• DOI:10.1080/07491409.2001.10162428
• Corpus ID: 143987600

A Wall on the Lesbian Continuum: Polysemy and Fried Green Tomatoes

@article{Rockler2001AWO,
  title={A Wall on the Lesbian Continuum: Polysemy and Fried Green Tomatoes},
  author={Naomi R. Rockler},
  journal={Women's Studies in Communication},
  year={2001},
  volume={24},
  pages={106 - 90}
}

• Naomi R. Rockler
• Published 22 March 2001
• Art
• Women's Studies in Communication

The film Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) uses a type of polysemy, strategic ambiguity, to transform a lesbian relationship from the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe to a sexually ambiguous relationship. Through textual and audience analysis, I demonstrate that audience members are unlikely to interpret the relationship as a lesbian relationship unless they define lesbianism as identity as opposed to merely as sexual behavior. Although the film illustrates the power of woman-identified experience, it rejects an opportunity to illustrate fully Adrienne Rich's (1986) “lesbian continuum” by refusing to compare explicitly a heterosexual female friendship with a lesbian relationship.