The documentary Ahead of the Curve shows that unapologetic representation and visibility in media matters. In 1990 Curve Magazine was created. Its founder, Franco Stevens, never saw any representation of queer women growing up—she didn’t even know it was possible for women to be gay. She changed all that.
This month see how the world’s bestselling lesbian magazine became a transformational space and the foundation of many intersectional movements today.
who
Franco Stevens
Founder, Curve Magazine; Co-Founder The Curve Foundation; lead cast, AHEAD OF THE CURVE and the 2022 recipient of the GLAAD Barbara Giddings Media Award for Excellence in LGBTQ Media in 2022
Dr. Jen Rainin
Director & Co-Producer, AHEAD OF THE CURVE; launched the Kenneth Rainin Foundation in 2008 and has served as CEO to enhance quality of life by championing the arts, promoting early childhood literacy, and supporting research to cure chronic disease.
Rivkah Beth Medow
Producer & Co-Director, AHEAD OF THE CURVE; Emmy-award winning filmmaker and photographer; strong social/environmental justice river winds its way through each of her projects.
Andrea Pino-Silva
Gender and Inequality Scholar, Policy and Communications Consultant; featured cast and Impact Producer, AHEAD OF THE CURVE
We are delighted to bring together filmmakers Dr. Jen Rainin and Rivkah Beth Medow
with Curve Magazine founder Frances “Franco” Stevens in conversation with Andrea Pino-Silva.
The Journey of This Documentary
Jen Rainin shares the genesis story of making Ahead of the Curve and Franco Stevens offers her reflections on how her disability impacted Curve magazine, the completion of this documentary, and establishing The Curve Foundation.
Representation, Language, and Seeing Queer Women in Film
Andrea Pino-Silva speaks with co-directors Jen Rainin and Rivkah Beth Medow about how critical and affirming it is to include content on queer women in higher education settings.
Who Tells Whose Stories
Two of the cast, Andrea Pino-Silva, and Franco Stevens, reflect on how important it is to have people from the community be part of the process to ensure authentic storytelling and how much these stories impact, and in the case of Curve magazine, save people’s lives.
A study of four lesbian periodicals argues that lesbian publications were labors of love and were rarely financially secure, although they were often tied to politically active organizations and provided social connections and essential support systems for individual lesbians.
Art by leading and little-known lesbian artists, both contemporary and historical, circulated in lesbian magazines, helped create and define lesbian existence in various dimensions in the 20th century and reveals how lesbian identities were formed and supported.
How can a moment on screen be blindsiding, yet also completely expected? This may seem like an impossible riddle, but the simple sickening answer came to many fans during last year's episode of The CW show The 100.
Although depictions of queer and trans people were often used for laughs or not explicitly stated as being gay, onscreen representation of the LGBTQ+ community has a long, complicated, and often coded history.
"Geek" became a cool term for computer savvy, but socially inept people; "queer" came about as a derogatory term for a homosexual, but was embraced by some in the nonheterosexual community.
From suffragette to queer, the pejorative force of words can change. But reclaiming them has had mixed success
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