what kind of woman do modern lesbians want to be represented by?

As I was doing research for another planned FF update I came across this little gem by accident. It’s a trailer for a new reality film out of the UK called “Lesbian Beauty.” The premise of the show is that lesbians are not attractive, and that they are going to give these women a makeover, turning them into models and then hold a beauty pageant, which will be “girls judged by girls who love girls.” The film describes its central purpose as being “ a fly on the wall look at a national search for the most beautiful lesbian in the UK. The central question this film poses is clear - what kind of woman do modern lesbians want to be represented by? Will she be a conventional..straight-looking.. beauty or a more stereotypical boyish woman? Or perhaps a tomboy inbetweener.”

From the film’s trailer and promotional material it seems to be buying into heteronormative ideas of beauty, and rather than challenging stereotypes as it claims to do falling in line with contemporary stereotypes of who lesbians are, or at least who they should aspire to be. It seems to be making a case that most lesbians are “boyish women” completely negating the rich cultural history of butches and other female identified masculine folks. Furthermore the premise of the film completely invalidates and silences femmes, by portraying lesbian femininity as something new and edgy rather than something which has always been part of the community. Furthermore it silences queer feminine expression, and packages it highly offensively as “straight looking.” Rather than celebrating the diversity of gender expression and identification within the lesbian community, the film is basically demanding that all lesbians conform to a heterosexualized version of beauty, and that all lesbians should aspire to look the same.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the film, is that based on its mission statement it seems to be arguing that first of all lesbians can or should be represented by one person, or one type of person, and then secondly that the image of the entire community could be determined by a beauty pageant! Even the vast majority of straight women would most likely take issue with someone arguing that the winner of the “Ms. Universe” pageant was the spokeswoman and image of all women, the idea that a beauty pageant will determine the face of the lesbian community is insulting and absurd. Furthermore the idea that the way lesbian beauty is perceived should be “changed forever” is oppressive and buys completely into the racist, classisist, fatphobic, homophobic, transphobic conceptions of beauty that the media perpetuates. Although I personally would never dream of speaking for all "modern lesbians" I would be willing to bet that the vast majority would not pick a super model to define their image.