Movies

2007 Year in Review: Movies

Radical feminists, curry competitions, book clubs and lesbian make-out sessions beyond the grave – welcome to 2007, where the queer cinema was characterized by humor and romance over high drama, and the Sapphic sidekick replaced the evil lesbian as the stereotype of choice.

Comedies such as Puccini for Beginners and Itty Bitty Titty Committee ruled the American LGBT box office, while, in one of the year’s most positive trends, foreign films featuring queer Asian characters – such as Nina’s Heavenly Delights and Love My Life – received unprecedented attention. It certainly wasn’t all fun and games, however, as more than a few standby stereotypes still reared their ugly heads, mostly within the realm of the horror genre, and lesbian/bi characters were still few and far between in mainstream features.

Rom-Com Romps

This year may well be remembered as the year that queer indie cinema started to lighten up. The balance of drama to comedy leaned to the lighter side of the scale in 2007 with a slew of romantic comedies and feel-good coming-out stories.

This positive trend showed that directors are beginning to embrace new approaches to telling stories about lesbian/bi characters. It also signaled a renewed sense of fun and playfulness at the movies, giving queer audiences something to smile about in an era of uncertain politics and conflicting social messages.

Early in the year, Gray Matters started the lighthearted trend with its own quirky style, despite some serious critical panning. In the film, Gray (Heather Graham) and her brother fall for the same woman, prompting Gray to question her sexuality and eventually be outed at her swanky advertising firm. Styled as a revival of the ’40s-era screwball comedy, the movie certainly had its moments, though it unfortunately descended into mediocrity with clichéd characters, oddly placed scenes and overall unevenness. By and large, however, the movie was a positive, upbeat and fun romantic comedy. If it wasn’t entirely successful, it at least had its heart in the right place.

Puccini for Beginners, written and directed by bisexual filmmaker Maria Maggenti (The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love), served up more screwball comedy in a breezy film about the perils and pleasures of bisexual dating. The movie follows Allegra (Elizabeth Reaser), a Manhattan author, as she juggles relationships with a man, Phillip (Justin Kirk), and a woman, Grace (Gretchen Mol), after being dumped by her girlfriend, Samantha. In her review of the film, AfterEllen.com contributing writer Shauna Swartz noted that Puccini for Beginners owes a great deal to early Woody Allen films, and it managed to make its points about gender politics and fluidity in sexual identity without coming off as pretentious or heavy-handed. In fact, the film was almost too light, relying on punchy dialogue and clever quirkiness to cover up its lack of depth – as well as a curious dearth of chemistry between Reaser and Mol.

Compared to the polished tone of Puccini and Gray Matters, Itty Bitty Titty Committee was a brazenly lo-fi film, a slyly subversive, punk rock love letter to radical feminist groups and the riot grrl lifestyle. Directed by Jamie Babbit (But I’m a Cheerleader), the movie starred Melonie Diaz as Anna, an awkward 18-year-old working in a plastic surgery clinic. Unhappy with her life, her body and being rejected from college, she meets Sadie (Nicole Vicius) of the CIA (Clits in Action), a radical feminist group, and tumbles down the feminist rabbit hole. She joins the CIA as they rally against the patriarchy, fall in love with one another, and squabble, though not necessarily in that order. On top of being anarchic and hilarious, Itty Bitty also holds the distinction of being one of the few films about radical feminism that doesn’t take itself seriously, preferring to poke gentle fun at the youthful sincerity of its main characters.

One longtime staple of queer cinema – the coming-out story – also featured prominently in 2007. The prevailing tone was decidedly upbeat, a welcome change for a subgenre known far and wide for melodrama and serious angst.

Nina’s Heavenly Delights, which was recently released theatrically in select cities, spiced up LGBT film festival screens as an excellent – if not exactly groundbreaking – movie from out director Pratibha Parmar. The film, about a Scottish-Indian woman finding love and family acceptance, follows title character Nina Shah (Shelley Conn), a closeted lesbian, who is called back home to Scotland after the unexpected death of her father. When she sees an opportunity to save the family’s restaurant in a “best of the west” curry competition, she unexpectedly falls for Lisa (Laura Fraser), her brother’s girlfriend and new co-owner of the eatery. Though the movie does spend a great deal of time working the somewhat formulaic coming-out and family acceptance story lines, the visuals are fresh, the romance is exciting and sweet, and the overall experience is delicious.

