From the Pandemic Archives:
It’s Pride Month, and in this summer of quarantine (and moving to a town so small we don’t even have a stoplight) I’m getting my queer fix through movies.
The first on the list was Portrait of a Lady on Fire (you can catch it on Hulu). I knew it was going to be a more serious period piece, but I didn’t know how tedious it was going to be. Within the first half-hour I was groaning at all the intense stares. Everything was so slow and melodramatic, and I quickly found myself not giving a shit about the slow burn (pun intended) relationship. I felt like a bad gay for not enjoying the movie. It was completely focused on women, there are hardly any men in the film at all. They don’t really have speaking roles, which is an accomplishment all on its own. I wanted to like this movie, but it was just so damn angsty.
Next up was Vita and Virginia (also on Hulu), and I was so hopeful. It’s set in the 20’s! The fashion is great. The score by Isobel Waller-Bridge (Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s older sister!) is modern and interesting. Vita is extroverted, flirtatious, and charming. I would have fallen head-over-heels for her. Quickly though, the film devolves into more tortured staring and pining. The character’s most intimate moments unfold through letters, where the two actresses monologue while staring into a soft focus lens.
Is this what people think lesbian relationships are like? Do people know that lesbians fuck?
I was going to let it slide. It’s just a couple of movies that I didn’t like. What’s the big deal?
Then my fiance decided our third Pride Month movie would be an old classic, The Birdcage. It’s from 1996 and focuses on the relationship of two feminine, average-looking gay men. (Robin Williams and Nathan Lane are not sex symbols) I’m not going to get into the problematic elements of this movie. There are ignorant racial stereotypes and other issues to be sure. But the moral of the story is that these two effeminate and queeny men shouldn’t be asked to change. All the drama is around trying to make these men be something they aren’t. They don’t learn how to act straight. They don’t become less femme. At the end of the story, they are accepted for who they are. These characteristics are their strengths.
Did I mention this movie was made in 1996? There’s a scene where Robin Williams is exchanging estate paperwork with Nathan Lane because they can’t get married. If this were a real story, they’d have to wait about nine more years to access the full benefits of marriage. Just a small detail, we only got marriage equality in 2015.
After I watched The Birdcage, my mind kept churning over how different these movies are. Before Portrait of a Lady on Fire, I think the last lesbian movie I watched was The Favorite, which was incredibly grim. Before that it was Carol, another overly serious snooze-fest. There’s also Blue is the Warmest Color, a detached artsy movie that I really wanted to like. The comic is much better. Another issue with all these movies is how fucking white they are. The period pieces are mostly European and feature almost no BIPOC characters.
Movies about gay men aren’t all sunshine and drag queens. Moonlight, Brokeback Mountain, Philadelphia, are tragic, filled with longing and death. So many stories about gay men focus on AIDS, but there’s more variety in the field. To Wong Fu (Thanks for Everything), Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and The Birdcage are all feel-good celebratory movies. The men and transgender characters are portrayed mostly positively. (There are enormously problematic character portrayals.) The overall message of these films is that these people enjoy themselves and who they are and we should too.
Why don’t we have more campy, silly movies that celebrate lesbian culture and relationships? ‘But I’m a Cheerleader’ isn’t enough.
Lesbians know how to have fun. We don’t spend all our time staring at each other full of turmoil. There’s the girl who will give you a look and sweep you off your feet. There’s hours of conversation with laughter and flirtation. There’s also sex, not soft focus or distant and emotional. Lesbians have sex that is raw, passionate, and toe-curling.
Culturally, I don’t think we understand that women are perfectly capable of having a good time without men.
There is effort being made to right the wrongs that have existed in film and movies, but that’s led to the current trend of the Strong Female Character (™). So we wind up with Wonder Woman and Ms. Marvel, that are queer-coded without showing any obvious and clear lesbian relationships. We got that one lesbian kiss at the very end of Rise of Skywalker, but it was just a moment between two unnamed background characters. I sighed out loud in the theater.
It’s getting better, but mostly on TV. I’m not a fan of Orange is the New Black, but it did have a wide range of queer women and queer women of color. We’re seeing a lot of representation in kid’s cartoons (of all places). Legends of Korra touched on bisexuality, but they didn’t really explore it. Steven Universe has fantastic portrayals of queer women, there’s equal parts romance, grief, and longing. We also have Noelle Stevenson who fought tooth and nail for queer representation in She-Ra. There was a lesbian relationship set up between the two main characters of the show, that finally paid off with Catradora.
If it can be done in a kid’s cartoon, then it can be done in movies made for adults.
We need to let go of our hang-ups around women, femininity, and female sexuality. On that note, we need to have more and better examples of non-binary identies and sexuality.
I want to see a lesbian romance that’s fun and joyful. I want to see women having realistic sex together, in a way that’s geared towards the women in the audience. (Done in a way that is respectful towards the actresses playing these roles!!)
So, I try really hard not to be that person that just complains. There is a huge gulf between criticism and creation. My sci-fi novel prominently features a lesbian relationship with my main character. Their romance is based around mutual love and trust. They believe in each other. They support one another unconditionally. They have hot sex. When there are moments of stress and disagreement in the relationship, they talk through it and figure out a solution as a team. Their relationship plays a positive role in both of their lives, giving them strength and direction.
And it wasn’t hard to do.
There is so much depth and joy in women’s relationships. It’s sexist societal beliefs that hold us back. So I’m going to keep writing the stories I want to see and supporting creators like Noelle Stevenson, Rebecca Sugar, Natasha Lyonne, and Lena Waithe who are advancing the representation of queer women on screen.