Slick Sapphic Lesbian Movies
Buzzfeed style "[X] Best Lesbian Movies to Watch" = hmmm. Many Hetty magazines e.g. Harper's BAZAAR are listing lesbian movies just for lesbian clickbait to drive traffic to their site and fit Google's algorithm (I'm a slick SEO & won't succumb to this).
Indulge me in a moment of movie history reflection, only to spotlight when lesbians started appearing in movies.
When was the first cinema opened to the public?Stab a guess! The first venue to present projected moving pictures to a paying audience (i.e a cinema) was run by the amazing French Lumière brothers in Paris, in December 1895.
So, when do you think was the first movie to feature a LESBIAN Kiss?
Many consider Mädchen in Uniform released in 1931, in the Weimar Republic, to feature the first lesbian kiss and first lesbian themed love story. The kiss was between a grown-up teacher and ... a school pupil which, hmmm, now seems well dodgy. The fablously creative and gay-friendly era of the iconic Weimar Republic came to a nightmare and bloody end with
...
The Nazi regime (1933 and 1945) who erased "Degenerate" gay films across Europe by burning all copies of them. Across the pond, the Hays Code (a set of American film industry guidelines for self-censorship) was implemented between 1934 to 1968 and prohibited "any inference of sex perversion," including homosexuality / lesbiansim in movies. So in the past, Sapphic Cinema was censored and also, dominated by male directors' gaze. Lest we forget that there is still gay / lesbian movie censorship in some countries e.g. the sweet lesbian film Rafiki (2018) was banned by Kenya's film classification board as same-sex relations is illegal in Kenya.
My "Best Lesbian Movies Watchlist" - Why Mine Slick?
Alas, I didn't have the lovely serendipity to meet a princess at: school, Uni nor in the supermarket ... So in the meantime, I sought slick lesbian flicks to discover who I was. Oh my gosh! Some old lesbian movies made me want to run in front of a double-decker bus (e.g. The Killing of Sister George)! But, thank Gawd for the refreshing lesbian movies of the 90s like the fab beecharming Fried Green Tomatoes, Go Fish's lush Guinevere Turner ... which tipped me over!
Forgive my art house cinema snobbery (I worked at a slick art-house cinema while studying), at first, for my compilation of old to recent lesbian movies to put on your watch list, I included only my fav slick lesbian movies. THEN, I became aware of the Hays Code (a set of American film industry guidelines for self-censorship, between 1934 to 1968, which claused "Any inference of sex perversion") and realised... why lesbian characters (who I could not empathise with) had been troped in old movies. Though this is not a definitive list of lesbian movies, I have included the good, the bad and the ugly (e.g. CRINGEVILLE CITY The Kids Are All Right!).
What pricked up my ears while compiling this lesbian movie list:
The Hays Code
In America, The Motion Picture Production Code (aka The Hays Code, named after its creator Will H. Hays) was first published in March 1930 which introduced film censorship in the US through stating a series of guidelines to film producers. The Hays Code directly influenced the content of almost every American film made between 1930 and 1968, when the Motion Picture Association of America introduced a ratings system.
The Hays Code was based on three general principles:
- "No movie shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin."
- "Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented."
- "Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation."
These were developed into a series of rules: Crimes Against The Law, Sex, Vulgarity, Obscenity, Profanity, Costume, Dances (i.e. suggestive movements), Religion, Locations (i.e. the bedroom), National Feelings, Titles and "Repellent Subjects" (extremely graphic violence). No movies could show "Any licentious or suggestive nudity - in fact or in silhouette; and any lecherous or licentious notice thereof by other characters in the picture". Under the Hayes code not only was same-sex relationships, or romance ruled out - any sexual act was considered perverted. No French kissing in the USA - in movies, The Hays limited kissing scenes to 3 seconds or less to avoid showing "excessive and lustful kissing"!
- The first (non-pornographic) onscreen female orgasm: Actress Hedy Lamarr is considered to have performed the first (non-porno) onscreen female orgasm in the Czech movie "Ecstasy" (1933). In 1935, "Ecstasy" became the first movie in U.S. history to be banned by the Hays Code from entering the US. Only an edited version received approval in 1936. (Hedy Lamarr is a legend - she was inaugurated in to the National Inventors Hall of Fame for being co-inventor of "frequency hopping" technology that was developed during WW2 as a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes and that is still used today for cell phones.)
