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| An image from Saving Face, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics |
You know what the best "trope" (oh, I dread using that word) is in all of cinema?
That moment in the finale of a lesbian movie where the queer lady protagonist finally gets a moment with her crush. So much chaos has unfolded. So much personal growth has transpired. Yet here these two are. Once again staring into each other's pupils. The protagonist tries talking and unfurling all those feelings she's had contained inside her. Then, her crush says some phrase like "I can't" or "There's no way I could kiss you", oh! The pain! The devastation! Will this be one of those films depriving audiences of catharsis? But then that crush quickly follows it up with "...because there's no music playing!" or "...in this dance hall!" Something cutesy that reveals those preceding words were a misdirect.
Then, they smooch. The camera revels in their passionate connection. Awkwardness, fleeting devastation, has turned into romantic ecstasy.
Bottoms and Saving Face are the only two movies I can immediately recall doing this exact "trope" in their respective climaxes. Angela Robinson's exquisite D.E.B.S. also has a sequence akin to this, where leading lady Amy is giving a formal acceptnace speech where she notes her crush (and intended rival) Lucy Diamond personifies "evil in this world...if there is indecency to be found, she is the root" before pulling the rug out from the audience and declaring "the times I spent Lucy Diamond were the happiest days of my life." That excellent cheer-worthy segment brings it up to three. Is that enough to make something a "trope"?
I'm gonna call it one and not in a derogatory fashion (I even cringe at most uses of that "trope" word, to be honest). It's a microcosm of the crowdpleaser joys only lesbian cinema can provide.
I've written on several occasions before about the glories of women kissing in cinema, but it really can't be said enough: lesbian cinema is a triumph. A wonder to behold. So often, queer women in the real world are erased, reduced as "spectacle" for cis-het male eyes, or enduring any number of further injustices. Lesbian cinema, meanwhile, allows this strain of queer existence to manifest in countless forms. The offbeat comedy stylings of Jamie Babit or Angela Robinson. The painterly beauty of Celine Sciamma's works. Don't forget about the unhinged horror permeating Julia Ducournau's work. It's all so excitingly and endlessly varied, much like the innate form of cinematic expression or the lesbian community
Those are all such amazing realities to consider. You know what's less amazing? How scarce such lesbian cinema joys have been in 2025! I watch a movie every day and have rarely been handed more scenes of queer gals being cute and/or unhinged with each other. I have, however, seen movies with gratuitous Burger King product placement, ugly new iPhone models, and snarky Ryan Reynolds wannabes filling up the screen. This is now what cinema was made for. After all, the very first kiss in cinema was history was beween two gals. Know your history, people!
I want lesbians everywhere. Someone put out a decree that every week will bring a new motion picture featuring smooching ladies. For every one new American feature wallowing in 80s nostalgia, there needs to be three lesbian movies. None of this off-screen romance in Mickey17 or other mainstream American movies shuffling same-sex intimacy to the deleted scenes sections. As Britney Spears once said, "gimmee gimme gimme more." Get ladies of all body types, nationalities, and backgrounds smooching. And make them messy and stupid! Those are always the best kinds of characters in storytelling! It'd be great to see more titles like Nia DaCosta's Hedda centering on tracherous lesbians, for instance.
The future of lesbian cinema can excitingly build on its past. Hopefully, those subsequent exploits aren't afraid to alienate cis-het people. Assimilation is boring. Gimme those lesbian movies that make straight people squirm in their seats, sweat dripping down their foreheads as they confront the messy, jagged side of queer women's existence that doesn't fit into the "You Need to Calm Down" music video or a Postmates Pride Month ad. Meanwhile, the gay folks in the room are hooting and hollering over the chaos unfolding on-screen. You're not going to get those cinematic experiences just remaking a '90s rom-com and having the gay best friend be a sporadically present lesbian.
Enough complaining about representation and what the future of lesbian cinema looks like. Let's go back to fawning over the joys of seminal on-screen dykes. 95 years later, Marlene Dietrich smooching a lady in Josef von Sternberg's Morocco still registers as salacious, hot, and amazing. The aching yearning and empathetic filmmaking of 1931's Mädchen in Uniform, meanwhile, is still so powerful. Throw out all the reverent cinema history writing about D.W. Griffith, replace them with passages waxing poetic on the artistry of Uniform director Lontin Sagan. Watching 1933's Queen Christina for the first time two months ago, I kept squealing over Greta Garbo smooching ladies. Let's go, Garbo!
Allegedly, classic cinema performers like Garbo and Janet Gaynor were queer. They never got to live in a world where the term "queer cinema" existed or civil rights were even possible for LGBTQIA+ folks in America. I wish they could've lived to see the joy they brought to people or the roads they paved for other queer artists. When I watch them flicker on the screen now, being such outsized presences, I see queer women existence defiantly bubbling to the surface of a medium that would often (in the Hayes Code era) reinforce heteronormativity. Without them, we don't get Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Bottoms, Lingua Franca, Kokomo City, Carol, and other outstanding entries in the LGBTQIA+ women cinema canon.
It would be divine if they could've lived to see these and so many other movies. They, like those gals sharing the first-ever on-screen smooch, established that lesbianism and quality cinema are intrinsically intertwined. How tragic, then, that they could never be open about their identities in their lives, let alone see how the likes of Cheryl Dunye and Dee Rees would take lesbian cinema to new heights.
In a way, though, they do live on. Their various movies keep their artistic contributions and vibrant humanity alive permanently. Meanwhile, anyone still making unabashedly queer women cinema in 2025 is carrying on the legacy of Dorothy Arzner, Katharine Hepburn, and other vintage artists.
In the queer community, we're often carving out existences for tomorrow. The world is imperfect and cruel. Living is often about trying to make it a little better and more unorthodox so that the next generation of LGBTQIA+ souls have it a bit easier. They have more resources to access. More examples to follow and improve on. More instances of activism to emulate. And also produce queer art, enriching souls for eons to come. Those big-screen lesbians do mean something in illustrating (among many other concepts) to nascent gays the endless ways lesbian existence can materialize and that the status quo can be shattered. Even just providing fleeting entertainment from a hostile, unaccepting world is enough.
Maybe seeing those third-act moments in Bottoms and Saving Face, where two women finally embrace in the cutest fashion possible, urges a lesbian of any age to keep going. My fellow dykes, keep on creating lesbian-filled art. Plaster lesbians everywhere. Make them messy. Make them real. Make lesbian stories only you could create, warts and all. You never know who they might impact today and tomorrow. Plus, selfishly, I'd love to see even more art reveling in my favorite "trope", gimme more of those adorable romantic lesbian finales!
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