Academy of Music & Theatre Arts Falmouth University

Theatre Department 2020-21 BA (Hons) Acting

Module: ATP330

Module Title: The Thinking Practitioner, Student-Led Research

Submission: Extended Essay, 6000 words

Student Name: Olivia Longbone

Essay Title: THE ETHICAL REPRESENTATION OF LESBIANISM ON SCREEN AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LGBTQ+ FEMALE ARTISTS IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS.

Supervisor: Ciaran Clarke

Statement of Authorship: by making this submission I declare myself the sole author of this essay and confirm that I have not used any source material other than that cited in the text and detailed in the list of references/bibliography. This essay is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the award of BA (hons) Acting. I confirm that, except where other sources are acknowledged, this project is my own unaided work and that its length is 6,562 words.

Table of contents

Introduction: p1

Chapter 1: Pervasive tropes of lesbianism in mainstream cinema – p4

• The “luscious lesbian” and her stone-butch antithesis – p5

• The “predatory lesbian” and her conversion narrative – p7

• The “apparitional lesbian” and her ambiguous sexuality – p9

• “Bury Your Gays” or “Dead Lesbian Syndrome” and the tragic tale of

homosexuality – p11

Chapter 2: Ethical representations of lesbianism in cinema – p14

• Lesbianism in Art House and non-narrative cinema – p15

• A dissection of ethical representation in mainstream cinema – p18

Conclusion: p22

Bibliography: p24

With thanks to Ciaran Clarke for coaching me through this process, guiding my writing and being an incredible support, to those who endured my rantings as I discovered more inequalities and tropes than I thought possible, and to my girlfriend and

my mum for encouraging and supporting me.

Finally, my thanks go to the incredible LGBTQ+ women who have paved the way in the industry for me and so many others –

may our efforts for ethical representation and diversity never cease. 1

THE ETHICAL REPRESENTATION OF LESBIANISM ON SCREEN AND THE

SIGNIFICANCE OF LGBTQ+ FEMALE ARTISTS IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS.

The presence of LGBTQ+ female creatives is perhaps the most important aspect of constructing stories on screen which ethically depict the lesbian experience. However, many films that centre around lesbianism or involve major characters that identify as lesbians are directed and written by heterosexual men. Indeed, plenty of mainstream films that are highly regarded as lesbian cinema from the past decade have been directed by men, namely: Room in Rome, The Heiresses, Blue is the Warmest Colour,

The Duke of Burgundy, Carol, Disobedience, Battle of the Sexes, The Misandrists,

Collette and The Favourite (Cinema Paradiso 2020). While these films have been met with varying degrees of success and criticism, they share the influence of the male gaze.

What role should men, particularly heterosexual men, play in the creation of lesbian stories, especially considering that the core of the identity being presented does not involve a male presence in any way? A further issue stems from the choice to cast straight actors to play lesbians. Despite any tact or sensitivity in the performance, it is arguable that the exclusion of gay female actors by replacing them with their heterosexual counterparts is damaging and reduces what could be a nuanced creation to simply a performance of gayness. As of 2018, 61 heterosexual actors have been nominated for an Academy Award since the foundation of the Oscars for their performance of an LGBTQ+ character (Baur 2018). This effectively represses the voices of the LGBTQ+ community by having their stories portrayed by people who do not have to deal with the ramifications of a gay identity in reality. For the purpose of this essay, the term “ethical representation” will be utilised with regard to the exemplification of lesbian characters that are accurate, not damaging to the 2 community they depict, avoid the use of harmful tropes (examined later in this essay) and that have been crafted with pure intentions. The expression “creative process” will regard those in explicitly narrative roles such as writers, directors and actors, that predominantly sculpt the portrayal on screen. My thesis stands that ethical representation of lesbianism in film is entirely dependent on an LGBTQ+ presence in the creative process.

Is there an intrinsic issue with heterosexual male directors attempting to portray lesbians on screen? In actuality, there may not be as long as the film is not inaccurate, derogatory or damaging to the communities that it portrays. The issue stands however, that heterosexual men are unable to convey the lesbian experience with full accuracy as it is not a part of their lived experience, no matter how much respect and research is applied. “For all our lives, we’ve always … seen ourselves refracted through other people’s prisms. We’ve always heard people analyse us, describe what our feelings are, what our thoughts are” (Feinberg 1993), this is a sentiment widely held in the LGBTQ+ community which historically has had minimal command over their portrayal across media. The fact that the majority of gay media, in the mainstream at least, is created and shaped by heterosexual men only intensifies this feeling. Heterosexual male directors’ creations will also be essentially implicated by the male gaze as posited by

Laura Mulvey in her seminal essay, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1975), which argued that intrinsically “Film only serves to perpetuate a type of male-driven patriarchal language that facilitates male visual pleasure” (Royer 2019: 8).

