Celebrating Pride 2016 with LGBTQ DVDs: Toronto Public Library Supports the Rainbow Couch Potato
You likely know Toronto Public Library has a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Collection at the Yorkville Branch including books, magazines and DVDs. LGBT materials can also be found at all 100 TPL branches or brought to your local branch via our holds system. TPL annually compiles a recommended reading list and offers programs city wide, including a Pride Family Storytime, She Writes, A Proud Voice Event and youth programs.
Yorkville Branch (2014) Toronto Public Library front columns wrapped in rainbows
For many years in the 1990s and early 2000s the Library had a table at Pride where myself and many others gamely, albeit somewhat naively, tried to give out book lists and promote the collection. But, as more than one person said …"Do you see pockets on this outfit?"
Subsequently, Toronto Public Library, the staff Pride Alliance and our union Local CUPE 4948 started marching together in the parade. This was not just more fun, but our bookmobile and witty pun based signage proved a hit.
Toronto Public Library Pride Alliance at the 2015 Pride March
Toronto Public Library and CUPE Local 4948 march in Pride Parade 2013. copyright Two Aussies in Canada blog
And, in a mildly nerdish way, we even have a YouTube video from 2013 showing the TPL bookmobile as our "float". We're at minute 1.00 and going forward. We've had 74 views so far, so we're no threat to Madonna (hi Ab).
So, following the parade, the party and the after party etc we would like to suggest you go to your local library branch (there are 100 locations) or bookmobile stop and borrow some of the following DVDs (recommended by various Library staff and in no particular order – yes that is shockingly cavalier and random). Then sit yourself down on your couch, put your feet up for a well deserved rest and some enjoyable viewing.
Brenda recommended Cloudburst with Olympia Dukakis as a sweet, funny and raucous lesbian road trip movie. If you're interested in true life stories of what life used to be like for lesbians in Canada in the 1950s / 60s you may also enjoy Forbidden love the unashamed stories of lesbian lives. I'm also reminded of Ruthie and Connie about two Jewish lesbians who leave their husbands and go on to fight for marriage rights in the New York City.
Cloudbust: "Stella and Dot have been together for 31 years and have faithfully accompanied one another through life's ups and downs. Now in their seventies, Stella is hard of hearing and Dot is legally blind. Dotty's prudish granddaughter, Molly, decides the best place for Dot is a nursing home that will provide all the necessities. This forces Stella and Dot to make a bold decision: they will leave their hometown in Maine and make their way to Canada, where same-sex marriage is legal."
And speaking of older lesbians the following DVD really takes us back into history with The Oldest Lesbian in the World.
The Oldest Lesbian in the World: "Nearing 100 years old, a national treasure, Bobby Staff whimsically exposes a rare and revealing insight into the romantic life of a butch lesbian born in 1913. Accompanied by her long time friend, Sweet Baby J'ai, Bobbie takes us on a trip down a very steamy memory lane, through photographs and vivid memories of many decades living her life as an out lesbian in New York City and Los Angeles."
Something a bit edgier comes from MK who suggested filmmaker Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin. I recall seeing Araki's The Living End in 1992 when it came to the Carelton Cinema in the midst of the AIDS crisis. A sort of gay Thelma & Louise (funny how any road trip movie is now Thelma & Louise like – but this one really is) it also involves a homicide, and two HIV positive gay lovers on the lam. It's a powerful F-you to the world in a wildly funny subversive way.
Sephora suggested the lesbian romance When Night is Falling pointing out the lesbian lovers are not punished at the end for their love. She also liked the light comedy Jeffrey including actor Patrick Stewart from Star Trek.
Ab highly recommends Loose Cannons an Italian, English sub titled comedy that opened the Toronto Lesbian Gay Film Festival in 2011 about two brothers who both come out in a traditional /Italian family.
