Again - On the Importance of Representation
»… When the film Aimée & Jaguar came out in the 90s, I took the train to the cinema and absorbed it with all my soul. To tell these stories, but also to have role models like Maren Kroymann, Ulrike Folkerts or Hape Kerkeling - that is incredibly important so that you can feel for yourself: Who can I be in this world? Who I want to be in this world? Many people will understand that you need role models from whom you can grow. That's why we are convinced that visibility is very important … «. Eva Mechbach (»I noticed that people see me different« 5.2.2021) »One of the first things Harvey Weinstein ever said to me was, ‘You will never make it in this industry as a gay woman – get a beard,’ Cara Delevigne (»Cara Delevingne Says Harvey Weinstein Told Her to "Get a Beard« 14.9.2019) Time and again I have said that representation of the most under-represented group of women, lesbian, is of at most importance. Representation matters, a proper representation even more and not only from the story wise point of view but also by actresses playing lesbian and bisexual roles. Let me point out how important latter is by saying: can you imagine the situation when straight actresses could be told not to tell they are straight because they would not get roles playing lesbian and bisexual woman? And why wouldn't get the roles? Because the producer and/or director would assume that straight women can't play lesbian women. Both above citations prove my point. Therefore let us look once more which well-known actresses are lesbian or bisexual women. Recently I was taken by complete surprise when I discovered that someone I fancied as an actress is in fact a lesbian. This weekend I learnt that UK/USA actress Catherine Bell (1968-) has been in a lesbian relationship with Brooke Daniels for almost a decade (2012-). Bell played in numerious well-known TV series, such as JAG (1995-2005), Army Views (2007-2014), Good Witch (2015-). In March 2021 a young actress Ella Hunt came out as queer, explaining her love for women with the twit 'I love women'. Hunt plays in TV series Dickinson (2019-), Cold Feet (2016-2020). Actress and writer Maria Bello has been engaged to Dominique Crenn since 2020. Bello is most known for The Coyote Ugly, 2000 and many other film roles. She also played bisexual in Goliatah (2016-) and NCIS (2016-2021). In March 2021 Jen Atkin, Miss Great Britain 2020 winner came out as a bisexual and English actress Erin Doherty (playing princess Anna in Crown, 2016-) has a girlfriend Sophia Melville. German actress Karin Hanczewski (known for her role in Tatort and many others) has girlfriend Cornelia Groeschel and Germans actress Ulrike Folkerts has been in long-term relationship with Katharina Schnitzler. And last but not least, Eva Meckbach (known for her roles Rampensau, 2019– , Der König von Köln 2019, Tanze Tango mit mir 2021) is single. Let me conclude this brief article again on the importance of the representation with saying that casting of the actresses is very important and casting certain actresses for the roles is also a matter of awareness and political correctness.
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LIST OF AUTHORS From Philosophy, History, Science to Art... (regardless of the sex and sexual orientation) PHILOSOPHY 1. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson: Philosophy in the Flesh, the Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought 2. Pierre Hadot: Philosophy as a Way of Life 3. Mary Warnock: An Intelligent Persons Guide to Ethics 4. Martha Nussbaum: The Therapy of Desire, Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics 5. Ed. Adrienne Leigh McEvoy: Sex, Love and Friendship 6. Igor Primoratz: Ethics and Sex 7. Aristotle: Selected Works 8. Plato: Selected Works 9. Michel Foucault: Life and Praxis of Freedom 10. Grimsley: The Philosophy of Rousseau 11. Katarina Majerhold: History of Love (Ljubezen skozi zgodovino) 12. Katarina Majerhold: Living (Živeti) 13. Martha Nussbaum: Why Democracy Needs Humanities (Not for profit) 14. Jean Jacques Rousseau: Social Contract 15. Michel de Montagine: On Friendship 16. Michel de Montaigne: Essays 17. Adam Phillips & Barbara Taylor: On Kindness 18. Todorov Tzvetan: Frail Happiness 19. Francois Lytorad: Postmodern Condition 20. Frederic Jameson: Postmodernism 21. Michail Mihajlovič Bachtin: Towards a Philosophy of the Act 22. Germain Greer: The Whole Woman 22. Andrew Sullivan: Virtually Normal 23. Michel Hardt and Antiono Negri: Common-wealth 24. Roland Barthes: Fragments of Loving Discourse 25. Michel Foucault: History of Sexuality 1,2,3 26. Ed. Sharon M. Kaye: What Philosophy Can Tell you about Your Lover (Katarina Majerhold, The Gift) 27. Gilles Deleuze: 1000 Plateaus 28. Denis de Rougemont: Love in the Western World 29. Martha Nussbuam: Uppheavals of Thought, The Intelligence of Emotions 30. Martha Nussbaum: The Fragility of Goodness 31. Immanuel Kant: What is Enlighment 32. Immanuel Kant: Metaphysics of Morals 33. Immanuel Kant: Critique of Practical Reason 34. Immanuel Kant: Critique of Judgement 35. Karl Marx: Selected works 37. St. Agustine: Selected works 38. Marquis de Condorcet: Sketch for A Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Spirit 39. Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari: What is Philosophy 40. Simone de Beauvoir: Second Sex 41. Elizabeth Grozs: Volatile Bodies 42. Empedocles: Purification 43. Empedocles: On Nature 44. Martin Heidegger: Being and Time SPIRITUALITY 44. Lao Tse: Tao the Ching 46. Shinichi Hisamatsu: Die fulle des nichts (vom wessen des zen), Satori and Atheism 47. Shinichi Hisamatsu: Zen Talks on The Record of Linji 48. Maja Milčinski: Four Books: Confucious, Menacius, Great Teaching, Teaching about Middle Way 49. Francois Jullien: L'Eloge de la Fadeur (Praise of Blandness, Proceeding from Chinese Thought and Aesthetics) 50. Francois Jullien: The Great Image Has no Shape or On the Non-Object Through Painting 52. Carl Sagan: The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A personal view of the search of God 53. Shintou 54. Rumi's Poetry 55. Hafiz Poetry 56. Krishnamurti SCIENCE & COSMOLOGY 56. Alan Whiteside: HIV/AIDS, A Very Short Introduction 57. Thomas S. Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 58. Nassim N. Taleb: The Black Swan 59. Evan Thompson: Mind in Life, Biology, Phenomenology and the Sciences of Mind 60. Geoffrey Miller: The Mating Mind, How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature 61. John H. Gillespie: Population Genetics 62. Rudi Ocepek: Upbringing For a Responsible Attitude Towards the Nature, overcoming the Prejudices Towards Animals 63. Luc Ferry: New Ecological Order 64. Stephen W. Hawking: A Brief History of Time, from the Big Bang to Black Holes 65. Brian Green: The Fabric of the Cosmos 66. Andreas Weber: Emotional Evolution (Nature) 67. David Bohm: Holographic Universe 68. George Church, Ed Regis: Regenesis: How Synthecic Biology will Reeinvent Nature and Ourselves 69. David Bohm: On Dialogue 70. Darwin: Natural and Sexual Selection 71. Stephen J. Gould: Mismeasure of Man 72. Stephen J. Gould: Punctuated Equilibrium 73. Stephen J. Gould: Evolution as Fact and Theory 74. Arvid Kappas & Nicole C. Kramer: Face-to-Face Communication over Internet (Emotions in Webculture, Language and Technology) HISTORY 75. Albert O. Hirschman: The Passions and the Interests. Political Arguments for Capitalism Before Its Triumph 76. Paul Johnson: Intellectuals 78. Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of The Rights of the Women 79. Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot: A History fo Women 1,2,3 80. Georges Duby: The orders, Feudal Society Imagined 81. Georges Duby: The Knight, The Lady and the Priest 82. Philippe Aries: Infant and Family life in the Old Regime 83. Fernand Brudel: Civilisation and Capitalism (15-18th century) 84. Fernand Brudel: The Structures of Everyday life 85. Francois Furet: Interpreting the French Revolution 86. Peter Gay: The Enlightenment: The Science of Freedom 87. Pierre Hadot: Excersises Spirituales et Philosophie antique 88. Jacques Le Geoff: Intelectualls in the Middle Ages 89. Jacques Le Geoff: Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages 90. Robert Graves: Greek Myths ARTS 91. Julia Buckroyd: The Student Dancer: Emotional Aspects of the Teaching and Learning of Dance 92. Mark Rothko: The Artist's Reality 93. Arthur C. Danto: The Philosophical Disenfranchisment of Art 94. Boris Groys: Antiphilosophy 95. Boris Groys: Theory of (post)Modern Art 96. Aleš Erjavec: Love at Last Sight 97. David Raizman: History of Modern Design 98. Ed. Charlotte and Peter Fiell: Designing the 21. st century 99. Guliana Bruno: Atlas of Emotion, Journey in Art, Architecture and Film 100. Nathan Dunne: Tarkovsky 101. Dorothy Schefer: What is Beauty? 102. Object Lessons, Beauty and Meaning in Art 103. Valerie Mender & Amy De la Haye: 20th Century Fashion 104. Phaidon: Fruits 1,2 105. John Berger: Ways of Seeing 106. John Berger: Selected Essays of John Berger 107. Eh Gombrich: The Story of Art 108. Eh Gombrich: Art and Illusion 109. Hugh Honor: A world history of Art 110. Erwin Panofsky: Meaning in the Visual Arts 111. Martin Heidegger: The Origin of the Work of Art LITERATURE AND POETRY 112. Marcel Proust: Swan's Way 113. Thomass Mann: Magic Mountain 114. Thomas Mann: Death in Venice 115. Srečko Kosovel: Integrals 116. Frans Emil Sillannpaa: Life and Sun 117. Margerit Duras: Lovers 118. Elfried Jelinek: Women as Lovers 119. Robert Musil: Confusions of Young Torless 120. Robert Musil: Man Without Qualites 121. Samuel Beckett: Novels and Texts for Nothing 122. Raymond Carver: Selected Stories 123. Jeannete Winterson: Written on the Body 124. Shakespeare: Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet 125. Vergil: Eneid 126. Sovre: About Poetry (Homer, Plato, Hesiod, Horatius, Aristotle) 127. James Joyce: A Portrait of The Young Man as an Artist 128. James Joyce: Ulysses 129. Ovid: Metamorphoses 130. Hallador Laxness: Islandic Bell 131. Friederich Holderlin: Hyperion 132. Simone de Beuvoir: The Coming of Age 133. Guy de Maupassant: Our Hearts 134. Voltaire: Candid 135. Octavio Paz: Selected Essays 136. Rene Char: Selected Poems 137. Daglarca: Selected Poems 138. Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Poems 139. Rainer Maria Rilke: Selected Poems (Divine Ellegies) 140. Octavio Paz: Selected Poems 141. Rene Breton: Selected Poems 142. Selected Poems 143. Walt Whitman: Selected Poems 144. William Wordsworth: Selected Poems 145. Lord Byron: Selected Poems 146. Williman Blake: Selected Poems 147. Percy Shelley: Selected Poems 148. Thomas S. Elliot: Selected Poems 149. Lewis Carrol: Alice in Wonderland 150. Henrik Ibsen: Selected Dramas 151. August Strindberg: Selected Dramas 152. Henry Miller: Selected Dramas 153. Nikolaj Gogolj: Dead Souls 154. Federico Garcia Lorca: Selected Poems and Dramas 155. Guillaume Appolinaire: Selected Poems and Dramas EMOTIONS & LOVE 156. Scherer, Klaus R., A Schorr and T. Johnstone: Appraisal Processes in Emotions 157. Wollheim, R.: On the Emotions 158. Oakley, Justin: Morality and the Emotions 159. Greenspan, Patricia: Emotions and Reasons: An Inquiry into Emotional Justification 160. Chapman and Hall and Rorty A. ed.: Explaining Emotions 161. Salomon, Robert: The Passions 162. Anthony Giddens: The Transformation of Intimacy, Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies 163. Denis de Rougemont: Love in the Western World 164. Simone de Beauvoir: Second Sex 165. Alan Soble: The Philosophy of Love and Sex The Portrayal of Elder Lesbians on Film3/19/2021 The Portrayal of Elder Lesbians on Film I understand that stories serve as models for how to live, act, behave and emotion. In ancient Greece the stories show that the actions, thoughts and emotions were mediated by deities. In the medieval period emotions, actions, thoughts were modified according to deity, in the Enlighten period man for the first time tried to rely only on its will, power, capabilities. And when we write about stories they should lead with examples of how to deal with life. Since the beginning of times stories have been about the moral guidelines, how to lead either a good or bad life, happy or unhappy lives, it is about character's choices that lead to either side. Oedipus (Sophocles), Antigone (Sophocles), Medea (Euripides), Agamemnon (Aeschylus) are all standard tales about providence and moral choices. Tristan and Isolde (unknown), Juliet and Romeo (Shakespeare), Julie; or, The New Heloise (Rousseau), Black and white (Stendhal), Dangerous Liaisons (de Laclos) are all standard tales about desire and not love. Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility (Austen), Clarissa (Richardson), Gone with the Wind (Mitchell) are romantic novels in which love is seen as unity of two souls and where love leads to marriage. Ulysses (Joyce), In Search of Lost Time (Proust), Lover (Duras), Lovers (Jelinek) are about the notion of the self, time and search for the self, while love is represented through different historical notions (as liberation of woman's passion, woman's freedom). There is no classical lesbian love story or even a happy lesbian love story. If there are not great classical tales of lesbian love in literature, there are some good lesbian love stories in films. There has been progress in the direction of a happy ending in recent years. I am not talking about great but good and decent lesbian films, like Imagine Me and You (Parker), Kiss me (Keining), Carol (Haynes). In the article Future of Lesbian Films (2019), I argued that we should watch more films about elder lesbians. I was pleasantly surprised that we finally got not one but two films about elderly lesbians, i.e. elder lesbian couples in the last couple of years. It has been about time that someone tackled this issue. First I watched Two of Us (2019) by Filippo Meneghetti. Despite starring an impressive actress Barbara Sukowa, the film is nothing extraordinary, but it is a decent drama. I like the fact that the director showed a European film about love without borders, a French-German old lesbian couple and how two women managed to stay together all their lives. We are presented with flash memories into the childhood of both protagonists, German Nina Dorn (Barbara Sukowa) and French Madeliene Girard (Martine Chevallier) – how they met, fell in love and stayed in touch throughout their adult lives into retirement. With the retirement Nina bought an apartment to Madeliene's next door in order that they could be together almost every time they wished and eventually move in together when Madeliene's husband died. The film opens at the point when Nina and Madeliene discuss Madeliene's coming out to their grown-up children, Anne (Léa Drucker) and Frédéric (Jérôme Varanfrain) and selling her apartment. Madeliene puts the flat on the market with the estate agent making an estimated worth and preparing for the meeting with the children. As it happens, Madeliene couldn't come out to her children and called off selling the flat. We are faced with an emotional confrontation between Nina and Madeliene when Nina loudly asked the estate