New DIY Documentary Honors AIDS Media Activism, Love, Loss, and Queer Community
Last March, I met filmmaker and scholar Alexandra Juhasz outside the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. She was in the middle of a Film/Video Studio Residency at the Wex, as it’s known as here in Columbus, working closely with an editor on post-production of her experimental documentary Please Hold.
Please Hold, which premiered earlier this March, explores the intersections of activism, memory, and media via a profoundly personal yet communal lens. It is anchored by videos of two of Juhasz’s closest collaborators and late friends in the last stages of their lives. Shot on a mix of consumer-grade recording devices — iPhone, Zoom, VHS camcorder, and Super-8 film — the documentary is an homage to grassroots AIDS mediamaking across decades and its ability to capture intimate, honest communication about hope and loss.
I was profoundly moved that Juhasz invited me into the studio with her to watch a cut of the film. A prolific writer and filmmaker, Juhasz is a Distinguished Professor of Film at Brooklyn College, CUNY. She produced and acted in the renowned feature documentaries The Watermelon Woman (Cheryl Dunye, 1996, and its remaster, 2016) and The Owls (Dunye, 2010). For decades, Juhasz has written, directed, and produced her own documentary features and shorts, which have screened widely in feminist, queer, and experimental documentary festivals. She has written extensively on HIV/AIDS, including the recent publications We Are Having this Conversation Now: The Times of AIDS Cultural Production with Ted Kerr and AIDS and the Distribution of Crises, edited with Jih-Fei Cheng and Nishant Shahani.
I first encountered Juhasz’s writing in grad school while studying LGBTQ media, history, and activism. Her book AIDS TV: Identity, Community, and Alternative Video, deeply shaped the way I theorized about LGBTQ local television in my own work. While preparing to begin my dissertation, I emailed Juhasz for advice about how best to write about these topics. I was looking for possibility-models, other scholar-activists who do research in the service of social justice and queer community. Since then, Juhasz has supported my work in many ways, including connecting me with media makers I interviewed for my dissertation.
As we watched the documentary together in the studio at the Wex, I realized that Please Hold honors one of these same media makers: Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski, a Black disabled queer feminist media activist who died in 2022. I spoke with Szczepanski years earlier about her work creating AIDS education media for the Audio-Visual Department of the Gay Men Health Crisis in the 1990s, after Juhasz connected us. I hadn’t realized the film would document Szczepanski’s last days. Watching the film next to Juhasz and her editor, I realized we were both holding Szczepanski’s memory, and our connections to her, in different ways. To know Alex Juhasz is to be held in community, a privilege and an honor that connects you to her own deeply felt responsibility to making the world a more livable place for marginalized people.
It was a pleasure to speak with Juhasz more about the film’s production, how it explores grief and loss, her approach to activist media making and distribution, and the importance of LGBTQ communities of care. Our conversation below has been lightly edited and condensed. Please Hold is available to watch for free on the film’s website and you can book a screening of it here.
Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski in “WAVE: Self-Portraits” (The Women’s AIDS Video Enterprise, 1990, VHS).
Lauren: Could tell me about the origins of this project and what inspired you to create it?
Alex: Thank you for asking. This video began because, during the COVID pandemic, my very good friend and a collaborator of mine on AIDS activist media, Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski, asked me to shoot video tape of her in the process of dying. She more or less chose the terms of her own death because she stopped receiving dialysis.
I came to videotape her twice in rehab centers in New York. And after that, I made a video that she had wanted from those materials called I Want to Leave a Legacy. When I was making that video, I realized that at a previous moment in my life, another very close person to me had asked me to make a video with him in the late stages of his life. That was my best friend, James Robert Lamb.
I wanted to think about the responsibility of holding those two documents, but also how they produced this very clear arc about some histories of HIV/AIDS in the United States, which is to say, my friend Jim is a sort of poster boy from the first years of the pandemic: gay white man, very pretty, an actor. He died when he was 29 years old. There was no medication, and he had a very painful death. The videotape that I shot of him all those years ago when we were young was very strange actually, because I think his mental state was affected by his impending death.
And then fast forward 30 or so years: Juanita is a Black disabled woman who’s a lifelong AIDS activist, who doesn’t die of HIV, but dies in community that’s been produced around collaborative art making and is really committed to disability justice and dies within the time of COVID and because of health inequalities that were escalated because of COVID.
My responsibility, what I can learn from those tapes, what they tell me about HIV/AIDS, and also what they tell me about living through dying, and making community even as people are dying — that’s what started it.
Lauren: Can you tell me how the film itself explores grief, memory, loss, and those relationships?
Alex: The video wants to think about technologies of memory, various receptacles that hold something of a person that you loved after they die. It could be a trace of them, but it could be work you’ve done together. This is very important to this project. They are people that I engage in art making and activism with. I know that various technologies shape memory and shape grief differently.
So, it really wants to think about how VHS, which is what I shot Jim on, has a different almost metabolism than an iPhone video, which is what I shot Juanita on. While they are both media that are holding traces and memories and conversations and activity with these people, I think that they’re held differently.
I was thinking about those two media to think about material things, like in the case of the film, a sweater and a scarf that emerge. Then I extend that to my own body and I think about the fact that I’ve aged. Grief changes as the body holds it. I think about neighborhoods, so places that one returns to and how they trigger memories, but they change, so they hold memory differently as well.
I think the other thing I would want to say, just from having screened it quite a bit in small groups at this point: It doesn’t work with grief quite like we expect movies to. It’s not triumphant, it’s not organized around catharsis necessarily. It doesn’t have music that tells you when to feel bad or good. It doesn’t have the typical beats that cinema is organized around, but I think it has the typical beats that life is organized around, which is this kind of pulsing.
Sometimes grief feels like celebration. Sometimes grief feels like connection. And sometimes it’s very hard to process. Jim died when I was a girl, and I’ve lived with his death longer than he was alive. My grief for him is very different than my grief for Juanita, who died only a few years ago.
We’re in a time organized by grief and mourning. Even if it’s not for the loss of people, it’s for the loss of our democracy and the loss of structures that made sense to us. It lets you come in where you are and acknowledges that’s changing. It might even change over those 70 minutes of the video.
Lauren: You mentioned that iPhones metabolize grief differently than VHS. I’m wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about the mixed media approach to this film, how you decided to combine all these different types of film making, and why that was important for you.
Alex: What it feels like to make media with different technologies, that’s always for me part of thinking of what medium is. A camcorder is actually heavy, and there’s a kind of commitment that to work with heavy equipment demands. iPhones are very light and they are very easy to use and they’re extremely easy to shoot things with and extremely easy to take that footage and put it somewhere else and distribute it and share it and see it.
And therefore, one of the ways that they’re different is that we’re constantly shooting video that is completely expendable. It’s hard to know the difference between the important things you shoot and the not important things you shoot. It’s interchangeable. So that lightness of the iPhone material, the lightness of social media, and I mean that literally but also metaphorically, is part of what I’m thinking about. When Juanita asked me to come shoot her on her deathbed, she had wanted me to shoot her on a camcorder and she didn’t have the power cord, so I took out my iPhone.
But it’s not just the technology. Watching someone die is a cosmic shift. If someone asks you to be part of that, that’s an incredible responsibility and it’s a heavy responsibility. It’s a beautiful responsibility. So, it’s not just that I had the iPhone. I had made this agreement. She had asked me and I didn’t even know why she had asked me initially. It’s in the footage, she tells me, but she’d asked me to do this. I wanted to mark the heaviness of the weight of it, the beauty of it.
This is where the project is about what it means to be in community and collaboration. It’s a very different kind of relationship to media making. It’s activist media making.
In Please Hold, I use video compositing a lot. I think it’s the visual and media language that defines this moment in history. It’s very desktop-looking on purpose and very collage-y. The collage holds VHS and iPhone videos next to each other, or digital video and iPhone video and then text on top of that. I’m interested in that collage aesthetic that flattens the discrete technologies. Then I work very hard to keep reminding you that they are discrete technologies.
In every shot of video, I tell you what kind of camera it was shot on and when it was shot because, again, I think that the computer screen that you and I are looking at right now equalizes, flattens things. I’m both interested in seeing that as an aesthetic and thinking about what it does.
The film is about grief, it’s about memory, but it’s also about communication. It’s also about me talking to people who have died and me talking about people who are very much alive, who I’m in activist community with. I’m trying to think visually about the sort of flatness of the screen and the depth of the interaction. That’s what that compositing does to me. But that’s also having the Zoom interviews where you see two people, like we’re doing right now, as opposed to a more traditional talking head. You’re constantly aware of the depth, the third dimension of the screen, because the listener produces that.
Lauren: I wanted to ask you about the Zoom interviews. How did you decide to incorporate these conversations with folks that you’re in activist community with?
Alex: Video Remains is the video that I made with my footage from my friend Jim’s and my one hour on the beach together in the last year of his life. It took me a long time to make that video and it’s very important to me. I think it has a place within the history of AIDS media that is a critical place.
This video [Please Hold] is referring to it in many ways and thinking about technological shifts. In Video Remains, I talked to my fellow AIDS activists, they were all women and lesbians, on the phone. That’s cut into the long take footage that Jim had asked that I shoot of him on the beach when he was telling the story of his life.
Fast forward to now, with these new technologies, I’m like, we wouldn’t talk on the phone, we would talk on Zoom. It parallels that method of sharing space and knowledge with collaborators and my activist community. The video that I made now is thinking about how COVID, and our experiences during lockdown in particular, rejiggered our expectations and relationships to communications technology.
It’s a recognition that that’s a new form of media making. I’m an activist media maker. I make things for nothing. I shoot them with whatever is at hand. I distribute them that way. And Zoom is an amazing, inexpensive form of technology to interview people. The interviews look and sound pretty good.
I am also trying to think about these different formats of connection, what it is to live together in a place, what it is to use a phone or Zoom, what it is to be in a place or be with a person who has been, that was recorded and you revisit.
The film really believes that we can continue to collaborate with the people we love after they die, or that I can, because I’m still asking the questions and working on projects and trying to make the changes that were very important to both me and Jim. I’m still committed. I need their voices. I need who they were to me and what they know and what we could make together. I can still use that, even when they’re no longer here, because we made these videos together. I’m so lucky.
Clockwise: James Robert Lamb, Pato Hebert, Alexandra Juhasz, Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski (built from “Video Remains,” Alexandra Juhasz, 2005, Zoom interviews, 2023, and “I Want to Leave a Legacy,” Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski, 2022, iPhone).
Lauren: How else has this work impacted your life?
Alex: Right now I’m starting DIY and activist distribution, which I’m doing by myself. I’m trying to get it out in the world, but trying to get out in the world under the terms that seem right for me.
In the book that I wrote with Ted Kerr, [we write about] the idea of “trigger films” or “trigger videos,” [videos] from the early part of the AIDS crisis that you would show, stop the video in the middle of a scene, and then people would talk about it. We use the word “trigger” now differently. We talk about this in the book, but both uses of “trigger” are about setting terms for healthy conversation.
I think that Please Hold is also a trigger film. I think that what it’s best for is to spark conversation. And I think that, like so much on the internet, it shouldn’t be watched alone by yourself, with two other things on your screen. That’s probably true of a lot of art films. But I’m saying, it’s not just any art film. It’s a film that holds the traces of two people who died, who ask to be seen. It takes a lot from us as contemporary media viewers to change the way we’ve been taught to watch to be more human and to be more caring and to be more present.
I’ve tried to put a tiny scrim between getting the film for free, which I’m letting you do, and watching it with more care. You have to fill out a little form that says, “I’m going to watch it by myself. I’m going to watch it with some people. I’m going to set up a screening.” Then I send you the link. I don’t know if that’s going to work. But I’ve never really cared how many people see things that I make. I care about the context in which things are seen. That’s true of activist media more generally.
I want that context to be respectful and contemplative and interpersonal and give people space to talk afterwards, which so little viewing does now, especially when things are digital. The main thing I’m doing is trying to move it in the world and have conversations where I can be present with other people with what it brings up.
Lauren: That’s beautiful. That’s such an interesting way to experiment with distribution. I love that. As you’re talking about care, I was even thinking about your film We Care that I’ve showed in class a number of times, that is also about care and dying, so I can see those through lines in your work.
Alex: I think that the norms of dominant cinema push to the edge a lot of the things that actually can and do happen when we consume media together. One of those is the idea of care. That’s something you could build around screenings.
I think people do it, but you need to think about, in what conditions do you do that? Because the consumption of media now that we’re all on our laptops, it’s just violent and hurtful. It doesn’t matter if you’re consuming something you like. It doesn’t make you feel good. It’s the opposite of care, even if you’re watching something beautiful. The extratextual conditions of making and screening activist media are as important as the piece of media itself. And that’s what I’m doing by building out my own distribution.
The reason I made this was to talk to people about AIDS, and to talk to people about HIV, and to talk to people about memory, and to talk to people about dying, and to talk to people about community, and to talk to people about all the ways we love each other and all the ways we help each other, and how beautiful it is to be in community. I want to have that conversation every time it’s screened. I hope other people will talk to each other about those things. That’s why we make art, certainly activist art.
What we want from activist media is that you’re transformed, that you feel a transformation and you feel that you can interact, not just consume.
Lauren: That brings me to another question I wanted to ask. Can you tell me about the title Please Hold?
Alex: The first shot of the film — well it’s not the first shot anymore, it’s deeper into the film now — is me riding up an escalator at the Delansancy/Essex Street stop on the Lower East Side, the F train. It’s a long take, and I go up the staircase. I think it’s beautiful. It’s so dirty, and makes all this noise. It’s so industrial and of this other era and it evokes that neighborhood in New York City.
As you get to the top, you see this boy wearing this powder blue sweatshirt, and he’s on his phone, and he’s almost dancing. It’s like choreography. But if you look above him, there’s a LED sign and it’s saying, “Please hold the handrail.”
I was deep into editing the film and I’m like, “Oh my god, that sign says please hold!” If you listen to the film, I talk about holding all the time. The word “hold” is used in it over and over and over again. And I’ve already talked about it like that with you. I’m holding these memories, I’m holding these tapes. A lot of the people in the film help me think about holding things together.
My friend Ted [Kerr] talks about holding a sweatshirt of Jim’s that I had given him. That’s a way for Jim to stay with us, we hold it together. And then holding the Parkside, which is a gay bar, queer bar, and you’re holding that space. Jih-Fei [one of the interviewees in the film] talks about holding spaces when nobody will let you, which is very much about what we’re in right now. What it means to hold the space of trans identity or gender non-conforming identity or a bathroom that’s become dangerous territory, and they say you can’t use it, and you hold it. That is something that political people do.
The Parkside also holds ghosts, it holds porn magazines. So holding just constantly emerged in the process. But then the title was given to me by the Lower East Side. And of course, “please hold” is also what someone says on the phone in a not nice way, so it has that register as well. It makes you wait when you’re not ready to wait.
The film is also about walking as a technology of memory, how the world presents information to you when you’re ready to receive it. Walking can wake you up to take in input that you wouldn’t see. So the fact that the title is there because I’m walking in the neighborhood is very much an idea of the film that the world can help you too, if your body is open.
I’ve had the great luck to stay alive this whole time and my body is so different. There’s a lot of seeing me young and seeing me now in the split screens. There’s a lot seeing Juanita young and seeing Juanita now in split screens. There’s not that of Jim because I only have the images from that one period of his life and he didn’t get to live to be older.
My body at this age, I just turned 60, takes in the world differently than my body did when I was 29. And in a lot of the footage that you see, I’m 29. I actually understand the world differently through this technology. I think in a sexist world in particular, I say this as a cisgender woman, I think I understand the world much better in this body than I did when I was 29, and that’s why there’s so much ageism, especially against women, because people don’t want women to be smart in that way. They want to tell us these bodies are not useful tools and not intelligent receptacles. Quite the opposite, as we age, our bodies become smarter if we’re lucky, or wiser, or deeper, or more sophisticated. I do not need to be the 29 old girl that I see there. I’m very glad that I’m not.
Lauren: Thanks for sharing that. Is there anything else that you want to share, or that you want Autostraddle readers to know?
Alex: One of the things that I love about this movie is how queer it is. It is my definition of queer, everyone can have their own. What I love about it is that the characters that you meet are every kind of different. They’re every kind of deviant. They’re every kind of edge. And sure, you can say they’re lesbian, trans, gay, Jewish, Black, Asian, young, old.
But the movie is not committed to a particular slice of the queer world. It’s expansive about how queer love and queer community, queer analysis, queer ways of living and family and being political and caring and making relationships of care. That has been everything to me. And that’s true in my nuclear family, lesbian family, that’s very extended into other parental roles. It’s true in my queer romance with Jim. We lived together for many years.
It’s true in my very queer friendship with Juanita that crossed race and class and brought us together in an overt analysis that came from the celebration of gay and lesbian life and trans life. So I want the readers of Autostraddle to behold a feminist queerness that is my community and is me. I love being in this community. I love being seen by this community.
I love speaking to this community. I love the way the film stretches that inclusion and also its limits. That’s the queer lifeworld that I draw from in that video.
Lauren: Since it has been a couple months since Trump’s inauguration, I’m wondering how you feel about the film coming out right now and what you feel the film has to say about this contemporary moment.
Alex: I am as confused and hurt and angry and afraid and uncertain as anybody. I don’t have any answers right now at all. Many of the things that I thought were answers don’t seem to be. That’s super scary.
But what I just said to you about queer community and queer love that is connected to activism — not just who you have sex with or who you want to go to a party with, although that’s part of it, but connected to working together to make the world better for the most disenfranchised, the people who are the most weak and the most threatened at any particular moment. And sometimes, like right now, that is trans people, right now that is people in our world with HIV and AIDS who are truly about to be decimated by the end of PEPFAR and threats to Americans’ access to free medication.
Queer love and queer community that’s organized around wanting to help each other and help the most disenfranchised — that is always a goodness. The minutes you can spend in it or the hours you can spend in it are worldbuilding. They’re being in the world that we want and we deserve and we can make, and even if we can’t right now respond to the huge threats, and even as they will be endangering people we love, or killing people. Killing people in Africa via [the end of] PEPFAR, killing people in Gaza, killing people in the Ukraine, killing people in the Congo, I could go on.
We as humans can make little reprieves, little pockets, little sparks of beauty and dignity and decency. And queer people have always done that. We’ve had to. And so watching the film together, talking together, that’s just an example of knowing that we can make moments of power. It might not be big. We talked about how how many people watch something is not a register that matters to me. Smallness is often what you need to have deep impact. We can be in community and learn with each other. And so we will do that. We can do that. We are doing that. We have done that. And it might not change the badness, but it is itself a goodness.
Lauren Herold: Thank you. That’s a beautiful way to end this conversation and also I feel like I needed to hear that today. So, thank you for saying that.
Alex: But see, this conversation is that, Lauren. It’s like, I see you. I heard what was happening in your life. Thank you for listening to me so much about my film. It’s simple, but we can and should and have to do that for each other all the time right now.
Over Half a Century Before ‘Emilia Pérez’, the Story of a Gender-Fluid Gangster Was Done Right
A hypermasculine gangster hides out with a genderfluid throuple and slowly begins to shift his identity. No, this is not the plot of a new movie aiming to capitalize off the success of Emilia Pérez. It’s the plot of Performance (1970), a classic of counterculture cinema starring none other than Mick Jagger.
While the film — a collaboration between painter turned director Donald Cammell and cinematographer turned director Nicolas Roeg — is often discussed as a snapshot of the late 60s, it still feels sharp and relevant today. The new restoration now out from The Criterion Collection looks and sounds gorgeous with special features contextualizing the unique movie while leaving a window open for modern interpretation.