A couple of staff, including Jennifer, recommended Tomboy. While neither gay or lesbian it does speak to the fluidity of gender roles especially among the young and the risks of gender non conformity. The documentary Growing Up Trans looks at the struggles (and joys) of transgender kids and their paren'ts. There are many more DVDs on gender identity that you can also explore at the Library. For an interesting take on fluid gender you might also enjoy Tilda Swinton in Virginia Woolf's Orlando.
Tomboy: "Laure is 10 years old and a tomboy. On arrival in a new neighbourhood, she lets Lisa and her crowd believe that she is a boy. Summer becomes a big playground and Laure pretends to be Michael, a boy like the others, different enough to get the attention of Lisa, who falls in love with him. Laure takes advantage of her new identity as if the end of the summer would never reveal her unsettling secret."
Felicity Huffman in Transamerica, portrays a conservative transsexual who unexpectedly finds out she has a teenage son. In Patrik 1.5 a gay couple who think they are adopting a baby find themselves with a sullen, homophobic 15 year old teenage boy.
The "ex gay" movement comedy satire But I'm a Cheerleader also got a nod.
Irene liked Dutch film Antonia's Line won'the 1996 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the TIFF People's Choice award. Set in rural Holland post WW2 it portrays rural life with as seen through "pink" coloured glasses.
And Amanda B. spoke highly of film maker Deepa Mehta's Fire, Earth and Water.
More and more gay and lesbian films are making into the mainstream. Both cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain (with Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) and 1950s New York Carol (with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara) are so well known they really need no introduction.
At the cottage last year I watched Last Summer which was an unexpectedly sweet film about two teenagers in love in small town USA. This elegiac movie looks at their relationship not going through the angst of being gay, but rather the angst of one leaving town for university and one staying. The cinematography is especially beautiful. My husband Richard wanted to recommend Do I Sound Gay, which includes the very funny Margaret Cho.
More gritty and cutting edge, and not just for being filmed on a iPhone 5s smartphone, Tangerine follows transexual Sin-Dee searching for her cheating pimp fiance boyfriend. This is an eye opening film about love, friendship, prostitution, being in the closet, being out of the closet and the colors of Los Angeles. Not for the faint of heart.
If you're looking for a bit of history you might like this documentary and also this feature on Harvey Milk.
To know one's history is to know one's roots:
And for some more specific lesbian herstory:
And though invisibility, oppression, bias and even hate are often the foundation of our history and to varying degrees our present, some communities face additional challenges based on race or religion:
![The Same Difference DVD Nneka Onuorah, Black Lesbian film maker, shines a light on the all-too-often ignored problem of homophobia and gender discrimination within the black lesbian community. Onuorah's fascinating and original documentary examines what happens when lesbians discriminate against each other over violations of the strict code that separates butches from femmes. The film examines how these behaviors reproduce the homophobic oppression and masculine privilege of the straight world, while looking for solutions in compelling discussions with community members. Self-identified studs - and the women who love them - discuss hypocrisy in terms of gender roles, performative expectations, and the silent disciplining that occurs within the community. [...] The Same Difference highlights relationships and experiences within the queer female community, intersecting race, gender and sexuality"](https://blogs.tpl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/6a0120a5df3e15970c01b7c874d6b5970b-500wi.png "The Same Difference DVD Nneka Onuorah, Black Lesbian film maker, shines a light on the all-too-often ignored problem of homophobia and gender discrimination within the black lesbian community. Onuorah's fascinating and original documentary examines what happens when lesbians discriminate against each other over violations of the strict code that separates butches from femmes. The film examines how these behaviors reproduce the homophobic oppression and masculine privilege of the straight world, while looking for solutions in compelling discussions with community members. Self-identified studs - and the women who love them - discuss hypocrisy in terms of gender roles, performative expectations, and the silent disciplining that occurs within the community. [...] The Same Difference highlights relationships and experiences within the queer female community, intersecting race, gender and sexuality\"")
The Same Difference DVD by director Nneka Onuorah
This is just a sample of what we have in Toronto Public Library. Not all feature films come with subject headings so it's difficult to pull a complete list together. But if you're interested in further material, you could try these two searches:
19 thoughts on “Celebrating Pride 2016 with LGBTQ DVDs: Toronto Public Library Supports the Rainbow Couch Potato”
The gays certainly know how to celebrate their freedom in politically and corporately subsidized parades and mandatory acknowledgement periods that exceed a month out of every year. The coming decades will reveal how willing they are to fight for that freedom when the inevitable clampdown occurs. My guess is not much,because they’re so fat, comfortable and decadent, but I may be wrong.
