Blue Jean

When considering the progress of gay rights, it’s important to remember how long LGBT people have had to hide their sexual identities from family, employers, and government in order to avoid discrimination and persecution. The taboos have a persistent and damaging effect on people’s minds, and it would be a mistake to think this is all in the past now, despite the obvious gains that have been made. British writer-director Georgia Oakley doesn’t see pride as a way to avoid dealing with queer shame and conflict, nor a way to pretend that gay people are no longer under threat from social forces that promote hate against them. Her debut film, Blue Jean, tells a story from a time, the 1980s, when the perils of coming out were especially acute.

Rosy McEwan plays Jean, a PE teacher in a secondary school in the Newcastle area of northeastern England. She also happens to be a lesbian, with a social life outside of work that includes a lover named Viv, played by Kerrie Hayes. We observe Jean as part of a close-knit group of women who are part of the local gay bar scene, and we see her relationship with Viv as fun, playful, and loving. But she’s closeted at work, which in 1988 was just how it was for LGBT people in public facing jobs such as teaching.

In Jean’s class, a new student named Lois, played by Lucy Halliday, appears to have some behavioral problems, but Jean chooses to be patient and understanding with her. She’s a talented basketball player, and Jean encourages her in that. Lucy also becomes the target of some bullying by other girls, ostensibly because she acts differently than they do, and jealousy is maybe part of this too. But Jean isn’t really showing favoritism—she is determined to be fair, whereas these high school girls are often very unfair. One night, Jean sees Lois at the gay bar she frequents, and Lois sees her. That one of her students knows her secret now stirs up a lot of anxiety for her. Further events, and Jean’s response to them, only make her more vulnerable.

McEwan’s lead performance beautifully conveys her character’s confusion, self doubt, and tense hyper-vigilance in the midst of a culture where it’s not OK to be herself. For instance, Jean’s sister asks her to babysit her son, which she loves to do, but when he tells Mom later that Viv was there, the sister (who knows that Jean is lesbian) gets uptight about it, as if exposing her son to Jean’s queer life poses a danger to him. At work, she silently endures homophobic statements made casually by colleagues that don’t know she’s gay.

The brilliance of Oakley’s story lies especially also in how Jean and Viv and all the characters have internalized the conflict presented by the system, trying to navigate impossible contradictions while being unforgiving to one another or themselves. The color blue is a recurring element, which I took to represent the happiness and self-acceptance possible for lesbians living freely. Blue Jean is a vision of how it was in one of the darker moments of struggle, but it rings true for our present uncertain time as well.