Jen Rainin (00:03:31)
Hello everyone. I’m Jen Rainin
Rivkah Beth Medow (00:03:34)
And I’m Rivkah Beth Medow. We launched Frankly Speaking Films to address the need for queer women’s stories to be told by queer women.
Jen Rainin (00:03:44)
We want to live in a world where anyone who identifies as a queer woman is valued and we believe that visibility in media is our most powerful tool to make this happen. Our feature documentary AHEAD OF THE CURVE is streaming at Outfest this weekend. And it’s literally a story about a woman whose mission was to raise lesbian visibility. Let’s look at a short clip.
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Film Clip (00:04:23)
Amber Hikes
There were not a lot of ways that you could see yourself. Way before the L Word there was Curve. And I could, I could see myself represented there.
Denice Frohman (00:04:31)
There’s something to be said around that, that moment that a young person watches a video you know, where they feel affirmed in their sexuality or their gender presentation or identity and walking into a bookstore and looking at Curve right on a table. I see that same moment, that coming of age moment, where something in you unlocks and says, it’s okay. There’s other people that are like me. Yeah.
You know, one of the things about social media, like folks who’ve been most marginalized, really having, you know, taken the microphone, right? And being able to create their own content and tell their own stories in their own words, and then to be connected to a wide audience. We want representation, but we also want ownership. We also want to be able to make decisions, right?
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Rivkah Beth Medow (00:05:17)
We want ambitious, gorgeous film projects that have serious social impact. We’re craving conversations about the state of queer women in cinema today, both in front of, and behind the camera so we can celebrate what’s working well. And what’s not. That’s what frankly speaking with is all about. This is our first frankly, speaking with conversation, and there will be more, we’d love to hear your suggestions for future conversations. For this first event, we are thrilled to bring Yoruba Richen and Lea DeLaria into conversation
Jen Rainin (00:05:52)
Before we bring them on. We have some house key evening. Accessibility is important to us. This event is being live captioned and will be recorded and available at franklyspeakingfilms.com for later viewing as well. The option to view live captions is at the bottom of your zoom window. We’ve put our code of conduct in the chat. So please take a look at that. We want to build community, so please feel free to use the chat, to communicate with other attendees. Just make sure to select “all panelists and attendees.” If you have questions for our speakers, please put them up in the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen, and we’ll do our best to address all the questions. One thing we’re missing a little from the old reality is the energy of live audience tweeting when they hear something that resonates. We’d love to recreate that. And so we ask that if you’re so moved, please use #FranklySpeakingWith during and after this conversation. And lastly, we would love to stay in touch with you. So we invite you all to check in with us on our socials @CurveMagMovie.
Rivkah Beth Medow (00:06:59)
Now we’d like to welcome today’s moderator Chanelle Elaine. Her first feature FIRST MATCH is a Netflix original and won the South By audience award in 2018. She’s been a fellow with Sundance, SFFilm, IFP and Film Independent, and she founded Creative Bionics, where she works in community with filmmakers, activists, and philanthropists to advance equality for girls and women everywhere. She was our consulting producer on AHEAD OF THE CURVE, and I’m really excited to bring her on now.
Chanelle Elaine (00:07:50)
Thank you so much Rivkah and Jen for bringing Frankly Speaking Films and for having this event tonight, I feel very honored and privileged to be a part of it. I’d like to introduce everyone to Yoruba Richen, who is a prolific award-winning filmmaker, who is currently directing a film for FX and Hulu about the police killing of Brianna Taylor. Yoruba’s film THE NEW BLACK is an introspective look within the Black communities grappling with homosexuality and gay marriage, which has won many festival awards and was nominated for the NAACP Image and GLAAD Media awards. Let’s play a clip from THE NEW BLACK.
Film Clip
Chanelle Elaine (00:09:36) Lea DeLaria, let’s be clear, the originator of the lesbian U-Haul joke, is an inexorable talent who crosses an abundance of artistic genres and garners intergenerational recognition from baby queers to our elder stone butch dykes. Lea’s award-winning talent comes to us from standup, Broadway, television, album recordings, and of course film. Lea’s work can be seen in the critically acclaimed Orange is the New Black, AHEAD OF THE CURVE, and is streaming on Netflix and Dreamworks animated series Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, as well as Hulu’s Reprisal.
Film Clip
So I’m gonna go ahead and bring on Yoruba and Lea, let’s welcome.
Yoruba Richen (00:11:05)
Hi there.
Lea DeLaria (00:11:09)
Do we have, Hey everybody. That was an suspicious start Chanelle!
Chanelle Elaine (00:11:17)
Thank you for being here. I’m going to leave you both to have an amazing conversation and we’ll be back soon.
Yoruba Richen (00:11:30)
Cool.
Lea DeLaria (00:11:31)
Very cool. Yoruba!
Yoruba Richen (00:11:34)
Yes.
Lea DeLaria (00:11:35)
How you doing there, girl?
Yoruba Richen (00:11:37)
I’m good. I’m good. We’re both here from the land of Brooklyn
Lea DeLaria (00:11:41)
BK all the way, BK all the way.
Yoruba Richen (00:11:45)
So fun to talk to you. When she was listing your work, I thought about the time that I saw you, was it in, On the Town?
Lea DeLaria (00:11:55)
That would be, that was my first Broadway show.
Yoruba Richen (00:11:58)
Yes. I love On the Town. I’m like a huge musical fan. And so II totally went to see on the town on Broadway. So it’s amazing your breadth of work and representation, what we’re talking about. So it’s super cool to talk with you.
