But somehow the vital connection is made

[sovay]

To my absolute shock, international mail brought the Blu-Ray I had ordered of Girl Stroke Boy (1971) and with far more dispatch than the regular workings of the U.S. postal system, judging by the simultaneous arrival of the return receipt for last month's rent check. The booklet with its numerous production stills has already been illuminating as well as enjoyable. Successfully ordering a physical copy of an interracial queer and trans film from another country feels like a much bigger deal than it would have eleven months ago.

Comments

[ethelmay]

Are the names Laurie and Jo a nod to Little Women, I wonder?

[sovay]

Are the names Laurie and Jo a nod to Little Women, I wonder?

I considered that question and partly because the film is British rather than American, I can't tell! I wondered also if the name "Jo Delaney" might be a kind of mixed nod to A Taste of Honey (1958/61) with its own groundbreaking representation of Black and queer characters, but I suspect that's just me. The equivalent character to Laurie in the stage play is named Lorn and I'm glad that Sherrin and Brahms changed it. [edit] The other literary male Laurie most familiar to me is the one from Mary Renault's The Charioteer (1953) and I really don't know if I can rule that out as a referent, except that if so, everyone walks away from this story a lot more happily than Renault would have been able to stand, which I can live with.

[ethelmay]

Might just be common potentially gender-ambiguous names.

[sovay]

Might just be common potentially gender-ambiguous names.

That ended up being what I settled on. But I have named characters in weird slantwise ways before, so I would never put it past anyone else.