There is no room for weakness here! (Cultural metaphors and stereotypes versus gay love in film and society)
Manana Rusieshvili-Cartledge

Georgia declares European values and hasintroduced some progressive changes regardinghuman rights (Fighting Discrimination, HateCrime and Hate Speech in Georgia, n. d.)However, there are still issues to be solved,especially those related to the protection ofwomen’s and LGBT+ people’s rights in the country.Moreover, it is claimed that ‘the population ofGeorgia is not well-aware of the rights of theminority groups, for example, of LGBT+ groups’(Hate Crime, Hate Speech and Discrimination inGeorgia, 2018).Since its release in 2019, the Georgian-Swedishfilm “And then we danced” has won severalprestigious awards and was nominated for an“Oscar” in the same year. However, the film aboutthe love of a gay couple generated mixed reactionsin Georgian society.This paper explores the reasons for the above-mentioned attitudes to the film. To achieve thisgoal, two sets of data are discussed. At the firststage of the research, the “battle” of the director ofthe film against socially rooted cultural metaphorsand gender stereotypes (for instance, thoseassociated with the Georgian national dance)as depicted in the film are described and theirsignificance for Georgian culture is explained.

At the second stage of the research, the posts reflecting the reactionsto online film reviews and discussions (initiated largely by church peo-ple, ultranationalist and ultraconservative party members and their fol-lowers) are investigated. The online comments are analysed based onthe point of view expressed toward the plot of the film – positive, neu-tral (conciliatory) and negative. The main arguments are foregrounded,verbal strategies (for instance, employment of hate speech, impolite andrude lexical units) are identified and explained in the context of Geor-gian culture.