‘Gigli’ and the Male Fantasy of the Lesbian Turned Straight

Written by Amanda Rodriguez
Gigli, the abomination masquerading as a film, is generally regarded as a pretty dang terrible movie. Plot? Action? Character development? Pathos? Entertainment? Nah, Gigli does away with those archaic devices and goes straight for the…boredom, offensiveness, unlikeable characters, and bad, bad, badness. How Christopher Walken and Al Pacino were coerced into cameos must’ve involved black magic or scandalous photo documentation. We won’t even get into the fact that two supposedly trained “contractors” (contractors for what exactly? poorly delivered dialogue?) are hired to watch Brian, a hostage who is differently abled, apparently suffering from “brain damage,” and Larry Gigli (Ben Slimeball-Face Affleck) constantly ridicules, yells at, and name-calls Brian due to his condition. Instead let’s focus on the hallowed converted-lesbian trope that Hollywood loves so well.
Celebrate by NOT watching this atrocity.
Yes, Hollywood loves to take lesbian characters, introduce them to men who are just so irresistible that aforementioned lesbian sees the penis…er…light, and changes her lesbionic ways. A few examples of this are Chasing Amy (starring Ben Affleck yet again, what a shocker) and the inexplicably critically acclaimed The Kids Are All Right, Puccini for Beginners, and Prey for Rock & Roll starring Gina Gershon of Bound fame. We get into some murky territory with many of these films because sexuality is fluid, and I am certainly not in the business of defining anyone’s sexuality for them. However, Gigli is a cut-and-dry case of the hetero disbelief that sex and, in particular, female sexuality can exist without the involvement of a penis.
Only he isn’t a “sissy gangster’; he’s a fuck-up with very few legitimate feelings in need of expression.

Jennifer Lopez’s Ricki is a sexay lesbian “contractor” on a job with the devoid-of-redeeming-qualities Larry Gigli. They mostly hang out in his dumb apartment (budget constraints perhaps) and share his bed at night. Ricki consistently baits Gigli with her unattainable sexuality, leaving him in a frenzy of sexual frustration. With much eloquence, he says:

“I got this fucking beautiful-sexy-gorgeous-hearthrob-o-rama-fucking-smart-amazing-bombshell-17-on a fucking 10 scale-girl sleeping in a bed right next to me and you know what? She’s a stone cold dyke. A fucking untouchable, unhave-able, unattainable brick wall fucking dyke-a-saurus rexi. So it’s sad.”

Can you believe her panties didn’t catch on fire at those Cyrano words of wooing? I guess we’re supposed be like, “Yeah, buddy, that’s rough…it sucks when a woman wants to not give her vagina to you.” Not only that, but Gigli attempts to seduce Ricki by flexing and showing off his bad tattoos after yelling at her that he’s the bull in their relationship and she’s the cow. A real charmer, eh?

A long sexay yoga scene replete with a monologue about the vagina.

We also meet Ricki’s insecure, paranoid, stalker girlfriend, Robin, who proceeds to slit her wrists for effect when Ricki breaks up with her. After a trip to the emergency room, maybe the uncouth Gigli is looking a little more appealing? It’s hard to see this over-the-top interaction as anything other than hyperbolic stereotyping implying that lesbian relationships are nothing but drama.Inevitably (why it is inevitable I don’t know), Ricki and Gigli do the nasty, and boy is it nasty. It’s hard to imagine they dated in real life because their sex scene is awkward at best and more accurately described as “just plain gross.”

I never, ever want to see Ben Affleck mounting anyone ever, ever again.

Ricki initiates the foreplay and asks Gigli to perform cunnilingus on her by saying, “It’s turkey time. Gobble, gobble.” More alluring words were never spoken on the silver screen. He hems and haws and never actually gives her what she asks for, which is the film’s way of subverting female desire and reasserting the supremacy of not only male desire but of the penis-vagina interface as the only true form of sexual fulfillment.

What Gigli is trying to say as a film eludes me. However, what the film is actually saying is blatantly obvious. Ben Affleck is so unlikeable that the movie only serves to show that lesbians will be turned straight by being in the company of any man, no matter what a piece of shit he may be. This is conservative heteronormative dogma (Dogma – yet another Ben Affleck flick). Luckily, Gigli is universally thought to suck, and hopefully some measure of that perceived suckitude has to do with the inane, unrealistic, chemistry-free romance between a hot lesbian and the King of the Jackasses.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

