Madonna And Britney: A Lesbian Rants. - Democratic Underground

Plaid Adder

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Sat Aug-30-03 12:15 PM
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Madonna And Britney: A Lesbian Rants.

While vaccuuming the house this morning, I thought about why things like the Madonna/Britney kiss basically piss me off instead of either turning me on or inspiring me with thoughts of how far lesbian visibility has come.

The main thing is that 95% of the time, whenever I see a representation of lesbian sexuality in mainstream film or TV, it just fails to convince me. The exception that proves the rule, lately, is the German film *Aimee and Jaguar,* which Liza and I watched last weekend. It's a good movie and it's a great love story but it is terribly depressing, because, you know, a story about a Nazi housewife who falls in love with a Jewish resistance fighter in Berlin during the final stages of WWII is gonna be depressing. It was based on a true story, and there are some interviews with the real-life Lily Wust (the Nazi housewife) on the DVD. There is one major sex scene in the film--Lily and Felice's first time--and I had been hearing all kinds of legends about it before I ever saw the movie. In fact, that scene is remarkable, because despite the fact that it was done by a male director with two fairly femmy-looking actresses who as far as I can tell are straight, it really totally works. I think the reasons boil down to this:

1) Although both the actresses are, as I said, pretty femmy looking, they have convincing bodies. By which I mean not that they are not more attractive than 'normal' people (they are) but that they do not obviously appear to have been worked on by a team of surgeons. Neither actress's breasts, for instance, have that strange globular fixity that you get from implants, and they both have stomachs, and their faces and bodies are irregular in small ways.

2) The scene is very intense emotionally because Lily, who has never in her life dreamed of anything like this before falling for Felice, is sort of panicking and yielding at the same time. As extreme as her response is, it is very reminiscent of what it feels like to be doing all this for the first time, and the actress really brings that through with her whole body. So the scene is really about what this means for her, not what it means for the third party watching from the other side of the screen.

3) The kind of amazing thing abotu this when you think about it is that although it is a major sex scene, it basically cuts off at the first kiss. Lily and Felice are both naked for the lead-up to it, and there is a lot of them holding onto each other--while Lily panics, and Felice tries to get her to relax--and then Lily finally does relax, and there's the kiss, and that's the end of it. But I'll tell ya something, there's kissin', and there's kissin'. You thought that Madonna/Britney thing was hot? Go rent Aimee and Jaguar.

Anyway. So here's the interesting thing abotu this, to me: what makes the difference between a representation of lesbian sexuality that works for me and one that doesn't has nothing to do with the identity position of the director and the performers, apparently. It has to do with conceptions about femininty and eroticism that appear to be peculiar to the American mainstream. We bought *People* the other week for some reason and there was a huge article in it about celebrities and plastic surgery. It reads like a horror novel--to us, anyway. And to us, most of these celebrities look better *before* they ahve the surgery. Queen Latifah, for instance, has has breast reduction surgery since *Chicago.* Why, Queen Latifah? Why? They were beautiful! Yes, I know, back problems...still. According to *People,* Drew Barrymore has also had breast reduction surgery, along with a lot of other celebrities. Meanwhile, everyone else is getting breast implants, or breast lifts, or breast whatevers. The general impression you get is that you could work your way through the entire L.A. area before you came across a pair of breasts that are still the way God made them. Meanwhile, it appears to be entirely common for people to have their faces significantly rearranged, and facelifts! Christ! They take off your ears and reattach them? AIGH! Fucking A, people, just *get old!*

Anyway, so the result is that there is practically nothing, in your average Hollywood movie or network TV show, that looks like an actual woman. Britney, for instance, has *always* looked to me like an animated Barbie doll. Madonna is at least an adult with some muscles, but she has certainly had some work done, and her entire aesthetic, mutable though it has always been, has always been based on creating a fascinating illusion through the creative use of makeup and costume. So basically you're watching a Barbie doll make out with a drag queen. Where's the pleasure in that?

I think the reason Ellen DeGeneres coming out was a big deal wasn't that she was a lesbian, it was that she was a lesbian who actually sort of looked like a lesbian. This appears to be the one thing that mainstream America can't handle: women who do not care that they look older than 25, don't wear interestingly carved-up handkerchiefs as outfits in order to show off all their expensive cosmetic surgery, and are really not interested to know whether there are straight men out there who find them hot. And as long as the lips those two women are locking are collagen-enhanced and their bodies are machined to factory-recommended tolerances, there really is nothing lesbian about it, no matter what they may actually be doing.

I am woman, hear me grump.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder