Off the Straight & Narrow: Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, &
Television
Subject Documentary
Running Time 63 minutes
DistributorMedia Education Foundation
Comments: Off the Straight & Narrow is the first in-depth
documentary to cast a critical eye over the growth of gay images on TV. Leading
media scholars provide the historical and cultural context for exploring the
social implications of these new representations. Off the Straight &
Narrow challenges viewers to consider the value and limits of available
gay images: who is represented, what they get to say, and how people respond to
them. The video is an invaluable tool for all educators interested in
introducing students to issues of representation and diversity in the
media.
On Becoming a Woman: Mothers & Daughters Talking Together
Year 1987
Subject Documentary
Language English
Running Time 95 minutes
Distributor National Black Women's Health Project
Comments: Mothers and daughters participate in a discussion facilitated by a
moderator. They discuss positive aspects about themselves. They also talk about
difficulties they face being teenagers and mothers.
On Being Gay
Director Brian McNaught, Tom Troland
Year 1994
Subject Educational
Language English
Running Time 75 minutes
Distributor TRB Productions
Comments: A conversation with Brian McNaught, lecturer, counselor, author of
A Disturbed Peace, Mayor of Boston's Liaison to the Gay and Lesbian Community,
and activist, as he talks about the fallacies, the facts, and the feelings of
being gay in a straight world.
"100 Years of Women": A Lifetime Television Documentary
Subject Documentary
Language English
Running Time 60 minutes
Distributor Lifetime Television
Comments: This documentary celebrates the achievements and life stories of
six remarkable women between the ages of 95 and 106, who have witnessed the
passing of a century.
One Sings, the Other Doesn't
Director Agnes Varda
Year 1977
Subject Feature
Artist Valerie Mairesse, Therese Liotard
Screenplay Agnes Varda
Language English
Running Time 107 minutes
Distributor RCA/Columbia Pictures
Comments: Agnes Varda's warm and joyous film celebrates the friendship
between two women with sharply different personalities. Pauline (Valarie
Mairesse), who calls herself Apple, is a rebellious, free-spirited
street-singer and composer of songs about women. She helps her friend, the
serious-minded Suzanne (Therese Liotard), already saddled with two children and
a suicidal lover, get an abortion. The two meet again ten years later at a
women's rally and renew their friendship. Apple marries a handsome Iranian on a
lark, then leaves her husband and child to return to street-singing. Suzanne
has married a kindly doctor and is running a family planning center for women.
One Sings, the Other Doesn't is a delightful film in praise of women that
everyone will enjoy.
One Woman, One Vote
Director
Year 1995
Subject Documentary Narrator Susan Sarandon
Language English
Running Time 106 minutes
Distributor PBS Video
Comments: One Woman, One Vote documents the seventy-year battle for women's
suffrage, which finally culminated in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment
to the Constitution. From Elizabeth Cady Stanton's electrifying call for
women's rights at Seneca Falls in 1848, to the last no-holds-barred fight in
1920, this film illuminates the story of the fledgling alliances that grew into
a sophisticated mass movement. The film portrays the movement's leaders: Susan
B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Carrie Chapman Catt, Mary
Church Terrell, Anna Howard Shaw, and Alice Paul, who gave their lives to
making America a true democracy. 2 copies
The Opposite Sex: Sex and Gender/Sex and Ability
Year 1995 Part 1 of 2 BR>TitleThe Opposite Sex:
Emotion/Nature-Nurture
Year 1995 Part 2 of 2
Comments: This two-part documentary explores differences and similarities
between males and females. Researchers seek to determine whether behavioral
differences between men and women are a result of socialization or of
biological differences. Both videos include cross-cultural studies where sex
roles in certain tribal societies do not correspond with the sex roles of the
West. Furthermore, the videos include interviews with scientists performing
path-breaking research in gender studies.
Oranges Are Not The only Fruit
Director Beeban Kidron
Year 1990
Subject Feature Film
Language English
Running Time 165 minutes
Distributor CBS Fox Video
Comments: A poignant comic and totally original coming of age story springs
to life in this moving adaptation of Jeanette Winterson's prize winning novel.
Starring Geraldine McEwan, and Charlotte Coleman, it as won 12 major film
awards including the Priz Italia. Jess is the adopted daughter of a deeply
religious woman. Growing up isolated in the northern England of the 1960s, Jess
is told she is part of a larger plan. Her mother keeps her away from "Breeding
Grounds" like schools, preferring her to train to spread God's word to "all the
heathens in the hot countries". Jess has even been ordained by Pastor Finch.
