a “representation of women in the EDM world who have been there all along but have never been recognized.” She also explains that the House and Techno scene was born in the Black, Hispanic and LGBTQ communities who were using this as a form of expression and to come together.