All language subtitles for Fortin

- I think there's
a great deal of

our astonishment
when it is realized

how much homosexuality
exists among women.

You know, I think it's
something that people

just don't believe is a
very great force at all.

- The notion of the
predatory female

has been present from
the beginning of cinema.

- It's fascinating,

the terror of women controlling
their own sexuality.

- What are you thinking about?

- The same thing you are.

What else could I think about?

- It upends our notions
of who is victim

and who is victimizer
and who has the power

and what that power looks like.

- It's nice.

- When you start to
explore female heroines

who might also be the monster.

We have to start
asking ourselves

what's frightening
about femininity?

- What's the biggest threat

that the women are
sexually active,

that they're sexually
active with one another,

that they're independent, right?

That you can't control them,
you can't commodify them,

so what do you do?

You turn that into
a figure of horror.

- Just because one person
believes I'm the villain,

they're wrong, but I am
the villain in their story

and they're the villain in
mine and I'm right.

- There's something
terrifying about movies

where a fragile femininity
becomes something with teeth.

- Men are fascinated by it.

Even if they won't admit it,
they're utterly fascinated

because they think, how can
a woman prefer another woman?

They're not me. You know?

- It's a sexual attraction
to a lot of men.

- Hmm.
- They think the thought of

two women together
is quite stimulating.

- The notion of dooming
female alliances

is a kind of
unconscious expression

of the fear of established
power being taken away.

The dyke is
a very selfish person.

She's out to get all she
can and as often as she can.

The dyke often takes on unjust
advantage of the young femme.

After feeding her
drinks all night,

she becomes very receptive

to the dyke's
suggestions and advances.

- The one character
that we have been given

in bounty through the years
is the lesbian vampire.

Which is great because
I mean, listen,

who doesn't love a
good lesbian vampire?

- Most lesbian vampire
films are either based

on Carmilla or the story
of Elizabeth Bathory

The Countess Elizabeth Bathory,

esteemed member of
the royal family,

convicted by holy
court of high crimes.

Was she true and
malignant vampire

filled with a feted
stench of death?

Poor Countess Bathory.

Elizabeth Bathory was the
countess in 16th century Hungary.

She was put on trial for
murdering 500 young women

from the surrounding villages.

Although how she could murder
500 women and get away with it

without anybody noticing

in a small Hungarian
village escapes me.

- There is some controversy

if these events
actually took place

or if this was really
about noble men

trying to seize this
woman's property.

- The countess is rumored
to have murdered young women

to bathe in their blood

because she thought that would
keep her young and beautiful.

I think of her more
as someone who had

irrepressible hungers for women

and didn't really know
how to express them

so she had to kill
them and consume them.

Elizabeth Bathory inspired
many vampire legends,

but I think of Carmilla as
the grandmother of Dracula

and and subsequent
vampire fiction.

- Carmilla.
- Carmilla.

- Carmilla.

Carmilla.

- Carmilla is one of
the most prominent

vampire novels ever written.

It's what inspired Bram
Stoker to make Dracula.

- Carmilla.

Hold me.

I beg you.

Hold it me tight.

- The greatest vampire in
literature would not exist

if it weren't for a lesbian
vampire story first.

- I actually read "Carmilla"

before I saw any
lesbian vampire films.

- "Carmilla" was one of my
favorite vampire stories

and probably the one
I've read the most.

- I personally love
the story of Carmilla

because it was one
of the first times

that I experienced
a lesbian storyline

in a more classical setting

and I think understanding
that this was a larger thing

made me feel less othered.

It made me feel seen.

- It's a novella about
a very mysterious girl

who's rescued when her carriage
crashes and she's taken in.

- But Carmella is actually
this other worldly being

that's going to suck the life
force out of our female hero.

- So like even
from the beginning,

like the sort of the
origin text of the vampire

is this like deeply
lesbian book.

- Why do you look
at me like that?

- How beautiful you are.

- Thank you.

- But it was also a
novel of a predator

and of like someone
sort of being hunted.

- It's ultimately this
fear of the queer woman

that's on display.

- Come on.

Afraid?
- Oh.

- In "Carmilla" we see
the beginning tropes

of the obsessive lesbian friend.

- I thought this was
another nightmare.

- You needn't worry
now. I'm here with you.

- She has this very
intense relationship

with the innocent virginal girl

who then is tormented by
these fantasies of Carmilla.

- The main character
experiences sex with Carmilla

in the form of a giant
cat that comes to her

and sits on her chest.

The metaphor is
very obvious, right?

Pussy.

Everywhere.

- My heart beat faster,

my breathing rose and fell
rapidly and full drawn.

A sobbing, that turned
into a dreadful convulsion

in which my senses left me
and I became unconscious.

- We were seeing a man
write about female desire

without wanting to just
say it was an orgasm.

- And it's also the first time
that we see the woman monster

being associated with cats,

which should become a
staple of the genre.

At the end of the novella,

she's defeated by the
male protagonists,

which again is another trope
that's going to carry into

almost all lesbian
vampire films.

