While scrolling through the MDC Wolfson archive after searching for queer keywords like “gay” and “lesbian,” it is difficult not to notice the predominance of film and media capturing raids on gay bars in places like Miami Beach, or to notice the rampant fear-mongering rhetoric repeated throughout numerous recorded homophobic speeches.
Among all these recordings of gay and lesbian rights protests, there is a silent short film that predates the majority of the queer archive by several decades.
Florida Enchantment, produced by Vitagraph Films in 1914, is a silent film comedy set in and filmed in Florida (Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and St. Petersburg), and is considered one of the earliest depictions of homosexuality in American culture. The 1 hour 40-minute comedy is notably silly and lighthearted, following a newlywed Northern woman, Lillian, who visits her aunt in Florida and comes across a pack of seeds that claim that, if eaten, will give women masculine qualities and men feminine qualities. Of course, Lillian eats the seeds and is turned into a butch lesbian.
What follows are multiple scenes of Lillian repeatedly and successfully flirting with and charming the women around her.
This includes humorous scenes such as Lillian stealing the women dance partners from men (17:05) and her being incredibly flustered when asked to help remove her friend’s dress before sleeping (21:10). Other characters are also portrayed eating the seeds, including Lillian’s maid (portrayed in blackface), also becoming a lesbian, as well as Lillian’s husband, Fred, who eats the seeds in disbelief and is turned into a flamboyant gay man. Lillian’s character is an incredibly uncommon depiction for the time period in how she constantly pushes against the men around her and is confident rather than passive, which was the usual role of women in media during and well after the 1920s.
Florida Enchantment
The film is based on an 1891 novel and 1896 play written by Fergus Redmond and Archibald Clavering Gunter, with both media being lost today. “Gender inversion” was a popular concept during the early 1900s and was commonly explored in plays and literature. After its release, the film was received negatively by critics, with Variety saying the film should have “never been put out” and The New York Times describing the play adaptation as “vile stuff.”
This film was released before there were censorship laws like the Hays Code that would later prevent the release of films like this that, while using humorous means and guises of doing so, still captured queerness. This film also predates widespread American moral panic regarding queerness and its “spread” being why this topic was possible for exploration in this film.
Despite the silly and humorous tone of the film, it presents a largely unheard-of theme in early queer depictions in media, being that the queer characters’ relationships and identities are shown as lighthearted, playful, and without persecution. A trait that largely contradicts the majorly negative portrayals and handling of queerness in the decades to come and furthers this film’s legacy as not only one of the earliest depictions of queerness in American media but also one that is largely positive.
