The Kids Are All Right, But The Movie Sucks

At a screening, director Lisa Cholodenko kisses actress Julianne Moore with more passion than the lesbians in her movie ever display.

I had a busy summer getting ready for graduate school, and after the semester started in August, I didn’t have time to think.

That’s my excuse for not seeing Lisa Cholodenko’s film, The Kids are All Right, when it was in theaters. I read reviews of it and I followed the blog posts and Twitter chatter, so I was really looking forward to seeing the movie. I had even added to the anticipation by blogging about it back in the summer of 2009, when filming started.

Seeing the film was on the top of my “To Do While Relaxing During the Semester Break” list.

After that build-up, I’m sorry to say I think the movie sucks, at least from a lesbian standpoint.

Yes, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are hot. But, they’re hot no matter what they’re in.

Several of the basic premises of the movie made me feel like writer/director Lisa Cholodenko is pandering to straight men. She repeated just enough of the myths men buy into to make the film a straight “date movie” instead of a compelling movie about a lesbian relationship.

The Kids Are All Right isn’t a movie about lesbian bed death, it isn’t a movie about two women in a relationship working to keep it afloat, and it isn’t a movie about alcoholism. It is a movie that makes lesbians look inept and insipid.

This isn't bed death, it's a sorority sleep-over.

It is a movie about a man inserting himself into a lesbian relationship, like the smarmy creme filling in a lesbian sandwich cookie – a male fantasy and stereotype as old as the Isle of Lesbos.

Mark Ruffalo’s portrayal of “Paul” may be the most authentic role in the film. He’s a handsome man so emotionally stunted that he uses his dick to feel his way through every uncomfortable situation. We’ve all known guys like this: If they have conflict with a female boss, they try to figure out how to get into her pants rather than her good graces. They put the moves on their wife’s oncologist while she’s getting a breast cancer diagnosis. When their approval rating is falling, they get busy with an intern. They’ve been in our lives and they’ve been in the news.

I realize that Paul is as much a stereotype as the lesbian characters. But, I’ve known far more guys like Paul than I’ve known lesbians like Nic (Annette Bening’s character) and Jules (Julianne Moore).

So, while I think Lisa Cholodenko gave play to cultural myths about lesbians, and I hate to repeat these myths, I think they need clarification.

Myth #1: Lesbians don’t have “real” sex

The only lesbian sex scene in the film was so bad it gave me chills. It buys into the myth that lesbians don’t have penetrative sex, that they just take turns licking and vibrating each other. Last time I checked, the vast majority of lesbians had two arms that ended in fingers, fists, wrists, and forearms. I would argue that digits and hands, in one form or another, are the carbohydrates of lesbian sex, not oral. Even then, we don’t crawl around under the covers, especially not in Southern California (although maybe in Hibbing, Minnesota).

Are we really supposed to believe that Nic, a gynecologist, can’t do better with her own sexual needs than a vibrator in one hand and a remote in the other?  God, I hope the gynecologists I’ve met are having better sex than this. This scene was not about bed death, it was about silly, inept, non-threatening fumbling.

To quote the butch in my life: “This would only be hot if it was  it was a domination scene and they were playing “The Queen and Her Pomeranian”.

Myth #2: Women crave penis and a good fucking

Okay. Maybe there’s some truth in this, but they don’t always crave a penis that is attached to a man. Many women satisfy their cravings with a cock wielded by a woman – a cock that is exactly the right size and shape to do the job. Woman cocks are versatile, reliable, and long-lasting. Despite the montage of piston fucking, I’m not convinced that Nic with a strap-on couldn’t have done the job with more finesse. Am I supposed to believe that there are two adult lesbians in Los Angeles who haven’t considered a trip to the local toy store when one of them has an itch that needs to be scratched?