The first true lesbian vampire
film is "Dracula's Daughter,"

which was one of the
last in the first cycle

of original universal
monster movies

that's outside of the
Carmilla/Elizabeth Bathory narrative.

It sets up this existential
queer female vampire.

- Why are you looking
at me that way?

Won't I do?

- Yes, you'll do
very well indeed.

- The tagline of "Dracula's
Daughter" is quote,

"She gives you that
weird feeling."

So do what you will with
that information.

- Do you like jewels, Lili?

I'll show it to you.

You have a woman

who's experiencing
unnatural desires.

- Please don't come
any closer! I...

She's trying to
fight against it.

- Freud had been writing
for a couple decades

so by the 30s and 40s

psychoanalysis is
everywhere in pop culture.

- You'd all be interested
to know what modern science

has to say about vampires.

- Like any disease of the
mind, it can be cured.

All we have to discover is what
brought about the obsession

in order to affect
mental release.

- Release?

- Countess Zaleska
is seeking out ways

to cure herself of
her ungodly urges.

- The countess goes
to see a psychiatrist

because she doesn't wanna
be a vampire anymore.

- It came over me again,
that overpowering command,

wordless, insistent,

and I had to obey.

- What was it?

- I can't tell you it's too,

too ghastly.

- It's sad but it is the
story of like a queer person

who does not wanna be queer,

who's like really
trying to fight

against their essential nature.

- I'm thinking
about young people

kind of questioning
their sexuality.

All of the things someone
might try to make it stop.

- In the name of the all holiest

and through this cross be
the evil spirit cast out

until the end of time.

- Dracula died so she
thinks this curse,

I'm free, it's lifted.

- I can live a normal life now,

think normal things, even
play normal music again.

Listen.

- It didn't work.

And then lesbian power
move, gets a therapist.

- There isn't anything
I won't do now

to enlist your aid in freeing me

of the curse of the Draculas.
- Draculas?

- That doesn't work either. Why?

'Cause she's gay.

- The next time you feel this
influence, don't avoid it.

Meet it.

Fight it.

- It's in you, baby girl.

Like nothing's gonna stop it.

- Stop!

Stop!

Stop!

- We saw queer people at the
time of something to be fixed,

something to be cured
and the parallel of that

with this blood curse of being
a vampire is hard to ignore.

- The psychiatry from
the 1930s has roots

in what we now see with
conversion therapy.

They were giving them
medication to feel ill

and then showing
them what they desire

as a way to try to
retrain their brain.

This is still being done today

to queer youth all
across the country.

- I am somebody who went
through conversion therapy.

I was sent to a pretty
insane facility in the desert

and asked to change
everything about myself

because I was "sick" and
I needed to be reformed

and my queerness, my
mental health struggles

were all used against me.

And it's pretty much as close
to a real life horror film

as I think many people can get.

Films like "Dracula's Daughter"
resonate with queer people

because growing up,
most of us are told

that the space we
take up is not valid.

Most of us are told
that we need to change

or adapt or hide who we are
in order to fit into society.

We know what it's like to
feel like we're not allowed

to be ourselves and the
monster is telling us

that we must change
and we are wrong.

- So in 1936 when "Dracula
Daughter" comes out,

Hollywood just started
enforcing the Production Code.

- The Hays Code determines

what can and cannot
be shown in movies.

So if you're going to
show homosexuality,

the homosexual must be punished.

- Because of the Hays
Code, the queer can't live.

The queer has to be dispatched
with, has to be murdered,

has to be ended.
- The woman is beautiful.

She was beautiful when she died

100 years ago.

- "Dracula's Daughter" is
actually looking forward

to a lot of the
1940s horror films.

That start to soften or mitigate

what it means to be a monster.

- There's something evil in me.

- As far as the 40s go,

I think the defining event
has to have been World War II.

If you are 17,

you can enlist in the
Air Corps Reserve.

- With the bulk of
men going off to war,

just imagine lesbian
relationships flourishing,

all kinds of housewives
finding themselves

when there's no men around.

- It really rearranged
gender roles in America.

- After the war,
Rosie the Riveter

had to go back into the house.

- It's coming from downstairs.

- It comes from
everywhere and nowhere.

- Women are haunted by the
specter of social expectations

or by their own desires or
some combination of the two.

Twas a
woman. I swear it.

A ghost of a woman.

- The horror films of that era,

they often figure around
this central character

of a ghostly woman
or a dead woman

as another way to
nominate lesbian desire.

- You have these
female presences

exerting control from
beyond the grave.

If you look at it from
a feminist perspective

or a queer perspective, 1940s
lesbianism was just, you know,

something that didn't
exist basically

and when it did exist,
it was ghosts.

- Like if she
doesn't have a body,

then you don't have to worry
about her pursuing anyone.

- If a woman could
get rid of her body,

which really is the sight
of a lot of violence

against a woman, man,
she could be scary

and dangerous and powerful.

- Historically, there's
this tremendous sense

of lesbian invisibility.

- The invisible
lesbian thing is huge,

but I didn't see
myself represented

in anything ever growing up.

Like there was nothing
even remotely close

that made me feel like, oh
okay, maybe this is what I am.

