The Reel Thing

Linda Bates

Picture the scene: a winter's evening in early 1987, stumbling out of the Grosvenor cinema in Glasgow. I had just been to see a film, and it had changed my life in 90 wondrous minutes.

I was 18 years old, attending college and living away from home (Ayr) for the first time. Throughout my adolescence I had been very curious - in an arms' length, anthropological kinda way - about anything to do with homosexuality; I was fascinated by these people (the scant few I had heard about on the telly), although I'd never knowingly met anybody gay at that point. It just didn't seem to exist where I lived. I certainly didn't think that it was something I identified as, but looking back, the signs had really been there for all to see: when I'd asked for a football for my third birthday; the earnest discussions with my gal pals aged 8 about wanting to be a boy (and not for gender-dysphoric reasons: I just intrinsically knew that I wanted to relate to girls in a way that wasn't to do with dressing up dolls); an obsession with Cagney & Lacey; an overwhelming crush on a girl I knew socially; an insistence that I didn't want a boyfriend - all my peers were out winching at weekends, getting sick on Merrydown cider and boaking up on the beach, none of which really appealed to me.

So when I arrived in Glasgow in the autumn of 1986, I was ready to explore my new-found freedom and figure out who I really was. I didn't have the guts to venture much further than Byres Road and the city-centre college I was attending, but it was enough to give me the time and space I needed to indulge in that most teenage of pastimes: navel-gazing. I was studying photography full-time, with a view to eventually working in television; perhaps subconsciously I was drawn to a world of artistry, make-believe, and the Glamorous World Of The Homosexuals(or perhaps I was just more drawn to getting out of my home town: you decide). When I read that a film called 'Desert Hearts' was going to be playing at the Grosvenor in January, I justified to myself that since it had been named as 'Film Of The Month' in Film Review magazine, I was going to see it for purely cinematic reasons; that it had a gay relationship at its very heart was purely coincidental, really it was. ! Honest. But I went in confused; I came out a lesbian.

'Desert Hearts' was about a woman seeking a divorce in Reno in 1959. She wasn't sure why her marriage hadn't worked out, other than 'it drowned in still waters'. Sympathising - and falling in love with her - was the free-spirited daughter of the owner of the ranch where the lead character was waiting for her divorce to come through; watching the story unfold, I just knew that this was my emotional interior landscape being played out on the screen. When Cay (free spirit) instructed Vivian (still waters) to roll the car window "all the way down", I was having an internal dialogue with myself - oh God, she's going to kiss her - and oh God, you really want her to! It was a seismic event for me, this sudden fronting up to my own desires, and the uncanny feeling that somebody could so accurately capture my angst-ridden sensibilities. If the director, Donna Deitch, had made a film that was both historical and timeless at the same time, then perhaps that meant that there might be other girls around like me? I was astounded by the thought that I might not be on my own in struggling to identify who and what I was. The other cinema-goers that night seemed to appreciate it too - the short-haired girls down the front were holding hands (no doubt in an act of solidarity); the older man in the kagoul seemed to need to keep fiddling with something. He was certainly getting quite excited about it all.

So I tripped out of the cinema in a daze on that cold evening in 1987, and headed straight for the nearest phone box to call my best friend (historical note to today's teenagers: this is what we had to do in the days before mobile phones and the internet. I know. Isn't it shocking?). Unfortunately I hadn't quite planned what I wanted to say to her, so it went something along these lines:

Me: 'Hey there!' Pal: 'Hi. What's up?' Me: 'eeeerrrmm...I've just been to see a film' Pal: 'How novel. What's it called?' Me (voice going up an octave): 'Desert Hearts' Pal: 'I've not heard of it. What's it about?' Me (voice going up another octave): 'Two women falling in love.'

That conversation started off a whole new chapter in my life; not long after it, the same female pal came out to me (and we finally admitted that our mutual obsession with Cagney & Lacey was less about plotlines and strong roles for women, and more about fancying Sharon Gless). How my mother found out about my fledgling identity as a lesbian is another story altogether; suffice it to say, it involved a crush on a teacher, an overheard conversation, and a confrontation in a school staffroom. But that's for another day like this. . .

I still thank Donna Deitch from the bottom of my heart for making that film - and, as a small aside, would beg her never to make a sequel: she'd never get it right, because for every single person who's seen 'Desert Hearts', they've all got their own idea of what happened next....