Film Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson,

¶ … film Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994), queer deviance is represented as the embodiment of the "other," an intrusive force countering the traditional and normal in society. The contrast between the norm and some difference is made from the beginning of the film, which starts with an image of a traditional travelogue-type booster film for New Zealand. The sort of bland images of people on the streets of the city and in rural regions suggest a unified society with an accepted culture subscribed to by all. However, that sort of image is not the full truth, and the image is shattered in the film by cutting to the two girls who are the central figures in the film as they are running through the woods screaming and covered in blood. This image is out of chronological order in the story told in the film, and it marks the girls as different even before the audience meets them. From that point forward, th viewer looks at them differently and sees them as separate from the standard in society, a standard represented by the many other girls in their school, girls whose behavior and comportment is controlled and monitored by the stern teachers who watch like gargoyles as the girls enter the school during the opening credits.

The visuals and the images conveyed in the opening sequences contribute greatly to the underlying sense of deviance and the nature of the lesbian relationship at the heart of the film. Juliet is the "male" of the two while Pauline is the "female" of the duo. Pauline is seen in the opening scenes as a quiet girl perhaps marked by her teachers as a problem, for they seem to watch her more carefully. Pauline has a certain defiant streak mitigated by a tendency to defer and to avoid confrontation. She stares at one teacher, then turns away when the teacher notices and starts to look at her. From the first, Juliet is a very different sort, in the attitudes of the time a girl with a more masculine demeanor simply because she takes charge and challenges authority in a manner both certain and effective. When introduced, she corrects the headmistress by noting that she is actually English. Her demeanor is not that of a girl shy about entering a new school. She is introduced as one who has traveled widely, and her father is an administrator at a university. She carries a certain air of authority that sets her apart from the rest of the girls her age. Her willingness to correct her teacher as her first act in class also has a masculine quality in the context of the time. Indeed, her differences illustrate the extent of the prevailing gender stereotypes imposed on these girls as expectations for their behavior. Pauline more or less tires to mirror that stereotype, difficult as it is for her to succeed in doing so, while Juliet simply expresses herself in ways girls are not expected to do, while boys would be expected to put themselves forward in that way.

The relationship of the two girls is seen as deviating fro the norm of what is expected in the society of the time, and their behavior counters the sort of home and country image seen in the travelogue at the opening of the film. Deviance is really identified not by those who are deemed as deviant but by those who place that stigma upon them. Deviance is an expression of a degree of stigmatization of a sub-population by the majority population. The sub-population is often separated on the basis of some difference, a difference that is emphasized by the majority population in identifying the deviant population. The sub-population learns from this ongoing process and reacts accordingly, seeking a sense of community in its own group, perhaps as a challenge to the majority population that has started the process. Deviance is not a specific behavior common to all cultures. Every culture may identify some behavior as deviant, but a given behavior will not be defined as deviant in all cultures.

The culture of New Zealand would stigmatize any expression of a queer culture or queer behavior, though it is also a mark of the time that only the most overt queer behavior would be seen to be such. In fact, the behavior of these girls only suggests a possible sexual link without actually engaging in sexual behavior. In film terms, though, the structure of the story is much like the usual boy-meets-girl tale, followed by various difficulties keeping the lovers apart. In this case, it is girl-meets-girl, followed by a number of problems that keep the two apart, though many of these problems only draw them closer together in the way they communicate with one another, in the need they have to be with one another, and in the way their imaginations meld to blur the line between fantasy and reality. Ultimately, of course, reality intruders in a particularly ugly way as the two girls decide that all that keeps them from being together in the future is Pauline's mother, though it take sa good deal of convoluted thinking to come to this conclusion. They then murder Pauline's mother, taking the film back to the opening shock when the idyllic images of New Zealand give way to an image of terror and blood.

The overt links between the two girls are viewed as a friendship by most of their peers and even their parents, though the parents also come to believe that such a close relationship between the girls is unhealthy. They do not see this relationship in terms of a lesbian liaison, and if they did, they would be even more likely to see the relationship as unhealthy and to seek to separate the two girls. The relationship is seen as part of a more unhealthy atmosphere in the film, however, given that one of the links between the girls is the fact that each spends a period of time in hospital and that they share both this link to disease and a separation from their parents while they are ill. The film is not saying that a lesbian relationship would itself be unhealthy, but it is implied that this society would likely see it in those terms.

At the same time, the friendship between the two girls has the trappings of a romance in Hollywood terms, for the two would have to be seen as soul mates, drawn together by their similar experiences and also by their imaginations and the fantasy world they share, a world that has the same effect as deviance in that it binds them together and separates them from the norm surrounding them. Other people have no idea that these girls have this fantasy life they share. If society did know, the girls might be deemed deviant in psychological or mental terms in the way the mentally ill are identified as deviant. Even when the girls are apart, they communicate by letters, and these become another link as well as a means of separation as the girls decide to write to one another as if they were fictional characters. The way the girls depend on one another is seen as unhealthy by Juliet's parents, which is itself somewhat ironic given that they are divorcing and so describing an arc that is opposite that of the girls' relationship. This also leads to the situation where the fantasy life of the girls leads to tragedy in the real world. Juliet's parents want to separate the two girls and so decide to send Juliet to South Africa. The girls vow never to be separated and never to spend one day apart.

The idea of queer deviance in this film is hinted at but not explored directly, though the idea of deviance would clearly be seen as one that reflects how society views those who are different in some way. If this were a story about a boy and a girl, they might also be deemed deviant because they would be seen as too dependent and too close, but that would not be queer deviance even if all other elements in the story were the same. The fact that two girls have this dependence for one another is here the reason why others see their relationship as unhealthy. These others do not leap to the idea of lesbianism, perhaps because in the 1950s that idea was not as close to the top in social discourse as it might be today. What is clear is that the girls are seen as having separated themselves from the adult world (not that surprising in girls of that age) but also from interaction with others of their own age, except for each other. That is what alarms the parents, not the friendship itself, but the exclusivity of that friendship. If details of the shared fantasy world were known, that would be even more alarming to these parents and probably to the social order of the time.