If These Walls Could Talk 2 is a television film broadcasted by HBO in 2000.

It is a film

with three storylines separated by time, but set in the same house and all focusing on the

struggles lesbian women face and how they deal with the prejudice they receive from outside

their community and within it.

The first chapter is set in 1961 focusing on Edith and Abby, an old lesbian couple who

lived during a time when same-sex relationships were not openly discussed or as socially

accepted as today. After Abby passes away in a hospital, Edith was not allowed to collect the

body given that she was neither next of kin nor Edith’s husband. The right to conduct a burial for

Abby and ownership of her possessions and property, which included their house, were now

given to Abby’s closest of kin, Ted. This leads to an excruciating interaction between Edith and

Ted’s family as they sort out Abby’s possessions. It is clear that Ted and his family were neither

close to Abby nor do they have an emotional attachment to any of her possessions. Abby, on the

other hand, has paid for half the mortgage and is visibly attached to every reminder of her

deceased partner. A question one could ask is if whether Ted and his family were right in the

manner in which they dealt with the inheritance?

In Kant’s Categorical Imperative, he stated that a person must “act only according to that

maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”. Kant

urges that a person’s actions are right when they are rational even when applied to a larger scale.

Despite not being able to afford keeping the house, Ted does his best to be considerate of Abby’s

situation and even considers renting the house to her if she chooses to stay in it. Giving

consideration involves thinking about how one’s actions can impact others. Practiced

universally, being considerate makes sense as it reduces snap judgments, conflicts, and

misunderstandings. Ted’s consideration, therefore satisfies the universalizability principle. Ted’s

Abby’s birds even when Edith is visibly upset by the thought of someone taking them away from

her and even when Ted himself tells her keeping the birds is unnecessary. This and other

unfeeling actions like the immediate claiming of the deceased’ bed make her a less sympathetic

character than her husband.

Kant also formulated in his Categorical Imperative that one must “act as to treat

humanity, whether in your own person or in another, always as an end and never as only a

means”. For Kant, people are not just means to an end, but an actual end-in-itself. Human being

are autonomous and capable of rationality. Thus, people should be treated with dignity and

respect. Though Edith was not necessarily treated as means by Ted’s family to sell the house, she

was nonetheless disrespected in their pursuit to be rid of the financial burden of keeping the

house. Whatever the inheritance laws may say, the ease with which Ted’s family stake claim to

Abby and Edith’s house and possessions delegitimizes the life Abby and Edith had built

together. However, the family’s sense of entitlement is understandable given that the law grants

them this. At the same time, it is also unfair in their part to be forced into shouldering the cost of

keeping the house, and this leads to the central point of the chapter. The only aspect of Edith and

Abby’s relationship that was different to any other marriage at that time was the fact that they

were a same-sex couple. They built a life together, but the laws of the time did not recognize

their union as legitimate, and so the inheritance that would normally have been given to the

spouse was given instead to a relative that was so removed from the deceased’s life. If the laws

were different, Edith could have lived peacefully in the house she has made her home and Ted’s

unwitting family would not have had to carry the burden of disrupting Edith’s life.
 In the second chapter, the setting is in 1972 and the same house is now co-inhabited by

lesbian feminist college students. Whereas the previous chapter showed the prejudices LGBTQ

face from the external world, the second part shows the same marginalization, but occurring

within a group and done to each other by fellow members of the group. Similar to the patriarchy,

the system that places women at the bottom of the social hierarchy, the feminists in the movie

also have their own form of social hierarchy. Even though feminism demands for the right for all

women to be treated equally to her male counterpart, the movie shows that the right for women

to be treated equally is not actually distributed equally among women.

After significant pressure from the school administration and threats that the college

would withdraw their support for the feminists because of their lesbian ties, the college feminists

decided to appease to the demands of their school. They forcibly remove Linda, the main

character of the second chapter, and her lesbian friends from the group even though they were

instrumental to the group’s founding. In an effort to explain their decision, one of the members

of the feminist group explains that because they are still fighting for the general issue of equal

rights between men and women in the campus, to include lesbian issues in the agenda would risk

all that they have fought for. Conflict ensues after the lesbians express the injustice of the

situation given that not only was one of them a founding member, but they also fought for free

contraception in their campus, a cause which does not directly affect their demographic, but

largely benefited the straight members of the group. As one of the lesbians put it, “Do you think I

was protecting my right to screw frat boys… we did it for you”.

The decision to remove Linda and her friends from the group is undoubtedly harsh, but

how their fellow feminists came to such a decision is not illogical. One could say that cutting off
Linda and her friends from the group was utilitarian. Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that

proposes that actions should be done to maximize the good for the maximum amount of people.

When pushed to an extreme by the school administration, the feminists are placed in a

difficult position. They could decide to support and stand strong with their lesbian sisters, but

lose the school’s support and their right to gather within the school premises, and thus undo their

progress. Alternatively, they could decide to abandon their fellow feminists to save their group

from their school’s ire. However, the act itself would essentially undermine the very cause they

fight for, which is equality for all. In the end, the feminists choose the latter, reasoning that what

was done was for the greater good of their group.

