EP03:
Flipping the “Dead Lesbian” Script
Transcript EN
[00:00:17:18 - 00:00:51:18]
Andrea: Why does it seem like the female characters in every lesbian film from the nineties and 2000s are suffering from mental illness and then die? On this episode we discuss stereotypical portrayals of queer women, mental health and the infamous dead lesbian syndrome and what alternative stories we should be focusing on instead. We talked with Caroline Osander, leader of PsykInfo and organizer of the film festival Don't Fear The Weird, which aims to break and challenge society 's taboos about mental health. Please do note that the interview is in Danish, I'm Andrea.
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Kate: And I'm Kate.
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Andrea: Welcome to episode three of Coming out of the Celluloid Closet.
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Kate: So Andrea, can you tell me what happens in every lesbian movie?
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Andrea: She dies.
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Kate: It's kind of an exaggeration.
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Andrea: It's like our best joke, yeah?
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Kate: We're both chuckling so much over here but no today we're talking about a subset of this phenomenon that we call the dead lesbian syndrome particularly focusing on mental health and the portrayal of the intersection between mental illness and queerness because those representations tend to be lacking at best especially in the nineties and 2000s.
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Andrea: Absolutely. I think many would say, and we also figured this out in our research and also some observations that we had already done in all the phones that we've watched, we can see that the dead lesbian syndrome is pretty much a part of or can be considered a part of the Bury Your Gays trope, and that pretty much refers to the immense amount of queer characters that have died in film and TV.
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Kate: Yeah, exactly.
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Kate: Yeah, mental health portrayals in film or not even that much better.
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Kate: And the vast majority of them are actually horror films right? Where the mentally ill character is evil and thus dies at the end. So yeah, when mental health portrayals and horror or the genre sort of and even Bury Your Gays come together, it's a whole mess.
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Andrea: It doesn't end well for the queer one.
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Kate: Thanks for that, film industry. But I want to actually start with little grounding in film history, because even though -
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Andrea: As per usual the film nerd is coming here to educate the people, let's listen. No, we're very grateful.
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Kate: So I took a whole class about Hitchcock in college and actually one of the first portrayals of this kind of one of these character tropes is in Rebecca from 1941 by Hitchcock which was actually based on a book and then it was one of Hitchcock 's earlier films you know he was active from the forties all the way to the seventies but so this character Mrs Danvers in Rebecca is seen as this obsessive and murderous woman she's in this big mansion that she owns and you don't actually know what sort of happening and it's like very spooky and you know like a lot of intense longing gazes and sort of - do you - is she evil kind of? We're not really sure what happens and then Rebecca, the title character, her death is framed as a suicide but you can kind of tell that Mrs Danvers was obsessed with her so there were these undertones of this like murderous lesbian all the way into back to 1941 and then let's not forget Psycho from 1960 which i'm going to spoil it because it's fifty years old at this point, sixty years old.
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Andrea: Freaking watch it honestly.
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Kate: Right? The big reveal of the character is that mister Bates is embodying his dead mother and attacking hotel guests by putting on his mother 's old clothing and putting on a wig and like enacting that sort of like sort of psychosexual relationship he has with his mother which you know can be seen as a trans character, right a violent trans character.
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Andrea: Yeah, which is also a shout out to our previous episode right they also - Psycho is looked into at Disclosure the documentary, but it's also a film that has been very much tried to be explored within these queer coding or transcoding of characters in earlier films. So absolutely.
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Kate: Exactly.
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Andrea: But so you may not know this about me yet, because this is only our third episode, but I am an avid horror fan and then you mix queer and horror and if you want me to come at any of your parties, just say those two words. I'm there. I'm there early and I'm never early, so I love. So first of all, thank you so much 'cause I definitely do think that these tropes don't come out of anywhere. And if we're talking about the dead lesbian. And you mentioned yourself the murderous lesbian. They have very much to do with each other, because even though the trope is the murderous lesbian, the murderous lesbians ends up dead anyway.
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Kate: Right?
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Andrea: Or the murderous queer woman, whatever, even though they're the murderers, once they end up dead anyway, just very coincidental how that happens, you know? And absolutely this definitely goes back to the forties and to the dawn of film but if we want maybe segue into the nineties and one of my all time favorite films that I believe portrays this very well and also sort of mixes it with this like stalker stereotype as well is the nineties film Single White Female is from 119 directed by Barbet schroeder. Single White Female - Pretty much we have this woman that moves in into the city to this new apartment with this other woman that was looking for a single white female roommate. Mistake number one looking for white women. This is where it all went wrong.
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Allie in Single White Female: How could you do that. Everything I've done, I've done for you. Don't you understand that? The people you hate it. I hate it. People like you don't care? Stupid girl in Tampa. Parents too. I told him all my secrets. You want to put me away, huh?
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Andrea: This is the film that also started sort of the stalker I want to take over your life i don't know if i want to be you or be with you trope. This is like the OG. But yes, we meet this murderous woman under the guise of a very very nice single white female lady that completely does - or not completely, but maybe like slowly does a 180. And ends up dead because apparently she's bad at murdering people.
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Andrea: Yeah, this is. I think this is what we could get from the Dead Lesbian Syndrome yeah murderous queer women are still not that good at the murdering 'cause they end up dead.
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Kate: But they tend to be very violent.
