Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the comedic film “Bottoms” features an predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and a few Asians and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two lesbian best friends start an all-female fight club in their homophobic high school as a way to lose their virginities to cheerleaders.
Culture Audience: “Bottoms” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and comedic movies where queer people are the central characters.
Ayo Edebiri, Rachel Sennott, Zamani Wilder, Summer Joy Campbell, Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber and Virginia Tucker in “Bottoms” (Photo courtesy of Orion Pictures)
“Bottoms” is a bawdy and occasionally bloody comedy that gets gleefully absurd in this story about two lesbian best friends who start an all-female fight club in their high school. The originality outshines some of the film’s clichés. Even people who might not like “Bottoms” can admit that there are many things in this movie that have never been said and done before in a teen-oriented comedy.
Directed by Emma Seligman (who co-wrote the “Bottoms” screenplay with “Bottoms” co-stars Rachel Sennott), “Bottoms” had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film & TV Festival. A distracting part of this movie is that the cast members portraying high schoolers look too old (early-to-mid 20s) to be in high school. It’s why all the movie’s raunchy dialogue isn’t as edgy as the “Bottoms” filmmakers probably thought it should be. However, because of the talented cast members, the delivery of this dialogue is entertaining, even if many parts of the movie require a huge suspension of disbelief, including the fact that all the cast members playing high schoolers are not really teenagers.
“Bottoms” takes place in an unnamed U.S. city but was actually filmed in Louisiana. The begins with lesbian best friends PJ (played by Sennott) and Josie (played by Ayo Edebiri) talking about sex. At this pont in time, PJ and Josie, who are both virgins, are students in their last year at Rockridge Falls High School. Their fantasies are to lose their virginities to the cheerleaders at the schools who are their biggest crushes.
PJ is hot for Brittany (played by Kaia Gerber), a tall beauty with a sarcastic attitude. (Gerber, who got her start as a model in real life, is the daughter of former supermodel Cindy Crawford.) Josie is infatuated with attractive Isabel (played by Havana Rose Liu), who is dating the school’s start football quarterback Jeff (played by ), a conceited, dimwitted pretty boy who is a chronic liar and cheater. Isabel and Brittany are best friends.
PJ is bossy and obnoxious, but she’s also hilarious and a generally loyal friend. Josie is more sensitive and thoughtful, but she’s also very insecure and plagued with self-doubt. In their conversations about losing their virginities, PJ is confident that it will happen to her before she graduates from high school. Josie thinks that if she has any chance of getting together with Isabel, it’ll probably be if they see each other at their 20-year high school reunion.
At school, PJ and Josie are outcasts because they’re lesbian and because people have heard that PJ and Josie both spent time in juvenile detention for violent crimes. Josie and PJ are often the targets of bigoted hate. Homophobic slurs are often spraypainted on their school lockers. Even the school’s sleazy leader Principal Meyers (played by Wayne Pére) doesn’t hide his homophobia.
There’s an incident where Jeff insults Josie, and she deliberately injures his leg while driving her car with Josie and Isabel as passengers. Principal Meyers calls Josie and PJ into his office and scolds them for injuring the school’s star football player. Rockridge Falls High School’s Vikings football team has been in a fierce rivalry for about 50 years with the Huntington High School Golden Ferrets. And there’s a big football game coming up between the Vikings and the Golden Ferrets
A story has been going around the school that a Rockridge Falls female student was attacked by a Hungtington male student. And so, when Principal Meyers tells PJ and Josie that they need to find a way to channel their “negative energy,” PJ comes up with the idea to start an all-female self-defense club at the school. (It’s really a fight club.) Principal Meyers says the club will be approved if PJ and Josie can find a teacher to be the sponsor/supervisor. PJ and Josie recruit their history teacher Mr. G (played by Marshawn Lynch), who has a hip-hop persona and is going through a divorce.
Josie is reluctant to go through with this fight club idea, but PJ convinces her by telling Josie that the fight club will be a way that they can find potential sex partners. Josie and PJ are thrilled when Isabel and Brittany end up joining the “self-defense club.” Other students are join the club, to varying results.
One of club members is Hazel Callahan (played by Ruby Cruz), who’s androgynous-looking and openly queer, is an even bigger misfit at the school than PJ and Josie, who try not to associate too closely with socially awkward Hazel. Also joining the club is Annie (played by Zamani Wilder), who is proud to be an African American member of the Republican Party. Other memorable supporting characters in “Bottoms” is Hazel’s frisky divorced mother Mrs. Callahan (played by Dagmara Dominczyk) and Vikings football player Tim (played by Miles Fowler), who is Jeff’s smirky sidekick.
The plot for “Bottoms” is fairly simple and a little bit on the formulaic side. However, the movie’s snappy dialogue and great comedic chemistry between the cast members (especially between Sennott and Edibiri) are definitely not formulaic and make this movie shine. Sennott also starred in Seligman’s feature-film directorial debut “Shiva Baby” (written by Seligman), a comedy/drama that was released in 2021 and re-released in 2023. There’s a final showdown in “Bottoms” that gets very over-the-top in its slapstick comedy. Ultimately, “Bottoms” won’t be a massive breakout for any of its stars, but it’s the type of movie that will get a very devoted following who won’t get tired of watching it.
MGM’s Orion Pictures will release “Bottoms” in select U.S. cinemas on August 25, 2023, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on September 1, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in California and Cincinnati, Ohio, the dramatic film “Monica” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A transgender woman takes a road trip for a reunion with her family, including her estranged mother, who has a hard time accepting her daughter’s transgender identity.
Culture Audience: “Monica” will appeal primarily to viewers who are interested in a relatively low-key drama about family issues that are often experienced by transgender people.
“Monica” cast members. Pictured in back row, from left to right: Joshua Close, Brennan or Leland Pittman, Emily Browning and Trace Lysette. Pictured in front row, from left to right: Ruby James Fraser, Graham Caldwell and Patricia Clarkson. (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)
The “slice of life” film “Monica” offers a glimpse into what it’s like for a transgender woman to reveal her transgender self for the first time to members of her family. Trace Lysette gives a magnetic performance in a film that is sometimes limited by mundane scenes. A lot of credit should be given to this drama for not going down a stereotypical path of setting up a deadly tragedy for the transgender protagonist.
Directed by Andrea Pallaoro (who co-wrote the “Monica” screenplay with Orlando Tirado), “Monica” had its world premiere at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival. The film often moves along at a sluggish pace, but for viewers who have the patience for a deliberately introspective film that has several moments of emotional authenticity, then “Monica” is worth watching. A less talented cast would have lowered the quality of this movie.
Many scripted dramas about transgender people often make them tragic figures, but “Monica” does not pander to those clichés. It also doesn’t make a transgender person’s life look easy either. In “Monica,” Lysette (who is a transgender woman in real life) portrays the title character, who is seen taking a road trip from California to her family hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. (The movie was filmed on location in Cincinnati.)
Monica’s purpose for the road trip is to see her immediate family and reveal her transgender self for the first time to them. Monica has not seen these family in members in “a long time,” which isn’t specifically defined in the number of years, but viewers can assume it’s been several years. Very little is told about Monica’s past until near the end of film, although it’s fairly obvious that she’s apprehensive about taking this trip.
Before and during the trip, Monica is seen leaving voice mail messages to a man named Jimmy. However, Jimmy doesn’t seem to be interested in being in contact with her. In the movie’s opening scene, Monica is seen telling Jimmy in a voice mail: “Jimmy, I know you said you wanted some space, but I don’t mean to pressure you … I miss you a lot and just wanted to talk to you about a few things. Give me a call. I love you very much.”
Monica tells Jimmy in the messages that she’s taking a road trip and should arrive at her destination in “a couple of days.” Monica continues to leave messages for Jimmy and occasionally says she knows that he told her not to call, but that she needs to talk to someone. In other words, this movie makes it obvious that Monica is a very lonely person. Even though Monica is seen giving a massage to a naked man before she takes her trip, it’s never explicitly revealed if she’s a masseuse or a sex worker.
Not much happens while Monica is going to back to Cincinnati, so the first third of the movie tends to drag with scenes of her travels. At a gas station, Monica gets leered at by a man, who flirts with her. She politely rejects his advances. There are also some dull scenes of Monica by herself in motel rooms.
Things don’t get interesting in the movie until the family reunion. Monica’s widowed mother Eugenia (played by Patricia Clarkson) seems to have early on-set dementia. Eugenia is often bedridden and refuses to live in a hospice. Instead, Eugenia has a live-in caretaker named Leticia (played by Adriana Barraza), who is a loyal and responsible employee.
Monica’s two siblings live near Eugenia and often visit her. Monica’s brother Paul (played by Joshua Close) is a bachelor with no children. Monica’s sister Laura (played by Emily Browning) is a married mother of three children: 7-year-old son Brody (played by Graham Caldwell); daughter Britney (played by Ruby James Fraser), who’s about 5 years old; and an infant son named Benny (played by twins Brennan Pittman and Leland Pittman). Laura’s husband is not seen in the movie, because Laura says that she and her husband have been going through “a rough patch” in their marriage.
