Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct is the story of a murder in which the prime suspect is one of the most famous femme fatales in cinema who is a typical predatory bisexual. Catherine Tramell, played by Sharon Stone, is a murderous crime novelist who also happens to be bisexual. Her bisexuality adds to her duplicity in that her girlfriend is known to be a murderer and she uses her sexuality to evade capture. While not murderous, Kate Veach of Dodgeball spends the film being pursued by the film’s protagonist, only to passionately kiss her girlfriend in front of him at the film’s conclusion. However, she reveals herself to be bisexual and kisses him passionately, clearly linking bisexuality to an inability to be monogamous.
These negative portrayals are why films like Call Me By Your Name are so refreshing in their nonchalantly bisexual characters. While Luca Guadagnino is a gay man, it seems that films that are more realistic in terms of their bisexual characters usually have to be written by bisexuals themselves. Desiree Akhavan’s Appropriate Behavior is a touching story of a bisexual Iranian-American woman trying to make sense of her life and being closeted to her family after breaking up with her live-in girlfriend. It is a film that is charming in its relatable mundanity, but the main character simply happens to be bisexual. Similarly, Gregg Araki has worked since the late eighties, making films with bisexual and sexually fluid characters whose sexual preferences are never questioned or problematised. Araki’s bisexual characters may be damaged in some ways, but their damage is not linked to their sexuality. In Nowhere, the central characters are a bisexual couple who use their sexualities as a way in which to celebrate their youth and freedom, which makes a huge change from the ways in which bisexuals are usually portrayed in mainstream cinema.
Of course, these excellent representations of bisexuality are all independent films which have not had widespread audiences. While Call Me By Your Name has received plaudits from critics and is being widely awarded, it was released in limited screens both in Ireland and the US. Mainstream cinema has yet to rise to the
challenge of thoughtfully portraying bisexual people and is missing the opportunity topositively influence society’s negative thoughts about a marginalised group. Call Me By Your Name might be the biggest bisexual film in recent memory, but it is still getting lauded as a gay love story. By neglecting to actively label his film as a bisexual piece, is Guadagnino missing a trick?
This is not a problem that will be solved overnight but as audiences, we must start to question whether the gay and lesbian films we watch are not in representations of bisexuality. We must challenge damaging stereotypes of bisexuality in the same way that damaging representations of gay and lesbian people are usually called out and must question how bisexuality and sexual fluidity figure into our own unconscious biases. In being more self-aware, we will be able to better spot problematic representation in cinema and similarly, we will be better able to enjoy representations of marginalised sexualities that are celebratory or mundane as opposed to dangerous and problematic.
CinÉireann / February 2018 53
Basic Instinct
Appropriate Behaviour