what may or may not be hard reality

So uhm... you know, playing gay or not is not the be-all end-all of actress crushes, but sue me for liking it when my crushes do! :P Awesomely enough, most of my actress crushes have played a lesbian or two over their careers, but the closest I've seen Joanne come so far was Bianca the omnisexual vampire on The Dresden Files (which is of course completely awesome!) but she's still mostly getting it on with Dresden. (Has anyone seen Going the Distance? There's a brief moment in the trailer where she's holding another girl's hand in a vaguely gay way. :P Why yes, I wear slash goggles? I'm pretty sure I've had lasik surgery to permanently imprint them on my lenses.)

Which brings us to Diamonds, a little miniseries about the diamond trade from a bunch of different interconnected viewpoints, wherein Joanne plays Stephanie Dresser, a geologist who specializes in looking for diamonds in the Congo. Now, there's absolutely no conclusive evidence that Steph is gay, but the circumstantial evidence is piling up real thick. I couldn't resist making a pic!spam out of it.


It all started about 47 seconds into Joanne's first appearance. I had time to go 'Oh, Joanne's hair is so pretty...'


Hey, there's some other chick...


And then, less than a minute in: 'OMG was that unsolicited physical contact by form of random belly-touching???' And the little red flag for 'gaygaygay!' went up in the corner of my eye.


Then they bickered sweetly and stood prettily close for a little while...


...until Sarah gets shot by a newly arrived soldier (who was paid off by this diamond company that... yadda yadda). Steph catches it all on film. (This is right before it happens, after she's mostly running and crying, poor thing.)


Which brings us onward to Steph and Sarah's mother at Sarah's funeral.

"I called you."
"I was away."

And then Sarah's mother makes this little sympathetic face, like you totally would to someone who just lost their girlfriend...



...and tells Steph "She wrote to me, she told me how wonderful you were." (!!!) and poor Steph almost breaks down.


The funeral scene has several points in it. 1) Sarah's mother tried to call her, but readily accepts that Steph has been too upset by losing Sarah to deal with much. 2) Sarah's mother readily admits that Sarah thought Steph was wonderful without being mean or sarcastic about it - despite the fact that she goes on to imply that Steph should have been able to prevent Sarah getting killed.

Then we go on to Steph on the phone with her dad, who runs a business that she works for. Now, Steph clearly doesn't have an awesome relationship with her dad, but direct quotes from the call:

"Stephanie, I got something up north. [insert long-winded description]"
"Dad, I'm... I don't really feel up to it yet..."
"You need to get back out there. [insert how the House of Dad needs to prove itself] I know you're still thinking about what happened... about Sarah. Put that behind you."

Now, Steph's dad may be pushing her pretty hard, and whatnot, but the way he mentions Sarah totally makes it sounds like Steph and Sarah were together, and her dad knew about it and it wasn't an issue. The issue would rather be that he doesn't connect well emotionally with his daughter and he no idea how to deal with her grief, rather than the fact that she's (probably) gay.

So Steph heads up north, wearing the most adorkable hat.


Her new employer likes to have staff meetings in the local strip club...


...where Steph proceeds to check out the girls...


...and fails to pretend she doesn't like what she sees.


While up north, Stephanie (and her pretty hair!) spends her time being pissed off at her boss...


...looking generally sceptical...


...wearing other adorkable hats...


...and failing to acknowledge the fact that the Decent Guy Ally in a camp full of Masculine Males is desperately trying to flirt with her.


Which definitely deserves some emphasis. This guy is really decent to her, checks on her when she's had tough days and takes her side in fights with the boss, and there's not even a hint of romantic interest from her, despite him being pretty overt about liking her. That's very rare for a movie. She's gay, y/y?

She's of course also sad.


And of course, most important of all, she gets her comfort from the picture she carries around in her journal (I tried to read it, and it appears to be her current one from Up North, not an old one from the Congo)...


...depicting Sarah looking affectionate and Steph smiling wider than she does anywhere else in the rest of the movie...


...including the part where she actually finds diamonds. Which is saying something.


So in the end she gives her Decent Guy Ally a nice platonic hug.


And tells her dad she's going to take some time off, and not to call her, she'll call him. (Gosh, that's a gorgeous vista.)


Then goes off to meet Sarah's mom at her grave.


Steph puts a *diamond* on Sarah's grave. A rough diamond in a drill sample, but still, it's a diamond. Diamond = engagement ring connection anyone?


Where Sarah's mom tells Steph that she's "I'm just *so* glad she was with you." Steph cries.


And Sarah's mom comforts her. It's sweet.


Come on! You know how in everything you watch, you try desperately to overlook all the little details that messes with The Gay Canon you're creating in your head? In this, for every scene she's in there's a new piece of circumstantial evidence, and as of yet *nothing* to disprove it! Yay!

[Poll #1674679]

I also liked that Steph's storyline also has the two single moments of comedy in the entire thing.

"I went to the Colorado School of Mines."
"I've never even heard of that, where is it?"
"...It's in Colorado?"

and

"How do I get [the boss] to listen?"
"I don't know. Try being real subtle?"
Cut to her yelling at the boss:
"There's your kimberlite! I found it!"