Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)

Mary-Louise Parker and Mary Stuart Masterson are subtextual sapphics in Director Jon Avnet's 1991 film adaptation of FRIED GREEN TOMATOES.

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES

1991. USA.

Director: Jon Avnet

Screenplay: Fannie Flagg & Carol Sobieski

Based on: “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café” (1987) by Fannie Flagg

Starring: Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary-Louise Parker, Cicely Tyson, Stan Shaw, Lois Smith & Chris O’Donnell

In FRIED GREEN TOMATOES, Evelyn (Kathy Bates) strikes up a friendship with Ninny (Jessica Tandy), an elderly woman in a nursing home, who tells her stories of the people who used to live in a town called Whistle Stop. The two women Ninny speaks of the most are Ruth (Parker) and Idgie (Masterson) who used to run the Whistle Stop Café.

In the original book by Fannie Flagg, 1987’s “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café,” Ruth and Idgie are lesbians. In the 1991 film their relationship became sapphic subtext.

This was fairly common in Hollywood film adaptations; even as recently as the early 2000s, studios would water down queer stories from their original source material and either make the characters straight, cut them out completely, or turn to queer-coding.

Mary Louise Parker stated to AfterEllen in 2008 that she tried to make the lesbian relationship more apparent:

"I really tried to push it at the time, and they didn't want to go there with me. Mary Stuart did, Fannie Flagg did, but not the director, not the producer, nobody else."

Despite the obstacles in their path, both Masterson and Parker undeniably succeeded in adding to the film’s subtext. Their lingering glances and on screen chemistry helped turn FRIED GREEN TOMATOES into the queer classic it is today.

You can find FRIED GREEN TOMATOES streaming on Netflix and Tubi (Canada) and itvX (UK), for rent/purchase on AppleTV & Amazon, and also available on DVD/Blu-ray.