Spike Lee talks movies with BTL

By Sharon Gittleman

Originally printed 6/24/04 (Issue 1226 - Between The Lines News)

The 1960's was a very different era - just ask director Spike Lee.

"I didn't know about gay growing up," said Lee, 47.

Lee wanted to make sure his two children understood more about the facts of life than he did as a youth.

"Early on, they'd come home and say so and so has two mommies or two daddies," he said.

Lee said one day he and his wife approached their children, carefully pointing out that some people lived in same-sex households. The youngsters had just one question after they listened to their parents' explanation.

"They said, does that mean they're gay?" he said, laughing.

Modern ideas about families come into play in Spike Lee's new movie, "She Hate Me." Lesbians play a major role in the film - a role that many in the gay and straight worlds might find shocking, for very different reasons. In the movie, the hero offers to be a sperm donor to groups of lesbians who line up for his sexual services each night.

Lesbians may be surprised when they see the lustful reactions of their screen sisters during the women's sexual encounters with the straight hero.

"The reason we didn't have the women go the artificial route is it just isn't cinematic to show a woman plopped up with her legs in the air with a turkey baster," said Lee.

In another scene, a lesbian couple give a very sexy kiss to the hero - the man who fathered their two children.

"I know there will be some women who will have problems with the ending," he said.

Lee's "lesbian advisor" for the film, Lambda Literary Award winner Tristan Taormino, said she had qualms about the scene.

"Spike and I disagreed about the kiss," she said. "I gave him my opinion. There was stuff that got changed and stuff that didn't. He didn't say, 'I want to hire you to make a movie that's PC.'"

Taormino said the female characters engaging in the lesbian/straight sexual marathons showed a range of emotions - not just lustful appreciation of the hero's prowess.

"Is it a documentary on lesbian sexual experience? No," she said. "It's not out of the realm of possibility. A lesbian may choose to have sex with men."

Lee hired her as an advisor because he didn't have enough knowledge of lesbians to present them accurately onscreen, Taormino said.

"He came to me and said, 'I want a level of authenticity and this is not my world,'" she said.

Actors were given reading lists of lesbian memoirs and coming out stories, were shown film clips of LGBT-themed movies and listened to an introduction to gay history when they prepared for their roles, Taormino said.

While the "lesbian boot camp" was designed to add a higher level of realism to the film, Taormino said, lesbians are a tough group to please.

"Lesbians are a sub-culture that are among the most critical and intensely judgmental people and they are incredibly diverse," she said. "I think the assumption that you can evoke one singular opinion from lesbians is wrong - we are just too diverse."

While times are changing, with more lesbian and gay faces appearing on the big and small screens, representations of gays and lesbians in films and TV lack a degree of diversity, Taormino said.

Some studio heads may hesitate to produce films with realistic depictions of gay people, even though many of the executives are gay themselves, said Lee.

"They don't have courage and don't want to stick their necks out. A lot of them may not be out," said Lee. "It takes a long time for mainstream America. It's an evolution."

Lee said he hopes the gay people who see his movie when it is released this August, come to the theaters with an open mind.

"This film is done in the right spirit," he said.