On films and writing
Sep. 21st, 2006 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cmk418I was thinking this morning of my recent trip to St. Louis and something that my brother's girlfriend said sort of off-the-cuff while we were having breakfast at her house. It was to the effect of that she really enjoyed girl-on-girl action in film. My brother responded something like, "well, sweetie, we're gonna have to explore that." I concentrated on the pancakes - the less knowledge I have about my brother's sex life (if he has one), the better. Unless he was gay, that's a whole other kettle of fish. (He's an actor though, so bi credit is understood). But I was thinking that my reasonably sparse knowledge of lesbian-centric films could benefit one poor lost soul looking for some f/f action who may not want to rent porn. So these are my 3 top lesbi-centric films (yes, I know I should have 5, but in reality I have more gay films in my library than lesbian films). #1 Desert Hearts - this was the first lesbian film that I saw. It has a very sweet love story at its heart, a "rewind until the tape falls apart or the DVD skips" kissing scene, and a super-hot, sex scene. It can be a bit dated, some of it is cheesy, but all in all it still remains one of the best. #2 - Bound - Now I have a feeling that all of the Meloni lovers out there have seen this movie, but in case you haven't, it's a really fun caper film with hot girls in tight clothes for most of it, if you are renting this for girl-on-girl action hit rewind after the first 30 minutes because it just concentrates on the caper story after it - CM is in the later part of the film. OK, there are really only 2. I was going to put "Go Fish" on the list, but it could fall under the heading of "too lesbian" so I'll withdraw it.
What makes this sad is that I could probably rattle 5 or 6 man on man films/DVDs off the top of my head - Broken Hearts Club, The Sum of Us, Queer as Folk (the UK version - full frontal), Velvet Goldmine, My Own Private Idaho, Poison, and Oz (of course). A note about Poison - this is the Todd Haynes film that almost singlehandedly destroyed the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts, not National Education Association) - the queer part takes place in prison and is really one of the hottest things I've seen sitting in a classroom with about a hundred other people - there are also parts of this storyline though that are deeply deeply disturbing, so if you happen to see it, don't say I didn't tell you that it was disturbing, but it is also, oh so very good.
I don't know why gay men's films seem better. Maybe there's so many more of them out there that we can disregard all the crap - I'm looking at you "All Over the Guy" - and still have a handful of really good films to choose from, but with the lesbian stuff, we only have a handful to start with. Or maybe it's because the way that men interact is profoundly different than the way women interact and if I wanted to watch women interact for two hours, I'd go somewhere where I could interact with them instead of listening to it on screen. I could say that there's no audience for it and I would be partially right. I'm not the best person out there to judge that sort of thing since I'm one of the ones writing films for gay male audiences to see, actually teeny tiny niche markets of gay male audiences to see, and couldn't write a lesbian film to save my soul. I get bored to tears within 30 pages. And I hate the over-identifying thing. I can go completely free within male characters, straight or gay so it's still myself while not necessarily being recognized as myself. And then I just take a situation and blow it completely out of proportion. That's how I write. More than you needed to know probably, but what the heck.
What makes this sad is that I could probably rattle 5 or 6 man on man films/DVDs off the top of my head - Broken Hearts Club, The Sum of Us, Queer as Folk (the UK version - full frontal), Velvet Goldmine, My Own Private Idaho, Poison, and Oz (of course). A note about Poison - this is the Todd Haynes film that almost singlehandedly destroyed the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts, not National Education Association) - the queer part takes place in prison and is really one of the hottest things I've seen sitting in a classroom with about a hundred other people - there are also parts of this storyline though that are deeply deeply disturbing, so if you happen to see it, don't say I didn't tell you that it was disturbing, but it is also, oh so very good.
I don't know why gay men's films seem better. Maybe there's so many more of them out there that we can disregard all the crap - I'm looking at you "All Over the Guy" - and still have a handful of really good films to choose from, but with the lesbian stuff, we only have a handful to start with. Or maybe it's because the way that men interact is profoundly different than the way women interact and if I wanted to watch women interact for two hours, I'd go somewhere where I could interact with them instead of listening to it on screen. I could say that there's no audience for it and I would be partially right. I'm not the best person out there to judge that sort of thing since I'm one of the ones writing films for gay male audiences to see, actually teeny tiny niche markets of gay male audiences to see, and couldn't write a lesbian film to save my soul. I get bored to tears within 30 pages. And I hate the over-identifying thing. I can go completely free within male characters, straight or gay so it's still myself while not necessarily being recognized as myself. And then I just take a situation and blow it completely out of proportion. That's how I write. More than you needed to know probably, but what the heck.
