"Rebel Dykes" Film Premiere Review
In an exciting exploration of role reversals, the sexual insurgency becomes the establishment. From dive bars to institutional guidance providers, the film subverts society &, unfortunately, history.
Notes and disclaimer:
A film review and opinion piece about the Scottish premiere of “Rebel Dykes” (2021) 1 . The film premiere was shown at the Filmhouse in Edinburgh 2021.08.20 at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Written on a train after the screening and finished on the morning after (2021.08.21).
I wrote this and it got stuck in submissions purgatory and it was eventually rejected for being a bit too spicy, so I have just remembered to give it an airing here, without revision or addition of retroactive knowledge, as I wrote it with my immediate impressions.
This is an opinion piece for entertainment and commentary purposes only.
Whilst on a train to Edinburgh to see a relative I realised it was also the Edinburgh International Film Festival. I checked the website spotted the listing for Rebel Dykes + Reel Talks: The Whole Picture: Adjusting the Lens of History (directed by Harri Shanahan and Siân A. Williams) which was having its Scottish film premiere at the Filmhouse with an accompanying recorded Q&A. Reading the information on the EIFF website I quickly realised this was right up my street as a bisexual female filmmaker, documentary enthusiast and activist, so I immediately booked.
Upon arrival later that afternoon, I found myself alone in the cinema, luckily 14 more people and 2 producers joined me. I was disappointed by the small turnout as the subject matter seemed very interesting and it was a premiere.
After an introduction by a man representing the Filmhouse and EIFF the film began.
It opened with a visual overload of montages of archival footage crowdsourced from online “Rebel Dyke” groups, interspersed and mingled with modern animated illustrations. Immediately I am enthused by the films of “Lesbian Strength” marches and hordes of smiling dykes. My excitement was tempered with nervousness, the images reminded me of the films of friends marching in recent years holding similar banners but being verbally admonished by the “LGBT community” which should support them.
The videos show a world I have barely experienced, I know it only from archives like those projected on the screen and by talking to women who lived through it. Old magazines and clips show a past where even in adversity, many women met and marched as lesbians and had a thriving community.
Unfortunately, my experience of modern “LGBT” documentary films is overwhelmingly negative, and I was awaiting the illusion of true lesbian representation to be shattered.
I didn’t have to wait long.
The subject changes to a more focused discussion of Greenham Common, a Woman’s Peace Camp that was created to protest militarisation and installation of nuclear armaments at the R.A.F Greenham Common airbase in Berkshire that was being leased to and used by the U.S.A.F. It starts off as a retrospective discussion by lesbians and then jarringly becomes an audio-visual ambush attack against the campers at the “Green Gate” described as “Lesbian Separatists”. The illustrated map pans to the Green Gate area, then on cue to give disparaging comments about lesbian separatism, apparently as some sort of trolling effort by the filmmakers, they present Roz Kaveny -a well-known male trans activist.
I find this an overtly misogynistic move and a display of extreme bias against lesbians who wish to have the right to self-assemble without men. Just as I expected, this film wasn’t going to be just about women and would be yet more transgender ideology-soaked revisionism and insult.
I roll with this political punch and try to enjoy the rest of the images and stories presented, for, besides the partiality, the content is very engaging.
The film is a wild ride in the underground world of “Dyke” scenes in England and the development of edgy lesbian clubs. There are interesting autobiographical stories from women who created club nights such as the Sleaze Sisters, Lesbian DJs who worked to revive dull clubs, creating new musical libraries with second-hand vinyl and lashings of attitude. A particularly fun anecdote was the descriptions of the decorating efforts of one of the S&M clubs which comprised solely of blacking out the windows with bin bags.
The film gives a very intriguing view into the Sadomasochism (S&M) scene that developed in the 70’s and 80’s, one central club night being called “Chain Reaction”. There are a very candid and revealing series of interviews with the lesbians who were staunch advocates and defenders of the public sex, S&M and physical abuse promoted in the clubs. One interviewee discussed her intense desire since childhood to be the centre of focus, to the extent it was allegedly described by professionals as “attention-seeking”. Her extreme need for attention combined with her voracious appetite for sex led her to regularly have sexual intercourse on stage in the clubs and sleep with a large number of the attendees.
