- Title: Invasion Of The Big-Haired Lesbians
- Date: 12th July 1997
- Summary: For most of the year Palm Springs is America's blue-rinse capital,the desert hideaway for ageing rat-packers such as Bob Hope,Frank Sinatra and Zsa Zsa Gabor. But on one weekend each year this sedate resort town is invaded by 25,000 lesbians who travel from all over the world to the Californian desert for the Dinah Shore Women's Golf Weekend. Golf is more an alibi than a motive for the invasion which over a ten year period has developed from two-speakers-and-a-balloon parties into an exclusive and unique lesbian social event that features cigar-smoking salons,trophy wives and black-tie fund-raisers. The sheer scale of the take-over is without parallel (entire resort hotels are bought out by women promoters months ahead of time). A lesbian post-Pride phenomenon has grown around this women's golf event, appropriating both heterosexual male and gay male models in its infiltration of a conservative,affluent,publicly homophobic sport and the creation around it of a high-spending,hard-partying dollar industry. Yet the question remains whether in buying-in these women are also selling out. The involvement of lesbians in golf has until recently developed underground,with the sexual identities of lesbian golf professionals being kept discreet by the lesbian amateur players and fans who often took their own closets with them to the course. But now - the Dinah Shore Weekend apart - this relationship has fresh landmarks: first, professional golf has its first official out player - it's Martina; secondly Tracey Ulman's upcoming US TV series of comedy dramas has an entire prime-time episode about a fictional lesbian golfer's life on the circuit. However the Dinah Shore Weekend is only partly about golf. More importantly it has become the single biggest annual lesbian event, which through its diversity and sheer economic muscle forces a powerful challenge to lesbian stereotypes on many levels. This documentary will take a sharp scalpel to the phenomenon of the Dinah Shore Weekend,using the Thursday to Sunday unfolding of events as out dramatic drive and framework. The weekend promises high drama,not least with two major lesbian promoters going head to head over the weekend,each risking between seventy and one hundred thousand dollars on the success of their operations. Within the dramatic,chronological framework of the weekend the programme will pose questions about the sociological nature of the event and women it attracts (many of whom surface nowhere else on the public lesbian scene) and its relationship with the straight and gay male worlds.
- Description:The worlds biggest ever lesbian event - the Dinah Shore Golf Classic in Palm Springs,attended by 20,000 lesbians. Not only enticed by the golf itself,the high spending women flock to participate in the notoriously wild,women only parties. These gals just 'wanna have fun'.
- Broadcaster:Channel 4
- Collection: Channel 4
- Genre:Documentary and Factual
- Producer:Unspecified
- Programme Episode:Episode 1
- Transmission Date:12/07/1997
- Rights:On Request
- Decade: 1990s