This Barbara Hammer documentary
depicts snippets of real lesbian and gay lives in an effort to save our histories,
to stop the disappearance of lgbt people over time and the invisibility of our
queer counterparts from just a few decades ago. Through interviews, lesbians contribute
to oral histories about life in the WAC in WWII, Greenwich Village in the 1930s,
bar raids and gay bashing in the 1950s and 60s, and pre-Nazi Berlin and beyond.
Author Willa Cather (who passed as her fictional twin brother William) is used
as an example of our losses when lives are whitewashed in the historical record. A
key part of Hammer's agenda in this black and white experimental film is lesbian
visibility on a personal level, contributing to a history of lesbian and gay eroticism.
Footage of couples making love is interspersed throughout, including older lesbian
partners, two younger women with tattoos and piercings, and an interracial gay
male couple. The specter of AIDS is front and center, so that we see dental dams
and latex gloves in action. Not merely erotica, the couples unexpectedly actually
have sex up close and personal on camera. Also included is footage from
the 1933 silent film Lot in Sodom, which featured scenes with a gay erotic
sensibility.
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