What is a Lesbian Partnership and How to Portray It Sally Wainwright is an excellent screenwriter and director. She wrote some great comedies and family drama, such as At Home With Braithwaites (2000-2003), Last Tango in Halifax (2012-2020), Happy Valley (2014-), Gentleman Jack (2019-) and others. Everything works fine in her work just not when it comes to writing about fictional lesbian characters. For instance, Last Tango in Halifax is great, fun family dramedy, however packed with cliches about lesbians, such as, woman, Caroline (Sarah Lancashire) in her mid 40-is finally admits she is lesbian and gets herself a first real girlfriend, Kate (Nina Sosanya) who wants to have a baby but not through artificial insemination as most lesbians do. She wants to have sex with man she knows him well and on top she dies the next day after her wedding. How many strange features Wainwright could write about a lesbian character? Another prevalent feature in Wainwright's writing is drinking. After Caroline became widow with Kate's daughter, she meets a woman, Olga (Lorraine Burroughs) who sells wine and in the last two episodes of season 5, a famous writer and drunkard, Judith (Ronni Ancona) suddenly realizes she is attracted to Caroline and not her Caroline's ex-husband John (Tony Gardner) with whom Judy previously wanted to get married. In series At Home With Braithwaites we got to know a lesbian character Virginia (Sarah Smart) who is irresponsible, selfish and a nervous chain smoker, likes to drink beer or wine and is indecisive whom she really wishes to be, with her girlfriend Tamsin (Lucy Whelan) or neighbour's wife Megan (Julie Graham). She works as a mechanic on-and-off besides being a university student. How many cliches Wainwright could pack with this lesbian character again? Why not write about Virginia being a fashion designer student who loves to party and is love with one of her models who is indecisive about being either with Virginia or her model peer? Other then that, series is really a great fun! I admit once again, Wainwright work is great and this is shown when she wrote and directed about real life, first modern lesbian Anne Lister in TV series Gentleman Jack. Series is done with great wit, dialogues, action and chemistry between two lead actresses Sourane Jones (Anne) and Sophie Rundel (Ann) as her life woman/heroine was highly intelligent, ambitious and strong woman. I get it Wainwright's motives to write about strong, independent women as I learned through watching interviews with her, I just don't get it why she would attribute the strong, independent and brave women with such stereotypes and prejudices as being dispensable and prone to be played, used, mocked and/or dead. Maybe Wainwright could learn about portrayal of lesbians by watching Canadian web/TV series Féminin/Féminin (2014-2018) by Chloé Robichaud which is done according to the real life lesbians and their relationships. She could learn and use their experiences when she again writes about fictional lesbian storyline and characters. What I also like about Féminin/Féminin series, besides being a nicely done and very believable, is the fact that Robichaud uses mostly feminine actresses and portrays and promotes feminine lesbians which is rare in lesbian community although widely exploited in straight TV series where lesbian characters are played by straight feminine actresses. According to the Lezwatch TV database of all the lesbian, bisexual and queer characters on TV most of those roles are played by straight feminine actresses and only 15%-17% by lesbian and bisexual actresses themselves. What a waste. Wainwright could also learn something about female gaze from another great screenwriter and director Céline Sciamma. Her screenplays and films are about lesbians from entirely female perspective. This is especially true in film Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) where almost entire film consists of female characters which consume most of the screen time and not only that, the contents is mostly about love between two women, Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) and Marianne (Noémie Merlant), and other part about sisterhood and female solidarity. Sciamma also explores what does male gaze to young lesbian and straight women in Water Lilies (2007). However as the art defined by Aristotle (or William IX of Aquitane and William Shakespeare) as either tragedy or comedy Sciamma follows Aristotle's lead and mostly writes about lesbian love stories from tragic perspective. If we look either Sciamma's debut Water Lilies or Portrait of a Lady on Fire both films are about unrequited love despite being great lesbian films. Portrait of Lady on a Fire is certainly refreshing with the absence of male gaze and when compared to so many exclusions of women throughout history almost unique. There have been many areas of social life where women have been excluded, for instance in priesthood, in ancient Greek theatre men played all women roles, even today there are some academic, political and Freemasonry clubs or associations reserved only for men. Therefore I hope next Sciamma's film is going to be again all about female gaze and also a happy lesbian story and the same I wish for Wainwright to write something like that with all her knowledge, skills and experiences. After all, isn't partnership about social proximity, communication, sharing thoughts, emotions, knowledge and experiences and sharing a nice time, joy and enjoyment together in all our intimacy? Intimate partnerships are not only about their usefulness as defined by reproductivity and upbringing kids and this is where most screenwriters fail on proper portraying lesbian storyline as it seems they can't envision what two women could be properly and usefully do together. Maybe I can give them a hint of looking at homosexual relationships as a kind of 'art for art's sake', as joy and happiness being with someone without a certain purposefulness and of course two women can have family and kids together, many do and have them! However, not everything is about symbolically speaking 'fruits and fruitfulness' if you know what do I mean. And is really everything about boredom and humans can't be happy in the absence of frequent chaos, plague, strife and/or death?! Is this also why screenwriters can not portray a happy lesbian love story? Therefore, at this point we could 'theorize' why is it that two women are attracted towards each other if they are not primarily together for children or being used by some perverted or tragic destiny? Are there certain features they are attracted to, is it about their physical appearance or work and position, status, maybe talent, creations, ambition or about their philosophical and/or spiritual world-view? Why not about being a good, honest, fair and faithful loving partner and friend who gives/receives pleasure in sharing intimacy, joy in conversing, sharing thoughts, doing different sort of work together and what about being a good person towards each other and to cherish another human being who is in front of us and present before us when some of the aforementioned criteria are met? I believe we are more or less the same when it comes to being attracted to someone, there is a combination of looks, body gestures, smile, education and knowledge, level of proficiency in conversation, ambitions, achievements, hobbies and aspirations that we are usually attracted to in someone. Or in short, we are attracted to a certain appearance/physique and world-view we can connect to. In this way we can get insight into an 'eternity' with being ourselves and with the loving person besides us. Perhaps for some people this may be easily said then done when there are times when we argue and disagree (sometimes someone can cheat too), however if we know how to resolve disputes and are aware that other relationships are going to repeat the mistakes until we correct them therefore it is better to stay with a person you once declared love for and live that 'eternity insight' with her/him (also with this awareness you realize that sometimes quarrels are not that important and often times useless when proving which ego is more powerful, stronger or whatever your point is to win the argument). Therefore I would go for screenwriters and directors who show happy ever lasting or long-term lesbian love and happy endings. Are there any such writers and/or directors? I am not sure! There are stories with happy endings, but they show the same plot again and again. Todd Haynes movie Carol (2015) with Cate Blanchet (Carol) and Mara Rooney (Therese) – a standard tale of loveless marriage between a controlling, successful man and a lesbian in 50-ies has a happy ending when lesbian divorces and decides to move in with her newly found female lover who just found out she fancies women too. Another rather standard tale is Imagine Me & You (2006) about just married Rachel (Piper Perabo) who unexpectedly falls in love with her lesbian wedding florist Luce (Lena Headey) and they happily get together at the end of the movie, another same love story is Kiss Me (2011) where Mia (Ruth Vega Fernandez) is about to get married to her longtime boyfriend and unexpectedly falls in love with Frida (Liv Mjönes) and cancels wedding. Do you see the pattern and why I argue for a female gaze and love between two women who are happily in everlasting love? Hopefully, we won't have to wait too long to see that!
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Katarina Majerholdphilsopher, lesbian, editor Archives
May 2023
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