Lindsay Lohan & Lesbian Liberation
Another golden couple proudly joins the
not-very-long list of out lesbian power players. One half
of the couple is DJ and designer Sam Ronson,
who has sexual charisma and an edgy, wiry coolness
The second half is that uber-celebrity Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan Up Against Media Prejudice [Source]
The worldwide lesbian community – or rather, the minuscule sub-set that's fascinated by New York hipsters and LA stars – finds itself in a mesmerising dilemma.
On the one hand another golden couple proudly joins the not-very-long list of out lesbian power players.
One half of the couple is DJ and designer Sam Ronson, one of those rare beings who actually possesses sexual charisma, mixed in with an edgy, wiry, cheek-bony coolness.
Yes, OK, I have a little crush on her. On the other hand, the second half of said couple is…Lindsay Lohan? In terms of weird, couldn't-see-it-coming kitsch value this is Desperate Housewives meets Valley of the Dolls, with a soupcon of Barbarella.
It's impossible to scoff and quite easy to feel slightly intrusive when looking at the photos of Ronson that Lohans's posted on her MySpace page.
I've always loved Lohans's chutzpah (read: partying proclivities) and the relationship looks like the real thing to me, so best of luck to them.
Maybe Sam can score Lindsay's next film, or Lindsay can model some things Sam's designed, or direct a music video for her. In true power-couple fashion, the career collaboration possibilities are endless – and if they're in love at the same time, that's a bonus.
As to whether this "means" anything in terms of American homophobia, lesbian cultural visibility or female emancipation, it depends.
The tryst has generated gossip, most of it predictably salacious, immature, cynical or simply disbelieving. For it to make some kind of deeper difference all that energy has to be transmuted into power, and that power must be used to change the system.
To put it bluntly, Lohan and Ronson would effect change only if they actively challenged the status quo in terms of which projects they worked on, who they socialised with, who they worked alongside, which other artists they endorsed and which types of power network they established.
That requires solidarity, awareness, commitment and intention – in short, this lesbian love-in will only make a social difference if it's politicised, feminist, anti-feminine, anti-macho.
Lohan's world is far more homophobic than Ronson's. Think how very few lesbian and gay (and, since we're complaining, female and multi-racial) roles there are in mainstream Hollywood films.
Behind the scenes it's even worse. As anyone who's read Rob Long or Julia Phillips knows, Hollywood accords exactly with the cliche:
It's grotesquely sexist, outrageously racist, bullish, bearish, vulgar and curiously, hideously addictive. Hollywood's version of lesbianism is Denise Richards and Neve Campbell smooching stickily while Matt Dillon looks on with a leer in Wild Things.
Or Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct tormenting her girlfriend by flirting with … Michael Douglas?
Away from Hollywood, you could say there is a new generation of young lesbian artists creating enjoyable and interesting work.
The most obvious example would be the success of The L Word, currently filming its last season, and the political articulacy of the Gossip singer Beth Ditto.
You could also mention the bands Le Tigre, Tegan & Sara and Uh Huh Her.
There remains the question of how significant lesbianism really ought to be, culturally: is a person's sexuality innately political simply because it is a minority in comparison with the norm?
Is it right that these women's bedroom preferences are taken to be a defining feature of their lives, so that everything they do is reduced to and explain by it?
Is it not sexually objectifying to consider it without examining how it intersects with other factors like race, class and religion? The answer resides once again in the women's own political awareness.
Either they want to represent and fight for the rights of any group – against bigotry, against stereotyping, against discrimination – or they have no such collective conscience.
I doubt that Sam Ronson and Lindsay Lohan are pondering these big questions. They're too busy holding hands, wandering in and out of clubs and maybe rehab, enjoying the first flush of love. It's sweet. Long may it last.
