Peace Talk

I just watched the short Swedish film "Peace Talk" ("I Fred") by Jenifer Malmqvist and was, for lack of truly fitting words, touched. I was brought to tears by the 15 minute movie, and immediately got online to look up more about it and where I could purchase it. I was excited to find the film available to view online in it's entirety, but crushed when reading the comments. Every summary and review I read of the movie was from a completely heteronormative and often homophobic view, and all clearly misunderstood the movie. So for those who may not have have the queer lens through which to see this movie, let me provide one of my own.

The film begins with two young girls (maybe 11?) playing, when Jenna imagines a siren signaling enemy attack. Emile wants to continue playing "Rockgroup," but Jenna says "Even rockgroups need to defend themselves." They grab their waterguns and shoot down Barbie Dolls and Teddy Bears. As the game continues, Jenna's mother becomes the "enemy attack," Jenna tells Emile to keep her voice down so her mother won't hear. Reviewers seem to confuse the movie here by interpreting the girls affection toward each other as a formation of some type of lesbian/queer identity. But a closer look at the film reveals that Jenna already understood her identity to be deviant. The war game itself is symbolic for her defense against her mother, homophobia, mainstream society.

While in the symbolic foxholes of this imagined world, Jenna and Emile are able to express their true identities and their feelings for each other. When the girls are first confronted by Jenna's mother who catches them kissing, they are first ashamed and embarassed, the covers have literally been pulled off of them and the safe, imagined world they created and they are forced again into the roles of deviant, misbehaving, abnormal girls who were playing "just a game." But this time it is Emile who encourages Jenna to resist as she places Jenna's camouflaged cap back on her head. They lock themselves in the bathroom, were they kiss and put on both lip stick and war paint because the two are one in the same. They are forced into war and refuse to be beaten down.

When Jenna's mother touch catch them, Jenna puts up a silent but powerful fight - spraying her mother with a squirt gun, and when told Emile is being sent home, even spitting in her face. When told to apologize, she puts duck tape over her mouth. As Emile leaves and Jenna is pulled from her arms, Jenna is a prisoner of war. She feels powerless except in her ability to resist. Her mother offers peace, but Jenna knows that she is fighting a defensive war and peace is not possible. Her mother rips the duct tape off her face.

The closing scene is Jenna under the covers on her bed, thinking, we can assume, about her mother's offer. Hurt, pushed down and frustrated, Jenna wipes Emile's lipstick kiss off her hand (symbolic of a battle wound, healed by Emile). Jenna wants to please her mother and conforms with wiping off the kiss, but she sobs, knowing what was lost.This is a movie about identity, about the power of The Erotic (the natural, powerful force within us that cannot be erased by oppression), and about the defensive war "queer" people (outsiders)are forced to fight. Jenna and Emile would have like to stay protected from the outside, content in eachother's company and with what they discovered in each other, but they were forced to give up with private world.

I read comments on the movie referring to it as "cute," one saying "cute girl but what a brat! omg... poor mommy!" a couple blatantly homophobic comments, the LOGO website said it was about "two tomboys playing wargames" and one iMDB review (the only one) stated: "the film is about the girl's mother realizing the child may be a lesbian, as this game involves kissing and caressing. This would explain why Logo (a gay cable channel and internet site) would post the short film." This review takes a completely heteronomative point of view on the film, furthering the point that the girls' reality really could only happen under a blanket alone. Also the reviewer take the fact that there is "kissing and caressing" (the girls peck on the lips and Jenna runs her finger down Emilie's nose) as the reason LOGO picked it up. This deeply political, emotional film is being reduced to sex, which of course is what being Queer is all about, so OF COURSE LOGO picked up on it. *sarcasm* Please watch and enjoy the film and don't be swayed but the overwhelming, heteronormative readings of it - by understand the real meanings of the movie from a "queer" perspective, we can keep alive that which so far, can only exist under that sheet and behind locked doors.