vincente minnelli

An accomplished dancer, professor and first-time filmmaker Erika Randall Beahm was on the verge of delivering two ‘babies’ earlier this month, one, her first child with her husband, and the other, her feature film and pet project Leading Ladies, which was just coming out on DVD via the LGBT-friendly distributor Wolfe Video. A professor of dance at The University of Colorado, Beahm, with her writing partner Jennifer Bechtel and her co-director, her husband Daniel, collaborated on Leading Ladies, a dance film rife with humor and romance in the classical Hollywood vein ala director Vincent Minnelli. That is, if Minnelli had dared direct a dance film that replaced the compulsory heterosexual couple with a lesbian couple who find love on the ballroom dance floor.

Bad Santas, earnestly charming boyish elves, Scrooge, the whole Jesus is the Son of God thing... Holiday movies are notoriously devoid of strong women, let alone lesbians. But we at SheWired scoured the archives of holiday films, including Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, to find the ones that offer snappy women, gay girl eye candy or in the very rare instance, a lesbian character.  Enjoy Holly Hunter, Judy Davis, Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Keira Knightley, Judy Garland, Barbara Stanwyck, Kyra Sedgwick, Julianna Margulies, Martha Plimpton and more.