Lea DeLaria (00:12:14)
Not much representation in On the Town, except that at that time in my career, which I find very interesting, I was the really, the only person – and this was brought up by the Village Voice. –I was the only openly gay person that they allowed to play both gay characters and straight characters.
Yoruba Richen (00:12:33)
And that’s why I think it’s so important for representation, even though that role was not, you know, necessarily a gay role, you being an openly gay person playing it brings another level, another aspect to the role. So it, it’s not just about having, you know, queer and LGBT characters, which is so important, but also being at a place where we can play, you know, and tell the stories through our unique lens.
Lea DeLaria (00:13:03)
Right. But the issue I find and I’m, I don’t know if you’re gonna agree with me on this, the issue I find as the vast majority, especially in the world of television. I think this is really prevalent in television. Any, any queer roles are generally written by non queer people or gay men, but very few lesbians. And then they are then portrayed by non queer people and directed by non queer people. I think this mostly applies to lesbians. We see it in, we see it with other, with other people in our community, trans the trans community gets hit with that a lot. But the thing that is frustrating for me, and I think any, any other person who’s listening who happens to be a queer actor is gonna say the same thing, until they let us write and perform and direct our own roles, we’re being erased from our own fucking narrative. It’s okay to say fuck, right?
Yoruba Richen (00:13:55)
We’re on zoom. I think so.
Lea DeLaria (00:13:57)
Okay, good. We’re being erased from our own narrative and yeah, it’s great that I get to play straight roles in gay roles and in and men, I played them all. But I think what’s more important now is that we have to start allowing us to tell our own stories and us to portray our own stories.
Yoruba Richen (00:14:15)
Absolutely. I mean, this is really, I think, where the progress needs to be made and where people are pushing, pushing back. It’s certainly the case in my field as a documentary filmmaker, you know, and looking at the opportunities for people of color especially to tell our own stories, it’s still a huge, huge issue even in documentary, which is, you know, more progressive or more aware of these issues than sort of traditionally Hollywood. But that’s still a problem. And certainly in documentary and certainly in, you know, fiction and mainstream film that we have to, as people of color, as LGBTQ folks, that we need to be able to tell our own story. So it all goes back to how can we be the gatekeepers? Like how can we make the decisions, right, of who’s gonna be that director, of who’s gonna be that writer to tell that story. And until quite frankly, you know, those gatekeepers are gone ,and somehow we get them gone, and create our own modes of telling through the just doing it, like we often do, just going out and doing it or writing it. But our own development of this work, how can we support the writers and the directors?
Lea DeLaria (00:15:47)
Until we stop being implicit in our own oppression. There are so many queer people actually in power in television, in film, in theater who are complicit, who are complacent, they’re completely, not complacent – complicit in this situation where they won’t hire a lesbian to play a lesbian, cuz they wanna work with a person that they’ve worked with before. So let’s get that, oh, I like her. She’s great, but not a dyke. Right. You know what I mean? We, and, and there are plenty of people in power that are more concerned about the shekel and who they’re gonna sell their product to, rather than the things that are important to probably everybody that’s listening right now that we tell truthful stories about who we are.
Yoruba Richen (00:16:36)
I can only imagine in Hollywood how that is.
Lea DeLaria (00:16:41)
You’re in documentary!
Yoruba Richen (00:16:43)
Yeah. I can only imagine, but I do think even in, in documentary film, what we’ve seen is just like the film that we just saw a clip of AHEAD OF THE CURVE, that women, people of color, LGBTQ folks are taking the reins and figuring out how to tell their own stories. I mean, that’s, that’s what I did. Just even starting as a documentarian. And documentary is great because it allows that kind of entrepreneurialism, so to speak. You know, people say the reason why maybe women have gone further in documentaries, there’s less money in it than Hollywood. So it’s always, you know, in some ways it’s very hard to raise the money. It takes many years to make this kind of film, but it is possible. And one of the things that I love about the Curve Foundation, which Jen and Rivkah have started, is it’s an infrastructure to be able to raise that money and tell our own stories. And I think that’s really, you know, the kind of stuff that’s needed.
Lea DeLaria (00:18:09)
I’m sorry…
Yoruba Richen (00:18:09)
Just one quick thing. When I look at the funding that I received to make THE NEW BLACK, that was really lesbians, African American particularly, lesbians who happened to be gatekeepers who championed the film and helped me get it done.
Lea DeLaria (00:18:32)
And it has to be twice as hard. Let’s just state this fact because you are women of color and lesbians.
Yoruba Richen (00:18:43)
Yeah.
Lea DeLaria (00:18:44)
I mean, I feel a kinship in that way. I’m a lesbian, but I’m a butch dyke and there’s a, how should I put it, a misconception about how we are, how’s that – misconception? There’s a very specific box and stereotype that my people are put in in the world. And that’s another thing that I think that our community is complicit in, that we’re the dirty secret that they wanna, you know, sweep under the carpet. I mean, that’s one of the reasons I was so very proud to be a part of Lesbian is the New… Orange is the New Black.
Yoruba Richen (00:19:21)
A Freudian slip.