Hi Joe O’Neill, thanks for reading the blog post and for taking the time to comment.
For folks interested in Gay/Lesbian history “Coming Out Under Fire: the history of Gay Men and Women in WW II” is a great DVD and a book too.
http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/search.jsp?Ntt=coming+out+under+fire+berube
The “Stonewall” and “Screaming queens the riot at Compton’s Cafeteria” talk about some of the early riots and violent confrontations between the gay community (in particular drag queens) and the police.
As well, folks may be interested in “Beyond gay the politics of pride” described as “Before throwing Vancouver’s 30th anniversary Gay Pride Festival, Parade Director Ken Coolen is on a mission to understand the role of Pride, and make it matter. He and his colleagues are traveling around the world to places where Pride is still steeped in protest to personally experience the real oppression that still exists…. Pride is now a global fight for human rights.”
http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM2938718&R=2938718
or
“After Stonewall from the riots to the millennium”:
In 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, leading to three nights of rioting by the city’s gay community. With this outpouring of courage and unity the Gay Liberation Movement had begun. Chronicles the history of lesbian and gay life from the riots at Stonewall to the end of the century. Captures the hard work, struggles, tragic defeats and exciting victories experienced since then.
http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM2678273&R=2678273
I had forgotten to link to the main Pride Month website and the many diverse events that were available in Toronto so here’s the link to their events page. They have a wide variety of lectures, parties, parades, talks, picnics etc with something that could appeal to just about anyone.
http://www.pridetoronto.com/pride-month/
I noticed there is a “Bear Garden” party on Saturday July 2nd – to quote them “The bear subculture grew out of wanting to celebrate our bodies and resistance to impossible standards. Check out the diverse and still-expanding range of who’s who in the zoo”. Issues about body size and shapes are definitely on the Pride radar.
http://www.pridetoronto.com/pride-month/events/bear-garden/
To my surprise, the DVDs listed here are a reasonably representative selection. I note that at least four of these titles exist in the library system only because I filed blue suggestion forms for them, as I have for about 90 other gay and lesbian (not “LGBT”) titles.
https://tplfans.wordpress.com/suggested/#G
You’re welcome.
At this point everyone who ever wanted to watch _Brokeback Mountain_ has done so. It is a cultural touchstone in the way that, say, _Crash_ is not. Of greater interest is _Brokeback Mountain: An Opera in Two Acts_, which was popular enough that TPL had to buy more copies.
http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?R=3357039
TPL put a lot of effort into getting _Paragraph 175_ into the system. It’s not as good as one would hope. I assume its high cost was subsidized by the bequest for “LGBT” materials that TPL rarely talks about yet has at its disposal to spend.
Still, before we get too self-congratulatory, TPL banned a gay-male author (which one?) and still refuses to buy _United in Anger: A History of ACT UP_ despite two blue-form submissions and despite the likelihood it will soon go out of print.
Hi Joe Clark, thanks for taking the time to read the blog post and to comment. If you’re moved to do so, please share the post on your own social media channels. Happy Pride.
Lots of terrific films on this list, some among my faves, and some I’m putting holds on now. You’ve also made me remember one I hadn’t thought about in years: DESERT HEARTS, a 1985 romance about a buttoned-down professor (Helen Shaver) who travels to Reno to get a quickie divorce and falls for a free-spirited casino worker (Patricia Charbonneau). It’s such a sweet film. Plus it has one of the best love scenes of all time – gay or straight. Based on the 1964 book DESERT OF THE HEART by Jane Rule.
