This Week: Lesbians (1965) - extract

Video Description

Extract from Lesbians (1965). Watch the complete programme on BFI Player (UK only): http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-lesbians-1965/ Explore LGBT Britain: http://player.bfi.org.uk/collections/lgbt-britain/ What is lesbianism? What causes it... and can it be cured? This episode of ITV's long-running current affairs strand This Week attempts to answer these questions for a curious 1960s audience. Although homosexuality is defined at the outset as a 'problem', and referenced in alarmist terms, the female interviewees are wonderfully frank about their lives, identities and desires. They refute presenter Bryan Magee's stereotypical assumptions about lesbian women, impressing on him - and viewers - that they're normal human beings like everyone else. The previous year, This Week had broadcast an episode about male homosexuality (Homosexuals, also available on BFI Player). This was a potentially much thornier subject, as Magee says, because unlike lesbianism it remained illegal in the UK at the time - but this episode stills makes clear the myriad difficulties faced by gay women in the homophobic world of 1960s Britain. One interviewee, Esme Langley, founded the sombrely-named Minorities Research Group to help women deal with this stigma and find access to resources. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/subscribetotheBFI. Watch more on the BFI Player: http://player.bfi.org.uk/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BFI Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BritishFilmInstitute Follow us on Google+: https://plus.google.com/+britishfilminstitute/