Sex on the Side
by Cynthia Fuchs


     _Boys on the Side_ tries so hard to be nice and amiable, like it
wants to make up with everyone even before it offends them. You can
appreciate the sentiment, but a chick flick should have the courage of its
convictions, or at least of its title (alternate universe version: _Chicks
on Top_; this is plainly nervous-making). The movie's continual
backpeddling from difficult developments is certainly annoying, but there
are briefly provocative moments, and some lively tensions whose
resolutions are quite unbelievable (so the questions might be considered
unanswered, though I wouldn't press this idea too far). The film's general
emotional trajectory follows that of director Herbert Ross' other, quite
popular picture in this genre, 1989's _Steel Magnolias_. That is, women
fight and bond while struggling to overcome life's problems (unemployment,
disease, boyfriends). Tearjerking is, if not the point, then at least a
major component. 

     Three girls go on the road. Jane (Whoopi Goldberg) is a singer who
does Janis Joplin covers with feeling: she needs a new gig. Robin (Mary
Louise Parker) likes looks frail but you know she'll be feisty (she likes
Carpenter songs, which you know by now, after hearing Sonic Youth's
"Superstar,'' are intensely, if discreetly, perverse); and Holly (Drew
Barrymore) is delightfully trashy (my affection for Barrymore
notwithstanding, Holly does have irrepressibly dumb hair - with barrettes,
no less - for most of the movie, which presumably designates her charming
mix of street smarts and naivete). Their three way liaison is intitated
when Jane and Robin, heading west, stop by to visit Holly, who at that
moment happens to have an altercation with her possessive, aggressive,
drug-dealer boyfriend (Billy Wirth) in which she accidentally kills him
with a blow to the head with a baseball bat. 

     The road trip is full of adventures stemming from the women's
particular, occasionally reductive character-defining conditions: Holly is
pregnant and tends to fall in love with hunky white men (she finds a
Ken-doll cop named Abe Lincoln), Jane is a lesbian who (apparently
repeatedly and self-defeatingly) falls in love with straight women, and
Robin has AIDS. There's a problem here, which you can imagine as _Fried
Green Tomatoes_ meets _The Color Purple_, or any Goldberg movie save for
_Made in America_. This problem is twofold. It has to do with some
prevalent industry anxiety over casting Goldberg as a sexual being (note:
in _America_, she does get to have sex, which, even though it's a
slapsticky kind of sex, and with Ted Danson, is portrayed as passionate
and leading to a "happy,'' more-sex-to-come ending). And it has to do with
Parker's role in Jon Avnet's movie, as the sort of lesbian who can't and
never will have sex because she's too frail and sickly. (Actually, in
_Fried Green Tomatoes_ she doesn't even seem to know she's a lesbian;
that's for viewers and GLAAD - which awarded it a lesbian image award - to
intuit.)

     All of this is probably more interesting than the movie proper, for
its narrative, while quirky and girl-affirmative, is also preoccupied with
the straight white women getting laid (or, in the case of Robin, at least
thinking - and feeling - hard about it: people with AIDS having sex is
still, I guess, an alarming idea for mass market movies). The film doesn't
seem to want to rock any mainstream boats, really, just gesture towards
such rocking, which, after all, is something (but this "let's be thankful
for scraps'' business is getting tired). In lieu of obvious images of
resistance, then, it makes some compromises, referring to _Thelma and
Louise_ (intimate women with guns and attitude) as much as it looks back
to the easy emotional squeeze of _Magnolias_, as in life re-cycling where
birth counteracts death, or kooky, good-hearted moms who come round to the
realization that things have changed. Here, it's Anita Gillette as Robin's
prim and supportive mother, who manages the "comic'' initial reaction -
"She's a BLACK LESBIAN!?'' - with what approximates grace in sitcom- land. 

     It's the comedy, some witty, some of the sledgehammer variety, which
makes this movie aggravating but also gives it the space to get serious
about issues that still make some people nervous. In this regard, it's
making _Philadelphia_-like moves, but under more (or is it less?)
seductive cover, attempting to make visible for a broad audience, gayness,
AIDS, racial difference and racism. (Granted, Goldberg is the only black
character in sight.) And the movie makes considerable, if sometimes
awkward, efforts to represent these issues: when the travellers settle in
Tuscon, a local club features an unannounced performance by the Indigo
Girls. 

     Their fugitive status (metaphorical on some level) is treated mostly
as comedy (the boyfriend deserved it), as when Jane announces that she
won't go over a cliff for these giggling white girls. But the murder ends
up generating one of the movie's odder and more intriguing plot turns, in
which Jane takes the stand to defend Holly's good character and has to
face the prosecutor's overtly nasty slams against her own lesbianism. As
he insinuates that (the) women's friendship is bad by definition, the
movie makes its political point somewhat complicated, even somewhat
progressive (if also vaguely annoying). This showdown comes late in the
movie, when viewers are already aligned with the three protagonists. When
the lawyer baits Jane, he's clearly the villain and she's clearly the
victim. 

     On one hand, the set-up is simplistic (audiences side with underdogs,
especially those beset by ugly, recognizable prejudice in public arenas).
On another hand, it's a little complicated and contextualized, in that his
phobia is couched in a (rather hystericized) fear of women's affinities,
which is articulated here as their "mysterious'' ability to connect. _Boys
on the Side_ makes its ethical and political points (against homophobia
and racism) in a roundabout way, but it does make them. That Goldberg is
again the deflector shield for such points is disappointing, if not
exactly shocking. Her version of Jane is a warm, wise, wholly positive
character, generous to the extent that she doesn't seem to care if she has
a sexual relationship; this is not necessarily unlikely, but it is pretty
familiar ground for her and viewers who are paying attention. 



Cynthia Fuchs teaches film/media studies and is coordinator of the queer
studies project at George Mason University.

Copyright by Cynthia Fuchs.  All rights reserved.
Please do not reprint this review without the permission of the author.

This review originally appeared in the Philadelphia _City Paper_.