But her life changes when she meets Melanie, a beautiful 16-year-old, and
experiences love at first sight. As the two draw closer, Jess's mother sees
evil at work. She is determined to flush the evil from Jess. Soon the whole
congregation has joined the effort, Now, Jess realizes she does have a mission
to save the world, for love and understanding.
Origins of the Fantasy Feature
Director
Year 1914
Subject Feature
Language English
Running Time 129 minutes
Distributor: Unapix Entertainment
Comments: These two rare feature films from 1914 (the first year that
feature-length filmmaking became the norm) bring to the screen an imaginative
freedom and comic verve rarely duplicated since. Novelist L. Frank Baum himself
produced The Patchwork Girl of Oz 25 years before MGM's The Wizard
of Oz. When a magician accidentally turns bystanders into stone, the
heroes must go in search of the antidote, a picaresque journey that eventually
leads to Oz and its wizard. A Florida Enchantment is a prescient
gender-bending comedy of manners, filmed in Florida and set in motion when a
very contemporary young woman, angry with her philandering fiance, tests magic
seeds that change women into men, without altering their outward
appearance.
Orlando
Director Sally Potter
Year 1994
Subject Feature Film
Language English
Running Time 93 minutes
Distributor Columbia Tristar Home Video
Comments: Tilda Swanton, Billy Zane and Quentin Crisp star in this "hip,
sexy, and wickedly funny" film based on the gender-bending novel by Virginia
Woolf. Swinton stars as Orlando, an English nobleman who defies laws of nature
with surprising results. Immortal and highly imaginative, he undergoes a series
of extraordinary transformations which humorously, hauntingly illustrate the
eternal war between the sexes. Visually stunning and beautifully acted, Orlando
is an intoxicating blend of romance, adventure and illusion.
Other Side of the Fence: Conversations with a Female Fundamentalist
(The)
Director Lynn Estomin
Year 1994
Subject Documentary
Language English
Running Time 28 minutes
Distributor Filmakers Library
Comments: This fascinating portrait of a fundamentalist Christian woman who
has been a militant anti-choice leader allows viewers to draw their own
conclusions. Nancy O'Brien and her husband Michael moved to Cincinnati in 1985,
the same year filmmaker Lynn Estomin began working for Planned Parenthood. The
O'Briens formed a militant anti-abortion organization, Project Jericho, and
soon Cincinnati became the national testing ground for anti-choice tactics.
Planned Parenthood's clinic was firebombed. Nancy convinced Jerry Falwell to
pledge a million dollars to the movement. For two years Lynn Estomin recorded
on video the weekly harangues and confrontations outside the clinic. Then Nancy
disappeared from public view. Five years later Lynn tracked her down and made
this portrait of an articulate woman searching hard for her own answers.
Outlaw
Out There in Hollywood
Director Hosted by Scott Thompson
Year 1995
Subject Anthology
Language English
Running Time 50 minutes
Distributor Rhino Home Video
Comments: Three 50-minute tapes of loud, proud and outrageous standup comedy
by some of today's funniest gay and lesbian comedians, as seen on the Comedy
Channel. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of these videos is donated to
GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). Each tape is 50 mins.
Out There in Hollywood. Hosted by Scott Thompson (The Larry Sanders Show, The
Kids in the Hall). Performers include Robin Greenspan, Jason Stewart, Sabrina
Matthews, Shelly Mars, Rob Nash, Jackie Beat and Lea DeLaria.
Out There: Hosted By Lea DeLaria
Director
Year 1993
Subject Stand-up and Sketch Comedy Shorts
Language English
Running Time 50 minutes
Distributor Rhino Home Video
Comments: A positive mix of stand-up and sketch comedy by some of today's
funniest gay and lesbian comedians. Filmed before a live audience at San
Francisco's great American Music Hall on October 11, 1993, National Coming Out
Day. Peformers include Lea DeLaria, Suzanne Westenhoefer, Pomo Afrohomos, Steve
Moore, Phrane, Bob Smith, Mark Davis, and Marga Gomez.
Outside The Lines: The World of Gay Athletes (private -
non-circulating)
Subject Documentary
Language English
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