Streisand was one of the first women to truly embody the multi-hyphenate. Singer, Actress, Filmmaker and Activist. She is the master of all my great loves, music, art, theatre, film and fashion. She was never content with just succumbing to one discipline. What I admire most about her was the courage she took when asserting herself as a director. Her first film, Yentl, took fourteen years to film primarily because the movie execs didn’t have faith in her because of her gender. This was incredibly ironic because the plot of the film lies in the idea of the different expectations placed on men and women. However she persevered and created a piece that spoke of historical Jewishness, womanhood and overcoming stereotypes. These issues were incredibly important to discuss and she created a platform for them to do so. The film also spoke to a wider LGBTQ+ audience, Laverne Cox speaks eloquently about this in the documentary ‘Disclosure’, as Yentl dresses as a man to study to Talmud and in turn transcends gender.


Written by George Clark