Laura and Paul do the best that they can to accept Monica’s transgender identity and don’t cause any problems for her about it. Eugenia is the one in the family who has the most resistance and discomfort about accepting Monica for who she is. The mother/daughter relationship is the emotional core of the movie, which shows how Monica and Eugenia try to navigate Eugenia’s struggle with Monica’s identity. Clarkson gives a very layered performance, as someone who has an internal struggle with her memory and reality.
“Monica” realistically doesn’t try to wrap everything in an “only in a movie” package. There are moments—thanks to the admirable acting from the cast members—where things are left unsaid, but the characters say a lot with their body language and facial expressions. Monica’s family members don’t express emotions easily, but underneath any pain or confusion, there is still love. “Monica” probably won’t be considered a classic movie about transgender identity, but it has a credible approach to portraying sensitive issues that don’t always have easy answers or expected results.
IFC Films released “Monica” in select U.S. cinemas on May 12, 2023. The movie was released on digital and VOD on May 30, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, in the Atlanta area, and in Hollywood, Florida, the documentary film “Kokomo City” features an all-African American group of people discussing African American transgender women who happen to be sex workers and the men who are their customers.
Culture Clash: African American transgender female sex workers are treated as outsiders in many communities and are targets for a higher rate of violence than many other sex workers.
Culture Audience: “Kokomo City” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in hearing uncensored accounts of the intersections between race, gender, queerness and sex work.
Daniella Carter in “Kokomo City” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)
Black trans women who are sex workers speak their truth in the memorable documentary “Kokomo City.” It’s raw, it’s real, and it’s an impressive feature-length directorial debut from D. Smith. The black and white cinematography gives the film a classic look. If you’ve ever wondered what African American transgender sex women think about in their everyday lives, “Kokomo City” is a moving and sometimes painful look into these women’s souls.
Not only is Smith (who is an African American transgender woman) the director of “Kokomo City,” she is also the documentary’s editor, cinematographer and one of the producers. Smith is a self-taught filmmaker who previously worked in the music business as a Grammy-nominated producer. (Her most famous music collaborations were with Lil Wayne.) In the production notes for “Kokomo City,” Smith says she directed the documentary because she got rejected by other filmmakers who didn’t want to direct this project.
“Kokomo City” had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the grand jury and audiences prizes for the NEXT Innovator Award, which is given to up-and-coming filmmakers with a bold vision. As explained in the documentary, the title of “Kokomo City” is inspired by blues singer Kokomo Arnold’s 1935 song “Sissy Man Blues,” which openly talks about seeking the sexual company of effeminate-looking men or transgender women.
“Kokomo City” focuses on four transgender women telling their stories. There is no voyeuristic aspect to the documentary by showing the women doing sex work, although the documentary has occasional scenes of actors simulating certain sex acts. People who are easily offended by adults taking candidly about sex and using a lot of curse words will probably have a hard time watching “Kokomo City.” However, the movie is about much more than sex. It’s about people struggling to be themselves when they are often shamed by others for wanting to be themselves.
The four women at the center of “Kokomo City” are:
Daniella Carter, from New York City, is the most outspoken and funniest of the four women. Based in New York City’s Queens borough, Carter is a non-stop talker who is the type of person who gives unguarded monologues while doing beauty rituals in her bathroom.
Liyah Mitchell, from the Atlanta suburb of Decatur, is the most confident of the four women. She’s the one who seems to care the most about being perceived as “tough” and cares the least about always looking “feminine.” She uses a lot of slang (for example, “trade” means “sex-partner customer”) that might be hard for some viewers to understand.
Koko Da Doll, from Atlanta, is the most jaded of the four women, but she is also the one who seems the most emotionally wounded. In the documentary, she says that even though she graduated from high school, she’s been functionally illiterate and doesn’t really have any other job skills except being a sex worker.
Dominique Silver, from New York City, is the most reserved and graceful of the four women. She places a high value on discretion and thinks it’s very damaging for transgender sex workers to “out” any of their customers.
Having the majority of the screen time consisting of people talking might seem like a dull way to present a documentary. But the people interviewed in “Kokomo City” are definitely not dull. Some of their stories are harrowing. “Kokomo City” opens with Mitchell telling a story about getting into a physical fight with a customer, who brought a gun with him to their tryst. Mitchell says she felt threatened by seeing this firearm, so she grabbed the gun and found out that the trigger didn’t work. The customer wanted his gun back, so he got into a brawl with her.
“We started tumbling down the stairs together, fighting over this damn gun,” Mitchell continues. The customer eventually gave up the fight, took his gun, and drove away. According to Mitchell, the client then contacted her and texted her a message saying, “You ruined my life.” The customer than explained that he’s a rapper in Atlanta who carries the gun for protection. Mitchell says that she and the customer reconciled and then hooked up for a sexual encounter.
Whether or not this story is true isn’t the point. It’s an example of the literally rough and tumble lives that sex workers live that are discussed in sometimes graphic details in “Kokomo City.” One of the constant things that these sex workers say about almost of their customers is these are men who present themselves to the world as very masculine and heterosexual. Their customers usually have wives or girlfriends who have no idea that their men have a secret desire to have sexual encounters with transgender women. Koko Da Doll says that most of her customers want to be with transgender women who have big breasts and big penises.
The sex workers interviewed in the documentary also say that their customers have a variety of requests and needs. Some customers don’t want to acknowledge that transgender women have male genitals, while other customers very much want the transgender sex worker’s male genitals to be part of the encounter. The sex workers in this documentary say that many of their customers are prominent men, some of them celebrities, who keep their desires for transgender women very well-hidden from the public.
“Kokomo City” also interviews four African American men, with only one admitting to being sexually involved with a transgender woman. A man who is identified only as XoTommy and his transgender girlfriend Rich-Paris are interviewed where they live in Hollywood, Florida. Rich-Paris is also a sex worker. XoTommy and Rich-Paris say they met through “a mutual friend,” but they also give the impression that XoTommy was her customer. XoTommy mentions that most of his family members already know that he likes to be with transgender women.
Rich-Paris says that violence has always been an occupational hazard for sex workers—even more so if the sex worker is a transgender woman of color. “Violence happens after the orgasm,” Rich-Paris comments. “They [the customers] feel like their masculinity is threatened.” She says of transgender women: “A lot of us are way [more like] women than cis[gender] women. The only thing is we have is male parts.”
In a separate interview, Mitchell says: “Most cis women don’t want to date bisexual men. Me, personally, I love bisexual men. There are different guys who are with you for different reasons and different things.”
“Kokomo City” also acknowledges that African Americans are often taught homophobia from a young age, with those in the male gender getting the most pressure to be heterosexual. Black men who do not conform to heterosexual norms are terrified of being shamed by members of the community, which is why the “down low” culture exists for men who pretend to be heterosexual to most people in their lives but who live secret queer lives that often involve hiring sex workers to fulfill those needs.
Atlanta-based songwriter Michael Carlos Jones, nicknamed Lø, says in the documentary that he’s been “talking” online with a transgender woman and has flirted with her, but he hasn’t met her in person. Jones also says he’s never acted on his curiosity to have a sexual encounter with a transgender woman. “I love women,” he states, while adding that he’s also attracted to women whom he considers to be hard to get.
When Jones isn’t name-dropping the celebrities he says he’s worked with (including Sean Combs, Janet Jackson and Beyoncé), or bragging about things no one cares about (“I smoked weed with Rick James”), Jones seems to be a study in contradictions. He wants to give the impression that he’s an open-minded free spirit who loves to party, and he admits he’s sexually attracted to transgender women. And yet, he won’t admit to even kissing a transgender woman. He doesn’t sound very believable about never being in sexual contact with a transgender woman, especially when he says he’s had sexual encounters in various states of intoxication.
Lenox Love, the CEO of Lenox Love Entertainment (based in Atlanta), is shown briefly in the documentary when he talks about promoting a Hush Night for transgender female exotic dancers at a local nightclub. He says that Hush Night is an easier and safer way for transgender sex workers to find customers, compared to looking for customers on the streets. According to Love, many of the men who go to Hush Night are famous and have a very different public image about their sexuality than they do in private.
“Kokomo City” also interviews two men in a car in The Bronx, New York. They’re identified only by the names INW Tarzan and Lexx Pharoah. Tarzan says that African American men “can’t accept being with a trans woman in public because it’s their ego and … they feel like the world is going to belittle them for what they like. If they’re married and have children, that’s something that could compromise the whole situation, whatever job they have.”
Pharoah adds, “I think acceptance is part of the problem.” Tarzan has this advice to men who have “down low” encounters with transgender women: “Don’t live a double life.” Why are Tarzan and Pharoah in this documentary? Were they cruising for transgender sex workers but won’t admit it on camera? (It sure seems that way.)
