#unpleasant to be around this is why i was like suicidal in highschool man. even when i TELL THEM i Dont want 2 be their rubber ducky!!

[intertexts]

making sahlab & finishing this fuckinnnng season finale islike my white whale atp -___-

[pellicano-sanguino]

Finland’s most famous graveyard must be Hietaniemi Cemetery. Many famous people are buried there, including presidents. And a whole bunch of artists. They have a separate area for them, the “artist’s hill.” But one famous artist didn’t get to be buried there among other great painters, sculptors and writers.

Helene Schjerfbeck. 

One of the most famous Finnish artists wasn’t buried in the artist’s hill. She did get a grave in another part of Hietaniemi Cemetery, though. And that grave? Until very recently, was left unattended, growing weeds. It was only because there’s a movie coming out about Schjerfbeck that someone pointed out the sorry state of her grave. Everyone excited about the movie was making great speeches how her art being so loved internationally brought Finns national pride, and someone wrote an angry comment in the newspaper, pointing that it’s disrespectful for politicians and art patrons to claim they love and appreciate her work while her grave grows nettles and we can’t be bothered to pay for the caring of her grave from public sources. 

Some organisation took taking care of Schjerfbeck’s grave as their responsibility. But it was still very disturbing to me how a female artist was treated so differently, even in death. 

The reason I’m writing this is because I went to see Portrait of a Lady on Fire recently. The movie left me an emotional wreck, it touched me on such a basic, almost subconscious level that I’m not sure I’m able to write anything coherent about my feelings. But I will try. Though I think this is a movie one must see for oneself, nothing I say about it will be able to describe the experience properly.

This post contains spoilers for the movie.

The movie is set in 1770 France. A time when female artists were forbidden from painting men, but allowed to paint portraits of women. The protagonist Marianne is one such exceptional lady who had a father open minded enough to allow her an artist’s career instead of choosing from the remaining three options. 

The remaining options? Convent, marriage or suicide.

The plot revolves around a woman, Heloise, who chose convent, but has that choice forcibly taken away from her after her sister chose suicide over arranged marriage and the family now needs to go for plan B and sell their second daughter to some man she has never met. Her mother needs a portrait of her to use as a selling tool, showing it to the man she intends to make her marry. Heloise resists and refuses to pose for an artist. So her mother hires Marianne, who is to pretend to be someone hired for keeping Heloise company, but secretly she is painting her portrait. 

I admit I don’t often enjoy watching movies. It’s just not my medium of choice. But then again, most of the movies I’ve seen are Hollywood stuff or pretentious artsy films, and both of those can be too much for someone as sensitive as I am. I can’t handle violence or unnecessary sex scenes. Also, the vast majority of movies are stories made by men, about men, for men. Even the women in movies are seen through the eyes of men.

But this movie is made by women, about women, for women.

The absence of man’s eyes is notable in small details. How there are no important male characters in this movie, men only show up in the very beginning and end and even then they are just background extras. The fact that we don’t get sex scenes (a male director could never resist doing that when handling a story about lesbians). The fact that both leading ladies look rather plain, ordinary women instead of your typical Hollywood barbie-dolls. The last time I saw a woman in a movie with unshaved armpits was back in highschool when during Swedish lesson we watched some Swedish flick that had a loudly feminist character who made a point of not shaving. 

There’s a scene where a woman goes to an old lady to get an abortion done. If this scene was done by a man, if it had been filmed in Hollywood, they would have made her scream in pain and showed the blood and discharge and feasted on every gruesome detail of the procedure. But the scene is calm, peaceful and intimately respectful. We don’t need to see any details. Focusing on what’s going on between her legs is unnecessary, seeing her face trying to keep calm but breaking into silent, suffocated cries is enough.

Women suffer silently. We have all been taught to grin and bear it, the harder it hurts, the harder you must smile.

The movie isn’t gloomy and depressing. The unpleasant truths jab at your heart without you noticing. Because they let the story speak for itself. No one needs to point out the unfairness of women’s fate in a world ruled by men. The doomed romance between Marianne and Heloise speaks loud enough. Their knowledge that once the portrait is finished, it’s all over. Heloise’s family home is situated on an island with steep cliffs around its shores and surrounded by the restless, ice cold waters of the sea. It’s all very symbolic. There is no escape.

The story builds slowly, patiently. I shouldn’t constantly compare this to Hollywood movies, but in an American movie you could never have this few spoken lines and take this long before the romance buds. Marianne knows she only has few days to finish the portrait, but she and Heloise don’t rush anything and live like they had all the time in the world. They are powerless to do anything to the fate looming ahead and instead spend their last days together without worrying about it. But the viewer is constantly aware of what is going to happen in the end. The tension builds, invisible hands are placed on my throat and slowly tighten their grip. When the last scene begins, I feel so choked by catharsis that I have to breathe through parted lips. I was happy for the movie theater’s darkness, so that neither of my friends sitting beside me could see the tears flowing down my cheek. Women suffer silently, I have been taught to hide my tears and be ashamed if they are discovered.

