ENH 224 | Spring 2018 | College of Staten Island, CUNY

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Butch-Femme Relationships Discussion (Alexis, Rosalia, Haynia, Zach)

This group, after being put into a “mystery group” with no topic, decided to discuss Nestle’s writing about the Butch-Femme relationships as well as the film “If These Walls Could Talk II”.  Our discussion on these works went to many different places, and it was a very compelling and eye-opening conversation.

Firstly,  we spoke about how in the film, the main character, Lisa’s friends all didn’t approve of the butch lesbian, Amy, and even made fun of her for being different from them and acting like a man. This is despite the fact that Amy  didn’t care that Linda or the others were different from her. This led us to a discussion about people not accepting those who are different from themselves. During this discussion,  Rosalia brought up how her own family became increasingly upset  and judgmental with her for dressing like a tomboy. I thought this was a very interesting connection to the film and, for me personally, made the film’s message even stronger and showed just how puerile hate like this is.

Next, we discussed how the text from Joan Nestle and the film weave into each other perfectly. Despite not being made for or from the text, If These Walls Could Talk II does a great job as a companion piece. Nestle recollects how Butch-Femme relationships were seen in those times. Specifically, she speaks about how Butch-Femme couples made lesbians “culturally visible”. This is illustrated quite well by the film, as Linda was initially uncomfortable with it being publicly apparent that she was lesbian, a group that was very oppressed at the time.  We all concurred that the film made the text’s points clearly visible and easy to understand, which really drove home the point of how these relationships were viewed even clearer.

Our longest discussion was about how hate itself has developed over the years. Inspired by the hate for the Amy shown by Linda’s friends in the film, we began discussing why we thought hate like this existed in the real world. We highlighted that when, where, and how someone grew up makes a big difference in how they see others. Multiple group members mentioned how their parents were openly racist with them and how that bothered and frustrated them. However, this also opened up the point that despite growing up with someone racist, they didn’t turn out racist themselves, which led to us discussing how we think racism and hate will change in the future. Rosalia and Alexis mentioned how they thought that it would likely get worse over time, but Zach and I had a more optimistic approach and said that it’s already improved significantly from where it was even 20 to 30 years ago. There are more movements to stop it than ever, and racists are becoming more and more ridiculed in the public eye.  We related this to how the film was set in 1972, where this kind of hate was much more common and much less frowned upon than in 2018.

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