Queer women have been in cinema for pretty much as long as movies have been made, but their history in film is tumultuous, and even more often, completely overlooked by audiences.
When motion pictures began getting created more frequently queer women were (shockingly) almost exclusively depicted in porn. In the 1920s-30s, any sort of erotica was incredibly taboo, and accessing film of it was nearly impossible. Interested parties normally turned to peep shows, which were also quite illicit, but a sapphic story of Venus and Aphrodite gained non-mainstream popularity.
In early queer films, sexuality was never explicitly mentioned, but role reversals were used for comedic effect. Queer female couples could be on screen, but one woman had to act as a man, which reinforced heteronormative relationship dynamics, even in queer spaces.
One of the first positive deceptions of queer women on screen was MĂ€dchen in Uniform (1931), a film released in Weimar Republic, Germany, that had a heavy progressive movement in the late 20s. Though the representation was monumental in comparison to its predecessors, the film still has homophobic undertones. FrĂ€ulein and Manuela, the main love interests of the film, are a teacher and student. This is a common trope in queer media due to the bigoted assumption that all queer people are inherently predatory, sexual deviants. MĂ€dchen inspired many other queer female German films that rose to cult status, but all were banned and hidden during Hitler’s regime.
The legacy of MĂ€dchen became overshadowed by an earlier released film Morroco (1930), starring Marlene Dietrich. Displeasure with men is an overarching theme for the main female character, and the film was the first mainstream Hollywood movie to depict a woman kissing another woman, which happens between Dietrich and an audience member during her Cabaret act.
During (and following) the Great Depression, movies became difficult to fund and too expensive for the general public to attend. Filmmakers relied heavily on shock factor to draw in crowds, which led many to believe films had become too corrupt. The 1922-1945 president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, now the Motion Picture Association, Will Hays enacted a strict moral code in 1930 and began enforcing it rigidly in 1934. The Hays Code banned depicting âmorally corruptâ behavior in MPPDA films. While queer relationships werenât even widely acknowledged enough to be outwardly named, âany inference of sex perversionâ was listed as a âDonâtâ under Hays Code.
The Hays Code heavily impacted how queer relationships could be shown on the screen. Homosexuality could in no way be directly depicted, so filmmakers had to heavily rely on queer audiences to infer things from heterosexual films. Often, a slap would be code for a passionate kiss between two female characters. Calamity Jane (1953) is often noted for this sort of queer-coding. The relationship between Calamity Jan and Katie Brown is popularly subjected to lesbian interpretation, citing a scene where the two women move in together, and sing a song called “A Woman’s Touch,â followed by the famous “Secret Love” which is now a popular gay anthem.
Though Hays Code was officially replaced by the MPA rating system in 1968, gay undertones and queer-coding had become an integral part of cinema for queer filmmakers and audiences alike. Female friendship films often involve two heroines who put their relationship with one another above all else. A popular example of this is the 1991 film Thelma & Louise. The title characters are not in a gay relationship but are considered among queer audiences to clearly be coded as a queer female couple.
Queer films have also frequently been subject to the âmorality narrativeâ where any perceived queer female characters must face the consequences for their actions against âwholesomeâ morals. The Childrenâs Hour (1961) utilizes the morality narrative. Though the stage version is more overt in its lesbianism, the film follows two heads of an all-girls school, Martha and Karen, who get in trouble when their student lies and tells people that they are a gay couple. There ends up being real romantic attraction between the women, and the film culminates in Marthaâs suicide, the ultimate punishment for her sexual deviance.
Through the morality narrative, queer women are also depicted as monsters or seductresses. This version is seen in films such as the low-budget German/Spanish cult classic Vampryos Lesbos (1971), and the more mainstream English film The Hunger (1983); a horror/vampire/erotic lesbian film (that David Bowie is in). The âgirls gone wildâ trope is another offshoot of the morality narrative. In queer female filmography, this trope commonly refers to the gay criminal sub-genre. The English film Scrubbers (1983) is a lesbian prison film that paved the way for the subgenre’s popularity in queer cinema. Bound (1996) stars two women in a sexual relationship who con one of their boyfriends out of his wealth and was directed by the Wachowski sistersâ famed trans and queer directors best known for The Matrix films.
As society shifted slightly towards queer acceptance, gay male stories made more strides than female stories did. Though slower moving to take off, the 90s and early 2000s were something of a golden age for queer female cinema. Sassy, quick-witted indie films took on queer identities as an alternative to the heterosexual mainstream films of the period. Films such as the cult classic But Iâm a Cheerleader (1999) and The Watermelon Woman (1996) perfectly encapsulate this newfound voice for lesbian representation in film.
Queer cinema is still heavily affected by its past moderation, the morality narrative often popping up in female love stories. Modern queer audiences often note how difficult it is to come across a film that depicts an explicit queer female couple with a happy ending. In 2015 Carol was one of a kind in that it was a major blockbuster featuring a lesbian couple that has a happyâ albeit ambiguousâ ending. However, In the past year or two, there has been a clear deviation from only allowing women in films to have doomed relationships with one another. Films such as Bottoms (2024) and Drive Away Dolls (2024) have broken barriers by being mainstream films that reject the morality narrative and depict lesbian relationships with positive endings.
Female queer love is in every ounce of cinematic history, you just have to know where to search for it. If you want to celebrate this Valentineâs Day with good old-fashioned girls-kissing-girls cinema, I have included a (LARGE) list of further watchings, so you donât have to do the searching yourself. Happy Valentineâs Day, especially to all the gay girls out there.
Further Viewings:
-The Killing of Saint George (1968)
-Personal Best (1982)
-Silkwood (1983)
-Desert Hearts (1985)
-Go Fish (1994)
-Heavenly Creatures (1994)
-The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love (1995)
-Fire (1996)
-Loving Annabelle (1996)
-Set it Off (1996)
-Chasing Amy (1997)Â
-Gia (1998)
-High Art (1998)
-Boys Donât Cry (1999)
-Kissing Jessica Stein (2001)
-Mulholland Drive (2001)Â
-Lost and Delirious (2001)
-DEBS (2004)
-Saving Face (2004)
-My Summer of Love (2004)
-Imagine Me & You (2005)
-Ninaâs Heavenly Delights (2006)
-Water Lilies (2007)
-I Canât Think Straight (2008)
-Black Swan (2010)
-The Kids Arenât Alright (2010)
-Pariah (2011)
-Circumstance (2011)
-Blue is the Warmest Color (2013)
-Appropriate Behavior (2014)
-Summertime (2015)
-The Handmaiden (2016)
-The First Girl I Loved (2016)
-Signature Move (2017)
-Rafiki (2018)
-Colette (2018)
-The Favourite (2018)
-Hearts Beat Loud (2018)
-The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)
-Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
-The World to Come (2020)
-Ammonite (2020)
-Ma Belle, My Beauty (2021)
-Benedetta (2021)
-Mars One (2022)
-Theater Camp (2023)
-Nyad (2023)
-Drive Away Dolls (2024)
-Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
-In The Summers (2024)
-Housekeeping for Beginners (2024)
-I Saw the TV Glow (2024)