Carey Mulligan Stars in SNL's 'Sad Flirting' Lesbian Period Drama

SNL waded into discussions among queer people about the value of lesbian period pieces while skewering Ammonite and Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Tracy E. Gilchrist

Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP of Editorial and Special Projects at equalpride. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.

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Tracy E. Gilchrist

April 11 2021 2:49 PM EST

April 11 2021 10:07 PM EST

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Who knows if it's the repression, the fetish costumes that include corsets and hosiery, or simply the chance to tell a story of early forbidden love, but Hollywood and plenty of independent producers love to set stories about queer women in the past. Queer women in bodices have proliferated of late in Ammonite and Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Now Saturday Night Live has skewered the tendency of Hollywood to cast straight actors to play queer women in stories set in past centuries (although Portrait is written and directed by Celine Sciamma, a lesbian, and stars a queer woman, Adele Haenel)with a sketch starring guest host Carey Mulligan and Heidi Gardner in SNL's version of the Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan starrer Ammonite.

The faux trailer begins with Beck Bennett dropping his wife off with an older woman at the seaside, citing that he's leaving her there because she's a "bummer."

"Starring two actresses who dared not to wear makeup, 12 lines of dialogue, two-and-a-half-hour runtime," the voice-over states.

"Watch in heated anticipation as they round all the bases like grazing fingers, washing carrots, and fast, aggressive this [as the camera pulls out to show a pulled focus sex scene]," the narration continues.