by Cass Cannon
There’s something about holiday movies that are just so straight.
I don’t need to watch a woman with a complicated past get kissed by a man as a delicate snow flurry dusts their eye lashes. I don’t need stories about moms and dads rekindling their marriages for the kids as presents get unwrapped. This isn’t a call to action to stop making or enjoying those movies. No, this is my cold queer heart needing other storylines to bundle up in as the temperature dips below 30. I need Christmas movies I can relate to. Movies like Gremlins, Eyes Wide Shut — hell, I need more Christmas movies like Carol.
Carol is a cup of steaming hot cocoa on a cold holigay night. It’s the sweet relief of relatability in a sea of explaining your romantic situation/preference to family members that are earnestly trying REALLY hard with your new name but just aren’t there yet. Carol is a bridge that connects gay world with straight world on Christmas night like the bus in Halloweentown. Carol. Is. Everything.
In this fabulously art directed mid-century combination of Hitchcock and Saphhos, we meet Therese Bellivet. She’s sweet, but wide-eyed and nervous. She’s got a good job at a department store, has a clean cut and well meaning boyfriend and, yet, something isn’t right. As she navigates scene after scene, all tinged with that off-mint-green that’s inherent to contemporary interpretations of the '60s, we are shown — with such few words and no need for explanation — the exact nature of Therese Bellivet’s discomfort. We meet, through Therese’s eyes, the grandeur that is Carol Aird — the glimmer of store-lighting on her polished nails, her one sided smirk, her coded flirtation. The longing that is conjured in this love story is as staggering as it is accurate to the time.
Even in 2017, queerness is oft relegated to the realm of illness. Sure, now we’re afforded more legal and societal protections, but back in the '60s (... and '70s… and '80s… and '90s…) there were virtually none. In fact, being queer was an arrestable offence and it was near to impossible to find the pockets of queer folks that did exist. So imagine, you have this boyfriend with whom you know you don’t fit, you don’t have words to describe how you’re feeling because no one you know is queer, and among all of this discomfort, is a beautiful woman named Carol.
And that’s what’s beautiful about this film — there is an incredible amount of pain and discomfort experienced by the two women; Carol is on the cusp of losing custody of her daughter for having had relationships with women, Therese is lost in directionless early adulthood...and yet, neither woman is framed as a tragic tale through which the viewer can get their grief rocks off. As a queer person, I get so frustrated with movies that frame very normal, day to day living experiences as ones with huge gay asterisks attached. I don’t think about how gay I am when I’m attracted to someone. I just am attracted to that someone. And while that sounds like a really stupid concept to bring up in a movie review, it’s kind of the catch of most queer love stories. Aside from Carol and Moonlight, I really can’t think of another gay love story in mainstream media that isn’t playing the queer card as an almost gimmick or, worse, as a punchline to a goof in a home-for-the-holidays blockbuster. No, Carol lets Therese and Carol’s love grow just like any other love story in any other drama, a drama that is art directed and paced with an acuity that transcends the circumstances of the characters’ relationships.
The romance between Carol and Therese, unlike many a romance movies, is one through which both women end up better. After proof of the nature of their relationship threatens to strip Carol of visitation rights, she isn’t forced, but rather quite readily owns her “questionable morality” and demands a compromise with her ex-husband. In one of the best shut down scenes I’ve ever seen, she says, "What use am I to [Rindy], to us, if I'm living against my own grain? So that's the deal. I won't — I cannot — negotiate anymore. You take it or leave it. But if you leave it, we go to court." And with that, Carol sets herself free. Sure, the love between her and Therese helped grease the wheels and is by no means unimportant, but I think that both women needed to create their own stabilities before we are allowed the potential of possibility.
Carol isn’t about a lurid affair. It isn’t about that one gay relative framed as the other. Truly, it’s almost hard to describe at all beyond a really honest and emotional look at the beginnings of something real. The audience doesn’t walk away feeling bad for those queer ladies; they are meant to walk away with the feeling of what happens next? Where do our characters — where do we — go from here?
I hope that this year brings more femme love, queer love, and other less often discussed love to the big screen. It goes without saying that 2017 was not great to the queer and trans community (especially QTPoC), but there’s something to be said about the dose of relatability a well told story can provide. More and more movies about queer characters seem to keep popping up. Maybe, eventually, we won’t have “That Gay Movie” Carol, but we’ll have so many gay movies that the answer will inevitably which “which one?”
Or, if my Christmas wish comes true, every movie in 2018 will be gay.
Funny, i never thought of Carol as ‘that gay movie’. I only thought of it as that great movie with great performances by great actresses
ReplyDeleteI have yet to see Moonlight and Call Me By Your Name, but i don’t think i’ll classify them as ‘gay movies’ either, just good drama
I too don't think of "Carol" as a gay or Christmas movie. There's a same-sex attraction between the leads, and the juxtaposition of the cultural repression of the 50's time period with the Christmas holiday cheer are all important elements in it. But for me "Carol" is just a rock-solid (if slightly pretentious) character drama.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen Todd Haynes' "Wonderstruck" Cass? Even though there's no gender identity involved there's a friendship between children (the 70's portion of the movie) that feels like a straight through line from Hayne's work on "Carol" to "Wonderstruck" (despite the latter being essentially a children's 'PG' rated drama for grown-ups).
I've not yet but that sounds like something very much up my alley. Thanks for the recommendation!
DeleteI think that queer cinema in general is becoming less of what it used to be (think Boys Don't Cry on one end of the spectrum and In and Out on the other), and now more about character driven stories. The shift is a very, very recent one.
I love this article. I have been on a bit of a rant this Christmas about the lack of gay ladies in movies in winter apart from Carol. Carol is so wonderful. I have a small poster of it on my wall and when I look at it, I want to watch ot again. I do like looking at it as a gay movie too. Despite agreeing with the trait of 'that gay movie', I really appreciate those gay movies that make me feel connected in a different way to a movie. I think, maybe, seeing something as a gay movie as a gay person is different than a straight person seeing it that way? I want gay movies in my life. I feel starved of them and treasure ones like Carol when they come along. I too have the same Christmas wish as you and hope that we aren't tragic or that outsider but as a person. Being gay is part of the identity of the people in the film and part of the identity of the film itself. But the import thing is the fact is part of it not in he whole thing. I am someone who is automatically more interested in watching something if it has gayness, but that is only one part of something that makes me excited, if that makes sense. To use Carol as an example, I wanted to see it right away. One of the reasons being trying to see gay movies, especially in the cinema is important to me. Others being the Cate Blanchett and Todd Haynes, liking the book and thinking cinematography in the stills looking lovely. Anyway, you really captured what makes Carol so special!
ReplyDeleteI love this article. I have been on a bit of a rant this Christmas about the lack of gay ladies in movies in winter apart from Carol. Carol is so wonderful. I have a small poster of it on my wall and when I look at it, I want to watch ot again. I do like looking at it as a gay movie too. Despite agreeing with the trait of 'that gay movie', I really appreciate those gay movies that make me feel connected in a different way to a movie. I think, maybe, seeing something as a gay movie as a gay person is different than a straight person seeing it that way? I want gay movies in my life. I feel starved of them and treasure ones like Carol when they come along. I too have the same Christmas wish as you and hope that we aren't tragic or that outsider but as a person. Being gay is part of the identity of the people in the film and part of the identity of the film itself. But the import thing is the fact is part of it not in he whole thing. I am someone who is automatically more interested in watching something if it has gayness, but that is only one part of something that makes me excited, if that makes sense. To use Carol as an example, I wanted to see it right away. One of the reasons being trying to see gay movies, especially in the cinema is important to me. Others being the Cate Blanchett and Todd Haynes, liking the book and thinking cinematography in the stills looking lovely.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, you really captured what makes Carol so special!
Ah no, no. I didn't want the gay movie comment to be taken as a lessening of what it is, I'm SO QUEER and watching queer movies makes me happy as all get out. What I wanted to get to, and this is something I'm working on now as I find the right way to write about Call Me By Your Name, is to appreciate films that make queer love something as moving as it is for me for other people.
DeleteI don't want queer cinema to cater to straight people specifically, I guess I just want examples to be like "Look at how beautiful we are! See that?!" as something of a cultural hinge point.
It's not a fully baked idea, but that's where my brain is chewing these days.