SFF 2023 REVIEW: Blue Jean
Oakley’s directing is subtle and effective, with clever use of sound and lighting to contrast the two major settings at Jean’s school and the nightclub, which are the symbolic fronts of the heteronormative and queer environments that she arbitrates between.
Image: Blue Jean (courtesy of Sydney Film Festival).
Contains mild spoilers.
Blue Jean (2022) is a historical drama set in northeast England in 1988, when the infamous Section 28 was passed prohibiting the “promotion of homosexuality.” Written and directed by Georgia Oakley, the film follows the story of Jean Newman, a lesbian P.E. teacher who lives on the precipice between two conflicting worlds: her school, where she has to try and blend in as heterosexual amidst her students and colleagues, and her friends and girlfriend Viv, with whom she frequents a lesbian bar and feels free to express herself. Jean is very reserved and careful with her identity; afraid to speak out publicly when her colleagues discuss Section 28, or to tell her family that Viv is much more than “a friend”. She can’t make everyone happy, and by trying to she makes nobody happy, including herself.
Jean first appears while bleaching her hair, with the sound of latex gloves, running water, and a powder tin popping open adding richness to the soundscape. Rosy McEwan’s acting as Jean is utterly superb, and Kerrie Hayes is a wonderful supporting actress as Viv. Oakley’s directing is subtle and effective, with clever use of sound and lighting to contrast the two major settings at Jean’s school and the nightclub, which are the symbolic fronts of the heteronormative and queer environments that she arbitrates between. With well-placed historical references like advertisements on billboards and radios warning against the “pretended family relationship” taken directly from real historical artifacts relating to Section 28. Oakley also explores the use of fashion in the expression of sexuality. Jean’s hair, which the opening shot immediately draws attention to, is in a pixie cut, which when sitting alongside her tattoo-covered leather-jacketed girlfriend.
Where the film takes an unusual turn is with the relationship between Jean and two of her students: Lois and Siobhan. Lois is a semi-closeted lesbian who is bullied by other girls at her school, and Siobhan is one of her classmates who bullies her, although her homosexuality is implied. Lois appears at the lesbian bar where Jean spends time with her friends, and even makes friends with Jean’s friends. While Jean is trying to balance her work life and personal life, Lois imposes on both. She and Siobhan have a rival-like dynamic where each competes to gain Jean’s attention, which develops uncomfortably sexual undertones.
Siobhan idolises and worships Jean, and when Lois and Jean interact she retaliates by bullying Lois, which gradually worsens until a scene where Siobhan kisses Lois in the changerooms and then claims that Lois harassed and attacked her, which Jean witnesses before confirming Siobhan’s lie. This plotline involves much discomfort for both Jean and the viewer, because the student-teacher boundaries are invaded in an unsettling way. Jean eventually apologises to and reconciles with Lois, inviting her to a party with her friends. However, my lingering impression from this storyline was one of discomfort, particularly as a student. As a P.E. teacher, Jean often went into the changerooms to tell the students to hurry up, which seemed like a bizarre invasion of privacy that made her seem somewhat complicit in her students’ implicitly sexualised relationship with her.
The overall storyline was very well-written, and the conflict was relieved by several very funny moments — particularly towards the end when a man at her sister’s party who had been making semi-inappropriate jokes asks Jean if she has a husband at the moment or if she was available, and Jean responds bluntly: “I’m a lesbian.” The resulting tension was thick enough to cut with a butter knife. The man looked as if she had sprouted a second head. The man looked as if she had unhinged her jaw and swallowed a whole watermelon in front of him.