Lea DeLaria (00:19:24)
Beautiful. Well, if you been on the set, you would’ve understand,
Yoruba Richen (00:19:28)
I can only imagine,
Lea DeLaria (00:19:30)
But Orange is the New Black, because they really went out of their way to focus on the marginalized groups of almost any cultural society. The story that they did on a trans woman, the story that they did on a Butch dyke. You know, these stories of people who are having problem with their mental health, all of that. Not to mention all the African American stories and the Latinx stories and everything that came out. That served, I think, to change a lot of what’s going on in our industry, if you know what I mean. We’ve definitely seen a change.
Yoruba Richen (00:20:13)
Yeah. That, that TV show was so groundbreaking on that, on that level. I mean, I think that’s why it garnered such excitement from so many corners, you know. I look at another show that I’ve been watching. I just interviewed her for another project of mine, but Lena Waithe’s series The Chi, which I love. And having a queer woman of color, a queer African American write that, you know, be the executive producer, be writers on that story. The range of characters that you see, you know, a lesbian couple at the center of the show, different colors, different sexualities, trans, like it’s amazing. And it’s natural, it’s natural. It’s just, this is what life is. And it’s because you have a lesbian of color that is the creator of that show, you know. And I asked her, and she’s like, this is my world. You know? So when we get to share our world views, this is our world lens. Again, that lens, this is what we get. And it’s successful. And it’s good. It’s not…
Lea DeLaria (00:21:24)
Like Work in Progress. That’s another one that I can bring up that I don’t know if you’ve seen, Work in Progress.
Yoruba Richen (00:21:29)
I haven’t seen Work in Progress.
Lea DeLaria (00:21:30)
Work in Progress is a fun half hour that is active within our community in Chicago, but within, in the queer community in Chicago. And it centers around a work in progress, an older butch dyke, but like a 40 year old butch dyke. That to me is also another what?!
Yoruba Richen (00:21:52)
Oh yeah.
Lea DeLaria (00:21:53)
What? A 40 year old woman? You centered show around a 40 year old woman? Can you believe it? And it’s really good. And we can go on and on. I mean, we are seeing more representation in a wide variety of ways throughout what’s happening in film and television. But we still, I feel have a long way to go. We still aren’t in control of our stories. We still don’t get the green light to make our stories, you know. This is the fight or the battle that we’re in.
Yoruba Richen (00:22:24)
Totally. And it’s amazing that we’re here in what, 2020. And maybe, you know, 2020, it’s like 20/20 vision. Maybe it’s all, everything’s being revealed. We’re in a reckoning now around issues of representation. But maybe this is the time. I’m hopeful in this time of people. I’m hopeful that this will be, you know, that we’ll stop having panels on diversity and we’ll actually implement inclusion. I said I can’t be on another panel about how we can get diversity in the industry. We need to be just doing it, or you gatekeepers need to be just doing it.
Lea DeLaria (00:23:13)
Absolutely. I mean, it’s, it’s on the industry that they make a point of doing it just the way we make a point of doing it. You know, I sing. I go on the road and I sing. I sing in concert halls and I have an Asian woman on the piano. I have a black woman on my bass. I have a Latinx woman on the drums and I have another butch dyke playing guitar. So yeah. You know, I call us the United Colors of Benton band. It’s like, I’ve made a choice to have diversity and women on my stage. That was really important to me. Do you know what I mean? So if we’re going to keep in this “liberal business,” as they’re saying in the RNC right now about show business, liberal business has to do more than just lip service to this ideology that they’ve been saying they’re for, for as long as I can remember.
Yoruba Richen (00:24:05)
For so long. Absolutely.
Lea DeLaria (00:24:07)
For so long. Yeah. You know, when you asked what we could do, years ago, back in the nineties, when we all had lesbian chic, remember that?
Yoruba Richen (00:24:14)
Of course.
Lea DeLaria (00:24:15)
Which was just a stupid straight boy way to sell products. That’s all it was.
Yoruba Richen (00:24:22)
It was fun. The nineties were fun.
Lea DeLaria (00:24:26)
Yes. Well, you know, my career, that’s when people started seeing my television, so that’s the point it started for me. So at that time they made more movies that centered around lesbians, right? But never cast actual dykes to play the roles. So I did a couple of those films and they always would just throw me in some scene to give it legitimacy. Do you know what I mean?
Yoruba Richen (00:24:51)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Lea DeLaria (00:24:55)
I think after the third time, I realized what was going on. Like I like the third film I made this film called RESCUING DESIRE that actually went straight to video. Thank God. If you were read the cast, you’d lose your mind. It’s a virtual who’s who, of every woman you love right now. So, I mean, for some reason it went right to video. Maybe because it was a lesbian story that was being portrayed by straight women and directed and written by a straight man. Could have been that!
Yoruba Richen (00:25:22)
Yeah.
Lea DeLaria (00:25:24)
But after about the third film, I started saying, no, I’m not doing this anymore. That, and the other thing they always wanted me to play was the lesbian who inappropriately hits on straight women at every function. I did that like a couple of notorious times, Friends, FIRST WIVES CLUB. And then the next time they asked me to do it was SUDDENLY SUSAN. I said no. Because that’s a really crappy portrayal of lesbians.
Yoruba Richen (00:25:48)
Totally.
Lea DeLaria (00:25:48)
You know, and I’m just not doing this anymore. So we have to be culpable. We have to say, I’m not doing this and I’m not gonna support things that do. We have power with our finance.
Yoruba Richen (00:26:01)
Totally. I wonder Lea, how it is like, there’s these blips of like, okay, in the nineties, what was it? Slackers and Dykes, it was like that book about indie, the movement of the indies. Come on,
Lea DeLaria (00:26:23)
Can’t remember it,
Yoruba Richen (00:26:25)
John, Mike, Slackers and Dykes or something like that. Right.
