Ghosted Desires: Lesbian Spectrality and Neoliberal Resistance in Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women (2016)

Abstract

Western cinema has long struggled with the representation of lesbian identity, often reinforcing tropes of erasure, invisibility, and marginalization. Certain Women (2016), directed by Kelly Reichardt, disrupts these conventions by employing slow cinema aesthetics and embracing the concept of the apparitional lesbian. This paper examines the film through Terry Castle’s theory of lesbian spectrality, Patricia White’s notion of lesbian minor cinema, and Heather Love’s concept of feeling backward. The film’s narrative, centered on the unspoken attraction between Jamie (Lily Gladstone) and Beth (Kristen Stewart), resists dominant queer cinematic tropes by immersing its characters in a world of quiet longing, solitude, and unresolved connection. Rather than conforming to neoliberal narratives of queer progress and visibility, Certain Women embraces stillness and subtlety as a form of political resistance. Through a close reading of the film, this paper argues that Certain Women aligns with the tradition of minor cinema by rejecting mainstream representational norms. In doing so, Reichardt’s film expands the possibilities for lesbian storytelling, offering a vision of queerness that exists in the liminal space between presence and absence. By reframing queer identity through a lens of spectrality and melancholy, Certain Women challenges the limitations of dominant lesbian representation and asserts the potential of cinema as a space for alternative modes of queer existence.