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This article discusses recent theorizations of the relationship between female spectators and such popular lesbian films as Personal Best, Lianna, Desert Hearts, and Claire of the Moon.
While a number of critics have examined the history of lesbian portrayals in popular cinema and others have offered theories of the relationship between mainstream film and female spectatorship,1 only recently have these two areas of feminist film studies been brought together and examined in some depth. The connection forged between them has led to new ways of understanding both popular lesbian representation and the issue of female spectatorship in mainstream cinema; however, it has also provoked some heated debate.
An examination of recent theoretical approaches to mainstream U.S. lesbian films and their relationship to their female audiences indicates that lesbian portrayals represent a particularly complex and potentially fruitful area of feminist film study, as well as one fraught with substantial conflict. Issues arise, for instance, concerning the definition of a lesbian film as well as its difference from and similarity to films that focus on other forms of female bonding, like women's friendships, mother-daughter relationships, and sisterhood. Various categories of popular lesbian cinema also merit further investigation, including ambiguous lesbian films, openly lesbian films, Hollywood productions, independent features, coming-out narratives, lesbian romance films, and celebrations of lesbian community. Finally, these various types of lesbian portrayals need to be placed within the history of lesbian and gay cinematic representation and theories of the potential threat these films pose to the patriarchal, heterosexist status quo assessed.
Indicative of the terrain of contestation that surrounds the relationship between female spectatorship and the popular lesbian film is the debate between Jackie Stacey and Teresa de Lauretis concerning their theories of female spectatorship and homoerotic desire. In her 1987 article "Desperately seeking Difference," Stacey suggests that an intimate connection exists in regard to their relationship to the female spectator between lesbian portrayals and films that deal with female bonding. She argues specifically for the existence of a homoerotic component in films that concern "a woman's obsession with another woman," even when this obsession is not ostensibly of a sexual nature.2 Stacey offers as particular filmic examples All about Eve (Mankeiwicz, 1950) and Desperately Seeking Susan (Seidelman, 1985), arguing that the homoerotically...