Lea DeLaria (00:26:27)
Something like that.
Yoruba Richen (00:26:29)
Yeah, exactly. So nineties, you have this blip, you have like, again in the nineties films, WATERMELON WOMAN I remember came out.
Lea DeLaria (00:26:35)
I love WATERMELON WOMAN. What a great film. I’m so glad you mentioned it.
Yoruba Richen (00:26:38)
Totally. You know, GO FISH, like all these things came out, and it was like, oh, there’s like lesbian cinema. And then we cut to today. Where do you think the state is of films?
Lea DeLaria (00:26:51)
Not like it was in the nineties. Lesbians are not making movies the way we did. We had a film thing going on in the nineties where we were doing independent films. We were out there and we were making it. And, you know, I’m just gonna say, it’s the same old, same old. We’re lesbians. We’re women. Nobody’s lining up to give us money.
Yoruba Richen (00:27:09)
Right. And then it’s just a, a few. I mean, I think of like PARIAH, which I loved. Oh, Spike, Mike Slackers and Dykes. Yeah. That’s it.
Lea DeLaria (00:27:22)
Thank you. Thank you.
Yoruba Richen (00:27:25)
You know…
Lea DeLaria (00:27:26)
I spoke too much marijuana
Yoruba Richen (00:27:30)
And of course, TV has taken some of it, you know, a bit of it. But yeah, there just seems to be, when we are looking on Netflix and trying to find something and we wanna watch a lesbian film, it just seems hard to find.
Lea DeLaria (00:27:44)
Yeah. There is that beautiful documentary on Netflix right now about the older lesbian couple and for some reason…
Yoruba Richen (00:27:51)
Oh, yes, yes, yes,
Lea DeLaria (00:27:53)
That is, was a stunning film. Just stunning. I cried for the last 15 minutes of it. Yes. I cried. Butch Lea DeLaria cried for 15 minutes.
Yoruba Richen (00:28:04)
Do you remember the name of it?
Lea DeLaria (00:28:07)
I can’t remember. And I just went, what’s the name of it? I was like, wait a minute.
Yoruba Richen (00:28:10)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lea DeLaria (00:28:12)
That’s terrible. Can you guys find that for us so we can give a shout out to that movie cuz every lesbian in the universe should be watching this movie. Yeah. But just brilliant and overcoming homophobia. What that generation went through. That’s the generation whose shoulders I’m standing on.
Yoruba Richen (00:28:31)
Right, right.
Lea DeLaria (00:28:32)
Do you know what I mean?
Yoruba Richen (00:28:33)
A SECRET LOVE! Thank you.
Lea DeLaria (00:28:36)
Once I had a secret love…, I should remember that. Cause Doris Day was playing through the whole thing. Good old Dodo.
Yoruba Richen (00:28:45)
Well what can we do then to support when we open it up to the, to the folks. We have 70 participants, which is really cool.
Lea DeLaria (00:28:57)
Wow. That’s cool.
Yoruba Richen (00:28:57)
Yeah. That’s amazing.
Lea DeLaria (00:29:00)
Hey ladies…
Yoruba Richen (00:29:02)
Badumbum. What can we do?
Lea DeLaria (00:29:05)
Yeah. Can’t resist a joke. I can’t resist a joke.
Yoruba Richen (00:29:08)
Oh wait. And you were the, you were oh, swoon in response. Wait, you were the originator of the lesbian U-Haul joke. I just, I have to just…
Lea DeLaria (00:29:17)
Yeah. I wrote that joke for a show called Lebo-a-Gogo in 1988.
Yoruba Richen (00:29:23)
Whoa, my gosh. Yeah. You get a crown for that. That’s amazing.
Lea DeLaria (00:29:27)
And I performed it in Provincetown. I think anybody on the east coast, a lot of people know what Provincetown is and that time it was a gay Mecca. And then I would do Provincetown all summer. And then I would go to the west coast in the winter and tour the west coast because I’m smart. Get outta the east coast in the winter. That joke beat me to the west coast. I was like, what? It just beat me to the west coast. I had to cut it for my act. Because everybody already knew the joke. The joke is so easy to tell. It just went, just exploded.
Yoruba Richen (00:30:01)
Someone just brought up Dyke TV. And I actually, that was a series.
Lea DeLaria (00:30:07)
I remember Dyke TV
Yoruba Richen (00:30:08)
Exactly.
Lea DeLaria (00:30:10)
Was that in Boston, Dyke TV?
Yoruba Richen (00:30:12)
I thought it was out of New York.
Lea DeLaria (00:30:13)
Was that outta New York? Okay. Maybe I thought it was Boston, but…
Yoruba Richen (00:30:16)
I think it was out of New York, but that was a show. What I loved about a show like that is that it was really tackling real issues. Right. And it was in a kind of newsy documentary format. And I totally used to watch it when you could find it.
Lea DeLaria (00:30:35)
Yeah. You know, it was very hard to find.
Yoruba Richen (00:30:36)
Like it was very hard to find when it’s on. And I would watch it today, you know, those kinds of things like those kinds of programming, you know?
Lea DeLaria (00:30:48)
Girl, let’s just create another Dyke TV. Put it on now.
Yoruba Richen (00:30:52)
I know. I know.
