Different Strokes - Lilith Likes to Watch

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Title: Different Strokes: A Story of Jack and Jill… And Jill
Year: 1998

Starring: Dana Plato, Bentley Mitchum, Landon Hall

Director: Michael Paul Girard

Synopsis: A Los Angeles fashion model falls in love with a female art director during a photo shoot which puts their newfound romance at odds with the model’s photographer boyfriend. - via Letterboxd.com

Lilith's Notes: Exploitation of a child star has never been so blaitant!

Buy: Amazon

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"Is that... Girlfriend, girlfriend?"

You never know when inspiration will strike. You can never tell when the universe has primed something for you. There I was watching a perfectly innocent Youtube video, and suddenly, a nugget was dropped right into my lap.

One of the stars from the sitcom Diff’rent Strokes did soft core movies.

Pause video.

Off to Google.

From there, off to Amazon.

And that’s how I learned about Different Stokes: A Story of Jack and Jill… And Jill.

I need get this out of the way right the fuck now. This is not a good movie. I want to be absolutely clear about that. It’s cheap, cheezy, exploitative, and parts of it look like it takes place in a Summer’s Eve commercial.

But it is nostalgic.

Kage and I realize that this is a bad movie, but we’ve also recognized that this is the kind of movie we would have stumbled across at 1 in the morning on some Black Box or Skinemax Channel. This has all the hallmarks of secrets we were not meant to see: soft-core, with balloon boobs that everyone is afraid to touch, feathered hair and soft focus lenses. It was either this, or scrambled stations and a good game of “Is it a Butt or a Knee?”

It is a relic of a time of forbidden curiosity.

But, yeah, it’s not good, and I am under no delusions that it is.

Different Strokes: A Story of Jack and Jill… And Jill, henceforth known as DS: aSoJaJaJ was always going to be exploitative, quick-buck cash-grab drivvle, but it becomes even more blatantly obvious by the title, which my rudimentary research revealed that the title Different Strokes was added after Plato was cast, as a cash-in on her name. For those of you too young to remember, Diff'rent Strokes was an 80s sitcom about two black brothers who were adopted by a nice white family. So, to call this movie Different Strokes would be like calling Showgirls something like Strip By The Bell. Now there’s an idea.

After decades long battles with drugs and alcohol, Plato’s presence in the movie kind of reeks of desperation, despite the fact she claims she was clean by the time the film was released. Still, it feels tawdry.

We’ve gotten this far and I haven’t even told you what this film is about. DS:aSoJaJaJ is about Jack (played by Bentley Mitchum), a photographer, and his girlfriend Jill (played by Landon Hall), a model. One day, a woman also named Jill, Jill Martin (played by former child star Dana Plato), comes by to art direct Jack’s photos. A discrete lesbian, Jill Martin is instantly smitten with Jill, while Jack wants to have a sexy threesome.

The funny thing about this movie is that it almost kind of seems to sort of want to poke at the idea of proposing to have a message. It maybe kinda thinks lesbians are people too, when they’re not cheating on one another, falling into insta-love and playing the role of Mz. Steal Your Girl. And what do they do when they're not shattering relationships and home wrecking and awkwardly stroking thighs? Why, skipping through the park and having Picnics!

As the movie progresses, Jack finds out the truth about Jill Martin, and becomes increasingly unhinged and destructive. Jill and Jill pet each other in what is an unreasonable facsimile of lesbian love, and in the end, well, I’m not going to spoil it, but it left Kage and I scratching our heads.

There is a very specific moment in time that this film encapsulates, and if you want to have a taste of that moment, to return to it, or feel it for the first time, Jack and Jill and also Jill are here for you, for us, but that’s all the quality there is in this film. It’s not hot and sexy, it’s just faded-star-sploitation with a Vaseline lens.

And for some people that’s good enough.

Highlight: Classic 90s softcore charm!

Lowlight: Classic 90s softcore charm...

LILITH'S SCORE: 2.5/5

Until next time, my voracious voyeurs. I’m Lilith, and I’m always watching.