I found myself wondering how many women in the S&M (sometimes verbalised as just “SM”) were practising this mutual harm (including degrading acts, cutting, beating and bondage with chains) did so as a response to traumas and fears. At one point the subjects described a rationalisation for the behaviour; it was as a method to practice being beaten as they will inevitably be attacked by men and homophobes in the world outside of the walls of the club or bedroom. The women had apparently created a fetish and subculture out of their fears and oppressions.
It was a distressing thing to witness, the women making self-destructive armour against abuse by doing it to themselves before someone has the chance to without their consent. I guess it was the desperate need for some sense of control in a world where they had little power over what happened to them in a sexist, stifling, homophobic and misogynistic culture.
The film makes no effort to pretend it isn’t entirely supportive of sadomasochistic practices, this is exemplified in the sequence I found most interesting; a selection of archive footage of lesbians debating each other, which reminded me a little of Town Bloody Hall but on a much smaller scale. It was the clash between the sexually “vanilla” and the sadomasochists, occurring after the group Women Against Violence Against Women had been protesting what they saw as anti-lesbian promotion of violence against women in the dyke clubs. The feminist who was on the panel opposing the emulation of slave and master dynamics in the sex clubs was Linda Bellos. Bellos’ opinion was described to the Rebel Dykes2 film-makers in a modern interview with another woman called Debbie Smith who was there at the time who is a black lesbian and was an S&M “leather-dyke”. Smith, a central character who is interviewed throughout the film, describes how she stood up at the debate to say to Bellos that she is a black woman in chains, so the act cannot be considered racist and that Bellos doesn’t speak for all black women.
The point is fair; there is no homogeneous opinion in any group of people linked only by shared sexual orientation or ethnicity etc., however, Linda Bellos makes no appearance on screen to present a verbal rebuttal, past or present day, and I very much wondered if she was asked to appear on the film. It would have been very interesting to hear her account, and potentially hear her rebut or explain various allegations and insinuations that her political “side” violently attacked the lesbian clubs3. Later, after the screening, I approached and asked the Producer Siobhan Fahey and Executive Producers if they asked for any comment or gave a right of reply to the lesbians featured who had opposing views, to which they said a resounding, “No”, and they felt it entirely unnecessary and they said it would be practically impossible to find them anyway.
Further derision of radical feminists, Political Lesbians, and lesbians against sexual violence, is perpetuated via the interview with Stonewall co-founder Lisa Power where she mocks the idea that some lesbian feminists promoted handholding and the avoidance of penetrative sex. She also giddily describes how she named the smallest dildo sex toy sold by her company Thrilling Bits, “the Sheila”, in pointed jest at the expense of the lesbian and radical feminist writer Sheila Jefferys. The overt picking on two lesbian feminists left a very sour taste in my mouth.
On the evening after I viewed the film, I made enquiries (it isn’t that difficult) to Sheila Jeffreys and she told me she was unaware of the film and was never approached for comment at any point since the film project began in 2014. As far as I can remember no other people besides Bellos and Jeffreys are vilified in the film, apart from Margaret Thatcher.
The main evil described in the documentary- other than radical feminists and women who dislike the fetishism of VAWG- is the introduction of section 28 in 1988 under Thatcher’s Conservative Government. I find the footage of the time period very similar to the protests I have stood observing on the grass outside Parliament, but the modern activism that I document is some twisted inversion of previous gay rights struggles. The interview subjects discuss their anger at the censorship of discussion of homosexuality and lesbian visibility, whilst the film is overtly anti-feminist and supports anti-gay trans-activism.
The ones who claim to fight censorship and who were once anti-establishment now push for laws that are favoured by the police and the Government to penalise lesbians for saying they are same-sex attracted ... the homosexuals became the institutional homophobes.
There is a repeating theme in the film where the subjects bemoan the lack of “edge” to lesbianism in contemporary times. It seems that assimilation and the apparent lack (or at least extreme lessening) of overt social homophobia has killed the necessity for gay only clubs and secret spaces (in the UK). I wonder if the filmmakers realise there is a new underground of lesbian organising that is routinely attacked by the film’s subjects and makers? For instance, Kaveney regularly derides the LGB Alliance4; he and his ilk- the trans activists- call for the arrests, defunding, dismissal and de-platforming of homosexuals and their organisations if they are firm on their definitions of homosexuality.
The edgy lesbians and bisexual women are still out there but the old “rebels” want them sanded down.