Lea DeLaria (00:30:53)
Like we can do it on Quibi. I bet.
Yoruba Richen (00:30:57)
Well if Quibi survives, But that’s a good that’s that’s a good idea.
Lea DeLaria (00:31:03)
I mean, that’s how I think how we tackle the situation by creating our own content. And you know, you were starting to ask that question. I’m gonna ask you the same question when I’m done with my response. But I think that we dig in and create our own content. I’m working on a couple of different projects right now. One of which is a lesbian romcom. You know, whenever we make lesbian films, they tend to be a little heady, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think queer people should be like the raisins in Raisin Bran, everywhere. You know? And again, I’m a comic. So there’s no such thing as a lesbian rom com, I can’t think of one. So I think that would be great. So creating our own content, then supporting that content. Get out there and support these things. And then don’t support the things that aren’t doing what we need done. You know, boycot, boycot, boycott. It’ll make a change. I think it does.
Yoruba Richen (00:32:03)
And there are, as you said, there are gatekeepers out there who are lesbian and queer and could start the foundation or whatever it is to support LGBT, lesbian in particular, writers and directors, like going back that. That mentorship is so so important, right? Like that’s how you get access in the industry. And certainly in documentary the same thing as needed.
Lea DeLaria (00:32:36)
I have to give a shout out to Cindy Holland on that. Now Cindy Holland is the head of television for Netflix. All the queer content you see on next Netflix, the Ryan Murphy deal, all that stuff has been championed by Cindy Holland. And you know, she’s making the right choices for our community, I guess is what I’m saying. So I must give her a shout out.
Yoruba Richen (00:32:56)
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. And we’re in, you mentioned Quibi, Netflix. There’s opportunity there, right?
Lea DeLaria (00:33:05)
Tons of opportunity, more than we’ve ever seen.
Yoruba Richen (00:33:08)
It’s insane. Like who thought that streaming would be replacing film. Incredible. Unbelievable. So there is the opportunity there.
Lea DeLaria (00:33:19)
You can also add audio to that. There’s so much opportunity in a podcast situation. You know, I’d like to do a podcast called Dykes and Dogs where I just interview dykes with their dogs. I’m pretty sure every lesbian on the planet will watch it.
Yoruba Richen (00:33:34)
Oh my gosh. For sure.
Lea DeLaria (00:33:36)
Listen to it. Excuse me.
Yoruba Richen (00:33:37)
Yeah, listen to it. Exactly. Yeah,
Lea DeLaria (00:33:39)
Yeah,
Yoruba Richen (00:33:40)
Absolutely. So it’s really a bountiful, it’s like the wild wild west in some ways. And there’s opportunity there for content creators. And yes, I will watch Dyke with Dogs. I’m looking at the chat. You pitched it and they’ve taken it. So yeah, and what I love about this about this film in particular, AHEAD OF THE CURVE, is that when I got asked by the filmmakers to be a part of this panel, I was immediately excited to do it because I remember the impact of looking at that magazine in the nineties had on me as a, you know, young, 20 something year old. And I immediately thought like, which we always talk about, the loss of kind of lesbian spaces, right? Loss of lesbian bars, the loss of the lesbian films, even that we just talked about and an opportunity to talk about that and to celebrate that and how that’s really missing now. You know, how do we bring that back? Like how do we, cause I think still think people want a place to go and to congregate and to, you know, like my wife says, I don’t always wanna be around straight people.
Lea DeLaria (00:35:07)
No, no, no, no, no. And you know, I read an alarming statistic recently that there are only 19 lesbian bars in America. I know it’s an alarming stat.
Yoruba Richen (00:35:19)
Yeah.
Lea DeLaria (00:35:19)
You know, which is why I’m supporting the Cubby Hole in the midst of all of this. Anybody who’s in the New York area, the Cubby Hole is open. Please support them. That’s one of 19 lesbian bars still left in America. So, you know that’s shocking. But that was something that Curve gave us. I was living in San Francisco, so I had tons of lesbian spaces in the nineties.
Yoruba Richen (00:35:44)
Yes. I was living in San Francisco in the nineties.
Lea DeLaria (00:35:45)
Our career paths are so like…
Yoruba Richen (00:35:49)
It’s very typical.
Lea DeLaria (00:35:51)
That’s weird, right.
Yoruba Richen (00:35:51)
Brooklyn. Yeah.
Lea DeLaria (00:35:53)
Yeah, and I mean, I was on the cover like twice, I think, of Curve. And I just remember when it came out, how flabbergasted I was that a lesbian magazine could look so good. Do you know what I mean? Like, there had been other lesbian magazines, don’t get me wrong. Daughters of Bilitis was in the fifties and On Our Backs, Off Our Backs.
Yoruba Richen (00:36:17)
Well, that’s the other yeah.
Lea DeLaria (00:36:19)
But they were all were kind of like printed in the basement, stapled together, sent to you in a brown paper bag, kinda situation. Manila envelope so nobody can see. Curve was just out there on the newsstand, looking glossy and gorgeous with these fantastic stories about dykes and our lives and our heroes. It was a real change. It was a real change. I’ll never forget it.
Yoruba Richen (00:36:49)
Absolutely. And, of course the origin story is amazing.
Lea DeLaria (00:36:55)
The Deneuve story?
Yoruba Richen (00:36:57)
Yeah, I remember Deneuve too. I didn’t know that at all.