Furthermore, male directors claiming ownership over lesbian media are, at the core of their thinking, asserting that they have a superior ability to translate stories that are not their own to the screen. Even male directors with the purest intentions are 3 unconsciously subscribing to this notion and taking an opportunity away from a gay female director in the process.

Maybe one day we will see a woman as a Member of Congress, a gypsy actor in the role of the General Manager of the Bank of Spain and a black girl following the yellow brick road to talk to a homosexual Wizard of OZ without shocking anyone. But most of all, maybe no one will ask themselves what it would have been like to have that story told by a white, heterosexual, man, because that would only be one way of telling a story. (Bollaín 1998: 389)

This point that Bollaín eloquently communicates in her essay Cinema with Tits, is applicable to the portrayal of a male director’s vision as well as a commentary on the types of stories that we see most frequently in narrative cinema. With Bollaín’s insight, it becomes clear that the root of the issue with male directors controlling cinema, including lesbian cinema, is that it is simply the default. In order for cinema to progress, alternative viewpoints are necessary. Repeating the visions of heterosexual, cisgender, white men does little to further the artistic scope of the film industry. We are at a point of limbo in history where there is a flourishing community of gay female actors, directors and writers that need embracing by the industry, ensuring that the future of film is not simply a repetition of the past 100 years.

The film industry has always had a hidden community fuelling it. There are a multitude of reasons why the LGBTQ+ community has suffered in the industry, one of the most prevalent being The Motion Picture Production Code. More commonly known as The

Hays Code, it stated that “Sex perversion or any inference to it is forbidden.” (Hays

1930), effectively outlawing showing gay characters and storylines in films from 1934 until 1968. While the Hays Code occupied the consumer’s view of Hollywood, 4

“lavender cover-ups” and “twilight tandems” (White 1999) protected the homosexual identities of some of the best and brightest in the film industry. These relationships included the union of a lesbian and a gay man in marriage to avoid suspicion by the general public and authorities (Woods 2016). The sheer quantity of suspected gay individuals involved in every aspect of Hollywood from set, to costume, directing, composing, writing and acting left some breadcrumbs for audiences to pick up on if they were in search of gay symbolism. The building blocks of the film industry were carried on the backs of homosexuals.

The reluctance of the Hollywood system to temper its consistently hostile representation of homosexuality for most of the 21st century shows that the considerable collective power so many individuals had was ceded to them under strict conditions. (Woods 2016: 286)

Evidentially, the suppression of gay storylines, creators and women in general, paved the way for the massive inequalities that we see today in the film industry. In the 118 films from major studios counted in the 2020 Studio Responsibility Index, only 18%

(22 films in total) contained characters that identified as LGBTQ+, out of which a mere

36% were lesbians, giving a total of 8 lesbian characters (GLAAD 2020). Due to the sheer lack of lesbian representation in mainstream cinema, the majority of which does not involve LGBTQ+ women in the narrative creative process, it is no surprise that many of these films perpetuate negative and uninformed tropes.

Pervasive tropes of lesbianism in mainstream cinema

There are several recurring and damaging themes in the portrayal of lesbians on screen that this essay will dissect. Firstly, the hypersexualised femme lesbian, secondly the 5 lesbian as a predatory presence, thirdly the lack of obvious lesbian identity on screen, and finally the issue of disproportionate lesbian death in mainstream film. All of these issues combine to create a filmic landscape which denies lesbians an unfettered existence. They are rarely allowed to simply exist on screen in the capacity that heterosexual characters are able to. These tropes are damaging to lesbians outside of the film industry as they enforce unhealthy stereotypes and perpetuate a culture of unjustifiable fetishization, fear and hatred.

• The “luscious lesbian” and her stone-butch antithesis

The foremost is the term coined by Ann Ciasullo meaning a lesbian whose embodiment is directed at and meant primarily for a straight male audience, the type of lesbians that appear at the peak of desirability in male centric lesbian porn films (Eaklor 2012).

