A Different Angle: a random collection of essays and observations, mostly about lesbian/gay/bi issues. © Todd VerBeek, Radio Zero(tm)

Fried Green Tomatoes and Basic Instinct: Two of a Kind

By the time you read this, B.I. Day will have come and gone. That's the day the film Basic Instinct, starring Michael Douglas, hits cinemas across the country. Some are predicting mass demonstrations, and lesbian and gay rights activists have threatened to disrupt the Academy Awards in protest.

By all accounts I've read, Basic Instinct is yet another cliched "thriller" that relies on the old gimmick of a man-hating psycho-killer lesbian. Despite the requests of lesbians and gay men to play down this homophobic stereotyping, or to eliminate the "lesbian angle", the producers went ahead with it. Angry protests and demonstrations at the studio followed, but they still weren't impressed. So now the battle goes to the theaters.

According to a friend in the entertainment industry (he works at one of the local movie complexes), Tri-Star Pictures is warning theaters to be prepared for mobs of angry homosexuals. In some places, I'm sure they will get them, but probably not here in Grand Rapids, where it seems that people simply don't get angry.

By contrast, we've also had the film Fried Green Tomatoes, a film about the relationship between two women in the earlier part of this century. It was an excellent piece of movie-making, with good cinematography, great directing, and wonderful performances by the actresses. But in this case, the "lesbian angle" was taken out, upsetting those who appreciated the subtle, affirming way it was handled in the original book by Fannie Flagg.

There were still subtle hints of the lesbian relationship between the two characters. But anyone who thinks of lesbians in Basic Instinct terms would never consider the possibility that these two might be more than "just good friends". Even the one line, "I love her," came across sounding a lot like socially palatable "sisterly" love.

Fried Green Tomatoes is an excellent film, well worth seeing. But it's still the other side of the Basic Instinct coin. One film shows lesbians, but in a stereotypically negative, distorted light. The other shows women in a very positive, authentic light, but pretends the two are not lesbians. They are both examples of the fact that Hollywood is unwilling to show us as we really are.

Fortunately, there are more movies being made than the ones Hollywood fills our cinemas with. They're usually made by independent film-makers or small studios, and they're a little harder to see. But they're out there, and they're worth the effort.

Comments?

To the Different Angle main menu