L.A. Scene is a monthly column that chronicles lesbian nightlife and events of interest in Los Angeles. Sarah Witness, an East Coast transplant and obvious femme, has been navigating the snark infested waters of Hollywood since 2001. Although she’s an NYU trained actress, she prefers sipping vodka and making idle chit-chat at really gay nightclubs. Dykeotomy I recently attended the Dykeotomy launch party at Here Lounge. What is Dykeotomy? Well that’s what I spent the majority of the party trying to figure out. The rest of the time I was in the bathroom line.
It seems that Dykeotomy is a concept, and this being Los Angeles, a concept is nothing if it is not a brand. It all began when Logan Alexander, of the Janice Dikinson Modeling Agency show, asked his very butch cousin if he could photograph her in extremely feminine clothing and make-up. She consented, and impressed with the results, Logan convinced other butch women to do the same.
The photographs and interviews with the models are soon to be released as a book.
At this point in the explanation I started to wonder if this was an offensive experiment. I couldn’t put my finger on why it seemed wrong, but something about “femming-up” these women just smacked of a step backward in a battle they’ve probably fought their whole lives.
I then met Logan, who is charming, eloquent, and gay, and decided he probably didn’t hold these women at gunpoint and force them into reverse-drag so maybe I should lighten up.
Logan explains his vision of Dykeotomy this way:
The concept behind Dykeotomy is simple, and it’s that we all have masculine and feminine traits and we sometimes get stuck in expressing ourselves one way or another, and the mission is for gender expression to be a little more fluid. It started off as a simple idea for a coffee table book and has grown into a conversation around gender expression, a movement because the participants and a lot of people involved or introduced to the project have expressed their own personal struggles with their own dichotomy and have embraced a bit more of the complexities of self.Show off.On a personal note, I’ve always been bothered that women aren’t represented as equals in society and I chose this subculture of women because they seem even more under represented.
Anyhoo, the party was at Here Lounge and it was a more sophisticated and slightly older crowd than is usually found at Here’s Thursday night event, the unfortunately named “Panty Raid.”
It was attended by hundreds of people who had limited understanding of, but total enthusiasm for the event. “Dykeotomy” the book will be out soon. Check out the photos below for a preview. Pretty intriguing, no? Outfest 2009 Outfest is the annual GLBT film festival in Los Angeles. The ten day event showcased hundreds of gaylesbitran films which ran the gamut from comedies (often about sex toys) to dramas (often about prison) with some dramas about sex toys thrown in for good measure. There were way too many films to cram into my dainty column so here are some highlights….
Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement was my absolute favorite. This is a documentary that chronicles the relationship of two women who were engaged in the 1960’s and got married in Canada in 2007 when they were pushing eighty. It is one of the most beautiful love stories I have ever seen. While many gay films speak only to a gay audience, I find it absolutely incomprehensible that anyone could walk away from this film without a new respect for the gay community. May it get a massive distribution deal and be required viewing for everyone in America. In the meantime, look for it in upcoming festivals and on the Sundance Channel sometime this winter.
The Outfest Legacy Project’s mission is to preserve and restore GLBT films before these important historical archives are lost forever. One of their projects this year was the restoration of a documentary entitled Choosing Children, which was shot in 1984.
In a time where most lesbians with children had had them with a former male partner, this film shows the experience of some of the first women who were able to start families while openly gay. The non-birth mothers’ concerns about their rights ring true today and the detailed explanation of how to inseminate oneself using an artichoke jar and a plastic syringe had the audience rolling in the aisles. It is a moving and often hilarious lesson in how far we’ve come in some areas and how far we still are from our goals.
Friday the 17th was “All-Girl Friday,” featuring the full-length film And Then Came Lola (which is not to be confused with Along Came Polly, the Jennifer Aniston vehicle), and a collection of lesbian shorts.
The night was sold out a week in advance, which begs the question, if lesbian films are so popular, why aren’t there more of them? Also, why are they always about fishing or dying or prison?
