Why Every Lesbian Needs to Watch Dykes, Camera, Action! (2018)

Why Every Lesbian Needs to Watch Dykes, Camera, Action! (2018)

Hey sisters, grab your iced coffee (or your whiskey, no judgment), because I just rewatched Dykes, Camera, Action! and I’m still buzzing. This 2018 documentary by Caroline Berler is only 58 minutes long, but it hits like a three-hour queer epic. If you’ve ever felt invisible in mainstream cinema, if you’ve ever screamed at the TV because the “groundbreaking” lesbian character dies in the last ten minutes, this film is basically group therapy with better lighting.

The movie follows lesbian filmmakers, critics, and actresses—legends like Jenni Olson, Su Friedrich, Rose Troche, Yoruba Richen, Desiree Akhavan, Vicky Du, and many more—as they talk about what it actually means to make, watch, and live lesbian cinema. It’s not a dry history lesson. It’s a love letter, a middle finger to Hollywood, and a big warm hug all at once.

Let’s be real: growing up, most of us had to dig through the indie section or shady torrent sites just to find a single movie where two women kiss and nobody calls it “a phase” or kills them off for shock value. Dykes, Camera, Action! maps out how we got from the coded subtext of the 1930s to the raw, unapologetic lesbian stories we have today (and yes, we still have a long way to go).

They talk about everything:

The lesbian filmmakers who snuck queer content into films during the Hays Code era like it was contraband.

The explosion of New Queer Cinema in the early ’90s—Go Fish, The Watermelon Woman, everything Cheryl Dunye and Rose Troche blessed us with.

How Desiree Akhavan (The Bisexual, Appropriate Behavior) and others are carrying the torch right now.

The constant struggle of getting funding when your love scene doesn’t star a straight white dude.

What hit me hardest? Hearing these women—some in their 60s and 70s—talk about finally seeing themselves on screen after decades of nothing. I’m in my 30s and I still cried like a baby when Jenni Olson described driving hours to see a rare 35mm print of a lesbian film in the ’80s. That hunger? We all know it.

The documentary doesn’t sugarcoat the problems either. They openly discuss racism in lesbian spaces, the erasure of trans lesbians, the way class affects who gets to tell stories. It’s honest in the way only queer women talking to queer women can be.

And the title? “Dykes, Camera, Action!” is perfect. It’s campy, it’s defiant, it’s ours. Every time someone says “dyke” like it’s a slur, I just want to shove this film in their face and say, “Yeah, and we made art with it—deal with it.”

If you’re a baby gay just coming out, watch this and feel less alone.

If you’re an elder lesbian who lived through the ’80s and ’90s, watch this and feel seen.

If you’re somewhere in between like me, watch this and feel proud of how far we’ve come—and fired up about how far we still have to go.

It’s streaming on multiple platforms (Criterion Channel had it last time I checked, and sometimes it pops up on Kanopy if you have a library card). Trust me, 58 minutes of your life for this much heart? Worth it.

So yeah, this is me officially telling every lesbian I know: watch Dykes, Camera, Action! Then come scream about it in the comments. Which moment made you cry? Which filmmaker do you wish had a 10-hour director’s cut? Let’s talk.

We’ve always been here. This film just turned the camera around so the world finally has to look.

Happy watching, my loves.

— A very emotional lesbian who now wants to start a queer film club because of this documentary.