Film Schooled: No more white sapphic period dramas

This one is gonna hurt, but you need to be more critical of the media you consume, especially when there is and has been a dire need for more realistic narratives that represent the breadth of what it means to be LGBTQ+. I finally decided to confront this in the column because, as per usual, a tweet I didn’t want to see (or understand?) came up on my timeline. 

English director Francis Lee’s romantic drama “Ammonite” premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 11. It was met with generally good reviews and earned high praise for Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan’s performances as women who “have no one to turn to but each other.”

The narrative loosely lassos around the life of English paleontologist Mary Anning, a scientist who was shunned from the 19th century academic community which was almost completely composed of men. Her contributions to the field have laid the groundwork for our present-day conception of prehistoric life on Earth, as she studied fossils along the English Dorset coast. This location, secluded and dominated by nature, is also where Lee decided to set the stage for romance. 

The tweet in question? In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Winslet revealed that she shuffled the “Ammonite” shooting schedule so that the filming of the sex scene could fall on the same day as Ronan’s birthday. 

“I just wanted her to have a great memory in her film life, regardless of how the scene played out or the movie turned out,” Winslet said.

If you’re looking for analysis on this quote, I don’t have it, just wanted to share. 

But doesn’t this plot sound … familiar?

I remember going to the Aero Theatre last December, just before the new year, and finding a nice little spot to the far right side and two rows away from the screen to watch “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” It also happened to be the first movie that I decided to see by myself, which was good because I left the theater making gross, sniffling noises, trying to keep my tears from reddening my face further as I ran back to my car and pretended I was in the music video for Radiohead’s “No Surprises” while I made the trip back from Brentwood. 

Looking back on the big huge cliche I was, I find it surprising that for someone who saw “Portrait” about seven times in theaters last winter, I have felt uneasy about watching it since. But why? It’s not a “Blue is the Warmest Color” or a “Disobedience” where the enormous amount of sex was obviously a man’s decision, but it is another white sapphic period drama to add to the growing pile.

I have no qualms or critiques for “Portrait” or Céline Sciamma. The movie is absolutely gorgeous, and I will always cherish that embarrassing first viewing as one of the greatest moments I’ve ever had with film. But its impact on the critical and audience world is pushing the representation of LGBTQ+ individuals in a “two steps forward, one step back” pattern. 

For both “Ammonite” and “Portrait,” isolation is a key factor that drives the romantic plot. For the former, it was the earthy, rocky coast of Lyme Regis West Dorset, England, and the latter’s gorgeous seaside scenes were filmed in Saint-Pierre-Quiberon in Brittany, France. It frames the love stories as natural against the obvious backlash they would receive if sequestered within the more populated towns and cities of the 17th and 18th centuries. It also removes as many outside, patriarchal influences as possible — so much so that when a man showed up in “Portrait” I jumped out of my seat.

This sort of analysis is what I heard and read a lot of when “Portrait” made it through the international film festival circuit, and “Ammonite” is mirroring this trek. People are applauding that big names are taking on lesbian stories, but they seem unwilling to go into any further and productive commentary.

This is gonna hurt.

These films hold major issues of accessibility. They are filmed in beautiful, breathtaking remote European locations.. They are beloved period dramas — and don’t touch on any contemporary LGBTQ+ issues. One fourth of the main actresses are actually lesbian. All of the actresses are white. 

I admit that the “white sapphic period drama” is a pretty specific genre that both films have no choice but to check the boxes for, but their success, and the lack of critique from the voices that control media discourse at the moment, are pigeonholing lesbian narratives further and further into this box. There are plenty of great critiques that aren’t amplified on this issue of representation. Many are of the casual kind on Twitter, such as my favorite by user @monroville who quote-tweeted a trailer for “Ammonite” with the biting but needed reaction of “good god another boring sapphic movie, bonus points for it being a period piece with a 500000 year age gap.”

If you really love the films for what they are, you need to be willing and actively acknowledge their role in perpetuating a very narrow representation of sapphic romance. It helps no one but the people selling lesbian stories because they are “easier to swallow” — coded language for acceptable to a point because even though they are lesbian, it is OK because they are white and of European descent.

I love “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” with my entire being, but its existence is a further indicator of backward progress in diverse representation in film. These narratives, including those in “Pariah” and “Watermelon Woman,” need to be accessible as much as they are inclusive, so that folks who look different than me and are of different backgrounds can come back from a theater and see their own experiences validated. Right now, these films, and the industry at large, tell them “It’s not your time yet” or “It will never be your time.”

Lauren Mattice is a senior writing about film culture. She is also the digital managing editor at the Daily Trojan. Her column, “Film Schooled,” runs every other Wednesday.