- Lesbians are sort
of these specters

that when you look
closely, like you squint,

it's like there, there's
lesbians everywhere.

- Sometimes when I walk
along the corridor,

I fancy I hear her
just behind me.

That quick light step.

I couldn't mistake it anywhere.

Not only in this room, it's
in all the rooms in the house.

- What makes "Rebecca"
a lesbian ghost story

is it's just about
women grappling

with the specter of other women.

- Do you think the dead come
back and watch the living?

I don't believe it.

- Sometimes,

I wonder if she doesn't
come back here to Manderley,

and watch you and Mr.
De Winter together.

- Mrs. Danvers is
completely obsessed

with the the dead
Mrs. De Winter.

And you very much get a strong
reading that Mrs. Danvers

is a homosexual and that
there might have been

something between them.

- I keep her underwear
on this side.

They were made especially
for her by the nuns

in the convent of St. Clair.

- I don't know what
it is with lesbians,

but we love nuns.

We're like, "That's hot.
Thank you."

- I watched you go down just
as I watched her a year ago.

Even in the same dress
you couldn't compare.

- "Rebecca" is about not
measuring up to femininity.

There's this figure that exists,

this high femme ghost or spirit

exerting all this will
even though she's dead.

And then the new bride

who's never gonna
measure up to this woman.

- Every day I, I realized
the things that she had

and that I like.

Beauty and wit and intelligence,

and all the things that are
so important in a woman.

- Rebecca needed someone
like Mrs. Danvers

to feed the size of
ego that she had.

And Dane was up for the job.

- You thought you could
be Mrs. de Winter,

live in her house,
walk in her steps,

take the things that were hers,

but she's too strong for you.

You can't fight her.

No one ever got the better
of her, never, never.

- What is left if like
the person is gone

and now the reputation and
the narrative has shifted,

and you're left with
just like a broken heart

and an empty shrine?

You burn it down.

- This is dangerous.
She's gone mad.

She said she'd rather
destroy Manderley

than see us happy here.

- Gothic drama is about
the voiceless things

gaining a voice.

Like in "Rebecca" there's
like a person who's bringing

the dead to life in this
sort of metaphorical way.

And then you had a literal
bringing of the dead to life,

you know, with actual ghosts.

- Does it come every night?

- No.

Just when you begin to
think you dreamt it,

it comes again.

- In 1944, "The
Uninvited" premieres

and you get to see
just how wonderful

or horrible it
would be to find out

that the ghost in your
house is a lesbian.

- Do you think she
wants you there?

- Yes, I think she does.

- And what she wants, I want.

- In "The Uninvited" you
have these two female ghosts

who are vying for a
living woman's attention.

There's the possibility
that one of those ghosts

is the ex lover of
another woman in the film.

Mary was a goddess.

Her skin was radiant and
that bright, bright hair.

- The way that women are
described by other women

is so sort of
beautiful and singular,

and it just feels like
this expression of desire.

- The nights we've sat talking
in front of that fireplace,

planning our whole lives.

It wasn't flirtations and
dresses we talked about.

We were no silly giggling girls.

We intended to conquer life.

- Repression is a theme
that we see constantly

in films that are kind
of queer coded horror.

- They shan't ever
find out, my darling.

I promise you.

- And then as the 60s proceed,

these things don't have to be

as couched in
metaphor necessarily.

- You married?

- No.

- In Robert Wise's
"The Haunting",

you have these people
in a haunted house

dealing with the paranormal.

- A haunted house movie is
always about the subconscious.

It's always about
facing the things

that you can only really
see in the dark of night.

- The house.

It's alive!

- The haunted house
represents the mind

of the protagonist,

and the haunted side of
it is the shadow self.

But it's all up,
it's all in here.

It's all doing battle
with our own stuff.

- Stop it!

- Eleanor is a young woman
whose mother has just passed

and she's never
known anything else.

She's trying to figure out
where she belongs in the world

and is like having a delayed
adolescence in a way.

- I'd like to drink to, uh,

to just us, good companions.
- Excellent.

To my new companion.

- Theo from "The
Haunting" is like all fur

and leopard print and
turbans and leather gloves.

She just comes out of the gate,

balls to the wall, hitting
on Nell immediately.

- If you're feeling
the least bit nervous

just run right
into my room them.

- Thanks. Goodnight.

- She's on the rebound
basically and is like,

I'm gonna pursue
Eleanor in this really

like dogged and intense way.

- We're going to be
great friends, Theo.

- Like sisters?

- Theo is a psychic.

She can see inside her
and she knows what's up,

and Nell is not
comfortable with it.

- How did you know I
brought new clothes?

- You wear your
thoughts on your sleeve.

- Anyway, that's
better than my heart.

- What this movie is about
underneath the surface

is frankly her inability
to fully process

a version of herself
that could be free

and dare to engage
with the things

that she's been sheltered
from within her own self.

- I'd rather be
innocent than like you.

- Meaning what?

- There's another alternate
way of being a woman

in front of her that
she so desperately needs

to integrate and embrace.

