WHAT’S YOUR FETISH?

BY: Amanda Jane Stern

This PROVOKR exclusive interview features Adria Tennor, the creator of the web series Fetish.

The hilarious new web series Fetish follows Paula Wheeler, a newly divorced woman whose life is ashambles. One day she gets abducted by a literature-obsessed fetishist in a dog-mask, who dresses her in bear-themed lingerie and makes her read to him from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, before letting her go physically unharmed. After the traumatic incident, Paula begins to explore the world of fetish, and particularly fetish fulfillment as a means to financial gain.

PROVOKOR got an exclusive interview with Adria Tennor, the show’s star and co-creator about this wildly funny series. Tennor is best known for her recurring roles on Mad Men and Mad Dogs, as well as for the feature film The Artist. You can currently watch all of Fetish season 1 on YouTube or IGTV, as this interview does contain some spoilers for the show, we suggest you watch first. It’s a very quick, and fun watch.

What inspired you to create Fetish?

Adria Tennor: I was inspired by the fact that I get sort of typecast as this character. The way I look is pretty normal, you know, suburban, girl-next-door, maybe woman-next-door now. But I always get cast in roles where I’m just doing something a little weird. And so I just started to develop material for myself. My short film Pie was about a woman who murdered her husband and put his penis in a pie. So I look like Stepford Wifey, normal, but I’m a kook. So I wanted to develop a piece for myself, and that seems to be the character that clicks for me. I mean I’m not putting my husband’s penis in a pie yet in Fetish, but becoming a fetish fulfiller isn’t something every woman-next-door is doing. 

It seems that ever since the 50 Shades of Grey books came out, kink has been a big topic of conversation. How much research did you do into the fetish community?

Adria Tennor: I mean I googled a lot. It was a little scary, because when you google things like that, then your browser finds things you don’t really want to see. But I did do a lot of online research. I’m embarrassed to say that I have not read those 50 Shades of Grey books. Yeah, I feel like there’s this focus on kink perhaps because of 50 Shades, but I just feel that slowly but surely we’re just loosening up here in the United States.

In the second episode, the kidnapper with the reading fetish makes your character read Uncle Tom’s Cabin. What’s the significance of that specific book, if there is any?

Adria Tennor: Well it’s a piece of literature, it’s also public domain. Because we had no money, and wanted to choose pieces that were in the public domain. I didn’t realize this, but it wasn’t just enough to choose a piece of literature that was in the public domain, but in order to portray it on screen I also had to find cover artwork that was public domain. So that’s why that cover was chosen. So there was that, and it was also just like what is the least likely thing that would be a turn on for someone and let’s use that. What is the weirdest situation we can come up with?

The fetish that the kidnapper has, you called Libersexusperversus. I did my own digging, and the American Psychiatric Association doesn’t actually have a specific term for a paraphilia related to reading or being read to. The closest thing I found was metrophilia, which is poetry-induced sexual arousal. So how did you come up with the term Libersexusperversus?

Adria Tennor: You know, I really thought that I googled that term, and found that term. But if you’re telling me that I didn’t, then I must have created it myself. My recollection is that I googled that and found that word. Maybe it’s not official in a medical, psychology database. So this is how my mind rewrites things. Weird. I thought that that was a technical term that I was using, but maybe I created that. I’ll have to go back and look at that myself. But like I said, I’m afraid to google these things cause a lot of stuff comes up. You know, it’s like when you look up something on your browser and then you open instagram. I don’t know what would happen if I did that. I don’t want to open instagram and be like fetish fulfillment.

Speaking of instagram, in the last episode, the kidnapper calls and says that he is one of Paula’s followers on instagram. And since he says she only has 6 followers, do you have an idea of who the kidnapper is?

Adria Tennor: Yes, we do. We have a very very specific idea of who he or she is. And that will hopefully be revealed in subsequent seasons.

So you do have plans for further seasons?

Adria Tennor: Yes. In fact, some of that has been shot. You know in the first episode, when you see the abductor picking out the book he wants to be read to from the shelf. And he or she puts the glove on too. There’s another piece that we shot where the person pushes off their cloak so you can see who it is. But, we will reveal that in subsequent seasons.

You’ve written a lot about sex, romance, and divorce. How much do you pull from personal experience and how much is just made up?

Adria Tennor: I did not ever cut my husband’s penis off and put it in a cherry pie. But most of the things I write about are personal. I feel like that that makes the best stuff. The stuff that’s scary to talk about, that’s what I find most people relate to. I am not a fetish fulfiller though. Not yet anyway.

You created the show with Kristen Tracy. How did you two meet, and what made you want to work together?

Adria Tennor: I had a screenplay that has won a few screenplay competitions, including CineStory. And they do this screenplay camp in Idyllwild, and Kristen also was a finalist in that competition. So that’s where we met. Kristen is a super accomplished young adult novelist, super funny. And I just loved her sensibility, I loved her sense of humor. And I wanted to write something with someone, and I pitched her this idea that I had about this woman who deals porn out of her living room. And so we started to collaborate on it. And we shifted from porn because porn isn’t dealt anymore, you stream porn, so it wouldn’t work. But Kristen had heard about this woman who’d been abducted by a guy who just wanted her to read to him and then he let her go free.

That was a true story?

Adria Tennor: Yes, I think so. I mean it was a story that Kristen told me and I believed her.

What do you hope people take away from the show?

Adria Tennor: I think that it’s fun to see an underdog, unlikely hero doing something scary, out of her wheelhouse, out of her realm, and making a go of it. She is so beaten down by the circumstances of her life, and we really want to see her succeed. And also the power of the friendship of the women, I think is beautiful. And also the relationship with her daughter, Maude, that’s something I have written about before, the fallibility of our parents. Everyone is human, but we want our mom and dad to be, we believe that they are invincible and champions, but really they are not. Especially in fetish, the character of Maude is so together, she’s often the mother in that relationship, which is not unusual.

We’ve only met Ted, the ex-husband, in that one scene, but he’s clearly also a bit of a mess in his own way. Is the next season gonna delve more into his character?

Adria Tennor: Yeah. I feel like he got sort of a bad rap. We see him firing her. We don’t see him in episode 3, but he’s off-screen having an issue with a colon-cleanse kit, so we hear him. I think the plan for Ted Wheeler is to humanize and sympathize with him a little more than we may have in the first season.

What can you tell me about what might happen in season 2?

Adria Tennor: I think Paula’s gonna pull herself up by her bootstraps and figure out how to do this. Figure out what she needs to do, get her outfits, what she likes. And she may or may not enlist the help of her friends. And she’s also gonna have to try to keep this hidden from Maude, because it’s inappropriate. I don’t know how successful she will be at keeping this a secret from Maude because Maude’s pretty with it.

Is there any last thing you would like to add?

Adria Tennor: I hope people watch the show. You know, not just views but engagement, and I hear from the audience what they like, what’s fun, what they think.

PROVOKR would like to thank Adria Tennor for taking the time to speak with us about Fetish. If you haven’t already, go watch all of season 1 on YouTube or IGTV.