What’s your movie?
You know, THE movie.
The one you saw at just the right time, at just the right age, the one that saved you or shaped you or understood you better than any person you have met, or the one that ripped you, ruined you, left you in pieces because you saw yourself reflected in the twisted mirror of someone else’s script and you didn’t like what you saw.
Mine is Chasing Amy.
Fun story: when I was coming to terms with the fact that I was attracted to women back when I was 14, I was TERRIFIED. It was 24 years ago, in a small town. I didn’t know bisexuality even existed back then. This is going to sound silly, but I thought that the fact that I was starting to be attracted to women while still being attracted to men meant that I was slowly turning into a lesbian - that eventually my attraction to men would “phase out” and I would only be attracted to women. I was confused, and growing up in a homophobic small town, I was terrified.
Then I saw Chasing Amy. Not only was I attracted to Alyssa, I found in her something I’d never had before- representation. Not only in the fact that it was normal to be attracted to more than one gender, but that your sexual history was never something you had to apologize for or be ashamed of. Alyssa was smart, beautiful, accomplished, self possessed, funny, sexy, and she refused to apologize for her sexual history or her sexuality. Chasing Amy probably had more of an effect on Baby Queer Lucy than any movie. It came out at exactly the time I needed it. And it changed my life for the better.
And then another coming out, over 20 years after that, when I realized that maybe I’m a little bit Jay, too, and maybe I’m not as cis as I thought.
I don’t have a cool Chasing Amy shirt so here’s me in a Mean Girls tee - a movie I thoroughly enjoyed but had absolutely no effect on me emotionally.