The first half of the movie is almost exclusively focused on Chas (James Fox), a gangster heavy so masculine and violent he incites fear in his own bosses. While it incorporates elliptical editing that hints at something more experimental, this first part of the film has a fairly straight-forward mob movie narrative. But then Chas goes on the run and meets effeminate musician Turner (Mick Jagger) and his two girlfriends — the voluptuous Pherber (Anita Pallenberg) and the androgynous Lucy (Michèle Breton).
Plot gives way to sex and drugs and conversations about gender. As Pherber teases Chas, questioning whether or not he has a feminine side, he exclaims, “I’m normal!” He tries to hold onto this sense of normalcy, but he can’t resist his fascination with his new housemates. And they can’t resist their fascination with him.
Normies want proximity to queers, queers want proximity to normies. It’s a classic dynamic. But the film reveals the intricacies in how this dynamic manifests. Chas will have sex with Lucy even as he says she looks like a boy, but he won’t have sex with the more feminine Turner, his true object of desire. And while the queers are interested in Turner that interest proves dangerous. It’s fun for normies to dabble in queerness — often less fun for the queers.
During a drug trip (a dream?), Turner embodies Chas, appearing as a masculine gangster. Most critical thought views this as Turner and Chas swapping identities. But Jagger’s gangster feels so much more like a drag performance than a true shift. Watching the film as a queer person, it feels like Turner and his girlfriends are slowly welcoming Chas into their world until they’re forced to regret it. Chas might be changed for the better — but at what cost?
Influential, puzzling, and still effective, Performance is a reminder that the struggle between gender fluidity and traditional gender performance isn’t new. They take what they want and then get rid of us until we find a way to rise again.
Performance is available on 4K and standard Blu-Ray from The Criterion Collection.
Free Dog Name Ideas That Are Just the Names of Lesbian Movie Characters
Ever since I watched Princess Cyd in 2018 (and then rewatched it the next day with my then partner) I’ve wanted to get a pit bull and name her Princess Cyd. Imagine! Most days she’d be called Cyd. When she’s really good Princess. And when she’s bad Cydney. It’s a perfect dog name, and it would be a great excuse to tell more people to watch Stephen Cone’s lovely film.
Alas, I still do not have Princess Cyd. I grew up with dogs, so I know the responsibility being a proper dog owner entails. Dogs are expensive and they require a stability I don’t have. I’m in a long distance relationship and maybe if I wanted to get a tiny dog, I could plan to travel with them, but a pit bull or even most pit bull mixes would be too challenging to take back and forth between Brooklyn and Toronto.
But I haven’t given up! Someday I’ll have Princess Cyd — after all I moved into an apartment near a dog park like some chidlless 30 year olds move into an area with good elementary schools — and, in the mean time, I’ve come up with this list of other excellent dog names from other queer movies.
- Jaguar, for a dog who is bold and would risk anything for someone they love like Maria Schrader in Aimée & Jaguar
- Benedetta (Benny for short), for a dog who according to some may not go to heaven like Virginie Efira in Benedetta
- PJ and Josie, for a pair of dogs who like to play and fight like Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri in Bottoms
- Corky, for a dog with a tough exterior and a tender heart like Gina Gershon in Bound
- Graham, for a dog who will love you before you love yourself like Clea DuVall in But I’m a Cheerleader
- (Martha) Dobie, for a dog who was named after a Harry Potter character years after that would’ve been cool but now it feels really not cool so you want to change it to Shirley MacLaine’s character in The Children’s Hour
- Valentine, for a dog who will follow you around as your little assistant like Kristen Stewart in Clouds of Sils Maria
- Zoinx, for a dog who is an out-of-this-world weirdo like Susan Ziegler in Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same
- Lucy Diamond, for a dog who is a lovable villain like Jordana Brewster in D.E.B.S.
- Zen, for a dog who reminds you to be a free ass motherfucker like Tessa Thompson in Dirty Computer
- Ronit, for a dog who likes to slobber like Rachel Weisz in Disobedience
- Diggy, for a dog who will stay by your side through any amount of hijinks like Kiersey Clemons in Dope
- Sergio, for a dog who will stay in bed with you for days like Laia Costa in Duck Butter
- Jobu Tupaki, for a dog who traverses the multiverse like Stephanie Hsu in Everything Everywhere All At Once
- Queen Anne, for a dog who gets what she wants when she wants it like Olivia Colman in The Favourite
- Legs, for a dog who is fiercely loyal and just fierce like Angelina Jolie in Foxfire
- Idgie, for a dog who loves pie like Mary Stuart Masterson in Fried Green Tomatoes
- Ricki, for a dog who loves turkey time like Jennifer Lopez in Gigli (actually turkey is bad for dogs, but also Ben is bad for Jen so…)
- Harper, for a dog who you want to give a second chance — and a third and a fourth — like Mackenzie Davis in Happiest Season
- Theodora, for a dog who will cuddle you through life’s scariest moments like Claire Bloom in The Haunting
- Paulie, for a dog who loves a little too hard or just really loves birds like Piper Perabo in Lost & Delirious
- Dylan, for a dog who loves her mommy like Lil Harlow in Mommy Is Coming
- Lady Divine, for a dog who is fun and filthy like Divine in Multiple Maniacs
- Nimona, for a dog with spunk who is hard to pin down like Chloë Grace Moretz in Nimona
- Diana Nyad, for a dog who really loves to swim like Annette Bening in NYAD
- Tory, for a dog who really loves to run like Patrice Donnelly in Personal Best
- Sophie, for a dog who will live with you and your soulmate on the French seaside like Lùana Bajrami in Portrait of a Lady on Fire
- Cleo, for a dog who is a ride or die like Queen Latifah in Set It Off
- Lydia Tàr, for a dog who controls all of your time like Cate Blanchett in TÀR
- Suzie, for a dog who is a wild thing like Neve Campbell in Wild Things
Or, you can always honor an Autostraddle icon, and name your dog Carol.
New York Lesbians! Watch the Best Sapphic Cinema This Week at the Film Forum
Over a decade ago, I went on my first real date to go see Les Diaboliques at the Film Forum in NYC. We both loved the movie and everything was going great… until the evening was cut short by my date’s ex-girlfriend and a crisis of jealousy worthy of the sapphic drama we’d witnessed on-screen.
My love story with this girl may have been cut short, but my love story with the Film Forum had only just begun. In the years that have passed, I’ve seen a wide variety of premieres and classics, discovering new gems and revisiting old favorites.
Starting today, the Film Forum begins their series Sapph-O-Rama billed as “a broad look at the eccentric, enduring, and genre-encompassing history of the Lesbian image in cinema through the last century.” From today through February 13, there will be screenings of films including But I’m a Cheerleader, Pariah, Mädchen in Uniform, Desert Hearts, Saving Face, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, and The Watermelon Woman.
In addition to the classics, there are also lesser known and lesser available films including Caged, Fucking Åmål, She Must Be Seeing Things, MURDER and murder, A Woman Like Eve, and Madame X: An Absolute Ruler. And, finally, some Hollywood classics with very textual subtext properly being entered here as canon: Salomé, The Wild Party, Calamity Jane, and Johnny Guitar.
Best series ever, right? What if I told you there is even more? There’s also: Je Tu Il Elle, Born in Flames, Shakedown, Tomboy, The Killing of Sister George, Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, Daughters of Darkness, Desperate Living, Dark Habits, and Caged Heat.
I recently moved back to New York for a lot of reasons and the best repertory film programming in the country was among them. This series, programmed by Andrea Torres and Emily Greenberg, is a dream — a perfect combination of films to revisit and films to discover.
If you don’t live in New York… well, I’m sorry. But it’s a good reminder to check out the repertory programming in your city or town! Also a lot of these films are available online if you want to have your own mini film festival.
What’s most important is to remember the history of sapphic cinema is rich and plentiful! My job is watching lesbian movies and even I haven’t seen six of these.
I’m excited to change that the way these films were meant to be seen: on the big screen.
Check out the full schedule for Sapph-O-Rama on the Film Forum website.
Who’s To Blame for the On-Set Conditions of “The Color Purple” (2023)?
Feature image by Cindy Ord for SiriusXM via Getty Images
Imagine you’re a Black artist working on a studio musical with a large Black ensemble and a massive ninety-million-dollar budget. Doesn’t that sound exemplary, if not revolutionary? It’s hardly been done since The Wiz. But here’s the kicker: The studio expects you to get into a production car and drive yourself to set. Early in the day or late at night, you must go vroom-vroom in your car no matter how much the soles on your feet are hurting from your many laborious hours singing and dancing.
That’s, unfortunately, what The Color Purple ensemble were expected to endure, and it leaves me baffled and infuriated that a movie with such a massive price tag didn’t give its cast better conditions for a set more conducive to their creative work.
Earlier this month, following her courageous speech about her unfair pay wages for her roles post-Empire, cast member Taraji P. Henson, who plays Shug Avery, sat down with The New York Times and publicly discussed the working conditions she and her co-stars experienced during production. Henson revealed the production gave them rental cars to drive to set. “I can’t drive myself to set in Atlanta,” Henson shared. “This is insurance liability. It’s dangerous. Now they robbing people. What do I look like, taking myself to work by myself in a rental car?” Mind you, production shoots can go over eight to twelve or even sixteen hours a day. For a film with rigorous choreography in numerous numbers, I can’t stop thinking about her poor soles having to hit the pedal after hitting those beats. “Can I get a driver or security to take me?'” I’m not asking for the moon,” she continued. “They’re like, ‘Well, if we do it for you, we got to do it for everybody.’ Well, do it for everybody! It’s stuff like that, stuff I shouldn’t have to fight for.”
Shortly after, Academy Award Nominee Danielle Brooks voiced concerns about her experience at an awards conversation panel. She revealed the cast initially had no dressing rooms nor trailers during filming. “I remember when we first came in, and we were doing rehearsal, and they put us all in the same space, and we didn’t have our own dressing rooms at the time,” she said, adding how they also weren’t given food. At the behest of Oprah, one of the film’s other producers — Steven Spielberg, Scott Sanders, or Quincy Jones — ensured those issues were resolved. Winfrey had the power to step in, but responsibilities regarding the budget are beyond her and her fellow producers at that level. Winfrey retorted in that interview, “I’m not in charge of the budget.”
Winfrey is right. Oprah and the other high level producers aren’t in charge of budget details. Winfrey, Spielberg, Sanders, and Jones’ jobs were to assemble the right crew to bring the musical version to life and get funding from the parent studio. If there’s anything they are possibly at fault for, it’s not the minutiae of money allocation, but in who they hired to take on that responsibility — or who they hired to hire who to take on that responsibility.
The Color Purple already had the unfair advantage of being commissioned by a studio that had gone through a hell of a merger preceding its development announcement. It wasn’t until August 2020, the peak pandemic era, that the pre-production process began with Blitz Bazawule signing on as director following his work on Black is King. At that time, Toby Emmerich was acting chairman of Warner Bros. Pictures Group. Then, as time has told, Discovery bought out the Warner Bros. brand from AT&T, with the now David Zaslav-owned Warner Bros. Discovery starting its operations in April 2022 — a few weeks after the film went into production in Atlanta. As Emmerich stepped back in June 2022 amidst principal photography, MGM’s Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy swooped in to take his reins.
Winfrey, Jones, and Spielberg immediately had to go to the new guards for financial assistance to ensure the film looked as vibrant as Bazawule’s ambitions. They also had to answer to ignorant and lofty expectations from some unnamed higher-ups who wanted Rihanna and Beyonce to contribute to the film given the ballooning budget, to which Winfrey bluntly responded that it wasn’t going to happen. In a Hollywood Reporter piece on the film’s production, Winfrey expressed, “I would have to say that [Warner Bros. co-chairs] Pam [Abdy] and Mike De Luca got it from the first time they saw the film and understood that they heard me and heard Steven and heard the team when we said, ‘This is the reason why this has to be done.’ You have to give us more money to do this because this is a cultural manifesto in a way for our community, and it deserves to have the support that’s needed to make it what it needs to be.”
90 million dollars for a budget is a reasonable yet hefty price tag for a musical compared to other musical features in recent memory — closing out slightly below Spielberg’s West Side Story $100 mil and above In the Heights’ $55 mil. However, according to the Motion Picture Association, The Color Purple production contributed over $74.2 Million of its budget to the professionals and artists working in Georgia. The report states, “Over 81 days of filming around Greater Atlanta and Savannah, The Color Purple contributed over $74.2 million in direct spending to the local economy, including payments to the more than 2,500 local Georgian cast and crew hired for the production.”
When it comes to running a production set, the job of where the budget goes is delegated to a line producer or a unit production manager. Run the World‘s showrunner Rachelle Williams-BenAry said it best in a tweet, “Atp who was the Line Producer/UPM on The Color Purple cuz it’s their job to negotiate the trailers, hire PAs, get teamsters/PAs to drive talent, oversee production issues.” Given the film was primarily set in one location, all of its budget handlings was in the hands of one Dominic Cancilla, whose experience has wavered between low-budget B-action movies like Machete and Get the Gringo and television with shows like Step Up: High Water. While the latter proves Cancilla’s experience with musicals, it’s clear he does not have experience with a movie of this scale. So the question becomes: Who hired this man?
All the responsibility, ranging from the lack of drivers and trailers for the cast to food for the crew, boils down to Cancilla and anyone overseeing Cancilla who made the conditions on The Color Purple so undesirable that Winfrey had to step in.
According to the MPA budget breakdown piece, what’s frustrating about this ordeal is that $3.67 million was spent on transportation and car rentals and $1.2 million on local catering for cast and crew. How long did Winfrey take to intervene and use the budget on her crew’s hospitality and care? Where did a good amount of that money go? It surely wasn’t the main cast’s service.
As much as I would love to point my fingers at Zaslav — who has been responsible for the cancellation and mistreatment of many queer and Black shows and movies — the blame seems to lie primarily with the line producer, his immediate superiors, and his team. Especially if Winfrey’s claim that the new executives helped provide a bigger film production budget is believed.
If the budget reports are factual and if that amount of money was simply mishandled by Cancilla, several questions are raised. Who hired Cancilla? Why was he allowed to stay in the position? And, most importantly, why did the responsibility fall on talent themselves to ask for better treatment?
This is a near triple digit musical and some of the best actresses working today received worse accommodations than many indies. To paraphrase Henson, they weren’t asking for the moon. They were asking for industry standard.
Sundance 2024: A Queer and Trans Festival Recap
Drew Burnett Gregory is back at Sundance 2024, reporting daily with queer movie reviews from one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals. Follow along for her coverage of the best in LGBTQ+ cinema and beyond.
I’ve been covering film festivals at Autostraddle for over four years. At first, I just reviewed a selection of queer titles, but starting with Sundance 2021, I began writing capsule reviews for every movie I watched. Usually, this post comes out at the end of the festival as a round-up — this year, for Sundance 2024, we tried something different.
Because Sundance has continued to split their festival between in-person and virtual screenings, most of the movies I watched could be watched by all of you at-home during their viewing window. That’s why this year I released my capsule reviews daily as I watch the films. I hope this gave some of you the chance to not only read about the films, but watch them for yourself! And, if not, don’t worry. Most of these films be released sometime in the next year.
I love writing about queer film — and a lot of these movies are queer — but I also believe there’s a great importance for queer and trans critical voices to respond to a wide range of cinema. I’m honored to have been one of those voices for another year at Sundance.
I Saw the TV Glow (dir. Jane Schoenbrun)
Brief History of a Family (dir. Jianjie Lin)
At first glance, Jianjie Lin’s debut feature appears to be an understated (and sexless) take on what I’d call a Teorema story and what audiences today might call a Saltburn. A mysterious stranger is welcomed into a bourgeoisie (or even wealthier) family and one-by-one the stranger develops connections with each person, tearing the family apart.
But Brief History of a Family approaches this familiar tale through the specific lens of China’s one child policy that began in 1980 and lasted until 2016. With a microscopic eye, the film zooms into the dynamics of this family and the ways they adjust — and fail to adjust — to the arrival of someone who becomes a second child, a new sibling. It’s a restrained work with occasional bursts of violence that may resonate more deeply with those more familiar with and affected by this policy, but that I still found rich and compelling through a broader lens. Many families are a combustive mix of contrasting energies waiting to explode.
Tendaberry (dir. Haley Elizabeth Anderson)
Part neorealist drama, part multimedia fantasia, Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s striking debut is a character study cracked open by its protagonist’s curiosity. Kota Johan plays Dakota, a 23-year-old who works at a drugstore in Brooklyn and spends her free time hanging with her Ukrainian boyfriend. When he returns to Kyiv to take care of his sick father, Dakota’s life begins to fall apart as challenges compound.
With its handheld cinematography — both gritty and dreamy — and its Brooklyn setting, the film recalls the work of Eliza Hittman. But its voiceover narration and use of archival footage feels unique to Anderson and to the inquisitive worldview of her main character. After over a century of cinema, it’s rare to get a portrait of New York that feels fresh, and yet by seeing the city through the specificity of Dakota, Anderson succeeds.
The film meanders with some chapters of Dakota’s life and interludes of Dakota’s thoughts feeling less essential for the story being told. But given Anderson’s cinematic talent and Johan’s on-screen presence, even these moments are compelling to watch. It’s a film as unruly and magnificent as the character and city it portrays.
Kota Johan in Tendaberry
Love Machina (dir. Peter Sillen)
Martine and Bina Rothblatt want their love to live forever. That’s why nearly two decades ago they began recording “mindfiles” and eventually uploaded them to a humanoid robot modeled after Bina, named Bina48.
Martine, the inventor of satellite radio, is a trans woman. And there’s something compelling about this future-minded CEO who feels no limits in her work, her gender, her love, or even her eventual death. There is a compelling story to be told about this couple who have four children together and refer to themselves by a combined name. (They prefer to think of themselves as one entity rather than two.)
But this documentary falters in its attempts to contextualize their story. While the film does allow space for those who question the actual intelligence of Bina48 and the complications of using a Black woman as a model for a robot largely designed and handled by white men, the film still feels too safe in its approach to this complicated story. As much as I despise the recent onslaught of supposed “AI” and its impact on multiple industries, I’m hesitant to ever dismiss any technology outright. And yet I found myself frustrated with the framing that Martine’s transness is somehow a signifier of her futurist perspective. Trans people are not a sign of the future. We have always existed. Humanoid robots, however, have not.
Powerful people seeking a cure for death have also always existed. They have not succeeded and nothing about this surface-level documentary convinced me that will change.
Frida (dir. Carla Gutiérrez)
Black Box Diaries (dir. Shiori Ito)
Is the point of journalism to gather and present facts or to reinforce the narratives of the powerful? This is what I often question when people fetishize objectivity in journalism.
A young journalist herself, Shiroi Ito used her investigative skills for her own case after she was sexually assaulted by established journalist Noriyuki Yamaguchi. While unconventional for someone to be both the subject and the reporter, it was her only option when ignored by law enforcement — due to antiquated Japanese rape laws and Yamaguchi’s connection to then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Ito’s case — and her book Black Box about the case — helped launch Japan’s Me Too movement. This documentary is a personal account of Ito’s fight to have her voice heard, as well as a display of much of the primary evidence she gathered. It also shows the journalistic possibilities of someone being both subject and reporter. There is a truth revealed in this telling that wouldn’t be possible without Ito’s own voice. We are allowed to see not only the facts of her case, but the immense toll this fight takes on her life. To not witness that part is to not witness the entirety of the truth. Sometimes a polished presentation of information is even more incomplete than subjectivity.