The rendition of lesbianism that is frequently projected to mainstream audiences inserts the male gaze into the narrative. The lesbian is not an individual in her own right, whose relationships are to be respected, but one to be sexualised for male pleasure – ironically, and yet unsurprisingly, “luscious lesbian” is now a porn genre tailored for men. “The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly… Woman displayed as sexual object is the leitmotif of erotic spectacle” (Mulvey 1975: 11), the luscious lesbian plays directly into the male gaze: her existence in the mainstream is not for representation, equality or morality but for titillation. The introduction of this trope in popular culture stands to show the pseudo-progressivity of the film industry, it is a way for studios to pander synchronously to lesbian audiences who long to see themselves presented on screen and to straight male audiences who hypersexualise the lesbian identity. The 6 heterosexualisation of lesbian imagery on screen enables a sense of ambiguity where characters are not specifically identified as lesbian (Jenkins 2005). This can be related to queerbaiting which entails purposeful insinuation of gayness on screen to entice

LGBTQ+ attention while providing no actual representation (Dodd 2017). This allows companies to reap the benefits of attracting the attention of the gay community while their “Films are framed in heteronormative logic and eliminate explicit references to sexual diversity to avoid possible economic losses” (Sánchez-Soriano; García-Jiménez

2020: 95). Economic loss is a definite concern when showing ‘controversial’ relationships. Media backlash and boycotts are tangible threats - Toy Story 4 faced criticism for a briefly showing lesbian parents in the background of one scene, with one group creating a petition gaining 12,000 signatures to remove the clip stating that the moment was “Included strictly to push an agenda” (Evans 2019). Even mainstream cinema has to pander to the majority, sometimes in minute aspects of its creations, to ensure interest and profit.

Lesbian storylines that are made with the intention of ethically representing the identity are therefore pushed to the outskirts as they do not conform to the male gaze.

Jeanette Winterson (2020), author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit – typically dubbed a lesbian novel – refutes the idea that lesbian storylines are only marketable to those who identify as such, stating, “I’ve never understood why straight fiction is supposed to be for everyone but anything with a gay character or that includes gay experience is only for queers” (Winterson 2020). By classifying lesbian cinema that contains ethical representation as definitively lesbian cinema, representations of lesbianism that do not cater to the heterosexual male gaze are excluded from funding and, therefore, from the public eye. Furthermore, the high femme lesbian who is 7 granted visibility in the film industry is also frequently played by a straight actor – thereby reducing their performance to a performance of gayness rather than presenting the character as an entirely actualised individual, of whom their lesbian identity is simply an aspect. The antithesis of this high femme portrayal is the stone- butch lesbian, typically characterised by short hair and a generally masculine appearance. Butch lesbians played a central role in the gay liberation movement and have held a respected place in the LGBTQ+ community as a symbol of full bodily autonomy with the ability to build an identity without adhering to typical female beauty standards. “The butch does not present herself as the object of the male gaze – and in defying such representation, she is both a challenge and a threat to straight men” (Ciasullo 2001: 604); it is this threat which has removed the butch lesbian from mainstream cinema. They are observed as undesirable and threatening by men, the very people who run and own the vast majority of the film industry, therefore it is not surprising that they are excluded from the narrative.

• The “predatory lesbian” and her conversion narrative

Lesbianism and other gay identities have a history of being perceived as predatory or perverted. While gay men have been imprisoned, chemically castrated and killed in the west under official law, lesbians have formally escaped such punishments.

However, the discriminatory views towards both of these communities have legitimate ties – particularly the association with predatory sexual behaviours and relationships.

It has been posed that “The cultural image of the predatory lesbian [was] constructed to denounce female same sex attraction as deviant” (Mennel 2012: 20). Painting lesbianism as predatory is simply a method to create greater abhorrence of the 8 identity. In cinema the trope of the predatory lesbian is something to be mocked in some scenarios, feared in others, but always looked down upon. Should we then hope for ordinariness in lesbian cinema? “It is exactly this banality – the right to have a love story that doesn’t require a transformation or conversion – that lesbian cinema, like all romantic films, should aspire to depict” (Lott-Lavinga 2015). In Pitch Perfect (a film whose target demographic is teenage girls and set in a college) the only lesbian character present is Cynthia Rose who repeatedly enforces the predatory lesbian stereotype. Frequently throughout the Pitch Perfect trilogy, she engages in misogynistic behaviour, making inappropriate advances on the other girls on screen – in fact this aspect of Cynthia Rose represents her entire character’s personality, she exists at face value as a predator: “Not only does Cynthia Rose make every straight woman in the group feel uncomfortable because of her aggressive behaviour, but she’s also committing non-consensual sexual acts” (Gutowitz 2017). What message does repetitive lesbian sexual assault spread to young viewers of this “comedy”? The exclusion of gay women in narrative roles in film ensures that damaging tropes such as this are able to filter into general acceptance as universal fact. An extension of the predatory lesbian trope is their portrayal as not only a sexual but also a physical threat: the subcultures of lesbian vampire thrillers and LGBTQ+ murderers on screen further the association of lesbianism with danger.