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Andrea: Yes, very, but then we have sort of like this is violence outwards, but could you maybe tell us a little bit about violence inwards? 'cause I know that you really wanted to talk about this sort of artist, self medicating trope that we also see within the dead lesbian.
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Kate: Yes so two films in particular are on that theme which you just mentioned. We have Gia from 1998, which was an HBO biopic about one of the world 's first supermodels and it was directed by Michael Cristofer and it follows Gia who was played by Angelina Jolie at her probably sexiest.
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Kate: My god wow, so hot.
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Kate: She comes to New York and she dreams of becoming a fashion model but within minutes of arriving she kind of gets caught up in the like drug scene, she's at the top of the modeling world but she starts like yeah getting like you know high flying life but then underneath the entire - like the subtext and the undertone of the film is that she's super lonely and she is queer and she really wants love. She has this like whirlwind romance with this woman and like the way that the story comes about is that she's like she can't make it work. Her love isn't legit and so she turns to heroin yeah. This is a true story. It's based on an actual model who ended up dying of HIV/AIDS, so clearly not a great ending for that inward pain of being gay.
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Kate: And then we also have High Art, which is another 90s movie about an artist who again like can't really seem to cope with the fact that she's a genius and also gay. And like the message of the film that it's too much. It's like you can't, you can't.
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Andrea: Women can't handle that coolness.
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Kate: Yeah, you just so she has this like again, this sort of whirlwind affair with this woman who actually is like the lens of the audience. This younger woman who is like it's kind of her first, like love interest in who's a woman and she's just sort of like swept up by this amazing artist and she's just like wants to be with her and be in love with her. But this artist is having a long term relationship with another woman, blah blah. It's just. Very. It's not, it's. It's just like this creative genius trope when it comes to queer women in this type of story means that it can't end well, and again, the ending is she takes her own life with drugs.
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Andrea: Yeah, I don't want to get too much into it. 'cause I know we're going to deconstruct all of this with Caroline, who is way more versed in all of this than we are, but I just want to understand so pretty much what you've observed in these films is that their queerness is too much to handle, and they have to sort of like that has to be controlled somehow.
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Kate: And if not - turning to drugs.
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Andrea: Yeah gotcha yeah OK. But I would say that it's the same thing with Single White Female and also Hitchcock films that we've mentioned that it is their queerness. It is this, like you cannot - with Single White Female like she cannot handle how much she's into her new roommate. That the only answer is murder.
[00:10:54:15 - 00:11:11:24]
Kate: These feelings are so overwhelming and unsympathetic I think is another part of it where it's like in the nineties and 2000s there tended to be this focus on like if you're struggling with your sexuality and you're a woman that's your problem and the world isn't a welcoming place.
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Andrea: Yeah.
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Kate: And that's super damaging yeah. So let's ask Caroline about it.
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Andrea: Yes, I'm very excited to present to you, our guests. We're going to speak with Colleen about how these portrayals are damaging and how we can change them but also how a nuanced representation can be a tool to break taboos which is what they do with their festival Don't Fear the Weird please do keep in mind of as we said before the interview is in Danish so for those who don't speak Danish see our show notes for a transcribed and translated interview and we do recommend watching the 2018 documentary by Michelle Memran, The Rest I Make Up because it's Caroline's favorite film and a fantastic representation of mental health and queerness.
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Kate: Before we get to the interview, let us hear from some of our sponsors. Note that the interview and the sponsorship is in Danish. This episode is supported by LGBT+ Denmark. LGBT+ Denmark works for LGBT+ persons rights and well-being through free advice, voluntary groups, information, political work and activism. You can become a member at www.lgbt.dk. The more members we are the stronger we stand in the fight.
[00:12:29:14 - 00:12:42:06]
Kate: This episode is about mental health. At www.lgbtsundhed.dk you can read more about health specifically for LGBT+ people - what to pay attention to or how to get help from your doctor.
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Andrea: We have Caroline Osander (she/her) with us here in the podcast studio. She is a former volunteer for MIX, and now is the head of Copenhagen Region's Psykinfo, which offers psychiatric counseling. She organizes us the film festival Don't Fear the Weird, which we'll be talking about later. Caroline. When have you started with Psykinfo and Don't Fear The Weird?
[00:13:07:08 - 00:15:28:01]
Caroline: For 8 years back, I got this opportunity to start in this job to break down the taboos around mental illness. It was a job just like you say in Psykinfo psychiatry's information center. And I'm thinking, It's a taboo that's just as widespread in society as I thought. I really wanted to help make a difference with and work with that. So I think I started yes 8 years ago - 9 years ago. It's been a long time since, so I'm thinking, It was this mission, and that's what attracts me to that job. When I started in psychiatry, so in the old days, psychiatry was very something with brains and pills, and in the last few years we have such as a health professional task worked very much on putting a human touch on the lives lived with mental illness. And I thought, It is also an area that you probably also know is so stigmatized and low-prioritized, so we simply need to kick some champagne and red carpet in psychiatry, and by that, of course, I mean that the people affected by mental illness are people who are affected by mental illness are people who deserves great dignity and prioritization. So I'm thinking, or I thought, can I remember, we'll make a great film festival and get some good collaborators on board which had become Cinemateket and the Association The Outsider and so we create simply than the coolest platform in the world to discuss these topics that are so taboo because when we go in the cinema and sit shoulder to shoulder and go out afterwards and talk about things, it's like this difficult topic gets a little easier talk about, so that's why I was the initiator on doing a festival on that topic, and then I was so lucky there was an artist, a street artist actually, who helped give birth to this name. Her name is Dy Knudsen - thinks she deserves to be mentioned by name with Don't Fear The Weird because after all there's nothing that can hit it better than pushing against what we all think is weird and not being so afraid of it and let's talk about it.