Watching the film, Ito is impressive in her courage, in her commitment to justice and truth and creating a better society for all. But the most important parts of the film are when she lets us see her exhaustion, the passage of time, the cruelty. Even the most impressive activist, the most impressive survivor, the most impressive journalist, is still a human being.
Malu (dir. Pedro Freire)
A portrait of three women — and three generations in Brazil’s volatile 20th century — Pedro Freire’s debut is a layered and captivating character drama. The titular Malu (Yara De Novaes) is a former stage actress living in 1990s Rio with her religious mother (Juliana Carneiro Da Cunha) and her younger queer friend, Tabira (Átila Bee). They are frequently visited by Malu’s daughter Joana (Carol Duarte), also an actress, who is torn between her radical mother and conservative grandma.
Anchored by four stunning performances, Freire doesn’t hold back, allowing his characters to fight as hard as they love. Their conflicts are fundamental, going beyond the interpersonal and encompassing issues of politics, illness, and generational trauma. There are gulfs between these characters — especially the three women — that no amount of care can traverse.
A film as much about generational disappointment as it is personal and familial disappointment, Freire deftly explores specific and universal discord while always prioritizing character. This is a remarkable film — a work of urgency, a work of compassion, a work of love.
Carol Duarte and Juliana Carneiro Da Cunha in Malu
Sebastian (dir. Mikko Mäkelä)
Igualada (dir. Juan Mejía Botero)
While I relish the opportunity to be educated about another country’s political process and to learn more about current Colombian Vice President Francia Elena Márquez Mina, I wish this documentary went deeper. It presents a simple portrayal of Márquez’s unprecedented grassroots presidential campaign and introduction to the Márquez as a person but only hints at complication.
There’s a moment when one of Márquez’s most loyal staffers begins to doubt the possibility of their movement existing within the political structure at all. It’s a question that is not explored further, because the film ends when it should begin. Márquez is named as Gustavo Petro’s running mate and the rest is told in the credits.
Given the threats of violence Márquez faces and her current position in government, it’s understandable that there were limits to what this documentary could be as a film. The archival footage of Márquez over a decade ago shows how committed she was to her community and country long before she became a sensation. With Márquez’s future and the future of Colombia in mind, it makes sense the film could look back with a clearer eye than it looks forward. Ultimately, it’s strategic to lean toward the simple, to lean toward the inspirational — at least, it’s a strategy for a worthwhile cause.
Girls Will Be Girls (dir. Shuchi Talati)
Until she meets new student Sri, 16 year old Mira is so perfect she’s her class prefect. She studies hard, cares about the rules, and seems even more conservative than her vivacious mother. But she’s still a teenager and once she falls for Sri, she’s determined to explore her sexuality with the same success she’s always brought to the sciences.
There have been many stories of adolescent sexual discovery on-screen. Schuchi Talati’s film stands out due to the unique relationship between Mira and her mother. Having married Mira’s father young, at a more conservative time in India when casual dating wasn’t an option for her, she’s as in need of stimulation and freedom as her daughter. This results in a dynamic where she seems to be competing for the attention of her daughter’s new boyfriend — something that less delicately would belong in a psychosexual thriller, but here is alternating sad and human and frustrating and tender. Preeti Panigrahi as Mira and Kani Kusruti as Mira’s mother create characters that are both recognizable and unique.
This film shows the nuanced impact of patriarchy past and present and the unlikely bonds we can form to fight back.
The Mother of All Lies (dir. Asmae El Moudir)
A staggering work of documentary filmmaking, Asmae El Moudir recreates her personal history and a tragic chapter in Morocco’s history with her family as witness. Using miniatures constructed by her and her dad, El Moudir finds a way to capture a story hidden by her grandmother and buried by the government.
With the cinematic eye of the best stop motion filmmakers, El Moudir’s use of miniatures goes beyond gimmick or mere necessity. The recreations are gripping and emotional, the hovering bodies moving the tiny people and objects only add to their power. It’s a combination of group therapy and a journalistic documentation of state violence. The horrors inflicted on people are passed down through the generations — whether or not the horrors themselves are discussed openly.
In the Summers (dir. Alessandra Lacorazza)
In the Land of Brothers (dir. Alireza Ghasemi, Raha Amirfazli)
A triptych of stories about Afghan refugees in Iran, this is a furious work of political filmmaking told through a series of tender stories. Each a decade apart — 2001, 2011, and 2021 — every chapter revolves around a secret, one member of this family concealing something unfathomable in order to protect another.
Iranian filmmakers Alireza Ghasemi and Raha Amirfazli reveal the empty compassion of the surrounding Iranian citizens. Their acts of supposed kindness are as self-serving as their government that only grants citizenship to the family’s of deceased soldiers. There is an immense gulf between the Iranian people and the Afghan refugees that recalls similar dynamics around the world. Almost every place has a select group spared even the knowledge of the hardship that surrounds them.
But the film would not work as a political statement if it weren’t for the performances of Mohammed Hosseini, Hamideh Jafari, and Bashir Nikzad as the chapters’ three leads. They layer their characters’ desperation and grief with a humanity that denies pity. Their characts do what they have to do to survive and to take care of their family, but they shouldn’t have to. No one should have to endure these trials.
While the film is most overtly critical of Iran, it’s impossible to watch this as an American and not feel the impact of our country’s international violence. How many families were made refugees due to the various conflicts of the Cold War? How many more in the wars following 9/11? How many more today as the U.S. backs Israel’s genocide against Palestine? The twenty years of the film are also the twenty years of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. How many more families became refugees in those two decades? Where did those people end up? What were they made to endure? What are they still enduring today?
Hamideh Jafari in In the Land of Brothers
Agent of Happiness (dir. Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó)
Following Amber, a man who works for the Bhutanese government’s happiness index, this documentary reveals the impossibility of measuring something as complex as a good life. At first, it appears the story will be a simple portrait of rural contentment as individuals explain their happiness by their children and number of cows. But as Amber contends with his own dissatisfaction as someone undocumented and unmarried, the film spends time with other Bhutanese people struggling to find joy.
One of these individuals is a trans woman who describes her fear, her loneliness, and her desire to be more beautiful. And yet, like gender, happiness is not a binary. Some of the film’s most touching — and happy! — moments are between this woman and her loving mother. It shows even when we’re faced with hardship, we can find respite in those who love us fully.
Well-balanced between its various real life characters, Agent of Happiness also succeeds in showing the absurdity of a government measuring happiness while being the cause of misery. Amber and his family are denied citizenship despite being born in Bhutan. Many individuals interviewed say they can’t even consider happiness when they’re so busy working. When the — very high — happiness rating flashes on-screen before the credits, it shows this whole endeavor to be a charade. Numbers can’t capture human emotion — but the tender and astute snapshots of this documentary succeed where the data fails.
Reinas (dir. Klaudia Reynicke)
Toward the end of the film, mostly single mom Elena (Jimena Lindo) admits things are bad in the politically tumultuous Lima of the early 90s, then adding, “But we’re privileged.” It’s that privilege that allows most of this film to have the laidback vibe of a largely uneventful family dramedy. The father of Elena’s kids (Gonzalo Molina) has returned just as they’re set to leave the country and he’s full of jokes, charm, and lies. There are mentions of a curfew, but otherwise the focus is the family.
But bourgeois privilege is insufficient protection. And the abrupt tonal shift in the film’s last act is a fitting reminder of the often blurred lines between our intimate dramas and the political dramas taking place around us. With an excellent soundtrack, strong performances, and a formal patience that matches the film’s plotting, this is a strong work that balances the micro and macro of life.
Desire Lines (dir. Jules Rosskam)
Love Me (dir. Sam and Andy Zuchero)
A love story between a satellite and a smart buoy taking place long after the extinction of man, Sam and Andy Zuchero’s debut is funny, devastating, and undeniably audacious. None of this would work without the incredible performances from Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun as both an influencer couple the smart buoy idolizes and the human manifestations of the buoy and satellite in their shared cyber space.
While the film is less original when it explores the challenges of human marriage, it’s wonderful when its satellite and buoy are searching for humanity and companionship. An immense amount of emotion is projected on the buoy and satellite even in their natural forms — and this is without the humanizing animation of a movie like Wall-E. Like last year’s Crimes of the Future, this film is a showcase for Stewart’s comedic talent. Even when she’s just a voice represented by a crude avatar, she’s able to communicate as much with humor as she is with pathos in the film’s more painful moments.
.There’s some fun hints at sexual and gender queerness in a scene where the sentient beings question whether this influencer couple is indeed their best representation. I wish more time was spent on this moment and with an expansiveness of physical self akin to their internal explorations. While not without its imperfects, Love Me shows what’s possible when sci-fi focuses on character, performance, and ideas over big budget effects and non-stop action.
Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun in Love Me
Sue Bird: In the Clutch (dir. Sarah Dowland)
The most interesting aspect of this documentary portrait of the famous basketball player is that it’s unafraid to be, well, uninteresting. While it touches upon her parents’ divorce, her injuries, and some tough losses, there isn’t much story in this story. Based on this film, Sue Bird seems to be just a really incredible athlete who worked really hard throughout her career. The makings of an Oscar-winning biopic this is not.
But plenty of male athletes have received documentaries simply for being great at their sport. And it’s enjoyable to watch what ultimately amounts to a highlight reel for Bird with commentary from herself and the people in her life.
The film also takes time to show how women’s sports have changed since Bird began. From minimal press attention to bringing Nick Carter to the ESPY’s as a beard to playing overseas, through Bird the film shows how things have improved and how there’s still a long way to go.
For many, the real draw of the film are the cute little moments captured between Bird and Megan Rapinoe. The two of them recount their first meeting at the Rio Olympics, but even better than the polished montage of their relationship are the glimpses of their relationship throughout. It’s very cute!
Power (dir. Yance Ford)
Dìdi (弟弟) (dir. Sean Wang)
Recently nominated for the Best Documentary Short Oscar, filmmaker Sean Wang’s debut feature thrives on its specificity. Yes, this is a coming-of-age movie that follows familiar beats. It still feels wholly unique because it’s specifically set in the summer of 2008 and specifically takes place in Northern California. It specifically focuses on a Taiwanese American boy who is a younger sibling and has an artist mother and a mostly absent father. It’s specifically about Chris Wang.
Each facet of Chris and Chris’ life is explored with an eye for detail. The 2008 setting doesn’t merely evoke nostalgia — it allows for a nuanced examination of how racism and pressures of masculinity manifested at that time and in this place. It has the cringe-filled moments of humor and the tender moments of emotion one might expect from the genre, but here it’s all servicing several ideas and experience often under-explored, or, at least, rarely explored this well.
Izaac Wang as Chris, Joan Chen as his mother, and Shirley Chen as his sister all give deeply felt performances, capturing the fraught bonds and inherent intimacies of a family. Every year there are wonderful coming-of-age movies made about women and queer people — this is the smartest and most effective straight boy coming-of-age movie I’ve seen in a long time.
Never Look Away (dir. Lucy Lawless)
Lucy Lawless begins her directorial debut about war photographer Margaret Moth by centering Moth’s longtime lover who she began dating when she was 30 and he was only 17. That man recounts their meeting and how Moth upended — and derailed — his life with her furious hunger for pleasure and control.
It’s a bold choice in a documentary that’s ultimately rather celebratory. But it reveals Lawless’ willingness as a filmmaker to capture her subject in full. To celebrate Moth’s unique personality and accomplishments is not dependent on smoothing over her complications.
Lawless takes this same approach in covering the many wars, conflicts, and genocides, Moth captured throughout her career. There’s a matter-of-factness in the interviews and recollections of these moments of recent history. It’s an approach worthy of its subject who seems to have had both a deeply felt compassion for humanity and a deep disdain for its cruelty. And it’s an ethical necessity at a time when similar atrocities — or, in the case of Israel’s violence toward civilians and journalists, the same atrocities — continue today.
As one interviewee states, if something is not recorded it will never change. If something is recorded it also might not change. This documentary records Moth and the violence she encountered. It might do nothing. It’s still important to look.
Stress Positions (dir. Theda Hammel)
Layla (dir. Amrou Al-Kadhi)
While recent years have brought an influx of movies about drag performers, this is the first I’ve seen where the performers lament having to work brunches and corporate events. It’s the understanding of the lived experience of drag as a job that allows the world of Layla to feel lived in and real.
Amrou Al-Kadhi’s debut feature is constructed like a romcom. Their titular protagonist meets a white normie at one of the above mentioned corporate events and after a night of partying they begin to date. Unfortunately, from the beginning it’s clear this pair isn’t going to work. It’s not just their differences in race and class and queerness, there’s also a lack of true connection. Their relationship is built entirely on projections.
Ultimately, this is not a romcom — it’s an indie dramedy. And, while there’s a lot of truth and care brought to the world of the film and to its themes, I wonder what it might’ve been like if more time was spent in Layla’s community and less with the doomed romance. Or if the lack of connection in the romance was withheld longer, so we, as an audience, could go on the same emotional journey as Layla.
But in a cinematic landscape where so many versions of this story are told poorly, Layla is a welcome respite. Like its protagonist, it may be imperfect, but it puts on quite a show.
Bilal Hasna in Layla
Grace (dir. Natalie Jasmine Harris) (short)
A Real Pain (dir. Jesse Eisenberg)
At Sundance 2022, Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut was one of my least favorite films, so what a nice surprise to see his voice grow into this lovely dramedy. Following cousins on a trip to Poland to visit their recently deceased Holocaust surviving grandma’s old home, Eisenberg has crafted a new take on the odd couple story. The cousins are perfectly written for Eisenberg and co-star Kieran Culkin and it’s so fun to watch them bounce off each other and the people around them.
Eisenberg’s previous film was invested in question of how to exist in the world with privilege. But where that film had a mean self-importance, this has a tender uncertainty. It’s a very Jewish film in the ways it asks questions without providing answers. It’s at once a Warsaw travelogue, a buddy comedy, and a meditation on how to live in our cruel world. With a balance of tones and an attention to character, Eisenberg has found his own worthy cinematic perspective.
Handling the Undead (dir. Thea Hvistendahl)
I love slow horror and this Danish zombie movie is definitely slow. The problem is the pace isn’t necessarily in service of anything all that interesting. The characters are thin and the thematic depth doesn’t go far beyond “the challenges of accepting death.”
But even if I found this film to be underwhelming, the craft on display is undeniable. It’s beautifully shot, well-acted, and has a gorgeous score. Director Thea Hvistendahl has a history in commercials and music videos and there are sequences within this feature that are stunning on their own. This is the kind of film that’s frustrating not because it’s bad, but because of how much talent is on display. This film’s unfulfilled potential has me interested to see what Hvistendahl does next.
Suncoast (dir. Laura Chinn)
With an unsubtle and inconsistent 2005 setting, a poorly structured and broadly written script, and an awkwardly apolitical point of view, Suncoast is the biggest disappointment of the festival.
This is a personal story for writer/director Laura Chinn and I appreciate her desire to tell a story close to her own adolescence. The most compelling part of the story — the young protagonist’s brother is in the same hospice facility as Terri Schiavo — is true to Chinn’s experience and it’s frustrating this unique experience is too often surrounded by stock characters, plot contrivances, and an overwrought approach to material that didn’t need artificial emotion.
There are debates to be had about the film’s focus on being the caregiver to someone sick and how it presents the Schiavo case, but frankly it isn’t strong enough on a fundamental level to argue about its politics. Nico Parker gives a great lead performance and Laura Linney and Woody Harrelson are reliably excellent (even if Harrelson’s character is a baffling addition to the story) — it’s not enough to salvage the script.
While it may still elicit tears due to its subject matter, Suncoast smooths out its emotion with an attempt at crowd-pleasing that only creates distance.
Nico Parker, Ella Anderson, Ariel Martin, and Daniella Taylor in Suncoast
Ponyboi (dir. Esteban Arango)
Good One (dir. India Donaldson)
A confident work of subtlety and truth, India Donaldson’s debut feature captures the unique experience of being gay and hanging out with your dad and his best friend.
17 year old Sam (a perfect Lily Collias) isn’t exactly excited to go on a hike/camping trip with her dad (James Le Gros). But it’s what he loves to do and it’s how they bond and it’s what’s expected of her. He has another young kid with his second wife and Sam seems to enjoy the time with her dad. Her dad’s best friend’s son is not as easy going — he opts out of the trip leaving Sam alone with the two men.
This isn’t a film of heightened drama, but of quiet betrayals. Over the course of a few days, Sam is confronted with the failures and continued failings of these adults. Good One is extremely specific to these characters and to the experience of being a young woman around old men and to the experience of being a queer young woman around old men. This film wasn’t labeled an “LGBTQ+ Story” by Sundance and that’s a real oversight — not only because Sam is explicitly queer, but because Sam’s queerness is deeply ingrained in the way her dad and his friend treat her and even more so in how she responds to them.
This one is for all the queer girls who were forced to parent their parents, who learned to out dad their dads.
Oscar Nominations 2024: From “Barbie” to Lily Gladstone, the Full List of Nominees
Oscar Nominations 2024 feature image from Killers of the Flower Moon
Attention Awards gays! The nominations for the 96th Academy Awards have arrived! Oppenheimer leads with 13 nods, but there are plenty of other movies to be excited about. Killers of the Flower Moon received 9 nods — most notably for queer actor Lily Gladstone in the Best Actress category. And, of course, possible heterosexual satire and definite box office hit Barbie secured 8 nominations despite being left out of the Best Actress and Best Director category.
Annette Bening and Jodie Foster were both nominated in Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively for NYAD. And Foster makes history along with Colman Domingo for Rustin as two out actors playing out characters to be nominated.
I’m also very excited Anatomy of a Fall, a masterful film with a bisexual protagonist, managed to be nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Editing. It’s joined by The Zone of Interest in proving that Parasite‘s 2020 win was not a fluke and the Oscars are slowly becoming a more international award show.
With a delayed Emmys and the Grammys in just a couple weeks, this awards season has been even more saturated than usual. But this is the Oscars! No matter how much I try to ignore it, I still get excited by the glamour, the film history, and the possibility of some deserving artists — even some deserving queer artists! — potentially having their work recognized. And, hey, if awards aren’t your thing, you can check out a bunch of great queer movies that weren’t nominated instead.
Full List of 2024 Oscar Nominations
Best Picture
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest
Best Director
Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
Best Actress
Annette Bening, NYAD
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Emma Stone, Poor Things
Best Actor
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction
Best Supporting Actress
Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
America Ferrera, Barbie
Jodie Foster, NYAD
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Best Supporting Actor
Sterling K. Brown, American Fiction
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things
Best Original Screenplay
Anatomy of a Fall
The Holdovers
Maestro
May December
Past Lives
Best Adapted Screenplay
American Fiction
Barbie
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest
Best Animated Feature
The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Nimona
Robot Dreams
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Best International Feature
Io Capitano
Perfect Days
Society of the Snow
The Teachers’ Lounge
The Zone of Interest
Best Documentary Feature
Bobi Wine: The People’s President
The Eternal Memory
Four Daughters
To Kill a Tiger
20 Days in Mariupole
Best Film Editing
Anatomy of a Fall
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Best Cinematography
El Conde
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Best Sound
The Creator
Maestro
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
Oppenheimer
The Zone of Interest
Best Production Design
Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
Napoleon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Best Visual Effects
The Creator
Godzilla Minus One
Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3
Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning
Napoleon
Best Costume Design
Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
Napoleon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Golda
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Society of the Snow
Best Original Score
American Fiction
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Best Original Song
“The Fire Inside” from Flamin’ Hot
“I’m Just Ken” from Barbie
“It Never Went Away” from American Symphony
“Wahzhazhe” from Killers of the Flower Moon
“What Was I Made For?” from Barbie
Best Documentary Short Subject
The ABCs of Book Banning
The Barber of Little Rock
Island in Between
The Last Repair Shop
Nai Nai & Wai Po
Best Animated Short Film
Letter to a Pig
Ninety-Five Senses
Our Uniform
Pachyderme
War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko
Best Live Action Short Film
The After
Invincible
Knight of Fortune
Red, White and Blue
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Watch the 96th Academy Awards on March 10 at 7pm EST/4pm PST airing on ABC.
