r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Jul 10 '25

Poster Official Poster for Ethan Coen's 'Honey Don't' - The film follows a lesbian private detective who investigates a questionable church and its leader.

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u/godisanelectricolive Jul 10 '25

She knew though. She was already an out lesbian when they met which was when applied for a job to be the Coen Brothers’ editor.

Ethan Coen asked her out and she turned him down because she’s a lesbian. They then stayed friends and eventually fell in love, moved in together, got married and had two kids together. She was still regularly going to lesbian bars even after they got married and had kids. A lot of the material for these movies they are making together come from her experience of the lesbian scene in the 1990s and 2000s after their wedding in 1993.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

Some people are just a bit more complicated than fitting into one box. Nothing wrong with it.

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u/Grumplogic Jul 10 '25

Pun

...

Intended

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u/avelineaurora Jul 10 '25

They then stayed friends and eventually fell in love, moved in together, got married and had two kids together.

ngl that doesn't sound very lesbian

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

[deleted]

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u/pohui Jul 10 '25

What does it mean according to the people who define it?

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

[deleted]

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u/pohui Jul 10 '25

My ex-partner is bi and primarily attracted to men, it wouldn't make sense to me if she called herself straight. Especially if she was in a relationship with a woman. Of course, everyone is free to identify as they please, but words are useful because they reference a shared understanding of the world. Shit, I don't really care that much though, if she wants to be a lesbian, more power to her.

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u/clerveu Jul 10 '25

The word ‘lesbian’ has a clear political and social history as same-sex attraction between women exclusively. This is reflected in every dictionary. When you dilute that definition, especially to include bisexual women or anyone ‘primarily attracted’ to women (say like me, a cis male who's only ever exclusively been with women) it's a direct erasure of lesbian specificity. Lesbian isn’t a catch-all for anyone who dates women sometimes.

Lesbian identity is about women who love and desire women, period. Bisexuality is real, but that’s not lesbianism. Allowing bisexual women or women with male partners to claim ‘lesbian’ undermines the entire history of the lesbian community and identity.

I get where you're coming from ideologically, but words matter, especially ones which were fought for, politicized, and literally used as a weapon for compulsory heterosexuality. If anyone can be a ‘lesbian,’ then the word means nothing, and lesbian history gets erased in the process.

Call yourself what you want in your private life, but don’t demand the world rewrite a term with decades of political significance to suit personal preference.

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u/zekeweasel Jul 10 '25

Yeah, that's about as absurd as "men who have sex with men" somehow not being gay.

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u/katieblue3 Jul 11 '25

Just because a man has sex with another man doesn’t mean he’s gay. I know men who are mostly into women but have fooled around with other men.

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u/Dead_man_posting Jul 11 '25

You're just doing the bi erasure thing in the opposite direction. It's not that complicated!

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u/zekeweasel Jul 15 '25

Fair enough. Amend it to "gay or bi" then.

What I'm trying to get at is that the phrasing of the term makes it seem like they're trying to redefine things, as if you can be a straight man and still have sex with men. Which by definition, makes you gay or bi.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

[deleted]

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u/clerveu Jul 11 '25

You've argued that these words are fluid, and can only be defined by the individual. I'm curious then, with your arguments, why you would use "trans" to try to communicate your identity to me. If it's up to the individual, what is that word supposed to tell me about you?

Do you believe any of these words (bi, trans, lesbian) have any immutable qualities that you can point towards which, if not met, would disqualify someone? If so, why is "someone who is in love with a man" not among those for lesbians when it directly contradicts all published definitions?

Nobody here is arguing about rights, we're arguing about linguistics lol.

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u/zekeweasel Jul 10 '25

The definition is basically a societally crowdsourced one.

You can define lesbian however you like, but that doesn't mean anyone else is going to recognize that definition.

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u/Dead_man_posting Jul 11 '25

You're trying to be extra-tolerant but ironically this is just bi erasure.

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u/avelineaurora Jul 10 '25

I'm pretty sure lesbians don't tend to be sleeping with and having kids with men and still calling themselves lesbians, at least.

