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An investigation of the lesbian identity through visual and cultural representation |
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The plot centres on an emotional triangle and in the poster the ‘butch’ and ‘femme’, as typified by Shelton, are separated by the presence of the predatory and sophisticated older woman. . A banner proclaims that it is ‘the story of three adults in the privacy of their own home’ but as the film unfolds, Aldrich seems intent on presenting the three women in the worst possible light. Sheldon put it succinctly when she said that Sister George ‘displays all three of the … stereotypes … the better to show the repulsiveness of each’ and, indeed, none of the three women involved in the plot emerges with any dignity or serves to make any ‘attraction to the idea of lesbianism possible’ (ibid, pp. 12-13). As is often the case, the plot revolves around the women’s sexuality, leaving no opportunity for the characters to evolve as ‘whole’ people. The eponymous Sister George (Beryl Reid) is a ‘butch/mannish lesbian’, dark-haired, dressed in tweeds, cigar-smoking, beer-drinking, sadistic and self-pitying. Her masculine name comes from the part she plays as a district nurse in a televised soap opera, but she is always referred to as ‘George’ by her friends and colleagues. She lives in a relationship with Alice (Susannah York), who is blonde, pretty and known as ‘Childie’; when we first see her she is dressed in a baby doll nightdress and playing with dolls, a device that initially defines her as both a sexual being and an unfulfilled (childless) woman. Later in the film, when it is revealed that Childie is in her thirties and has an abandoned child, the dolls assume a second, deeper significance as substitutes for the lost child. It is immediately established that George and Childie live in a man/woman relationship – George swaggers and bullies and punishes Childie by making her eat cigar butts. In turn, Childie lies, simpers, placates and proves she is every bit as manipulative as George by pretending to enjoy the cigar butts, thus spoiling George’s ‘game’. In case we miss the point that these are two deviants, set outside polite society, Aldrich uses practically every scene and location to diminish his characters. George sexually molests two nuns in taxi, his lesbian nightclub is set underground, a key scene is performed in a toilet, George’s best friend is a prostitute and a sexual encounter involving Childie is played out against George’s anguished gaze. In the opinion of Richard Dyer, ‘The idea that this image of lesbianism indicates an inborn trait … is enforced in Sister George … through a chain of imagery linking lesbianism with the natural, bestial or low …’ (1980, p. 31). The third woman in the love triangle is Mercy Croft (Coral Browne), the ‘sophisticated lesbian’ whose role in the film is a cinematic device used to implement George’s obligatory punishment by taking Childie and her job away from her. The implication is that Mercy will, in turn, suffer for her lesbian inclinations. Of these three heavy-handed representations of lesbians in the late sixties, I would disagree with Sheldon’s interpretation on only one – that of Mercy Croft. George and Childie are evidently Ellis’s ‘congenital’ and ‘pseudo’ inverts while Croft is the interloper threatening to break up the partnership. As such, if we are continue with Ellis’s theory, she is another congenital invert. The crucial difference is that, as a rich and successful woman in her own right, she does not role play in what has been established as the working-class phenomenon of butch/femme role playing. Although Sister George is not generally thought of today as a positive lesbian film, it was very popular among lesbian women when released because Aldrich shot the nightclub scenes in Gateways, a real club, and 80 of the regular clientele featured |
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WORDS PICTURES |
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