Matthew Taylor
Critical Film Review
Thursday, February 13th, 2020
The Reelout Film Festival was something special that I’ve never experienced before and I’m glad I got the opportunity to do so. The movie I attended was Good kisser, written and directed by Seattle filmmaker, Wendy Jo Carlton. The movie is based off two girlfriends, Jenna and Kate who later on open up their relationship with another female, Mia. The film is based around one big night involving a big party, alcohol, and drugs. Good Kisser is a film that is presented almost like a play; most of the film takes place in one night and featuring the three main characters. From my point of view, the acting at times was questionable in terms of it being “spotty” although the chemistry between the three females is what brought out the best in the film. I thoroughly enjoyed this film as I have never seen anything like it before and I have never been at a film festival like this one before.
At the beginning of the film, Jenna, one of the main characters was asked by the taxi driver what Jenna and her friend are doing tonight. Jenna replies saying “we’re going on a date with another woman”. Good Kisser is a film that shows the power that the lesbian culture has, in this case adding and exploring a three some of all females. “Ignoring the differences of race between women and the implications of those differences presents the most serious threat to the mobilization of women’s joint power (Lorde, Audre Geraldine, 1934-1992, P.117).” All three of the main characters in Good Kisser were white; no black women were represented throughout the film. This can affect the black lesbian culture, as they don’t feel they have the same power when comparing to the white lesbian women. Nowadays, lesbians are viewed as different and it’s crucial to acknowledge that they are just like any other gender.
Throughout the film, we observe a significant amount of potential scenarios that would be seen as too harsh or racist towards a specific community. When Jenna, Kate, and Mia communicate through the course of the film, we notice several complex feelings that are shown by all the girls. When observing feelings such as second guessing, conflicted feelings, difference in power, we see the harsh realities that some lesbians face leading you to be upset when the film finishes. In the article written by Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kate M. Miltner, they emphasize on the importance of women in the workforce, in this case the film industry. “While popular feminisms have varied goals and different means of expression, there is a predominant theme: what women need is self-confidence. In the workforce, women need to “lean in” and overcome “imposter syndrome”; in educational spaces, women need to assert themselves as smart and capable. On top of these, they stressed women most importantly need self-confidence regarding their inner selves. Sarah and Kate stated women must be “sure of themselves to overcome the often structural and societal problems that are keeping them down” (Sarah Banet-Weiser & Kate M. Miltner, 2015, P.172).” For the film producers to produce such films, it only helps the lesbian culture in a positive way as viewers see it in a positive way. It’s vital to recognize that these lesbian actors are fantastic actors that have great amounts of potential and to keep employed is the most important part of it all. Good kisser was a perfect example of lesbians doing what they enjoy while not caring what others think about it.
Many different lesbians often attract media attention, specifically in relation to feminism, sexual relationships, marriage, and more. In terms of representation in the film, it really only represented the lesbian culture and only having Caucasian females. Through the course of film, there are only five characters that we see in the entire movie. Jenna and Kate the Caucasian couple and Mia. The two other characters are the Uber driver Yuka, who is Chinese and Mexican and Clark, the male neighbour next door. By only having five characters in a movie like Good Kisser, its challenging to show enough sexual orientations and with this there were no representation of people with disabilities, limited representation of non-Caucasian characters and very limited representation of male characters other than small conversations between Jenna and Clark. Another note I made while watching the film was the lack of representation with women of colour. In my mind, women of colour are at the biggest degree of intersectionality in which why there may be a lack of representation of women in this specific film.
At the start of the film, it appears to seem that Kate is more dominant over Jenna. As the movie progresses we start to notice Jenna being more comfortable with Kate leading her to drift away from shyness and say what she believes in. With Jenna becoming more confident and standing up for her, it leads to the relationship and the group date to failure.
I thoroughly enjoyed Good Kisser although there are a few areas for improvement. I believe if the film had more characters it could’ve been represented more appropriately. Overall it was a good film that shows you the difficulties of lesbian couples.
Resources:
Sarah Banet-Weiser & Kate M. Miltner (2016) #MasculinitySoFragile: culture, structure, and networked misogyny, Feminist Media Studies, 16:1, 171-174, DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2016.1120490
Geraldine, Audre Geraldine Lorde. “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference .” Adobe® Acrobat® X PDF Bible, 21 Mar. 2011, pp. 159–196., doi:10.1002/9781118255728.ch7.
GNDS125 Reelout Film Festival Blog 