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Review of “Lady Trojans”

Lady Trojans is less a film about young lesbians on a high school basketball team than it is an audiovisual diary of the high school experience, viewed through a lesbian lens.

A particularly personal documentary, the film focuses on director Elizabeth Hesik‘s sister Anna, and her friendships and romantic relationships with her teammates, many of who happen to be lesbians.

We begin with a grown Anna reminiscing about her old days as a star player for the Catalina High School Lady Trojans, circa 1990-1993. She takes us through her story, beginning with her freshman year as a new recruit on the team (in both basketball and lesbianism), and continuing through her entire high school experience.

Using present-day interviews with herself and with a variety of friends and teammates, actual 1990s home video footage (these girls apparently brought their camcorder everywhere) and re-creations shot specifically for the documentary, Lady Trojans conjures up a most delightful (and realistic) picture of teenage romance and capital-D drama.

Anna begins playing basketball due to her height, and quickly finds herself wrapped up in a team comprised of very out lesbians.

She’s immediately drawn to one popular, pretty teammate, alienating her straight best friend. She soon begins a love affair with the team’s chief “player,” Quinn, an adorable baby butch who probably slept with every other girl on the team at one point or another. Anna moves on to the equally lovely Vanessa once it becomes clear that Quinn’s not the monogamous type.

From there, there’s drama and heartache as a love triangle ? more like a love web ? forms and the girls break up, come together, have sex, fight, and play basketball. Friendships break down; teenage hormones fly wild; and terrible early 90s fashions are worn.

Certainly, the strongest element of the film is its realism. There’s no airbrushing the zits, no censoring the stories from first sexual encounters, and no mitigating the awkward, gawky attempts at romance. This is high school life, laid bare.

In fact, parts are downright embarrassing to watch. There are scenes where the girls are playing to the camera ? emulating 90s dances, doing “sexy” moves and making funny faces. It’s a blend of innocent, childish stuff with genuine expressions of budding sexuality ? something we rarely see so frankly portrayed onscreen.

There are also scenes where Anna actually reads her high school poetry ? in fact, her love poems ? to the camera, blushing red. Other interviews have Anna stooped over old pictures, making fun of her more awkward (or perhaps less photogenic) phases.

It’s very familiar to anyone who survived their high school days, and about as far from the “Hollywood-ized” representations of teenage life as one can get.

One look at some of the bad hair days and exquisite fashion faux pas depicted in Lady Trojans will send some viewers right back to 1991, minus the gloss from their rose-tinted glasses. Actually, the hair really does deserve special mention here: everything from the mullet to a hilariously described “Kirk Cameron hairdo” is represented, to great effect.

The only false notes are in the staged recreations of notable events.

Scripted from Anna’s recently published young adult novel (which was based on her personal experiences), the filmed sequences are straight out of an After School Special. They’re shot with a sort of blown-out effect, presumably to capture the early 90s vibe, but its really rather cheesy and overdone.

The scenes themselves are well performed (the girl playing Anna is particularly good), and they do keep things running smoothly for the portions of the film where home video/interviews were insufficient, but they certainly could’ve been toned down a bit.

More successful are the creative titles and animated sequences, which are reminiscent of old notebook doodles. They’re cute, effective and visually interesting, and they really fit nicely with the high school vibe.

For a movie about basketball, there’s very little of the actual sport on display. This is partially the point ? Anna herself admits that she was very distracted while playing, and that she basically cared more about her appearance in her “little uniform” than her actual performance on the court.

In this world, athletics are really only an excuse for physical contact and a metaphor for the aggression and competition that young women inevitably find themselves drawn in to. The Trojans may as well have been a knitting club ? since the real sport here was in hooking up with one another.

This is not to say that the whole film centers entirely on sex. The friendships that formed among the young women are poignant and long lasting. In fact, one scene from the present day depicts a sort of “Lady Trojans reunion” wherein team members gay and straight hang out, swap pictures of their children, and reconnect with one another.

The film is very fun to watch, though it can often feel almost uncomfortably personal.

We, as the audience, laugh along with these awkward young girls, remembering the days when writing someone a cheesy love poem was the most romantic thing in the world ? and sure to work. We sigh at the memories of all the drama ? and cringe when the scenes hit a little too close to home.

Certainly, Anna and crew were much more “out” than your average queer teens in the early 1990s, and perhaps they experimented (sexually speaking) more than average high school girls. Still, for anyone who remembers the thrills and the terrors of teenage romance, this film will hit very close to home. And for any young “baby dyke” who ever made an embarrassing home video ? this one is almost certainly for you.

Visit ladytrojansmovie.com for more information on where to see the film, and watch a 10-minute preview here:

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