It is literally killing her.

- The world is full
of inconsistencies

on natural things.

Nature's mistakes
they're called.

You, for instance.

- She does not understand
what's happening to her.

It's like this thing that
can't quite come to the surface

and so it's all about
sublimation and silence.

- The house is coming
down around me,

the house is destroying itself.

- Every queer person has to face

the weight of family pressure,

the weight to social pressure.

When we are
experiencing something

that's not being mirrored
back to us by society,

it's in our subconscious

and it's bubbling up
in fleeting glimpses.

- Eleanor doesn't get
to live long enough

to fully understand what
it is she's experiencing,

which is really sad.

You know? It's
like really tragic.

- Your house is haunted.

Her poor, bedeviled mind

wasn't strong
enough to fight it.

- The ghost story gothic
of these dead women

who won't go away, who
keep bothering people

and don't they know
they just need to

get out of the picture?

And so you have films

like "The Haunting"
or "The Uninvited,"

literally "The Uninvited"

who are, you know, daring
to make themselves known

and visible even though
they don't serve the purpose

that straight men see for them.

- There was a gap really

between "Dracula's
Daughter" in the 30s

and the lesbian vampire
boobs of the 60s and 70s.

- You know, we don't get just
the children's hour anymore.

- Oh, I feel so
damn sick and dirty,

I can't stand it anymore!

- We don't just get
like miserable lesbians

who kill themselves.

- Oh.

Oh.

- That is the major difference,

in the 1970s is we get sleaze.

- What are you implying,
that Susan is a lesbian?

- No, but she's been
dominated by a lesbian.

- When we've move
into the 1970s,

we come back to these
adaptations of Carmilla

or the story of
Elizabeth Bathory.

- Pre-film school, I
worked at Kim's Video

on Bleecker Street, this
incredible video store.

They'd have all these
bootlegs of every movie

and so I would watch all these
1960s and 70s vampire movies.

There was like a slew of those.

- We've got a whole
bunch of films in France

from Jean Rollin making
female vampires soft core.

We've got crazy films
from Jes Franco.

Probably the most well known,

because they were
done in English,

were the films from
Hammer Studios.

- Don't you wish some
handsome young man

would come into your life?

- Hm.

No, neither do you I hope.

- We no longer had the vampires

who were sexually repressed.

No. Sexy vampires.

It was sex, sex, sex.

Lesbianism was very tied
in with being a vampire.

- You're so beautiful, Mary.

- Which was sexy but also
like the Harbinger of Doom.

- Queer women were being used

to get people horned up.

- We must excite his desire.
- He'll awake soon.

- Not only can they
literally devour men,

but they can also seduce women
to join their unholy cabal.

- Queer women's sexuality
is so often tied to power.

- There's a cottage
in the woods.

A young girl lives there alone,
refuses to take a husband.

- And once you remove guys
from the equation entirely,

it becomes something
that we find

quote, unquote, "horrifying."

- They prey on young virgins,

put a spell on them.

Sometimes they woo them.

Slowly sucking their life away.

Sometimes they kill quickly.

One feast, one bite
of their fangs!

- Well, that's alright.
I'm not a young virgin.

- They're allowed to be
titillating and horrifying

for ostensibly straight men
who in most of these cases,

that's also who is writing
and directing these movies.

- Why are the
lesbians all feminine?

I would think largely because
the people consuming them

are men, and men don't have
much use for a masculine woman.

They have a lot of use
for a feminine woman

and they have even more use for
two feminine women together.

- I'm like you can't be a
lesbian with those fingernails.

I mean you can, but like...

You're not gonna
be finger banging.

- Lesbian sexuality
unless it is specifically

filtered through
horn aimed at men,

it is not visible to men

except as like a
shadow on the wall.

- It's so interesting
that, you know,

it's like men make these movies

thinking that it's
like hot for them,

but sorry, you put
hot women in it

so lesbians are
gonna like it too.

- You can apply a
read to these films

where they are the
reaction against

the early waves of
feminism that were emerging

in the late 60s and 70s.

- What we are talking about

is a revolution
and not a reform.

- There has been proposed
a constitutional amendment

to guarantee equal
rights for women.

Male opponents in the
Senate said it would destroy

traditional man/woman relationships,
weaken family ties,

increased homosexuality.

- How do we fix
that? Oh, I know.

We portray the actualized
woman as being a monster.

- Kill him! Kill him now!

Get closer to him!
Slash his face!

Find his heart and cut it out.

Silence him! Destroy
his masculinity!

- This is what happens, men,

when women start having
sex with other women,

it is devastatingly
destructive to men.

- "Daughters of
Darkness" is one of those

lesbian vampire films
that really stands out.

- Who do you think I am?

A kind of ghoul? A vampire?

Oh no my dear.

I'm just an outmoded
character, nothing more.

You know, the
beautiful stranger,

slightly sad,
slightly mysterious.

- The lesbian
vampire goes on these

like feminist monologues.

- Stephan loves me
whatever you may think.

- Stephan loves me
whatever you may think.

Of course he does.

