I Would Like Some Answers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                           After seeing "Fried Green Tomatoes" yesterday, I found myself asking questions I have not asked in years.  There will be extensive plots aspects mentioned, so if you have not seen the film or read the book, skip this post.

                           The film is beautiful and heartbreaking, well-crafted cinematically and heartbreaking at the same time.  The line that haunts me most from yesterday is when Sipsie (Cicely Tyson) is comforting the grieving Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson) and says to her, "You know, Miss Ruth was a lady.  And a lady...always knows.... when to leave."  I sobbed over that one.

                             It is also one of the best cast films I have seen.

                                This is not THE question I want answered but as I recall, when Idgie turns to the window and tells the story of the lake, doesn't Sipsie "help Ruth along" with an injection?  This viewing I was not sure.  It has been years, maybe decades since I saw this.

                                   Speaking as a gay man from a current time, it is no question to me that Idgie and Ruth had a loving lesbian relationship.  A lot better than straight couples.  This was the South in the Twenties and Thirties, it was a small town, and everyone knew.  Had this been two men, they would have been killed, tarred and feathered and castrated.  And I offer this theory via another gay couple's film.

                                                                     

                    That film was "Brokeback Mountain," made fourteen years after "Fried Green Tomatoes" in 2005, taking place in Wyoming.  It is the early Sixties, I believe and while both Ennis and Jack are married to women, it is clear their love is real.

                     Midway through the film there is a scene when Ennis is a child.  He and his father take a walk, and he shows the boy this abandoned house, which used to be a ranch.  He said years ago two men who were cowboys lived on their own, had their own ranch--but they lived as a couple!  They were out of range of the town, but it knew, and one night they were attacked and killed.  I remember being appalled at this but also wondering why the father was telling this young boy, far from puberty, about this? Did he sense his son was a burgeoning gay man?  Like "Fried Green Tomatoes," this film is beautiful and heartbreaking, but I have never forgotten this part.  It makes me uncomfortable.

                          I may be naive, but I still want to know why Idgie and Ruth were able to "get away with it," and those two men, as well as Ennis and Jack, could not.  Today, thankfully, David and I live as comfortably--he is the Ruth to my Idgie--and we have never had a problem.  Yet back then we might have and I would have had to fight.

                          During childhood I recall my cousins had an uncle on their father's side, who lived in Belmar, New Jersey, near his sister and her husband.  The uncle ran a flower shop, was not married, but had a "companion." though they did not live together.  When the uncle's time came, the "companion" took care of him.

                           When I was old enough to understand, I wondered.  Was not living together a choice, or imposed by the time?  I suppose I will never know, but at least they were open enough to be there for each other.  Which is what I love about Idgie and Ruth.

                              To sum up, tell me why women can get away (or could?) with it, easier than men?

                             And I still want to wear all the outfits from "The Devil Wears Prada 2."

                           I would even wear some of Ruth's dresses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!