Queer Cinema World Tour is our regular feature taking you to destinations behind your favourite LGBTQ2S+ film moments. This week we visit Northern Nevada, the setting for 1985’s Desert Hearts.
Starting in the early 20th century, Reno, Nevada, developed a reputation as an easy place for Americans to get a divorce. Just six weeks of residency provided access to the state’s no-fault divorce system, which was especially appealing for women who did not want to go through the process required in most other states of proving abuse, cruelty or infidelity. Casinos be damned, the place was a passage to emancipation.
So the scenario for 1985’s Desert Hearts, an adaptation of Canadian writer Jane Rule’s debut novel Desert of the Heart, written in 1964, is entirely believable: protagonist Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver) is an English professor who would have had the education to navigate the system and the income to afford living a month and a half in another state. But it will remain a mystery how, in this 1959 period piece, without being able to Google “sapphic divorce adventure horses,” Vivian managed to find an (almost) all-women ranch where she could wait out the paperwork.
Of course, a younger bohemian-rambunctious-rebellious-free-spirited [insert your own queer code word here] sculptor named Cay Rivers, played by Patricia Charbonneau, takes an interest in the repressed prof. The nature of their relationship attracts the ire—jealousy, to be honest—of ranch boss Frances Parker (Audra Lindley). “You should button yourself up. The professor don’t need to see your business popping through,” Frances tells Cay one night on a sofa as she fussily does the buttoning herself.
Viewers can tell Vivian is into it when she stops wearing beautifully tailored jackets and starts wearing a shiny cowboy shirt.
Desert Hearts was a landmark in many ways, a wide-release Hollywood film (though on a very tight budget) that treated lesbian love romantically, without being sensational, salacious or tragic. It was directed by a woman, out lesbian Donna Deitch, and adapted from a serious novel by an out lesbian. (The leads were straight but Shaver had, a few years earlier, done a turn in Outrageous!, one of the first gay-themed films to receive a wide theatrical release in the U.S. Lindley became best known for playing Mrs. Roper on the TV series Three’s Company.)
The film’s most iconic scene is probably when Cay takes a tipsy Vivian to the gorgeous Pyramid Lake, less than an hour’s drive outside Reno, where they share a passionate kiss against a desert landscape.
Certainly, Pyramid Lake is remote enough for anyone to have their own queer kind of fun there without bothering anybody.
But drive directly north for another hour and a half and you’re in Black Rock City, the “temporary metropolis” that’s Burning Man, an arts-technology-community-festival-happening that attracts an inordinate amount of queer people each year (this year August 27 to September 4). Though Vivian would probably be too uptight to check it out, Cay would be very comfortable in Burning Man’s 7:30 sector, known for its LGBTQ2S+ nightlife, or right at home in the 4:30 sector, which is more queer countercultural.
Burning Man lasts only a week. Northern Nevada Pride takes place in late July, this year on July 22. The Artown cultural festival, which would surely interest a sculptor, takes place each year in late July. What does Northern Nevada have in store for Vivian and Cay—and you—the rest of the year?
Though Las Vegas is the Nevada city that gets all the attention, it’s almost a seven-hour drive from Reno. (San Francisco, four hours away, is closer.). A city of about 280,000, the municipality scored 100 out of a possible 100 points on the Human Rights Campaign’s 2022 Municipal Equality Index. There are statewide statutes that explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, while the city itself has policies and programs around youth bullying, LGBTQ2S+ homelessness, LGBTQ2S+ older adults, people living with HIV/AIDS and the trans community. There’s an LGBTQ2S+ liaison in the police department and openly queer and trans elected officials. None of this, of course, will get Cay out of the careless-driving tickets she deserves.
Reno also has Our Center (1745 South Wells Ave., Reno), which provides an array of services to the LGBTQ2S+ people of Northern Nevada. For her comments like, “I can’t claim angel’s wings, but I am normal,” perhaps Frances could have sought some counselling here.
A night out in Reno might include some dancing at 5 Star Saloon (132 West St., Reno), which has been operating since 1971; they’ve got karaoke on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with retro music on the weekends. Carl’s—The Saloon (3310 S. Virginia St., Reno) never charges cover.
Vivian’s certainly not a late-night party person, so she would perhaps be more interested in the monthly drag brunch at Café Whitney (255 N. Virginia St., Reno). The café is located in the Whitney Peak Hotel, which bills itself as Reno’s only non-gaming non-smoking independent hotel. It’s a sponsor of Pride, and slaps the rainbow flag on its website for Pride month, so Vivian and Cay could have checked in here to escape Frances’s judgment and jealousy.
Reno is not all casinos. The city does have some high-brow culture that Vivian might have liked. The Nevada Museum of Art has featured work by queer and trans visual artists; the exhibit Atlantica, The Gilda Region, by interdisciplinary artist April Bey, is on display there until February 4, 2024.
Despite the personal revelations Vivian has while at the ranch, she decides, when her divorce is finalized, to go back to New York City. Cay comes to the train station to say goodbye. While Cay is talking mockingly about honeymoons, Vivian tells her, under her breath, “Come with me.”
“Could you just picture me with your set?” says Cay.
“If you want a sure thing, stay in Reno,” replies Vivian. “But you deserve to live with—or near—someone who sees how wonderful you are, for exactly who you are.”
Cay hops on the train to New York at the last possible moment. They got lucky in Reno, but the two women left while they were ahead.
Twenty years before Brokeback Mountain, Desert Hearts brought same-sex lovers together in a closeted era and in beautiful, rugged landscape, but allowed the protagonists to talk more openly about their dreams and desires, let them be themselves and let them have a happy ending. If that doesn’t make Reno worth visiting, I don’t know what does.
