Variety’s “Women’s Impact Report” Highlights Queer Trifecta Doing No Wrong, Holding Mugs

WOMEN IN ENTERTAINMENT: Variety’s Women’s Impact Report ’09 is a pretty special special feature. Jezebel breaks it all down for you (“It seems Mad Men‘s January Jones has taken Tracy Jordan’s advice to “live every week like it’s Shark Week” to heart,”) and here’s the gay parts:

Jane Lynch: “Funny femme makes ’em laugh with classic lines” – It’s hard to explain the genius of Jane Lynch without quoting from what might be her ultimate performance, as children’s counselor Gayle Sweeny in the 2008 film “Role Models.”

Listeners, Charts go gaga for Lady Gaga:But perhaps more importantly, she displays a new-media cunning that hinges on a seeming contradiction — attaining an aura of mystery through relentless overexposure.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Emerged as a Rising Star: One of the biggest winners of last year’s presidential election wasn’t even running for office.

POWER OF WOMEN LUNCHING: Variety even hosted a Power of Women Luncheon to accompany the aforementioned feminine fiesta. Here’s how that went, with captions!

THAT’S GAY: Your coming out better live up to these teevee examples of coming out or you’re wasting an opportunity for glitter and joy:

TOOL ACADEMY: Tool Academy is now casting gays & lesbians for its next season:

REAL WORLD: The girl who kissed a girl on The Real World Cancun actually has a girlfriend now, therefore proving that all that gratuitous girl-on-girl action can actually lead to girl-on-girl romance! You can follow their love affair on twitter as an anidote to SamRo & LiLo. BTW, Samantha Ronson is going to be on 90210. I don’t know where I read that though.

ELLREW: While I don’t think I necessarily agree with the premise of the question: NOW asks: If Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page are such a public item, why wouldn’t Barrymore put any dykes in her directorial debut and TIFF entry Whip It? It’s an interesting article, that also goes into so much lesbian and queer content at TIFF where you’d least expect it.

SCENESTER: LA Scene 2009: Mia Kirshner’s book party, Elizabeth Keener & girlfriend Jamie Lauren and Susan Miller’s new play. (@afterellen)

LESBIAN SEX IN THE CITY: I Got Cast as a Lipstick Lesbian in Sex and the City and lived to tell the tale: “I spent 14 hours of the longest day of my life as an extra on Sex and the City 2 this week. And then, instead of going back for the second day (and the five nights I was supposed to do in October), I quit.” (@thedailybeast)

SKINS: From Autostraddle Arts & Entertainment, Skins Recap, just the Lesbian Parts: The Ballad of Naomi & Emily Part One Crystal recaps Skins. (@autostraddle)

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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3238 articles for us.

12 Comments

  1. I guess I understand the NOW article being a little annoyed that something so incredibly GAY like roller derby (in montreal, nothing is gayer than roller derby. the audience looks like the parking lot outside of a tegan and sara concert – in fact, sometimes sara is there too) isn’t being acknowledged as such. Drew makes a valid point in saying that it’s more about a totally inclusive environment, but this seems like another one of those “don’t wanna scare the straights away, and we know the gays are gonna come anyway” things.

    • I totally agree about the “don’t wanna scare the straights away, and we know the gays are gonna come anyway” mentality, that seems to be the name of the game.

      But also … there aren’t that many out lesbians in Hollywood! I mean I think there ARE dykes in the movie, and defo bisexuals, but they just aren’t out. Ellen DeGeneres is very busy and we all know you can’t count on Lilo to do her own stunts.

  2. I have tickets to the Whip It sneak preview here in Minneapolis tomorrow and I’m excited. I say that knowing that I don’t exactly represent the demographic the movie is aimed at (more age-wise than anything else). Still, I think it will be a fun movie. Will I be annoyed that there are no lesbians? Likely. But, I feel that way most of the time. Would the story be better if Ellen’s character fell for a hot derby gal? Most definitely. I can’t help but wonder, however, if it is fair for everyone to hold Drew Barrymore to a higher standard of representation than everyone else, especially in her directorial debut. I’m willing to see the movie and hope for a good time.

    • I’m seeing the sneak preview tomorrow and I’m obviously excited about it too! You’re right though – I would for sure be more excited if there was at least some lesbian story line in Whip It, even it didn’t revolve around Ellen Page’s character.

    • lesbians are ageless! I look forward to your review of this monumental event.

      Good Point:
      I can’t help but wonder, however, if it is fair for everyone to hold Drew Barrymore to a higher standard of representation than everyone else, especially in her directorial debut. I’m willing to see the movie and hope for a good time.

  4. I’m not going to get to see Whip It early, instead I will be partying like a rock star (no, really)… but you betcha I’ll be there opening weekend, lezzies or no.

    I think I may take the advice of that wonderful video and come out awkwardly at some family function. Maybe even this upcoming holiday season. Ooh, or my birthday. Then I’ll take my presents and run!

  5. “I can’t help but wonder, however, if it is fair for everyone to hold Drew Barrymore to a higher standard of representation than everyone else, especially in her directorial debut. I’m willing to see the movie and hope for a good time.”

    I half agree with the statement above but maybe that’s just because (along with 98.34% of the lesbians I know) I really heart DB. The more objective half of me is aware that if someone who wasn’t so beloved by the gaygirl community had taken a sport that is clearly very gay and completely de-gayed it for the big screen we would all feel really pissed off. I don’t think she should be expected to include lesbian characters in an environment where they don’t exist but surely there had to be some kind of consciousness of the fact that she was excluding them from an environment where they absolutely do. I’m happy to give her a pass but I’m doing it because she is cool & hot and not because I think she is right this time.

  6. Okay…I’ve seen Whip It now and I won’t say much but I will say that it ended up being less straight than I thought it was going to be. That’s all for now.

  7. Wait…that’s not all, I guess. The sneak preview drew the weirdest crowd. It was like a middle-aged het date movie.

  8. yeah i figured that would be the case. the second i wrote that comment i thought ‘mmm .. mebbe i should see it first’ but i couldn’t work out how to delete. so commenting on blogs is one more thing to add to the list of things not to do when drunk. oh well! it’s not nearly as silly as the comment i made on carrie fishers blog … cringe …

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