- A Secret Love on Netflix tells the secret love story of a couple in their 80s, Terry and Pat.
- "Lesbians who experienced severe repression of homosexuality during their youth and part of their adult life have acquired the habit of never naming their lesbianism," writes academic Line Chamberland.
- Dominique Lefebvre and Valérie Guinoiseau, from the Gray Pride association, are delighted that lesbians of this age are shown on screen, a rare fact.
"Hello doctor, yes, my cousin," said an elderly woman in a green polo shirt over the phone, to whom another woman had just handed the handset. The opening scene of A Secret Love tells everything about the story that will follow, about the secret long kept by these two women, and which still endures when this documentary is filmed. Designed by Chris Bola and available on Netflix since Tuesday April 28, A Secret Love tells the story of Terry and Pat, two octogenarians born in the 1920s who met in 1947 on an ice rink and spent almost 70 years of their living together, between the United States and Canada.
Two women who have got into the habit of hiding their love, because as Line Chamberland explains, holder of the Chair in the fight against homophobia at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) and who worked on specific issues of aging among lesbians, "lesbians who experienced severe repression of homosexuality during their youth and part of their adult life have acquired the habit of never naming their lesbianism". The bottom of the love letters that the two protagonists kept was torn, to avoid being recognized if they ever fell into the wrong hands ...
"Two old women are two old women"
A Secret Love unfolds this well-kept secret, as if wrapped in a cocoon of love and security. We hear their tender words, which give life to the often asexualized representation of old age. "You are always very caring my darling," whispers Pat to Terry, while we perceive hands that are in a hurry or slip away. A love that culminates in the celebration of their marriage, a few months before Terry's death, in the retirement home they have chosen for themselves, where the noose of secrecy finally seems to relax. "We are delighted that you no longer have to pretend to be cousins," jokes the civil officer in front of the hilarious assembly, as the tears of the protagonists bead. A scene full of tenderness and depth.
Line Chamberland, who worked on lesbian experiences in Montreal in the 1950s and 1960s, said that they were cousins or that they lived with a friend "who helps pay the rent" was a widespread strategy. A strategy experienced as necessary because the lesbianism of elderly women does not exist in the representations, explains the academic. "Two old women are two old women," sums up this figure of the LGBT movement in Quebec, contacted by 20 Minutes . "People thought we were good friends," cowardly in the documentary Pat. The two women worked together for 26 years in an interior decoration company, without arousing suspicion.
Parallel life
But later, this secret ends up coming to light, slowly. First with the family, whose reaction is uneven. A niece welcomes this confidence with great simplicity, another considers herself "betrayed" by lying for years. "You're going to hurt our family," said Pat's brother, reports said. To protect themselves, the couple developed a parallel life with homosexual friends, whom the adored niece discovers with surprise by leafing through a photo album during the move. A string of unknown heads ... "It is as if the person has spent his whole life away from the family, and it is difficult to find proximity," explains Line Chamberland.
The interest of A Secret Love is also in that it explores a crossroads of discriminations, still little shown in films, series or on screens: homosexuality at an advanced age. Older lesbians have specific needs, which go beyond adding the needs of women and the elderly. For example, find a suitable retirement home that accepts couples of women. We read in Terry's eyes, during the first meeting with a specialized residence, a certain anxiety when asking: "Would this be accepted?" " "I always wonder if in the retirement home I will be able to put the photo of my ex-spouses," agrees Line Chamberland.
"We see very little older lesbians on the screen"
Members of the Gray Pride association, which campaigns for the creation of shared habitats between people of the same "affinities", Dominique Lefebvre and Valérie Guinoiseau, two women in their fifties and sixties, as a couple, who have watched the documentary, moreover find that it goes in their direction. And recognize themselves in this idea of an affinity family. "It is still very common to see our community affinities recreate a second family of belonging and it looks like this parallel life of Pat and Terry, I found that it was very true", judge Dominique Lefebvre, who is delighted like his companion that we show this category, hardly visible according to her.
There is no study measuring precisely the screen presence of older lesbians who declare themselves lesbian, but it is undoubtedly very low, if one relies on the one hand on data on the elderly, and on the other to those about lesbians or LGBT people on screen. On French television for example, people over 65 are very under-represented, according to the diversity barometer of the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel. Lesbians also “out”, if we are to believe the few existing studies, such as that of the Association of LGBT Journalists (AJL), on a subject that concerns them, however, the PMA.
But it is also precisely because of this secret, because for this generation, asserting one's identity was a lower priority than protecting oneself. Or as Line Chamberland puts it: “We see very little older lesbians on screen. It is a generation that is defined less by that than the generation that followed. "
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- Homosexuality
- The elderly
- LGBT
- Netflix
- Lesbian
- Television