Now you tell me, Lisa

From Changing Times for Lesbians on Film, an article at AfterEllen.com:

Angela Robinson's 2004 film, D.E.B.S., which had a $3.5 million production budget, only grossed approximately $96,800 theatrically. In a panel discussion titled "Celluloid Sisters: Why Queer Women Need to Make More Movies" at the Queer Media and Entertainment Conference (Q-Me Con) in Los Angeles on April 15, Lisa Thrasher, POWER UP's President of Film Production and Distribution, noted that D.E.B.S. was never marketed to a gay audience — despite the fact that a lesbian romance is at the heart of the film.

Thrasher believes that the film's distributor didn't understand how to properly position the film. "They just didn't get it," she said. "They really, I think, were afraid to have anybody know it was a gay film. They were really dancing around the issue; they were really trying to push it for a teen audience."

FWIW, I think Thrasher herself is dancing around the fact that the film got pretty uniformly bad reviews and IMO deservedly so. D.E.B.S was a short first and a very good one, both sexy and funny. The full-length movie isn't enough of either of those things. But, onward...

"For a women's film to do well money-wise, there needs to be an additional issue at stake in the script," advised Thrasher. "It can't just be a lesbian love story."

Now you tell me, Lisa.

All the women on the Q-Me Con panel emphasized the importance of storytelling. "We need to write good scripts," Thrasher said. "If you're not a writer, hire a writer."

I know a good one who'd probably be willing to work cheap.

And what makes a good script? [Out lesbian filmmaker J.D.] Disalvatore quipped: "I need my plot points;

Check.

I need my conflict;

Check.

I need a little comedy

Check.

and a little skin."

Clunk. (That sound you hear is my head hitting the desk)

Tell me if this strikes anyone else as at least mildly ironic. I'm a straight guy trying to get a comic romance done that happens to involve a couple of lesbians, who are treated completely non-exploitatively.

Truly, I wouldn't allow anything else. I protect those girls like they were my children.

And here's a lesbian filmmaker basically saying Can we have peekaboo shots for the trailers, girls?