Some representations of this trope are not as extreme but still further the narrative that that lesbians wish to entice young, easily manipulatable women into the bedroom, such as are presented in Carol, Imagine Me & You and A Room in Rome. These not only enforce the idea that, particularly older, lesbians are predatory but also that young women’s sexual identity is a phase or somehow imposed upon them. 9

Beneath both of these tropes [gay identity as a phase and seduction out of straight relationships] is the idea that queer women’s sexuality is still determined by men. We don’t often see the young queer woman who just is. It doesn’t have to be like this. The beauty of cinema is that it can depict society not only as it is, but also as it ought to be. Cinema has the power to influence society just as much as society influences cinema. (Jotanovic 2018)

As Jotanovic articulates, cinema has as much of an impact on society as it is reflective of the current societal dynamic. With the film industry perpetuating ideologies in the mainstream of predatory lesbianism, a subsequent societal belief shift towards accepting homophobia is ensured. To truly escape the predatory lesbian trope, the industry also must aim to escape the conversion narrative.

• The “apparitional lesbian” and her ambiguous sexuality

The apparitional lesbian appears, or rather fails to appear, in film and television adaptations of novels which originally involved heavy lesbian subtext or even explicitly gay storylines. Two prime examples lie in the film renditions of Fried Green

Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café and The Colour Purple in which the storylines and evidence of the presence of LGBTQ+ women have been minimised. “The lesbian is never with us, it seems, but always somewhere else: in the shadows, in the margins, hidden from history, out of sight, out of mind” (Castle 1993: 2). In the two examples previously stated, the relationships between Idgie and Ruth, and Shug and

Celie are erased almost beyond recognition, except a few hints and subtextual cues.

The dominant encoding of lesbianism for mainstream audiences is problematic for a multitude of reasons; it enhances stigma surrounding same-sex relationships, shifts 10 the focus away from any LGBTQ+ characters and forces viewers to rely on stereotypes to identify potentially gay individuals, or not recognise their presence entirely. This last point is problematic as it encourages viewers to stereotype lesbians as the subversion of femininity in order to ascertain their existence in film, “In 1973 the Gay

Media Task Force deemed it ‘bigotry’ and ‘damaging’ to exclusively depict stereotypically gay people out of the ‘broad spectrum of the gay community’” (Cox

2013). The apparitional lesbian trope encourages stereotyping by not explicitly stating a character’s lesbian identity or relationships and forcing audiences to search for clues to find representation.

The term ‘lesbian’ has been dubbed, “A word written in invisible ink, readable when held up to a flame and self-consuming, a disappearing trick before my eyes where the letters appear and fade into the paper on which they were written.” (Meece 1990: 83).

This poetic rendition of the lesbian identity encapsulates how elusive it appears to those who are questioning their sexuality. This ineffable quality is only furthered by the reluctance of popular cinema to normalise lesbianism. It is no revelation that what is visible in the media influences people on a highly personal level. Ambiguous portrayals of lesbianism are invalidating and can deny the very existence of the lesbian identity (Hollinger 1998). Having clear and obvious ethical lesbian representation in the mainstream subtly implies that there is no shame in experiencing same-sex attraction (O’Brien 2017). By erasing any clarity in defining the lesbian relationships, studios deliberately make films more palatable for heterosexual audiences and allow space for the prioritisation of heterosexual relationships on screen. This indicates that lesbian relationships 11 hold less value and are less deserving of both screen time and praise than heterosexual relationships.