That's why dreams
he making out of you

what every man dreams of
making out of every woman,

a slave, a thing, an
object for pleasure.

- It stars Delphine Seyrig,

European actress and
an outspoken feminist.

She uses mad sensibility
in her portrayal

of Countess Bathory.

- I am a man and she is mine.

- Was she yours last night?

Would he be yours if
you let go of her now?

- At the end of the film,
Elizabeth Bathory died

and you think, okay, it's
gonna just sort of end

like a typical
lesbian vampire film.

But Valerie has now taken on
the persona of the countess.

- I can't tell you how much
I despise this kind of place

this guide the place,

especially now when
there's no one.

- So it really points
to this shared legacy

of queerness being passed down

from generation to generation.

There really isn't
another film like that

except for "The Hunger."

- It imagines the monstrous

as a kind of expression of
high fashion sensibility.

- My favorite lesbian vampire
movie is "The Hunger."

- It is so essentially 80s.

- First thoughts of "The Hunger"
were just like, Oh my God,

this is so sexy, this is so hot.

I want to be in there.

- They are all just
bisexual disasters.

- All this heterosexual
drama doesn't matter anymore.

Like what's happening here?
I want in on this.

- There's this premise
of the scary bisexual

because they're out to get you,

but they're out to get
everybody else also.

- Susan Sarandon and
Catherine Deneuve, come on.

Come, and David fucking Bowie!

Come on. That movie
changed my life.

- What have you done to me?

- I've given you something
you never dared dream of.

- What?
- Everlasting Life.

- Miriam Blaylock
is the culmination

of the lesbian
vampires of the 1970s.

- Miriam does think
at her in lesbian.

There's a scene,
Catherine Deneuve

just kind of standing there
in a veil looking amazing

and she thinks
lesbianonic thoughts.

It's Susan Sarandon.

And then Susan Sarandon like,
she looks up and she's like.

- I'm sorry, what did you say?

- And Catherine Deneuve's like.

- Nothing, but I would
like to talk to you.

- Uh, uh, yes, I'd like that.

- I thought that was such
a cool take on vampirism.

The seduction was just this
kind of lesbian telepathy.

It was this idea of
it's a mind thing first.

- I don't know why I'm here.

- Come in.

And then of course the really
hot sex scene.

- What's that
piece your playing?

- It's "Lakme" by Delibes.

- Can we talk about
the Coloratura

Meso Soprano duet from "Lakme"?

- Is it a love song?

- I told you.

It was sung by two women.

- Sounds like a love song.

- Then I suppose
that's what it is.

- Da, da, da, da, da.

Yeah. Every time a lesbian
vampire has sex, they play that.

- "The Hunger" is the first
lesbian sex scene I ever saw.

- There's like a moment where

like she's kinda
sucking on her wrist

and it felt really like,

I know what I'm looking at here.

- Miriam, she really
is like a vampire mommy

who's inducting Susan
Sarandon into this world

through the exchange
of blood and ritual.

- "The Hunger" is fascinating

because it purports to be
celebrating homosexual desire,

but when you really look at it,

the straight men
are duplicating this

for their own satisfaction.

Until you go into a lesbian
bar and we see "The Hunger"

and we know that
they're basically

just kind of ripping
off our culture.

We've all been trained
to find ourselves

in these narratives.

We found ourselves.

- We're damned to live forever.

With no release, no end.

And I need you to
share it with me.

- "The Hunger", ugh, lesbian
seduction at its finest.

And also, the reality
that lesbians,

we are just gonna be stuck
in eternity next to our exes.

- All of you, all my loves.

Surrounded by them.

Just forever.

What keeps coming up
in each of these movies

is like once you go dyke,

maybe you'll start
enjoying sex for once.

Like that's what keeps
happening every single time

is that these women are
like, oh, this is it.

- It's not nearly as difficult
as you imagined, is it?

- "The Hunger" just
took that genre

and went phew out to the,
you know, just skyrocketed.

But my absolute favorite,
"Lair of the White Worm."

Amanda Donohoe straps
on the biggest dildo

I have ever seen in my life.

It was like a Buick.
She strapped on a Buick.

There's this virgin
quivering on the altar

as they do this, she's
stepping closer and closer

with his Buick strapped on.

It's the campiest greatest
thing I've ever seen.

- What vampire movies allow for

is a celebration of
morality-free sexuality.

- Bet your girlfriend
doesn't do this for you.

- Nah. Nor me Mum neither.

- Oh, I remind you
of your mother, do I?

- And for the most part,

people are terrified
of that notion.

- I give you

Katrina!

- "Vamp" is a very interesting
gem of a vampire film

because it's set at
a vampire strip club.

Sex work is a huge
part of queer history

and what's interesting about
"Vamp" is that sex work

and vampirism is linked.

That shows a sex worker being
in control of the situation,

which is itself also very queer.

- Oh my God! "Vamp"!

- Wow.

"Vamp" and Grace Jones.

- Grace Jones.

Icon.
- Oh, Grace Jones.

- Men love Grace Jones and
women love Grace Jones.

What could Grace Jones
really have done

if she wasn't an icon?

