Single White Female (1992)

After protagonist Allie catches her boyfriend cheating, she decides to embrace singledom and take on a roommate. She interviews multiple queer-coaded candidates that the movie seems to think are “weird” until Hedy shows up. Jennifer Jason Leigh’s performance as Hedy makes her kind, helpful, unassuming, and immediately Allie feels at ease. Hedy may seem innocent, but soon she’s crossing boundaries all over the place, and grows jealous when Allie reunites with her boyfriend. Things escalate wildly, it’s a blast, the fashion is belted jackets and mini skirts, and someone even gets killed with a stiletto!

So many thrillers from the 80’s and 90’s involve some kind of ~ s e x u a l ~ deviance (Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, etc) and Single White Female is no different. Though not the most egregious example of queer villainy, the movie definitely equates sapphic lust with manipulation and deciept. And tbh, Allie kinda sucks. She takes on a roommate to satisfy her own whim, and though she mopes about her stupid boyfriend (honey, he cheated, he lied!), Hedy is working her hardest to survive while serving cottage-core realness. So what if she stole your haircut, Allie, it looks better on Hedy anyway!

The movie is based off the thriller novel “SWF seeks same” — yikes! However at the time of it’s release, no one really criticized the title’s implicit rascism. Instead, people were upset about White Men Can’t Jump, also released that year, for being racist… against white people 🤦‍♀️ 30 years later, nothing has changed, time is a flat circle.
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