It’s another episode where opinion is split between the Queer Girl Film Club crew. G didn’t like 1994’s New Zealand crime drama ‘Heavenly Creatures’ and she wants to hear from Alice and Holly about why they did like it… not that Alice and Holly can agree on a very fundamental question: is this film even lesbian?

Along the way they discuss the HUGE names involved in this film (pre-Lord Of The Rings Peter Jackson giving film debuts to Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey!), intense teenage friendships, the oppressive nature of 1950s colonial life, and bad parenting. We’re trying not to be a true crime podcast.

CN: Spoilers, swearing, discussion of murder.

We’re doing it for the ugly, untalented gays this week. We waited so many years for films where girls could be stupid and gross and horny and gay, and then in 2023 we finally got Bottoms, a love-it-or-hate-it tale of the stupidest heroines we’ve met on this podcast so far.

Your mileage for stupid and dark humour may vary, but Queer Girl Film Club are here to discuss how the film acknowledges women’s anger and violence in a way which isn’t sexy for men, whether it stands up to a rewatch, and what being in a fight actually feels like. There’s also discussion of having your sexual awakening to She’s the Man, an inexplicably large number of spoilers for Pretty Little Liars and the answer to last episode’s big question: when G popped the question, was the answer Yes or No?

CN: Discussion of rape jokes, swearing, spoilers and discussion of a sexual nature.

Is this the oldest film in the queer girl cinema canon? Even if it isn’t, Mädchen in Uniform is certainly old, made in 1931 and nearing its centenary. Coming out of the explosion of creativity which was Weimar Germany, it’s a historical document but is it a good film? Queer Girl Film Club are here to find out.

With Alice and G ready to tell us how accurate this is as a depiction of all-girls school life, and Holly on hand with a tonne of historical context, the gang are here to talk teenage crushes, appropriate teacher-student interactions, the power of friendship, and why militarism (whether Prussian or otherwise) is bad for girls.

Some of the articles mentioned in the podcast.

https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC24-25folder/MaedchenUniform.html

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7429-the-femme-solidarity-and-queer-allyship-of-m-dchen-in-uniform

https://www.pagingdrlesbian.com/p/madchen-in-uniforms-revolutionary 

http://www.screeningthepast.com/issue-1-classics-re-runs/madchen-in-uniform/ 

Buy Alice’s book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Offerings-Stories-Emerging-writers-Course-ebook/dp/B0DB2CX86W/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1GS5V9KATWWCO&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XtY7bQ7VdHjJeaI5HUPN9A.41UVPCKZfwppqZx5oBMLdkmb8fTmDQx_Es96DlD7wKs&dib_tag=se&keywords=offerings+comma+press&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1733517945&s=digital-text&sprefix=offerings+comma+press%2Cdigital-text%2C78&sr=1-1 

CN: Mention of Nazis and Hitler, swearing, spoilers.

Queer Girl Film Club is on a mission this week to persuade ten of you dear listeners to watch Saving Face (2004) for the first time. That’s right, we’re all in on the positivity this week as this underrated gem gets the respect and love it deserves from the team. A tale of a Chinese American family where the daughter is a lesbian surgeon and the mum is pregnant out of wedlock, it’s a glorious, warm and funny film about breaking with tradition.

Join us as we discuss a film more people should see. Along the way the gang talk about language, how LGBTQ+ people navigate family obligations and traditions, parental homophobia, statistics on the number of female surgeons in the UK, and a big detour into lacrosse.

Some articles and links from the pod:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/feb/10/saving-face-the-half-of-it-directors-2004-lesbian-rom-com-debut-was-way-ahead-of-its-time

https://www.vox.com/23055086/saving-face-alice-wu-romcom-asian-moms 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7zQ80oN10P/?igsh=emE1amRwZG9sZzls 

The gang are back for the new season and we’ve not been replaced by AI! We’re kicking off by talking about The Miseducation Of Cameron Post (2018), a film which revisits the same topic as one of the very first films we did on the podcast. But where But I’m A Cheerleader tackled conversion camps in a camp, pastel coloured dreamscape, TMOCP is more of a realistic nightmare.

Join us as we discuss the insidious niceness of the adults running the conversion camp, the differences between the book and the film, and on the importance of friendship in LGBTQ+ communities, both on screen and in real life. And if you have listened and you want to hear the short story Alice wrote for Maxine Peake, friend of TMOCP’s director Desiree Akhavan, you can find that here: https://factoryinternational.org/factoryplus/new-writers/mycelium/ 

CN: Mention of self harm, discussion of physical and psychological abuse at conversion camps, swearing, spoilers and discussion of a sexual nature.