The feminists’ reasoning exemplifies a branch of utilitarianism called limited

utilitarianism in which an act done to maximize the good only benefits a sector of a population or

an interest group. Often times, this act may be detrimental to another group. In this case, their

decision to abandon their lesbian sisters may have possibly saved their group from the current

pressures issued by the administration, but it would undoubtedly discriminate the excluded

smaller sector, the lesbian women. This act demonstrated that in the hierarchy of women, queer

women are placed below straight women, and thus their issues and concerns are considered less

important than those of straight women.

Excluding the lesbians amplifies the situational irony of having a group fighting against

marginalization simultaneously marginalize members of their own group. This is not just present

within the feminists group, but is also prevalent within the lesbian community. When Linda and

her friends visit a butch lesbian bar, all eyes stared at them as if in bewilderment as to why they

were there. Linda and her friends even felt the need to loudly exclaim, “We’re lesbians too” in

order to justify their presence. Linda’s own friends also harshly judge Amy and other butch
women whose self-expression leans towards typical masculine presentation. They claimed to not

understand feminists who associate with women like Amy, especially when feminism has fought

so hard to be free of the stereotypes to which Amy and other butch lesbians conform. Funnily

enough, this conversation occurs in front of both Amy and the feminist classmate who evicted

them from their group to relay to the audience about the hypocrisy of their actions.

The acts done by the school, straight feminists, Linda’s lesbian friends, the lesbians in the

bar, and even Linda herself all hurt a certain sector of the community. Their actions compound

on the pain and isolation of being marginalized. The groups may have their own reasoning for

doing such acts, but it does not excuse their acts from being wrong. One important figure in

utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill, states in his Greatest Happiness Principle that “actions are right

in proportion as they tend to promote happiness… by happiness is intended pleasure and the

absence of pain”. Removing their fellow feminists from the group, hurts those they kicked out.

Linda’s friends’ imposing their prejudices upon Linda marginalizes Amy and Linda. It also

initially forces Linda to be ashamed of her attraction for Amy and holds her back from pursuing

the genuine connection she feels for Amy.

For Mill, “each person’s happiness counts the same for everyone else’s”. Mill wanted to

promote an equality that is attained when individuals are given justice. For him, there has to be

equality among individuals. This equality would promote justice social welfare that would affect

the general happiness and therefore, the greatest happiness could be attained. When Amy leaves

after being dehumanized by Linda’s friends, Linda reveals to herself and her friends why she

likes Amy in the first place. Linda’s attraction comes from Amy’s awareness of who she is and

her fearlessness in expressing her true self. Linda is a feminist that supports equal treatment for

all women that should also translate to her believing that Amy should be free to be who she is
and should not be discriminated against for her choice in clothing and way of life. Similarly,

Linda should not be discriminated for her attraction for Amy. When Linda later decides to be

with Amy, she opposes her friends’ prejudices. In doing so, she chooses to follow her happiness

and her feminist ideals that promotes equality for all women. If only Linda’s friends decided to

understand Amy rather than be prejudiced against her and enforce their beliefs upon her, then

maybe they would have reached a point of understanding that could unite lesbian women

together. If only the straight feminists decided to stand up for their lesbian sisters, then they

would have become a stronger unit. Instead, they chose to be a group that fractionates under

external pressure. A more united front could have made the group stronger in campaigning

against oppression that all women deal with.

The third chapter, set in the year 2000, follows Kal and Fran. Nearing the end, Fran asks

her partner whether it is selfish of them to want to bring a child into the world that would bully

their child for having lesbian parents. This question can be analyzed using William James’

pragmatic theory. If a proposition were to be true then James asks “what concrete difference in

its being true make in anyone’s actual life?” To validate a proposition, one has to look for a

concrete, experiential practical difference brought about by the proposition being true. With this

James believes that a proposition is true if it is useful to believe. If one had to choose decide

which is true between two propositions that appear to be in opposition to each other, then one has

to look if there is a practical difference between the two. If none can be found, then any dispute

between them is moot. Kal does this and answers her partner’s question pragmatically. She states

that whether or not it is selfish for them to raise a child, all children get teased anyway. Whether

society will change or not (thought it always has) the love they have for each other and for that
child will always be there. For James and for Kal, since there are no practical differences

between propositions then debating about it would be a moot point.

Compared to the previous chapters, the third chapter does not show the struggles of

unique to same-sex relationships. Fran and Kal seem just like any other couple dealing with

fertility problems. The normalcy of their situation is more apparent because of the lack of

discrimination from other characters. They are treated normally because they are perceived as

normal, a mindset totally different from that of a few years prior as demonstrated by the

teenagers in the first chapter that laughed at Edith and Abby as they went home from the theater.

In the ending of the third chapter, a mom asks whether Fran and Kal have children in the school.

If we followed the pattern of the previous chapters, we would expect this scene to be the moment

when Fran and Kal would be discriminated against. Instead, the mom just converses with them

normally and even suggests to them that they should try having kids. According to James, “the

truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea”. Our

experiences validate our ideas. In the 60s, just mentioning lesbian couples was taboo, but after

years of activism and exposure, the general society began to view the opposite as more and more

true.

Movies like this are part of what changes the mindset of a society. It humanizes those we

have outcaste, frames their struggles in a way that is universal, presents a point of view that

facilitates empathy even when a viewer’s circumstance is different from the characters in the

movie, and points out hypocrisy that we ourselves could be blind to. With its ending, it also gives

hope that things could change for the better. Hopefully in the future, the struggles presented in

the movie will one day just be relics of the past.