Lea DeLaria (00:37:08)
Yeah. Cause Catherine Deneuve said the reason that she was suing them was because she had just put out her perfume called Deneuve and she didn’t want people to be confused. And of course, yeah, me a stand up comic, my response was that’s often happened to me. I’ve gone into a grocery store for a Playboy and come out with a bottle of Chloe.
Yoruba Richen (00:37:28)
Right.
Lea DeLaria (00:37:31)
It was so blatantly homophobic that it couldn’t even be taken seriously.
Yoruba Richen (00:37:36)
Right, right, right. But again, I can imagine Jen and Rivkah said that the audience reaction has been so enthusiastic. And I saw a clip of the outdoor screening at Frameline that they did. And it was just so fun to watch. Cause people were so excited and so hungry for this content. Again, it’s hunger for the content, you know? So hopefully we’ll be seeing, maybe again, as this time of reckoning, maybe it’s also time of pushing and reevaluating and taking advantage of these opportunities.
Lea DeLaria (00:38:19)
Absolutely. And giving it up, I have to give it up to the youth of America, you know? This social change that we are experiencing right now, it would not happen if it wasn’t for the youth of America standing up and saying, we’re not putting up with this anymore. So I get very hopeful when I see that. Very hopeful.
Chanelle Elaine (00:38:45)
Whoa. I was laughing so much. Thank you for taking me on such a journey. You know, just queer representation in film and television. I have to say, I did this on purpose. I wore my Dyke TV hat. I was so happy when that came up and I had to wear it because it is one of the influences that brought me into filmmaking.
Yoruba Richen (00:39:15)
I have to say Chanelle, your film is on my Netflix queue. So I’m so excited to watch it.
Chanelle Elaine (00:41:36)
There are a lot of questions coming from the Q&A. I just wanna ask a quick question of both of you Yoruba I know that when we do documentary filmmaking and you go in, you go in with a plan and that it always surprises you as to what you learn as a result of it that you didn’t know before you go in. And I’m really curious as to what that was for THE NEW BLACK.
Yoruba Richen (00:42:00)
Oh my gosh. Oh, wow. So when I first started the film, when I first conceived of the film, it was literally the night of 2008, the election when Barack Obama was elected president and 209, the anti-marriage equality bill was passed by referendum in California. And immediately the next day, if folks remember, African Americans were blamed for the passage of 209 and there were so erroneous poll numbers that came out that said that we voted for the measure in these large numbers. Cuz we had come out for Barack Obama and were more homophobic, so we were against gay marriage. And I really thought it was a crazy moment, looking at how the these two groups that were pitted against each other, of course not looking at the intersection of those of us who were LGBTQ and African American.
Yoruba Richen (00:43:02)
And that we were at this moment where the LGBTQ rights was really so prominent and had had come to the forefront of the nation. I thought the film was gonna be about that and about this sort of clash and what LGBT you know, sort of traditionally white LGBT groups were doing to work with African American communities in the next political thing. At that point, they thought in 2010, there would be another referendum in California to try to reverse 209. What the film ended up being about though, and I realized that this is what the film should be about, was really looking in our own community about how we were grasping with LGBTQ rights and with issues like around the black church and civil rights and how they intersected with LGBT rights. So it turned out to be very different from how I thought. And then just quickly I’ll say, when I started, I never had thought much about marriage. I never thought that this should be the thing that we fight for. I never thought that this should be, top of the line. But I came to understand why it became such a rallying cry and what it meant for LGBTQ folks. So I would say those two things.
Chanelle Elaine (00:44:34)
Awesome. Thank you. And Lea, you know, because you’re across so many different genres, I’m really curious, as someone who really stands in their power, where do you feel like your queer representation was able to really push things forward in a way that wasn’t the same when you entered it?
Lea DeLaria (00:44:59)
Well, I have two answers to that. I was the first openly gay comic on television in America when I did the Arsenio Hall show. And to me, what that did was, and it’s working on the same level that we’re talking now. there was a lot of African Americans that watched Arsenio Hall. So I mean, everybody watched it, but my ability to talk to heterosexual people on that show and put a positive light on what it is to be queer and make them laugh. It was a room full of straight people and they were screaming. If you listen to the clip now, they’re screaming with laughter at everything I said. And there was nothing, I was not in any way, shape or form kissing their butts. I mean, I couldn’t have been more out. Do you know what I mean? After I did the show, The Advocate watched it. Nine and a half minutes was the entire time I was on, four and a half minutes on doing my standup, five minutes on the couch. And in that nine and a half minutes, I said the word dyke, fag, or queer 47 times. So there was no, you know what I mean?
Lea DeLaria (00:46:11)
And then, I gained a massive Black American audience after that. My audiences were always mixed Black people and gay people, which was a really fun time for me. It was a really fun time for me. And now it’s just everybody because of Orange, which is the other thing. I really feel like I’ve changed through that show, the perception of what butch dykes are like, you know. Because everything else portrays us as fat and drunks and truck drivers. And we beat up our girlfriends and we’re stupid. And, you know, Boo was fat definitely, but none of the other shit. She was the smartest woman in that prison without a doubt. And there was no secret about it and they planned it that way. And so that to me was a massive change. I mean, the world really does accept butch dykes way more than they did before. So that would be my two answers.
Chanelle Elaine (00:47:14)
Incredible. Thank you for that insight. I just wanna acknowledge that Franco Stevens is in the house.
Lea DeLaria (00:47:24)
Hey, Franco.
