Archive

AfterEllen.com Goes Back to School

Every year at this time, millions of students head back to school, getting ready to hit the books as they seek out the rewards of education (you know, all-nighters, a caffeine addiction and stress headaches – or was that just me?).

For those of us who have left those school days behind, early September offers an opportunity to reminisce about the things we learned in school (how to write a literature review by reading only the introductions to articles; how to live on ramen and frozen peas). A little-known fact is that TV and movies also have significant educational value – especially for lesbians and bisexual women, who are forced to learn how to navigate the tricky queer waters while in a predominantly heterosexual educational environment.

Here, then, are seven lessons to be learned from movies and TV shows about lesbian and bi women and girls. If you’re still in school, take notes: Some of these lessons could come in handy next week. Lesson 1: Lock the door before you get busy with your girlfriend in your dorm room. In Lost and Delirious, a 2001 film about girls at a boarding school, Paulie (Piper Perabo) and Tori (Jessica Paré) are two girls in love – and handily enough, they’re also roommates. When they’re given a third roommate, Mary (Mischa Barton), her presence in the room doesn’t faze them; instead, she becomes a silent witness to their, uh, love. Mary’s quiet acceptance, however, may have given the two lovebirds the false idea that they didn’t need to worry about privacy. One morning, when Paulie and Tori are slumbering together (naked), Tori’s younger sister, Allison (Emily VanCamp) bursts through the unlocked door and discovers them in bed together.

All sorts of unfortunate things happen after that unexpected outing: Tori insists she’s straight; she breaks up with Paulie, who becomes depressed and obsessed with proving her love to Tori; the movie spends an inordinate amount of time on the symbolism of an injured bird, etc. If only Paulie and Tori had thought to lock the door to their room at night, none of that needed to happen.

The lock’s there for a reason, girls: Use it.

Lesson 2: When interviewing to be a teaching assistant for a hot professor, don’t be afraid to assert yourself. In Episode 4.2 of The L Word (“Livin’ La Vida Loca”), Bette Porter (Jennifer Beals), who just took a job as dean of the fictional California University’s art department, interviews grad students to be her teaching assistant. Despite Bette’s lecture warning those potential TAs that she’s going to work them to the bone (“if you’re gonna TA for me, you shouldn’t expect to have a life”), few if any seem put off by the prospect of long hours and late nights with Dean Porter. One of those eager beavers in particular, Nadia (Jessica Capshaw), seems to relish the idea of spending so much time being told what to do by Dean Porter.

In addition to complimenting Bette’s physique (“you have very beautiful arms”) and dropping in the fact that she’s gay (“my ex-girlfriend was a professional boxer, and your arms sort of remind me of – of hers”), she goes so far as to presume that she’s got the job before Bette actually gives it to her.

But that balls-out attitude (along with a very short skirt) takes Nadia far. Not only does she get the job, she gets a personal experience with Dean Porter that many of Bette’s students (I’m presuming) fantasize about.

Nadia: Would it be wrong if I told you that I can’t keep my eyes off of you? Bette: Yes. Nadia: Would it be wrong if I told you that you are the most intriguing person that I’ve ever met? Bette: Yes. Nadia: Would it be wrong if I told you that I have never wanted to kiss someone more than I want to kiss you right now?
Well, Bette, if loving you is wrong, nobody wants to be right.

Lesson 3: Even if you’re not an A student, you can still reinvent your way to success (especially on reality TV). During the second season of Bravo’s Work Out, lesbian trainer and entrepreneur Jackie Warner goes back home to Fairborn, Ohio, to visit her high school. When she takes a look back at her high school report card and realizes that most of her grades were C’s and D’s (not the A’s and B’s she somehow remembers), she reinvents the speech she was originally going to give to the assembled high school students.

Jackie: When you get to it, no matter what you do in junior high and high school, you always have several chances to make up for it and reinvent yourself. And that’s the biggest message I try to give – that life is about reinvention, and it’s never over until it’s over.
Way to spin it, Jackie!

But when it comes down to it, Jackie did get a B in gym class. Maybe the other lesson is that your high school grades contain a vital clue as to which profession you should pursue after graduation.

Good at typing? Become a court transcriptionist!

Do well in shop class? Try out life as a carpenter; girls love a woman with tools.

Excel in band class? Your career as a lesbian folk singer is just one acoustic guitar away.

Lesson 4: If you want to maintain your cool attitude while embracing cheesy high school rituals like prom, use props. Part of being a badass is expressing a consistent but hypocritical disdain for all events involving school spirit. Among those events: cheerleading (despite a secret attraction to the cheerleaders), basketball games (even though you once dated a b-ball player) and that high school rite of passage, prom.

In South of Nowhere‘s second season, resident badass Ashley (Mandy Musgrave) faces a serious prom problem in the form of her girlfriend, Spencer (Gabrielle Christian), who doesn’t have to maintain a badass image and therefore simply wants to go to the dance.