- The first American movie featuring bare breasts: The 1964 Holocaust film "The Pawnbroker" directed by Sidney Lumet is considered the first American movie featuring bare breasts - on appeal the film had been granted an exception on the condition that there was a "reduction in the length of the scenes which the Production Code Administration found unapprovable".
The Hays Code, however, didn't specify details on same-sex kissing and cross-dressing.
The Hays Code Led To Queer-coding & Lesbian Stereotypes
The only way to circumvent the code was by painting homosexuals and lesbians as villains and that they always paid for their crimes. In addition, original gay theatre plays and novels which were more out, were censored for movie versions.
Due to the Hays Code, lesbian characters were often portrayed as obsessive older mannish woman who lechered over young femme woman and "Bull daggers" who were consequently doomed to punishment (Rebecca's housekeeper, All About Eve's fan, Walk on the Wild Side possessive Madame). Then there were the boarding school/ uni romances (The Wild Party, Mädchen in Uniform, Olivia ...) perhaps reflecting at the time that male homosexuality was a crime and for many countries sapphic love was not a crime. Even international directors who did not need to adhere to the code... The Killing of Sister George seriously freaked me out, and I couldn't watch it all. And seriously lesbian vampire movies?
Sapphic Movie Titillations
Again, I cringe at the thought of the vintage lesbian vampire movie genre. Forgive me, if I get your knickers in a twist but I do question some male directors as to why they made sapphic movies even if they were art house cinema heroes such as Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Ingmar Bergman's Persona, and other male directors like Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy ... and now I hear screams from you, for including Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue Is The Warmest Color. And why did some male directors include an unnecessary girl-on-girl kiss, take 1: Basic Instincts, Cruel Intentions, Spring Breakers ...
Lesbian Movie Trailblazers
I salute the early classic lesbian movie directors like Dorothy Arzner for her 1929 - The Wild Party. Then Katharine Hepburn for her gender-bending role in 1935 - Sylvia Scarlett when the Hays code was five years in place and the 1961 - The Children's Hour even though it had to be cut. For me The Hunger, Desert Hearts, The Colour Purple kicked it off, on mainstream. Bravo and thank you to the heroic lesbian directors who really felt what they were directing and to some of the boys who so warmly directed their movies. Without some of these stellar lesbian movies and no lucky strike, chance meeting, for sure I would have been deliberating longer to step alone, with herat beat pouding into my first lezza club (Il Sottomarino Giallo NightClub, Milano) !
1882: The Kiss
Eadweard Muybridge's The Kiss (1882) features both the first ever motion-picture projection of a kiss and the first kiss between two women. Coincidentally, the two ladies happened to be ... naked (GASP)! Spoiler Alert, to stop you popping rainbow party poppers prematurely - it is unlikely the two women were queer. For sure the sapphic kiss was contrived for the titillating male gaze.
Eadweard Muybridge (1830 - 1904) is famous for his pioneering zoopraxiscope's / stop-motion animations e.g. iconic "The Horse In Motion" (1878) which were studies in "movement". Check out the documentary about Eadweard Muybridge's The Kiss.
Dir: Eadweard Muybridge
1902 - Sage Femme De Première Classe
Young couple go shopping for a baby, where babies are born in a ... cabbage patch!
Translated as Midwife to the Upper Class. The female director (Alice Guy) plays the husband - quite trailblazing for movies at the time as theatrical male impersonators were becoming passé in theatre.
Dir: Alice Guy-Blaché | Alice Guy-Blaché & Yvonne Serand
1914 - A Florida Enchantment
Young heiress discovers a magic seed that can make women act like men and vice versa. Of course she takes one, then slips one to her maid and her philandering fiancé ...
A totally bizarre movie plot! So far, A Florida Enchantment is believed to be the first documented appearance of bisexual characters in an American movie and a kiss between two women. Note Eadweard Muybridge's The Kiss of 1882 was a zoopraxiscope (that used a glass disc with images of moving subjects that spun in a projector, creating the illusion of motion on a screen) and therefore does not constitute a "cinema" release.
Dir: Sidney Drew | Edith Storey