Thankfully And Then Came Lola was about none of those things. It was a comedy starring Ashleigh Sumner, Jill Bennett, Cathy DeBuono, and endless black undergarments. An homage to the 1999 film Run Lola Run, this film features another athletic red-haired type racing around a city in the name of love. (Look for a full review of the film on AfterEllen.com soon.) Like in the original, the story is played out three times with minor adjustments that cause the plot to unfold differently each time.
In this case, Lola is racing to get important photographs to her girlfriend (Bennett) who may or may not be hooking up with DeBuono’s character. Ha!
Sumner is fabulous and radiant, as are the abdominal muscles of the entire cast.
Outfest Awards were announced on Sunday the 19th. The Outfest 2009 Audience Award for Outstanding Documentary Feature Film went to Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement. Excellent news! See it.
The Grand Jury Prize for outstanding dramatic feature went to Mississippi Damned.
After the awards I caught up with producer Andrea Sperling (Itty Bitty Titty Committee, D.E.B.S., and the upcoming Mark Ruffalo project Sympathy for Delicious). Andrea was on this year’s Outfest jury and she noted an “overwhelmingly impressive amount of great female directed films.”
True enough. Now let’s remember to go see them in theaters, rent them on dvd, and do what we can to spread the word. Because if we don’t, the terrorists win.
Outfest Parties I went to an Outfest party at the Standard on the Sunset Strip and stayed for eleven hours and wound up slow dancing with Guinevere Turner by the pool.
Sadly, that was a couple of years ago, and therefore irrelevant, but I didn’t write this column then and why would I waste that gem of an anecdote?
Back to 2009. Most of the Outfest films were followed by after-parties at the DGA (the building that houses the Director’s Guild) or at local gay bars. Stella Artois and the always gay-friendly Absolut were huge sponsors, causing movie-goers to make a beeline for the door before the final credits rolled to secure their places in the massive drink lines.
Stella encouraged everyone to take their glasses, emblazoned with the Stella logo, home with them. They even provided velour bags so you could abscond with your glass in style. This was quite a hit with the lesbians. I’ll cover the apparent glassware shortage in our community in next month’s column.
I recognized two of the overextended but shockingly chipper lesbian bartenders from years past. Hopefully they get to hibernate until Dinah Shore.
Most of the revelers were not the typical West Hollywood types, with “film crew chic” being the wardrobe of choice. Yep, Reebok is still making high-tops. Hundreds of wannabe filmmakers were present and many a conversation revolved around the tragic/abysmal/horrendous state of American cinema in general and the brilliant/genius/earth-shattering gay and lesbian cinema that was to be made by all in attendance as soon as financing came through.
A large group of actual filmmakers and actors were there as well, both those who had films in the festival and those who continue to do great work elsewhere.
On “All-Girl Friday,” the party was filled with, believe it or not, almost all girls. And guys who really like Stella or Absolut or lesbian movies. This was the one night when the ladies of Weho dragged themselves off of Santa Monica Blvd. for a few hours and flooded the DGA. The after-party featured most of the cast of And Then Came Lola. Ashleigh Sumner, Jill Bennett, and Cathy Debuono all looked lovely and gamely mingled with the wild crowd.
The official after-after-party for the evening was, according to the Outfest Program, at Booby Trap. Booby Trap is the name of a lesbian night at a vaguely grimy/vaguely sexy bar on the east side. The Outfest party, hosted by Booby Trap was at a totally different bar called Vine Bar.
The woman who announced the films couldn’t remember where the party was. Some people heard Booby Trap and ran off to the east-side club.
I managed to get the location correct, a miracle considering Vine Bar has no visible sign, but saw a bunch of straight, and therefore likely delinquent, people loitering outside and decided to go to Del Taco instead. Which directly translates to “of or from the taco,” and has nothing to do with lesbian nightlife in Los Angeles.