• “Bury Your Gays” or “Dead Lesbian Syndrome” and the tragic tale of

homosexuality

This trope is dubbed the latter due to the disproportionate number of gay female characters on screen who follow it. This story arc was historically used primarily by LGBTQ+ writers and artists in accordance with coding to tell gay stories without facing the repercussions by dodging censorship codes (Cohen 2015). If writers gave the impression of endorsing or celebrating same sex relationships, homosexuality could have been assumed and they could face lawful punishment and imprisonment – as did the 2000+ gay British men who faced prosecution for their sexuality in 1954 (Buzwell 2019). An alternative motive for the use of this trope is that homophobic writers can use it in the name of restoring social order, or as a punishment for a sinful lifestyle (Cohen 2015). In the modern film industry, it is a way for content creators to focus more intently on heterosexual relationships and characters while falsifying ethical representation of the LGBTQ+ community.

Understanding how gay representation worked and has transformed over the past 125 years is key to understanding how Bury Your Gays specifically has changed— that is, how it has gone from something queer creators can use to skirt oppressive societal standards and laws to something that is used to exploit queer characters and storylines for a straight audience. (HULAN, H. 2017:19). 12

Killing LGBTQ+ characters, while not necessarily problematic in itself, becomes an issue when deaths occur at an exponentially higher rate to straight characters with little reason or thought. Of course, death and loss are themes faced on screen with great frequency, however the representative problem arises when the death of a gay woman on screen is used as a development tool to progress the story for other characters, particularly their heterosexual acquaintances. “Adding insult to fatal injury is the fact that many lesbian character deaths seem to happen for no other reason than to further a show's plot” (Framke 2016). Lesbian deaths on screen also often occur by suicide or murder, the violent nature of these repeatedly traumatises lesbian viewers

– particularly when combined with the other troubling convention of the deaths occurring immediately after a tender romantic moment or sex scene (Framke 2016).

This combination implies that the death is a result of the homosexual acts, a twisted portrayal of action and consequence. It sends the message that lesbians are less worthy of life, of happy endings and are simply expendable. Vito Russo (1981) identified the loss of LGBTQ+ characters’ lives as one of the three main flaws of gay representation in film (Baker 2015) – although his studies shone light on films from the past, this issue is still prevalent in the industry.

Death is not the only tragedy that befalls lesbians in film. Misfortunes of all types follow gay women in film at every turn and because their fates are not all as drastic as death, they are more permissible in the public eye. Rarely do we see lesbian films with happy endings and too often their anguish links directly to their sexuality. The Price of Salt, a novel written by Patricia Highsmith under a pseudonym in 1952 (Talbot

2015), 18 years prior to the Stonewall riots, was adapted onto screen in the form of

Carol (Haynes 2015). It is a story of a budding romance between a department store 13 employee and a rich older woman which shows a journey of self-acceptance and provides historical context for modern audiences to understand the discrimination faced by lesbians in the 1950s. It is from the start, a romance destined for failure.

Ultimately the titular character loses custody of her daughter due to her lesbian identity and sexual deviancy in the eyes of the law, the film ends without justice or resolution and is a bleak portrayal of a social injustice which was experienced by many lesbians. Contemporary audiences should learn about historical oppression faced by their communities, however the popularity of films demonstrating such despair is harmful when there is such little space for positive lesbian storylines in the mainstream. Should we, as a modern audience, seek to see more relevant and encompassing versions of lesbian relationships on screen? “A sense of past intolerance also allows the audience to maintain a sense of distance from contemporary homophobia, and can encourage a teleological perspective of lesbian history” (Isaeva

2020). Period dramas certainly deserve a space in cinema but the sheer quantity of lesbian films which are period pieces seems to infer that homophobia and sexism are issues of the past. By allowing films set in times gone by to flourish in the spotlight, the film industry is effectively burying stories of modern homophobia. Furthermore, the distance between the audience and characters seems to make tragedy more excusable, almost expected. The alienation caused by the modernity of viewers in contrast with the antiquity of the stories being shown creates a rift in which death, heartbreak and misfortune are empathised with but not experienced with the same gravitas, by virtue of the tales being seen as relics rather than contemporary experience

– excusing Dead Lesbian Syndrome and enabling its prosperity.

