ABSTRACT
With Ellen, Rosie, kd, Jenny Shimizu, Bound (Andy and Larry Wachowski, 1996), and Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven, 1995) in the limelight, the 1990s brought lesbianism in vogue and into the mainstream cultural consciousness at a rate until then unprecedented. Simultaneously, two struggling straight actresses taking a writing workshop in New York were dabbling in a little lesbian work of their own. Frustrated with the trials and tribulations of professional acting, Jennifer Westerfeldt and Heather Juergensen would go on to write and produce the 1997 off-off-Broadway play Lipschtick, a chronicle of the frustrating dating scene in New York City. A single vignette from that piece would ultimately furnish the premise for one of the top mainstream lesbian films of the millennium’s turn: Kissing Jessica Stein (Charles Herman-Wurmfeld, 2001) (KJS).