The fact that most of the men who are interviewed in this documentary have aliases is proof that there’s still a lot of shame and secrecy that African American men have in even associating with transgender women. It’s also important to point out (and it’s also mentioned in the documentary) that not all of the customers of these sex workers are African American. However, the sex workers interviewed in this documentary say that their African American male customers are the most likely to want to hide their sexual activities with transgender women.
Silver says this secrecy is the only way that transgender sex workers can realistically stay in business. She firmly believes that sex workers should not “out” any of their customers. “When you expose them, it dries up the well,” Silver comments. “That doesn’t bring good karma. At the end of the day, they’re suffering because they’re not living in their truth. And that’s punishment enough.”
The issues of secrecy and infidelity are intertwined with sex work, since most of sex workers’ clients are married or are in committed relationships. Prostitution is still illegal in most places in the United States. The customers usually don’t get punished as harshly as the sex workers. These are some of the reasons why sex work will continue to be controversial. “Kokomo City” does not pass judgment but it doesn’t portray sex work as glamorous or “victimless.”
Carter is the most blunt in the documentary when talking about what she thinks about how her customers usually have cisgender women as sex partners at home but still seek out transgender sex partners elsewhere. She believes that cisgender women and transgender women, especially in the African American community, are pitted against each other but actually have more in common than people would like to think.
Carter doesn’t mince words when she says of her trans womanhood: “It hits so close to home that it may be in your home when you’re not there.” But she also says that when it comes to the blame game, it’s important to remember who’s the one doing the most harm to others: “We’re normalizing grown men taking advantage of our bodies,” Carter comments, while she also says of her sex work: “This is survival work.”
“Kokomo City” is not a “happy hooker” movie. Most of the women in the documentary come right out and say that they would rather be doing something else other than sex work to make the type of money that they need. All of the sex workers have similar stories of turning to sex work because many places won’t hire them because they are transgender.
Most transgender people are also shunned by their families. Koko Da Doll is the only sex worker in the documentary who mentions her family. She says that after she was homeless with her mother and sister, they both ended up rejecting her when she started living as a trans woman.
Silver says she got into sex work because it was the only work that she could find that paid enough for the cosmetic surgery that she says she needs to fully transition into the gender she knows she is. Koko Da Doll says she started doing sex work when she was homeless. Koko Da Doll repeatedly tries to put a hard exterior by saying that she only cares about her customers’ money. But she also gets teary-eyed when she says, “All I know is escorting, and I want to try to do something different.”
Sadly, Koko Da Doll never got that chance. On April 18, 2023, Koko Da Doll (also known as Rasheeda Williams) was shot and killed in Atlanta. Her accused killer is a 17-year-old male, who was arrested for murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. As of this writing, the case has not yet been resolved. The epilogue of “Kokomo City” includes an “in memoriam” to Koko Da Doll. Throughout “Kokomo City,” the transgender women say that they always feel they are in danger just for existing, and know they could be murdered just because they are transgender.
Smith’s style of cinematic storytelling for “Kokomo City” is intimate and unflinching, but the documentary also has artsy shots edited in that show appreciation for the surroundings where the interviews take place. There’s some nudity in “Kokomo City” (including a striking visual of Silver toward the end of the film), but the emotional nakedness that these women express is really why “Kokomo City” will stand the test of time as one of the most impactful documentaries made about transgender women. “Kokomo City” is a powerful account of transgender women trying to survive in a world where many people don’t want transgender women and many other LGBTQ+ people to live. It’s a meaningful testament to how people’s bodies and sexualities should not take away their human rights.
Magnolia Pictures released “Kokomo City” in New York City on July 28, 2023, with an expansion to more U.S. cities on August 4, 2023. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on August 15, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1988, in an unnamed city in the United Kingdom, the dramatic film “Blue Jean” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A high school gym teacher, who is a closeted lesbian, faces reckonings in her personal life and in her career about homophobia and her fear of revealing her true sexuality.
Culture Audience: “Blue Jean” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in well-acted, female-oriented dramas about how LGBTQ people are affected by homophobic aspects of society.
Lucy Halliday in “Blue Jean” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)
“Blue Jean” offers an unflinching look at how a British lesbian’s life is affected by homophobia. This drama takes place in 1988, but the themes are timeless and universal. The year 1988 was when the United Kingdom introduced the homophobic Section 28 legislation, which prohibited “promotion of homosexuality” through various laws. Section 28 legislation lasted until the early 2000s. The acting in “Blue Jean” is better than average, even though the movie’s ending might be too vague for some people.
Written and directed by Georgia Oakley, “Blue Jean” is Oakley’s feature-film directorial debut. “Blue Jean” had its world premiere at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival, where it won the People’s Choice Award. “Blue Jean” was also nominated for 13 prizes for the 2022 British Independent Film Awards and ended up winning two: Best Lead Performance (for Rosy McEwen) and Best Supporting Performance (for Kerrie Hayes).
The movie is infused with effective tension, as viewers are shown what it’s like to be Jean Newman (played by McEwen), a physical education teacher in her late 20s, who is living a double life. All of Jean’s closest friends, who are queer, know that she’s a lesbian. Everyone else—including her sister and including Jean’s colleagues at the high school where she works—don’t know Jean’s true sexuality and assume that she’s heterosexual.
Jean doesn’t talk about her love life at work, but people know that she’s not married and has no children. When people assume that Jen is interested in dating men, Jean doesn’t correct them and tell them the truth. The truth is that for the past several months, Jean has been dating a butch lesbian named Vivian “Viv” Highton (played by Hayes), who is comfortable with being out in the open about being a lesbian.
Viv is a happy-go-lucky extrovert, while Jean is a moody and often-uptight introvert. The movie doesn’t say what Viv does for a living, but Viv probably has a job where she wouldn’t be fired because she’s a lesbian. Jean does not have that type of job in 1988. Viv’s outward appearance (she dresses like she’s in a motorcycle gang) also indicates that she has a job where she has the freedom to dress anyway that she wants in public.
“Blue Jean” has multiple scenes that show Jean and some of her friends anxiously watching TV news reports about the Section 28 legislation being pushed by U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and other politicians in the Conservative Party. They also react with dismay and anger about how their lives are essentially being made into crimes. These news reports often include interviews with homophobic citizens who say that it’s damaging for children to be around gay or queer people and for children to know that queer people exist.
Section 28 applied to laws that were about “protecting children” from anything that could be described as promoting homosexuality or queerness. LGBTQ people being open about who they are was put in the category of “promotion,” so it’s little wonder that Jean (who loves her job) wants to hide her sexuality from her work colleagues in order to keep her job. Because Jean works with underage teenagers, her very existence could be labeled as a “danger” and a “crime” to these children if her secret was revealed.
It’s later shown in the movie that Jean has gone out of her way to take certain precautions so that people at work won’t find out about her double life. She currently works at a school that is quite a distance from where she lives. That’s because Jean hangs out at lesbian pubs and nightclubs near where she lives, and she doesn’t want to take the chance of any work colleagues, students or student parents seeing her going in and out of lesbian-oriented places. Jean also has a rule for Viv that Viv must never call Jean at work.
Viv understands why Jean is “in the closet,” and agrees to keep their relationship a secret from everyone but their queer friends. But as time goes on, this secret starts to take a toll on their relationship. Jean’s straight married sister Sasha (played by Aoife Kennan) sometimes asks Jean to look after Sasha’s son Sammy (played by Dexter Heads), who’s about 5 years old. If Viv is over at Jean’s place, Viv is described as a “friend,” and Jean misleads her family into thinking that her relationship with Viv is strictly platonic.
Jean also has to face some hard truths when a new student named Lois Jackson (played by Lucy Halliday), who’s about 16 or 17 years old, joins Jean’s gym class and makes Jean acutely aware of the consequences of living a lie. From her very first day in the class, Lois is pegged as an awkward misfit and is bullied and taunted by some of the female students. The “mean girl” who picks on Lois the most is a homophobic brat named Siobhan Murphy (played by Lydia Page), who is able to figure out that Lois isn’t heterosexual. Lois and Siobhan get into verbal and physical conflicts during Jean’s gym class.
One night, Jean is hanging out at a lesbian bar, when she is shocked to see Lois there. They both look at each other but say nothing, with each of them knowing that they now have a secret between them. Jean becomes even more on edge when it becomes apparent that Lois is yearning to “come out of the closet” and is seeking an adult mentor who can help Lois navigate what could be a very treacherous “coming out” situation. However, because Jean is deeply closeted herself, she has to decide if she is going to live her truth and help Lois, or if she is going to choose her job security and stay “in the closet” about her true sexuality.
One of the great things about the cast members’ performances in “Blue Jean” is that they show a lot of inner conflict without saying it out loud. It’s in Jean’s anguished facial expressions when she overhears co-workers make homophobic remarks but she says nothing. It’s in Viv’s pained body language when Jean rejects Viv’s attempts to hold hands in public, or when Jean lies to her family in describing Viv as “just a friend.” And it’s in how distressed and lonely Lois looks when she is being bullied in Jean’s class, and Jean doesn’t immediately come to her defense, out of fear that Jean will look like she’s giving preference to a possibly queer student.
