52 Films by Women Vol 7. 27. BLUE JEAN (Director: Georgia Oakley)
Though homosexuality was decriminalised in the United Kingdom in the late 1960s, suspicion and a lack of empathy has governed attitudes towards it in the subsequent decades. Gay culture is perceived as threatening and corrupting, in spite of evidence to the contrary. There is a spurious argument that if you don’t mention something – same sex attraction, gender dysphoria – then it ceases to exist. Women need men to procreate – isn’t that the point? The fact that heterosexuality has a violent strain – domination fantasies, rape – is ignored. Sexuality exists alongside consent and if consent between participants of a sexual act is given by those capable of granting it (and that is in itself a contentious issue) then it becomes a personal matter outside of legislation. Blue Jean , the confident if not entirely satisfactory first feature of writer-director Georgia Oakley, is a drama set in Northern England in the late 1980s about a lesbian Physical Education teacher, Jean Newman (Ro...