Anatomy of a Queer Sex Scene: The Sex in “Bound” Changed Our Lives
Welcome to Anatomy of a Queer Sex Scene, a series by Drew Burnett Gregory and Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya about queer sex scenes in film. Today, Drew and Kayla discuss the brain chemistry altering sex of Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s Bound.
Kayla: Okay, hello, ready to talk Bound whenever you are, which is also an evergreen statement.
Drew: Lololol I am READY. I rewatched the scenes on my big TV, because for some reason it’s no longer streaming anywhere for free, but I DO own the Blu-Ray.
Kayla: I had to rewatch the scenes on a porn site for this same reason. Bound should really be easier to stream!
Okay, before we launch into discussing the film itself, I do want to share a quick story about meeting Lilly Wachowski this past summer. I met her at the after party for the Lambda Literary Awards. I wasn’t going to go up to her at first, and then I was like, wait, this is ridiculous, we’re in a room with a bunch of queer and trans writers, this is a perfect environment in which to approach her. So I did, and I don’t usually get starstruck or nervous in these situations, but I was! So I proceeded to basically thank her for…everything she has ever made…by title…I sounded like I was reading her imdb page.
Drew: Well, it’s a very good IMDb page.
Kayla: It IS! And amid my embarrassing rambling, I also managed to get out that Bound and Sense8 have some of the best queer sex scenes of all time.
Drew: They’re kind of another level tbh.
Kayla: They really are! They set a really high bar for queer art and erotic queer art.
Drew: And while it’s not explicitly queer and not as incredible the sex scene in Matrix Reloaded was the first sex scene I EVER SAW. I think we discussed this when we wrote about Resurrections, but my friend Josh had to fast forward through it for my parents to let me watch. But I still saw it. Just fast.
Kayla: YES, we are very much on the record about that Matrix sex scene being formative.
On that note, I’d love to know what your first experience of watching Bound was. Mine is…very specific and I want to hear yours first.
Drew: I have checked my records, and it appears I saw it for the first time in early 2016. I came out in May of 2017 and I sometimes forget how much queer art I experienced for the first time in the two years prior. Unsurprisingly, I was exploring my gender and sexuality with my movie watching before I realized I was doing it in my life.
Kayla: That makes total sense: gravitating toward certain art without quite knowing why just yet. I actually watched it just one literal year before you and around one to two years after you in terms of where I was in my coming out process. I was out, but it was pretty recent, and I was still very new to lesbian art.
Drew: Did it blow your mind?
Kayla: It really, truly did. I don’t get shy or embarrassed in this specific way anymore, but I was shy and embarrassed about watching it with other people! I felt like we were watching porn together, and I still had enough queer shame at the time to feel uncomfortable. But at the same time really giddy and delighted? It was an avalanche of emotions.
I’ll set the scene: The year is 2015. I’m living in Chicago. I’ve barely been out. I haven’t had any relationships other than a few “secret” ones with girls I met online that weren’t nearly as serious as I pretended they were. I’m living with two friends who are dating at the time, and I sleep on the futon in their living room because they’re letting me live there for free while I get my life together. One of these friends, Melanie, and I go through a phase where we’re just starting podcasts all the time…but not releasing them. I don’t know how to explain this any other way other than it was Chicago in 2015 and everyone was making podcasts. But hilariously, we were truly just making them and not releasing them.
There may have been a little bit of practicality to it; I think Melanie was working on her audio production skills. But mostly we were just in our early twenties and having a lot of fun making art that was just for us and not necessarily for consumption outside of our friend group.
Among these podcast concepts was one called Talk Jenny To Me. The concept was that we would watch a film starring a famous Jennifer (any famous Jennifer!) that at least one or both of us had never seen before and record live commentary tracks while watching. Bound was one of our picks for Jennifer Tilly. I had never seen it before! I had to react in real time to the film, out loud, in the company of friends. And I was basically losing my mind because it was so horny. I think the recording is lost forever, but somewhere out in the wasteland world of information data, there exists a recording of barely out me reacting to Bound in real time for the first time.
(Also, hi Melanie, who I know will read this, because she has a Google news alert set up for my name so she can stay up to date on my life/work.)
Drew: TALK JENNY TO ME. Wow I am so sad you don’t have that recording.
Kayla: When we talk about lost queer art, this is what we’re talking about.
Drew: It belongs in the lesbian herstory archive
Kayla: Archival work is soooo important. I’m sure most of the recording is just me going “oh my god” a lot.
Drew: I’m sure I was also uncomfortable watching it, because I had a whole complex about being turned on by lesbian sex “as a boy.” As a teenager, I only watched lesbian porn, but then I discovered feminism(?) in college and became very self-conscious of being perverted in any way. So I probably watched it while attempting to very clinically be like “ah yes the camerawork here really emphasizes the character development.”
This is also why I don’t get all that concerned about “Gen Z hates sex” discourse. Is it a generation thing or is it literally so many of us were uncomfortable with sex in our teens and early twenties??
Kayla: Right, I wasn’t really out here championing sex scenes publicly when I was younger, even if I did rewatch that Matrix scene over and over.
Drew: Once I came out, that pretense went away and while I can acknowledge the very good camerawork I also allow myself to hoot and holler and awooga. Especially when I rewatched during early pandemic and hadn’t had sex in like nine months.
Kayla: I do think I watched Bound at the perfect time. As mired in queer shame as I was at the time, I really do credit it with challenging and undoing some of that! And I think if it had come any sooner, I may not have been receptive to that.
Drew: That makes a lot of sense!
Kayla: It’s SO HOT; I’m not surprised about your awooga reactions early pandemic. And this is such a simple observation, but so much of why it’s hot for me has to do with how much agency both characters have, how it just sort of bucks in the face of a lot of standard or expected scripts for interactions, especially in a butch/femme dynamic. It also has to do with all the hands in mouths happening.
Drew: Yeah, we are also on the record about our oral fixations. And BOTH scenes — though they’re kind of two parts of one scene — have each character with the other’s finger in their mouth.
Kayla: I love cinematic symmetry.
Drew: You’re right about agency. I love the exchange: “I’m trying to seduce you.” “Why?” “Because I want to.”
I also like how Corky has this grin where she kind of knows she might be being played but also thinks it’s worth it
Kayla: Yes! Violet’s in control, but so is Corky. They’re both giving up and taking.
I love how that scene starts too, with Violet showing Corky her tattoo and talking about how long it took and the pain she felt after is something I love about it. That feels really specific and queer, this idea of an ache, which can feel like a memory but also a want. I’m going to be corny/cringe and quote my fiancée, but when Kristen Arnett wrote “When I write sex scenes, the ache is just as important as the orgasm,” in Vulture, I FELT THAT.
Drew: Oooo what a quote. It’s also really felt to me in that close up of their lips as they talk to each other all breathy. The ache of desire about to be fulfilled.
Kayla: I mean, Jennifer Tilly has one of the most identifiable voices in cinema, and there’s something about it that really works so well in these scenes. No one else sounds like that, and there’s something erotic about that singularity in and of itself to me.
Drew: Yes! I like that the dialogue itself is kind of porn-y, but it’s so beautifully shot and well-acted it works. Also because porn-y dialogue CAN work? Porn is often an accusation thrown at non-porn films to show they’re inferior but… what’s wrong with porn? We’re talking about queer art, we’re not arguing in front of Congress.
Kayla: Totally! I hate when porn-y is used as a way to insult art. It’s a compliment lol! Because to be honest, I actually usually find a lot of dialogue during sex scenes in films to be less realistic than dialogue in porn, because at least for me, sex talk in real life tends to be pretty simple and straightforward the way it’s presented in porn and not…trying to do all that, the way it sometimes functions in film.
Drew: Right and also there can be a sort of role play to sex even when not specifically doing a scene.
Drew: There are some other specific moments in the scenes I want to zero in on. Like when Violet says “You can’t believe what you see but you can believe what you feel” and puts Corky’s hand on her pussy to show how wet she is. LIKE!
Kayla: THAT! PART!!!!!! I was like oh this is a sex scene that fucks, which you know, is not always the case!
Drew: It’s not! We should note that famously the Wachowskis brought on Susie Bright to be lesbian sexpert. Only closeted trans women would be like “we don’t know enough about lesbian sex.” All the male directors in film history are like idk it’s four titties how complicated can it be.
Kayla: LOL.
Drew: Which, hey, is sometimes true.
Kayla: Have you ever seen the way the second scene is written in the script? I can’t remember which friend called my attention to it, but it’s incredible, practically poetry.
Drew: No!
Kayla: Here it is.
INT. CORKY’S APARTMENT – NIGHT
The sex.
There is nothing flower-scented or out-of-focus about it.
It is sweaty, slippery, body-grinding, bed-squeaking lesbian sex – –
Pungent and potent – –
And when it is over, neither woman can move.
Finally, Corky’s eyes flutter open.
Drew: !!! Wow. And it’s true! I love how Corky’s musculature is emphasized.
Kayla: I’ve never been able to get “pungent and potent” out of my head!!!! It’s so good!
Drew: And how sweaty they are in the scene.
Kayla: Yes, the sweat is so good. Whenever sweat is missing from very active sex scenes in film, I’m like are they fucking in the tundra?
Drew: Lmaooo. I also love how the bottom sheet has been ripped off Corky’s bed. That communicates so much.
Kayla: The after-sex glow is strong, too. You can tell the characters want to draw out this moment and sit with it longer, and we do too!!
Drew: Corky literally says I CAN SEE AGAIN.
Kayla: And I feel like that line can be read on multiple levels: the sex being completely mind altering/awakening but also just the idea of coming back into reality after being completely absorbed in the sex.
Drew: Ooo that’s true. I also like it as a sort of poetic declaration since Corky was so burned by her ex and she’s going to learn to trust Violet. She’s pulled out of isolation and toward new trust and new connection.
Kayla: Yeah, you can really see something shifting in this second scene (which I do agree is really just an extension of the first rather than something separate) for each of them and between them. Sometimes, sex scenes can just be sex, and that sex can still say something about the characters or the story or the context or the tone of a film, but here we do have a sex scene that is doing a lot at once. It’s a strong case for why sex scenes do belong in film and in queer art, even if I believe so strongly in that that I don’t think sex scenes should have to “prove” their value.
Drew: And closeted me was right: It’s so artfully shot! The transition from the car to the bed in a single move up is divine.
Kayla: I was literally going to say closeted you was sooooo right about the technical aspects of the scenes. On a craft level, they’re fantastic! Artful but still so natural.
Drew: The whole movie is playing with noir as a genre and the way the initial seduction occurs and even the lighting of the sex itself is a big part of that. The movie’s primary thematic statement is like: not all femmes are femme fatales! #notallfemmes
Kayla: Yes! It’s a really great example of how it’s actually quite easy to be subversive. That’s a straightforward subversion!
Drew: With Lilly Wachowski moving away from sci-fi, I’d be so interested to see her make something like this again. I love an operatic sci-fi spectacle, but a gritty grimy grounded action movie is great too.
Kayla: And there are still virtually no lesbian action movies of this nature in the time since Bound was made. Which is a personal affront to me.
Drew: Bound was so ahead of its time it would still be ahead of its time if it came out today.
Every Moment in “Mean Girls” (2024) Gayer Than the Original
Trading (most of) her outdated humor for more inclusive nuance, Tina Fey’s Mean Girls (2024) flips the script on the shortcomings of the original. And, yes, that includes queering some of its relatively straight ensemble so Damian no longer has to be the only gay.
Janis’ “big ol’ lesbian crush on you” tongue-in-cheek declaration is now worn on her sleeve through bisexual queen Auli’i Cravalho’s fiery portrayal of the character, Karen Shetty is far from straight, and Cady might’ve had a bi attack over Regina.
Get in losers, we’re listing every moment in Mean Girls (2024) gayer than the original.
Cady’s bi attack during Regina’s introduction
Instead of voiceovers, Mean Girls (2024) delves into Cady’s brain functionality through imaginative musical numbers. During Regina’s — and only Regina’s — verse in “Meet The Plastics” the camera shoots in on Cady enchanted with Regina’s stunning ferocity. When Regina sings, “These are real,” and zips them coat zippers down, Cady’s reaction can only be described as gobsmacked, for she blinks with her eyes bulged wide.
Cady might love Aaron Samuels, but Regina seduced her in this number.
Karen is a pansexual free spirit
Apart from her ditziness, Karen Shetty’s big secret, according to Gretchen Wieners, is that she’s had sex with eleven people. It’s unspecified if it was men or women, and the movie reiterates “people” twice. It’s safe to say it’s all genders. This line is lifted from the musical; even then, nobody knew.
Karen’s actress Avantika has gone on record to say she believes that Karen is pansexual. “If you tell me Karen is anything but pansexual, I have beef with you,” she said in an interview with Gay Times. Karen’s free, happy spirit strengthens this notion — especially in the “Sexy” number.
So Regina and Janis canonically kissed
Janis and Regina’s falling out got a much-needed, non-homophobic, subtext-to-text update.
In a more convoluted backstory, Janis and Regina were best friends in middle school. Janis put a rainbow pin on a doll to come out to Regina in secrecy, and Regina supported her out of allyship. Then, during a game of Spin the Bottle, Regina made out with Janis to make a boy she liked jealous. She then rebuffed any emotions by saying, “I knew she would let me. She’s, like, obsessed with me.” This set the bridge between the two aflame to say the least.
Regina must be the strongest straight woman to ever live because not seeing yourself as at least a little fruity after kissing Janis is wild. Then again, bicon Reneé Rapp sees the character as a lesbian so… maybe she’ll find herself in college!
Janis is an out queer girlie with a girlfriend!
The most significant queer update in Mean Girls (2024) is the characterization of Janis. She’s proud of her rebel weirdo, artsy, queer identity and doesn’t let those traits define her.
During the Spring Fling climax, Janis picks up an unnamed love interest to take as her date. Rumor has it you can hear a unified “aw” with the reveal in every auditorium across the country.
Damian has a theater boy boo
We can’t leave out our original Mean Girls gay! One way the original Mean Girls dropped the ball was not letting Damian have any romance of his own. Well, here, that wrong is corrected. He gets an unnamed theater boy boo who he waves at flirtatiously, and, during the Spring Fling, the two dance together.
You go, Damian!
Mean Girls (2024) is now in theaters.
Anatomy of a Queer Sex Scene: “Multiple Maniacs” Has the Best Lesbian Sex Scene Ever
Welcome to Anatomy of a Queer Sex Scene, a series by Drew Burnett Gregory and Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya about queer sex scenes in film. Today Drew writes about John Waters’ early perverted classic, Multiple Maniacs.
I want to start by saying that if you are a cis woman who exclusively has sex with other cis women and that sex exclusively involves kissing, fingering, and licking pussy that you are valid. Those are great ways to have lesbian sex. I enjoy them, I hope you enjoy them, I hope your partner or partners enjoy them.
But the great thing about lesbian sex — and queer sex in general — is its expansiveness. Even within so-called vanilla sex there are endless ways to kiss and suck and finger. Everyone’s bodies are different and different acts and approaches to those acts bring different people pleasure. This is true for all sex, but queer people are gifted with fewer expectations. Therefore, almost all of us are forced to consider what we want rather than falling into a routine.
And maybe what we want is to get fucked in the ass in church with some rosary beads.
John Waters’ early feature Multiple Maniacs is just as audacious today as it was in 1970. Opening with a guided tour through “The Cavalcade of Perversions,” Waters and his troupe of misfits push and push in their depictions of sex, violence, drug use, and sacrilege. One minute the legendary Divine is spitting out fabulous insults, the next she’s getting raped by a giant lobster.
And then there’s the rosary job scene.
This scene makes up about a sixth of the movie’s total runtime. It begins with Divine being led by the Infant Jesus of Prague (played by a literal child) to a Catholic church. Like the sequence as a whole, Divine is narrating this encounter, providing inner monologue and motivation to cut to a lo-fi retelling of Jesus’ miracles.
But as she prays, Mink Stole enters and gives her a “lewdly religious glare.”
Soon enough Mink has sidled up next to Divine and — even though Divine narrates that lesbianism has never really appealed to her — she trusts in the Infant Jesus of Prague leading her to this church. Mink instructs Divine to say the stations of the cross as Waters continues to cut to his own take on them. Meanwhile, Mink starts fucking Divine with her rosary.
After Jesus has been nailed to the cross and Divine has come, “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands” fills the soundtrack. Waters cuts to another misfit shooting up heroin elsewhere in the church just in case he hadn’t offended enough.
Divine and Mink leave the church together and Divine admits that was the most fabulous sexual experience of her life. Mink says most people call her The Religious Whore.
I’m not Catholic, nor was I raised Catholic. I come to this scene delighted by the sacrilege but with a different reaction to it than an ex-Catholic — or current Catholic! — queer person might.
For me, what makes the scene is the sex act itself — and who is doing it. As a trans woman, deeply underrepresented in the history and present of lesbian film and television, I love that this moment is between a cis female actor and a cis male drag queen. I don’t care that Divine wasn’t trans! If two straight women can be in a lesbian sex scene, then so can a drag queen.
And then there’s the sex itself. A lot of lesbian sex on-screen (outside of porn) is vague. At most, we’ll know someone is being fingered or getting head. There are not a lot of toys. There definitely isn’t a lot of anal. Which is absurd! Even queer women with vaginas have anal sex! The scene in Multiple Maniacs is clear: The words rosary and anal are interchangeable when followed by the word beads.
I want to see a wider variety of queer bodies have sex on-screen. I also just want to see a wider variety of sex acts. Porn is great, but something is lost as a culture when it’s the only place to watch the vast majority of ways people can fuck.
The scene in Multiple Maniacs is funny and hot all at once. Mink’s smeared lipstick, Divine’s loud orgasm, even someone spitting in Jesus’ beard if that’s what does it for you. It’s the work of a one-of-a-kind queer artist operating under total freedom.
Some would balk at me calling this the best lesbian sex scene of all time. Hell, some would be upset with me calling it a lesbian sex scene at all. But my hope — on-screen and in life — is that we are always looking to expand beyond ourselves and to expand ourselves.
Queerness should always include a cavalcade of perversions. If you want to keep your lesbian sex simple and sensual, I love that for you. Some of us will be in church bent over a pew taking a string of rosary beads.
We’re just following the Infant Jesus of Prague.
Remember to clean your beads.
Multiple Maniacs is now streaming on The Criterion Channel. The Multiple Maniacs sex scene begins at 34:28.
The Most Important Movie of the Year Is a Documentary From 1976
Best Films of 2023 lists have been filled with art that grapples with the genocidal actions of powerful men. Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Zone of Interest attempt — with various degrees of success — to display the mundanity of large-scale violence. From the atomic bombs to the assassinations of Osage people to concentration camps, the killing is meticulously planned. And yet each film shows how little the perpetrators of this violence reckon with their actions — at least until it’s already been done.
