Glee 213, “The Comeback”: An Entire Episode Dedicated to the Lesbian Lifestyle

Last night was not the gayest episode of Glee ever. It was the most lesbianist episode of Glee ever, even though there weren’t any lesbians in it. Seriously I bet you my $238 remaining dollars of MasterCard credit (at a 29.9% APR) that tumblr is going to crash tonight because of this episode and the animated gifs it will inspire amongst tumblr’s most passionate demographic.

For starters, Rachel and Mercedes did a “Diva-off” to “Take Me or Leave Me,” the best lesbian song of all time — no, not just the best lesbian song of all time — to the very cherry on top of the invention of music and the rise of leather pants in the mid 90s. “Take Me Or Leave Me” is a belt-it-in-the-car like you’re Britney Spears in a wig escaping from the police ANTHEM that echoes with a vaginal vibrato stretching from the thighs of New York City through the starlight Midwestern drama-camp air and all the way into the hearts and heads of every lesbian with ears to ever exist ever of all time.

Furthermore, Justin Bieber, the perplexingly popular lesbian icon who isn’t actually a lesbian, although many lesbians look like Justin Bieber, was a central icon of this week’s episode. The Biebs — the man who launched a thousand parodies just as cloyingly charming as the actual songs he sings — yes, it was all about the Biebs and the American Apparel hoodies lesbians enjoy wearing so so much.

Then Lauren summons the fury of a thousand suns to do this glittersassy version of “I Know What Bois Like,” while Brittany and Tina dance around her like psychotic lesbian schoolgirls. There’s a lot of touching and everybody owns it. RISE, WOMEN — RISE FROM THE ASHES AND SING!

The finale featured everyone in PLAID FLANNEL. It was like a thousand-strong army of magical singing dancing lumberjack LESBIANS. From the back row, Rosie O’Donnell was probably drinking a beer and laughing her ass off.

Also, Sue Sylvester says the words “pocket lesbian” in reference to Justin Bieber.

Also? Everyone wears legwarmers on their arms, which is what lesbians do to make sure their forearms don’t freeze off which would render their limbs unable to properly fingerblast.

Also there’s a touching moment at the cancer ward where giving back to the community and humbling oneself to the very real tragic needs of human children breaks Sue’s icy-cold sue-icidal heart. That’s a human thing I think. But lesbians are humans, SO.

Oh and also — somewhere near the end, Santana growls “Check out dwarf Dianne Warren,” at Rachel Berry, who is on some hippie singer-songwriter kick where she wants everyone to win their very own Tony, and I am 75% sure that Dianne Warren is a lesbian if I’m not getting her mixed up with someone else. Even if she isn’t, she produced a song for Haviland Stillwell’s album, and Haviland Stillwell is a lesbian, so — LESBIAN.

Surprise of the episode? Finn is a lesbian, like Aidan in South of Nowhere, like Jonathan Taylor Thomas, like sea lions, like Maureen & Joanne, like hummus, like Justin Fucking Bieber, and like this website.

I don’t think I can cover any more lesbian news until March, unless Brittany and Santana make out.*

* which they won’t because Ryan Murphy hates lesbians

Pretty Little Liars 117 Recap: The New Normal is Kinda Weird

Have you ever watched Pretty Little Liars with someone who’s never watched Pretty Little Liars before? That whole Ezra/Aria student/teacher illicit romance thing doesn’t really play in Peoria, is all I’m saying.

This week on Pretty Little Liars, I cried like a baby. Here, see for yourself:

Shay Mitchell was interviewed by E! Online about her homogay character, btw, if you are interested:

Emily has transformed from a shy, confused girl to a badass babe, and Shay couldn’t be happier. “From the beginning of season one we saw that Emily is dealing with her sexuality and over the season she has come out to her parents, which I think is amazing,” Shay told us. “And you see how other people are accepting it. With [these latest] episodes there is a little bit of [anti-gay] bullying. I think it was important for the writers to put that in there, but it’s [also] fun. [Emily’s]‘s going to have a good time [standing up for herself].”

