LESBIAN LIP SCHTICK

     Remember when the buzz about an upcoming girl-on-girl kiss on TV or in a major studio movie would actually be considered “news”? For me, watching those dopey conservative talking heads get their 99-cent-store briefs in a tangle over it was usually much more entertaining.  How about that February 7, 1991 episode of  “LA Law”, where the first woman-to-woman lip smack on American TV became the top water cooler talk the next morning?  Or, the overblown “lesbian kiss” brouhaha on “Rosanne” in 1994?  Or, the fuss about the Glenn Close-Judy Davis mouth-meetup in the 1995 TV movie “Service in Silence”, which threatened to eclipse the movie’s groundbreaking message about discrimination?  Anyway, the latest no-boys-allowed bacio that we’re hearing about is between actresses Julianne Moore (“A Single Man”) and Amanda Seyfried (TV’s “Big Love”) in the upcoming movie “Chloe”. The R-rated film, scheduled to hit theaters in March, is an erotic thriller about a woman (Moore) who hires an escort (Seyfried) as a test to see to see if her husband is cheating.  Directed by avant guarde moviemaker Adam Egoyan and based on a French film, “Chloe” also stars super-hetero actor Liam Neeson as the husband.  Cinemaphiles will note that this is not the first sapphic smooch for either actress.  In 2002, Julianne Moore played a sexually repressed housewife who plants one on her friend Kitty (Toni Collette) in the critically acclaimed “The Hours”.  In 2009’s horror flick “Jennifer’s Body”, Amanda Seyfriend’s geeky teen character swapped some spit in a fantasy sequence with Hollywood “It Girl” Megan Fox, who plays a cheerleader-turned-cannibalette.

      As much as I advocate lesbian sex and sexuality in movies and on TV, every time this kind of thing comes around it makes me wonder if this is a legitimate cultural advance for women who love women, or just another hetero man’s exploitative fantasy in the name of “progress”.  But, is two women kissing really so shocking anymore anyway?  With everyone from those skanks on “Jersey Shore” to teenage EIT’s (exhibitionists-in-training) on You Tube doing it, it just don’t seem like such a big deal in 2010.  Luckily, in the last few years, we’ve seen many more real stories about lesbian life, rather than just the stuff of “Penthouse”-style masturbatory male fantasies.  In the upcoming film, “The Kids Are All Right”, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore (again!) will star as lesbian parents. The movie revolves around the couple’s two children, who set out to find their sperm donor father.  It’s directed by Lisa Cholodenko (“High Art”, “Laurel Canyon”).  No word yet on whether Moore and Bening engage in any tonsil hockey, but knowing Cholodenko’s vision and past work, I doubt there will be any titillation for titillation’s sake alone.  You want titillation?  At the risk of sounding like I’m promoting equal opportunity exploitation, how about this: The GUYS from “Jersey Shore” engaging in some bisexual bawdiness in a hot tub!  As much as you guys out there wouldn’t admit it (like eating White Castle hamburgers or having sex with ugly people…), you know you’d tune in!