Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is one of my favorite movies. (BBC 1990 mini series) It starts with a little girl being raised by adoptive parents. Her mother has this religious thing going but being human, she is no angel in how she treats the girl. (My mother has never slapped me upside my head.) She wants the girl to be a missonary. When a teen, the girl sees another girl and is instantly drawn to her. They become friends and then lovers. And I don't want to give away the whole story, for Readers who have not seen this movie. But the girl's life becomes complicated when her mother suspects about the two teens. What the mother, pastor and other church members do to the teen is -- nasty - and done under the cloak of 'saving her soul'. It was a very distressful scene.
A Stevie Nicks fan got to talk one-on-one with her. The fan told how her parents threw out her records as if the music had something to do with her being a lesbian. In Oranges movie, the teens mother raided her bedroom, threw out books and letters from her girlfriend. That was painful to watch. The 'lez' movies I like best are the ones where a lesbian has family that live close. It's harder to have a 'secret/discreet' life when you are not anonymous.
In the movie 'Go Fish', a young woman gets slapped by her mother. It was one mi-nute incident in the movie, but the most powerful scene. And at the end of the movie, the issue between mother and daughter is not resolved. Just that little glimpse into one character's family life, explains why Gay people are afraid to tell their families about their sexuality - fear of losing them. In the movie the woman was just living her life, wasn't putting it in her mother's face. But a guy that the woman use to date told her mother. It was none of his business and he only did it to mess up the woman's relationship with her mother. Could he have thought that she would date him again just to please her mother? If he had cared about her, he wouldn't have did it. In this movie there was no 'coming out' - the women were lesbians who had no problem with being a lesbian within themselves. The woman who was OUTED by an ex-boyfriend, was pushed into revealing her sexuality to her mother.
I know some Gay people say be proud, be open, tell people. I have never had a big coming out thing. <well, only one> I live my life and what I do privately is my business. When a woman gets to be my age and doesn't date men, it's not hard to figure out why. My family know that men have wanted to date me, but I only go out with women. So it's not like I can't get a man. They don't have to get slapped in the face with it. And other people don't matter. I don't know who my single family members are dating most times. I was outed at work, and it only made things more interesting because I was working mostly with women. Male co-workers stopped showing interest, but not the women.
When I'm in a funky mood, my Mom will ask me when was the last time I heard from HER. She tells me I should invite HER to lunch down by the river. Mom has even cooked breakfast for us. So she knows HER is special. But at this point HER is a friend. And you don't need to know more than that.
No comments:
Post a Comment