- Grace Jones, can I
please talk, oh my God.

When she comes out.

- In the middle of that film
was this performance art piece.

It seemed like
Grace Jones came in

and did that part of the movie.

When you see her, she's white,

like she is white, white,
white and with blue eyes.

Then she starts to strip,

she's doing a strip tease of
her whiteness to blackness.

She's basically like exposing

actually you've been
watching a black woman

doing this dance for you.

It was such an
arresting, provocative

piece of performance
art that just seemed

totally out of place
in the best way

in this super goofy movie.

- I remember walking
into the dressing room

and there was Grace Jones,

and she was completely naked

and Keith Haring was drawing
white lines all over her body.

I got a chance to just
sit and watch them draw

and I always
remember that moment.

Keith Haring was a
artist, an AIDS activist,

and he was really fundamental
in bringing out the issue

when everybody was
dealing with aids.

- We have this incredibly
important piece

of queer art history with the
Keith Haring body painting

on Grace Jones that
elevates the film

into an artistic space.

- She's, I, I...

- There's not a lot of
women that I've seen

that are my color complexion

and chocolate like
me in a strong role.

She was also androgynous.

She was kind of
fucking with gender.

- Grace Jones might as well
have been a gay vampire

in real actual life.

She moved through the world
with that confusing blend

of masculine/feminine energy.

- She had very powerful
feminine but very powerful male.

She had both of
those entities to me.

- There's these almost monstrous

but kind of beautiful displays
of genderless queer power.

- As a young person,

I felt very out of my
element gender-wise,

like I felt like, hey, I
really like being a girl,

but like sometimes people
don't think I'm a girl

and that makes me feel
really scared or ashamed.

There was something
about the way

Grace Jones carried herself.

It made me feel like
I was less weird.

- She has the testosterone
of like 10,000 men

as well as the estrogen
of maybe 9,000 women.

- Does that make you bisexual?

- I think that it's ridiculous
trying to categorize

people's feelings or saying
what does one prefer.

There's no comparison.

You can't just say one's
better than the other

or one's worse than the other,
I prefer one to the other.

It's just do what you feel

when you feel like it
if you feel like it.

- Black widow.

She mates and she kills.

- In the late 80s/early 90s

you see this reemergence
of the film noir heroine

or the vamp if you will.

But you see her from the
perspective of female rage.

- Really starting
to piss me off.

- The overarching
conservatism of the Reagan era

was bad for queer
people in general,

but bad for women specifically.

- There's this real concern
in the backlash of feminism

that women are
essentially too angry.

- You watch your mouth, buddy.

- So suddenly it was like, well,

we'll make the lesbians
the villains for a while

and see how that goes.

- The 90s were kind of vicious.

Lesbian chic vicious.

- Lesbian chic, for those
of you that don't know,

is when lesbians became
very, very popular

within pop culture in America.

- All of a sudden everyone's
doing a lesbian thing.

So it was sort of exciting
but at the same time

it was like, what's happening?

- The characters were
supposed to be lesbians,

but they weren't
written by lesbians,

they weren't
directed by lesbians

and they certainly weren't
being played by lesbians.

So we were raised from
our own narrative.

- Like there had
been some thievery.

- There was some desire
to see bisexual women

and see an expression of a
kind of sexual liberation,

but there also had to be a
villainizing of that liberation.

- What's your new book about?

- A detective. He falls
for the wrong woman.

- What happens?

She kills him.

- "Basic Instinct"
comes out in 1992,

and in that film we
see the lesbian vampire

transformed into the
dangerous femme fatale.

The character of Catherine
Tramell is this shifty bisexual

who pierces men
with her phallus.

- I remember seeing
"Basic Instinct"

and getting really excited
'cause oh, finally,

there's like a, you know,
a bisexual on the screen.

- You get to see this character

who seems complex and in a
relationship with this woman.

Hi.

- But that
relationship is clearly

just meant for the male gaze.

And is very throwaway.

Roxy?

- There's a depiction of
heartless bisexuals in in the movie

that seemed to me actually kind
of reactionary at the time.

- You didn't feel
anything for him,

you just had sex with
him for your book?

- In the beginning.

Then I got to like
what he did for me.

- I actually remember having
to cross a picket line

to go see "Basic Instinct"

and having very conflicted
feelings about it.

But I also really wanted
to see this movie.

- My friends were protesting
outside of screenings,

so I actually snuck with
another friend of mine

to a different
neighborhood to go see it.

- Even if it's this sort
of unflattering portrayal

of who we are, we're
just so excited

to see ourselves
that there's no way

you can't identify with it.

- Not that we can't
also be murderers.

I know some perfectly
horrible homosexuals.

It's just that there's not a
movie playing in the cinema

next door where Catherine
Tramell and Roxy

just like have cute
dinner parties, you know?

Meh!

- We just need more
representation.

- People really love to get
mad about queer villains,

but I find queer villains

to be tremendously
powerful and interesting.

- Somebody has to die.

- Why?

- Somebody always does.

- "Basic Instinct"
is very successful.

