Movies

10 lesbians and bi women who need their own biopics like right now

Getty Images

A few months back, I watched the movie Frida while writing an article on films that centered around lesbian and bi women of color. I loved the movie and Salma Hayek’s portrayal of the titular character but it got me thinking… why aren’t there more biopics about legendary lesbian and bisexual women throughout history?

I mean gay men have The Imitation Game, Milk, and Behind the Candelabra, so where are all my gay ladies?

I combed through Netflix (other streaming services are available) trying to find more biopics about lesbian or bi women but I was underwhelmed. This isn’t a dig at Netflix, even checking the “LGBTQ” films section on Wikipedia was surprisingly unfruitful.

So I decided to create a list of sheroes who need biopics based on their lives. She might be someone in living history herstory or someone from the distant past, but every woman on the list lived an extraordinary life that needs to be commemorated in a feature film.

Any Hollywood executives who are reading this, these are yours for the taking (except Harvey Weinstein, you can go f*ck yourself). 1.Sappho

Image via Wikipedia

Who better to kick off this list than the OG lesbian? This Greek poet from the island of Lesbos was a prolific writer (putting me to shame) but most of her poetry remains lost to the ages.

Her life, other than the title of lesbian poet, is mostly a mystery, but that which does remain is intriguing. When one of her brothers was kidnapped by an Egyptian courtesan, Sappho wrote a poem to rebuke him (is that the definition of slam poetry?), was sent into exile in Sicily after her family became involved in a political conflict, and potentially killed herself by jumping off the Leucadian cliffs.

  2.Sally Ride In 1978, Sally Ride became the first American woman to go into space, the third woman overall, and is still the youngest person to travel to space at just 32!

In 1987, she left NASA to work at the Center for International Security and Arms Control, teach physics at the University of California, San Diego, and serve on the committees that investigated the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters.

Talk about an exciting life.

In 1985, Sally left her husband for fellow female scientist Tam O’Shaughnessy, which makes her the first-known gay astronaut.

3.Eleanor Roosevelt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMBRgDErlVw

 

I’m not going to insult your intelligence by explaining who Eleanor Roosevelt is but I will tell you that she fell in love with journalist Lorena Hickok in the early 1930s.

It is a crime that a big-budget biopic on her has not yet been commissioned. For those of you who remember the 1970s biopics, I am excluding them as they focus more strongly on FDR than Eleanor.

I, for one, would like to see a biopic of Eleanor in the years after FDR’s death as she campaigned for the USA to join the United Nations, became the first American ambassador to the UN, and helped draft to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

  4.Frances Power Cobbe You’ve probably never heard of Frances Power Cobbe, but women and animal lovers alike owe this Victorian lady a huge debt of thanks.

In a time where women were expected to keep their mouths shut and their wombs open, Frances published several articles on the topics of feminism, domestic violence, and the legal rights of women in marriage. She later became a member of the executive council of the London National Society for Women’s Suffrage.

She also founded the London-based animal rights charities, the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV).

In 1864, Frances moved in with her partner, Welsh sculptor Mary Lloyd, and the pair remained together until Frances’ death in 1904.

  5.Lorraine Hansberry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzBiLeUuWMo

 

Lorraine Hansberry was the first black woman to write a play (A Raisin in the Sun) that was performed on Broadway, as well as the first black playwright (and youngest person) to win the New York’s Drama Critic’s Circle Award.

Much of her work focuses on the struggle for black liberation (in the US and worldwide)- with A Raisin in the Sun being based on her family’s personal experience challenging racism- and sexual freedom.

6.Gladys Bentley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptIBk2PZK74

 

Most blues singers don’t have easy lives but Gladys Bentley’s is something truly heartbreaking. Childhood neglect and abuse led to Gladys moving to Harlem at just 16, but her deep, growling voice and unique stage presence led to her becoming a top seller at gay speakeasies during the Harlem Renaissance.

Performing almost exclusively to perform in menswear during her sets, Gladys was openly lesbian until the rampant homophobia of the McCarthy Era forced her back into the closet. I’m tearing up just thinking about it.

  7.Barbara Jordan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKfFJc37jjQ

 

Babara Jordan is most well known as a civil rights leader and the first black woman elected to the Texas Senate; she was even mentioned as a possible running mate for Jimmy Carter in 1976. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bill Clinton in the 90s and her political impact can be felt to this day.

For 20 years, she was in a relationship with educational psychologist, Nancy Earl, until Barbara’s death in 1996.

  8.Greta Garbo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEab8NZO3Fg

 

There is no doubt that Greta Garbo was a classic beauty and a talented actor- she can say more with an arch of her eyebrow than most can with a whole script- but it’s her rags-to-riches back story and her ability to adapt from the silent movies to the talkies that sets her apart and makes her worthy of this list.

Greta grew up in a Swedish slum, spent her early teens nursing her father through the Spanish Flu until his death in 1920, before working in a department store where she modeled hats for their catalogue and was picked up by a modeling agent.

She valued her privacy and chose to cut the media off from her relationships with men and women which separated her from most of the stars of the Golden Era of Hollywood. She even played one of history’s most famed (bi? closeted lesbian?) women, Queen Christina of Sweden and, during the filming, kissed a fellow actress while dressed in drag.

9. Ma Rainey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-mRHNAeJXE

 

This legendary blues singer toured with Louis Armstrong, had an affair with Bessie Smith, and performed for over 30 years at the beginning of the 20th Century.

She made no secret of her sexuality in her music but following the passage of the Hayes Code (which banned references to homosexuality in media) her style of music was shunned and she died not long after.

  10. Audre Lorde https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUXj0BVQkpw

 

You likely know Audre Lorde already. She’s one of the most prominent feminist thinkers of the 20th Century (perhaps all time) and the godmother of intersectional feminism, describing herself as a “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.”

Over the years, Audre worked as a librarian, writer, poet, and teacher, but aside from her writings one of her most outstanding contributions the world was her political and social works.

She discussed civil rights issues with young, black undergraduate students in 1968, founded a charity for survivors of sexual abuse and domestic violence in 1981, and founded Sisterhood in Support of Sisters (SISA) in South Africa in the late 1980s to help black women marginalized by apartheid.

While The Body of a Poet (a 29-minute biopic about Audre) was released in 1995, it is only available to schools and was never, as far as I know, given a wide release. Audre deserves more than that and her story needs a much deeper exploration.

 

So those my picks for the lesbian/bi women who need to have a biopic made about their lives, but what are yours? Let me know in the comments.

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button