Unfortunately, these works of history remain relevant. The same justifications of greed and fear have motivated Israel’s latest U.S.-backed escalation of violence against Palestinians. Meanwhile, here in the States our cruel immigration policies and prison system steal millions of lives. Few people carrying out these modern atrocities connect their actions with the actions of the past. People take what they want from history and rarely see themselves in the villains.
There is an undeniable power to Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Zone of Interest, but there’s also a limit to their depth. What do they reveal about the evils of men? They are artful, emotional documentation, and there is value in that. But the only film I saw this year that really confronted the perpetrators of this kind of violence was a four and a half hour documentary from 1976, Marcel Ophuls’ The Memory of Justice.
Unlike Ophuls’ more famous Holocaust documentary The Sorrow and the Pity, The Memory of Justice does not allow its continued relevance to remain subtext. It’s one thing to say we must study history so as not to repeat it — it’s another to place past and present side-by-side. In The Memory of Justice, Ophuls focuses on the Nuremberg trials and the continued reckoning within Germany. But he wisely acknowledges there is nothing uniquely evil about the Nazi regime. The film draws parallels between the Holocaust and the more recent horrors of the French occupation of Algeria and the American occupation of Vietnam.
The Nazis who Ophuls interviewed use the same excuses and justifications that people use today. One Nazi refuses to admit he was ever antisemitic. Another Nazi understates the suffering at the concentration camps because “at a camp you can walk around when you like and where you like.” Other Nazis claim to not have known the scope of the violence. Even Albert Speer who notably admitted responsibility and spent his life supposedly atoning is unwilling to admit the entirety of his role. His narrative of himself as the good Nazi, the apologetic Nazi, is just as self-serving as the Nazis who deny their guilt.
The film is very explicit about the atrocities of the Holocaust. It also questions why the Nuremberg trials focused on the German actions alone. What about the bombing of Dresden? What about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Only the losers of war are forced to answer for their crimes against humanity.
Calling political opponents Nazis is seen as cheap and dramatic. But this film highlights the validity of the comparison. The United States and France have carried out many holocausts, and have been led by people who acted like the Nazis. To truly reckon with the Holocaust is to remove the evil from its pedestal and recognize it as common.
Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers and revealed the extent of the U.S. evils in Vietnam, makes one of the film’s most frightening observations. He notes that within the Pentagon Papers there is no debate about ethics or legality, only practicality and effectiveness. Amorality is more frightening than immorality.
Showing evil on-screen — in narrative or documentary form — is not enough to stop it. But the clearest work, the most impactful work, uses history to confront the violence of today. We need more media like The Memory of Justice that excavates the past without allowing people to dismiss or misinterpret its relevance.
“No more genocide in my name,” a woman sings during a protest at Kent State. Watching this, my stomach dropped. I’ve heard that said so many times over the past few months as American Jews plead with our politicians to stop funding Israel’s violence. It’s easy to feel despair at this endless cycle. But there’s also inspiration to be found in the parallel history of resistance.
The Memory of Justice makes it clear that the greatest perpetrators of violence will never acknowledge their villainy. But we can acknowledge it for them. We can refuse the easy narratives of the powerful and fight for a world where human life — all human life — is valued. We can fight for a world of true justice.
The Memory of Justice is not currently available to stream.
The History of the Color Purple Kiss
This article includes spoilers for the lesbian storyline in 2023’s The Color Purple. If you have not yet seen the film, you might enjoy a spoiler-free review instead.
Premiering this week, more than 40 years after Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize book in 1982 and just shy of 20 years after its original 20025 Broadway debut, audiences have been promised a version of The Color Purple that will be a “bold new take on the beloved classic.”
But, what does “bold” mean? In all versions of The Color Purple, the beats of which are familiar to most audiences, Celie, the protagonist, is severely abused by both her stepfather and then later, her husband, Mister. Throughout her life, Celie’s memories of her sister Nettie, along with friendships made with other women along the way, teach her how to be strong in ways she never knew possible. Key to those relationships is Celie’s romantic awakening with her husband’s mistress, Shug Avery. In Alice Walker’s novel, Shug and Celie become lovers to one another and, even after decades, we have yet to see their relationship met with the same ferocity of which Walker first penned them.
In 1982 Alice Walker wrote a Black queer text so ahead of its time, that 40 years later we’re still fighting to catch up. Here is a history of the most famous Black lesbian kiss in our lifetime.
Fantasia Barrino as Celie and Taraji P. Henson as Shug in The Color Purple (2023).
1979: Before The Color Purple
I’d argue that the history of queerness in The Color Purple begins roughly three years before the book even published. In 1979, Black feminist lesbian scholar and activist Barbara Smith wrote “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism,” a pivotal work in feminist theory that continues to be studied for decades. It’s widely accepted as the “the first explicit statement of Black feminist criticism.” At the time, Smith was already considered a leading voice in Black feminist pedagogy, having been a member of the National Black Feminist Organization, the Combahee River Collective, and would go on to found the famed Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press (at her friend Audre Lorde’s suggestion, no less).
Most directly related to our interests, in “Toward a Black a Black Feminist Criticism” Smith argues that all the “segments of the literary world-whether establishment, progressive, Black, female, or lesbian — do not know, or at least act as if they do not know, that Black women writers and Black lesbian writers exist.” This is a rallying call. Black queer and lesbian writers were already building generation-defining careers at the time, but as Dr. Christopher S. Lewis writes in “Cultivating Black Lesbian Shamelessness: Alice Walker’s ‘The Color Purple'” there is one particular trend to note — three years later, in 1982, four seminal Black lesbian texts were all published at the same time: Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Ntozake Shange’s Sassafrass, Cyprus, & Indigo, Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place, and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.
Of those books — each important in their own way — The Color Purple would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize, becoming the first and still only novel to do so with a Black queer protagonist (Walker never names Celie’s identity directly, though the character is often read as a lesbian). Alice Walker would also become the first queer Black woman writer to win the award.
Taken in that context, it’s not difficult to draw a line directly between Smith’s original lament and what follows. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is written amidst a wave of other Black queer women writers who are staking a claim. These are women who socialized together, who were each other’s writing partners, creating deeply personal and intellectual overlapping circles. So much of The Color Purple is tied to Alice Walker’s family history, some of which we will talk about in a bit — but it’s also impossible to divorce it from the feminist, queer, political landscape of where it lands.
1982: The Color Purple Is Published
When Alice Walker published The Color Purple, first and foremost she was interested in writing a tribute to grandmother. Her grandmother, Rachel, as described by Walker, was “a kind and loving woman brutally abused by my grandfather.” This description came in in 2019, after an actor in a regional production of The Color Purple refused to play the role of Celie. Based on Walker’s written response, I presume that the actor objected in part to Celie’s queerness:
“It is safe to say, after a frightful life serving and obeying abusive men, who raped in place of ‘making love,’ my grandmother, like Celie, was not attracted to men. She was, in fact, very drawn to my grandfather’s lover, a beautiful woman who was kind to her, the only grown person who ever seemed to notice how remarkable and creative she was. In giving Celie the love of this woman, in every way love can be expressed, I was clear in my intention to demonstrate that she too, like all of us, deserved to be seen, appreciated, and deeply loved by someone who saw her as whole and worthy.”
In writing Celie’s relationship with Shug, Walker felt as if she was paying her grandmother back a gift, providing something in a fictional realm that perhaps her grandmother was or was not able to fulfill in her life. A Black queer granddaughter, finding a connection through her words to the her (likely queer) Black grandmother, who had always been kind to her.
The Color Purple is known for its spirituality, framed by Celie’s letters to God, a fact that has been underscored by the heavy presence of gospel in its musical adaptations. Those Black Christian traditions are often used to distance The Color Purple from its queerness when for Walker they were always knotted together as one and the same, “I believe, and know, that sexual love can be extraordinarily holy, whoever might be engaging in it, I felt I had been able to return a blessing of love to a grandmother who had always offered only blessing and love, when I was a child, to me.” To express love is, intrinsically, an expression of holiness.
When we talk about The Color Purple novel in comparison to the adaptations that follow it, often — especially as gay people — we zero in on how gay the book is. And when we say “how gay the book is” we’re talking about the sex (I’ve also been guilty of this). The fabric of what Walker was painting was so much more.
It’s purposefully Shug who tells Celie “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it,” marrying the book’s two central themes, its spirituality and its queerness, into a single sentence. The literal color purple, of course, has historically been used as a code for queerness, a fact that I am sure was not lost on Walker when she wrote both that sentence and the book’s title. At one point in the novel, Celie says that to her all men look like frogs. Walker’s decision to write Shug as a blues singer pulls from a well-known history queer blues singers during the early 20th century; though I’d argue most prominently Bessie Smith, whose biography had just published in the decade prior, explicitly naming her bisexuality, and like Shug often get lovers of both genders at the same time. Celie’s chosen career path towards financial independence is to make pants — which is certainly a small note within the broader themes of the book, but has been read as a symbol of her queerness by quite a few gay readers. There are so many ways that queerness in The Color Purple is about wholeness far beyond sex.
But also, there is the sex. Celie washing Shug’s body becomes a moment of awakening, Shug is the first person to teach Celie about her clitoris, that sex can feel good, and the first person to guide her through masturbation and oral sex. Theirs is the only time that Celie experiences caring, loving, consensual sex. In fact, at the time of its publishing, The Color Purple contained one of the most vibrant and explicitly described sex scenes — between partners of any gender — up to that point in history. Celie becomes insatiable, writing in her letters “I am like a bee. Shug likes honey. I am after her all the time.” Their relationship spans decades.
Still, it is about what their sex teaches Celie. Walker uses Shug to help Celie regain her voice, her courage, her self-worth, her independence. In her 1997 book The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult, Walker reflected that she wrote The Color Purple because she “wanted to give my family and friends an opportunity to see women-loving women — lesbian, heterosexual, bi-sexual, ‘two-spirited’ — womanist women in a recognizable context. I wanted them, I suppose, to see me.”
1985: The Color Purple (dir. Steven Spielberg) Is Released
Whoopi Goldberg as Celie and Margaret Avery as Shug in The Color Purple (1985).
In Steven Spielberg’s 1985 adaptation of The Color Purple, Shug’s and Celie’s nuanced, layered queer love story is reduced to a single ambiguous scene, changing the course of all the adaptations that come after.
In it, Celie cries that no one loves her. Shug – who’s first words to Celie upon meeting her are famously “you sho is ugly!” — assures Celie that she loves her, before gently kissing her. First on her right cheek, then her forehead, her left cheek, and finally, her mouth. The camera follows Shug’s hand as it caresses Celie’s shoulder. Then, Celie’s hand as it reaches out to clasp Shug’s. Their faces are reflected back across the room’s mirrors. The camera pans to the bed they are sitting on, before cutting away to a wind chime carrying a tune.
The work with color here is also of note. As opposed of signature purple (the color that Shug tells Celie is from God), as María Frías points out in Walker-Spielberg Tandem and Lesbianism in The Color Purple, “Walker’s verbal and sexual passion is replaced by the predominance of the color red — both Celie and Shug wear sophisticated red clothes — and the lighting, together with a sensual music, give an atmosphere of intimacy, warmth, and complicity.”
Still, whatever subtext might be gleamed from the scene, it’s also a part of clear decision to eliminate the novel’s prominent lesbian themes. Spielberg admits as much in a 2011 retrospective of his work with Entertainment Weekly, saying “There were certain things in the [lesbian] relationship between Shug Avery and Celie that were finely detailed in Alice’s book, that I didn’t feel could get a [PG-13] rating.”
In The Same River Twice, Walker similarly recalls hearing from The Color Purple producer Quincy Jones that there had been numerous letters from people who were “adamantly opposed to any display of sexual affection between Celie and Shug,” including threats of boycotting the film if those scenes were included.
This also aligns with Whoopi Goldberg’s memory. In a career retrospective with The Television Academy, Goldberg names the NAACP’s attempted boycott campaign as being one of the reasons that The Color Purple, nominated for 11 Oscars, walked away with none. The NAACP’s protests, and surrounding conversations, focused largely on the character of Mister and what that role said about Black masculinity. Still, the hot point of the film’s potential queerness was not lost on conservative audiences. As Goldberg jokes, in the mid-1980s saying the word “lesbian” on screen was barely permissible, let alone being able to depict a multi-faceted queer sexuality.
The small scene in 1985’s The Color Purple we were provided with came at Alice Walker’s instance. Even still, as Walker looked back, “I knew the passion of Celie and Shug’s relationship would be sacrificed when, on the day ‘the kiss’ was shot, Quincy reassured me that Steven had shot it ‘five or six’ different ways, all of them ‘tasteful.'” (Italicizing my own.)
That decision has ultimately haunted Spielberg’s career. He’s acknowledged, “I was shy about it. In that sense, perhaps I was the wrong director to acquit some of the more sexually honest encounters between Shug and Celie.” But when pressed if, given the benefit of time, would he change that decision, Spielberg holds firm: “I wouldn’t, no. That kiss is consistent with the tonality, from beginning to end, of The Color Purple that I adapted.”
While that might be true, it’s not consistent with the novel that Alice Walker wrote.
2005 and 2015: The Color Purple (And Its Revival) Premiere on Broadway
Jennifer Hudson as Shug and Cynthia Erivo as Celie in The Color Purple (2015).
Walker’s unease with Spielberg’s adaptation led Scott Sanders, producer of The Color Purple musical, to approach her with care and caution about his interest in adapting her work for the stage. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times (a piece which, in full disclosure, also cited my recent review of The Color Purple — a fact I discovered while conducting research for this article), Sanders reflected that Walker told him, “‘The relationship between Celie and Shug is very important to me.'” In return, Sanders promised that he wanted to expand their relationship beyond what was depicted in the film, saying “‘This is Broadway, we can touch on subjects like this, it’s not an issue.'”
And, despite the fact that various interpretations of the musical and its revival over the years (based on individual stagings, director’s choices, or companies) still often attempt downplay Shug and Celie’s relationship, Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray’s lyrics hold true to Sanders’ word. They crystalize two women in love, and the subsequent impact that love story has on every other part of Celie’s life.
In “Dear God — Shug,” Celie washes Shug while Shug recuperates from her overuse of alcohol. Celie compares witnessing Shug’s naked form to worship (“I wash her body and it feel like I’m prayin’/ Try not to look, but my eyes ain’t obeyin'”). Later, when Shug overhears the verbal abuse that Mister spews at Celie, she has a love confession of her own in “Too Beautiful for Words.” When the pair first met, Shug said “you sho is ugly,” but now? Shug tells Celie, “The grace you bring into this world’s / Too beautiful for words… Oh, don’t you know you’re beautiful / Too beautiful for words.”
It’s the first time anyone in Celie’s life (besides her sister, Nettie) has seen beauty in her.
After Shug performs at Harpo’s Juke Joint (a song called “Push Da Button,” most certainly a reference to the fact that in the 1982 novel, Shug teaches Celie about the pleasure brought forth by her own anatomy through referring to her clitoris as a button), Shug and Celie steal away to spend the evening together. In the privacy of Celie’s bedroom they kiss, and in “What About Love” they proclaim not only their love for each other, but their vulnerability.
Celie can’t believe it, “Is that me who’s floating away / Lifted up to the clouds by a kiss / Never felt nothing like this.” While Shug, despite being far more experienced, finds herself stunned at the dawning of this new relationship. “Is that me I don’t recognize / …I had it all figured out.”
They ask each other:
“But what about trust? /
What about tenderness?
What about tears when I’m happy?
What about wings when I fall?
I want you to be a story for me that I can believe in
Forever”
It is, to the best of my knowledge and research, the only love song between two Black women to have ever been performed on Broadway.
When Shug asks Celie what she wants, Celie admits that more than anything, she just wants to be with Shug. This sets the plan in motion for Celie to leave her abusive home to live with Shug in Memphis. Once settled at Shug’s home the couple, along with Shug’s husband, Grady, and Harpo’s ex-girlfriend, Squeak, form a kind of queer domesticity. Grady and Squeak eventually decide to become a couple on their own; Shug and Celie stay together.
Ultimately, Celie and Shug break up. Shug wants Celie’s permission to run away into a short affair with a 19-year-old blues flutist in her band. Celie refuses, singing back their original promise to each other through her tears (this is called the “What About Love (Reprise)”). In their own way, in their own time period, Celie and Shug took vows. While its painful, Celie lets Shug go because in their relationship she saw and found value in her own self-worth.
From their breakup comes Celie’s “I’m Here,” a barn burner of a ballad that has brought every house I’ve ever seen it performed in to tears. It’s there that Celie finally repeats back the words that Shug first sang to her, “I’m beautiful.. yes, I’m beautiful.” This time, she believes it.
As the show comes to a close, Celie sings another refrain in her reprise of the titular “The Color Purple”:
“God is inside me and everyone else
That was or ever will be
I came into this world with God
And when I finally looked inside
I found it.”
Those are words that, once again, Celie first heard on Shug’s lips. It’s the last memory given to the audience. That through Shug, Celie learns to love herself, to find her beauty, and to find her God.
2023: The Color Purple (dir. Blitz Bazawule) Is Released
Taraji P. Henson as Shug and Fantasia Barrino as Celie in The Color Purple (2023).
For his take on the work, now four decades in the making, director Blitz Bazawule was tasked with joining together both Spielberg’s adaptation of The Color Purple that is familiar to most audiences, along with its musical partner, and Walker’s own source material.
Specifically, producer Scott Sanders has said “it was important for us to make it abundantly clear to audiences that these two women had both a sexual relationship and a loving relationship, and that Celie had one love in this entire story.” That sentiment is echoed by screenwriter Marcus Gardley, who noted ahead of the film’s premiere that “I wanted the love story to be prominent and didn’t want to brush over that these two women are in love.”
In Bazawule’s version, Shug no longer calls Celie “ugly” when first meeting her, but in exchange she also never gets to sing her first love song to Celie, she never gets to tell her that she is “too beautiful for words.” That decision undercuts the foundation of their relationship; it’s in the reflection of Shug’s warmth that Celie is supposed to find herself for the first time.
Instead, the majority of Shug and Celie’s relationship occurs in Celie’s imagination, as opposed to within the main text of the film. Throughout The Color Purple, Bazawule inserts stylized asides to bring forth some of the musical elements, particularly (though not only) as it relates to Celie’s inner thoughts. These choices directly impact Shug and Celie. Instead of Celie and Shug’s romance existing as a part of our lived reality, they now find each other inside of a small world of Celie’s own creation.
There are moments where this magical realism approach strengthens the narrative, such as when Celie washes Shug’s body for the first time and the world melts away around them. There are others, such as musical’s signature love song “What About Love,” where Bazawule’s direction feels less clear.
In this version of “What About Love,” Shug sweeps Celie away on a private date to an empty theater, and Celie imagines the two of them together in the style of an old Broadway musical, proclaiming their love. However, since the song now takes place in Celie’s imagination, the audience is left wondering if their love declarations and vows are even real or long-lasting. Worse, while singing a song about lovers who are learning what it means to trust in each other, both Fantasia Barrino and Taraji P. Henson are puzzlingly directed to walk away from each other, rather than become close.
The two do still kiss, a chaste and closed mouth one (though, admittedly, long). The camera slowly pulls away from the couple, instead of inviting the audience into their intimacy. Bazawule confusingly also chooses to backlight their silhouettes in this moment, one that queer audiences in particular have waited nearly 40 years for, leaving Shug and Celie in shadows — as if to say that theirs is a love that is meant to hide.
