"Late Bloomers" A Film Review by Linda Lopez McAlister on "The Women's Show" WMNF-FM 88.5, Tampa, FL September 14, 1996 PC Alert! Last week I took some flack from an internet reader of my review of "French Twist" who was outraged that I gave an essentially positive review to a film that was based on heterosexist stereotypes, e.g., a lesbian who breaks up a heterosexual marriage, "real" lesbian characters as butch, all women want to be mothers, and so on. Since I'm in the business here of saying what I think in full awareness that others may see things totally differently, I don't usually respond to criticism of my criticism. But I do want to say, because these questions have relevance for today's review too, that I don't issue a blanket condemnation of all films about gay men or lesbians that use sterotypical images--it seems to me to depend on how the stereotypes are used and for what purposes. Perhaps the reason I was not bothered by them in "French Twist" is that I saw the film as I was preparing for a panel entitled "Stereotypes and Humor in Film" at the annual meeting of gay and lesbian journalists in Miami last week (which I ended up skipping due to illness in my family). This panel was to be largely a discussion of the use of stereotypes of gay men in such films as "Priscilla Queen of the Desert," To Wong Foo With Love, Julie Newmar," "Birdcage" etc. I tried in vain to find any mainstream film that relied on a comparable level of stereotypical representation of lesbians as the source of its humor. "French Twist" was the closest I came, but it was such a paltry example in comparison to gay male stereotyping in such films, that it hardly seemed worth mentioning. Besides that, nearly all comedy relies on exaggerating some "typical" (though not necessarily universally present) traits of a particular group of people that we are supposed to recognize and find humorous. This can be done in every spirit from affectionate kidding to malevoltent viciousness. I found "French Twist" to be well within the positive range. It's a French sex farce, for heaven's sake. So my view is, lighten up and laugh a little bit at ourselves. Gay and lesbian cinema would be wildly impoverished if, in the spirit of political correctness, we banished every film that wielded a stereotype. The film I've previewed for today, that will be screened on October 13, the last day of the Pride Film Festival, was written and directed by Julia Dyer and Gretchen Dyer and is called "Late Bloomers." It is also about a married woman who leaves her husband and family for a lesbian relationship with a butch basketball coach. (Yes, it would be nice if people making films about lesbians could expand their repertoire of dramatic situations. I think there are at least two other films in the Festival this year working from the same premise, we might call it "the Lianna plot"). But "Late Bloomers" is a different type of comedy from "French Twist," much more subdued, more realistic, more of an attempt to represent the characters as believable people. Dinah Groshardt (Connie Nelson) teaches geometry at Eleanor B. Roosevelt High School where the kids are into everything but the square of the hypotenous. They think she's a complete Dinah-saurous when she tells them that love is ephemeral and fleeting, whereas mathematics is eternally beautiful. Only as coach of the girls' basketball team does Dinah get their respect. Her fellow math teacher, Mr. Lumpkin, has the same intensity about algebra that Dinah has about geometry and he's far more interested in math than he is in his wife, Carly, the school secretary (Dee Hennigan). After a major misunderstanding in which Carly thinks that Dinah is having an affair with her husband and does some fairly mean things in retaliation, Carly tries to make amends and be friendly toward Dinah. This leads to Dinah teaching the totally unathletic Carly how to play basketball; that leads to...well, you can guess. Until you see this film I doubt that you'll ever know the full erotic potentiality of the game of basketball! And, next thing you know, these two late bloomers are living together and loving it. The Lumpkin family, the Eleanor B. Roosevelt High School PTA, and the parents of the basketball team are not as thrilled. What do Dinah and Carly do? I'll never tell. Go see it. I believe I was told that this film was voted Audience Favorite at the Sundance Film Festival. That's not surprising. Stereotypes and all, it is a sweet, funny, kind-hearted film that will make all but the most P.C. among us feel good. For the WMNF Women's Show, this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women and Film. Copyright 1996. All rights reserved. Please do not copy or reproduce this review without permission of the author: mcaliste@chuma.cas.usf.edu.