Shay says she has received “feedback from people from all around the world” about her character’s sexuality. “Young girls and guys just come up to me on the street and say things like, ‘Thank you, I related to your character unlike any other, especially when she was first discovering who she was and then come out to her dad—it gave me courage and strength to come out to my parents.’ That’s amazing, I couldn’t imagine playing a better character. I am very fortunate.”

Ahem. So this week on Pretty Little Liars, a ridiculous subplot emerged regarding an identity thief and a secondary ridiculous subplot recycled itself, this time replacing Aria’s old babysitter with Aria’s mom for the Woman Suspected to be In Love With Mr. Fitz, therefore providing ample opportunity for madcap misunderstandings and crazzzzy miscommunications! The girls crack Jenna’s code given to them via Spencer via secret messages via Toby and all it spells out is “BAD” which Hanna reads out loud in case everyone else didn’t know what B-A-D spelled. Hanna and Aria made up, and Hanna continued developing sexual tension with Caleb who is living in her basement.

Also, Spencer pulls off Saddle Club Sophisticate and develops sexual tension with Toby. I don’t know how Spencer does it, she just does it. She’s like this bossy timebomb thing.

Also, all four chicklettes, looking freshly plucked out of the American Girl book series, ran into Jenna at The Local Clothing Store With Open Dressing Room and catch her buying lacy lingerie for somebody who I personally think is Ian. Or maybe it’s Jacob, pretending to be Esau. You never know.

Everybody’s hair looked shiny and perfect per always AND Aria sported pigtails for an unfortunate portion of the episode, highlighting her eyes and also her youth, which amps up the potential sketch-factor of her relationship with Mr. Fitz.

(Sidenote: Ian Harding, who plays Ezra, is 24 and Lucy Hale, who plays Aria, is 21.)

OKAY TIME FOR THE LESBIAN PARTS.

The first Emily scene of any significance takes place in the cafeteria, where the gang is making Oliver Twist references re: Caleb that fly past Hanna like one of those gusts of wind constantly blowing through Rosewood, tickling windchimes and cuing suspenseful music. Emily says to be careful, Spencer says he’s too “dark” and Aria blinks her eyes a few times. Basically these girls need a signed affidavit of non-sketchiness before any new characters are permitted face time with any of their friends. I’ve been there. This is what happens when someone fucks with you. YOU TRUST NOBODY. EVERYONE IS FUCKING SKETCHY AS FUCK.

This friendly lunch is interrupted by Nick McCullers, father of Paige McCullers, The Girl with the Gravatar Bangs. Nick is storming through the cafeteria in search of The Coach, because he wants to see The Coach. I’d like Nick to see the coach too so she could school the hell out of his unit, but instead Ezra God of English takes this one on without skipping a beat.

Nick: I’ve seen the principal. And all I got was a lot of politically correct doubletalk. About the agenda in this place that’s penalizing my daughter — taking opportunities away from her and giving them to someone who doesn’t deserve them —
Mr. Fitz: Everybody gets a fair chance here, Mr.McCullers. We go out of our way to be sure that’s how it works.
Nick: My girl is the best swimmer on that team and you can’t give it to somebody just because–
Mr. Fitz: You’re in a cafeteria, Mr. McCullers, filled with kids trying to have lunch. I don’t think that’s the audience that you want, is it?

BINGO! If you really wanna pack a punch and get your psychologically unbalanced guppy back into the pond, this is not your target audience —

This is more like it:

Per ushe, it’s impossible to tell how this little skerfuffle made Emily feel due to Emily’s limited range of facial expressions.

What about Paige orgasming herself off the bicycle in the rain?

What about the fact that this really doesn’t even make remote sense and no high school sports team would value homosexual representation over winning?

Obviously this is an entire show built around a question that will never be answered (I beleive Caleb had some wise rascaly words about this at some point) so what’s a few more.

This girl is the best part of the scene:

Paige, clearly horrified that Dad just fucked up her chances with Emily, goes to apologize in that scary intense voice that only Emily Runs-With-Fawns can handle without flipping out. Maybe that white beanie is an immunity cap, I honestly can’t think of any other reason why she would have that fucker on her head.

Paige: Listen I didn’t know my Dad was coming. He wanted to know how someone beat me, he wanted to know why I slacked off but I didn’t, you know that I didn’t, so I told him we tied but you got the spot —
Emily: Because I’m gay?
Paige: No, I didn’t say anything. He must have asked around — I didn’t tell him, I swear
Emily: I have to go to class.