“Celie’s mind goes into this incredible place of what she believes love is, and when she comes back into reality, it has happened to her,” Bazawule explained to the Los Angeles Times.
But we’re never given a full sense of what this moment means to Shug. The next morning, presumably following their first time together (the actual sex scene in question is cut away), we see Shug’s hand graze Celie’s waist. Mere seconds later, Shug is already out of bed and never looks back at the woman she spent the night with? Their long-term relationship is not established and their time together is never directly mentioned again, almost as if to apologize to film audiences for its inclusion at all. It’s not made clear that Celie later moves to Memphis to be in a relationship with Shug. Their break up song (a return to “What About Love”) is cut entirely, thus robbing Celie’s most famous ballad, “I’m Here,” of its key queer catalyst.
The team behind the new Color Purple has argued that the decision to divorce “I’m Here” from Shug and Celie’s breakup is to recenter it on Celie’s own self-definition and self-creation, rather than have it be in response to a broken heart. They see this is Celie coming into her own, on her own terms.
But of course, Celie coming into her own in the context of her relationship with Shug is… what the story is supposed to be about. It is from Shug that Celie that learns she is beautiful. It is from Shug’s heartbreak that Celie learns that “I don’t need you to love me” because she can love herself. In the setup of the newest The Color Purple, she learns neither.
In his interview with the The Los Angeles Times, Scott Sanders responded to similar criticisms of the new adaptation, stating “There was nothing intentional to soften the relationship and, quite frankly, we thought we did a beautiful job with it… We show that they kissed, that they were romantic, that they slept together at least once. But how many scenes do you want to keep going back to the bedroom?”
While it’s true that an awkwardly backlit kiss, two fantasy sequences, and a suggested night together moves the needle on this latest The Color Purple film closer than the last time the story was depicted on screen, it’s simultaneously still a far cry from what Walker actually wrote and the reasons why she wrote it.
Brooke Obie put it well for Andscape, Blitz Bazawule “makes a choice to show us the bed shaking as Celie is raped by Mister. And he also makes a choice not to show us Celie’s consensual, sexual romance with Shug that’s foundational to who she becomes. It matters that Celie’s relationship with God and herself are discovered and explored through the lens of her lesbianism. It’s a necessary testament to the liberating force and inherent holiness of queerness.”
(Sanders wondered, “how many scenes do you want to keep going back to the bedroom?” I’d argue, at least as many times as Celie is shown being raped. But that’s just me, personally.)
Notably, the new Color Purple also neglects to make it clear that it is Shug, along with Mister, who helps bring Nettie home to Celie after all their years apart. Thus depriving Shug of the final moment where she shows her love for Celie by reuniting her with the greatest love in her life, her sister. This changes the tone of Celie singing the film’s concluding “Color Purple (Reprise)” lyrics altogether, removing direct context of Shug from Celie’s final words.
Funny how that worked out.
I don’t know where The Color Purple will go from here. I hope that one day, maybe in time for its next revival in 2040, we’ll finally be able to match the complexity and beauty of a love story between two Black Southern queer woman that Alice Walker wrote back in 1982. It will have been a long, hard fought, winding road — a history of half-truths and choked silences, of two steps forward and one step back, but one with a destination of hope. And I believe that seeing our wholeness and holiness will have been worth it.
Anatomy of a Queer Sex Scene: “Carol” Finds the Kink in Age Gaps
Welcome to Anatomy of a Queer Sex Scene, a series by Drew Burnett Gregory and Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya about queer sex scenes in film. Today Kayla and Drew discuss Carol, Todd Hayne’s film adaptation of the landmark lesbian novel The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith.
Kayla: I find our parallel journeys with Carol to be very interesting!
Drew: Yes! The first time I saw Carol I was closeted. I went in as a Todd Haynes fan — even saw it at Lincoln Center with a Q&A — not as a lesbian. I thought and still think it’s just a remarkable piece of cinema. The cinematography and the score alone are some of the best of the last ten years and maybe ever.
But then when I came out my obsession increased. I wanted a Carol Aird to like my hat and whisk me into a life of lesbianism rather than, ya know, stumbling into it with my pre-transition partner. Once I broke up with that person and actually was dating and trying to date older women my love for the movie increased even more. I felt such an intense identification with Therese and her desire to be seen as older by Carol. But then… I actually did get older. And my romanticizing of the dynamic has lessened. NOT BECAUSE AGE GAPS ARE BAD. The last time I said this about Carol people thought I was upset about the age gap which lmao no. It’s more about their levels of experience. And it’s not that it’s abuse. I just don’t find it admirable or romantic. I think they’re providing very specific things for each other in that moment and that’s great but Carol is right to leave and I agree with everything she says in her letter.
Kayla: I wasn’t closeted when I first saw it, but I was in my first real long-term queer relationship that wasn’t shrouded in secrecy. And it was a much different relationship than the one I’m in now, and I really do think I latched onto or even interpreted aspects of the movie in a much different way than I do now. I also used to read a lot more romance onto the narrative, and now… well, now I read a lot more kink into it. But I also see way more of both character’s flaws now than I did then. I think it’s a film that can be easy to project onto. And some might mistake that for a hollowness, but I think it’s actually the opposite. It’s so rich, so whole. And just a fully queer gaze, aesthetic, and narrative. So I think it makes sense that we’ve read different things into it at different stages of our own queerness.
Drew: Yes!! I’ve loved growing up with it. I also read The Price of Salt somewhere in there. I think around when I was identifying most fiercely with Therese. It would be interesting to go back and reread and see if I’ve also grown up with the book.
Kayla: Yes to everything you’re saying about the age gap. I’m in a 12-year age gap, which I believe is a wider gap than the characters have in the novel but a smaller one than in the movie. Regardless, I obviously take no inherent issue with an age gap. But it was interesting to me to view the movie once I was in an age gap relationship and be able to identify the ways in which Carol and Therese both are aroused by their differences in age but also sometimes fail each other by projecting onto one another. Carol sometimes obscures Therese’s agency because she wants her to be this youthful little thing. And like you said, it’s not abuse. But there’s a level of control to it.
Drew: Famously… conflict is not abuse.
Kayla: I love how often you name drop Conflict Is Not Abuse without having read it lmao
Drew: LMAO
Kayla: CALLED OUT
Drew: I’ll read it !!
Kayla: Speaking of reading, I also read The Price of Salt after seeing the movie for the first time! I love the book so much. I think the men in it are better developed.
Drew: I agree the men in the novel are better developed which is funny because the movie is directed by a man. I sometimes find women artists are MORE generous to male characters!
Kayla: It’s true lol Todd Haynes really does love his women most, and I’m pretty okay with that, but there’s definitely some texture to those male characters missing in the adaptation.
Pivoting a bit, but I think this movie is sometimes regarded as chaste, which I disagree with!
Drew: That’s interesting! Do you think people are specifically referring to the sex scene or the film as a whole?
Kayla: As a whole. But I think there’s a difference between being chaste and having restraint. Carol and Therese do engage in physical touch quite a bit leading up to the sex scene. It’s not all just heavy eye contact. But there’s restraint, there are limits to the ways they can touch, especially publicly. And restraint can be really erotic in and of itself.
Drew: Yes absolutely. I wouldn’t describe the movie as chaste. Even if I don’t necessarily think the sex scene is hot?
I find the whole film to be really moving and emotional. Even in its eroticism. But I do think there’s an eroticism!
Kayla: I think the hottest part of the sex scene is right before they start fucking, when they’re kissing in front of the vanity and Therese abruptly says take me to bed. I feel like it’s simultaneously a bottom’s fantasy and a top’s fantasy, that like urgent desire of hers to be fucked. You can tell Carol loves to hear it.
Drew: Yes! Even the way Carol lets her robe open.
Kayla: There’s a clearly defined dynamic there, and they’re both giving each other exactly what they want.
Drew: They also voice their needs right before. Carol is used to Harge being busy with clients on New Years so she wants someone who SHE has more social power and control over. And Therese is usually lonely in a big crowd so she wants to be the center of someone’s attention.
Kayla: You also have some of the age stuff coming into play… Carol brushing Therese’s hair is quite the image. And then the way she’s very overt in her attraction to Therese’s youth when she first sees her undressed. And I love that Therese wants her to leave the light on.
Drew: The lights line is great. Especially because we often think of someone inexperienced as wanting the lights off out of shame or bashfulness. It shows a lot about Therese’s character even if she’s a sad little bottom in her dynamic with Carol lol
Kayla: Yes lol! She lacks confidence in certain parts of her life, but she really comes alive during this sex scene in a way I find surprising but also believable. She finally knows what she wants, at least in this moment.
Drew: I feel like the camera really stays with her too. This feels like her sex scene more than Carol’s. Which makes sense since this is presumably Therese’s first time and Carol is her whole world. Whereas Carol’s daughter is her whole world and Therese is just a temporary fill-in.
That’s mean. It’s not that harsh. But it’s also not not that.
Kayla: Yeah, it’s not not that! That’s something I also grew in my understanding of… my understanding of what it really means for Carol to be a mother.
She’s taking huge risks to be with Therese, but there are also limits to the ways she’s able to take those risks. And she’s always going to chose her daughter first, something Therese seems to struggle to understand. And that goes back to this idea of projection and also needing to understand an age gap isn’t just about numbers. Carol has a whole different life than Therese does.
It’s hard not to see the mirroring of Carol brushing her daughter’s hair earlier in the film and then her brushing Therese’s hair in the lead up to this scene.
Drew: Right it’s all there. haha
I like this scene in contrast with our first entry in this series where we discussed Disobedience. Because that scene is very hot to me and has substance but I still love the Carol sex scene even if I’ve never been turned on by it per se.
It shows the value of sex scenes. Sure being hot is enough value in itself IMO. But it can also communicate so much about character and just be beautiful art! God the score!!!!!
Kayla: The score is so good and is perhaps why I DO think it’s hot. It’s interesting, because neither Blanchett nor Mara do it for me really. But there’s something aesthetic about the scene that does turn me on, and I think details like the score are part of it. And the dialogue! It’s rare to have good, realistic, and weird (in a good way) dialogue in a sex scene, but this one does in my opinion.
Drew: Yeah that’s a good point. I love all the dialogue in the scene. It’s awkward but not in a way that reduces the eroticism.
Kayla: Yes! And it’s not outright dirty talk but there’s still a sense of them wanting to devour each other and stay in this moment. Again, the request to leave the lights on. I love it.
There’s also a lot of hair lol. Extremely femme for femme vibes.
Drew: So much hair! Relatable content.
I like how the scene doesn’t just fade to black but sort of fades into a pattern. The whole thing has this aura of emotionally important, drunk sex of youth. It’s like a memory of a sex scene. Which I think sex often can feel like when it’s not with someone you’ve been with before/will be with a lot in the future. Grasping onto it is like grasping onto a dream.
Kayla: That fade is something I hadn’t thought of too much until I was rewatching the scene for this conversation, and it really stood out to me. Because it again tied into my idea of this being a rich queer tapestry of a movie that’s easy to project onto. We’re not even quite sure what part of the body we’re looking at by the end of that pan into fade.
Drew: I think Carol has kind of become… dare I say… underrated because of how memed it’s been? Maybe underrated is the wrong word but I think it gets dismissed as a certain kind of stodgy lesbian movie when its craft is insanely good and there’s so much going on in terms of character nuance. ALSO you’re right! It is kinkier than people give it credit!
Kayla: I agree! I think it’s a super well crafted film, and I think the sex scene in particular is well crafted, too. And in general the film is surprisingly kinky and weird when you really pay attention to its details and, most importantly to me, not at all catering to a straight spectator. I know it’s directed by a man, but he’s gay obviously, and I think we’re both well on record about Todd Haynes’ deftness for writing queer women and just queerness in general. I think it’s such a strong adaptation of a brilliant novel.
The memes make me laugh, but they have also sort of flattened the film, which I suppose is exactly how memes are supposed to function.
I don’t think period pieces are for everyone, but I do really enjoy how this film makes use of its specific setting.
Drew: The Carol memes on this very website is what made me a fan of Autostraddle so no complaints. But also… I do think it’s time for a reassessment of the film from queer people to be like okay this is just a really good FILM.
Kayla: And a really nuanced portrayal of queerness at two very different stages of life — young adulthood and middle age. You don’t often get both of those things in one queer movie.
Drew: Yes! It’s a very good age gap movie! Even if it’s not the ideal age gap relationship. lol
I do love how comfortable Therese looks the morning after the sex scene. She’s so cozy.
No idea what’s about to happen. Just planning her little life with Carol in that young head of hers.
Kayla: Sooo cozy, still living in the soft snow globe of that sex scene.
Drew: This is such a random reference very specific to my youth but I feel like Therese would like the Bright Eyes song “Take It Easy (Love Nothing)”:
Left by the lamp, right next to the bed, on a cartoon cat pad you scratched with a pen, “Everything is as it’s always been. This never happened.
Don’t take it so bad it’s nothing you did. It’s just once something dies you can’t make it live. You are a beautiful boy.
You’re a sweet little kid but I am a woman.” So I laid back down and wrapped myself up in the sheet.
And I must have looked like a ghost because something frightened me and since then I’ve been so good at vanishing.
This is literally Carol.
Kayla: Wow that is so spot on.
Drew: Everything goes wrong SO QUICKLY after the Carol sex scene !
Carol is now streaming on Netflix. The sex scene begins around 1:14:26.
My Favorite Queer Christmas Movie Is “How To Blow Up a Pipeline”
A propulsive heist-like film with a smoking hot cast, flashback-driven storytelling structure, and radical leftist politics that meet climate-destroying capitalism with violence? How To Blow Up a Pipeline is my queer cinema catnip. And upon my recent first viewing, I also made an important discovery: This is a Christmas movie.
Autostraddle’s Drew Burnett Gregory has already made a compelling argument for why you should watch this film, and I agree with everything she writes about it! I am here to convince you it’s not just a great film but a great Christmas film, a holiday classic in the making for those of us who felt underwhelmed and undercharmed by Happiest Season. A gay Christmas film that has nothing to do with Christmas and everything to do with fighting the consumerism that drives much of how Americans celebrate Christmas. A gay Christmas film for the loud homos who aren’t afraid to fight with relatives about politics at the Christmas table.
But no really, it is literally a Christmas movie! The film jumps around in time and place throughout its narrative, but the present day storytelling that revolves around this group of soon-to-be ecoterrorists (complimentary) executing their long-planned scheme to, well, blow up a pipeline unfolds in the days leading up to Christmas. The establishment of this timeline is subtle at first, a little holiday gift for morbid gays like myself who gravitate toward the specific brand of sincerity How To Blow Up a Pipeline brings to the table, which is far different from the saccharine sincerity of most traditional Christmas movies. We first get clued into the plotline taking place around Christmas when we meet Dwayne and his family at the beginning of the film, during the “team assembles” montage. A stocking hangs behind Dwayne at the dinner table, and his wife tells him she just wants him home safe and alive in time for Christmas.
Then, about an hour into the movie, we get a more explicit acknowledgement of the Christmas timeline when Dwayne says to Xochitl “merry Christmas” just after they’ve placed the two bombs. Dwayne then heads to his alibi location, a local bar where he’s clearly a regular. The bar is decorated for Christmas, complete with a tree and colored lights, and playing Christmas country music.
Dwayne is here in the decked out bar when the explosions happen, the culmination of a lot of hard, sweaty work for something he strongly believes in. It isn’t exactly a normal Christmas celebration; hell, it’s not even a celebration really. But it’s a huge accomplishment, one each of these characters have their own personal reasons for getting involved in. And even though this isn’t textually addressed, planning to blow up the pipeline around Christmas does seem like an intentional tactic. Hitting the economy during a time of mass consumerism would have a significant impact. It’s a similar strategy to the targeted boycotts and global strikes happening this month in response to Israel’s genocidal violence in Palestine. Starbucks sales are down during a time when they’re usually way up (which Vox claims isn’t solely to do with boycotts, but it seems like there has to be some correlation there). The machine of capitalism is indeed powerful during this time of year, and acts of resistance like the one staged by these characters fighting for the planet are bound to hit hard around the holidays.
And it’s with that in mind that I am confidently declaring How To Blow Up a Pipeline a Christmas movie even if it doesn’t look like one on the surface. It’s an anti-Christmas Christmas movie. It’s a story about community, protecting the earth, and fighting systems of oppression. And then it has a queer love story nestled inside it, too. That all sounds like queer Christmas spirit to me!
The Best Queer Movie Scenes of 2023
Sex scenes, fight scenes, a fanfic-worthy cameo. The best queer movie scenes of 2023 are as varied as the films that contain them. Listed below are cinematic moments that announce their greatness with the volume all the way up and smaller moments that land simply because of the way two actors look at each other.
For a long time, queer films were thought to follow certain tropes. But these films show the potential when queerness is the basis of — or sneaks into — horror movies, broad comedies, comic book adaptations, and indescribable arthouse fantasias. These moments are proof that it was a great year to be queer at the movies.
Death of a Party, All of Us Strangers
I’m always going to love a gay club scene and this is one of the best. At this point in the film, only four actors have appeared on-screen, always in quiet solitude. But now Adam and Harry are going out in public and what follows is a drug-fueled mix of pleasure and terror. Set to Blur’s “Death of a Party,” this sequence is transcendent, finding a way to continue the film’s liminal solitude even in a space pulsing with other people. It emphasizes the power of the queer club, as well as its limits in keeping out grief. — Drew
Fran Sees Ghosts, Bad Things
I already wrote about this scene in the annual update of Autostraddle’s Scariest Movie Moments list, but it’s just so good so I have to shout it out here. I was tempting to choose something from the very end of the movie, which is a veritable bloodbath, but as much as I do enjoy the descent into mayhem at film’s end, this slightly quieter moment when Fran sees ghosts eating breakfast at the hotel has stayed with me much longer. — Kayla
The Big Game, Bottoms
Look, I could try to intellectualize this, but here’s what it comes down to: Sometimes I just like to see people knock the sit out of each other? Not in real life, obviously! Of course! But a beautifully crafted fight choreography on screen? The adrenaline rush of watching from your seat, the fluidity of the bodies, the perfectly executed sound engineering behind a knuckle crack? I’m a simple girl. Call me basic. But sometimes it just doesn’t get better than that, and Bottoms had one of the best fights I’ve seen in a long time.
That’s probably already a given, since the entire premise of Bottoms is Fight Club, set in the tone of Jennifer’s Body meets a Natasha Lyonne comedy, starring horny teen lesbians — but the fighting in Bottoms is so good. It’s equal parts absurdist and grotesque, exhilarating and hilarious, it nearly hits all its beats exactly as you’d hope it would land (I swear the “hitting” pun is not intended, this just writes itself). But the extended final sequence, set during a football game against a rival school, is an extended, pummeling, dive of one special effect after another. Squish sounds and blood everywhere and bodies thrown into the air with something that approaches gleeful abandon.
I am so far from violent in my actual life, and maybe that’s why the release of violence on screen often calls to me, but I have seen a lot of fights in movies over the course of my life. Bottoms a teen comedy made for a primarily queer audience, is not the kind of place where you expect to see some of the greats in the genre. But I would put it up against any other action film this year (and hell, probably last year too). It kicks ass.— Carmen
Everything about Bottoms was absolutely absurd but the way they really went for it in that final fight scene on the football scene was absolutely transcendent. I have never in my life laughed like that for something like that before. — Riese
Honestly, yes, this scene, SO MUCH. INSPIRED. — Nic
It took all of my self control to not actually stand up in the movie theater during this scene and CLAP. — Kayla
The Boat, The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future
For trans people distant from their biological family, there can be a different sort of connection to ancestors. If queer people have always been around then somebody in our family’s history would have understood us — or even were us. Transfeminine Tomás is feeling disconnected from her family when she stumbles upon the ghost of her grandmother. They end up on a docked boat together and talking leads to tears, tears to laughter. It’s a beautiful moment of intergenerational connection and proof of the power of magical realism on-screen. — Drew
Theo and Alisha Embrace Before Parting Ways, How To Blow Up a Pipeline
I love that this is an unflinching political movie with a tremendous amount of heart. It really does harness the energy, care, and complexity of so many of the activists I know in my actual life. They feel real, and their politics feel rooted in both the personal and the communal. In this film in particular, I love how we get to see them all be just normal young adults: getting drunk, hooking up, teasing, laughing. One of those moments demonstrates just how queer love/care can sit inside of activism. Theo and Alisha share a genuinely romantic moment mid-scheme, and even though it’s fraught — one of them seriously injured, the other dying but also probably about to take the brunt of the fall for what they’ve just done as a group — it’s such a triumphant and human moment. Alisha didn’t even want to get involved initially, but her love for Theo and understanding of why this work is important to the person she loves convinces her to throw her all into it. I love that we get a quiet but burning queer love story nestled in this film. — Kayla
The Turn, Jagged Mind
There’s a moment about 30 minutes into The Jagged Mind when suddenly, juuust before the official reveal, you realize exactly what’s going on. I really don’t want to spoil this movie for you so I can’t explain it more than that, but just know that Maisie Richardson-Sellers and Shannon Woodward act the hell out of this whole movie, but there’s a shift in this scene in particular that changes the whole movie and the way we see their whole dynamic and it’s very fun to watch. — Valerie Anne
Captain Valkyrie, The Marvels
When Marvel Studios released the final trailer for The Marvels, and I spotted .3 seconds of Tessa Thompson, oh the gasp that I gasped! What would her role be? Would we finally get canon on-screen confirmation of a Carol and Valkyrie relationship? Would she swagger in wearing the hell out of that suit and decide to join the titular Marvels in vanquishing the BBEG? Well, I guess technically neither of those technically happened, but there is absolutely no way to convince me that their interaction was purely platonic. Tessa and Brie have publicly hinted at a Valkyrie and Carol relationship, even going so far as to enter Ace Comic Con and immediately say they’re there to “ship”! Plus, we recently learned that Marvel allegedly cut a scene that would have confirmed their relationship.
When Carol mentions to Monica and Kamala that she called a friend for help, even the tone of her voice changes; it’s softer, sweeter, and reminiscent. And then Valkyrie shows up, the two embrace in a way that reeks of “we dated, the timing was off, we broke up, but we still have incredible chemistry”, and I swear I may have bruised poor Valerie Anne’s arm in the theater with how hard I smacked her. Their eye contact, the kiss on the cheek, the way they touched each other’s arms! Whew! Is it hot in here? It is? Okay great. I’m really gonna need Marvel to stop playing in our faces one of these days, but for now, you can catch me playing that scene on repeat in my head and on the inside of my eyelids. — Nic
Gosh I know it was just a few seconds but it was the gayest few seconds we’ve gotten in a Marvel movie. The slow kiss on the cheek, the lingering hand hold. You cannot tell me these two weren’t friends with benefits who tried to date and decided actually they’re better as friends because one has a kingdom to rule and the other has a universe to save. I also hadn’t watched any of the trailers before I saw the movie so I forgot Valkyrie was even going to in this movie so I SQUEALED. Nic says she bruised my arm but I bruised her right back. We were… NOT chill. Like the way that scene was filmed I wouldn’t be surprised if they filmed a take with a full mouth kiss in case they were allowed to get away with it and whichever Marvel exec hates lesbians and has a stick up his ass was like “absoLUTEly not, I gave you a rainbow pin in the Wandaverse movie SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR GAY STUFF” and didn’t let them keep it. But Brie and Tessa know exactly what they’re doing and for that, I will always thank them. Well that and the “‘How do I top lesbians?’ ‘I’m sure the lesbians could show you.'” panel moment that lives rent free in my head. — Valerie Anne
Baby’s First Heartbreak, Nimona
All through the movie Nimona, you see little cracks in her shell, you see fear beneath the bravado, you know Something Happened to her, but it isn’t until a flashback toward the end of the movie that we get to see it. Where we see a montage of Nimona not fitting in anywhere until finally she finds someone who accepts her for who she is, and everything is so cute and sweet and perfect…until it isn’t. Until we see why Nimona is the way she is, why she’s guarded, why she keeps mostly to herself. It’s a beautiful scene and I just rewatched it to get this screenshot and I’m CRYING AGAIN DAMN IT. — Valerie Anne
The Last Leg, NYAD
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lesbian friendship portrayed onscreen like we had the pleasure of seeing in Nyad, and Jodie Foster is just so good in her bandana and her cargo shorts and her Diet Coke, and she gets into the water to be with Diana because this time she’s gotta be the one to push her even though it’s usually Diana doing the pushing. I cried for real when Diana limped onshore and Jodie Foster is like “GIMME UR ANKLES” and then Diana collapses into Jodie Foster’s arms for this big lesbian hug???!!!! And all the Olivia lesbians are waiting for her onshore??? CINEMA —- Riese
Stéphane Slams Head on Wall as Distraction, Origin of Evil
It’s giving Gone Girl tbh! This fun and twisty thriller is understated for much of its run, but when our protagonist improvises in order to keep her own scam going by literally SLAMMING HER HEAD AGAINST A WALL, I knew we were cooking. — Kayla
The Bathtub Drain, Saltburn
I could write an essay about the meme-ification of film criticism — in fact, I probably will! — and often I feel frustrated with the way movies get reduced to a buzzy moment, image, or, even, release date. But this is not one of those times! Sometimes the internet latches onto something for a reason and it’s very fun! For me, Barry Keoghan licking Jacob Elordi’s cum water is the perfect moment for internet film criticism. Finally, we’re done debating whether there should be sex scenes and instead celebrating a moment of bodily fluids that puts the Call Me By Your Name peach to shame. It’s a sign of the character’s desperate obsession and an encapsulation of the movie’s pathetic sexuality. Whether you loved the movie or hated it, you have to admit this scene WORKED.
My only complaint is the water could’ve been thicker.
What are your picks for the best queer movie scenes of 2023?
Anatomy of a Queer Sex Scene: “The Handmaiden” Has More Sex Scenes Than You Realize
Welcome to Anatomy of a Queer Sex Scene, a series by Drew Burnett Gregory and Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya about queer sex scenes in film. Today Kayla writes about The Handmaiden, Park Chan-Wook’s film adaptation of the iconic lesbian novel Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.
The horniest parts of The Handmaiden aren’t the film’s climactic sex scene — a moment we see twice, context and perspective bending our experience of it — or its final sex scene set to melodious bells. The horniest parts of The Handmaiden wouldn’t really be called sex scenes by the average viewer and certainly not by the vast majority of straight viewers. But to me, they are sex. And to merely call them moments of sexual tension or erotic foreplay is to not only subscribe to a narrow view of sex but also to deny how queerness historically and continually blooms right under the watchful eye of the heteropatriarchy. Push us to the margins, and we’ll find ways to fuck in those margins.
I had sex with women before I had sex with men, but I still considered myself straight. Not bisexual. Not uncertain. I thought myself staunchly heterosexual, these sexual experiences with other women self-erased, downplayed as somehow not real. When I came out, I turned my queer self-discovery into a simultaneous anthropological exploration in the field and academic exploration at the desk. What I mean is I started fucking a lot and reading queer theory.
It didn’t take long into these dual processes for me to realize this self-erasure had been rooted in an internalized rigid and heteronormative understanding of what sex is. I learned new definitions of sex, created new definitions of sex. I unlearned the rules of before: that sex required penetration, that sex required orgasm. (In truth, a lot of the sex I’d had with women I thought “didn’t count” actually did meet these markers of certified normative straight sex, and yet, I still dismissed the encounters as somehow unreal.)
After coming to better understand these previous sexual experiences, I queered my own memories even further, coming to understand all the ways gaze and touch allowed me to access my latent desires without even realizing it. All those backrubs that lingered a little too long, all those sleepover games that required close mouths and tickle-pricked skin. There were so many ways girls could touch each other without it being deemed deviant or wrong.
In The Handmaiden, there are two significant instances of erotic touch and gaze prior to central characters Lady Hideko and her handmaiden Sook-hee fucking by conventional standards. (I’m not going to delve too specifically into the film’s plot in this essay, but my review from 2020 does so if you’d like more context.) In the first, one of my favorite erotic movie scenes of all time, Sook-hee files Hideko’s too-sharp tooth down with a thimble, inserting her thumb into Hideko’s mouth while she’s giving her a bath. Sook-hee takes her time with the tooth, and her eyes move down to Hideko’s tits perched just above water level.
Later, Hideko dresses Sook-hee up as a lady, a sort of class-based cross-dressing. In the privacy of Hideko’s bedroom, she tightens Sook-hee’s corset, powders her face, does her hair in an elegant bun. A shot from behind the two women shows their twinned hairstyles in close proximity, a doubling of sorts. The boundaries between them set by society are collapsing. It’s in this moment that we get another instance of erotic touch. Sook-hee undoes Hideko’s dress, and we hear her internal monologue, which leaves no room for interpretation as to just how intimate Sook-hee views this form of touching Hideko:
“Ladies truly are the dolls of maids. All these buttons are for my amusement. If I undo the buttons and pull out the cords, then, the sweet things within, those sweet and soft things…If I were still a pickpocket, I’d slip my hand inside.”
Period dramas that contain romance often confront and disrupt categories of class and power, and it’s impossible to consider the dynamics between Sook-hee and Hideko outside of the context of the film’s historical setting of Japan’s occupation of Korea. While other characters frequently regard Sook-hee as expendable or otherwise underestimate her for being not just poor but also Korean, that derision never comes from Hideko, whose very first observation about Sook-hee is her beauty. Hideko is pedestaled by other characters — men, especially — for her beauty, for her wealth, for being the pinnacle of Japanese femininity in their eyes. Sook-hee and Hideko’s love is socially forbidden in more ways than one. And yet, both women find ways to transgress their social positions and the heterosexual expectations forced upon them.
To an outside, oppressive gaze, Sook-hee is perhaps merely only fulfilling her handmaidenly duties by inserting her thimbled thumb into Hideko’s mouth or by unfastening her many buttons. But Hideko and Sook-hee’s body language in the bathtub scene and Sook-hee’s narration in the dressing/undressing scene highlight that, for them, they’re stepping far outside these expected roles. They’ve found ways to access erotic touch that not only are imperceptible to the detection of others but perhaps even hidden to themselves.
And that tension doesn’t detract from their agency or desire. Neither Hideko nor Sook-hee are passive in the ways other characters think they are. They know what they want, just like the girls whose hair I braided and who braided mine knew what we wanted, too. But sometimes that type of carnal, urgent knowledge is still at odds with how we really think of ourselves.
Lesbian period dramas, specifically, are often mocked for this suffusion of erotic tension in “safe” forms of looking and touching. Heavy eye contact made across a room, extended hand holding, the unbuttoning of a complicated garment, such as the scene of this exact nature we see in The Handmaiden. These moments get derided for being too tame, for lacking explicit sexuality. They’re held up as proof a film ultimately tempered its queerness, softened the edges of its lesbian erotics in order to present something more palatable to a wider (straight) audience.
Now, one would be silly to lodge this complaint toward a lesbian erotic thriller like The Handmaiden, which does indeed contain explicit sex scenes, too. And despite all my waxing poetic on these other scenes, I do find the film’s central sex scene incredibly worthy of dissection. It’s hot. It’s sex so nice we see it twice. Jokes aside, the differences in how we see the same sex scene unfold at two different points of the film deepen the dynamics and meaning of the sex itself.
But I have my reasons for wishing to focus more intimately on these alternative sex scenes, the ones you might think don’t depict sex at all. These reasons are personal: I want to give myself permission to cast a new lens on my own memories of early erotic touch and gaze. But my reasons are cultural, too. I think critiques of lesbian period dramas are sometimes too broad, too dismissive of the power and radical nature of queer eroticism that looks acceptable to a heterosexual gaze and yet functions on a different level for the characters themselves. It’s why I want to take things to an extreme place and say these scenes from The Handmaiden aren’t just sexual; they are sex. Mainly because my reading is that the characters engaging in the touch would certainly think so. And sometimes, the truest definition of sex is the one we write ourselves.
If You Get 18/29 On This Quiz, You’re a Christmas Movie Expert and Also Probably Gay
I don’t know about you, but I sure do love Christmas movies. Tis the season to watch a Christmas movie, you know? But how many have you seen and how many can you identify from this quiz that is all over the map in terms of difficulty??
“Total Eclipse of the Heart” Is the Queer Film and TV Song of the Year
Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” has been a staple on-screen and at gay karaoke bars for years.
It’s never reached “Holding Out for a Hero” levels of ubiquity but since opening the 1998 slasher Urban Legend it’s been used in many movies and TV shows. It’s in Party Monster, it’s in Nip/Tuck, it’s in Austenland and Gloria Bell and countless procedurals. It even inspired the title of Eliza Hittmann’s breakout short. Then, of course, who can forget the Glee cover where Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff roll around on the floor doing ballet together?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbQh4nTArHM&ab_channel=MusicOfGlee
But something has shifted this year. For some reason, four different works of queer media have used the song. Four! It seems like maybe once upon a time the gays were falling in love but now? They’re only falling apart.
Much like children’s animated films come in Shark Tale/Finding Nemo pairs, it’s not unusual for multiple music supervisors to select the same song. Sharon Van Etten’s “Seventeen” was notably used in Sex Education, The Half Of It, and Yellowjackets, each one an emotional attack on me personally. But that song came out in 2019. It makes sense a bunch of queer stuff would use it in the years to follow. “Total Eclipse of the Heart” came out in 1983. Why is it so relevant now?
I don’t have an answer to that question, but I do relish the opportunity to look at the many different ways a single piece of music can be used on-screen. So let’s dive in shall we? Forever’s gonna start TONIGHT! (Or whatever time of day you’re reading this.)
The Five Devils (dir. Léa Mysius)
This unique movie about a little girl with such a strong sense of smell she can time travel back to when her mom (Adèle Exarchopolous) and aunt (dad’s sister) (Swala Emati) were teen lesbian lovers uses “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in two pivotal moments. Both instances are diegetic — meaning the song is playing in the world of the film. First, it’s on the car radio in a flashback when the two women are kissing as teens. This establishes it as “their song” adding weight to a scene in the present when the mom chooses it at karaoke. She drunkenly calls up her sister-in-law/former lover and what begins as an awkward duet gives way to a brazen moment of beautiful connection.
Bottoms (dir. Emma Seligman)
Falling somewhere between diegetic and non-diegetic, its use in this comedy about an all-female (gay) fight club is also pivotal. It fills the soundtrack as our girl group drives over to football star Jeff’s house with plans for revenge. We see him jamming out to music — presumably this song — unaware of the bomb about to go off. Literally. As most of the girls are teepeeing and egging, and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) and Isabel (Havan Rose Liu) are flirting, Hazel (Ruby Cruz) is planting a bomb. Josie and Isabel lean in for a kiss, the music swells, and BAM. Jeff keeps dancing to the melodic song unaware as the girls scream and scramble, Jeff’s car ablaze.
Rotting in the Sun (dir. Sebastián Silva)
Speaking of gay chaos and violence, let’s go to another karaoke scene, this time in Sebastián Silva’s meta dark comedy. There’s no way to talk about this moment in detail without spoiling one of the film’s most delicious twists, but let’s just say “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is being sung — very badly — at a quinceanera after one of the main characters has been involved in the death of someone. The stress of the moment for them is contrasted with the comic mundanity of this bad performance. It’s such a memorable moment that this same rendition is used over the credits!
The Fall of the House of Usher (dir. Mike Flannagan, Michael Fimognari)
Actually, this has just been a year for gay chaos and violence. The most recent use of the song was in episode five of Mike Flanagan’s Edgar Allen Poe riff The Fall of the House of Usher. While the other examples center the song in their soundtracks, Usher lets it haunt the background. Here the lyrics are quite literal since Victorine (T’Nia Miller) is working on an artificial heart. The song is heard in the background as her partner — in medicine and life — is confronting her about her unethical practices. I won’t spoil this one either, but let’s just say Victorine doesn’t listen.
These are all great uses of the song, but for me its definitive use occurred more than a decade ago. Like The Five Devils, Maryam Keshavarz‘s debut Circumstance features the song as a moment of karaoke bonding between its two lovers. It’s a beautiful pocket of joy in a devastating romance. And I’ve found it impossible not to think about this moment any time I belt the song during karaoke — or in a car or in the shower. A well-placed song can have that power. It enhances the movie or TV show and it forever shifts our association with the song itself.
I hope this trend continues! As long as there is dyke drama, queer chaos, and big gay feelings, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is a worthy soundtrack.
Turn around, bright eyes.
The Five Devils and Rotting in the Sun are now streaming on MUBI. Bottoms is available to rent. The Fall of the House of Usher is now streaming on Netflix.
“Saltburn,” “The Bling Ring,” and the Pathetic Desperation of the Upper Middle Class
This essay contains spoilers for Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn.
Upper middle class people are rich. But don’t try to tell them that.
I grew up in a place called Oak Park located in Ventura Country, California between the suburban horse farms of Agoura Hills and the suburban McMansions of Westlake Village. Oak Park deserves no descriptor. It was just suburban. It was also a fifteen minute drive from Calabasas which meant little when my family first moved and everything when Calabasas residents the Kardashians launched their reality show in 2007.
All four of these places are upper middle class hubs — even if people in Agoura and Oak Park yearned for the wealth to live in Westlake and people in Agoura, Oak Park, and Westlake yearned for the wealth to live in Calabasas. No matter: People in Calabasas — without the last name Kardashian — yearned for the wealth to live in Beverly Hills.
And yet, anyone who makes more than around $168k a year — as many in these four places do — is in the top 10% of earners in the U.S. Sure, being so close to Los Angeles makes costs of living higher, but the wealth of these people who yearned and yearn for more is astronomical compared to a country where many are housing and food insecure.
This feeling of poverty among the relatively rich is a result of their aspirations. It’s a result of just how much wealth the wealthiest hoard. People like the Kardashians and their economic equals have enough money to make the upper middle class rich feel unworthy. We live in a capitalist hellscape where even the sixth richest man in the world is desperate to be the first.
Another fun fact about Oak Park, California is that it was the home of Alexis Neiers, famously portrayed by Emma Watson in Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring. My sister briefly went to high school with Alexis. I briefly went to middle school with her younger sister. Agoura Hills even gets mentioned by name in this film about their newsworthy robberies of celebrity homes.
When The Bling Ring came out in 2014, its real life inspiration still recent, it was considered a commentary on the fame-obsessed 2000s. It appeared to most as satire of a vapid generation obsessed with a vapid generation, a society where Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan were worthy role models.
Nearly a decade removed, the film feels more complex. As a culture, we’ve reckoned with the abuse faced by someone like Lohan and acknowledged the business acumen of someone like Hilton. What was dismissed as the failings of a vapid generation was, of course, just misogyny and capitalism.