But Ashley manages to keep up her too-cool-for-school façade while making her girlfriend happy with the skillful usage of toys – dolls, that is. Shortly after Ashley refuses Spencer’s invitation to prom (delivered through the classic writing-on-the-car-windshield technique), thereby underscoring her “I don’t do school dances” personality, she presents her own invitation. In Spencer’s locker, Ashley has left two Barbie dolls dressed to look like the two of them, along with the message “Spencer, will u go 2 the stupid prom w/me?” Note the usage of the word “stupid” to place the prom in proper badass perspective. And note the usage of dolls, which combines childlike innocence with jaded, been-there-done-that suavity.

Badass reputation saved.

Lesson 5: “Family” means more than biology. Over the course of seven seasons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer taught us many a lesson about school (nothing beats good old-fashioned research!), life (“The hardest thing in this world is to live in it”) and love (“Weird love’s better than no love”), but it also taught us a lot about family.

In the Season 5 episode “Family,” when Tara Maclay’s (Amber Benson) father and cousins come to visit her at college, they bring with them old superstitions: When the Maclay girls turn 20, the demon within them supposedly comes out, so Tara must return home before that demon is unleashed upon her unsuspecting friends.

But as Spike puts it to Tara’s father: “That’s just a family legend, am I right? Just a bit of spin to keep the ladies in line.” Going away to college is often the first time many of us are separated from our parents for an extended period of time, and though it can be a frightening experience, it’s also an opportunity to discover a new kind of family: our friends.

Buffy: You want to take Tara out of here against her will? You gotta come through me. Dawn: And me! Mr. Maclay: Is this a joke? I’m not going to be threatened by two little girls. Dawn: You don’t want to mess with us. Buffy: She’s a hair-puller. Giles: And you’re not just dealing with, uh, two little girls. Xander: You’re dealing with all of us. Spike: ‘Cept me. Xander: ‘Cept Spike. Spike: I don’t care what happens. Mr. Maclay: This is insane. You people have no right to interfere with Tara’s affairs. We are her blood kin! Who the hell are you? Buffy: We’re family.
So if your family shows up at your college on parents’ weekend to question your alternative lifestyle, don’t forget about the family you can create around you. (It doesn’t hurt if one of them is a vampire slayer and your girlfriend’s a powerful witch, either.) Lesson 6: If you want to impress your English teacher, do your homework. Having a crush on a sexy female teacher might be one of the more common shared experiences of young lesbians everywhere (see Lesson 2, above). In the 2005 film Loving Annabelle, that crush turns into a love affair between Catholic school student Annabelle (Erin Kelly) and her English teacher, Simone (Diane Gaidry).

Now, we’re not advocating that you follow their example and have an illicit (and illegal) relationship, but we can still learn something from Annabelle’s ultimately successful wooing of her teacher.

When Annabelle first arrives at the Catholic boarding school, she quickly determines that the only woman for her is her poetry teacher, but she makes a few missteps in the process of trying to impress her. For example, openly passing notes in class doesn’t endear you to your teacher – it makes you look like a brat.

Ditto making suggestive, sexual interpretations of poetry during class – even if those interpretations might be right on the money. But after Simone gives Annabelle a book to read, inscribed with a quotation from Marcel Proust, Annabelle switches tactics from in-your-face attention seeking to poetic double entendres. She has a bouquet of flowers delivered (anonymously) to Simone during class, along with a card quoting back to her the inscription in the book Simone gave her: “The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” With that, Annabelle demonstrates she has learned her lesson well: Any teacher is more likely to be impressed by a student who actually does the reading. Extra credit for using that newly acquired learning as a method of seduction.

Lesson 7: Extracurricular activities are an important part of your education. Even if you’re a student with a perfect score on your SAT, that doesn’t mean your education stops at the classroom door. Some of life’s most valuable lessons are learned through extracurricular activities – you know, sneaking out after curfew, going to underground parties, fraternizing with the enemy.

In the 2004 film D.E.B.S., Amy (Sara Foster) arrives at the super-secret spy agency having received a perfect score on the secret test embedded in the SAT that measures one’s ability to lie, cheat and kill. But her stellar academic qualifications, which amply prepare her for a life as a spy, don’t exactly prepare her to take on criminal mastermind Lucy Diamond (Jordana Brewster), who has much more personal plans for Amy. When Lucy kidnaps Amy one night and takes her out for a beer, Amy learns that her thesis – which is an examination of why Lucy is such a ruthless criminal – is based less on reality than on misguided theory.

This just goes to show that even the most perfect student has to step outside the classroom to learn one of life’s most valuable lessons: Falling in love requires you to be truthful to yourself. (Plus, when in doubt, always wear a schoolgirl skirt.)

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

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button