Frameline Blog Entries from University of Wisconsin Students

This year at Frameline, the festival had student guest bloggers from the University of Wisconsin contribute to the Frameline Blog.  Here are a few of the posts regarding Leading Ladies.

I find it difficult, yet extremely easy to describe the film Leading Ladies because the experience of the film was overwhelming. To be honest, I went into this film not knowing what it was about and I even forgot the title, but the impact that this film left on me was huge. A film about two lesbian dance partners? To me, this was unorthodox and I thought that it was going to completely lose my attention about halfway through, yet it gave happiness throughout.

Besides just watching the film, the director and two of the main actors talked about the film in a sense I had yet to see at the Frameline Festival. Those involved in the film were excited, funny, and were willing to talk to me after the show for a few short minutes. I could not think of a better film, or director to bring back to the Eau Queer film festival, especially because of the mutual understanding of the Midwest attitudes toward queer people. Plus, I may also be slightly biased because of my love for dancing. —Bryton Fredrick

 

I fell in love with the film Leading Ladies almost instantly. With its carefree spirit and mindless antics what wasn’t there to love about it? I had more likes about not only the story itself but also how the film was produced and put together than I had dislikes. For starters, I loved that the characters were not hypersexual. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched any gay themed film and the main characters or important characters were portrayed as extremely sexual beings. I also loved that the actors, director, and producer all had this amazing chemistry on screen as well as when they came on stage afterwards. The story itself was amazing. It was well written, funny, light hearted, and very fun. After seeing this film I will never look at a grocery aisle the same way again.

Unfortunately, like with all films, there were negative aspects to it as well. Besides a couple personal issues I had with character flaws (ahem, the mother driving me absolutely bananas and the friend/dance partner being a “stereotypical” gay man) there wasn’t too much more to complain about. While the film wasn’t slow paced by any means it did take a bit too long to get to the gay component of it.

Overall, I found this film very easy to fall in love with. It was simple and light hearted without too much “in your face” drama like some of the films that I have seen. And for all those reasons I feel it would be a great film to bring back to Eau Claire. The queer aspect of the film slyly makes it way present and you don’t really see it as “just” a queer film. –Tatjana Trommershauser

 

When contemplating which films to bring back to Eau Queer Film Festival, Leading Ladies always comes to mind, it would also be a great idea to invite the actors and/or directors to come as well. The film did a great job of presenting the message of LGBT issues in a non-threatening environment. Even though there were sad moments, I would consider the film to be, overall, light hearted.

After hearing from my classmates that the students pursuing a dance minor were not encouraged to create a same sex performance for the use of their capstone, I was saddened and appalled. The films use of same sex dance partners would help to broaden the minds of the Eau Claire community. The dancing within this film is impeccable. I have seen same sex dance partners perform prior to this film, but I had never seen it in such a beautiful, inspiring way. Their movement was so fluid, and clean; every time dancing would begin it literally took my breath away.  —Lindsay Miklya

Original Content: http://blog.frameline.org/2011/06/leading-ladies/


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