The DVD of Desert Hearts can be reserved here:
http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM2678293&R=2678293
and the book here:
http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM691253&R=691253
I’m so old I remember when Jane Rule was really the only lesbian author in Canada (and it meant more when Canadian content was important!)
bill v.
Great list, Bill! Fantastic resource.
I would like to add the 2014 “Pride” – where labour and pride join forces to fight the right-wing agenda in Thatcher’s England.
The North York Central Library Film Club screened this to a full house and cheers. Those who lived in England during the 80s shared with us some of their own recollections. You can reserve the DVD here:
http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM3207349&R=3207349
Lots of great recs on here! I’d like to also suggest Circumstance — it’s an Iranian film that explores the relationship between two girls and shows a modern-day Iran that perhaps many don’t get to see.
The library has a few copies on DVD: http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM2831699&R=2831699
Thanks for reading the blog and your suggested title.
Thanks for reading the blog and your suggested title (it’s a feel good movie with a great soundtrack too!).
Bill — Thanks for a very interesting and diverse list of options. also thanks for your efforts in the “early” years with staffing tables at Pride. May I also recommend “Tales of the City” by Armistead Maupin. The book was made into a PBS series by American Playhouse. When Tales was first released, it was banned on many Southern U.S. PBS stations. It is set in 1970’s San Francisco, and gay, straight, bi, confused, black, white, transgender, rich, poor, old and young all thrive.
Joe — Pride parades, or “gay liberation protests,” as they were first called, have been critical to bringing about LGBT rights. I do feel that the initial, main focus as a call for equality for all LGBT people has been lost somewhat. I take great exception to members of the LGBT community being categorized as fat, comfortable and decadent. If you don’t think the “fight for that freedom” is still going on throughout the world, you are delusional. Try taking a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBT_rights_organizations to see an incomplete list of civil rights organizations throughout the world and research what they are doing.
Joe — Thank you for filing a blue suggestion form. However, do you really think that you are the only reason that these titles exist in the library system? Do you really think that nobody else has filed a form for any of the titles you requested? Do you think that no staff members have advocated for these titles? What about all of the people who make donations to support the library system? The list goes on and on…
Did you really mean to insult the writer of this blog, and the Toronto Public Library staff, in general, with your comment, “To my surprise, the DVDs listed here are a reasonably representative selection”? I certainly hope not. I find Bill V. to be an insightful writer, and have been most impressed with the Toronto Public Library staff as a whole.
Thank you for compiling this list! In the warm afterglow of Pride 2016, you might be interested in my own list of East Asian gay films/series with happy endings 🙂
https://yamadayugifan.wordpress.com/2016/05/19/yaoi-live-action-films-and-series-from-east-asia-with-happy-endings-and-english-subtitles-2/
That’s a great list you’ve compiled – thank you for sharing it.
> [D]o you really think that you are the only reason that
> these titles exist in the library system?
I know that for a fact.
> Did you really mean to insult the writer of this blog, and the
> Toronto Public Library staff, in general, with your comment, “To
> my surprise, the DVDs listed here are a reasonably representative
> selection”?
I really meant to express my surprise. I find your outrage ersatz at best.
How do you know that no other patron or library staff member requested that title? Did you actually purchase the items yourself? If not, you are not the only reason these titles exist in the library system.
By writing you were surprised, you indicate that it was “an unexpected or astonishing event” thereby indicating that the staff would not normally act in such an inclusive way.
I was not outraged by your comments so much as I was appalled by your grandiosity. Typically such narcissism is only seen in infants or those with a mental disorder.
> Typically such narcissism is only seen in infants or those with a mental disorder.
It’s actually self-confidence (try it sometime) that is, moreover, backed up by experience and fact.
I’m sure you’re tons of fun at the many parties to which you are invited. Meanwhile, please enjoy the gay and lesbian titles the library holds purely at my behest.