![]() Because in Cay, I found someone whose style it felt completely natural to emulate. For me, they were the end goal - the achievement I’d unlock once I started dating people who weren’t cis men.ĭesert Hearts offered a corrective to this way of thinking. So I actually went out and bought three or so men’s button-ups, convinced I’d gravitate toward them as I grew more comfortable in my sexuality. In my mind, if I wanted to project my identity correctly, I had to adhere to certain rules. ![]() At the time, the concept that dressing like a queer was as simple as dressing like myself (because, hey, I’m queer) was beyond me. My primary mental image of queerness was Alison Bechdel. ![]() Lots of button-ups.Īnd loose-fitting pants. And somehow, this was the answer I devised: Button-ups. But, when I realized I wasn’t straight, I decided I needed a complete overhaul. ![]() Of course, my style evolved as I got older. There were push-up bras, layered lace tanks, and low-rise jeans for spring break tiny twirly skirts, heeled boots, and tights for fall and in summer I refused to wear anything that wasn’t a dress. My favorite stores were the same as any suburban mall-bound teen’s: Forever 21, Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister. Growing up, my clothing choices were about as far from androgynous as possible. Still, it was a revelation: The movie might not have showed me that it was okay to be a queer person, but it did give me a way to dress like one. (In fact, Deitch said she’s heard so many Desert Hearts–related coming-out stories that she’s started collecting them on the movie’s website.) By the time I first saw Desert Hearts in 2015, queerness had more or less permeated pop culture. “To know that you’ve been a part of something that’s helped someone, represented them, touched their heart.”Īt the screening, dozens of people stood up to tell Shaver, Charbonneau, and director, Donna Deitch, how the movie had normalized queerness for them, gave them a vehicle to express themselves, made them feel less alone. “It’s wonderful,” Shaver said when asked how it feels to be a queer icon. Shaver said (and Charbonneau agreed) that appearing in Desert Hearts was one of the best things she’d done. But today the film has found a place in the queer-and-lesbian canon. That spooks Vivian, who still thinks of herself as straight, and there’s the inevitable dramatic separation, until (spoiler) they reunite, have sex, and ride off on a train to New York together.Īt the time, the movie’s happy (or at least ambiguous) ending was so radical that, during a recent screening of the newly rereleased version at IFC Center in New York, both Helen Shaver (who plays Vivian) and Patricia Charbonneau (who plays Cay) said their agents urged them not to star in it - in the mid-’80s, showing a lesbian couple onscreen was radical. The two grow closer and closer as friends until - as in any good lesbian movie - the romantic tension becomes overwhelming, and they make out in the rain. Desert Hearts tells the story of Vivian Bell, a 35-year-old Columbia professor who travels to Reno to finalize her divorce, and Cay Rivvers, a 20-something wannabe sculptor who spends her time working at the local casino and picking up girls.
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