Viewers will get a real sense that Lois’ presence is unsettling to Jean, not just because Lois knows Jean’s secret, but also because Lois probably reminds Jean of how Jean used to be as a teenager. “Blue Jean” does not have any dialogue or flashbacks that describe Jean’s childhood or teenage years. However, it’s pretty obvious that when Jean was underage, she did not have any adults in her life whom she could confide in to help Jean be her authentic self. Jean now has a chance to be that person for Lois, but will Jean make this decision that would cost Jean her job?
There’s more to the movie’s plot when something happens that essentially forces to Jean to make this decision. Jean also gets pressure from Viv to stop living a lie, because Viv is losing patience with Jean about how secretive their relationship has to be. “Blue Jean” does not judge Jean too harshly, but the movie does show in no uncertain terms that what Jean thinks of as “self-protection” can actually harm other people, including herself. The last third of the movie has some powerful moments where Jean has to face this harsh reality.
Oakley’s solid writing and director for “Blue Jean” is enhanced by the impressive naturalistic performances from the principal cast members. McEwen as Jean is the obvious standout with the lead role, but supporting actresses Hayes and Halliday as, respectively, as Viv and Lois, also have several impressive scenes in the movie. “Blue Jean” isn’t just a story about LGBTQ people and homophobia. It’s also a very meaningful character study of how dishonesty can damage relationships and chip away at someone’s soul and self-respect.
Magnolia Pictures released “Blue Jean” in New York City on June 9, 2023, with an expansion to more U.S. cities on June 16, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 2021 and 2022 in various parts of the United States and in Berlin, the documentary film “Every Body” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans and Latinos) discussing what it’s like to be intersex, which is being born with male and female genital or reproductive physical characteristics.
Culture Clash: Intersex people often experience non-consensual surgeries as children, cruel discrimination and other traumas when other people assign genders to them that the intersex people might not feel are the correct genders for them.
Culture Audience: “Every Body” will appeal primarily to viewers who are interested in seeing an informative documentary about people in the LGBTQIA+ community who are often overlooked and misunderstood.
Maribel Gallo and River Gallo in “Every Body” (Photo courtesy of Focus Features)
“Every Body” is essential viewing to see how intersex people deserve the same human rights as anyone else. This notable documentary doesn’t overload on talking head interviews. Instead, it focuses on three intersex people who share their compelling stories. “Every Body” had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Festival.
Directed with intelligence and sensitivity by Julie Cohen, “Every Body” doesn’t just include personal stories. It’s also a well-researched documentary that unpeels the layers of medical abuse and shame that go in tandem with the non-consensual surgeries that intersex people often experience as children. The movie is also a call to action to advocate for intersex people’s rights and to help put a stop to abuse of intersex people by having better laws and more resource support for intersex people.
Unlike transgender people, who usually want to be one gender, intersex people usually have a different journey because intersex people have genital or reproductive physical characteristics associated with being male and female. Parents of intersex people are often told by medical professionals which gender should be assigned in childhood, often before intersex people are old enough to tell people what their gender identities are. This gender assignment at childhood often leads to non-consensual surgeries on underage intersex people.
The beginning of “Every Body” shows how people take for granted that an unborn child will be either male or female. The opening of the movie is a montage of “gender reveal” videos, where expectant parents reveal the genders of their unborn children. But what about the children who are born with both male and female sex organ characteristics?
“Every Body” presents this statistic: “An estimated 1.7% of the [U.S.] population has some intersex traits. About .07% have intersex traits so significant they may be referred for surgery. That’s 230,000 Americans. If those numbers are higher than you thought, that’s because intersex people are often told to keep quiet about their bodies. But Safia, Alicia and River are not the quiet types.”
Here are the three intersex people who are the main focus in “Every Body”:
River Gallo, whose pronouns are they/them, is an actor, screenwriter and director. At the time this documentary was made, Gallo was 31. Gallo grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey, and currently lives in Los Angeles. Gallo, who was raised as male (the gender that Gallo was assigned at birth), was born with genital characteristics that were both male (a penis without testicles) and female. Gallo did not find out about being intersex until Gallo was 12 years old. Gallo used to lie to their male and female sex partners by saying Gallo’s lack of testicles was because of testicular cancer.
Sean Saifa Wall, whose pronouns are he/him, is a Ph.D. student. At the time this documentary was made, Wall was 43. Wall was raised in New York City’s Bronx borough and currently lives in Manchester, England. Wall was born with what is described in his medical records as “no uterus and a small phallus,” but he was assigned the female gender as a child by medical professionals at the hospital where he was born. Wall’s childhood name was Susanne. Wall says in the documentary that his sexual attraction is to women.
Alicia Roth Weigel, whose pronouns are she/her and they/them, is a political consultant and writer. At the time this documentary was made, Weigel was 31. Weigel was raised in Philadelphia and currently lives in Austin, Texas. Weigel was born with XY (male) chromosones, internal testes, no uterus and a vagina. Weigel was raised as female, the gender she was assigned at birth. In the documentary, she is shown looking for men on a dating app.
Gallo, Wall and Weigel are intersex activists and friends. All three pals describe themselves as being high academic achievers during their school years, as a way to have an identity outside of their gender situation. They also have university educations. Gallo’s alma mater is New York University. Wall graduated from Williams College. Weigel is a graduate of Cornell University.
All three describe the loneliness and isolation that intersex people often feel because of having both male and female sex organ characteristics. Wall says in the beginning of the documentary: “We live in a society that’s so binary. And so, for me, as an intersex person, where do I fit? Where do I belong?”
Weigel adds, “You have physical and anatomical traits that don’t fall neatly into that male/female box that birth certificates make you think how the world is. You feel so alone and isolated and like your body is a problem.” Gallo comments, “There’s this connotation that your body is ugly or is gross or is something that is monstrous.”
Gallo, Wall and Weigel all describe traumatic medical experiences that they experienced in their childhoods. For Gallo, it was being told at 12 years old about not having testicles and the medical recommendation to have surgery to add prosthetic testicles. Gallo’s parents are undocumented immigrants from El Salvador who did not speak English, which Gallo says had a lot to do with why these immigrant parents put so much trust in what the American doctors were recommending. Gallo says they felt betrayed by their parents for not telling them sooner, and it took a long time for Gallo to forgive their parents.
Weigel says that doctors told her to secretly make her vagina large enough to have penetrative sex and gave her dildos to use for this self-procedure. Weigel also claims that these doctors ordered her not to tell her parents. Weigel says, “I was 11 or 12, using the dildos, alone in the closet of my house.”
Wall, who says he always felt like a male, had gonadectomy (removal of his testes) when he was 13 years old. “I did not consent to the surgery,” Wall says. Wall’s parents are deceased, but he says that he understands why his mother decided to make him have the surgery. According to Wall, the doctor had told his mother that Wall’s testes were “cancerous” and needed to be removed. Wall did not have cancer, but the word “cancerous” was used as a stigma word to frighten his mother.
Wall is also shown going through his childhood medical records that prove he had male and female sex organ traits, and medical professionals were confused on what to do about it. His gender was initially checked in the “ambiguous” box on a medical document, but then crossed out and the “female” box was checked. His medical records also include extensive notes detailing the parts of his body that the medical professionals thought needed to be removed.
“A lot of parents [of intersex children] consent to these procedures, not really knowing the long-term effects,” says Wall. “A lot of parents do it because they’re really concerned about their kids. Wall adds, “There’s a culture of stigma and shame and silence that surrounds intersex people. It’s not just the surgeries themselves. It’s the voyeurism by doctors. It’s the medical photography. This person becomes a specimen.”
John Money, a Ph.D. sex researcher at Johns Hopkins University, is frequently mentioned and shown in archival footage in “Every Body” as being both a pioneer and a villain in intersex medical research. Although he is credited with bringing more awareness about intersex people to the general public, Dr. Money had studies advocating for intersex people to have non-consensual surgeries, assigning them to only one sex as early in their childhoods as possible. Dr. Money’s studies have since been debunked as being erroneous and harmful. Keith Sigmundson, Ph.D., a child psychiatrist who treated some of Dr. Money’s intersex patients confirms in the documentary that Dr. Money’s approach was the wrong one.
Katharine Dalke, M.D., of the Penn State College of Medicine’s National Institute Health’s Sexual and Gender Priority Research Group, identifies as intersex. Dr. Dalke says in the documentary, “The most inclusive definition of ‘intersex’ is any variation of a person’s sex traits with which they’re ether born or which they develop naturally during puberty.”
Dr. Dalke adds, “The existence of intersex traits show that not only does the middle space exist but that there’s a lot of variation within those categories of male and female. It is possible to be a biological female and have testes. It is possible to be a biological male and have a uterus”
Dr. Dalke also says, “In most cases, surgery isn’t necessary.” Dalke adds, “Unfortunately, the way that the medical community has responded to that complexity historically is to focus on managing someone’s genital appearance and their gender identity.”