Have you watched a lot of cheerleader media (cheerleadia?) Yeah, we are assuming you’ve not seen All Cheerleaders Die (2013) but do come listen anyway and see if Alice can persuade you (and G and Holly) that it is, in fact, the Greatest Film Of All Time, in our Halloween special.

There’s magic and witches and an undead cat and glowing gemstones and blood and murder and cannibalism and zombies. It’s gay, it’s a remake (somehow)  and the goth eyeliner is terrible. Wrap up warm in the spooky season as G explains the plot because Alice has brain fog and Holly has no idea what’s going on in this trashy flick, with its 90s SFX and pit full of spikes. Along the way there’s more references to Lord Of The Rings than you might expect (or want, if you are Alice), discussion of diamond knives, and Alice discovers the sound effects button on the recording equipment. Truly haunting.

CN: Mention of cannibalism, swearing, spoilers (although we really don't expect you've seen it and that's ok, listen anyway, get spoiled, it's ok) and discussion of a sexual nature.

Bodybuilding! Magical realism! Lesbians! When Chekhov’s gun is actually a gun! Come along and join the appreciation of the gun show (Katy O’Brien’s arms) with Queer Girl Film Club as we talk Love Lies Bleeding (2024).

Enjoy the gang’s discussions and digressions about the year’s most hyped queer girl film, during which we talk about the queerness of body horror, Kristen Stewart’s excellent acting chops, scary Ed Harris, steroids, and why it feels like we’re getting a lot of 80s and 90s set films at the moment (clue: no smart phones). You can also enjoy G and Alice pronouncing director Rose Glass’s surname completely differently to how Holly says it.

Some links to things which are mentioned in the pod:

https://www.gaylydreadful.com/blog/pride-2022-comfort-in-the-grotesque-a-queer-take-on-body-horror 

https://www.autostraddle.com/queer-erotics-of-bodybuilding-love-lies-bleeding/

CN: Swearing, spoilers, discussion of a sexual nature, discussion of gory violence, discussion of domestic violence.

Queer Girl Film Club springing into action to bring you the latest in queer girl cinema releases? Kind of. We would have had this out last week, but alas, G has become the second member of the pod to get concussion in the last six months!

But the CT scans are done and the results are in: QGFC have the brainpower to talk about Drive Away Dolls (2024), an utterly silly, low brainpower crime romp about two lesbians accidentally driving off with a car laden with incriminating items. And there’s a women’s football team!

Join us as the gang as we discuss necessity and objectification in sex scenes, why having a lesbian wife screenwriter can really improve a man’s queer girl film-making, and whether you should make out with your friends. It’s quite the trip as we also talk rescuing cats, how fake boobs can lead to cinematic discovery, and unexpectedly spoil a minor part of Dune 2.

CN: spoilers (for Drive Away Dolls and Dune 2, weirdly), swearing, discussion of a sexual nature, discussion of non-bloody head injuries.

This week we’re doing one of, if not the, most requested films - Disobedience (2017). We did say it was a Rachel Weiss kind of season, didn’t we?

We’ve got a special guest, Naomi, to give us some helpful insights into Jewish traditions and life for queer Jewish people, although she also eloquently explains how there are many different ways to be Jewish, and Jewish and queer. Honestly, this might be our most insightful episode yet, so thank you Naomi!

There’s also time to have a little lust over Rachel W, to give Rachel A and Alessandro N some love for their great performances, and to talk about some of the differences between the film and the book (everyone’s read the book… except Holly, as usual). Join us as we discuss one of Alice’s favourite film tropes, THAT sex scene (THAT bit, you know the bit, is discussed at around 58:00 minutes if you’re not into it) and we get to the true meaning of this film.

CN: swearing, discussion of a sexual nature, spoilers (film and book).

Tell your friends, there’s a new episode of Queer Girl Film Club! We are talking friendship a lot in this week’s episode as we discuss the Netflix 2020 release, The Half Of It. Only the second film from director/writer Alice Wu (something Holly in particular is outraged by, more Alice Wu films now!), this queer smalltown America take on Cyrano de Bergerac charms the crew.

Listen as we talk about good friendships between queer women and straight men, how religion and friendships affect queer kids in small communities, and (surprisingly) a lot about Ancient Greek writers. Yeah, there’s a lot more Aristophanes in this episode than we expected. Listen as we discuss how to make films from epistolary (letter writing) books, whether the QGFC crew want to be perceived or not, and G oscillates between declaring her word to be gospel and ignorable.

CN: Swearing, spoilers and discussion of a sexual nature (pretty much none of the latter is about the film, sorry, we are chaotic!).