What did y'all think off the lesbians in the record store? (I call them lesbians because I saw a production video in which Haynes calls them that.)
I didn't find them particularly sympathetic-looking. Wouldn't it have been more fun (albeit distracting) if one was a looker?
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I don't even understand why they were shown. What was the point?
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Hi Ruben, I'm obviously missing something here but i still don't get the point. Why is it important to show that Therese nor Carol for for that matter are not butch? Or why must it be shown that Therese saw she wasn't like them?
shareOr do mean it was to show that Therese was not on the prowl?
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Judging by what was said on the topic in the movie and Cate Blanchett's NPR interview, the point was to say "She's gonna have sex with a woman, but she's not like a Real Dyke or anything." There's a lot of that in so-called lesbians movies, unfortunately.
shareI disagree completely. There are never any real dykes shown in movies about lesbians. They're always beautiful women like Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. I'd love to see someone make a film with real butch lesbians going at it the way the two women were in this movie, and watch the viewers walk out of the theater vomiting.
sharei agree. they do pander towards the male preference for fantasy hot lesbians. maybe one day they will do a film featuring what the general population considers to be less attractive women. i think so many women will really connect to that
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i think a difference would be made if a wider audience would see 'less hot' women be the centre of attention. films are still mainly about good looking people on general
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"Late Bloomers" from the 90s was a good example of average women falling in love. It was both moving and touching and told a great story..
shareThere aren't unattractive women in film/tv in general. I don't know why lesbians should be spared in this sense. Also being butch doesn't mean you look ugly.
shareThere were two points. One has already been said about how they provide a comparison between an out lesbian and Therese. The second is that these Lesbians detected Therese's sexual orientation. They saw through her girl next door exterior. If you're a Gay man then you know about 'Gaydar'. Therese didn't realize her orientation until meeting Carol and she may not have identified with those two in the record store but she was (in the eyes of postwar conformity and social norms of the era) considered a deviant just like them. In a movie that deliberately stayed away from making political statements the lesbians in the store was a subliminal one.
I just watched this movie, but I don't remember the sequence for this. Did Therese go to the record store and see the lesbians before she had that conversation with her "boyfriend" or after?
shareThe record store scene follows the scene of Carol standing in front of the camera store after leaving her lawyer's office.
Therese is buying the Teddy Wilson-Billie Holiday record and while the sale is rung she looks around and turns her head in the direction of two women standing by the store window and looks at them. It catches the attention of one woman and then they both check her out. Then Therese is walking on the sidewalk with Richard and tells him the record is for someone at Frankenberg's. The conversation between her and Richard about being attracted to the same sex follows.
It just occurred to me that while Carol is buying a camera for Therese as a gift, Therese is buying Carol the record as a gift. A connection exists between them that neither one is yet aware of.
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I think the reason they were shown was to indicate that lesbianism, as well as practising gay males, were certainly around in that decade, but that it was more of a hidden (sub-cultural) thing, and there were certain characteristics or codes (dresscode) that made recognising each other easier. A 'good looking' gay female would not necessarily have worked, as Therese wasn't on the prowl as such.
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Are there any lesbians/gays in the book other than T, C and A?
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Wouldn't it have been more fun (albeit distracting) if one was a looker?
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Like the female reviewer in The Globe & Mail said, Rooney and Cate were like a straight man's fantasy lesbians, not the real thing.
Actually they were Patricia Highsmith's creations and true to the novel.
Here's some more info on Highsmith (Therese was modeled on her) and her affairs with married women.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/carol/true-story-patricia-highsmith-lesbian-affairs/
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So a woman who has affairs with married women (plural) is some kind of a role model??
straight man's fantasy lesbians
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You may think that a lot has changed Ruben, but there is still a lot of overt and covert homophobia, depending on where you live.
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Maybe early on, but you'd have to see her later photos to see the unsmiling, grim woman she became. She was a very difficult person and even the biographies on her show the bitter person she became.
sharei agree. men on general would prefer to see typically feminine lesbian women to fantasize about because usually the ugly butch ones won't do anything for them. if there will ever be a story that features them, i think it'll be more popular with women
"Looker" to whom? Males? We know how superficial most males can be.
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^ Ahh, very interesting.
I think it goes to show there are stereotypes in all social groups. But, at the heart of it all, love is love, and love is when you see into somebody else's heart (and them into yours hopefully), regardless of what they look like!
Found 'em online.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo6wmghRSlY#t=86 (1:26 in the clip)
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Came across this recently:
The film also does well not to present Carol and Therese as existing in a world with no lesbian subcultures. 1950s America was, despite (or perhaps because of) its frenzies of homophobia, the backdrop for the development of more clearly defined and self-conscious subcultures than had ever existed before. When Therese is checked out by two fashionably dressed young women, we get a glimpse into a hidden world where lesbians met each other relatively openly – playing on softball teams or frequenting gay bars.share
Carol review: stunning 1950s tale of two women in love
November 30, 2015
https://theconversation.com/carol-review-stunning-1950s-tale-of-two-women-in-love-51148