agent if he minded them being old dykes on the street. Madeliene ashamed tried to shut off Nina who angrily left, telling Madeliene to leave her alone. Madeliene surprised by Nina's anger and 'absence' is pushed into inner turmoil which caused her sudden stroke that leaves her paralyzed on one side and unable to talk. When Nina hears about what happened to Madeliene she tries to visit her in the hospital and later is at home but Madeliene's children don't allow her frequent visitation since they don't know about their relationship. Madeliene's daughter Anne becomes especially suspicious of Nina's invasive behaviour and suddenly finds out that Nina was always present in Madeliene's life when browsing through family photo album. At that point we realize that Madeliene was right about being cautious regarding revealing the relationship to her children as we realize Anne's homophobia that causes to prevent Nina's visits even more. Nina falls into despair not being able to see and help Madeliene to the point of kidnapping her from the retirement home and also being robbed. In this film we see what can happen to an old lesbian couple if they are not both out and proud. We can also see what can happen if one of the women has an internalized homophobia. This can be transferred to their children too and last but not least, it can be emotional and physical devastating for both partners. Madeliene always excused her being in the closet by living in the small 'south' town where people have prejudices and make vicious gossip but as Nina's pointed out it is just a matter a personal approach and braveness to live an openly lesbian life. If a person did not mind what others think and gossip then people would be more accepting and friendly. And that is exactly what happens with a brave couple of elder lesbians in their 70s, Sofia (Verónica Forqué) and Celia (Rosa María Sardà), living in a small town in film So My Grandma's a Lesbian (2019) by Ángeles Reiné. Celia and Sofia are not afraid to show their family and friends that they are in love and announce their plan to get married, ultimately deciding to be who they are regardless of what others think. Or as Sofia says: »You have to live life fearlessly. It’s the only way to be happy« . However, if Cecilia and Sofia are free and happy about being themselves most of those close to the women react to their news in a melodramatic, puerile and frankly homophobic way. This is particularly seen in the character Eva (Ingrid García-Jonsson), Sophia's granddaughter who tries to break up the wedding due to her ultra conservative in laws, and also seen in Jorge (David Verdaguar), Celia’s son, who thinks his mother needs to see a neurologist. Watching the story and characters' opinions unfold in these contemporary, slightly more progressive time, serves only to evoke annoyance and anger in the viewer. It is non progressive and unoriginal. Notably, though, something I appreciated in the film was its use of religion as the problem and the solution. Religion in the film is a big reason why characters take the unaccepting positions that they do, it is also the solution for the two women: as Celia often expresses, God made her the way she is and so God has to accept her for being lesbian. It is quite refreshing to see religion being used for open rather than just narrow mindedness, especially in a lesbian film. Film My Grandmother is a Lesbian is a positive and light film filled with humour and a happy ending. Despite trying to be all-inclusive with different story-lines, which films sometimes confuses instead of clarifies, the humour makes it light and without complaining that it wishes to be overly political correct. Most of all, it breaks the taboo about elder people and their proclamation of love. It also shows that true love is a long-lasting despite the fact there may be some obstacles, but people truly in love find ways to overcome it. What both films have in common is how times have changed in favor of lesbian women. Nowadays lesbians can marry, have a family, work and live together without complying to any man, whereas films show how elder lesbians had or thought that they had to marry men, had families with them while loving a woman of her life. They became strong and brave to come out only in old age when their husbands died and children grew up. Only then or now they insist on the importance of marrying and coming out of the closet or 'wardrobe' as claims one of the protagonists in the film My Grandma is a Lesbian. She claims that even saying 'coming out of the closet' sounds so masculine and that lesbians should insist on saying 'coming out of the wardrobe' because this sounds more feminine. What a nice comparison of the use of language. However, as both films also point out despite some social progression homophobia regarding elder lesbians is still present. P.S. Soon I am going to watch a short film Time & Again (UK, 2019) about elder lesbians as well. Katarina Majerholdphilsopher, lesbian, editor Archives
May 2023
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