There are many other elements to discuss, too much for one review, but one particular part stood out: the descriptions of “butch and femme” pairings as a form of protective costume, a way to “pass” as straight. A precursor to the woman and “trans man” pairings of modern lesbians who seek to assimilate as “heterosexuals”. This can be linked to the discussions about S&M and it shows the themes of sexualising, fetishizing and making role-play 'identities' based on methods of preventing, hiding from and preparing for inexorable abuse.
Regarding the film editing, I found it generally to be at a good pace but too much time was often given to illustration and animation where I would have preferred more archival materials such as photographs. I also found some videos unnecessarily degraded with visual effects, real videotape doesn’t need to be made to look more retro, thereby damaging the quality of the footage presented on screen. Some faked sequences for re-enactment should also have been clearly labelled and not passed off as archival films.
After the film, there was a pre-recorded Q&A and by 1/3 of the way through, I was again alone in the cinema. I found a certain irony to the situation that the only person interested was a “TERF”.
The conversations were compelling, including a discussion about the ethics of reproduction of photos of lesbian lovers where one might be deceased or if the subjects recognize themselves many years later when the images are dug from archives and put online. The deliberation on the methods of film archival was also very informative.
Alas, it seems the general public isn’t that engaged in the stories of lesbians, and I found the situation very pertinent to the current state of lesbian culture. As discussed in the Q&A one filmmaker stated that young lesbians feel very lonely and exist online with no real-life venues or spaces. I would ask these young people why they didn’t attend? The audience that the filmmakers and funders prioritize doesn’t turn up, and the gay women who do leave the house are politically bullied by the filmmakers via their propaganda, casual comments and lobbying efforts. However, personally, I’m generally unfazed by intimidation and will engage in a conversation with almost anyone, so I met the production team afterwards for a chat and I have since decided the viewing experience was worth writing about.
In fairness, the film was compelling and put obscure stories on the big screen, although it would have been a much more meritoriously successful film if the bias wasn’t so blatant that it disregarded the stories from the women the filmmakers conspicuously disliked, even though they said to me that they begrudgingly edited it to make the prejudiced comments “less harsh”.
The misogyny was rank, and the insistence that men are lesbians was illogical and quite offensive given the subject. I, however, acknowledge that the acceptance of males as lesbians is the opinion of those involved in making the film and they have the right to present that opinion and their subculture, I do wonder though if everyone involved was entirely on board with that skewed agenda. The film is a necessary illustration of the development of the current pro-prostitution, B.D.S.M and transgender “Queer” culture of today, created in large part by lesbians. I was very glad to have a viewing of some very curious videos from a time period rarely shown in moving images and I hope more of the seemingly vast archive gets public showing without too much selective curation.
As the Rebel Dykes archive producer Siobhan Fahey claimed to want to create debate, she has succeeded, and I very much hope it spurs others to chronicle the legacies of lesbian subcultures in the UK and perhaps adjust the lens of history and project some still hidden stories on to the silver screen to truly show “the whole picture”.
END
Thanks for reading.
Film listing:
https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.edfilmfest.org.uk/2021/rebel-dykes-reel-talks-whole-picture-adjusting-lens-history/08-20_17-45
#BFIFlare
“BFI Flare 2021 | Rebel Dykes (2021) trailer”
4,620 views10 Mar 2021
youtube.com/watch?v=dWBVYorUdG8
I wondered if this allegation could be found online and to check if I remembered correctly and this tweet evidences this historical allegation about women attacking a club.
https://archive.ph/Xr9Su
”Roz Kaveney @RozKaveneyFollowFollow @RozKaveneyMore
Replying to @RozKaveney @dvank_van and 2 others
...by violence. ( Another - not trans-related - example would be the raid on dyke SM night Chain Reaction by balaclava-wearing women with bats and crowbars in 87.) To represent the entirely non violent Camp Trans out of the context of this long history is effectively a lie.
8:37 AM - 1 Nov 2020”
Replying to @setoacnna
But what the LGBA want to be able to be is the arbiter of who keeps their lesbian card or gay card. 'You lusted after someone with incorrect junk, - or who used to have it - so we are taking that card away.' Not just scabs but cops.
1:42 PM · Jun 16, 2021·Twitter for Android”
https://archive.ph/UsED2
/rozkaveney/status/1405143678927114243
/BluskyeAllison/status/1322839319325921280
https://archive.ph/MIOHc
https://archive.ph/Xr9Su
Really interesting.
Sadly the QT projects get the funding. Ty.