Golden future for lesbian film

Golden future for lesbian film

For glass-half-full film-goers, the forecast of a Golden Age of lesbian cinema is promising — namely, the Golden Age is likely to be ahead of us.

The news is welcome for anyone who’s taken the trouble to sit down to a lesbian flick only to wish the director had hired a scriptwriter or some decent actors.

Encouragingly, University of Newcastle lecturer Dr Rebecca Beirne — who has been researching lesbian representation in world cinema — says lesbian and bisexual film-lovers have a lot to look forward to.

“I’m very optimistic, I feel the number of [lesbian] films coming out is increasing every single year, and exponentially,” Beirne told the Star Observer.

“I think the more we get, the more diversity there will be, and the more people will be able to see lots of different types of [lesbian characters] … and there’s less chance of stereotyping.”

Part of Beirne’s research has found what most know to be true — that lesbians have historically been given a bad wrap on the silver screen, with lesbian characters in the past represented in negative or stereotypical ways.

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Looking at both mainstream and independent films worldwide, Beirne has watched in excess of 300 films and interviewed directors and producers to chart the representation of lesbian characters and plot lines of lesbian desire over the last century.

“There’s definitely the trend towards the psycho lesbian, particularly vampiric lesbians … and also trends in the 1960s and ’70s towards women committing suicide as a ‘way out’.

“I think there’s definitely been a lot of change since the year 2000 in particular, both in having a much greater diversity in lesbian representation and including a lot of countries that had never made a film that had a lesbian character in it before.

“I think we’re seeing more films made by lesbian directors and writers and this means there’s a broader variety of ways lesbians are represented.
They are often more positive than the older models of crazy women and suicidal women.”

So is a robust lesbian film scene dependent on the number of lesbian directors, scriptwriters and producers?

“It often is, but doesn’t always have to be,” Beirne said.

“If you look at the British film Imagine Me and You, directed by Ol Parker, who’s not lesbian … it is quite a charming, upbeat lesbian love story, so I don’t think it has to necessarily, but it does make a difference.

“Things like the huge queer film festival circuit that exists around the world as well as specific film distributors like WolfeVideo [US] that release a lot of queer films that might otherwise not make it to an international audience mean there are more outlets and more of a consciousness that you can sell all these films to a subcultural audience, as well as potentially a broader audience.”

Beirne notes there are exceptions to the ‘psycho lesbian’ character in 1931 German film Mädchen in Uniform — thought to be one of the first lesbian films — about a schoolgirl who falls in love with her female teacher.

“If you look back at Mädchen in Uniform, I wouldn’t see that necessarily as a negative portrayal. It still has these elements. The word ‘lesbian’ or ‘queer’ isn’t really spoken, but it’s quite obvious what’s going on.”

While the popularity of lesbian films is arguably far less than gay male films, Beirne said, so too the study of lesbian films isn’t a topic that’s widely covered.

“There is a lot more scholarship on gay male representation, in everything really, but also particularly in film.

“This also has to do with the fact there has been a lot more gay male films. They’re more popular, they’re more widely distributed and more acceptable — this is contentious, but I would say more acceptable in a mainstream context.

“There was this trend in the 1990s toward the ‘gay handbag’ character as we might call it, if you think My Best Friend’s Wedding, which saw gay male characters starting to make it more prominently in mainstream films in a way lesbian characters are only starting to do.”

Beirne said the turning point for lesbian film was in the 1990s with films like Go Fish leading the charge of a new queer cinema revolution in the US and in Australia, Love and Other Catastrophes.

“So while I think the number [of lesbian films made] has branched out in 2000, things started changing in the 1990s.

“In the ’70s we saw a lot of this vampire narrative or the sexploitation narrative. In the ’80s things were starting to emerge and feminist filmmakers started to produce full-length lesbian feature films, but it wasn’t until the ’90s that more lesbian filmmakers got involved in making films, and making what has been described as ‘the films we want to see’.”

Along the continuum, a 2010 film currently receiving mainstream acclaim, The Kids Are All Right, has picked up a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture: Comedy or Musical.

Directed by well-known lesbian director Lisa Cholodenko (High Art) the film tells the story of a lesbian-parented family, starring Hollywood big names Annette Bening and Julianne Moore and has resonated with critics worldwide.

Beirne, however, is less forthcoming with praise.

“I wouldn’t consider The Kids Are All Right as being the best example of lesbian representation on film, but I think the more examples we have, the further we get away from stereotypes,” she said.

“I think it is positive we’re moving into these stories, but again they do fit into a certain stereotype of always being obsessed with the lesbian in relation to men — as is often the case when dealing with reproduction.

“I think it’s easier for a heterosexual audience to relate to a film that, I guess, goes back to the idea of ‘where did I come from biologically?’ I think it’s potentially less threatening.”

However, gains are being made steadily by a slew of lesbian directors around the world.

“If you look at D.E.B.S. [2003] for example, [director] Angela Robinson after doing that film was offered a three-film contract with Disney to direct Herbie Fully Loaded and some other films.

“So I think you can see that at least the mainstream studios are starting to see and recognise lesbian films and see that the producers and directors are good and I think that process will start to bring more lesbian content into mainstream films.”

For Beirne, the future of lesbian film is bright.

“I think the ’90s was the stirring of something new, of what we might call a genre of lesbian films.

“I think if there is to be a Golden Age it might be [at the start] of the 21st century because so many of the lesbian-themed films up until then were either European or American and it wasn’t until the 2000s we saw nations like Taiwan and India and Lebanon with their first, at least sub-texturally, lesbian character.

“A lot of people say, ‘not another coming-out story’, because there were so many coming out stories [in the ’80s and ’90s] and I think that was important at the time, but I think there’s a greater diversity now of different types of stories with different lesbian characters.”

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MGFF 2011 LESBIAN HIGHLIGHTS

The Sea Purple
Screens: Monday, Feb 21, 7pm, Cinema Paris @ EQ
Screens: Tuesday, March 1, 7pm, Cinema Paris @ EQ

We Have To Stop Now
Screens: Wednesday, Feb 23, 7pm, Cinema Paris @ EQ
Screens: Wednesday, March 2, 7pm, Cinema Paris @ EQ

The Four Faced Liar
Screens: Sunday, Feb 20, 7pm, Dendy Newtown
Screens: Friday, Feb 25, 7pm, Cinema Paris @ EQ
Screens: Saturday, Feb 26, 5pm, Riverside Parramatta

Gigola
Screens: Saturday, Feb 19, 9pm, Cinema Paris @ EQ
Screens: Thursday, Feb 24, 7pm, Dendy Newtown

Bloomington
Screens: Tuesday, Feb 22, 7pm, Cinema Paris @ EQ
Screens: Monday, Feb 28, 7pm, Cinema Paris @ EQ

Tickets
www.queerscreen.com.au

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