No way! I'm the only one who supposed to be cute on this show!

There are two topics I wish to discuss this evening: Female sexual exploration and experimentation in mainstream Hollywood and the recently released Animaniacs DVD. Such choices. Where to start?

Lisa met Chelsea at the knocking school
Chelsea didn't feel like following the rules
So they left the place for another school
Where the boys go with boys and the girls with girls

Chelsea was the one who's been abused
It changed her philosophy in '82
She says, "Inch for inch and pound for pound"
Who needs boys when there's Lisa round?"

But in the first moment of her waking up
She knows she's losing it, oh yeah she's losing it
When the first cup of coffee tastes like washing up
She knows she's losing it, oh yeah she's losing it
~ She's Losing It, Belle and Sebastian

It all started when I was supposed to be writing a paper for a class and insead found myself watching Opera's answer to Lifetime: Oxygen (or "Oh!" as it seems to go by now). Kissing Jessica Stein, a movie I had never heard of and seemed to be made on a rather tight budget, was playing and as that guy from 10th Kingdom and The Gilmore Girls played what I thought was the romantic lead I decided it was better than whatever polical diatribe I was trying to get behind (I suppose I could have been reinturpreting history or ploting the end of the patriarchy-- my work in undergrad, as you can see, was very important). However, the movie soon took a turn for the unexpected when the 30-something, neurotic, Jewish heroine became fed up with the straight singles scene and "accidentaly" answered a personal ad posted by another woman. The movie became an exporation of Jessica's sexuality. Why did she believe she was straight when none of her male-female relationships had ever been successful or satisfying? She had so much more in common with the woman she met in the bar. Didn't it stand to reason that this woman was just as likely to be her soulmate as her brother's best friend who broke her heart in college and continues to torment her daily with his pent up writer angst? Would her family accept her as a lesbian? Could she accept herself as such? Would she ever figure out how to make-out with her girlfriend without getting sketched out?
What impressed me was how carefully the movie dealt with these issues. Jessica explored each question in a manner that was not contrived but more like the haphazard exploration of real life. Yes, her family could accept her as she was. Yes, she felt a deep connection to a woman, which shocked the hell out of her. No, she was not a lesbian (she still got sketched out whenever her "girlfriend" tried to touch her). And she could only enter into a legit hetero relationship when she stopped lying to herself and trying to please everyone else. She had to please herself first, and that might involve some things that suprised society and herself.
I hadn't thought about this film until it was brought back to my attention twice in a week. First, a friend asked me if I had seen it and when I explained that I had she told me she had some trouble with its message. It seemed, to her, that the movie suggested the female sexual exploration was a stage that inevitably had women returning to a socially acceptable hetero relationship. I didn't come away from the movie with this impression at all, but she explained how she had, and I suppose it's possible to interpret it that way. Then I watched Imagine Me and You in which Piper Perabo (that's right, the girl from the uber-classy Coyote Ugly - don't get me wrong, I loved it too) meets the love of her life- a woman -at her own wedding. The relationship develops as Piper's marriage falls apart and the happy couple ends the movie sipping hot coffee on a park bench enjoying the change of seasons together. Although a bit simple plot and character-wise, it too was an interesting exploration into understanding why we believe we are who we are and how we react when something challenges our self-perceptions.
I suppose, once a student of human behavior in the societal contexts of gender, always a student of human behavior in the societal constructs of gender.
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As for the Animaniacs, I am beyond thrilled about the recently released DVD set. Animanics and Pinky and the Brain were some of the funniest, smartest cartoons that helped to shape my young mind.

Dot: Oh, oh, my heart aches with the sorrow of a thousand scouts. No merit badge. I mourn my loss.
Yakko: Say, those acting classes are really paying off.

Yakko: Citizens of Anvilania, I stand before you, because if I was behind you, you couldn't see me.