And unleashes a slew
of bisexual killers

in films like "Poison Ivy",

"Wild Things",

and "Single White Female."

- You've gotta be kidding.

- In the 90s you
see queer characters

wanting to take over the bodies

or the lives of
the protagonists.

You can track that
back to Carmilla,

the stranger that shows up
at the doorstep of our hero

and begins to suck
away her identity.

- I love myself like this.

- I really wanna do that.

I just wanna move in with
someone and become them.

- Anything of mine that
you want, just go ahead.

Share and share alike.

- There's this push and pull
of do I wanna be with you?

Do I want to be you?

Am I in league with you or
am I in competition with you?

- Ah!
- And how painful

the confusion of that is.

- No.

- I mean, I remember watching
"Single White Female"

and thinking this is the
most homophobic movie

I've ever seen in
my entire life.

How could you do that?

Everything I've done,
I've done for you.

Don't you understand that?

- But it also feels real in
this like very interesting way

where it's like this desire as
this like obliterating force.

- When I first sought
"Mulholland Drive"

I was 20 years old

and I left that theater thinking

I'm a lesbian.

And then I didn't come out
for 14 more years.

- Camilla.

- Like "Basic Instinct",
"Mulholland Drive"

comes out of the
Carmilla narrative.

It's very much a contemporary
perverse re-imagining

of the mysterious woman
crashing by the side of the road

and being taken
in by an innocent.

- Where were you hurt?

- "Mulholland Drive"
is a series of scenes

that happen twice.

Once in an idealized dream
life and once in reality.

- What are you doing?
- What are you doing?

- We don't stop here.
- We don't stop here.

- As viewers, you're second
guessing your own experience.

I can't think of a better
analogy cinematically

for what it's like to
be gay and not know yet.

Have you ever done this before?

- I don't know.

Have you?

- You have the one experience

of externally
walking through life.

- Hi, I'm Diane Selwyn.

- And then there's
also the internal life.

- My name's Betty.
- No, it's not.

- That is in constant conflict
with the world around you.

What I think is so deeply
touching about the film

is the idea that there
is this idealized

female relationship.

- Good night, sweet Betty.

- This moment of recognizing
deep love for one another.

Good night.

- As we go from one
reality to another one,

the two lead characters
kind of swap places.

- When the film switches
into that new gear

and we wake up essentially
into Diane Selwyn's reality,

the Naomi Watts character.

- Hey, pretty girl.

Time to wake up.

- We realize that the first part

was a sort of dream like
construction of a reality

that she would
like to be living.

This is all

a tape recording.

It is

an illusion.

- As opposed to the actual
reality she's living in,

in which her girlfriend
is ignoring her

and hooking up with
a more powerful man.

And she's plotting to kill her.

You got the money?

This is the girl.

- Diane and Camilla's real
life relationship is fraught

and clearly at the
end of something.

- You want me to make
this easy for you?

No.

No fucking way!
It's not gonna be!

It's not easy for me!
- Diane!

- But the fact that the
film spends most of its time

in her dream life
of what she wished

that relationship could be.

It's less a negative depiction
of a queer relationship

and more a depiction of
a human relationship.

- "Heavenly Creatures"
is Peter Jackson's film,

co-written with Fran Walsh
and based on the true story

of two teenage girls
who become friends

and lovers

and murderers.

- It's Mummy!

- There is this terror
at the idea of like

teenage girl friendship
tilting over into romance.

- Homosexuality.

- But she's always been
a normal happy child.

- Oh, it can strike at any time

and adolescents are
particularly vulnerable.

- When I was 18, I moved
in with my best friend

in New York and I
was in love with her.

I was truly in love with her.

And we went to see "Heavenly
Creatures."

And it changed everything.

I took the step and I was like,

"I want to be with you.

Let's just live the
way we wanna live."

It was life affirming.

- When I was younger, I
think I knew I was queer

even though I didn't have
language for it necessarily.

- I think I'm going crazy.

- No, you're not, Gina.

It's everyone else
who's bonkers.

- I was very adept at
operating in the world

and then running this
elaborate movie in my head

where things were different.

So I totally connected
with that idea

of having this fantasy life
that you could escape to

and wanting to make that real.

- Oh God!

We have a son, and heir.

You're such an incredible woman.

- I couldn't have done
it without you, Charles.

- Any young woman who
ever even had an inkling

that they might
like other girls,

sees that relationship
and it just feels good.

It speaks to being a young girl

trying to figure out how the
fuck she wants to live her life

and who she wants
to live it with.

- We felt satisfied indeed.

We have now learned the peace
of the thing called bliss.

The joy of the thing called sin.

- It's this thing we come up
against over and over again.

Everyone is like this
attachment is very passionate,

therefore it is bad.

- Your daughter
appears to have formed

a rather unwholesome
attachment to Juliet.

- When straight people have
like intense, passionate,

emotionally volcanic relationships,
that's aspirational.

And when queer people
have like intense

emotionally volcanic
relationship, it's dangerous.

- It's the intensity of the
friendship that concerns me.

I think we should avert
trouble before it starts.

- I was rooting 100% for
those girls to be together.