Gigli and the Male Fantasy of the Lesbian Turned Straight

Written by Amanda Rodriguez
Gigli, the abomination masquerading as a film, is generally regarded as a pretty dang terrible movie. Plot? Action? Character development? Pathos? Entertainment? Nah, Gigli does away with those archaic devices and goes straight for the…boredom, offensiveness, unlikeable characters, and bad, bad, badness. How Christopher Walken and Al Pacino were coerced into cameos must’ve involved black magic or scandalous photo documentation. We won’t even get into the fact that two supposedly trained “contractors” (contractors for what exactly? poorly delivered dialogue?) are hired to watch Brian, a hostage who is differently abled, apparently suffering from “brain damage,” and Larry Gigli (Ben Slimeball-Face Affleck) constantly ridicules, yells at, and name-calls Brian due to his condition. Instead let’s focus on the hallowed converted-lesbian trope that Hollywood loves so well.
Celebrate by NOT watching this atrocity.
Yes, Hollywood loves to take lesbian characters, introduce them to men who are just so irresistible that aforementioned lesbian sees the penis…er…light, and changes her lesbionic ways. A few examples of this are Chasing Amy (starring Ben Affleck yet again, what a shocker) and the inexplicably critically acclaimed The Kids Are All Right, Puccini for Beginners, and Prey for Rock & Roll starring Gina Gershon of Bound fame. We get into some murky territory with many of these films because sexuality is fluid, and I am certainly not in the business of defining anyone’s sexuality for them. However, Gigli is a cut-and-dry case of the hetero disbelief that sex and, in particular, female sexuality can exist without the involvement of a penis.
Only he isn’t a “sissy gangster’; he’s a fuck-up with very few legitimate feelings in need of expression.
Jennifer Lopez’s Ricki is a sexay lesbian “contractor” on a job with the devoid-of-redeeming-qualities Larry Gigli. They mostly hang out in his dumb apartment (budget constraints perhaps) and share his bed at night. Ricki consistently baits Gigli with her unattainable sexuality, leaving him in a frenzy of sexual frustration. With much eloquence, he says:
“I got this fucking beautiful-sexy-gorgeous-hearthrob-o-rama-fucking-smart-amazing-bombshell-17-on a fucking 10 scale-girl sleeping in a bed right next to me and you know what? She’s a stone cold dyke. A fucking untouchable, unhave-able, unattainable brick wall fucking dyke-a-saurus rexi. So it’s sad.” 

Can you believe her panties didn’t catch on fire at those Cyrano words of wooing? I guess we’re supposed be like, “Yeah, buddy, that’s rough…it sucks when a woman wants to not give her vagina to you.” Not only that, but Gigli attempts to seduce Ricki by flexing and showing off his bad tattoos after yelling at her that he’s the bull in their relationship and she’s the cow. A real charmer, eh?

A long sexay yoga scene replete with a monologue about the vagina.
We also meet Ricki’s insecure, paranoid, stalker girlfriend, Robin, who proceeds to slit her wrists for effect when Ricki breaks up with her. After a trip to the emergency room, maybe the uncouth Gigli is looking a little more appealing? It’s hard to see this over-the-top interaction as anything other than hyperbolic stereotyping implying that lesbian relationships are nothing but drama.

Inevitably (why it is inevitable I don’t know), Ricki and Gigli do the nasty, and boy is it nasty. It’s hard to imagine they dated in real life because their sex scene is awkward at best and more accurately described as “just plain gross.”

I never, ever want to see Ben Affleck mounting anyone ever, ever again.

Ricki initiates the foreplay and asks Gigli to perform cunnilingus on her by saying, “It’s turkey time. Gobble, gobble.” More alluring words were never spoken on the silver screen. He hems and haws and never actually gives her what she asks for, which is the film’s way of subverting female desire and reasserting the supremacy of not only male desire but of the penis-vagina interface as the only true form of sexual fulfillment.

What Gigli is trying to say as a film eludes me. However, what the film is actually saying is blatantly obvious. Ben Affleck is so unlikeable that the movie only serves to show that lesbians will be turned straight by being in the company of any man, no matter what a piece of shit he may be. This is conservative heteronormative dogma (Dogma – yet another Ben Affleck flick). Luckily, Gigli is universally thought to suck, and hopefully some measure of that perceived suckitude has to do with the inane, unrealistic, chemistry-free romance between a hot lesbian and the King of the Jackasses. 
——

Guest Writer Wednesday: Review – Pariah

Pariah (2011)

