Caroline Berler

Actor Dustin Hoffman narrates this decade-spanning documentary that highlights the contributions of Jewish Americans to the most American sport of them all: baseball. Highlights include a rare interview with legendary pitcher Sandy Koufax.

Esther Newton was drawn to the drag scene as a student in the 1950s. Identifying as both butch lesbian and between genders, she felt a kinship with the queens; what the feminine clothing society expected her to wear felt like a form of drag. Her 1972 book ‘Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America’ is noted as the first rigorous study of its kind. Now entering her sixth decade writing about queer communities, Newton exudes wisdom and a healthy dose of New York no-nonsense. The film’s amazing archive footage encompasses gay liberation, the feminist sex wars, AIDS activism and life on the safe haven of Fire Island. Her other main passion is dog training, so this illuminating history lesson is peppered with poodles!

The film examines the ways that women directors have contributed to this genre and emphasizes the role that the media play in representation of sexuality and gender, underscoring the power that film has to shape our perceptions of one another. Visually, this documentary comes to life on screen through compelling and intimate original interviews, intercut with emotionally-charged archival footage, photographs, ephemera, inspired music, and film clips.

This documentary reflects on the disappearance of lesbian bars in the United States.

Queer culture and the arts would be much poorer without the presence and contribution of butch and stud lesbians, whose identity is both its own aesthetic and a defiant repudiation of the male gaze.