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The quantitative representation of lesbians on screen is statistically extremely low

(GLAAD 2020) and therefore storylines that are positive or at least not depicting death, grievous injury or suffering are imperative to a cultural shift towards tolerance and self-acceptance. By persistently telling stories that end in irreconcilable issues for the lesbians in them, the film industry is perpetuating the narrative that lesbianism results in pain for those involved. Conform to heterosexuality or you too will suffer. “The point of your story is not to fall in love. The point of your story is to struggle … You were never meant to fall in love. Your story ends in tears or it ends in death” (Thomas 2014). This assurance of negativity is entrenched so deeply in film audiences’ minds that lesbians have to fight against this notion in order to find self- acceptance and embrace their homosexuality without the accompanying fear and guilt. The lack of interest that straight directors have in presenting lesbianism in a positive light, or indeed at all, is evident in the storylines that most frequently meet the mainstream, ones of heartbreak, illness and death rather than of love.

Ethical representations of lesbianism in cinema

As some of the most pervasive and harmful tropes perpetuated by mainstream cinema have been dissected and problematised, the focus now shifts to ethical representations of lesbian identity on screen more broadly. The difficulty in finding films centred on lesbianism, especially in mainstream cinema, that are curated in an accurate and ethical fashion is emblematic of the lack of good lesbian representation on screen.

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• Art House and non-narrative cinema

The collision of two oppressed groups that unite in the lesbian identity has granted lesbian cinema a unique place in Art House – partially due to a lack of respect and funding for projects that deal with the issues of marginalised people in the film industry.

Independent lesbian filmmakers have problems that:

all independents have: money, equipment and distribution;

all women have: technical deprivation, access, accountability to the demands of a political movement;

all lesbians have: self-denial, risk of censorship, retaliation.

(Becker et al 2005)

Lesbians intrinsically face different struggles to gay men; it is a logical fallacy to assume that simply because they both experience same sex attraction that their issues are one and the same. Sexism is an undeniable barrier that has endured cinematic history and “The hegemony of the male narrative” (Wilton 1995: 8) does not exempt gay men in film from benefitting, directly or indirectly, from the oppression of women.

Space in the mainstream film industry is occupied and dominated by men (regardless of their sexuality) and female and lesbian filmmakers are forced from that territory into the outskirts of experimental film and Art House. Many lesbian directors and filmmakers have adapted to economic uncertainty and negative reception with the aim of creating abstract films rather than conforming to the narrative style of the mainstream. Another cause for the rift between much of lesbian cinema and narrative 16 cinema is the functionality of film in accordance with Mulvey’s ideology that female spectators will only be free from the patriarchal filmic order when there is a shift away from narrative film (Royer 2019). The origin of this belief is that the film landscape and language has become so entrenched with misogyny that narrative cinema can no longer be separated from the patriarchy and the male gaze.

Seeing film as an art form that is not necessarily a storytelling vehicle has enabled lesbian filmmakers to experiment with showcasing the female body and intimacies of lesbian relationships in a way that is not seen as pornographic or disrespectful and avoids the censorship regulations in popular film; Barbara Hammer is one such artist.

During her 40-year career she created over 100 experimental films (Durbin; Champlin

2019) on a variety of topics, however her insight as a lesbian woman undeniably shaped her creations. Nitrate Kisses (1992) created a portrait of the marginalisation of LGBTQ+ individuals in the 20th century using a variety of media; interviews, historical footage, images and interviews with gay couples, including videos of three gay couples making love, and footage from the film Lost in Sodom. With this amalgamation of sources “She not only challenges the dominant ideology of the heterosexual society, but confronts powerfully and graphically our images of sexual and erotic love” (Sundance Institute 2020). Another of her films, Double Strength

(1978), stars Hammer and her then-partner Terry Sendgraff, performing a nude trapeze act while discussing aspects of their sex life in explicit detail and poeticising about lesbianism more generally. Hammer has come under criticism by some feminist critics who cite her focus on the female form as essentialist. To some the gaze directed towards women “Placed Hammer’s within a traditional (and masculine) trajectory of filmmaking which sought to objectify women’s bodies” (Crellin 2020). While these 17 critiques impacted Hammer to the extent that in her later works she removed bodies altogether, the intimate and sexual nature of these works provided an invaluable service by portraying lesbian bodies and sex on screen fearlessly and without the goal to serve as a pleasurable service for straight men to fetishize. The extension of her filmmaking as art transcended the screen as she aimed to show the female body as an art form in itself. If her intention was to hyper-sexualise lesbianism, she would have been discrediting not only herself and her relationships but the entire lesbian community in the process. Hammer’s connection with touch, sight and emotion is an engaging one. She is quoted as saying in interview:

I touched a woman’s body for the very first time when we made love. All the corpuscles on my skin that have nerve endings that go to the part of the brain that is about touching were highly charged by touching a body similar to my own. I feel that my sight is connected to my sense of touch. (Difeliciantonio; Hammer 1993)

With this insight into her experience, it is evident that she does not show sex and nudity for the shock factor, nor does she aim to create pornographic content. For

Hammer, showing the naked body is less about the body itself and more about building the connection between screen and audience. While not representative of mainstream film, she is symbolic of the early popular lesbian film scene. She effectively demonstrates that, although lesbians and heterosexual men experience the same attraction towards women, lesbian creatives can successfully create art that does not portray women on screen with the aim of a sexually pleasurable viewing experience.

