Archive

Review of “Higher Learning”

It is no surprise that director John Singleton’s movie Higher Learning didn’t do well at the box office when it premiered in 1995. A movie primarily about race relations with a cast of actors who were mostly unknown at the time and a story that includes fraternity rape, bisexuality, neo-nazi violence, and a tragic ending is pretty much a marketing director’s worst nightmare.

Throw in bisexuality and lesbianism, and you’ve really got a marketing problem on your hands.

It was a testament to John Singleton’s credibility within Hollywood at the time that the movie got made at all. Fresh from the success of 1991’s Boys in the Hood (and the not-so-successful Poetic Justice of 1993), Singelton was clearly attempting to chart new territory with Higher Learning.

The movie follows the lives of three freshman at a state university: Kristen, played by Kristi Swanson (star of the first Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie); Malik, played by Omar Epps (Love and Basketball, The Wood and previously a regular on ER), and Remy, played by Michael Rappaport (Boston Public).

The film also has an extremely large number of supporting characters played by notable actors, including Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) as Taryn, the lesbian student to whom Kristen finds herself drawn. Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix), Ice Cube (Barbershop, Friday, Three Kings), Tyra Banks (Love and Basketball, Coyote Ugly), Regina King (If These Walls Could Talk 2), and Cole Hauser (All Over Me, School Ties, Good Will Hunting).

Epps’ Malik is a rather angry young track star who has a difficult time adjusting to the demands of college at first. The movie follows him as he falls for another (female) athlete (Banks), gets his hat handed to him by a gruff-but-caring professor (Fishburne), and tries to absorb the double-standards and racial tensions that exist on campus.

Rappaport’s Remy is a confused, lonely freshmen who doesn’t quite fit in, and the film follows his transition to a vengeful Skinhead who ultimately turns to violence when he cannot make sense of his place in the world.

Swanson’s character Kristen is a confused, naive freshman woman who tries too hard to fit in to the party-hard Greek scene, until she is raped one night by a frat boy who has had too much to drink. Afterwards, she tells her roommate Monet (King), who calls up her (black) friends to go to the (all-white) frat house and kick some ass. The ensuing confrontation between the black and white men is clearly about more than just the rape.

In the weeks and months following the rape, Kristen stops trying to fit into the party scene and starts attending women’s safety groups with Taryn. As a slightly New Age-y lesbian with long hair and simple clothing, Taryn is played convincingly by Connelly. Taryn is soft-spoken and kind, befriending Kristen in her first days at the University, and then taking care of Kristen after she is raped by a fraternity player. Although the word “lesbian” or “bisexual” is never spoken, somewhere along the way Kristen figures out that Taryn plays for the other team, and she finds herself inexplicably drawn to her.

Taryn, who recognizes Kristen’s growing attraction to her even before Kristen does, is cautious: although it is clear she likes Kristen, Taryn is content to let the friendship develop at its own pace. When Kristen asks Taryn one night if she wants to stay over, Taryn resists, asking “are you sure you’re ready for that?” and although Kristen pretends not to fully understand, she can no longer ignore what is going on between them.

Meanwhile, Kristen meets Wayne, an artistic, long-haired freshman who she gradually begins to trust despite a fear of men since the rape. Kristen’s relationship with both of them culminates in a sequence of sexual scenes in which Taryn and Wayne are repeatedly interchanged–i.e. Kristen leans in to kiss Taryn, who then turns into Wayne, who later turns back into Taryn, and so forth–ostensibly to show Kristen’s sexual experimentation and her attraction to both Wayne and Taryn.

Kristen’s storyline ends at a University gathering with her looking back and forth between Taryn and Wayne, as if trying to decide which one she wants.

Like most mainstream movies, Higher Learning’s depiction of lesbianism and bisexuality is both compelling and problematic. On the one hand, such an honest portrayal of bisexuality in a mainstream film was almost unheard of in 1995 (and is still rare today); on the other hand, the movie leaves the impression that Kristen’s bisexuality may be the result of the rape (since she didn’t indicate any interest in Taryn until afterwards) and thus positions it as a retreat from men rather than an attraction towards women.

And although Taryn is a very likeable character and in many ways un-stereotypical (especially compared to other representations of lesbians in mainstream films of the mid-90’s), she still reinforces the stereotype of lesbianism as fundamentally anti-male since not only does Taryn appear to have only female friends, but she seems to spend most of her time recruiting women to attend women-only safety meetings. In other words, her entire existence is defined around protecting herself and other women from men.

Safety for women is an important issue, of course (especially on college campuses), and the character of Taryn is certainly realistic. But since this was one of the only representations of lesbians in mainstream movies at that time, it is unfortunate that Singleton chose to emphasize this aspect of Taryn’s character since it only reinforces negative stereotypes about lesbians.

Interchanging Taryn and Wayne in the sex scene also smacks of Singleton trying to have his cake and eat it too. By intercutting the images the way he did, Singleton avoids actually showing sexual contact between women (since it’s not entirely clear what Kristen did and did not do and with whom) while exploiting the sensationalism that is inevitably associated with any sexual activity between women in mainstream film. It’s also just an annoying scene to watch.

The buildup of sexual tension between the two women is well done, however, and the film does a good job of making both characters three-dimensional, even if Taryn could have been a little more well-rounded.

In comparison to the mainstream movies with lesbian characters that immediately preceded this film–1993’s Three of Hearts and 1994’s Sister My Sister and Heavenly Creatures–the way lesbianism and bisexuality is portrayed in Higher Learning is a huge leap forward. Just the fact that neither of the women in Higher Learning killed anyone, slept with their sister, or sacrificed their own happiness for the male lead constituted major progress at the time.

Within two years following the release of Higher Learning, positive lesbian characters began cropping up in a wide array of mainstream films, from Bound to Chasing Amy to The First Wives Club. While this change was the result of the collision of a number of social and economic factors, early 90’s films like Higher Learning which presented a positive (or at least neutral) view of lesbian sexuality contributed to this change by chipping away at the wall of negative lesbian images previously offered by mainstream entertainment.

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

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button