Love My Life, which was recently acquired by U.S. distributor Wolfe Video, focused on young Ichiko (Rei Yoshii) as she cavorts with her girlfriend (Asami Imajuku) and comes out to her father, only to discover that he has actually been living as a closeted gay man for all of her life. Hailing from Japan, the film is a wonderfully refreshing, if occasionally saccharine, meditation on family life and acceptance and finding one’s own path to happiness. Like Itty Bitty, the piece is driven by a busy musical score and visual style, and it features a tumultuous, ultimately happy lesbian romance at its core.

Finally, Park featured Ricki Lake as Peggy, a late-in-life lesbian discovering her sexuality through a series of rather unusual circumstances. Peggy spends most of the movie enacting revenge on her cheating husband (and his oversized SUV), but an awkward kiss with her best friend (Cheri Oteri) convinces her that she’s been missing out on a key element of her identity. Though Peggy’s tale was only a small portion of the multiple-thread story line (which weaves between interrelated characters independently hanging out in a Los Angeles park on lunch break) – and her initial “Eureka!” moment was rather contrived – the lesbian story line was ultimately sweet and positive.

To say that Park, Nina’s Heavenly Delights and Love My Life (and to a large extent, Itty Bitty Titty Committee ) were departures from coming-out films of the past is a major understatement. These films proved that the coming-out process needn’t always be treated with heavy drama or anguish – that in fact, there may be room for warmth and humor as well.

Sidekick Country

This year, lesbian/bi characters could be seen in several Hollywood films – as peripheral characters. Unlike 2006, no mainstream films featured lesbian/bi characters in central roles. However, considering the quality of representation in those films (most notably Notes on a Scandal and The Black Dahlia), perhaps the lesbian sidekick isn’t the worst archetype.

Early in the year, Smokin’ Aces was promoted as featuring a pair of lesbian assassins at the center of a complicated hit-and-heist plot. Sykes (Alicia Keys) and Watters (Taraji Henson) are ambiguously lesbian gunwomen hired by corrupt FBI agents out to score on the death of a mob boss. The film was supposed to be an exciting action romp featuring prominent lesbian characters (and a potentially steamy love affair), but the end product failed to deliver on both counts. It seems that the lesbian angle was purely a marketing gimmick. Independently produced film The Jane Austen Book Club fared better, featuring Allegra (Maggie Grace), a young lesbian jewelry maker, as one of six people who come together to read the works of Austen and discover just how relevant the 19th-century author’s insights on love still are. Though Allegra isn’t featured prominently in the movie, which is based on the novel of the same name, her sexuality is presented as a complete non-issue, and the brief scenes with her girlfriend are sweetly domestic. Major mainstream release Planet Terror, one half of the Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarentino collaboration Grindhouse, featured a tiny blink-and-you’ll-miss-it lesbian story line. In the film, zombies take over a small town (and presumably, the world), and the residents must band together to survive or else face the horde of undead.

A small plotline is introduced in the beginning of the film wherein Dr. Dakota Black (Marley Shelton) leaves her vaguely crazy husband for Tammy (Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson). It’s actually one of the only under-hyped elements of a film that was intentionally ridiculous and over-the-top.

Finally, Across the Universe featured a lesbian character, Prudence (T.V. Carpio) on the very edges of its trippy 1960s landscape. A musical love story set in that turbulent and psychedelic time, the film is akin to a cinematic train wreck with a fantastic soundtrack, and Prudence did little more than pine after straight women.

Horrific

When lesbian/bi characters weren’t serving as background characters in mainstream films, they were busy being trotted out to the wolves in horror movies. Actually, queer female characters ran the gamut this year, from serving as the only sane person in the film in Bug to pure exploitation in films such as Hostel 2, Return to House on Haunted Hill and Rise: Blood Hunter.

While it’s somewhat positive that this kind of exploitation was relegated (perhaps quarantined is a better term) to one genre, horror directors aren’t off the hook for their stereotypical decisions.

In Bug, Agnes (Ashley Judd) is stuck between an abusive husband and a mysterious stranger with more than a few screws loose. Her queer best friend, R.C. (Lynn Collins), sees the danger and tries her best to rescue Agnes from a hellish journey into insanity. She doesn’t listen, but it’s refreshing to see the lesbian character presented as sane, competent, honorable and, in fact, the only non-victim in the piece. Similarly, the aforementioned subplot in Planet Terror featured two lesbians who were, at the very least, presented as sane and normal in a decidedly wacky world.