Chanelle Elaine (00:47:25)
And has a question for both of you, you’ve talked a little bit about the projects that you’re currently working on. I’m gonna make it two parts, Lea, Franco wants to know who would a little bit more about the romcom and who would be playing with you in it. And Yoruba to talk a little bit more about your current project about Brianna Taylor.
Lea DeLaria (00:47:55)
Well, the romcom isn’t my current project. It’s just an idea that I have. My current project is called, we just keep calling it from Bushwick to Bulgaria because that’s the tagline. But it’s the 26th Anniversary of Lea DeLaria in Show Business tour from Bushwick to Bulgaria. It is a comedy, it is a sitcom. And there are a lot of people that are attached to it at the moment in guest starring roles. And we haven’t cast the other roles yet, and we’re out there shopping this project. And it’s really just very briefly, it’s kind of like, I’m kind of like a Curb Your Enthusiasm character. My character just keeps going at it no matter what comes at her. So I’m kind of like a happy Curb Your Enthusiasm character, you know, that lives in a crazy bubble in her head. Her career is in the toilet, but she thinks she’s doing great.
Lea DeLaria (00:49:00)
Yeah. So it’s that. And she’s in love with the girl next door. And this is again a show which we are very committed to diversity. The other character is my chauffeur and my house boy and he’s like my guy, he’s my guy, right. He’s my guy. And he’s a black queen. And the hotty down the hall is a girl I have a crush on, and she’s also going to be a non-white person. Those are like the three leads and then everything else is guest stars. Like the guest star on the first show will be Jesse Tyler Ferguson. You saw us On the Town, he’s my best friend and we’ve written the pilot for him. So yeah, that’s it. It’s a comedy, that’s the current project that I’m working on, besides the one we mentioned that I’m already in.
Yoruba Richen (00:49:47)
Awesome. So I am directing a film about the investigation of Brianna Taylor who was killed by police in her home in March. And the plan is for it to be on September 4th or in the first, not September 4th and the, in the next week, or early September so soon. And what I’ll say is that this is investigative, we’re looking at the events that happened that led to her death, but also who she was as a person and the loss of this young woman and the trauma that is set off in her community.
Chanelle Elaine (00:50:37)
Some very emotional work. Thank you. We have a lot of questions. I’m gonna try to get to as many as we can. Kyla is wondering how often disability comes up in other queer filmmaking spaces and conversations.
Yoruba Richen (00:51:02)
Not enough. I’ll just say in the documentary world, there is not enough. Absolutely. But there’s a film by my friend and colleague, Rodney Evans called VISION PORTRAITS. And it’s a great, beautiful film and it profiles artists who are mostly queer. I think they all identify as queer and who have disability, vision in particular. It’s a beautiful film. It aired on PBS recently and it’s available, I don’t know exactly where, but you should look for it. It’s called VISION PORTRAITS and it’s by Rodney Evans.
Chanelle Elaine (00:51:42)
Awesome.
Lea DeLaria (00:51:43)
Yeah. I’m just gonna say I never see it. I never see it. I never read it in scripts I’ve been given. I once was asked to audition for a role of a woman in a wheelchair. And I said, why aren’t you auditioning women in wheelchairs? My manager was furious with me for doing that, but it was like, I don’t wanna do that. There aren’t that many roles written for women in wheelchairs. So how about we let a woman in a wheelchair play a part that was written for her?
Yoruba Richen (00:52:09)
Totally.
Chanelle Elaine (00:52:11)
Yeah. You know, Lea, what I keep hearing is you’re not doing work where you’re ticking off a box for diversity, but it’s within the DNA of your work and that’s…
Lea DeLaria (00:52:21)
Yeah.
Chanelle Elaine (00:52:23)
Like exactly what we need. I just wanna say that Anne who is a revolting lesbian, Lesbian Avenger has a question. She says clearly given what’s happening across the country, nevermind internationally, now and with younger folk coming up way more open than anything we’ve seen since the sixties, who can we push to make our work? Who are allies that will let us make the work instead of them all the time.
Lea DeLaria (00:52:57)
I mentioned one, I mentioned Cindy Holland before.
Yoruba Richen (00:53:02)
As I, yeah. And I think, you know what we were saying, that there is an opportunity that we can take advantage of and it’s who should we push? We should be pushing all those creators that are interested in making the work, you know, LGBT creators, lesbian creators that are interested in making the work and how can we mentor and fund the work. So I think it’s all of us.
Lea DeLaria (00:53:34)
And I would PS on that to say, just to reiterate, there’s never been more opportunity. This is really a high point and opportunity for us right now. And I hope it continues to grow. But if you are a young queer filmmaker out there, or actor, a writer or anybody like that, that’s very interested in this, you’ve never had more opportunity than you have right now to get your foot in the door.
Chanelle Elaine (00:53:58)
Can you talk a little bit more about that, both Yoruba and Lea, the way in which like the Black Lives Matter movement on the heels, not the heels, cuz we’re still very deeply entrenched with the killing of black people continuing and continuing it’s the way in which conversations have shifted in a real way, as opposed to a statement in the Hollywood and documentary landscape.
Yoruba Richen (00:54:29)
Well, I’ll just say in documentary this is something that, telling our own stories as African-American something we’ve been talking about since I’ve been in the business, which I started in the nineties and which I know my predecessors have been talking about. So this is the first time we’re being heard. As I said, not just being put on a panel, but I’m gonna call you, people that I had never heard from before, I’m gonna call you. They know that they cannot direct this film as a white person, even though they’ve directed these films before. So this that’s a difference and it needs to happen more. It may be only a moment, but it certainly needs to not be a moment and to be a movement, as we like to say.
