Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Throwback Thursday featuring the three killer lesbians - 'The Bitch,' 'The Butch,' and 'The Femme'

Let's throw in a change of pace for 'Throwback Thursday.'

Years ago, I had a segment on this blog entitled 'Know Your LGBT History.'  Featuring scenes from past movies and television shows as well as featuring biographies on famous LGBTQs, the segment focused on how our community was featured in the media at times when we weren't able to come out as well the times in which we were more embraced by society.

The segment came about because of positive feedback I had from posting an episode of The Jeffersons featuring a story line about the transgender community.   The next segment officially began the 'Know Your LGBT History' cavalcade and it was controversial:


This is what I said in the blog post about the episode:

 In the 1970s, actress Angie Dickinson starred in the successful Police Woman television series. This particular episode, 'Flowers of Evil,' was so controversial that it was only shown once due to protests by the lgbt community. It dealt with Dickinson getting to the bottom of a case in which three lesbians running a retirement home were stealing money from their residents, drugging them, and then gruesomely murdering them. As this minisode (an abridged version of a television episode)shows, there is a lot to be desired from this particular episode.
Trust me when I say that the full episode is much worse, specifically the stereotypical portrayals of the three villains:  
 The Bitch (Gladys) - The ringleader of the trio. Beautiful and sleek enough to supposedly "fool" men about her sexual orientation. She is the one who commits the only murder shown in the episode and it's not a nice scene. Her sadism is matched only by her lust; a quality that leads Dickinson to successfully go undercover at the retirement home.  
 The Butch (Mame) - Coarse, crude, and detached to a fault. She enjoys watching Gladys commit the murder.  
 The Femme (Janet) - The supposed "true woman" of the trio and as such, the one with a conscience and the "weak link." While Gladys strangles the victim and Mame watches, Janet stands outside in the rain crying in guilt. She can be prodded with kind words or a hard slap by Gladys.

Needless to say this post was a huge hit and enabled me to run 'Know Your LGBT History' posts from 2009 to 2014.

Y'all think I should begin running them again?

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