Debra Bright's " Dream Girls " (1989)
I chuckled when I first saw Debra Bright’s (1989) “Dream
Girls” film still (wk. three-course notes). While it is a piece of fine art, it reminded
me of “memes,” where an image is juxtaposed into a secondary commentary into
the image; it is usually funny. A little humor is a great way to engage a
viewer. The photographer (Bright) imposed herself into an old film still of a couple
arm in arm. You see bright from an angled view of her backside, with the woman
looking at her with an expression of curiosity and the man staring in contempt.
Bright has put herself in a position
where the man seems threatened by her presence. There is a connection between
the two women. Not seeing Bright’s face completely creates a mystery for the viewer. It threatens
the male ego. There is a mystery between these two women that the man could
never understand. It creates a lesbian dialogue and representation in a heteronormative
Hollywood.
The man holds the woman tight in his arms with what
appears to be fear, an unsettling fear of the mystery of the women’s gaze on
each other. Bright has changed the original photograph’s context by imposing
herself into the picture. Adriene Rich’s (1980) article “Compulsory Heterosexuality
and the Lesbian Experience” has some great thoughts on how the male identity can
feel threatened by female relationships so therefore,” the enforcement of
heterosexuality for women as a means of assuring the male right of physical,
economic, and emotional access”(p 26) In the context of this film still he grips
the woman tight in fear of loss of power and what he perceives to be his right
of access to the woman. Rich (1980) argues that “the Lesbian Experience is a
direct or indirect threat to men’s access to women” (p 27). I must note that
while the man is holding the woman tight, Bright is holding herself tightly, as
in defiance of the hetero norm. She doesn’t need a man, and that threatens the
man’s power and access to her.
Bright identifies as a butch lesbian, and her presence
being inserted into the film still challenges views on identity. She is the opposite
of society's views on what femininity is to be. The image invokes dialogue,
which is always the first step in social change. Bright wanted to show the “compulsory
heterosexuality” of heteronormative Hollywood, and she succeeded. The goal of raising
awareness of unbalanced representation and questioning gender norms was shown clearly
and engagingly. This dialogue of queer politics in mainstream Hollywood is
important in that it is a tool that enforces societal gender norms, and this
discussion challenges these conditions. Another great article that explores
gender identity about queer and transgender representation in films is “Brandon
Goes to Hollywood. Boys Don’t Cry and the Transgender Body in Film” by
Melissa Rigney. Rigney (2003) argues that:
Butches threaten
masculinity more than they imitate it; they colonize it. Making aggression or
toughness or chivalry or rebelliousness their histrionic own, butches reveal
the arbitrariness with which traits are said to belong to men. Rather than
copying some 'original' image of masculinity, butches point to the embarrassing
fact that there is no such thing; masculinity is an artifice no matter who
performs it" (p 7).
I love how Rigney stated that a butch lesbian colonizes male identity and shows that it is genderless, and anyone can play the role. This can be viewed as dangerous to the male ego because its perceived power is threatened. You can be biologically born a male, but you are conditioned by culture and societal views on being male.
On
Bright’s website, she states,” I came out as a lesbian in 1985 in the midst of
the AIDS catastrophe. It felt urgent to stand up and be counted when
conservatives, including President Reagan, were using AIDS as a weapon against
queer lives” (para 1). Growing up in an era of almost no queer representation in
cinema, she would still find a way to identify with both the male and female
roles and loved the androgynous characters (Bright, para 1). She created her
own narrative to counter the antagonism towards queer identity. This was particularly
important when the photographs were created during the aids epidemic. She stood
up and said, “Here I am, and I am not going anywhere.”
References
Bright, D. (n.d.). Dream Girls 1989-1990. Debra Bright. Retrieved September 6, 2023, from https://www.deborahbright.art/dream-girls-198990.
Bright, D. (1989). Dream Girls [Photograph]. Tiffin University ART624_90 Week Three Course Notes.https://online.tiffin.edu/mod/book/view.php?id=1443970&chapterid=4845
Rich, A. (1980). Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence. Journal of Women's History, 15(3),11-48. https://doi.org/10.1353/jowh.2003.0079.
Rigney, M. (2003). Brandon Goes to Hollywood: “Boys Don't Cry” and the Transgender Body in Film. FilmCriticism, 28(2). https://doi.org/01635069.
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