a welcoming embrace: three movies by cheryl dunye of the 1990s
by Douglas Messerli
There is something terribly comforting about
watching black lesbian director Cheryl Dunye’s films. It is almost as if she
greets her viewers at the gate of her own being, like it were a house into
which you are immediately invited.
I
am not suggesting that she simplifies or sanitizes the issues of sexuality
which these films discuss; but, particularly for those who might be a bit
frightened about lesbianism, not to say the racial concerns her work sometimes
calls up, Dunye simply prepares the viewer for what the film is about to show
us and the implications of what her work means ahead of time. A bit like the
playwright María Irene Fornés, particularly in Fefu and Her Friends,
Dunye not only directly introduces many of her films, but invites the audience
into the various rooms of her house, the kitchen, living room, bedroom, and
sometimes even the bathroom, where we get various perspectives of the action
which her actors have already outlined, often sharing with us how they see the
characters they are about to perform. Even my unknowingly racist mother,
fearful of alternative sexualities, might basically have felt comfortable in
watching Dunye’s seemingly amateur videos.
This approach is particularly apparent in her films of the early 1990s,
which I have gathered here for a brief discussion of each: Janine (1990),
She Don’t Fade (1991), and Potluck and the Passion (1993).
Los Angeles, April 20, 2024
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog
(April 2024).
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