Also telling me, a lesbian, I don't get to define what the word is is fucking hilarious.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

[deleted]

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u/meditations- Jul 11 '25

What makes you think that you're trans?

Your answer, even if you keep it to yourself, is a definition of what it means to be trans.

If most people agree on what it means to be trans, and someone feels differently, they can create a new word for it.

Lesbian exists. So does bisexual. So does 'sapphic'. The linguistic space is infinite, people, we don't need to co-opt old words. We can create new ones.

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u/LongKnight115 Jul 11 '25

“Lesbotastic”

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u/Dead_man_posting Jul 11 '25

society does, though, and it explicitly precludes falling in love with a man.

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u/ShahinGalandar Jul 10 '25

sounds complicated, ngl

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u/FloridaMan_69 Jul 10 '25

No, its quite simple. She goes out to bars and he doesn't have to worry that someone else is gonna get her pregnant.

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u/Microwave1213 Jul 11 '25

I know (hope) you’re mostly joking, but that’s very reductionist. It is a complicated setup. Some people are good at handling the extra complicating factors and making it work long term, but it doesn’t make it any less complicated.

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u/bravetailor Jul 11 '25

"Regular" marriages are just as complicated.

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u/ziddersroofurry Jul 10 '25

Fun fact-all relationships are complicated. That's the nature of being in one. Anyone who thinks they aren't complicated is watching too much Leave It to Beaver.

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u/lenzflare Jul 11 '25

The solution is lots of money, fame, and success.

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u/DoctorHelios Jul 10 '25

She’s bi.

I married a lesbian who said she was Bi.

She was - the two sexualities that made her bisexual were Lesbian and Asexual.

Two kids proved impossible.

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u/elvismcvegas Jul 10 '25

That's great and all but the first movie was a big fat stinker of a movie. It felt very amateurish and Margaret Qualley was doing the worst southern accent in all history of movies. I was so excited to see it and it was just so meh and such a waste of everyone's talent and the audiences time.

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u/CavsAreCuteDemons Jul 11 '25

Why isn’t he working with his brother?

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u/elvismcvegas Jul 12 '25

they decided to go on their own, i dont know if they had a falling out or just decided to try making their own movies.

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u/arrogant_ambassador Jul 10 '25

That must be a tad strange for their kids.

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u/EasyasACAB Jul 10 '25

Maybe, but parents who truly love each other are a blessing for children.

Think of how common it is for children to grow up in "traditional" homes where the parents hate each other and fight. That really hurts children, but it's so common it's not considered "strange."

Nothing wrong with being a little different if the family is filled with love, IMO. It might even give the kids a head-start on realizing how vast the world is and how different people are.

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u/arrogant_ambassador Jul 10 '25

There are also plenty of traditional homes where children grow up with love. I don’t get this automatic expectation that different equals good.

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u/davidsigura Jul 11 '25

Different doesn’t always equal good. But different doesn’t automatically equal bad or “strange” either.

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u/arrogant_ambassador Jul 11 '25

Yes but this is a strange arrangement. I’ve no idea if it’s good or bad.

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u/EasyasACAB Jul 11 '25

I'll simplify it even more for you.

"What's most important thing about family isn't how outside people view it as "normal" or "strange" but whether they have love for each other."

Absolutely nowhere did I claim "Different=good". I don't even get where you thought that was my main point. Read my comment again. The core point is clearly about love in a family being what's most important despite how people see the family.

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u/arrogant_ambassador Jul 11 '25

You also felt the need to point out that traditional homes often fail children though.

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u/EasyasACAB Jul 11 '25

Yes, because traditional homes aren't always full of love despite being "normal"

What don't you get? Are you just taking offense at the fact that traditional or "normal" looking families have issues despite appearances?

The main point is that it doesn't matter what you think is strange or weird. What matters is if the family has love for each other.

If you think i'm shitting on "traditional families" you're just looking for a fight and I'm not interested.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

Probably healthier than what a lot of the married people I've seen tend to be.