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Kate: Can I just ask? Just about how the planning and such goes for programming some films for the festival itself? Is it something you elaborate on yourselves, or is it something you explore in or how do you find films for the festival?
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Caroline: We have some collaborators we have in Scotland - we have a film festival which has actually been underway for fifteen-twenty years I think it is which is long. We sometimes look at, to see what are they doing, but we never have enough time and we never have enough people to research you know more worldwide what is abroad, what's in Scandinavia of good movies, so it almost always ends up with us ourselves sitting around researching in this community group of collaborators of old movies. There are lots of movies we can pull from, so isn't it because we lack film material, but we could benefit from recent films and films made in Scandinavia and Danish films. So I yeah, I guess it's like that.
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Kate: Yes because I think there must be so many topics you can choose to talk about, that is as a collaborative group, but also for such an audience you would like to reach with some, well, deep topics like you have to show through movies and then maybe I need to have a programming of some guests you talk to, But then how are you putting some items on the front of the table and saying that's what we want to talk about because it can be a little deep and that is...
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Caroline: I can! Well, it's the subject of suicide and depression and self-harm. That's not exactly how, wohoo, party topics is it? To say the least. After all, it is the severity of life when it looks the blackest that we would like us to talk about. What we are talking about also helps to defuse it, and also that you can have - that is perhaps the most important thing is that you can have a mental illness in so many ways, and these topics we can talk about in many different ways, so we do it at events and events and music and talks. Now did I forget what you were actually asking about what was it you were asking? H How we choose the topics? Yeah, well it's such a bit a hodgepodge of what else has Psykinfo been doing this year? What has The Outsider put the focus on? It's also there is some timeliness in society right now. Last year, of course, the subject was obvious: corona, isolation, loneliness, was a typical subject we had on there, for it fits the times. Right now young girls are unfortunately more in the statistics around suicide, then we can come up with putting it on as a topic, so it's such a mix of what is current right now and what we also think is exciting and what we know very much as those people like want to hear and hear something about.
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Kate: Yes, exactly yes.
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Andrea: There are so many things I'd like to ask, but I'd actually like to start with 2 things; when has you started with Don't Fear the Weird? and then you say we pretty much who are 'we'? So how many are you in Psykinfo? how does it work?
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Caroline: Yes, we started ours, it will be our sixth year this year, and when I say we then I mean Psykinfo, I mean Cinemateket, and then I mean the Association Outsider. we are 3 parties to the cooperation, and so all the people working in Psykinfo throw a lot of effort into it. The Outsider makes a short film program, which is produced by people in psychiatry themselves, also a really fine project that there are free showings of typically. And the Cinemateket is the amazing house that I know you also know, provides the location and plays in with lots of creative ideas and movies and helps us lift the festival with us so we're super happy and keep working together. I hope we should not be separated at any point
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Andrea: I don't think so either. I haven't heard anything at least. What has been the response of your audience and who is your audience? Is it targeted at... alts for example, if I think of MIX, well, it's targeted to everyone, but of course we have a very loyal audience that comes every year because they would like to see themselves on the big screen. Is it the same with you?
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Caroline: That's good question, it is! We'd like to know something more about who our audience is now. There are two thousand people like this coming over these three days. The festival is for everyone because we think this is very much about being human. Of course, it is some special experience that having tried to have a mental illness or be the relatives of someone who has it. But it is, after all, a subject of which we are all concerned. I don't think there's probably not anyone who doesn't know anyone, if we say, We have up to half a million people, then it's so current for all people that everyone can come in and get the benefit of being at the festival. And the feedback we get it is just that there is a special mood. One of the reasons why there is probably a special mood, I also think that people who often actually share out their personal experiences around vulnerability and illness and bring up these big issues in life like that.
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Kate: And when you say we have up to five hundred thousand, can you elaborate on it a little?
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Caroline: Yes, the number of people who have depression for example is really high, the number of people who have anxiety is also really high. The numbers that we use in that campaign called “one of us”, I do not have such the latest statistics with, but it does say something about that it would probably be higher than five hundred thousand than half a million people, but at least we should also be every three is relatives, so this is a subject that affects us all. And what's so paradoxical, it's that we're so bad at talking about it when we're so many who have experiences with it, right?
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Andrea: According to www.sundhed.dk over half of lgbt people have considered suicide, especially women and transgender people. This is 2 to 3 times more than compared to the rest of the Danish population.
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Caroline: I am absolutely convinced that movies are, after all, helping to create expectations of how one's life is going to be, or could be, and create a great many images. And you grow up thinking that you are transgender or a lgbt+ person and see these suffering stories, because that's the most often what you refer to, it always becomes suffering and trauma within these minority narratives, then I think, it creates a negative bias to , how is my life going to be? What for some expectations do I have of myself? That said, there's... It's also a dilemma I actually think because there is also a higher incidence of these things, depression and anxiety, because there is associated with being lgbt+ person the huge amount of stigma that you have to bear, so therefore it is also natural. It's not that being transgender equals you getting stress or anxiety, and there's also a lot of people who don't, but after all, there's a lot of stigma associated with it. So, on the one hand, I also think that there is this one with it; movies should be allowed to make their own drama, and after all, artistic freedom does not have an obligation to enlighten folks, films should be allowed to be dramatic and stereotypical if they feel like being. It just doesn't help our agenda, you could say well as we have in common.
