Blue Is A Pretty Gay Color

THERE'S A NEW MOVIE COMING OUT, Y'ALL

And I'm real excited for it. I have no idea when it will be in the states but it's already been to France, where it's brilliance hails from. 

Based off the French graphic novel Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh, titled "Blue Angel" for the novel and "Blue is the Warmest Color" for the film, it's totally winning Cannes. Or, I should say, it totally WON. Big time. The Cannes Film Festival awarded the film the Palme d'Or prize (awarded for best film), which traditionally means the film can't be awarded any other prize like 'best actress' etc. However, the actresses in the film were SO AWESOME that the judges awarded the Palme d'Or to not only the film but it's leading ladies, Adèle Exarchopoulos (try saying that name) and Léa Seydoux. 

So what is it about?? Welll, first of all it's a love story (yawn) and a drama (oh boy...) BUT it's about two hot French grils (HURRAY!). One of them has blue hair.... Really, you don't need to know anything else because FRENCH GIRLS. 

Shall we watch a clip?



Aren't we excited??

From what I can tell, the story basically surrounds this one girl in high school that is kind of a tomboy (how original) but doesn't know she's gay (surprise, surprise) and then she meets this girl with blue hair (helllo) who IS gay and they fall in love and it's tumultuous and there's a lot of gay bullying (it gets better french girl!). The blue haired girl seems pretty badass, and probably changes the other girl's whole view on life and love and blah blah BUT ANYWAYS.... 

There's supposedly this crazy sex scene clocking around 15 minutes (rare for any film). And because this is a French film, you gotta know it's probably going to be the best 15 minutes of your movie-watching life. Apparently, that's all anyone at Cannes could talk about and about all anyone in the press has been focussing on. Some are calling it porn, even the author of the graphic novel thought it was over-the-top, while others are praising the scene's realism and boldness. But you have to think, if the scene was unneeded, or too graphic or tasteless, it wouldn't have won one of the biggest awards in film. Not to mention, freaking Steven Spielberg was one of the judges, who infamously ruins movies with any lesbian characters ("The Color Purple") so, even he liked it. 

And of course, this film comes at a particularly sensitive time in French LGBT legislative history, with the passing of their gay marriage bill and subsequent CRAZY FUCKING RIOTS. I just hope the film won based on it's merit not on it's controversial topic, though I'm sure the political climate helped garner most of its initial attention. 

Either way, I'm just excited the film got made with a legit budget, director, cast, etc. This is in part due to the fact France has no where near the rating restrictions films in the US have to deal with. Our ratings board, the MPAA (which is fucked. up.) prevents films with gay plot-lines from getting any real funding. For example, the MPAA will slap an automatic R rating on a film if it shows a gay couple making-out but you can suggest a sex scene in a PG-13 movie if the couple is straight. So, if you want to make a gay romance film in the US, good luck getting any money. Because if you want the film to have any realism at all (kissing, sex, etc) you're going to have to accept the film will likely get an NC-17, which means limited theater releases, which means little projected profits, which means your film ain't getting made unless your producer is rich and doesn't give a fuck or you make the film boring as hell (a.k.a. almost every US lesbian film ever). 

My point with that is, that even if this French film comes to the US and comes to theaters, that infamous  sex-scene is going to be cut to shreds in order to get an R-rating. Or, the film will stay the way it is and get an NC-17 and very few people will get to see it. It's upsetting and disheartening because we have so few decent, let alone moving, lesbian films shown in the US. We're getting a lot better at having gay characters in our prime-time T.V. shows, with minor characters in film, but none that make two gay women the center of the story. And until the MPAA gets rid of it's board of old, conservative, men....it ain't getting better. 

So I'll likely be buying the film, not seeing it in theaters. It's too bad but that's how it work right now in this country. But good for France, and good for Steven Spielberg. That guy sucks a little less now. 

I'll be sure to invite y'all to my Blue is the Warmest Color movie night. 

There will be a lot of... *ahem*, re-winding.