A Lesbian Guide to TV and the Movies

After channel surfing past a lousy Stephen Baldwin movie (maybe this one or this one? Who can tell?), Julie and I had a debate about the growth of girl-on-girl action in mainstream television and film. She’s not objecting to genuine lesbian affection, just all of the male fantasy straight-girl-tries-out-for-the-other-team scenes that are inevitably implausible and sometimes goofy. I, on the other hand, argued that it’s a common male fantasy and, like many others, receives its share of airtime.

Read on for the whole shebang (wicked pun, don’t you think?), but my diatribe ends with this question: So, dear (female) readers, what common female fantasies aren’t we seeing on television or film? How can we even up the fantasy quotient?

This led to a discussion of how we could, in fairness, render women’s fantasies onscreen. I argued that shows like The Red Shoe Diaries and Chromium Blue were, sucessfully or not, targeted at that market, as was Sex in the City. I asked Julie what the most common female fantasy was, and she couldn’t really pinpoint one. She said that it was most likely the classic: wealthy or powerful man swoops in and takes care of all of a woman’s needs–sexual, financial and otherwise. See also Pretty Woman.

I’ve heard that the gay pr0n does it for some womenfolk, but mostly because the men are more attractive, less flabby and have fewer ponytails. We are seeing a greater instance of man-on-man action. It’ll be a while before we see two men making out on, say, Friends, but it’ll happen. Don’t believe me? How many people thought they’d never live to see an inter-racial kiss on television.

I mention all of this because I was recently purusing Progressive Boink’s Rating the Lesbians (safe for work if you’re a roadie for the Indigo Girls…just kidding, it’s pretty tame), which examines this very phenomenon from the perspective of two real, live lesbians. One of them makes Julie’s point very well when discussing the infamous Madonna/Britney lip-mushing:

Because this stunt was the absolute epitome of what’s wrong with almost every instance of girl-on-girl action; a sad, unconvincing vie for attention and eroticism. Britney is a hard-bodied robot, and Madonna is a turkey-necked woman of a certain age trying all too obviously to hold onto the image she cultivated 15 years ago. I would think that even people who find Britney to be some physical ideal of feminity should be bothered to see her mechanically kissing some over-yogaed, under-botoxed milf with her roots showing. But you weren’t bothered were you, internet? You didn’t turn away, did you? No, you all looked, and you all enjoyed it. Shame.

Hee, hee–turkey-necked, over-yogaed, under-botoxed milf. Hilarious. I also like how they rate the scenes with little Sapphos. I should note that they leave out a bathroom make-out session between the talentless Rebecca Romjin-Stamos and some Euro-model in the otherwise forgettable Femme Fatale. Maybe it’s because both women were bi(-curious?) in that movie. Then there’s also the quite good Canadian Better Than Chocolate which was made by and with actual lesbians, so maybe that doesn’t count.

So, dear (female) readers, what common female fantasies aren’t we seeing on television or film? How can we even up the fantasy quotient?