As an example of the trauma that can happen when a child is assigned the wrong gender in infancy or another stage of childhood, “Every Body” brings up the case of David Reimer, a Canadian man who was raised as a girl after his penis was accidently burned off when he was an infant. Although Reimer (who had a twin brother) was not intersex, “Every Body” includes footage from Reimer’s 1999 interview with the NBC’s “Dateline” news program, with clips of the interview shown to Gallo, Wall and Weigel. Reimer describes being bullied as a child and experiencing mental-health issues over his gender identity, especially after he found out that he was lied to for years about his true gender.
Secrecy and shame are often part of the intersex experience. Many parents of intersex children don’t tell other family members that their children are intersex. Intersex children who know they are intersex are told not to reveal this information to other people. Although the intention of these parents might be to protect their intersex children, intersex activists say that the stigma needs to be removed from being intersex so that intersex people should not have to hide their identities in shame.
Gallo says that their relationship with their mother Maribel has now healed, but it took a lot of work. In the documentary, Gallo and their mother are shown looking at family photos with bittersweet memories. When asked about how she handled Gallo being intersex during childhood, Maribel says, “If I didn’t have the strength, who would?” But the trauma has lingering effects. Later in the documentary, Gallo says that the shame placed upon them for being intersex and what they went through as a child has a lot to do with why Gallo has had struggles with drug and alcohol abuse.
“Every Body” has significant screen time devoted to the support groups and activism for intersex people, their allies and loved ones. The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) is named as the most prominent and earliest advocacy group for and by intersex people. The documentary includes footage of the group’s first meeting in 1996, when 10 people attended.
Wall, Weigel and Gallo are also shown at various intersex advocate rallies and testifying in government hearings for better resources for intersex people and better education for the public about intersex people. Weigel’s mother Char Weigel, who is a nurse, is a supportive activist too. In another segment, Weigel is shown meeting with Austin city council member Natasha Harper-Madison and Austin communications director Caleb Pritchard to talk about intersex rights.
Dr. Dix Phillip Poppas, a urologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, is mentioned multiple times in the documentary as someone who advocates for harmful and unnecessary surgery on intersex people. Weigel and Gallo are shown at a pro-intersex gathering outside of Dr. Poppas’ workplace to protest the intersex surgeries that he and other medical doctors pressure intersex people to have. Two of the activists who are interviewed at this gathering are Scout Silverstein and Casey Orozco-Poore.
When it comes to dating, all three of the featured intersex people in “Every Body” say that it’s best to be open and up front with potential partners about being intersex. In most cases, intersex people cannot have biological children, so any potential partner with family planning issues should also be informed as early as possible. Gallo says that anyone who will reject someone for being intersex is not right for that intersex person anyway.
Weigel says, “Dating can be tough. It’s markedly different than it was before I was out about being intersex.” Weigel says she lists her intersex pronouns on all her profiles for dating apps. “If I don’t divulge it,” Weigel says of her intersex identity, “then they’ll find out on their own because they’ll Google me. And if someone can’t handle me, it sucks for them.”
Wall admits that he found dating very hard at first because he was deeply ashamed and afraid of any possible lover seeing him naked. Wall is now much more comfortable with dating and his body—so much so, he participated in an intersex art exhibition by posing fully naked for a series of photographs. Wall is shown traveling to Berlin to view this art exhibit, which was organized by Luan Pertl and Jomka Weib.
One of the subjects of the art exhibit is Mani Mitchell, one of the original ISNA members, who is shown in a nude photo portrait with the words, “I Am Not a Monster” written on Mitchell’s chest and torso. Wall gets emotionally moved by what he sees in the exhibit, which represents the gamut of experiences that intersex people have. During his tearful reaction, he says how important it is for intersex people to have understanding and support from their childhood onward to reduce the traumas that get inflicted on intersex people for biological things that are out of their control.
“Every Body” is the type of documentary that will stay with viewers long after watching it. It’s educational without being preachy. It’s inspirational without being corny. Most of all, it shows that although some bigots might want to discriminate against intersex people, it doesn’t erase the fact that equality human rights apply to intersex people too.
Focus Features released “Every Body” in select U.S. cinemas on June 30, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in 2016 in New York City, the documentary film “Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans) who are connected in some way to drag performer Taylor Mac and his one-time-only, 24-hour performance of pop hits.
Culture Clash: During his performance, Mac discusses some of the racism and homophobia behind some of history’s most popular songs.
Culture Audience: “Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” will appeal primarily to viewers who are fans of drag performers and music documentaries that focus on unconventional artists and unusual performances.
Taylor Mac in “Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” (Photo courtesy of HBO)
Vivacious and engaging, this concert documentary starring drag performer Taylor Mac offers a bittersweet presentation of iconic pop songs, without glossing over some of these songs’ problematic histories. It’s an extremely unique 24-hour performance. The 2016 show took place as a one-time-only event, at St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York City’s Brooklyn borough. During this 24-hour continuous performance, Mac performed popular songs from 24 decades (each decade got its own hour), from 1776 to 2016. Attendees had the option to sleep at the venue in a separate room.
Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, “Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Festival. The majority of the documentary’s footage is of highlights from this epic concert. The rest of the documentary consists of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with principal members of the events team.
Mac explains in the beginning of the film that he conceived this event as a tribute to those who lost their lives in the AIDS crisis. The show starts with 24 musicians on stage, but after each hour, one less musician goes on stage, until the last hour, when Mac is be the sole performer on stage. The decreasing numbers of band musicians on stage are supposed to be symbolic of how communities and families lost people to the AIDS crisis.
Mac also says in the documentary, “The show is about our history of Americans. That history is in our souls.” He also says that “a queer body can become a metaphor for America.” He later adds, “I learned my politics from radical lesbians.”
Mac gives a brief personal background about himself, by saying that he grew up in Stockton, California, which he describes as a very homophobic city that’s overrun with a lot of “ugly tract houses.” After he graduated from acting school, Mac says that he had difficulty getting auditions. However, he found work at New York City drag nightclubs. And the rest is history.
Some of the key people on the event team also give their perspectives of the show. Niegel Smith, the show’s co-director, calls it a “radical realness ritual” that “asks us to move closer to our queerness.” During one of the audience interaction parts of the show, Mac tells audience members to slow dance with people who are of the same gender. The song selection for this same-sex slow dance is “Snakeskin Cowboys,” a song made famous by Ted Nugent, who is a political conservative. It’s obviously Mac’s way of reclaiming the song and putting it in a progressive queer context.
Matt Ray, the show’s musical director, comes from a jazz background. He says the biggest problem in America is “lack of community.” This 24-hour performance, says Ray, is Mac’s way of trying to bring back community to live events. Machine Dazzle, the show’s costume designer, is seen in costume fittings with Mac, who says that he gave no creative restrictions on how Dazzle could make the costumes. Also seen in the documentary is makeup artist Anastasia Durasova.
It’s no coincidence that the performance starts with the year 1776, since it’s the year of the Declaration of Independence of the United States. Freedom, liberation and fighting against oppression are constant themes throughout the show. During his performances of popular songs from each decade, Mac gives historical context of what was going on in the United States at the time when the song was popular and why some of the songs have a much more disturbing meaning than they seem to have.
“Yankee Doodle Dandy,” performed in the hour covering the years 1776 to 1786, sounds like an upbeat and patriotic song. But Mac also reminds people that during this time, the United States was also built on the enslavement of black people and the destruction of Native Americans. The 1820s song “”Coal Black Rose” has racist origins, since it was originally performed by white people wearing blackface makeup, and the song’s lyrics are about raping an enslaved black woman. For the 1830s song “Rove Riley Rove,” Mac says he’s performing the song to evoke a mother or nanny during the Trail of Tears era, when the Native Americans were forced to go on dangerous and deadly routes when they were forced off their ancestral lands.
Not all of the songs performed have depressing and bigoted histories. When Mac gets to the 1970s decades, he performs songs such as Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” and David Bowie’s “Heroes.” For “Heroes,” which is performed in the context of the Cold War between Russia and the United States, two giant inflatable penises—one with a U.S. flag decoration, one with a Russian flag decoration—float around on stage. Mac straddles at least one of these inflatable sex organs.
Other songs performed in the show include Laura Branigan’s 1982 hit “Gloria” (which Mac interprets in the performance as a sexual liberation song); the Rolling Stones’ 1969 classic “Gimme Shelter”; and “Soliloquy” from the 1945 musical “Carousel,” which Mac was his father’s favorite song. Mac also says that his father died when Mac was 4 years old.
Audience members are encouraged to sing along and participate. And sometimes, Mac invites audiences members on stage during the performance, such as when he selects the oldest person in the room (a man in his 80s) and youngest person in the room (a 20-year-old woman) to dance on stage together. In another part of the show, audience members throw ping pong balls at each other.
