Sadie Benning has been a cause celebre in the queer community for almost a decade. Born in 1973 to a filmmaker father and an artist mother, she began making short films at age 15 and two years later came out as a lesbian.

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Benning received a Masters of Fine Arts from Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College in 1997. One of the most original voices working in video in the past decade, has grown from a teenager making striking personal films in her bedroom with a Fisher Price Pixelvision camera.

Flat Is Beautiful (1998), an experimental, live-action cartoon, uses masks, animation, and drawings to illustrate the life of an androgynous 11-year-old, Taylor. Growing up in a working-class neighborhood with her single mother and gay roommate, Taylor confronts the loneliness of living between masculine and feminine in a culture obsessed with defining gender. The Judy Spots (1995), four short videos produced for MTV, feature a papier-mâché puppet who ruminates on her position in society. German Song (1994) is Benning's video for the band "Come".

She has participated in museum exhibitions and festivals worldwide, has won numerous grants and awards, and has presented lectures and artists workshops. Her works can be found in various museum's permanent collections, and she has been featured in numerous broadcast and print publications.

During an interview with The Advocate in 1990, she showed a strong political bent too:

My dad said to me, "You know, I'm really worried that all your work is just going to be on one subject." And I was like, "Yeah, my life." He makes [experimental] films. What are his films about? They're about his life. It just so happens that his sexuality isn't something that people are going to label or talk about or say, "He's the heterosexual artist."