One-of-a-kind entertainers the Topp Twins star in The Untouchable Girls (opening Thursday, March 24 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox).
It’s Leanne Pooley’s new documentary tracking how a duo of yodelling lesbian country singers with radical politics became New Zealand’s largest cultural export. Lynda Topp talked to NOW about the pair’s career and how they rode the wave while keeping their values intact.
What is it about New Zealand that made it a fertile ground for the Topp Twins?
Jools and I were completely open about everything. We were just who we were, country girls who grew up on a farm and were lesbians. I think it was because we were honest, and people realized that. You get respect for that in New Zealand. It doesn’t matter what your beliefs are or your sexuality – as long as you’re honest and down to earth, New Zealanders will accept you.
You’ve been out lesbians since you started. Why do think so few lesbian stars are out like you?
The fact that we came out and then got famous is the difference. You can’t do it the other way around. You can’t get famous and then come out, because then you reveal that you’ve been hiding something from your public for a long time.
About the only queer thing that’s as popular as the Topp Twins is male drag.
Drag is different. Drag has always been in the entertainment business – it’s been around forever. It’s accepted as entertainment, but for Jools and me this is a lifestyle, a political entertainment package.
You’re also pretty radical.
Our audiences were more radical when we started out, but eventually we were lucky because we could put our message across in an entertaining way. If you have a politician who’s comin’ at you all the time, people just turn off.
In the movie, we don’t see you play an instrument until the end of the film. Is there a reason for that?
At the beginning I played the guitar and then we played the guitar together. But as we started creating characters, my role as the comedy character was to keep the show moving forward, going into the audience and things. I had to keep taking the guitar on and off to go into the audience, so Jools took over the role of the guitar player. Later, I felt the need to play an instrument and picked up the harp. But mostly I was focusing on the comedy.
Former prime minister Helen Clark says the Homosexual Reform Bill never would have passed without the Topp Twins. Do you think that’s true?
We did a big tour around the country to promote that bill, but a lot of women actually stood up. There were no laws against lesbianism then. It was illegal for men to be out together, and they were freaked out about speaking out. Lesbian women took that one by the reins because we knew that if we didn’t, the next ones to be made illegal would be us.
Any other artists who inspire you?
Well, when you’re in the entertainment business, you almost never get to see anyone because you’re always working. But we learned how to yodel by listening to old 78rpm wind-up records. When we went to the Vancouver Folk Festival, we got to meet Patsy Montana, the first woman to sell over a million records in the U.S. in the 30s with a song called I Want To Be A Cowboy’s Sweetheart . In fact, I’m looking at a picture of her that she signed “Country loves Lynda and Jools.”
That sequence of you demonstrating at the rugby game against South African apartheid was terrifying.
That was one of the scariest days in our lives. It’s the first time in New Zealand we’d ever seen the police in riot gear – they came out with helmets and shields, flak jackets and batons. But it was also amazing. It was 1981, the first game to be broadcast live to South Africa, and what they saw was us on the film saying, “Shame to South Africa.” It was an amazing political moment in history.