This is a guest post from Carrie Nelson.
I enjoyed many films in 2011. All of my favorite films of the year, however, were the ones that unnerved me with their honesty, sticking in my thoughts long after the end credits rolled. One of those films was Martha Marcy May Marlene, which I’ve already written about, and another was Pariah.
Pariah, in its simplest terms, is a lesbian coming-of-age story. Yet it is unlike any other lesbian coming-of-age story I have ever seen, largely because the film is not about a young woman’s initial discovery or self-acceptance of sexual identity. When we meet Alike (played masterfully by Adepero Oduye), she already is well aware of and comfortable with her sexual orientation. The film does not start from a place of Gay 101; there are no scenes where Alike expresses sexual confusion or the desire to be straight. It operates under the assumption that our heroine is out (at least to her friends and high school English teacher) and proud. 
Alike and Laura
Instead of a traditional coming out story, Alike’s journey is about finding her place within her community. At home, her mother (Kim Wayans) encourages her to dress femininely and act ladylike. (One of the most heartbreaking scenes in the film involves Alike’s discomfort wearing a pink blouse that her mother was so excited for her to try on.) Outside of home, her friend Laura (Pernell Walker) teaches her how to convincingly present as butch and suavely seduce femmes. Alike is able to navigate both worlds, but she does not feel fully comfortable in either of them. The film follows her as she shatters the assumptions others make about her and determines what she needs to do to be truly happy.
What impressed me the most about Pariah was its ability to depict the uncomfortable awkwardness of being a teenager. Though the film is very specific in its geographic and cultural location, Alike’s need to find her place in her social circle is universal. When she accompanies Laura to clubs, she is unable to comfortably flirt with other women. She tries hard to adopt a butch identity, but it never feels right. Early on in the film, Alike experiments with packing, but she quickly determines that a phallus is not what she needs. It is not until she meets Bina (Aasha Davis, who I’ve loved since she played Waverly on Friday Night Lights), the daughter of her mother’s friend, that Alike finds herself in a situation where she can present her sexuality and gender identity in the most authentic way, without pretense or expectation. And although Alike’s relationship with Bina turns in a surprising direction, the experience is necessary for her to begin to see the variety of ways in which she can be a queer woman.
I appreciated the diversity of queer women depicted in Pariah. From women who self-identify as lesbians to women who simply enjoy being intimate with other women, from women who have masculine or feminine gender presentations to women who cannot be so easily labeled, Pariah shows that there is no single way to be queer. Mainstream depictions of gay identity tend to reinforce stereotypes, but while Pariah does feature women in traditional butch-femme pairings, such relationships are not the only ones presented, nor are they shown to be the “right” way to be gay. All of the characters and relationships in Pariah have flaws, but all are also beautiful in their own ways. I was continually struck by the film’s honesty as I watched it, and the diversity of women and relationships presented is an excellent example of that honesty.
Audrey and Alike
Audrey, Alike’s mother, is one of the most fascinating characters in the film. Rather than a one-note antagonist, as parents of gay teens are often depicted on-screen, Audrey struck me as a woman who truly wants to connect with her daughter but does not understand how. She seems to know all along that Alike is gay, but she believes that if she buys her enough feminine clothing, dictates her friendships and talks to her about boys, Alike will be straight. This behavior only distances Alike from her mother, and understandably so – it is not the behavior of a tolerant or accepting parent. But there is never a doubt that Audrey truly loves her daughter and wants what is best for her, a fact that makes the climax of the film so difficult to watch. I only wish the film had been able to flesh Audrey out more and spend more time with her character. One of my favorite scenes is one of Audrey sitting in the break room at her office, mutually ignoring the rest of her colleagues who are eating together and chatting. Audrey only breaks out of her shell when a friend approaches her and asks her about the new clothing she bought for her daughters. The implication seems to be that Audrey is materialistic and a bit of a snob, but we do not find out more about that. I wish we had – it might have provided more insight into why she adopts such a conventional view of female gender identity and sexuality.
One cannot discuss Pariah without acknowledging the fact that it is a film about queer women of color made by a queer woman of color. It’s rare that women of color are given the opportunity to tell their own stories, and in a year during which The Help is receiving enormous critical praise and attention, it is disheartening that a film like Pariah is receiving so much less notice. Pariah is a vitally important film, and its story and performances are as strong as you will find in any other film from 2011. At the time of writing this review, Academy Award nominations have yet to be announced, and I am hoping that, when they are, Pariah and its creator, Dee Rees, will receive their well-deserved recognition. Whether or not they do, I encourage you to seek the film out in theatres. It may not be the flashiest or most technically elaborate film of the past year, but it is without question one of the most honest. 
Carrie Nelson has previously written about Martha Marcy May MarlenePrecious, Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, The Social Network, Sleepaway Camp, and Mad Men for Bitch Flicks. She is a Founder and Editor of Gender Across Borders and works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit organization in NYC.

