September 21, 2015 - Women are underrepresented in film. No matter the success of Hunger Games or Bridesmaids or Spy or Trainwreck, women filmmakers and female stories are consistently given short shrift in an industry that is notoriously conservative, reluctant to stray too far from the formulaic, male-dominated productions that studios know will achieve a satisfactory return.
If women in general encounter a fair amount of resistance from a recalcitrant and prejudiced industry, lesbian women suffer from even greater cinematic neglect, both in front of and behind the camera. Lesbian women are doubly marginalized in the history and practice of film, often overlooked by mainstream production companies for daring to represent gender and sexual identities other than that sanctioned by prevailing social norms.