Queering Cinema: Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary-Louise Parker in 'Fried Green Tomatoes'

In the late '80s and early '90s, heartfelt films with ensemble female casts ("Steel Magnolias," "Beaches," "Now and Then," "Waiting to Exhale") were a trend. While most of these movies dealt with family issues, relationships, and overcoming hardships life often throws at you, none dealt with queerness like the 1991 picture "Fried Green Tomatoes."

Based on Fannie Flagg's 1987 novel and directed by Jon Avnet, it stars Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary-Louise Parker and Cicely Tyson. The film follows Evelyn (Bates) as she befriends Ninny (Tandy) at a retirement home. Ninny regales Evelyn with stories from the past; about the now-ghost town of Whistle Stop in Alabama and its residents in the 1920s, namely Idgie (Masterson) and her friend Ruth (Parker). The two became friends in the years after Idgie's brother Billy (Chris O'Donnell) – and Ruth's boyfriend – died in a train accident. As Ninny shares her stories to Evelyn over the years, it becomes clear that Idgie and Ruth are more than friends.

Though not as explicit as the novel, Idgie and Ruth are essentially partnered and have a baby (Ruth gets married and pregnant to an abusive alcoholic who she eventually leaves – with the help of Idgie), then they open up a cafe together. Idgie, often dressed in pants and sometimes even in full menswear, helps Ruth raise Buddy (named after her late brother) and it becomes evident that she had always loved Ruth from a young age.

BuzzFeed's Kate Aurthur examined the queerness in "Fried Green Tomatoes," writing "In scene after scene, Masterson and Parker make it clear that Idgie and Ruth are in love – just by how they look at each other. Avnet never makes their flirtation and obvious lust for each other sordid or designed to titillate male audience members. In that, he actually errs too far on the side of caution. There's a scene when they're swimming in a lake in their underwear, and Ruth kisses Idgie on the cheek, and – come on, man, give us something! (In Avnet's director's commentary on the DVD, he is totally aware of their dynamic, repeatedly calling their story 'romantic,' calling the food fight scene a 'love scene,' and at one point saying – yikes – 'look at Mary-Louise's reaction to Mary Stuart's testosterone-induced bravado.')"

In 2016 at the Sundance Film Festival, Masterson told Aurthur that scenes had been removed from "Fried Green Tomatoes" that would have made Idgie and Ruth's relationship more obvious: "It wasn't a love scene, but there were, like – clearly a love relationship type of a fight, of jealousy," she said. "There was some more sensual kind of stuff in there. We were clearly playing that."