Outfest: "Love, Jamie" - Short Film Review
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the short film being covered here wouldn't exist.
The friendship between Jamie and Gabriel begins by chance. Gabriel is volunteering for an organization called Pink and Black, a prison abolitionist group that replies to letters from LGBT people in prisons across the United States. He’s struck by the colorful cartoons that adorn the letters of an inmate named Jamie. The two form a strong friendship through letters and phone calls while Jamie is serving a life sentence for robbery, a crime that is heavily punished in Texas. Love, Jamie is a celebration of a friendship that transcends boundaries.
Even in times of utmost struggle, the urge to create art exists. Jamie is living proof of that. She creates surrealist pieces that speak to her experience as a transgender woman and the mistreatment she endures in prison. Her art is shown at a gallery in New York, which creates a moment of both excitement and heartache. Sure, she’ll be able to see pictures of the gallery, but she may never know the feeling of being a free woman walking into a gallery that has her own art hanging on the walls. Gabriel calls her from the show and Jamie says, “I almost feel free. Almost, but not quite.”
Greene Fort Productions
Jamie’s art and her story transcend her life in Texas, but she cannot. Her world is confined to the prison she lives in, sometimes further limited by solitary confinement. As isolating as that experience is, it’s sometimes the only reprieve she gets from the abuse that comes from the other inmates. America’s jail system is not built to rehabilitate or help people. After serving thirty years of her life sentence, Jamie will be eligible for parole in 2025.
Despite her incarceration, Jamie’s work is hopeful and she portrays herself as a liberated woman. It speaks to the strength of Jamie and the power of creativity. Artists have an ability to dream beyond their immediate surroundings and use their emotions to speak to something far larger than themselves. This is evident in the way Jamie’s artwork immediately jumps out at Gabriel. The uniqueness of what she has created is impossible to look away from.
Emblazoned on a self-portrait of Jamie holding a rainbow flag that turns into a dove and proudly walks down the street is a quote: “Our Flaming Queer Hearts Will Not Be Denied.” There are hundreds of ways to interpret what Jamie is attempting to convey here, but sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one. Do not deny the truth of who you are, wave your flag proudly, and hold your head up high.
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