‘Fire’: Part One of Deepa Mehta’s ‘Elements Trilogy’

Fire (1996)
Fire is the first film in Deepa Mehta’s Elements Trilogy (Earth and Water follow). Made in 1996, it focuses on a middle-class family in present-day (funny how I still think of the 1990s as “present day,” despite the global changes of the past fifteen years) India.
The film centers around two married couples–Ashok (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and his wife Radha (Shabana Azmi), and Ashok’s brother Jatin (Javed Jaffrey) and his wife Sita (Nandita Das)–who run a carryout restaurant and video store, and who share a home with the brothers’ mother, Biji (Kushal Rekhi), and their employee, Mundu (Ranjit Chowdhry). Jatin and Sita are newlyweds, but we quickly learn that Jatin loves another woman (Julie, a Chinese-Indian woman who has perfected an American accent and dreams of returning to Hong Kong), and married a “traditional Indian woman” out of pressure from his brother and mother.
The film offers the womens’ perspectives on the conflicts between desire and duty, and between tradition and the realities of a modern India.
As with almost any film centering on family drama and dynamics, we see the tensions simmering beneath the surface as the film focuses on the two women and their lack of fulfillment from their marriages. Mehta, in the DVD’s Director’s Notes for Fire, states,
I wanted to make a film about contemporary, middle-class India, with all its vulnerabilities, foibles and the incredible extremely dramatic battle that is waged daily between the forces of tradition and the desire for an independent, individual voice.
More than 350 million Indians belong to the burgeoning middle-class and lead lives not unlike the Kapur family in Fire. They might not experience exactly the same angst or choices as these particular characters, but the confusions they share are very similar–the ambiguity surrounding sexuality and its manifestation and the incredible weight of figures (especially female ones) from ancient scriptures which define Indian women as pious, dutiful, self-sacrificing, while Indian popular cinema, a.k.a. “Bollywood”, portrays women as sex objects (Mundu’s fantasy).
To capture all this on celluloid was, to a large part, the reason I wanted to do Fire. Even though Fire is very particular in its time and space and setting, I wanted its emotional content to be universal.
Sita learns very early in her marriage that her husband is in love with Julie–he doesn’t hide the relationship from her–and she seeks solace and comfort from Radha. Radha hasn’t been intimate with her husband in 13 years; when Ashok learned she was unable to conceive, he sublimated his desires (and began channeling a good bit of their income) into religious study with his swami. The friendship between Sita and Radha soon evolves into a sexual relationship, and when the women are found out by their family, they must decide whether to obey tradition or follow their hearts.
Radha and Sita
The film explores what traditional marriage has done to alienate these women–particularly Radha–from their own desires. The desire for intimacy and sex, sure, but also the desire to live their lives for themselves, rather than for their husbands. My reading of the film is certainly from a Western perspective, however, and you could argue that the film is about discovering desire (rather than reconnecting to it after a period of alienation), since the traditional, conservative Hindu/Indian culture didn’t allow much–if any–space for individual desire for women. Sita embodies changes in the society, as she comes from a traditional family, but is more critical of the traditional rituals and more in touch with her body and her desires. (When we first meet her, for example, she playfully tries on her new husband’s pants and dances around their bedroom, unashamed of her body.) Sita is also the one who initiates a physical relationship with Radha.
Depicting a lesbian relationship on film fifteen years ago proved hugely controversial, and Fire was immediately banned in Pakistan, and soon after pulled from Indian cinemas for religious insensitivity. Although the film twice passed the Indian censor board–they requested no editing, and no scenes removed–violent protests caused movie houses to stop showing the film. In “Burning Love,” Gary Morris writes,
The reaction of some male members of the audience was so violent that the police had to be called. “I’m going to shoot you, madam!” was one response. According to Mehta, the men who objected couldn’t articulate the word “lesbian” — “this is not in our Indian culture!” was as much as they could bring themselves to say. 

It isn’t only the tangible pleasures of a lesbian relationship that created such heated reactions, though that’s certainly the most obvious reason. This beautifully shot, well-acted film is a powerful, sometimes hypnotic critique of the rigid norms of a patriarchal, post-colonial society that keeps both sexes down.

The controversy surrounding the film may have superseded the film itself–which is beautifully shot, heartbreaking, and even darkly comedic at times. Fire contains so many elements that I love in film: strong female characters, an exploration of complex issues that is never oversimplified and that never leads to individuals being labeled good or evil (although they certainly behave in good and/or evil ways), and immersion into a culture that isn’t entirely familiar to me. Speaking to a Western audience, Mehta has stated that one of her goals in filmmaking is to “demystify India,” its culture and its traditions. Fire complicates our understanding of a traditional patriarchal culture, and throws into sharp relief the ways these traditions impact women in particular.

Again, here’s Mehta on Fire:

We women, especially Indian women, constantly have to go through a metaphorical test of purity in order to be validated as human beings, not unlike Sita’s trial by fire.

I’ve seen most of the women in my family go through this, in one form or another. Do we, as women, have choices? And, if we make choices, what is the price we pay for them?

***

There is a ton of information online about Fire. Here are some selected articles for further reading: