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JUMPCUT
AREVIEWOFCONTEMPORARYMEDIA
Lesbiansandfilm,p.2
byEdithBecker,MichelleCitron,JuliaLesage,B.RubyRich
from JumpCut, no. 24-25, March 1981, pp. 17-21
copyrightJumpCut:AReviewofContemporaryMedia, 1981, 2005
One need is for films that deal with variation, complex identities, and
contradiction all outside the scope of the "positive image" approach.
Lesbian films cannot be considered outside the context of the lesbian
community. Within this community, we face daily contradictions
(passing at work but being out with friends, public oppression versus
private pleasure, or the seeming contradiction of multiple political
commitments). The recognition and working through conflict is a
process that is essential to political and personal growth. It's one which
our films could be aiding. Unsolved problems, anger, unpleasant
decisions, fights, and other messy material are all dealt with in our lives
and could be portrayed on the screen as well. Barbara Hammer's film
DOUBLE STRENGTH, for instance, approaches the question of lesbian
relationships, love and romanticism (see two different views of
Hammer's work in the Zita and Weiss articles). Jan Oxenberg's films, in
particular, pull humor out of a hat of contradictions (see Citron article in
this section). Susana Blaustein's self-portrait, SUSANA, wittily visualizes
the conflict between her lesbian lifestyle and traditional Argentine
family values which is precipitated by her sister's visit. We need more
films that deal with the contradictions, details, and pleasures of lesbian
life.
What about all the aspects of lesbian life that haven't yet made it into the
movies? We have yet to see any film about that venerable mainstay of
lesbian culture, the bars. Despite a network of lesbian and gay history
projects, their research has yet to inform lesbian filmmaking. For
example, the slide show on "Lesbian Masquerade: Women Who Passed
as Men in Early San Francisco" could provide the basis for a wonderful
film on the phenomenon of "passing women." Again, looking to history,
the presence of lesbians in the suffragette movement has yet to be
explored in film. Films are still needed to write lesbians back into
history, to include the lives of lesbians on welfare, lesbians fighting
nationalist struggles, lesbians of color ... lesbians contributing to
struggles both inside and outside the lesbian movement perse. The
lesbian imagination is certainly not limited to the traditionally political.
Lesbian films could explore the interior of a lesbian household or
formally study the textures of daily life.
Since lesbians are trying to live lives that reflect new value systems,
there is a need for lesbian films that match those value systems, both in
the range of subject matter and stylistically. Lesbian literature offers an
example of new visions, styles, textures, and tonalities. Just as lesbian
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***
The lesbian struggle for self definition has been in process for a long
time in a variety of ways organizationally, through publications,
culturally, in music and poetry, in the bars and in alliance with a
number of other movements, particularly with gay male, left, and
feminist struggles. In the United States, any history must take into
account the founding in 1955 of the first lesbian organization in the
country, the Daughters of Bilitis. Its publication, TheLadder, published
continuously from 1956 to 1972. The official position of the Daughters of
Bilitis, brave for its time, stressed education to the general public about
homosexuality, self education, research projects in the social sciences,
and lobbying for more tolerant legislation. Their emphasis on
acceptance is very different from that of the best known lesbian literary
tradition, that of Nathalie Barney, Rene Vivien, and their coterie in
Paris at the turn of the century. The Paris circle's pride in and
celebration of relations and sexual liaisons between women takes no
notice of heterosexual sobriety, a luxury which its economic status
permitted. These women were able to speak in their own voice early on,
due to class status. But it remained to the 70s to offer equal opportunity.
These very different traditions, of political awareness and cultural pride,
were finally brought together with the events leading into and out of the
Stonewall Resistance of 1969. At that event in New York City, gay men
and lesbians fought back against police, battling generations of police
harassment. The night's political tradition has been kept alive and
furthered by the following
by annual Gay Pride Week events each June, with marches in
cities all over the country;
by organizations, like the Gay Liberation Front and later the
National Gay Task Force, or like the specific media organization
that was formed at last year's Alternative Cinema Conference, the
National Association of Lesbian and Gay Filmmakers;
by actions, like those against the exhibition of WINDOWS and the
filming and opening of CRUISING;
by national demonstrations, like the October 14, 1979, mass
mobilization in Washington in defense of gay rights against the
homophobic backlash and increasingly repressive legislation, like
the Briggs initiative.
Within the left, gays and lesbians have struggled against homophobia,
both unconscious and deliberate. While many sectors of the gay and
lesbian movement have a non- or anti-leftist perspective, the presence of
gays and lesbians in specific left organizations and national solidarity
movements, as well as the participation of gay and lesbian groups in left
coalitions, is significant. This summer's Lavender Left conference was
held by progressive lesbians and gay men.
The dominant context for the lesbian movement, of course, has been the
women's movement, in which lesbian feminists have always been a
major presence, from the earliest days of women's liberation to the
present. However, that history has been scarred by continual eruptions
between lesbians and straight women within the movement, resulting in
purges and separate lesbian organizations. Nevertheless, leading in the
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Jonathan Katz, et al, ed.; New York: Arno Press, 1976. Also reprinted
with Barbara Grier and Colleta Reid, eds., in four volumes:
Lesbiana:BookReviewsfrom"TheLadder". Reno: Naid Press,
1976.
LesbianLives:BiographiesofWomenfrom"TheLadder."
Oakland, CA: Diana Press, 1976.
TheLavenderHerring:LesbianEssaysfrom"TheLadder." Diana
Press, 1976.
TheLesbiansHomeJournal:Storiesfrom"TheLadder."Diana
Press, 1976.
Dyer, Richard. "Gays in Film." JUMP CUT, No. 18 (August 1978).
Gornick, Vivian, "Is Women's Liberation a Sexist Plot?" Womanin
SexistSociety:StudiesinPowerandPowerlessness. Vivian Gornick and
Barbara K. Floran, eds. New York: Signet Books, 1971.
Griffin, Susan. "Transformations." SinisterWisdom, 1, No. 2 (Fall 1976).
Harris, Bertha. "The More Profound Nationality of Their Lesbianism:
Lesbian Society in Paris in the 1920s." AmazonExpedition. New York:
Times Change Press, 1973.
Harris, Bertha. "Notes Toward Defining the Nature of Lesbian
Literature." Heresies, 3 (Fall 1977).
Harris, Bertha. "What Is a Lesbian?" SinisterWisdom, No. 3 (1977).
Heresies, No. 3 (Fall 1977). Lesbian Art and Artists issue.
Jay, Karla and Young, Allen. LavenderCulture. New York: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1973
JUMP CUT Special Section on Gay Men and Film. No. 16 (November
1977).
JUMP CUT Report on Alternative Cinema Conference. No. 21
(November 1979).
Katz, Jonathan, ed. GayHistory:LesbiansandGayMenintheUSA
ADocumentary. New York: Avon, 1978.
Lourde, Audre. UsesoftheErotic:TheEroticasPower. New York: Out
and Out Books, No. 3, 1978.
Ponse, Barbara. IdentitiesintheLesbianWorld:TheSocial
ConstructionofSelf. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978.
Rich, Adrienne. "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence."
Signs, 5, No. 4 (Summer 1980).
Rich, Adrienne. OnLies,Secrets,andSilence:SelectedProse,1966
1978. New York: W.W. Norton, 1979.
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