Date: Tue, 18 Jul 95 16:11:32 ARG
From: ales@wamani.apc.org (Alejandra Sarda)

 
"THE LESBIAN TEACHER"
 
On Monday, July 17, a TV program portraying a highly positive
image of a lesbian was aired by Channel 9, a private station
located in Buenos Aires. It was inside a cicle called "Sin
condena" (Without sentence) that usually fictionalizes police
news. This time it was the turn of a high school teacher fired
from her post for being a lesbian. The program is always
preceded by a sing reading that it is about a real case, with
name and other circumstances altered.
 
The story shows Martha Luchetti, a young, highly competent and
conventionally attractive Maths teacher, who has just got a
job a supply teacher in a very prestigious, privately-managed
high school. One of the male authorities tries to seduce her,
with no success: Martha is a lesbian and shares her home with
a gay male friend-guardian angel, who is also bright,
competent (he works in TV) and far beyond stereotypes. Due to
her brilliant performance, Martha is soon promoted as titular,
leaving behind an older, less competent, female colleague.
Several factors lead to a crisis: Martha's ex-lover comes to
tell she is still in love with her, right at the school's
door, and both women are overheard by a student; Martha's best
female student, neglected by her parents and harassed by her
class companions, falls in love with her favorite teacher; and
a former co-worker confirms the fact that Martha is a lesbian
... to anyone but the envious colleague she has left behind.  
 
So, Martha will be accused of "corrupting" her best student,
and fired allegedly "for budget limitations". As she says,
"fed up with lying", she chooses to tell the truth to her
students and also to the Education Ministry, where she goes to
ask for help. She demands that the high school authorities
explicitly state she is being fired "for being a lesbian". The
official negotiations fail, but the students organized a
demonstration right at the school's doors, and call the Press
to show their rejection of the discriminatory measure taken
against their respected teacher. The program ends with
Martha -wearing a suggestive lavender beret- telling to the
cameras that she has been fired "for being a lesbian"
 
Except for two somehow questionable scenes, the program shows
a very positive image of lesbians. In those two scenes, the
protagonist and his loyal friend complain about our fate:  in
one of them the reason for complaining is that "everything is
harder for us" (in this case, "everything" means "making a
relationship to last") and in the other one is that "our love
cannot be creative" (i.e. that we cannnot conceive children
with our partners). Detail: in both scenes, it is the lesbian
who bitterly complains while the man provides the reflexive,
sensible and caring voice ...
 
Putting those details aside, the protagonist is warm,
likeable, strong, having initiative and undoubtely placed "on
the good side". The actress chosen for the role is, besides
her correct performance, a kind of local sex-symbol. Her
relationship with the student is visibly affectionate, with
not even the less shadow of "corruption" involved. The
solidary and mutually caring relationship she has with her gay
male friend is also shown under a very positive light. The
program is continuously sending out the message that to
discriminate is something done by people who are selfish,
scarcely intelligent and have a very limited vision of life.
In fact, every discriminating character is quite unattractive
compaired to the protagonist, her friend and the students.
 
It is not the first time this program shows positive images of
lesbians. It has already done it at least twice. Once, it
showed a very respectful portrait of a shantytown lesbian who
passed as a man since childhood and ended up murdering her
mother and sister-in-law, due to the abuse they inflicted on
her after knowing she was a woman. And in another program, a
very nourishing and loving relationship among two women in
jail was shown, that relationship being the only positive one
the protagonist has ever had.
 
There is no doubt that TV programs like this one are very
positive for lesbians. May be one day we will take the next
step: a program produced and acted by out lesbians about
ourselves.
 
With love to you all,
 
Alejandra Sard 
"Escrita en el cuerpo"
Archivo y Biblioteca L‚sbica
Buenos Aires, Argentina
 
("Written on the body", Lesbian Archives and Library)



--
ales@wamani.apc.org

< Fin - End >





******************************************************************************
To send a message to the entire list "queerplanet", email queerplanet@abacus.oxy.edu

This list is run by the program MAJORDOMO@abacus.oxy.edu.
*******************************************************************************