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Caroline: And yet, I think we have actually talked about a little, that is, in the field of mental health and mental illness, there has been what we are talking about a little bit, from demonization to idealisation. So in the time I've been on Don't Fear the Weird and a little before that, if you take a classic like the Cuckoo's Nest for example, you know that, after all, it's very classic stereotypes about how are psychiatric patients and how are psychiatry; the big cold system and the dangerous Chief Doctors, stuff like that. If you look forward in time, after all, some characters are starting to come and now I'm not actually thinking about movies, now I was actually thinking about this Homeland series, I don't know if you know? Where there is this CIA agent super power woman, who uses her bipolar diagnosis also sometimes. So in a way, I don't know if one can.. does not seem you can call it a trend where there are so few, I just think it was interesting that there have been any films that have, perhaps not idealized, it is also an exaggeration, but which in any case has created some other expressions around having a mental disorder and use it as a competence. And then there's the whole thing that sick or brilliant you know, because you have a mental disorder, so you're also particularly artistic and all the myths around it are not us?
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Andrea: What do you think happens when we have portrayals that are good or bad? What it does to society when they think about someone who has a mental illness.
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Caroline: I must simply cite an example of a series that I think can.. which I think is nuanced, and it was SKAM, remember SKAM, the youth series?
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Andrea: Everyone can remember SKAM, I promise you!
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Caroline: Wow, some really lovely stories on what life is like for better or worse. i just get completely touched just at thought of it, on Even. Do You Remember Isak and Even's Love Story?
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Kate: Yes, best season ever!
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Caroline: Exactly and wow do we need to see someone.. it was a gay guy who had a bipolar disorder, but he was good-looking and he struggled with it, but came out the other side and you got faith and you got hope and it's gonna be fine! So of course movies are featured, if it's only the suffering story that comes into play, then it helps to show that I'm going to have a good life and as a lgbt+ person or if I get a mental disorder, that is. There are so many prejudices around mental illness that you can't get well and one will be sick all the time and that it... and for the vast majority, it is something that is either periodical or you can get healthy, and that narrative we see not very often, but as I came back to, it is not the film's task either. It's... Yes, so I find it hard to find movies actually that I think are very nuanced, because nuances like you also say it, are the completely magic buzzword in thiswe'd like to see shades, so we'd like to see complex characters, but it's not everyone who wants that.
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Kate: No, and there is perhaps a limitation in that one has only 2 hours to tell a story. That's the thing about film. And so with series you can elaborate on it a little more because you have a little more time, with those characters, but with movies you only have a 1.5 -2 hours, so it might be a limitation, but that is, like you said; it can affect us very much what we get out of those stories, especially when we're such young, for example when we've seen a movie that affects us and then it stays with us for the rest of our lives almost. And if it's such a poor representation, then it's right... they can harm us.
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Caroline: Yes and it's something I meet in my work. We also meet people who say, 'I've seen the Cuckoo's Nest. I'm not gonna seek help or any treatment'. or children asking if you walk around with shackles on your feet and such from school inquiries and things like that... it really needs, we're talking about the things here, so we can have some of those stereotypes killed, and then I don't know how to make it smart with even more coming. I have to say, it's also about us having to have some more money for some good directors, queer instructors and female directors, or straight directors who think such complex life narratives can be folded out. I think it's exciting.
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Andrea: There are so few films that have been made about people with mental illness that you can't really see that there is a stereotype, and I think that was quite interesting because now that I come back to Kate's questions and how you program in Don't Fear the Weird, you have so chosen film where at no time is it said, not at all said that the person suffers from anything, but it becomes suggested. Would such films come in Didn't Fear the Weird?
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Caroline: We actually take the stereotypical movies on purpose. Last year we brought Joker, for example, because it's such a good occasion to talk about the things here. Because let's rather get the stereotypes on the table and exchange ideas around them, because it's also where we move as human beings, because it should also not be the case that we create some spaces where it is not safe to say prejudices out loud. Can you follow me? Because ... I myself had prejudices once about different things, everyone has that, I try to be curious and careful and respectful always in how I conduct myself but it is.. so we also bring the Cuckoo's Nest and the Shining and all the worst, because they're also good movies, and we like to entertain that way. Drama of the mind, it swings because it's fun to watch and you feel entertained. At the same time we're trying to find the nuances and often it's also in the documentaries where we can get things folded out more, and where we think, it must be a little more true to reality, over here in the documentary genre. There we had a year an opening film called Nice Girl, which was a Norwegian, I .. I couldn't figure out how to say it in Swedish or Norwegian, I was just going to then I'm not going to. and in it there was actually a director who filmed herself, and she had a depression and had this camera with, and also when she got treatment with electroshock, which is also a wild thing that there exists a lot of myths around, but which is actually an impactful treatment. And she showed that in this documentary. It was very wild to be allowed to be inside and see it, and you also see how she got better. So there are some individual [films] in between, but we're a bit lost sometimes, and that's why we're going to show some films, which have been shown before, or because not so much gets made, and then it's also sometimes a resource issue. We can also, as you also know yourself, we could be 20 at this festival, then we could find maybe 4 more films.