We're not going to be
separated. We're not.

They can't make us!

- You didn't watch society to
interfere with their lives.

- You're not going anywhere.

You're 15 years old, Yvonne!

- Anger against mother
boiled up inside me.

As it is she who was one of
the main obstacles in my path.

- The film, it's
quite sympathetic

to the killers.

Is the message if you just let
queers be, they won't kill?

I'm not so sure.

I think it's more
indicative of the dangers

of escaping into
this fantasy world.

It is because we are mad!

We are both stark raving mad!

- The psychic damage
of forbidding someone

from being who they are is
so profound that, you know,

you end up with these
like very bad situations.

- Look. Mother.

- If we wanna be
us, we wanna be us.

And if you don't want
that, it could get ugly.

- Oh my God.

- You're asking me to help
you fuck over the mob.

I can fuck someone
I've just met.

But steal? I need to know
someone like I know myself.

- You think you
know me like that?

- What a gift it is to be a
lesbian and watch "Bound."

- Touch it.

- What are you doing?

- Isn't it obvious?

I'm trying to seduce you.

- Before they made "The Matrix,"

The Wachowskis directed
this really hot movie

about two lesbians.

Queerness aside, it's just
this great noir pot boiler.

Caesar's gonna get
the money, he's gonna bring it-

- How much money?
- Shelly said it's over

two million dollars.

- "Bound" was one of the
best scripts I ever read.

But they went to Warner Brothers
and Warner Brothers said,

"We'll make it, you know,
if you make Corky a man."

- Do I make you nervous, Corky?

- Curious, baby.
- It's funny.

I'm feeling a little
bit curious myself.

- The Wachowskis said to me,

"You would not believe how
many actresses refuse to come

and read because they thought

it would be detrimental
to their career.

- Inside of you, there's a
little dyke just like me.

- No, she's nothing like you.

She's a whole lot
smarter than you are.

- My character in "Bound",

she's just a really
brilliant woman,

stuck in a bad situation
and she happens to be gay.

- I can't let you leave, Violet.

Now if you're not with me

then I have to assume
you're against me.

- "Bound" has taken the
murderous villainist lesbian.

Turn around.

You?

- But made them the
star of the show

and made them who
you are rooting for.

- You gotta be
fucking kidding me.

- So when "Bound" was
initially released,

we just thought it was
a movie about lesbians

made by straight men.

Wake up, you fucking dyke.

- 'Cause I was so stuck on
the, you know, said gender

that I just was like
that's it, that's it.

All I need to know
is that men made it.

It's corrupt, it's wrong.

Then I finally watched
it and I was thinking

it actually gets a lot
of les stuff really right

and it feels really queer.

- It was like, how
can The Wachowskis

make such a beautiful,
sensitive movie about women

and how can they
know so much about

what's in a woman's heart?

- But as it turns out,

this was a movie about
lesbians made my trans women.

Corky.

I wanna tell you something.

I know.

- Maybe that has
something to do with why

it feels different when
you're watching it.

Kiss me.

- The Wachowskis bring in
Susie Bright as a consultant

so that when there is
a lesbian sex scene,

an actual lesbian
sexpert is coming in

to coach the actresses.

- Things like that
specifically lesbianonic moment

when Gina Gershon like
smells her fingers.

- Hmm. Corky. Corky.

- Or when she goes to the bar.

it was kind of giving a
window into lesbian life

and it was just a genre movie.

Where's our money?

It reset

the calculus in my brain
over what was possible.

- "Bound" really subverts that
like dangerous women trope

because we finally get to
see these lesbians as heroes.

- You don't want
to shoot me, Vi.

I know you don't.

- Caesar, you don't know shit.

- You couldn't believe it
because it hadn't happened before.

I was like wait, what?

They're the heroes?

- There's never a
sense that these women

are being demonized.

We want them to get away with it

and we want them to get
away with each other.

- You know what
the difference is

between you and me, Violet?
- No.

- Me neither.

Both alive, both
together and with all the money.

And that's a radical act
for a Hollywood movie.

- There's always been the
terror of women with agency

finding other women with agency

and rebuilding a
culture or a society.

And I think we see that
central tension in horror

day after day, year after
year, decade after decade.

- Part of me is embarrassed

that I love to see these
horribly offensive, misogynist,

yet delicious female villains

but with the dearth of any kind
of powerful women characters

on screen when I was growing up,

those women were
weirdly aspirational.

I wanna be like the
sexiest person in the room

that everyone's afraid of.

There's something there

that's sort of
accidentally empowering.

- There are people
who still do not have

even one single safe person

that they can talk about
their queerness with.

So with watching a version
of ourselves on screen,

it has profound effects in
helping people feel less lonely.

- These films are
very, very important

because they shape the way
people look at the world.

Films make you realize
what your desires are

or what your prejudices
are or what you want.

Do you feel like an outsider?

Do you feel like an outcast?
- We are the weirdos, mister.

- Do you feel that
people should be accepted

and loved for who they are?

That to me is what
queerness represents,

a fuck ton more than whether
or not you eat pussy.