Unfortunately, queer female characters didn’t fare so well in Hostel: Part II, which featured a lesbian character as one of the victims of an underground society dealing in torture, rape and murder. As the current king of the “torture porn” subgenre, the entire film is an exercise in exploitation and misogyny, decidedly more so than the first Hostel.

Supernatural lesbians didn’t fare any better in 2007. The straight-to-video flop Return to House on Haunted Hill featured a three-way lesbian ghost make-out session that was just as ridiculous and hokey as it sounds.

Rise was another offender. In the film, Lucy Liu stars as Sadie Blake, a lesbian vampire with a thirst for revenge. The film is vapid and derivative, and Blake’s lesbianism is clearly nothing more than a ploy to increase the titillation factor. In fact, the nude love scene between Liu and co-star Carla Gugino is one of the highest selling points of the movie – a telling sign. Asian Representation Continues to Increase

If 2007 was revolutionary in any way, it was due to the proliferation of Asian lesbian/bisexual women as main characters in feature films. The last two years also had a handful of films that featured queer Asian or Asian-American characters in leading roles, including Red Doors, Floored by Love, The Gymnast and Saving Face. But in 2007 alone, prominent films such as Love My Life, Spider Lilies, The World Unseen and Nina’s Heavenly Delights headlined film festivals and generally accounted for some of the most interesting and relevant filmmaking in queer cinema this year.

Perhaps more importantly, the fact that these films were even made (and promoted) signals a growing awareness – even receptiveness – to lesbians and bisexual women within their respective cultures.

The aforementioned Nina’s Heavenly Delights presented an interesting glimpse into the world of a young lesbian brought up with both Eastern and Western traditions, and her journey to find herself within a world of varied cultural influences. Similarly, Love My Life deserves special mention for its honest and matter-of-fact look at what it means to be LGBT and living in Japanese society today.

Spider Lilies, from Taiwanese filmmaker Zero Chou, shared a great deal of its aesthetic with Love My Life – the music video sensibility, the bright visuals and even the promotional materials were similar. But the story line is much more serious and intense, focusing on the impact of an individual trauma on the lives of its two leads and their families. The film centers on Jade (Rainie Yang), a webcam girl who decides that a sexy spider lily tattoo will help her drum up business. She meets Takeko (Isabella Leong), a forlorn tattoo artist, and insists on getting inked, though the tattoo brings up painful memories of a family death for Takeko. Though there are several subplots revolving around the incident that caused Takeko to shut herself off emotionally, as well as an undercover cop surveying Jade’s website, the core of the film is the powerful romance that develops between the two women.

The World Unseen, which screened in September at the Toronto Film Festival and was directed by Shamim Sarif (who also penned the eponymous novel and the film’s screenplay), presented a lesbian relationship between two Indian women within the highly codified society of South Africa in 1952. Subservient housewife Miriam (Lisa Ray) falls for brazen, free-spirited Amina (Sheetal Sheth) when they meet at Amina’s café. Amid strict gender roles, cultural expectations and a famously racist society, the pair slowly fall for one another. The film shares a few curious parallels to the lesbian classic Fried Green Tomatoes, setting its action within dramatic domestic locales and a café in a sexist and racist society, but The World Unseen stands on its own with a unique aesthetic and some truly excellent performances.

Looking Ahead

Taken as a whole, 2007 was a year of quiet, subtle progress for lesbian/bi women in movies. There were no major crossover films that brought queer cinema to the American mainstream, such as Brokeback Mountain did in 2005. However, there was a growing sense of playfulness and creativity in independent films, as well as an increased normalization in the roles queer female characters played – albeit on the sidelines – in mainstream films.

This year there were fewer films made with stereotypical lesbian/bi characters or plotlines, and more films with positive, lighter approaches to familiar story lines. And the representation of Asian lesbians and bi women saw a genuine breakthrough this year with a small but solid group of excellent films featuring queer Asian women at front and center.

Baby steps in the right direction are all well and good, but they are just that: baby steps. While Asian women were better represented in this year’s films, other women of color were all but nowhere to be seen (aside from Smokin’ Aces). And while queer characters are seeing slightly more inclusion on the big screen, they’re only found in a tiny fraction of films produced.

The current Writers Guild strike puts the current situation into sharp focus. Since so few mainstream films are made with lesbian/bi characters, we have very little to lose. Many film critics have speculated on the possibility for a major breakthrough for independent film if the situation isn’t resolved quickly, which, at the very least, could foster diversity in American film. Until that day, it’s up to queer festivals and foreign films to carry the torch into 2008 and beyond.

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