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Kate: And when you show movies, how do you create the dialogue afterwards? For example, is that kind of space, the way you can get into a room and then talk to people in a safe place right?
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Andrea: Yes, especially I'm thinking if one would like to talk about or break down some stereotypes if you show a movie with stereotypes.
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Caroline: Well then it's very much how we make it out to facilitate our talks such in a way that then there can be a panel talk afterwards where 2 people sit; there one sitting in the interviewer and then we make sure that the facilitator like goes to the bone on those stereotypes and gets for those they interview to answer “and what do you think about it?” , a ltso it might be.. let's say it was a stereotype like, it could be Betty Blue for example, very fine movie like, but I wouldn't put any diagnosis on her but.. and I can't because I do not do anything like that at all, but let's say now, then we could have a talk around borderline for example, which is also a disease that there are many prejudices around. So would we typically talk and have a person who had personal experience and someone who had some clinical experience and a facilitator who goes all the way around all these stereotypes. And who can best answer that? Of course the person who has experienced and has this disease himself.
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Kate: Yes because I remember in Girl Interrupted for example that the main character she suffers from borderline, but it's never so defined. It's just how okay, it's a little fluid. Oh yes I suffer from something, but I get better eventually, but there are others in the home I know there are not getting better and they depend on their diagnoses I think they like that... can't we get an explanation?
[00:33:10:01 - 00:33:31:10]
Caroline: And that's what are often diagnoses, we talk a lot about the fact that we're a diagnostic society right now, but diagnoses are also very much to help people to the right treatment. It's just like that, it's not “just”, but that's what it's about. It's about showing a path to some kind of treatment and getting some help. After all, it has nothing to do with what kind of human you are or anything.
[00:33:32:14 - 00:34:24:16]
Andrea: It seems interesting because now we have talked very much about stereotypes. I think maybe it's important to talk about some of the stereotypes. Especially for our listeners, because when you say that a diagnosis of course isn't “just”, but it's a way to be like that; okay, we know what it is and then we have a treatment. And I know full well that it's not as simple as that, but as you yourself said; it doesn't matter how you are as a person, but I think when you look at movies, also television, but especially movies, how people with a mental illness or a mental diagnosis are portrayed. They are portrayed in a specific way, so I think my question about, before explaining the different stereotypes, have you experienced in your work that a reaction or how people are influenced by these stereotypes we see on film?
[00:34:28:14 - 00:35:18:24]
Caroline: Well we only have.. may I just correct something if I had to say something that might not be quite apparent. One is clearly affected by a mental illness if you have one. After all, one is struck by their thoughts and feelings and.. so that way one's personality is affected, but it's a disease that speaks, it's not a human speaking, so when you are very affected by your illness your personality will change characteristics and it's more present with some diseases than others. If you have a severe depression or something like that for example then you will be very much.. but I won't go in that. It was just to say; of course one is influenced and another, what to say, another person? But it's just to say that then it's when the disease is talking. And what you were asking, it's about the stereotypes.. try saying it again.
[00:35:19:05 - 00:35:37:06]
Andrea: If you can see in your work that stereotypes affect people? And it doesn't have to be people who have a mental illness, but for example their families or close friends or audiences to Don't Fear the Weird. Have you experienced that you can see; okay, this person thinks that when you have borderline like that one is like that?
[00:35:39:24 - 00:37:34:18]
Caroline: No because I don't think there are such direct couplings in the movies between borderline, so are you like that, or depression, so are you like that or.. bipolar is probably the one there is.. because I'm thinking and it's also kind of funny in the tragically comedic way, but bipolar is maybe some of what gets portrayed the most because you can pull the most from a character who swings that way between depression and mania, it would be hard to make a good movie with someone who has a depression all the time, because not very much happens if you can put it that way too. Stereotypes, I have encountered it in the way that more people have thought that one is sick first if you feel the way you have it in the Cuckoo's Nest for example and that way you will wait to seek treatment because you think it should be so bad.. that is, you will hold back because you think maybe; uh the stomach ache or the thing I've been walking around with for so long, it can't be anxiety, that you connect not how you have mental instability to a mental illness because you're thinking mental illness, ouf, it's after all stuff like that.. it is the serial killer and it must be completely crazy and so I don't have a mental illness. And so plus that this, which we call a self-stigma, that when you get a mental illness or think about, I could have one, then there's a great self-stigma. Maybe it reminds of internalized homophobia or transphobia, how to define it. And then you think; now, I'm one of them. But without thinking.. because "them" doesn't exist, because diseases can be expressed in so many ways, but then you start thinking low about yourself, about guilt and shame. There is so much shame and guilt associated with it, and we walk around with it alone and I don't talk to anyone else about it, so that way. Does it make sense that answer?
[00:37:35:09 - 00:37:48:10]
Andrea: Absolutely. It's very interesting since you actually mention many of the stereotypes that we highlight in the section. For example, we can see that queer and trans women with mental illness are portrayed as violent in Psyco and Single White Female.
[00:37:49:18 - 00:37:56:11]
Kate: And another stereotype is that women, especially artists, abuse drugs because their sexuality has become too much.
[00:37:57:07 - 00:38:16:02]
Caroline: But those stories could well end somewhere else and start out there and then end up somewhere else with a little more winners in these lives as well? Instead they die and then as you notice, Gia'? it was Angelina Jolie who played her?