Lea DeLaria (00:55:17)
Yeah. And I would say that it even started somewhat before this, with the Me Too movement because we saw the conversation change for women in Hollywood in a huge way. And my people, lesbians, dykes, we were a part of that conversation, you know? So that is one of the reasons why we have more opportunity. It used to be lip service. But Me Too really, there’s a lot that’s changed because of that. And I feel that way. It’s too soon, I think to make the call, but I feel that way about the Black Lives Matter movement. I really do. And I also feel that it’s affecting all disenfranchised people.
Yoruba Richen (00:56:00)
Exactly as our movements…
Lea DeLaria (00:56:02)
Embracing all disenfranchised people.
Yoruba Richen (00:56:04)
As our movement always have. And I think that it’s happening again. And again, we’ll see how it pans out, if it’s just a moment or a real movement. Someone just gave a shout out to Brown Girls Doc Mafia, which is incredible and has done so much for publicizing and putting women of color in the documentary field.
Lea DeLaria (00:56:36)
Very cool.
Chanelle Elaine (00:56:39)
And I would just add quickly to all of our participants here that what we have in Lea and Yoruba are two queer women who stand in their power and believe in what it is that they’re saying and don’t take no for an answer. And that’s one of the first steps, is just believe in the power of your own voice and keep moving forward and keep moving forward and don’t take no for an answer. We have a question. It’s anonymous. Though we have more queer women on screen, diversity isn’t necessarily better, especially in fiction. AMMONITE just released their main trailer and lesbian Twitter lost it. But isn’t this a similar story. What should we as queer women be doing to demand films that don’t center just white lesbians again and again.
Yoruba Richen (00:57:43)
I’m sorry. What was the Twitter? I don’t know. What was it they released on Twitter?
Chanelle Elaine (00:57:48)
It was, it doesn’t say the, it doesn’t say the the piece of work it says, and I don’t know if I’m saying it right. AMMONITE
Lea DeLaria (00:58:00)
Got me. I’m not, I’ve never heard of it.
Chanelle Elaine (00:58:01)
Main trailer.
Yoruba Richen (00:58:09)
Oh, AMMONITE is a new film. It says,
Chanelle Elaine (00:58:10)
Oh, it’s a film. Sorry, kind of I misread it.
Yoruba Richen (00:58:14)
That’s Kate Winslet.
Chanelle Elaine (00:58:18)
Oh, OK. Okay. Well
Lea DeLaria (00:58:22)
Kate Winslet playing a lesbian.
Yoruba Richen (00:58:24)
I think so.
Lea DeLaria (00:58:25)
Well, then there’s more to complain about than the fact that it’s, you know, come on. When are we gonna stop having films that only feature white lesbians played by white, straight women?
Yoruba Richen (00:58:36)
Right. And Saoirse Ronan that other, yeah. I’m probably pronouncing her name wrong. Yeah.
Lea DeLaria (00:58:42)
It’s the same problem. I’m gonna let you answer this.
Yoruba Richen (00:58:48)
I’m not in Hollywood, but it’s a problem. It’s exactly what we were talking about. And it’s directed by Francis Lee. I don’t know who that is. But yeah, this is the problem right there.
Lea DeLaria (00:59:00)
Why are they writing stories that they know nothing about? And why aren’t they being more inclusive? I’ve never, I don’t get it. They give so much lip service to it. And then there’s no action, no action or few action. Very few. And you know, we know who our allies are and there are certain studios that really do want to show diversity and do wanna tell our stories and do wanna tell it correctly. And you know, once again, I say, you can find those they’re blatant. It’s right there in front of your face. Support those and don’t support the others. And let me back that up about believing in yourself. This is the most important, not just believing yourself, loving yourself, knowing your power, knowing you will succeed and don’t give up. If you quit, you’ll never get it. Those are the tools to success as far in life, even I think.
Yoruba Richen (00:59:59)
Right.
Chanelle Elaine (01:00:01)
I was going to say, would you like to leave us with a few words, Lea, I think that those were some words you were above. Yoruba, would you like to leave us with a few words?
Yoruba Richen (01:00:10)
Let’s, you know, keep up the pressure, keep up the fight and let’s keep telling our stories.
Chanelle Elaine (01:00:43)
I just want to throw out there for all the New York queer folk, go to the Cubby Hole. You might run into Lea DeLaria.
Lea DeLaria (01:00:35)
Oh, everyone knows that.
Chanelle Elaine (01:00:43)
Thank you everyone for coming. Thank you so much for Yoruba and Lea for being here and for sharing the knowledge and dropping the knowledge.
Yoruba Richen (01:00:53)
So fun.
Chanelle Elaine (01:00:55)
Everyone stay safe.
Lea DeLaria (01:00:56)
Really fun.
Yoruba Richen (01:00:56)
Yep. Stay safe
Yoruba Richen (01:00:59)
Okay. Stay safe.
Lea DeLaria (01:01:00)
Keep your distance, wear your mask.
Yoruba Richen (01:01:02)
Yes. Bye.
Lea DeLaria (01:01:04)
We’ll come out on the other side of this. Thanks guys. Thanks for having me.
Yoruba Richen (01:01:08)
Bye bye.
Lea DeLaria (01:01:09)
Bye.