The desire of these teenagers to attain the wealth of their celebrity “victims” is less generational commentary than it is class commentary. These are upper middle class kids being fed gluttony as aspiration in a community of adults with similar goals. They are being told that to “fit in” and to be “cool” they must have an amount of things and a quality of things that no single human being should own. Coppola’s film is not a satire of these teenagers — it’s a satire of wealth itself. There’s a reason the teens say multiple times that Paris Hilton doesn’t even notice when they rob her.
Watching the film, it feels like they would’ve gotten away with it if they’d just continued to take small items from Hilton like a rat in a cupboard. But if Paris Hilton owns twenty Birkin bags, owning one just isn’t enough. The pleasure of that first steal fades. Soon you’re faced with the fact that you still have less than somebody else. The impulse that escalated their crimes from petty theft to stealing from a wealthier classmate’s home to stealing from Paris Hilton is the same impulse that motivates a family like the Hiltons. More. More. More.
Viewers and critics alike tend to discuss class critique more when it’s framed in the media as rich vs. poor. Both seasons of The White Lotus contrast its wealthy guests with people who are middle and lower class. Nobody talks about the upper middle class because the upper middle class don’t like to be talked about. They simultaneously want to be thought of as rich while acting appalled when accused of holding riches. (This is expertly mocked in Bodies Bodies Bodies when Rachel Sennott’s character spits out “Your parents are upper middle class” to her friend feigning poverty.)
An upper middle class existence is instead treated as average in the world of film and television. Homes and lifestyles most people can’t afford are casually shown on-screen in the name of fantasy. (The fantasy is generational wealth.) And when upper middle class people are parodied in something like Girls, it’s generally discussed as a commentary on privilege. But it’s not just privilege. It’s a very specific type of upper middle class privilege. It’s the privilege of being rich — or having access to family riches – while feeling like you have so much less than those around you.
Someone like Alexis Neiers and someone like Paris Hilton may have been motivated by the same capitalist impulse for more — but there is a world of nuance between their experiences of wealth. The uncomfortable truth is the Bling Ring’s “victims” deserved to be stolen from according to a Robin Hood sense of justice.
Unfortunately, stealing from the ultra rich to give to the poor slightly less rich just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Most of the recent influx of film and television satirizing the rich opts for the same easy contrast as The White Lotus. Triangle of Sadness, Glass Onion, Parasite, The Menu, and even less well known work like The Origin of Evil creates a dynamic of rich vs. poor. This allows the viewer to identify with a noble underdog no matter who they’re more akin to in real life. (Chrissy Teigen got a lot of flack for loving Parasite but so did Elon Musk.)
One film has taken a different approach. One film has framed its class conflict as ultra rich vs. upper middle class rich. As a result, its substance has been called into question and its been dismissed by many as just vibes. That film is Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn.
I’m not going to argue that Saltburn is perfect. I agree with people who have said the ending feels like ten minutes stretched to thirty. But the accusations of vapidity and a lack of substance are baffling to me. To dismiss one plot twist in particular is to ignore the film’s entire point.
Saltburn is about an outsider named Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) who worms his way into the social circle of Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), the richest boy at Oxford. Oliver tells Felix that he’s at Oxford on scholarship, an only child whose parents are struggling with substance abuse. When Oliver’s dad dies, Felix’s sympathies increase and he invites Oliver to his family’s titular estate for the summer.
But there’s something off about Oliver. His obsession with Felix increases and his manipulations become more apparent. He seduces Felix’s sister and his cousin. He even seems to be seducing Felix’s mom.
His lies pile up until his big lie is revealed: He’s not poor. His dad isn’t dead. His parents don’t struggle with substance abuse. And he’s not even an only child. He’s an upper middle class kid with sweet, unassuming parents. And he has sisters.
Oliver pleads with Felix to understand. He says he was just being the person Felix wanted him to be. And he’s right. Felix wouldn’t have cared about someone who didn’t understand the rules of his world because they’re upper middle class. He wanted a poor person with a story that fit exactly into his stereotypes of poverty. He wanted to be inspired and he wanted to be a savior. He wanted the kind of control he could only have over someone with nowhere else to turn.
As for Oliver, he was just doing what so many of his class have done. He yearned to go from rich to richest. His lust for Felix is a lust for money, for status, for the violence inherent in both. The sexuality of the film isn’t actually that shocking for anyone who has ventured beyond Hollywood fare, but it is pointed and specific. Oliver instigates his sexual encounters with the energy of a groveling sub. He is nothing, they are everything. He will lick their cum, eat their blood, fuck the dirt atop their graves. He’s pathetic.
The sexual groveling of Oliver is akin to the social groveling of anyone — often upper middle class — who worships the ultra rich simply for being rich. Scroll through Twitter — sorry, X — and you’ll see it in every person defending its embarrassing billionaire of an owner. They are staring into a drain, licking proverbial Musk semen with every blue checked post.
Like the teens in The Bling Ring, Oliver Quick’s biggest mistake is punching up. The upper middle class isn’t supposed to steal from and kill the rich; they’re supposed to steal from and kill the middle class, the lower class, and each other. The fact is nothing Oliver does to secure Saltburn is worse than whatever the Catton family did to get it in the first place. To have that amount of wealth in their family — and to keep it — requires an immense amount of violence. The difference is Oliver’s actions are messy and direct. The violence of a family like the Cattons can often take place far away from them, carried out by those acting in their interests. Ultimate wealth is making money off murder you never even have to hear about.
Oliver is an expression of the pathetic upper middle class. But Felix is just as pathetic. All of the Cattons are just as pathetic. Just as violent. More violent. They are better dressed, have finer food, have carved their customs into stone. But they are not admirable. If there’s any justification for the length of the film’s last act, it’s the way Saltburn sits in the Cattons’ pathetic inability to be human in the face of grief. It’s easy to view Oliver as pathetic. It’s more challenging to view the beautiful Felix the same way. And yet, it’s a challenge the future of our world depends upon.
Yahoo Finance recently reported the top 20 richest people on the Forbes 400 are so rich they could buy out the bottom 340 billionaires. To even have a single billion dollars is an absurd amount of wealth no human being could ever need. The fact that there are 20 people who have so much more is disgusting. We have to shift our culture away from aspiring to these crimes against humanity. We have to turn wealth from an aspiration into a pathetic embarrassment.
To begin, we have to acknowledge the vast differences among the wealthy.
When I first left Oak Park, I moved to New York to attend NYU. I’d spent my adolescence resenting the empty consumerism of my suburb only to move to a big city and start feeling the same impulses.
Most of the other students just had so much. Rather than reckoning with my own upper middle class privilege in a city with many who have much less, I felt struck with envy toward my peers.
Sure, my parents were paying for my schooling, but I got a big scholarship! Sure, my parents paid my rent, but I had to share a room in a tiny apartment! Sure, they paid off the credit card I used recklessly one summer, but they took the card away and it was only a couple thousand dollars!
I could respond to every sign of immense privilege with reasons why I still had less than the people around me. I mean, do wealthy people grow up hearing their parents worry about money? I thought, of course not. The real answer is, of course. Everyone worries about money! My parents would argue they had to take loans out to pay for my college and rich people can pay out of pocket. But the truth is there are just levels to being rich.
There was a difference between my privilege and the privilege of my film school classmates who had their ten thousand, fifty thousand, or even a hundred thousand dollar thesis films bankrolled by their parents. There was a difference between my privilege and the privilege of my peers who ate out for every meal and lived in East Village one bedroom apartments. But my God I didn’t have to pay off my own student loans! That alone makes my family — and by extension me — very rich.
Even after college, when I stopped relying on my parents and only made between 20k and 30k until literally this year, I was still rich. Because I knew if I had surprise hospital bills, my parents would help me. If I couldn’t make rent, I could move back in with them. I lived very frugally to avoid that latter scenario — especially after I came out — but the safety net itself is a kind of wealth. It’s not Paris Hilton wealth, it’s not Felix Catton wealth, it’s not even Alexis Neiers wealth. But it’s still wealth.
I’m an artist. I understand the desire for aesthetics. Nice clothes, nice homes, gourmet food, it’s all desired for a reason. Even now, I wish I had far more money than I do. But is the desire to be rich? Or is the desire to live in a society where affordable clothing isn’t terribly made and mass produced by exploited labor? Is it for apartments to be affordable and owned by individuals or small companies rather than large corporations that buy up properties and set absurd rent prices? Is it for the cost of regular living to be reasonable so I could more often treat myself to a nice meal?
The Bling Ring and Saltburn are excellent satires of an upper middle class that deserves satirizing. But the worst crime of that upper middle class will always be enabling the worst crimes of the ultra rich. Anyone with wealth needs to reckon with how we earn it and how we spend it — especially if we’re striving for more — but part of that reckoning includes perspective on who owns the most in our world. Not out of aspiration, but out of disgust.
I love seeing what people wear to the Met Gala. Is it worth reflecting on the Met Gala as a celebration of wealth? Yes. Is it also worth noting that most of those celebrities are simply borrowing those dresses and jewels? Also yes. I couldn’t afford to see Beyoncé this year, but I already have my ticket purchased to see the Renaissance movie this weekend. Is it worth tempering my admiration for Beyoncé, a capitalist and billionaire, even as I enjoy her artistry? Yes. Is it also worth noting that Beyoncé isn’t even on the Forbes 400 let alone in that top 20? ALSO YES. Because not even Jay-Z is on the list. There is, however, someone named Jay Paul, a random man in real estate who I’m sure has never produced anything as good as Lemonade or even Jay-Z’s feature on “Upgrade U.”
I don’t say this to let Beyoncé, the Met Gala, or myself off the hook — just like the phrase “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” does not mean all actions are equally unethical. However, I do think an awareness of how wealth is distributed and the nuances within the word “wealthy” are important if we want to change our system. More people who are upper middle class need to start admitting they’re rich — even if there are others who have so much more.
Saltburn may be a fun erotic comedy filled with style, but it’s also one of the smartest critiques of the upper middle class I’ve ever seen and, therefore, one of the smartest critiques of the ultra wealthy. We need work critical of a family like the Cattons that doesn’t allow audiences the ease of identifying with their servants.
There is no poverty to be fetishized in Oliver Quick — just a pathetic desperation no amount of money could ever cure.
Saltburn is now showing in theatres. The Bling Ring is now streaming on Netflix.
Anatomy of a Queer Sex Scene: Disobedience Made Us Horny for Spit
Welcome to Anatomy of a Queer Sex Scene, a series by Drew Burnett Gregory and Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya about queer sex scenes in film. Today we are discussing 2018’s Disobedience, starring Rachels Weisz and McAdams, and its controversial spitty sex scene.
Kayla: I wanted to talk first, briefly, about our decision to create this series, which is going to deep dive on different queer sex scenes from film. It won’t always be structured as a conversation like this. More often than not, we’ll take turns writing essays, depending on the scene and our thoughts about it. But I wanted to kick things off with a conversation!
Basically the origins of the series is that as soon as I found out you were going to become an editor here, I was like I want to collab on a series and then the thought that quickly followed was it should be about sex scenes.
Drew: Sex scene discourse has been so pervasive on Twitter since, well, I joined Twitter. But it does sometimes feel like going in circles where someone tweets something fairly puritanical and then a bunch of horny nerds like us say ACTUALLY SEX SCENES ARE GOOD. So I like the idea of moving beyond that and really celebrating the artistry, depth, and, yes, horniness of the best queer sex scenes.
Kayla: Totally! And the way I’ve envisioned the series, we might even be talking about BAD sex scenes. I want to consider a whole range of scenes. And I intentionally wanted to start with the sex scene from Disobedience, because it’s…apparently controversial!
Drew: That is so wild to me, because I think it’s the best part of the film. I like the movie, but for me it’s definitely a case of 5 star sex scene, 4 star film.
Kayla: I agree with that assessment! I like the movie for the reason I think a lot of people don’t. It’s slow, it’s quiet, there aren’t really a lot of dynamics to it. But I’d put it at a solid 4 as well, whereas the sex scene is an easy 5! I was worried before rewatching it that I maybe was remembering it in a more glowing light but nope it held the fuck up.
Let’s set the scene up a bit: Ronit (Rachel Weisz) has returned to her Jewish Orthodox hometown following the death of her father, who was a very influential spiritual leader in the community. Ronit left a long time ago. When she returns, she learns her secret lover from her youth Esti (Rachel McAdams) has married her cousin Dovid and remained in the closet. One thing leads to another, and Ronit and Esti end up escaping to the city one day to fuck.
Drew: I do think it’s worth talking in detail about the moments right before the scene. Because one thing I love about the scene is it’s not kiss out in the world, smash cut to fucking in hotel room. There are several minutes (or at least it feels like several minutes) where the two of them are walking, taking public transit, living in the anticipation of the sex they’re about to have.
It’s an example of slowness, quietness, actually being quite thrilling. And it makes the sex scene itself feel like the sort of relief sex IRL can sometimes hold after a lot of build up.
Kayla: It feels so realistic! That almost youthful nervousness and anticipation! And this is not the first time they’re going to sleep together, but it also almost is, because it’s their first time as adults, it’s their first time since Ronit left and started living this whole new life. That lead up does such a good job of complicating their intimacy! They’re so familiar with each other but also nervous in the way sleeping with a totally new person feels.
Drew: Yes! And then the anticipation is so well-fulfilled. Their kissing is so hungry. We talk a lot about the spit but there’s a natural build up to it. Even the first hotel kiss when Ronit is removing Esti’s sheitel she’s really leading with her tongue.
I don’t remember is that the first time we see Esti’s sheitel removed? I wonder how that read for people who aren’t Jewish and don’t know about Orthodox women covering their hair?
I don’t think there’s anything inherently liberating about removing a wig or hair covering, but I do think for this character who feels trapped in her religion and community, it’s an excellent — if obvious — moment. McAdams really sells it too. She looks like she’s transforming.
Kayla: I feel like the scene is largely regarded as “the spitplay scene” and while the spit is part of why I enjoy it, people have really overplayed how much space the spit takes up! It’s a long scene! Multiple positions! The spit is just one part lol.
I think one of my greatest achievements in life is when one of my besties told me she finally enjoys not only the Disobedience sex scene but also the concept of spitplay itself, after many years of being appalled by how much I love this scene. It’s also just so funny to me, because spitplay seems like such a mild kink! And look, it doesn’t have to be for you, but I think it’s so well done in this scene! But people sure do have feelings about it!
Drew: They really do! I was about to say I’m generally a fairly oral personal sexually, but I also think a lot of people are? And we just don’t often see it represented on-screen outside of porn because it’s the hardest thing to fake. If an actor is licking another actor’s nipple usually that’s actually happening, it’s not a prosthetic.
The way the two actresses here lick each other’s bodies and mouths is very hot and just feels very real!! And Esti putting her fingers to Ronit’s mouth after they finger each other… it is good.
Kayla: So many mouth moments!!!!!
Something that stood out to me on this viewing was how clothed they actually stay for the scene. I love nudity, no problems with nudity over here! But I think the scene operates as great proof that a sex scene can be really hot and horny without just falling back on showing a lot of skin.
Drew: Yes! I did learn this at a young age because as a teen I was too scared to go on porn sites so I just watched “girls kissing” on YouTube which was often the like plot parts and kissing while clothed parts of porn.
Kayla: And it highlights the urgency of their desire for each other, too. They’re like yeah I don’t need to bother with undressing you, I’m still going to consume you.
Drew: YES! I do think the specificity of the hands is also very good and very gay. So much gay sex on screen (especially with straight directors) is very confused. This is specific.
Kayla: Very specific. You can tell they both already know how to get each other off.
Drew: The spit wasn’t entirely spit right? I remember reading it was some sort of juice.
Kayla: REALLY? I must investigate now. Whatever juice they used really does a good job of looking like spit lol.
Drew: It does! I love how Esti’s tongue quivers in anticipation. And then when it hits her mouth there’s an immediate reaction of pleasure.
Kayla: “The makeup department tested out different flavors of lube the night before to use as the spit. We settled on lychee-flavored!” – Rachel McAdams
Drew: Beautiful. I love a lychee martini, and I imagine I’d love it even more spit into my mouth.
Kayla: LOL. It really is so artfully and organically done.
Drew: I like how they’re in the same frame in every shot until the end when Esti orgasms while Ronit is presumably going down on her.
Kayla: Yes, and that’s also an example of how you can show a lot without showing! It’s the first time Esti’s pleasure is genuinely centered. We don’t get a moment like that between her and Dovid.
Drew: That slow push-in as Esti comes is so beautifully done though.
One of my only big issues with the film is the detail that Ronit hasn’t been with a woman since they were together because I feel like it confuses her character and their dynamic. And this moment especially would hit even harder for me if Ronit has been experiencing queer pleasure out in the world and Esti was the only one denied it between the two of them.
Kayla: Well, this is somewhat related to that but something I actually like. I noticed even more during this viewing that Esti initiates physical contact most of the time. I think it really plays with our expectations of who might be the more forward between them, who might have the most agency. Because Esti is presented as this Orthodox woman who has decided to stay in the church, and Ronit has left. But it’s Esti who really directs a lot of the initial flirtation and touch. Dovid tries to say Esti is being manipulated by Ronit, but that is never once shown to be true.
Drew: Yes! I really love that detail. To me it communicates that as much as their love is mutual, for Ronit there’s a world of possibility, for Esti Ronit IS her world of possibility.
Kayla: Yes! And then in the sex scene, we do see Ronit taking on the more toppy role, especially with the spit. But they also both seem a little switchy to me! Or at least like Esti is sometimes topping from the bottom lol.
Drew: Yeah, she’s more forward even if her role in their dynamic is bottom-y.
I also love that this happens after they were already caught kissing. The history of lesbian cinema has a lot of stories where there’s passion between the women until they’re caught and then one of them is like NO I CANT DO THIS ANYMORE. This subverts that, where Esti is like we’re caught so we need to fuck NOW before things escalate and we’re apart forever.
Kayla: Yes, there’s a desperation to it. It’s why I think the scene is hot but also…tinged with a bit of sadness, which is probably true of a lot of my favorite sex scenes lol. It’s not tinged with TRAGEDY or TRAUMA, but there is an undercurrent of sadness. And also nostalgia! They’re accessing past versions of themselves. And nostalgia is usually a little sad.
Drew: Absolutely. At the very least, the desperation of impermanence.
Kayla: I mean pretty much right after, they reminisce on the time Ronit’s father walked in on them hooking up lol.
Drew: Yes! That’s a really good point. I love that we spend time with them right after. And the moment of Ronit taking Esti’s photo is swoon-worthy. This really excels at the before, during, and after of a sex scene.
Kayla: Yeah! We get all of those beats, which is super rare for queer sex scenes.
Drew: There’s usually at least a bit more of a time jump. The after in this case starts when Ronit is still resting between Esti’s legs.
Kayla: The movie really does take its time, and I appreciate that about it.
Drew: I’ll always have a love for this movie, because I saw it at a matinee when my nails were matching my shoes, and I felt so fabulous as I experienced immense horniness and melancholy. Top tier movie going experience.
I’d never really done spit play at the time either!! I’d only been out of the closet for a year and my sex life was pretty boring.
Do I love the Disobedience sex scene because of how I have sex or do I have sex the way I do because of the Disobedience sex scene? Who can say!
Kayla: I hadn’t done spitplay when I first say it either! I was in a relationship when the movie came out, but we weren’t really having sex anymore. As soon as I was single again, I made spitplay a priority! Now I barely remember a time before!!!!!
Drew: The greatest trans allyship of the director of A Fantastic Woman was actually giving ME this scene.
Disobedience is now streaming on Hulu. The sex scene starts around 1:01:20 if you need to rewatch it for research purposes.