[00:38:50:21 - 00:38:55:14]
Caroline: I can't remember how it ended, and we probably don't have to say that here either, but wow I would like to remember.. I would like to..
[00:38:55:19 - 00:38:56:08]
Andrea: I think it's okay to spoil a little!
[00:38:56:12 - 00:38:58:19]
Caroline: Well, it would have been good if it ended well, huh?
[00:38:59:16 - 00:39:01:00]
Kate: Unfortunately it doesn't, no.
[00:39:01:12 - 00:39:05:21]
Caroline: I was very touched by it really, actually a pretty fine movie.
[00:39:07:13 - 00:39:10:12]
Kate: The film is pretty good. Yes It's just ...Yeah it didn't end well.
[00:39:12:02 - 00:39:49:03]
Caroline: Because of course we need to be shown that our lives can also end well and get some ways to, if I go down this road, I'll probably get the life I dream of, with the girlfriend I dream of, with the work I dream of. and then I also want to say, but what sometimes is, unfortunately, these people with mental health, that is, people who have a mental illness, are those who watch Netflix, and eat meatballs and go to football and bake buns. So how to completely make a good life, right? We sure as hell can't make movies out of that.
[00:39:50:04 - 00:41:07:17]
Andrea: When you say that most mental disorders that get portrayed on film, it's bipolar or borderline or something not mentioned, but again, is something that causes you to be violent in some way. And then you've also mentioned that it's probably why movies about the depression are not made because it's a bit meh. But I think that High Art and Gia, although it is not being said, I think there is being suggested that they both suffer from depression. And I think that you are right that if one made..if Gia was a lesbian, bisexual mother of 2, who was going to school and to kindergarten and back and forth and had depression and self-medicating. Yeah, it probably would have been a boring movie. I think that's why you have this stereotype that you use artists. It's like you yourself said Kate, that genius, with their sexuality and their head and their creativity is too much for the world, so they have to self-medicate and I think that's the way we got the stereiotype because it needs to be made exciting or or what do I know. Although Gia portrays a real woman, you can also read very much that it has become right like that, well, fantasized in her life.
[00:41:09:07 - 00:41:37:24]
Caroline: And I get the urge to add; especially also women or queer individuals who have a sexuality which is such unmanageable or such, it often gets problematized, so there are some real rigid norms for what women's sexuality can be like. They must not just be allowed to learn to be in.. but they are most often also problematized and become unruly as well? Like in Single White Female that is also pretty sure was very unmanageable there.
[00:41:39:17 - 00:41:39:23]
Andrea: Have you seen it?
[00:41:40:13 - 00:41:51:20]
Caroline: Single White Female? Yes, but that was many years ago, but I had to [watch it again] because I wanted to just tune myself into those movies, in preparation for today. Really good! Hefty, yes.
[00:41:52:13 - 00:42:05:22]
Andrea: But can you perhaps put a little more words on how it is that the portrayal shows mental disorders and they must not just have the sexuality they have. Can you put a little more words on it?
[00:42:07:00 - 00:42:23:13]
Caroline: I don't think I can like that.. I don't think I can come up with some good examples. I just think I noticed in the movies we mentioned that sexuality is one, if you just went down that road, then it's like problematic, and it's like are unruly that way.
[00:42:24:18 - 00:42:25:00]
Andrea: That's right!
[00:42:25:08 - 00:42:33:11]
Caroline: Yes. And maybe also just because there are some strong norms about women. They must not be sexually exhaustive.
[00:42:34:22 - 00:42:34:22]
Kate: 100%!
[00:42:35:07 - 00:42:35:16]
Andrea: Yes, okay.
[00:42:36:03 - 00:42:36:19]
Caroline: That's how I meant it.
[00:42:36:24 - 00:42:50:05]
Andrea: Exactly, women who are sexual and will probably screw all sorts and you can't, and I can't do that. but it's going to be too much. It is again that art, genius, too much, everything is too much.
[00:42:50:19 - 00:42:58:13]
Caroline: Too much vulnerability, too much creativity, too much sexual drive or use it as a force or such, yes.
[00:43:00:09 - 00:43:30:06]
Kate: Yes, I just want to change the subject a little because I think we can talk about a movie that we all love that gives another such picture of a woman who is queer, who gets to live her life and then die in a proper way and it's the movie The Rest I Make Up by Michelle Memran who made in 2018 I think. It's a documentary-movie so they it makes perfect sense with what you said about like that, maybe documentaries can and be a little more like that.. there is more room to display like that..
[00:43:30:16 - 00:43:30:19]
Caroline: For the nuances?
[00:43:31:14 - 00:43:39:06]
Kate: Yes, exactly. Yeah because I don't know if you'll explain maybe the movie if you can remember the plot properly, but yeah...
[00:43:39:19 - 00:43:40:14]
Caroline: Should I tell it?
[00:43:41:05 - 00:43:41:24]
Andrea: Also because you love the movie.
[00:43:42:05 - 00:43:52:22]
Caroline: Yes, I am very much in love with the movie. Yes, well I am because, in this movie that you meet Maria Fórnes, isn't it right?
[00:43:53:16 - 00:43:53:16]
Andrea: Yes!
