when i first watched fried green tomatoes at my cousin's house at 11 or 12.. i guess i saw in idgie and ruth something i had never really seen in a film before. i told her and my aunt later about how they were in love, and the two of them got pretty pissed off and said i didn't understand the movie, and i missed the message about the true strength of friendship.
to be fair, i can't blame them for reading the film this way- as i'm certain it was very carefully made to allow them to come to this conclusion. like plenty of outwardly queer literature in the past (read: the color purple), fanny flagg's explicitly romantic novel…