My friends gave me a ride back home and we talked about the movie. Tigel mentioned that she’d probably have to search the net for fix-it-fics to help her deal with her feelings. I responded that I probably have to call my mother and thank her for letting me choose my own fate and loving me just as I am.

I had to make a phone call like that once before. It was when I was reading Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall. At first I didn’t even like the book, or the main character. But slowly I began to notice similarities between myself and Stephen. They felt so familiar, so much more personal than any of the things het characters in other books did or said. I became frighteningly aware that this book wasn’t just about one specific person, it was about my people. I knew that the story wouldn’t have a happy ending (with a name like Well of Loneliness, what do you expect?) but I couldn’t stop reading. I felt as if I had a responsibility to read on, that I owed it to my past fellow lesbians. Stephen was a fictional character, but she was made to speak for us, to speak for the unfairness of a homosexual’s fate in a world ruled by heteros. For the silent suffering of women who were rejected by society.

When I got to the part where Stephen’s mother tells her that she wished she had never been born, I had to stop. The pain became unbearable. I had to put the book away and call my mother, seeking relief from the invisible hands choking me. I don’t remember that call very well, because I was an emotional mess during it. I remember telling her over and over again that I don’t take for granted the fact that she loves me despite knowing I’m a lesbian. That I am painfully aware that many have not been as fortunate as me. Even today, even in modern, civilized countries like Finland, there are countless gays and lesbians who are rejected by their parents. When you’re homosexual, being loved by your parent isn’t a default, it’s a matter of luck. I have been so very, very lucky.

Both the Well of Loneliness and Portrait of a Lady on Fire have touched me by making me aware of the history of my people. While some parts of our history is celebrated (all the great artists and other historic figures who were one of us), there’s the heavy weight of knowledge about our oppression, how in order for lesbians to live happily ever after in the past they had to be sneaky and so very, very lucky. Not all lesbians were Anne Listers, whose family was ok with not pressuring her to marry. I feel pain thinking how many women there must have been who were forced to suffer just like Stephen, just like Heloise. 

Another reason why our history lies heavy on my mind is because so much of it is lost, hidden, denied and shamed because of heteros. They burned Sappho’s poems. Fire also claimed the love letters men sent to Philippe, brother of Ludwig XIV. While gay men were sentenced openly, lesbianism wasn’t even spoken out loud, out of fear that women couldn’t commit such a sin if they were unaware of its existence. Oscar Wilde was sentenced to prison and died in France, his legacy to the art of writing unappreciated by his countrymen. How many of our graves grew nettles, because we were the dirty secret that everyone wanted to forget? How many of us had uncared graves because the only thing lesser than a woman is a woman who refuses to center her life around a man?

Now I’m going to voice an unpopular opinion that’s probably going to give me hatemail but I’m going to voice it anyway. I don’t like it when people posthumously push trans identity to people who did not identify as trans in life. There’s no way around it, I find it disrespectful. The reason I’m mentioning this is, that despite not liking it, I completely understand why they do it. Trans folks long for a history. They want their own Sapphos and Oscar Wildes. They want great historic characters to look up to and think “We have always been here and despite the world being against us, we could achieve great things.” The weight of lesbian and gay history can be a painful burden, but it will also give us comfort, knowing that people like us have always been and will always be there, that even when heteros made attempts to silence us or wipe us out of existence, we clung to the surviving parts of our history and treasured them. We will never know what the full poem behind the fragment “Someone will remember us/I say/even in another time” was like, but even so those words are precious to us. I do not blame trans folks for wishing for a history, even small fragments to reach through time and give them comfort. 

In case I will receive hatemail for this, I will make an announcement. I have no obligation to react to any message, comment or reblog sent my way. This is my blog, my house, my personal space. I decide who is invited in and who is not. If someone tries to contact me and I see they want to debate, before even reading what they’ve written to me, I will check their blog. A quick glance will usually be enough to reveal if the person in question is capable of intelligent and mature conversation or if engaging in debate with them will just be playing chess with a pigeon (the pigeon will knock the pawns over, bite your nose, shit on the board and then fly to boast to its fellow pigeons how well it won you in a game of chess). If I deem you a pigeon chess player, you will be ignored. I have no time to waste on useless debate. All terfhunters will be ignored as well, I do not wish to interact with the likes of them. However, just like not all gender criticals are radical feminists, not all trans folks are terfhunters. I am willing to speak with people I disagree with, but I will be choosing who I wish to speak with and who I won’t. If I see that you can’t behave, you are not welcome here.