Myth #3: Lesbian relationships are basically pillow fights in panties

The film was another example of the femme-on-femme stereotype perpetrated by Hollywood. If Nic was supposed to be butch, then she was butch like Jennifer Beals in The L Word, or like Ellen DeGeneres all the time. This is a dynamic that makes straight people feel safe and provides lots of jack-off fodder for straight men.

Watching the film, I could tell there was affection in their relationship by the little touches of their hands and way they cuddled on the couch. I could really tell by the way they slept a safe distance apart and turned toward each other to say “Goodnight, Pookie” or “Pony” or “Pac Man” or  whatever the hell that sickeningly sweet exchange was. But no one’s ass got slapped in the hallway, and no one’s nipple got tweaked in the kitchen. There were no long, lingering kisses. They didn’t give each other sparkly pedicures, but  their bedroom was so feminine and fluffy, the only thing it was lacking was a pink princess phone.

Myth #4: All lesbians adopt or get inseminated

With the emphasis on Paul’s two roles  – as a new interloper and as a sperm donor with a 18-year relationship with the couple – the film overlooks the fact that the vast majority of children being raised by lesbians in the United States are the products of defunct heterosexual relationships. Now there’s a topic that will make straight men nervous.

Myth #5: All female doctors have to be gynecologists

Nic is portrayed as strong, driven, and alcoholic. She is a gynecologist. Of course, she is. She’s a woman and a lesbian, so that’s the only kind of doctor she can possibly be, right?

By buying into this myth, Cholodenko fed into one of the top male themes – that female gynecologists are less than full-fledged doctors and that their work is amusing. Because Nic is a lesbian doctor, it reinforces another male myth – that there is something innately sexual about being a gynecologist. (“Dude, you get to look at pussy all day.”) I once asked a friend what another acquaintance did for a living and he told me the guy was a gynecologist. I believed that for a long time, until I repeated it to someone and they burst out laughing. It seems that telling me the guy was a gynecologist was a joke, because if you’re a man, it’s hysterically funny to be a doctor who treats female reproductive parts.

If I had $100 for every time I’ve gone to a Halloween party and seen a guy dressed up in some variation of a “gynecologist” costume, my own lesbian spawn would have a trust fund by now.

Myth #6: There is no good lesbian porn

I know lesbians who watch gay male porn, and most lesbians I know have no interest in girl-on-girl porn made for straight viewers. There is no greater turn-off than seeing two straight porn actresses do that thing where they finger each other’s labia with long acrylic nails and lick at each other like they’re kittens lapping up milk.

However, I think Cholodenko gave a back-handed slap to the lesbian film makers who are revolutionizing queer porn. Maybe she hasn’t watched any lesbian porn since she was in film school in the early 1990s. If I was Shine Louise Houston, I would be pissed off. I’m just sayin’.

Myth #7: Motherhood makes women stupid

This isn’t a complaint specific to lesbians, but I’m a mom. Am I really supposed to believe that a 15-year-old is allowed to run around anytime and anywhere he wants? That he’ll come home with a split lip and no one will notice? That another educated, caring mother is so stupid she’ll keep porn in the top drawer of her dresser and that she’ll use a Hitachi-type power vibrator leaning against the wall right across the hall from her kids’ rooms? “Oh nothing, honey. I was just sanding the floors. You go back to sleep now.” That she’ll watch porn with her kids in the house? And have sex without locking the bedroom door? I don’t think so. I don’t even think straight mothers behave like that.

I’ll stop here. The Kids Are All Right was an okay movie. The acting was fine. It just wasn’t an okay lesbian movie. It’s a movie about an 18-year-old girl learning to separate from her family and it’s a movie about the potential identity crises of children created with donated sperm. Thankfully, it’s a movie that makes children of same-sex relationships look as normal as any other teenagers. But, it’s not a banner gay movie. It reinforces stereotypes, some dangerous and some annoying.  And, it’s certainly not a movie made by a lesbian for lesbians. Cholodenko definitely made this one for someone else.