Finnian ColeFinnian Cole
An Interview in the Life of Finnian
Cole
By Krista Lamb
Sitting at Toronto's Church Street Second Cup, the hub of the city's gay strip, Finnian
Cole seems slightly out of place, neither blending in with the rambunctious crowd
next to her, nor really sticking out. Perhaps it's because she carries herself with
a seemingly awkward assuredness, falling somewhere between being completely at ease
and not at all. Later this evening, when she is ensconced at a table at Zelda's,
a restaurant with garish colours and an exuberant feel, Cole seems even more out
of place but unconcerned, if she notices at all. Finnian Cole is not the type of
woman that bothers much about her surroundings, there's far too much going on in
her head.
Cole is nothing if not exceedingly creative. At 36 she has already amassed a wealth
of creative projects, including a one-act play for The Peninsula Players, a movie
screenplay, poems published in the National Library’s Poetry Anthology, an online
zine (Klondyke) and her comic strip, A Day in the Life. And she’s certainly not stopping
at that. Even with a full-time job, Cole is working on a new comic strip idea, writing
and planning a sketch comedy television pilot and researching her first novel, a
lesbian fairytale. She smiles as she lists off her many projects, noting that she’s
never at a loss for new ideas, only the time needed to complete them.
“I call myself a creative genius,” she says with a laugh, “and not because I’m full
of myself, but because it’s true. I’m just the idea woman.” Ideally, she would love
the opportunity to see all of her ideas through to fruition, but she admits that
it’s exceedingly hard. There are work restraints, a relationship to nurture and the
limitations of living in Hamilton, rather than in the more artistically inclined
Toronto. “None of the things I do, realistically, are about money,” she says, “but
I do eventually want to be able to do what I do for a living, because that affords
me the time to keep doing it.”
There were hopes that that time had come when Cole began seriously pursuing her goal
of releasing a television pilot last year. She thought all of the needed elements
were in place and she promoted the project tirelessly at several PRIDE festivals
across Ontario. In the end, however, one of the projects main players failed to come
through and Cole was left disillusioned and disheartened. The project was too expensive
to continue alone, so she was faced with telling the many volunteers that had helped
her along the way that she couldn’t continue. For someone as determined as Cole it
was devastating and the blow inspired a brief hiatus where she concentrated only
on her writing projects.
Now, however, she’s prepared to come back. She’s currently working on a sketch comedy
with a new partner and has hopes that this project will see the light of day. It’s
a less expensive proposal and she sees the idea as workable. It’s one of her front
burner projects right now, as she works to turn one of her many ideas into a reality.
That means that Cole has put her comic strip on somewhat of a hold. The strip, which
appears in several lesbian publications around the world is written by Cole and presents
situations that have occurred in her own life. “I just thought it would be kind of
cool to have a comic strip about real people, about real events, so I made the strip
about myself, but it could be about anyone,” she says.
A Day in the Life has received some exposure, but Cole is disappointed in the reaction
from the gay and lesbian community. “All last year,
when I was doing all of those public appearances,
I found out something that was very disturbing,” she says. “Because my strip is based
on those perimeters [that it could be about anybody] it’s not really considered gay
just because the characters are.” It bothers Cole that some publications seemed to
deem her work not queer enough to present, while the mainstream press refused to
peg the strip as anything other than a queer comic strip. It’s a strange middle ground
to be on and one that Cole finds difficult.
“Because I’m a lesbian there are projects I want to do that are related to that because
that is my life and, as a writer, sometimes we write about the things we know best.
It doesn’t mean that I can’t write about other stories that have nothing to do with
sexuality at all,” Cole says, sounding exasperated. Ideally, she thinks she’d like
to be seen as a mainstream writer who just happens to be a lesbian, not a lesbian
writer. It’s a difficult distinction though, as Cole would really like to have the
respect and appreciation of her community while not being too political about what
she presents.
“I really hate the fact that my own community isn’t embracing me as I am and that
they’re kind of throwing me out in the middle saying I’m not queer enough,” says
Cole of the reaction to her strip. It angers me because I’m making a good and valid
point. They know that I’m gay, they know that I’m a lesbian and this is what I’m
writing about, stuff that happens in my life, in our lives, in everybody’s lives.
I’m pointing out that it doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight, male or female,
this is a day in your life, and that’s not good? That’s not pointing out to the populace
that we’re just regular people? Or don’t you want to be like regular people?”
Cole is visibly upset by the whole argument. It’s no wonder, really, as she is a
person who is very open about her sexuality. Being accepted as an artist in the gay
and lesbian community would seem a given, so when that interest wasn’t there a certain
bitterness can’t help but develop. If anything it seems to fuel her. She plans to
start work on a new strip soon, one that presents no overt sexuality whatsoever and
which she hopes will find a place in the mainstream press. Cole hopes the gay and
lesbian press will be interested in the new comic, but she isn’t going to go out
of her way to present a gay lifestyle simply to be published there. “I just want
to do what I want to do. It doesn’t have to have some kind of agenda in order to
gain acceptance from my community,” she says.
In the end it’s probably inevitable that there are those in the mainstream who will
never be able to think of Cole as anything other than a gay artist and those in the
queer community who will never think her work is gay enough. It’s something that
will continue to frustrate her, but which will not take away from her ability to
create good and meaningful work. Finnian Cole is a woman who hopes to do many things
with her life and as she sits across from the table from me a look of determination
comes across her face. “I am going to make it,” she says, and, in a way, with that
statement she already has.
BACK
TO THE MAIN PAGE