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• A dissection of ethical representation in mainstream cinema

Bridging the gap between art film and narrative cinematic representation of lesbianism is Go Fish (1994), written by Guinevere Turner and Rose Troche and directed by the latter. Filmed on a budget of only $15,000, it generated around $2.4 million from its release (Black 2016), effectively proving that lesbian films created by and for gay women are in demand and can make economic gains. It is evident that it is targeted towards a gay female audience due to the presence of butch leads and the fact that the nudity in the film is mostly obscured, only glimpsing flashes of the women’s bodies – it succeeds in showing lesbian romance and passion while avoiding an overly sexualized gaze in accordance with Mulvey’s principles. Go Fish is “A statement about existence, about erasure, about internalized homophobia and sexism, about love, about expectations” (Black 2016) – themes that run deep in the lesbian community. It boldly confronts the dichotomy of self-actualisation and doubt that the lesbian identity encapsulates, successfully creating a reciprocal dialogue that is all the more powerful surrounding films by, for and about nondominant collectives

(Henderson 1999).

Where Go Fish suffers is the unnecessary integration of the rejection of Evy, a gay

Puerto Rican woman, and subsequent eviction from her family home by her religious family. This is a very tangible threat for LGBTQ+ individuals, particularly for POC; in

Britain 24% of homeless young adults (aged 16-25) identify as LGBTQ+ and 77% of this demographic identify homophobic familial rejection as the predominant cause of their lack of abode (Albert Kennedy Trust 2020). The film brushes over the woman’s suffering, a white protagonist talks to her about it briefly and the issue is seemingly 19 resolved. What could have been a vehicle to initiate a larger conversation is glossed over in favour of drinking games and sex. The film presents gay women well, but it is not overtly intersectional in its approach. One lead, Ely, becomes more butch as the film progresses and subsequently becomes more attractive to Max (another lead), somewhat eliminating femme lesbians from view. It is also not explicitly trans- inclusionary – which is an issue when butch characters are praised, and non-binary and transgender individuals are not also uplifted – and spends the majority of screen time focused on the traditionally portrayed romance of white characters.

Released only a few years after Go Fish but emerging straight into mainstream cinema

– in part due to its highbrow cast and its hyperbolic and highly stylised comedic portrayal of conversion therapy, But I’m A Cheerleader (1999) is a lesbian film classic.

It was made more palatable for mainstream cinema by its femme protagonist, although that was not the intention of Jamie Babbit, the director.

In Cheerleader, I wanted the femme to be the pursuer, not the pursued. Not only in movies, but also in a lot of lesbian fiction I’ve read, a lot of lesbian narratives are told from the butch perspective. And it was important to me not to tell that story again, because I wanted to show that a femme can be strong, and a femme can get what she wants. (Babbit; Dixon 2007: 171)

This brings up an important clarification between lesbian creations and those of heterosexual men: while the male gaze promotes femme lesbians on screen for sexual pleasure, a hierarchy forms in lesbian cinema which promotes the storylines of butch characters as the epitome of lesbianism – directly excluding femme lesbians from the screen and therefore from the community as a whole. By But I’m A Cheerleader confronting stereotypes of what a lesbian looks like and how she behaves, Babbit is 20 effectively validating the presence of femme lesbians independently of their sexual value for the viewing heterosexual male. The choice to set this comedy in a conversion camp further signifies that this is a film targeted to the gay community. Gay characters are not the butt of the joke, we laugh with their struggles not at them.

Since the release of their directorial debut Bound (1996), The Wachowskis – creators also of The Matrix and V for Vendetta have publicly come out as transgender women.