[00:43:54:03 - 00:44:45:16]
Caroline: Yes, like that! As is this Cuban really, truly beautiful, poetic, sensuous human being, who creates art from intuition and from the heart and who you can't help but fall in love with and she's portrayed by a younger woman who has her camera on this journey that's in the film. And it's like a portrait of this one Cuban.. she is a screenwriter, and had plays on Broadway and things like that in the United States and Michelle Memran, who is the documentarian there, follows Maria Fórnes' journey and encounter with an Alzheimer's disease.
[00:45:11:22 - 00:46:54:14]
Caroline: What happens to Maria Fórnes when she both gets the disease, how does she tackle it and how does the movie end too? Yes, the movie it's special too. It's special in many ways, also because my mother actually, she's not alive anymore, she actually died here just before Christmas, and she also had alzheimers. I just wanted to share because there was a lot in that movie there, like.. it was very much about being in the moment, Maria Fórnes was incredibly good at creating and just being, and .. the way she tackles her illness is so phenomenal, that's certainly not how my mother tackled her illness I would say. But yes and I'm slipping out of another tangent here, but I think the representation is, after all, very true to Maria Fòrnes being allowed to be affected by her illness, and there are also some slightly sad moments in between where she finds out; “God have I not written anything for 5 years, god. Have I not, have I?” Where Michelle will have to remind her that you haven't actually written on anything, but she doesn't remember that and it's kind of great because she is, she's happy. “ God, haven't you been visiting me in the last 2 months?” Well, there's something good about.. there was something fine and very nuanced about the way that her amnesia is portrayed. It is really just that not'? Or not “just”. Now say why you're in love with it.
[00:46:55:08 - 00:47:29:16]
Kate: Well it's also because, it like it [you say], but not only being like that in the middle of an alzheimers course, but it's also a sexuality. So that she was a lesbian. It was just dropped as a phrase in the film that she was with Susan Sontag and they were lovers and they were together for many years and they had written some lovely messages for each other that we get to hear. And it won't be a problem that she was a lesbian. It was just part of the story and I think it was very finely made.
[00:47:30:06 - 00:48:25:01]
Caroline: Can I add to it? For I actually think that with alzheimer's was also an addition to the story, because I think the bearing in that film was Maria Fórnes as a human being, the way she was, and then no drama is made out of her illness. No drama is being made out of her sexuality as you say, it's just.. it's a human being who has these things with her, and it doesn't get problematized any of it. I thought so too. That's what I think was really super fine and and it was actually kind of interesting when we had to angle that movie because we could well have gone down the alzheimers track, we chose not to do that. We also could well have gone down by the sexuality-track, we didn't do that either. We actually went when we showed it on Don't Fear the Weird, down a track that was about creator power because we think that's what she stood for. Creator Power. Amazing! An amazing person, right?
[00:48:26:02 - 00:49:06:12]
Kate: Yes, and I also saw an interview with Michelle Memran subsequently, it was in 2019 or 2020 I think where she told a little about how Marie Fórnes came to her and said “if we are going to have such a collaboration we have to do a project together” and she said that “I only want to show, So on camera, things I remember myself, and then we can record from it.” And they think I was pretty fine too, that it was her that she decided what we should see that came from her memory, and it was also a really nice way that such treats alzheimers that it's not just such a loss, it's also something you can work with.
[00:49:08:09 - 00:49:15:17]
Caroline: Exactly. There was like a processing of and dealing with her illness and her different terms in such a fine fine way.
[00:49:16:10 - 00:51:08:19]
Andrea: Well, I think it's also because she, as Kate said she was in, that is, it was a movie on her own terms. Just to just answer that question; why do I love that movie, I want to read a quote from the movie and it's from a picture of you where you give a talk where she says “I know everything. Half of it I really the know, the rest I make up.” (“I know everything. One half I know right, the rest I'm making up.”). And I think it's so beautiful that again, it was on her terms, if there was something she didn't remember, it's just not in the movie, and that's the way it is. And yes, there are some things that are pretty sad about it, but that's how life is and yes, Kate you said it there with having only 2 hours-1.5 hours, but I think that you can easily do it and one there is a reason it comes from the documentaries and not fiction, and it can easily be like you said Caroline, and because you have to dramatize it, or make it entertaining, but I was quite amused. It won, The Rest I Make Up won our Lili [award] for best documentary. And the other thing I love about the movie, that's when the director talks to Maria, they don't do it on.. that is, they're talking to a human where I've seen movies where you talk to someone who has alzheimers for example or is older, because she's also an older woman, and they talk to them like they're children, right? They speak s very slow and low and they were just chatting to her and if she didn't remember something like that okay then they filmed something else and that's how it is and I loved that. Yes, my grandmother. She has dementia, but I don't know how to say that in Danish.
[00:51:09:11 - 00:51:09:18]
Caroline: Yes, dementia.
[00:51:10:10 - 00:51:27:18]
Andrea: Yes, dementia and I can feel people talking to her like she's a kid and I'm like, she's older than all of us so combined, why should we talk to her in this way? And that, that was quite the first thing I've noticed in the documentary. She was a human like all of us.
