As lesbian relationship-as-catalyst movies go, Showtime’s A Girl Thing (2001) is one of the better ones.
The movie is actually four separate but interrelated tales revolving around patients of psychiatrist Dr. Beth Noonan (Stockard Channing). While all four are centered on women and their relationships with one another, the first story is the only one that deals explicitly with a sexual relationship between women.
Sub-titled “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing,” this story explores the experience of Elle Macpherson‘s Lauren, a relationship-phobic lawyer who doesn’t know how to reconcile her attraction to a bisexual woman, Casey (Kate Capshaw), with her heterosexual identity.
The movie intersperses Lauren’s conversations with Dr. Noonan with flashbacks of her relationship with Casey as it unfolds: The two women meet on a blind double-date and instead of hitting it off with the men they’ve both been set up with, they find themselves drawn to each other.
Lauren is extremely confused by her attraction to Casey, and tries to process it with Dr. Noonan and with her friend Claire at the office. To Lauren’s surprise, Claire reacts very negatively and reveals homophobia that neither woman knew she had, and Lauren’s affair with Casey is soon the subject of office gossip. Lauren stands up to Claire, and Claire eventually apologizes and admits she just reacted negatively because she was scared, but not before she has reinforced all of Lauren’s worst fears about being rejected.
Casey’s straight friend, on the other hand, is very supportive and even eager to get all the details of Casey’s relationship with Lauren.
Lauren and Casey bumble through their first date, their first kiss, and finally, sex, all the while Lauren is protesting to herself and everyone else that she’s not a lesbian. She exhibits all the behavior of a freaked-out previously-straight woman in her first lesbian relationship: she drinks too much on their first date to bolster her confidence, she won’t hold Casey’s hand in public (except in the lesbian dance club), and although she clearly enjoys sex with Casey, she is never the aggressor sexually.
Ultimately, Lauren breaks off the relationship with Casey because she just can’t “go against the grain.” Dr. Noonan points out that her Lauren’s problem may be that she isn’t capable of a relationship with anyone, that it isn’t that Casey is a woman that is the problem, but that Lauren can’t control Casey.
The fact that Casey is so “absolutely comfortable in the world with herself” is too difficult for Lauren to handle since Lauren is so decidedly uncomfortable with herself.
But even after she breaks it off, Lauren expresses happiness that she “did something daring” for once in her life, or as Dr. Noonan states, she “led with her heart.” Dr. Noonan’s private assessment of the situation is that Lauren “experienced something joyous, but then had it turned into something dirty by the judgment of the outside world, and by her own judgment of herself.”
Written and directed by Lee Rose, who also did the lesbian-themed TV movies The Truth About Jane and An Unexpected Love, A Girl Thing is perhaps her most controversial of the three.Unlike Jane, which posits that sexuality is fixed and innate, Girl asserts that for many women, sexuality is fluid; and unlike Love, which also tells of a heterosexually-identified woman in her mid-thirties who unexpectedly falls for another woman, true love does not win out over social pressure and homophobia in Girl.
On the surface, the plot actually sounds most similar to Kissing Jessica Stein: girl meets girl, girl falls for girl, girl leaves girl because she’s not “gay enough.” In both movies, the lesbian relationship serves as a catalyst for the main characters to open themselves up to the world, but in tone and style, these films are quite different; Kissing Jessica Stein is quirky and more light-hearted while A Girl Thing is more serious (and half as long). A
nd unlike Kissing Jessica Stein’s protaganist Jessica, who feels more of an emotional connection with Helen than a sexual one, Lauren is clearly very sexually attracted to Casey.
Lauren’s story is really more about her struggle to find her place in the world, to believe in herself, than it is about bisexuality. Through her relationship with Casey, we see her finally begin to let down her hair, figuratively and literally: in the beginning, Lauren’s hair is always wound up tightly in a bun, but gradually, as her relationship with Casey progresses, she begins to let it down, and by the end of the story she is wearing it loose down around her shoulders.
Elle Macpherson does an excellent job portraying a woman uncomfortable with herself and her sexuality and paralyzed by her own insecurities. Lauren exhibits a mix of introspection, frustration, humor, and occasional bitterness, and Macpherson communicates Lauren’s emotional and physical hesitancy well.
Kate Capshaw is also convincing as a bisexual woman who is comfortable in her skin. Although Casey is exceedingly understanding and patient, Capshaw avoids making her a saint by allowing the occasional sharp tone or note of frustration creep into Casey’s voice during a few of Lauren’s one-step-forward, two-steps back moments.
The writing in A Girl Thing is some of Rose’s best so far, with one exception: the phrase “career bisexual” that Casey uses to describe herself at one point in the film is awkward and a little odd; it sounds like she makes a living out of being bisexual. But otherwise the dialogue in the movie is consistently captivating: funny in places, poignant in others, and frequently unexpected.
The movie doesn’t shy away from physical affection, either, showing several scenes of the two women kissing and a lengthy (and fairly realistic) sex scene.
In fact, the only real criticism most viewers have expressed is over the ending, since it’s not a happy one. But it’s not an unhappy one, either, and it does realistically portray Lauren’s struggle between fear and desire.
By interweaving Dr. Noonan’s observations about Lauren’s fears and insecurities with Lauren’s story, Rose shifts the focus of the film to Lauren’s discomfort with herself rather than her discomfort with bisexuality. Lauren’s rejection of a relationship with Casey is clearly attributed at least partially to the messages she has absorbed from growing up in a homophobic culture.
This drives home the director’s overriding point: that Lauren is a product of her environment, and it is that homophobic environment that is the problem, not Lauren’s bisexuality. A Girl Thing‘s gift is that it delivers this message effectively without too much preaching, and tells a very entertaining and thought-provoking story along the way.