Mac doesn’t do all of the lead vocals during the show. There are also guest singers, including Heather Christian, Steffanie Christian, Thornetta Davis, and Anaïs Mitchell. However, there’s no doubt that Mac is the star. He has a charismatic command of the stage, even though he’s not a great singer. He has a wry sense of comedy and keeps the energy level fairly high, even though performing this 24-hour show would be exhausting by any standard.
“Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” has a simple concept with an extravagant and very flamboyant presentation. If drag performances and some bawdiness meant for adults have no appeal to you, then watching this documentary might be overwhelming or a little hard to take. The performance in “Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” will never be duplicated by Mac, but this memorable documentary is the next best thing to being there.
HBO and Max will premiere “Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” on June 27, 2023.
Directed by Heather Courtney, Princess A. Hairston and Chelsea Hernandez
Culture Representation: Taking place from 2020 to 2022, in various parts of the United States, the documentary “Breaking the News” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans, Latinos and Asians) who are connected in some way to The 19th* news media outlet.
Culture Clash: The 19th* experiences ups and downs during the COVID-19 pandemic, including a reckoning about needing more diversity on its staff.
Culture Audience: “Breaking the News” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching a documentary about start-up media groups and news media coverage from a female perspective.
Kate Sosin and Arin McKona in “Breaking the News” (Photo by Heather Courtney/PBS)
“Breaking the News” is a smart and incisive look at the origins and growing pains of The 19th* as a groundbreaking female-centric news media outlet. This documentary is honest about showing that some women have more privilege than others in battling sexism. “Breaking the News” isn’t just about reporters getting news scoops. The movie also offers a realistic look at keeping a start-up company afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Breaking the News” had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Festival.
Directed by Heather Courtney, Princess A. Hairston and Chelsea Hernandez, “Breaking the News” (which was filmed from 2020 to 2022) begins in March 2020, the first month of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns around the world. The 19th* (which is headquartered in Austin, Texas) was co-founded as a non-profit group by Emily Ramshaw and Amanda Zamora in 2017, as a reaction to Donald Trump being elected president of the United States. The concept was to have a female-oriented news website staffed by women and reporting news that is considered important to women.
The 19th* is named after the U.S. Constitution’s 19th Amendment, which gives women U.S. citizens the right to vote. It’s explained in the documentary that the asterisk in The 19th* signifies that there’s more work to be done for women’s rights in the United States and around the world. When The 19th* began, the staff and freelancers consisted entirely of women. Now, there are a few men and gender non-conforming people who are among The 19th* employees.
Although the leaders of The 19th* say in interviews that this news media outlet is non-partisan, the reality is that the political views expressed by the majority of the staff are undoubtedly liberal—either progressive or moderate. And it seems as if the core audience for The 19th* also has a left-leaning perspective, based on a segment in the documentary showing that The 19th* receives numerous complaints from readers every time The 19th* interviews a politically conservative person. The 19th* publishes original content on its own platforms and syndicates its content to various other media outlets, including The Washington Post.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, The 19th* was in the process of raising another round of funding. Ramshaw (a former reporter with the Dallas Morning News and Texas Tribune) is shown in the beginning of the documentary having a Zoom conference call with Whurley, a well-known investor. He bluntly tells her, “I think journalism is dead.” But he makes this optimistic remark: “All the great startups started under terrible circumstances.”
Ramshaw has the title of CEO of The 19th*, while Zamora has the title of publisher. Both women say in the documentary that they knew at an early age that they wanted to become journalists. Although Ramshaw is shown doing some fundraising responsibilities, her main preoccupation shown in the documentary is managing the growing staff of The 19th* and making executive decisions about the editorial direction of the company. Andrea Valdez, who is also based in Austin, works closely with Ramshaw as The 19th* editor-in-chief until she is replaced by Julie Chen, whose appointment is shown toward the end of the documentary.
As the publisher, Zamora is shown worrying about being able to pay the salaries of The 19th* employees during a time when media outlets are downsizing or having hiring freezes during the pandemic. As a non-profit startup, The 19th* faced its share of challenges that were made more difficult in the middle of an economic downturn. However, 2020 turned out to be a pivotal and breakout year for The 19th*, due to the U.S. presidential election and the worldwide racial reckoning over police killings of unarmed African Americans.
Several editorial employees for The 19th* are shown in “Breaking the News,” but the documentary gives a particular focus on four of these employees: Errin Haines, a Philadelpha-based former Associated Press reporter, is an editor-at-large with a specialty in covering racial issues. Kate Sosin, a former employee of Viacom and NBC, is a transgender reporter covering LGBTQ+ issues. Sosin’s pronouns are they/them. Chabeli Carrazana (based in Orlando, Florida) has an editorial beat covering the economy. Abby Johnston is The 19th*s deputy editor.
One of the biggest criticisms of many feminist groups is that they tend to give the most power and importance to middle-class and wealthy cisgender, heterosexual white women. Ramshaw fits that description. Zamora (formerly of the Texas Tribune) is Latina, but in the documentary, Zamora acknowledges that she has privilege because she appears to look white. There are some scenes in the movie where Ramshaw shows that she’s living in a bubble and can’t really see the perspective of other women who are not in her own demographic.
For example, in May 2020, a video went viral of a racist confrontation in New York City’s Central Park, where an African American bird watcher named Christian Cooper asked a white woman nearby named Amy Cooper (no relation to Christian Cooper) to put a leash on her dog, because it’s the law in New York City to have dogs on leashes when the dogs are in public. In response, an angry Amy Cooper called 911 and falsely claimed that Christian Cooper was physically attacking her. She made a of point of repeating that an African American man was assaulting her.
Haines felt this story was important enough to report to show how some white women can use white supremacist racism as a way to put people of other races, particularly African Americans, in harm’s way with false accusations. In a completely tone-deaf moment with racial overtones, Ramshaw is shown questioning Haines on whether or not The 19th* needed to cover the case in the first place. Without knowing all the facts, Ramshaw wonders out loud if Christian Cooper did anything to provoke Amy Cooper. (When police arrived at the scene, Christian Cooper and Amy Cooper both were not there, but the situation could have escalated.)
Haines (who is one of the smartest and most well-connected people on The 19th* team) patiently explains to Ramshaw that America has a long history of African American people being killed because of false accusations from white women. The story is eventually assigned to Haines, with Ramshaw still being skeptical that it was important for The 19th* to report. Of course, the story ended up becoming huge international news. Later, Ramshaw makes an apology to her staff for her error in judgment and for being so ignorant.
It took this Christian Cooper/Amy Cooper story for Ramshaw to understand the ugly truth that these types of false accusations rooted in racism aren’t just stories about past lynchings but can still happen various ways today. If there had not been a video showing that Amy Cooper was lying, and if the police had shown up during this incident, it’s very likely that Christian Cooper would have been arrested based on a false accusation. “Breaking the News” shows that when an editor in charge of assignments lacks this intelligence or empathy about racial issues, it can negatively affect the type of coverage that the editor chooses to assign.
On a side note, after this Central Park video went viral, Amy Cooper was fired from her job at an investment firm. She was charged with the misdemeanor of filing a false police report. The charge was ultimately dismissed because Christian Cooper decided not to press charges against her, and she agreed to enroll in a racial bias therapy program. Amy Cooper’s wrongful termination lawsuit and appeal have been dismissed by the court system.
Under Ramshaw’s leadership, The 19th* is shown as being not very open to having a diverse representation of LGBTQ staffers. During most of the time that this documentary takes place, Sosin is the only openly LGBTQ employee on staff. Sosin repeatedly asks Ramshaw and other supervisors of The 19th* to hire more LGBTQ staffers, so that Sosin isn’t the only one. Ramshaw is shown making excuses for delaying this inclusive hiring. There’s really no good excuse for it, considering all the cisgender heterosexual women that The 19th* made the effort to recruit.
One of the more poignant scenes in the documentary is when Sosin confesses that when employees of The 19th* were celebrating the website’s launch day, Sosin spent the day at home crying because Sosin felt left out and sidelined for being a transgender person. Sosin is intelligent and a tremendous asset to The 19th* team. It’s really unconscionable that a so-called inclusive media group would take so long to hire more than one LGTBQ+ person to cover LGTBQ+ issues. It eventually happened, but only after Sosin and other staffers had to push for it. Ramshaw made an apology to The 19th* employees about that diversity problem too.
But for every misstep that Ramshaw might have taken, The 19th* had some triumphs. Haines was the first reporter to get an exclusive interview with family members of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African American nursing student who was shot to death in March 2020, by white police officers while sleeping in her home in Louisville, Kentucky. The officers claimed it was a case of a mistaken identity because they went to the wrong house during a warrant raid. The 19th* was also the first media outlet to interview Kamala Harris after it was officially announced that she would be Joe Biden’s vice presidential running mate. Haines got that scoop too.
Sosin was at the forefront of reporting many LGBTQ+ issues, especially in the trans community where health care and crime have disproportionately more devastating effects than for cisgender people. For example, many states have been slashing public health funding for gender affirmation surgeries. And crimes against transgender people are often underreported or often don’t get adequate investigations, compared to crimes against cisgender people.
Sosin’s story for The 19th* about how the pandemic was affecting transgender surgeries ends up being one of the biggest viral stories for The 19th* in that period of time. Sosin is shown interviewing people such at Transhealth in Northampton, Massachusetts, including CEO Dallas Ducar, charge nurse Arin McLona and pediatrician Dr. Drew Cronyn. They all express concerns about how certain U.S. states are starting to make their work more restricted or illegal.
Carrazana tells her personal story about being a Cuban American. She says that coming from an immigrant, working-class family gives her more empathy and understanding in covering underrepresented communities for economic news stories. Almost all of The 19th* employees featured are shown working from home during the pandemic lockdowns.
The movie also briefly shows the personal lives of featured employees of The 19th*, as a way of demonstrating that these are well-rounded people. Ramshaw, Zamora, Sosin and Carrazana are seen with their spouses or partners. Haines is shown having a close relationship with her mother, whom she calls on a regular basis. And most of these employees have adorable dogs, who sometimes amusingly get in the way while the employees try to work from home.
“Breaking the News” includes footage of how The 19th* covered historical moments, such as the 2020 U.S. presidential election; the U.S. Capitol riots that occurred on January 6, 2021; and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade that gave federal protection for abortion. The documentary does not over-simplify or gloss over the real problems that The 19th* has or the mistakes that were made by the company’s leadership. The measure of any group’s future is how it can learn from its mistakes and make improvements.
It remains to be seen how long The 19th* will last. However, “Breaking the News” is an insightful look at the early years of this resourceful news media outlet. It’s not only an inspiring documentary but also a stark reminder that with all the progress made in women’s rights, a female-dominated news media outlet is still a rarity today.
UPDATE: The PBS series “Independent Lens” will premiere “Breaking the News” on February 19, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 2021, in Germany and in Italy, the dramatic film “Dead Girls Dancing” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Three German female friends, who are all recent graduates of high school, go on a road trip to Italy, where they meet a rebellious teenager, and get up to some mischief with her.
Culture Audience: “Dead Girls Dancing” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in female-oriented coming-of-age stories that explore teenage rebellion and sexuality.
“Dead Girls Dancing” is an uneven but well-acted drama about teenagers on a road trip that’s more than what it first appears to be. It’s also a journey of a closeted queer teenager who’s taking tentative steps out of the closet and yearning to connect with someone with whom she can be her true self. The movie has a meandering quality that sometimes drags down the pace. However, the deeper meaning behind the story becomes very apparent in the last 20 minutes of film, where there’s an emotional powerful moment that’s at the heart of the story. “Dead Girls Dancing” had its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival in New York City.
Written and directed by Anna Roller, “Dead Girls Dancing” takes place in 2021. The movie’s opening scene shows a montage of German high school students taking their class pictures for their last year in high school. (The cities where this movie takes place are never mentioned.)
Most of the teens smile or make goofy faces for the camera, except for 18-year-old Ira Noe (played by Luna Jordan), who stares solemnly at the camera while her photo is being taken. Ira, who is a quiet introvert, has an air of sadness about her. As time goes on, observant viewers will notice that Ira’s tendency to be withdrawn probably has a lot to do with her being a closeted queer woman.
Ira isn’t a compete loner. Her two best friends are also in the same graduating class. Ka (played by Noemi Liv Nicolaisen) is a talkative and extroverted blonde who is the most rebellious of the trio. Malin (played by Katharina Stark) is fun-loving and is more attuned to what Ira might be feeling emotionally. After they graduate from high school, the three teenage pals decide to take a road trip through Italy, using a car owned by Malin’s father.
“Dead Girls Dancing” is mainly about this road trip and how it changes the lives of Ira, Ka, Malin and another teenager close to their age whom they meet in Italy. After a long day of driving, the trio stops at a hostel (the closest lodging for miles) to get a room. But to their disappointment, there are no rooms available at the hostel.
Outside the building, there’s a teenage woman who has her own room. Ira, Ka and Malin all need to use a restroom, so Ira approaches this stranger to explain the situation and to ask her the unusual request for all three of them to use her hostel restroom. The stranger introduces herself as Zoe (played by Sara Giannelli) and agrees to this request in a friendly manner. Zoe says she is an orphan who has been on her own “for a while.”
After Zoe invites Ira, Ka and Malin into her room, they all form an instant rapport. Ira’s attraction to Zoe indicates that she hopes that Zoe could become more than a friend, but Ira is too shy to make the first move. The four teens get caught smoking marijuana in the room by the hostel manager. Before they can be thrown out, Zoe impulsively decides to take off (without paying her hostel bill) with her three new acquaintances and join them on the road trip.
But a major problem occurs when the car breaks down in a remote area. The insurance company for the car says that the company won’t be able to send mechanic help in the area for the next 48 hours. In the meantime, Ira, Ka, Malin and Zoe walk to the nearest village, which is completely deserted because it has been evacuated due to impending wildfires. The rest of “Dead Girls Dancing” shows what happens when these four teens are left to their own devices in this temporarily abandoned village.
Not surprisingly, something else goes very wrong besides a car malfunctioning. Unfortunately, the middle section of the movie gets repetitive with scenes of the four teens goofing off and partying in the deserted village, including getting drunk in an abandoned church. But these party scenes also show the undercurrent of attraction that Ira has for Zoe, who senses Ira’s attraction and flirts with her.
“Dead Girls Dancing” doesn’t really get interesting until something else goes wrong on the trip. It’s the catalyst for all of the teens, especially Ira, to have a reckoning with who they are and what type of moral character they have. The potential relationship between Ira and Zoe is also affected.
Jordan’s nuanced performance as a sexually repressed queer woman succeeds in filmmaker Roller’s intention for it to be the standout performance of “Dead Girls Dancing,” which has effective cinematography from Felix Pflieger. There’s a scene showing Ira going through a quiet devastation that is the defining moment of the movie. Viewers who have the patience to watch a somewhat disjointed and rambling film will find these authentically portrayed scenes as a worthwhile reason to watch “Dead Girls Dancing.”
Culture Representation: Taking place in unnamed U.S. cities, the horror film “They Wait in the Dark” features a cast of predominantly white characters (with some African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A woman goes into hiding with her young son while her estranged female lover tries to find her, and a ghost seems to be attacking this runaway mother.
Culture Audience: “They Wait in the Dark” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching flawed but suspenseful low-budget horror movies that have some unexpected twists and turns.
Paige Maria and Laurie Catherine Winkel in “They Wait in the Dark” (Photo by Hanuman Brown-Eagle/1091 Pictures)
The horror movie “They Wait in the Dark” is nearly derailed by the amateurish performances from almost all of the cast members. However, the screenplay and direction hold up quite well, when it comes to suspense and a few surprises. This is a movie that seems to be about one thing in the beginning but it turns into something completely different by the end.
Written and directed by Patrick Rea, “They Wait in the Dark” (which takes place in unnamed U.S. cities) is mostly about a harrowing runaway trip taken by a woman in her 30s named Amy (played by Sarah McGuire) and her son Adrian (played by Patrick McGee), who’s about 7 or 8 years old. (“They Wait in the Dark” was filmed in Topeka, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri.) It’s soon revealed that Amy has taken Adrian from their home because Amy wants to go into hiding with Adrian. Amy has decided to go back to her hometown and hide at the abandoned house where deceased widower father used to live.
The movie’s opening scene shows Amy waking up from a nightmare. Amy and Adrian (whom Amy has given the affectionate nickname Bubba) have fallen asleep on the floor of a gas station convenience store. They check into the DeSoto Inn Motel, which is the kind of place where it doesn’t matter that Amy says she doesn’t have a credit card because she can pay by cash. The motel also doesn’t ask for identification from anyone who stays there.
Within walking distance from the motel is an eatery called Nelle Belle’s Diner. Amy and Adrian go there to get something to eat and drink. A waitress named Jenny (played by Paige Maria) immediately recognizes Amy, because Amy and Jenny used to be friendly acquaintances and have known each other since they were teenagers. Amy hasn’t been back to this area in a few years.
When Jenny asks where Adrian’s father is, Amy says Adrian is adopted “because I can’t have kids on my own.” What Amy doesn’t tell Jenny (but Jenny and viewers of this movie find out later) is that Jenny is lesbian and in a live-in relationship with a violent woman named Judith (played by Laurie Catherine Winkel), who will eventually be seen looking for Amy and Adrian.
Amy doesn’t have a car, so she asks Jenny for a ride to the house where her father used to live. It’s also Amy’s childhood home. When Amy and Adrian settle into the house, Adrian asks her if Judith is looking for them. Amy tells Adrian that Amy never told Judith about this house, so it’s unlikely that Judith will find them there.
Why are Amy and Adrian going into hiding? Later in the movie, she happens to see Eric Zalinda, a guy she knew in high school. Eric had a big crush on Amy back then. And apparently, he still has feelings for her.
However, Eric finds out that Amy has been living openly as a lesbian since the last time he saw her. Amy shows him a knife scar that she says Judith gave to her during a fight that the couple had. Amy also confides in Eric that she and Adrian have gone into hiding from Judith.
But strange things start happening at Amy’s former childhood home. An unseen force keeps physically attacking her. And there’s pentagram drawn in chalk on the basement floor. Adrian randomly goes to the basement and lights some candles. But when he does, the basement door slams shut, and he can’t get out until Amy rescues him.
During this tension-filled stay in the house, Amy has flashbacks to her unhappy childhood. There’s a flashback scene where Amy is about 7 or 8 years old (played by Brinklee Wynn), and she is hit in the face by her mother (played by Meagan Flynn), who was apparently abusive to Amy on a regular basis. Another flashback also reveals that Amy’s father (played by John Thomson) went on trial for a crime that might or might not be detailed in the movie. Does Amy’s troubled family history have anything to do with why she seems to be attacked by a ghost?
Meanwhile, Judith is shown on the hunt for Amy and Adrian. Viewers will see how angry and menacing Judith can be in a scene where she’s at a gas station and two truckers (played by Chris Bylsma and Kurt Hanover) mistake Judith for a sex worker because they see her loitering around and going up to people. What Judith has actually been doing is showing people a photo of Amy and Adrian and asking if they’ve seen these two missing family members. Judith tells the truckers that she’s not a sex worker. However, one of the truckers is especially aggressive about propositioning Judith for sex, who shows how wrathful she can be.
“They Wait in the Dark” is bare-bones basic when it comes to visual effects. Some of the acting performances from the cast members are too over-the-top when the acting needed more subtle realism. At other times, the acting is too stiff when it needed to look more natural. Even with these flaws, it’s worth watching “They Wait in the Dark” until the very end, because the last 20 minutes have surprising revelations that make this horror movie fairly memorable and much more disturbing that it originally seems.
1091 Pictures released “They Wait in the Dark” on digital on February 7, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Grenoble, France, the sci-fi drama film “The Five Devils” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A swimming instructor, who used to be a gymnast, has her life upended when her 8-year-old daughter finds out family secrets after a troubled relative comes to visit.
Culture Audience: “The Five Devils” will appeal primarily to people who like watching artsy and offbeat European films that have elements of science fiction.
Swala Emati and Adèle Exarchopoulos in “The Five Devils” (Photo courtesy of MUBI)
“The Five Devils” is a science-fiction mindbender that presents its story as pieces of a puzzle that eventually emerge to reveal the whole picture of a family that has been plagued by secrets and scandals that they don’t want to discuss. This time-travel drama is intriguing but a little repetitive and predictable. The cast members give interesting performances that strengthen the uneven script. Some viewers will be offended by how the movie glorifies a selfish and unfaithful character. However, there’s enough in the story to hold the interest of viewers who are curious to see what is revealed next.
Directed by Léa Mysius (who co-wrote “The Five Devils” screenplay with Paul Guilhaume), “The Five Devils” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. The movie is set in Grenoble, France. Like a lot of time-traveling movies, “The Five Devils” has a plot that makes people think about how life experiences could be shaped by choices versus fate.
“The Devils” begins by showing a group of horrified women in their 20s, who are dressed in sparkly leotards and standing in front of a burning building. The women are screaming in fear and horror. Most of the women have their backs to the camera, but one of these young women can clearly be seen. And she looks like she’s in complete shock.
Her name is Joanne (played by Adèle Exarchopoulos), and viewers find out that this fire happened about 10 years before, when she was part of a group of gymnastic dancers called the Five Devils. The movie circles back to this scene later in “The Five Devils,” in order to explain the circumstances under which this fire happened. Without giving away spoiler information, it’s enough to say that this fire had a profound impact on many people’s lives.
In the approximately 10 years since that fire happened, Joanne has gotten married to (ironically) a firefighter named Jimmy Soler (played by Moustapha Mbengue), who is an immigrant from Senegal. Joanne, who quit being a gymnast ever since the fire, now works as a swimming exercise instructor at a community center, where most of her students are middle-aged and elderly women.
Jimmy and Joanne have one child together: a precocious 8-year-old daughter named Vicky (played by Sally Dramé, making an impressive feature-film debut), who sometimes helps Joanne do breath-holding practices at a nearby lake. In these practice sessions, Vicky is supposed to time Joanne on how long Joanne can stay underwater. Vicky is very perceptive and has more than above-average intelligence. Vicky also has the ability to travel in the past.
Vicky doesn’t find out that she has this time-traveling ability until after her family gets a surprise visit from Jimmy’s younger sister Julia (played by Swala Emati), who works in nano-biotechnology. Julia’s presence seems to immediately disturb Joanne. Jimmy is happy to see Julia, but Joanne is standoffish and abrupt to Julia. Privately, Joanne comments to Jimmy about Julia:” I want her to leave. I can’t stand it.”
Julia meets Vicky for the first time during this visit. Vicky has an acute sense of smell, and she tells Julia that Julia smells like peat whiskey. There are other signs that Julia abuses alcohol. When Julia arrives for the visit, her left eye is bruised. Julia says she got the bruise because she accidentally fell down while drunk. It later emerges that Julia has other issues that have to do with her mental health. She has spent a certain number of years in a certain facility. The details are eventually revealed in the movie.
Vicky is a loner who likes to collect insects. Joanne knows that Vicky has an unusually strong sense of smell, but Joanne doesn’t want to tell Jimmy about it because she thinks Jimmy will want to put Vicky in therapy. Joanne doesn’t think that Vicky needs therapy. Joanne wants to be a mother who can handle everything herself.
At school, some of the students bully Vicky for having big, natural hair. These school bullies (there are about five to seven of them) taunt and attack Vicky. Because of the way Vicky’s hair looks, the school bullies call her Toilet Brush or Butt Brush. If Vicky fights back in self-defense, the bullies try to put the blame on her.
During a disturbing incident at school, the bullies surround Vicky and force soap into her mouth. But then something bizarre happens during the attack: All the kids pass out at the same time, including Vicky. School officials and parents find out, and people try to blame Vicky. However, Joanne adamantly defends Vicky and says that the kids who were bullying Vicky are to blame and should be the one to make an apology. That apology never happens, and people never find out why all of the children lost consciousness at the same time.
Meanwhile, Vicky has other episodes of passing out randomly. And every time she passes out, she goes back in the past and sees parts of Joanne’s life. In the present day, Vicky has made a liquid concoction in a jar that includes some of her own urine. (Yes, this movie is weird like that.) Vicky puts the concoction underneath the bed where Julia is sleeping.
Vicky finds out that every time she inhales this concoction, she can control when she goes into her mother Joanne’s past. Vicky is invisible to people she sees in the past, except for one person who apparently has the same psychic abilities as Vicky does. The rest of “The Five Devils” shows how Vicky finds out some family secrets that the adults in her family don’t want her to know.
The secrets involve betrayals, infidelity and lies to cover up people’s true identities. One character in particular is the catalyst for most of the chaos because this person does the most deceiving and hurting of other people. However, the movie goes out of its way to try to make this character look sympathetic, when that sympathy is not deserved in most cases. This narcissistic person, who likes to play the victim when causing problems, doesn’t like to take much responsibility for causing so much emotional damage.
Some of the movie’s supporting characters have varying degrees of knowledge or ignorance about these family secrets. Joanne’s widowed father (played Patrick Bouchitey), who doesn’t have a name in the movie, suspects one of these secrets, but he doesn’t want to really know the truth. Jimmy has a co-worker friend name Jeff (played by Hugo Dillon), who warns Jimmy that Julia’s presence is upsetting to some people in the community. Joanne has a co-worker friend named Nadine (played by Daphne Patakia), who used to be in the same gymnastics group and whose face was disfigured in the fire. Nadine has a secret that is related to the Soler family’s big secrets.
All of the cast members play their parts well, but the movie would not be as fascinating without the riveting performance of Dramé as Vicky. It is through Vicky’s eyes that viewers discover all the family secrets. Dramé is able to convey with great skill the myriad of emotions that Vicky feels, including the hurt and confusion when she finds out that a big part of the family’s life turned out to be a lie that was actively covered up by the adult in the family who causes the most emotional chaos. Vicky also finds out something that makes her question if she would have been born in the first place if certain people had made different decisions.
Vicky’s loss of childhood innocence has more emotional weight than the soap opera-ish melodrama caused by the adults in the story. “The Five Devils” loses its way a little when it leans too heavily into an over-the-top “life or death” situation toward the end of the film. And the person who was hurt by infidelity doesn’t give the type of reaction that some viewers might expect. “The Five Devils” tries to show how life can be messy, but the ending of the movie succumbs to a conventional formula that tries to ignore the big mess caused by the most toxic person in the family.
MUBI released “The Five Devils” on March 24 in New York City, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on March 31, 2023.