[00:51:28:06 - 00:52:51:05]
Caroline: Yes, and a huge inspiration. Several of the quotes from the movies I have actually, both me and my girlfriend, hung up at home because she's just... she is, after all, an inspiration in relation to that quote as you say, “Half of it I know and what I don't know the rest I make up.” is also just.. she really mastered loss of control, and if there's anything we humans aren't very good at, then it's not being in control. But she hasn't, I think, in the film she shows, she doesn't have that much need for that. That's how she just goes on such a playful light tone through life, and she does that also with her illness. And I agree with it that it was such an equally fine relation with the way it is portrayed and yes, so very loyal to her as a human, I think. And I'm thinking that it's a movie that speaks to everyone. So I think that is why you don' have to have been necessarily affected by alzheimer, or LGBT+ person or anything to find this one, it just goes right to the heart of all people. Don't you guys think that? Because it is so human, she goes straight into the heart of us, Maria Fórnes.
[00:52:54:01 - 00:53:02:11]
Kate: We don't have that much time left, but then before we wrap up, are there any other movies we should be watching that we haven't mentioned?
[00:53:03:05 - 00:53:07:15]
Caroline: Yeah, I wish I could just drop some good names.
[00:53:08:19 - 00:53:10:07]
Andrea: I see you at MIX all the time!
[00:53:11:23 - 00:53:13:12]
Kate: You are also a former volunteer at MIX?
[00:53:13:19 - 00:53:18:14]
Caroline: Yes! Yeah, I just had to figure back when it was, uha it was many years ago, 2009.
[00:53:20:12 - 00:53:23:15]
Kate: Total I love MIX. I really do.
[00:53:26:12 - 00:54:16:12]
Caroline: Film I did you mention this Nice Girl it's called, which I said earlier, I really like this one, where the director herself documents her own experiences with depression and relationships with her boyfriend, and when she is affected by her illness. But but I don't have so many other movies it's - I had even a dream about showing SKAM in a marathon inside the Cinemateket, it could be amazing yes? Thanks yes and then show it to the young just think if we made a lot of things like SKAM and then crammed it into the heads of all these lovely young people going by that life can look in so many colors and shades and luckily for it. I unfortunately don't have any other suggestions.
[00:54:17:11 - 00:54:22:20]
Andrea: But if our listeners are interested in what you're doing, where can they find more info on the web?
[00:54:24:05 - 00:54:33:20]
Kate: Then they can find by Googling Psykinfo Region H. They can also find that on Facebook and they can also find Don't Fear The Weird on Facebook.
[00:54:34:12 - 00:54:35:13]
Andrea: When does Don't Fear The Weird come out?
[00:54:35:21 - 00:54:47:10]
Caroline: This year it is from the twelfth to fourteenth of October. I really hope I very much hope I will also come to yours, so if you come to ours I come to yours.
[00:54:50:05 - 00:54:51:12]
Kate: October is going to be awesome.
[00:54:51:17 - 00:54:53:09]
Caroline: When is MIX this year?
[00:54:54:05 - 00:54:55:00]
Andrea: On 22 October.
[00:54:57:11 - 00:55:02:15]
Andrea: Also in the Cinemateket and Empire Bio. Then we run online a month after.
[00:55:03:09 - 00:55:06:11]
Caroline: Then you have to take off work in the month of October. That's what I'm hearing from this.
[00:55:09:02 - 00:55:09:02]
Kate: Yes.
[00:55:10:06 - 00:55:23:03]
Kate: Do you have you anything else to say before we end, because it was an absolutely amazing experience yes, you explained really well what you're doing. Such really deep thoughts about what movies can and can't do.
[00:55:25:00 - 00:55:32:14]
Caroline: Thanks for inviting me and putting the focus on such important things and also focus on mental health. It's important.
[00:55:37:11 - 00:55:38:15]
Andrea: Thank you so much, Caroline Osander, Thank you.
[00:56:24:19 - 00:56:24:19]
Kate: Thank you so much to Caroline Osander for speaking with us today. This episode of MIX Copenhagen’s ‘Coming Out of the Celluloid Closet’ podcast was presented by Andrea Coloma and Kate Krosschell. Mixing and editing by Winther Robinson. Production help from Ben Hansen-Hicks. Don’t forget to like and follow Coming out of the Celluloid Closet on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts - we release new episodes every week throughout the autumn. If you have questions or feedback for us, send us an email or record and send a voice memo to communication@mixcopenhagen.dk. Find us for MIX 2021 from October 22nd to 31st, 2021 in Empire Bio and Cinemateket. Join us next time for our episode about ballroom!
[00:56:24:19 - 00:56:24:19]
Kate: Coming Out of the Celluloid Closet is supported by Checkoing. At Checkpoint, we offer testing and counselling for STIs for young people aged 15-29, and LGBT+ persons of all ages. It is easy, fast and free. Checkpoint is an alternative to your GP or hospital clinics, and can be found in Denmark's largest cities. At Checkpoint we are inclusive, and we work norm-critically allowing us to focus on you and your needs. The link mitcheckpoint.dk/en is in English, allowing English-speaking a way to book a time for STIs. Coming Out of the Celluloid Closet is supported by Pan Idræt. Coming Out of the Celluloid Closet is supported by Pan Idræt. Pan Idræt is a Rainbow organization that focuses on creating a safe community through sports and activities. Many LBGTQ+ people have had negative experiences when playing sports, whether due to exclusion, bullying, or homophobic locker room talk. Pan Idræt seeks to right this wrong. All people no matter age, size, sexuality, gender identity and expression, or skill level are welcome to join for more than 25 sports and activities. From traditional sports to social activities like board games, you are included. Check them all out at PanIdræt.dk.