Catch-up Post #2: ASHLEY AND KISHA in Curve Magazine!
Two Queer Girls in Love
CURVE MAGAZINE, June 2008
Two women smile shyly into the camera. They are young. They are black. They sit entwined as only lovers do, talking about sex and being black. Then the camera cuts to them having sex.
Ashley and Kisha: Finding the Right Fit is a documentary showcasing the love story of a lesbian couple.
So how does a sweet little movie about tender young love spark a fist-pumping, civil rights-questioning brawl? By getting banned from the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF).
In Australia, for a film to be sold it has to be “classified,” or given a rating, by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). And if a movie is classified as “X,” it can’t be sold. Many film festivals will request exemptions for the films they show because the classification process is long and expensive.
At this year’s MUFF, festival director Richard Wolstencroft applied for an exemption for Ashley and Kisha. The OFLC denied the request without seeing the film, based on the director Tony Comstock’s previous explicit documentaries that depict real couples having real sex.
Comstock says that the denial may not have been a reaction to the explicit content of the film, but retribution. In 2006, Wolstencroft went against the orders of the OFLC and screened one of Comstock’s movies. So this year, the OFLC forbade Wolstencroft from showing seven movies, and even sent police to ensure that Ashley and Kisha wasn’t screened.
Comstock maintains that the movie is only controversial because it’s about lesbians. “If you’re a realist you’re saying, ‘Of course it’s controversial,’ and if you’re an idealist you’re saying, ‘What’s controversial about people being in love?’”
Comstock has many reasons for taking up arms against the OFLC.
First, there are his subjects and his product. “There’s a sense of responsibility and of trust … I haven’t had to fight for my sexuality, I fight for my movies.” Second, he thinks of himself as fighting the latest battle against censorship and the moral majority. “This is the last little gasp of a dying way of thinking about the world.”
But most importantly, he sees the ban as an affront to human rights. “It’s not Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or Malaysia. It’s not one of these places with oppressive regimes. It’s Australia, for Christ’s sake … It’s a freedom issue. Freedom is not liberal or conservative. Totalitarians don’t care about freedom. It’s exciting that this little film is provoking some discussion about these big ideas.”
And it is. In light of the controversy, an ad hoc community of the Australian body politic has come together to support a lesbian film. From the LGBT community to the Institute of Public Affairs (a free-market think tank), people have all come together to protest the ban. This delights Comstock. “Black, white, gay, straight–the people who like our stuff like our stuff. You’re getting to something transcendent about the nature of love and sex and gender.”
