I am much struck with certain facts: Kiera Knightley in Atonement, Adèle Haenel in Portrait of a Lady on Fire. "A central element of the film.” Min-hee Kim wearing an emerald silk kimono in The Handmaiden. The evening gown with the Bertha neckline. It emerges: a pattern.
Whether the collaboration of Céline Sciamma and Dorothée Guiraud. Or Jacqueline Durran's vision crafted from scratch. Green is the result.
Green. As more than coincidence. As aesthetic, direction.
It is representation. While lavender and other colors may have historical significance, green amidst the lesbians at least has taken a particular role of importance. See: Eve Polastri in a turtleneck. The overtly sexual green M&M. Kim Possible's Shego. The entire color palate of Carol. Fried Green Tomatoes. “IS THIS BOLD?”
Also, Beanpole.
Also, “and cold sweat holds me and shaking / grips me all, greener than grass / I am and dead — or almost / I seem to me.” Seafoam. Lichen. Anne Carson translations.
The common denominator is the color of Jamie's overalls in "The Beast in the Jungle."
It is a typical enough pigment, but beyond fabric it is also, "the eye which will keep a memory green long after all that more durable qualities can do to preserve it is forgotten." Green is Violet Oakley's plot at Green-Wood Cemetery. "A hungry longing for the green of the hills, for the air of wide spaces, for the mornings and the noontides and the evenings of Morton."
Green is Kate Blanchett in a velvet suit. San Junipero. Kelly, green sequin blazer. Green is costume. It is "the dusky and faintly sweet smell of her perfume [coming] to Therese again, a smell suggestive of dark green silk, that was hers alone, like the smell of a special flower." It is cottage core.
Green is an opening. "Mother was sitting in her green stuffed rocking chair when I walked through the door. 'You can turn around and walk right out. I know everything that went on up there, the dean of women called me up. You just turn your ass around and get you.’"
It is luna moths. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
The phrase "outdoorsy." Those plates that look like salad leaves. "She was emerging into the sunlight from a passageway on the other side of Green Street." Dakota Johnson's kitchen. The Watermelon Woman.
Gamboge-based paints. Hooker's green. Think: deciduous. "The Color of the Grave is Green – / The Outer Grave– I mean–" Sage green supremacy.
Chocolates for Breakfast. House plants. The words, "not queer as in green hair, lesbian as in eats pussy for breakfast" spray painted across a wall. Thickets. Vegetable stalls. Tevas. Rich aunts. Jade pendants. Spotify playlists.
"...the bottle of purple ink, half-empty, and green round its neck with dribbles."
The very word ‘viridian'. "So the green flame seems hidden in the emerald, or the sun prisoned in a hill." Flannel bush, otherwise known as Southern Fremontia.
Green is "29 January 1821 Burnt all Caroline Greenwood’s foolish notes." Unattended pools. “That florist, Luce.”
It is The Half of It. Exit signs on highways. Lilies. Turning the frickin frogs gay. There is no other color scheme other than green.
Zoe Grace Marquedant (she/her/hers) is a queer writer. Her work has been featured in the Schuylkill Valley Journal, Cool Rock Repository, Analog Cookbook, Talk Vomit, and elsewhere. Follow @zoenoumlaut.