With hindsight the ethical representation of lesbianism in Bound is directly linked to the fact that the sisters were coming to terms with their gender identity. As closeted

LGBTQ+ women they managed to create a sultry, romantic portrayal of lesbianism on screen without sensationalising the identity for male pleasure – despite, at the time, identifying in the public eye as cisgender men. The film certainly appealed to straight men however, “Though the heterosexual male spectator may be enjoying the view, the female or lesbian spectator may embody the more powerful subject position” (Kessler

2003: 14), ensuring popularity in an array of societal factions. Furthermore, the utilisation of Susie Bright, a bisexual feminist writer and sex educator, in choreographing the sex scenes demonstrated their desire to accurately and respectfully portray the intimacies of lesbian relationships. The relationship presented on screen manages to avoid “The fuzzy romanticism of other lesbian love scenes or the hyper-feminine trashiness of heterosexual pornography” (Kessler 2013: 16) and still presents a highly sexually charged connection. The Wachowski sisters also managed to avoid the conversion narrative. Despite Violet being unfaithful to her mobster boyfriend to pursue the relationship with Corky, there is no conversion and, as both women initiate the relationship, it avoids any predatory tropes. There is the integration of criminality in the storyline as the women conspire to steal $2,000,000 21 dollars from Violet’s boyfriend – however as they are stealing from other criminals they are not vilified. Bound faced financing issues and was offered a higher budget if the lesbian dynamic was removed in favour of a more traditional heterosexual neo- noir venture, however the Wachowskis rejected this and searched for another studio to take on the project (Maaike 2020), maintaining the integrity of the project’s morality.

Freeheld1(2015) tells the true story of a lesbian couple fighting for pension equality. It showcases a lesbian relationship with a large age gap (19 years) and yet it avoids the predatory trope. It is posited that “The film breaks the predatory-lesbian mould by depicting a love story that is exceptional in its normality of two women just being in love” (Lott-Lavinga 2015). Freeheld also does not adhere to the lesbian conversion ideology, showing a relationship in which both women are comfortable in their sexual identity. Elliot Page, who has recently come out as a transgender man (Donnelly

2020), at the time of filming identified as a gay woman, stared alongside Julianne

Moore – Page also was a producer for this project. Therefore, even though Freeheld was directed by a heterosexual man, their efforts to cast a gay identifying actor in a main role and give them a position of power is demonstrative of an intention to accurately and respectfully represent lesbian relationships. The film showcases the normality of the lesbian experience while the characters come to terms with the inevitable expiration of their relationship due to terminal cancer. Throughout there is no sensationalism – the characters are simply able to exist together while they have the chance, “The emergence of queer cinematic time is beholden to the immediacy and

1 This film is based on the legal battle between Lieutenant Laurel Hester (part of the police force for 23 years) against the Ocean County elected freeholders. Hester was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer and her request for her domestic partner Stacie Andree to receive her pension was denied (Wilson 2006). 22 contingency of the everyday as it is to the ethereal spaces and places of desire” (Longo

2016: 96). Their relationship is well crafted and ethically represented throughout the film and this ensures greater empathy when Hester passes away. The biographical quality and fight for equal rights at the core of the film however shows that this death is not a throwaway example of Dead Lesbian Syndrome, it is central to the story and is emblematic of societal progress rather than a waste of yet another lesbian life on screen. Without the presence of an LGBTQ+ artist in a central role, it could have easily bastardised or misrepresented the relationship dynamic – especially given the sensitive nature of the central theme. Freeheld is a film that brings fairly contemporary issues faced by lesbian couples into the spotlight.

21st century cinema should aim to create mainstream lesbian films with the female gaze, the subversion of Mulvey’s classic male gaze. “The film-making old guard are happy to show the female form, but less keen on acknowledging the life that comes with it” (Smith 2020), by granting lesbian characters in film autonomy away from the male perspective, film makers enforce the idea that they deserve sovereignty. It should not be revolutionary to acknowledge that women are individuals in their own right but evidentially – from the examples offered in this essay – the film industry is still far from this presentation being the norm. A more expansive presence of LGBTQ+ women in the creative process would push the film industry to adopt greater ethical representation of lesbianism on screen. A lack of lesbian voice and representation in the film industry has bred a cyclical issue through cinematic history and will continue to do so unless there is imminent action. Lack of diversity in film is a wider issue than lesbianism – race, gender and disability can further careers or prevent them from ever flourishing and radical steps must be taken by those who are privileged to allow space 23 for those whose identities have been barriers to success in the industry. Only when those who have been previously excluded from the narrative creative process are embraced by the film industry will we see ethical representation of lesbianism on screen.

24

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