Emily is cool as a fucking cucumber about this whole thing. Is this a character arc or something.
Meanwhile, Team Sensitive Sensible is phoning it up with Team Out of Fucking Control — Spencer’s on Aria and Emily’s all up in Hanna’s grill about Caleb’s Sketch potential which seems fair enough considering he’s got no references, slept in the high school library air duct, breaks cars recreationally, requires Hanna to pay him to talk about his feelings which I think is the opposite of therapy, took five days to “juice up” Emily’s cell-phone to play Born This Way every time Mom calls, and has Runaway Troubled Badass Hair in the tradition of John Bender from The Breakfast Club, Jordan Catalano in My So-Called Life, Shawn in Boy Meets World and River Phoenix in general.

Emily’s Mom, carrying a hamper of homophobia, slithers past Emily’s room and Emily snaps that it’s Hanna on the phone DON’T WORRY THERE IS NO LESBIAN PHONE SEX HAPPENING HERE WITH MAYA and Mom says she just wanted to know if Emily wanted more “cobbler” and Emily is like NO, because hello, obviously there’s poison in it.

Hanna is stuffing her knapsack with tupperware containers of, I’m guessing, body parts, wearing the sleeve of my great-grandmother’s JC Penny flowered tracksuit as a blouse, and saying neat things like, “Paige is such a nob.” I don’t even know what that means, but I’m pretty sure she’s right.

Hanna: “What do you mean, ONLY Hanna?”
Emily: “It’s my Mom, things are still subzero around here.”
Hanna: “Did you tell her about Paige’s Dad coming to school?”
Emily:“No point, she’ll say it’s my fault for choosing a disgusting lifestyle.”

Emily says that it might not be “all Paige’s fault.” You know what that means? SHE’S ON THE RIGHT TRACK BABY SHE WAS BORN THIS WAY and Emily knows it.

Parent-Teacher conferences bring Emily’s Mom into the school hallway, where she runs into Aria’s Mom.

Ella: I just want you to know that the school is not going to be bullied by Nick McCullers. Everybody here loves Emily —
Pam: What about Nick McCullers?
Ella: Um, well he came in making a big deal about how he thinks Emily’s getting special treatment because she’s gay. Everybody knows that Emily is the better swimmer, except McCullers.
Pam: He came here to school and said that?
Ella: In front of everyone — students, teachers —
Pam: Was Emily there?
Ella: She was.

You can see the creeping worm of compassion slithering its way through Pam’s brain…

Later that same day, or maybe five minutes later, or maybe the next week, Emily’s Mom and Emily are plopped onto the same set and Emily’s like, “I don’t need a ride, bitch, I’m driving my own car down a one-way road to Lezzie Town and last I heard you’re only in the market for a round trip.”

Pam: I need to ask you a question. I need to know something before I talk to the school.
Emily: Talk to the school about what?
Pam: Is it true what Aria’s Mom told me? About Mr. McCullers coming to the school and saying something about some kind of preferential treatment —
Emily: I don’t wanna talk about it.
Pam: Emily is it true? Is this true? Because if —
Emily: Yeah, it’s true.
Pam: Why didn’t you tell me?
Emily: You really don’t know why I wouldn’t tell you? It’s because I know what you think of me. I know what you’d say. It doesn’t matter who I am, I better get used to people looking at me only one way.

Pam looks through the suddenly crowded room/hallway? and spots Nick, standing around in his pea green sweater looking douchey. So she goes over to TEAR THIS SHIT UP. It’s a triumphant moment, worthy of a Debbie Notvotny Seal of Approval.

Pam: We need to talk.
Nick: I was wondering when I’d hear from you. This isn’t personal. You deal with your family problems any way that you want, but this is about what the school is doing to my daughter.
Pam: Um, yeah. It’s about your daughter. It’s about you trying to make her into some kind of professional victim and using my daughter to do it.
Nick: I don’t think you understand.
Pam: Oh I understand. I understand that you always think there’s someone else to blame when things don’t go your way.
Nick: Okay, you’re upset.
Pam: No. Not yet. But I’m getting there. My daughter never got anything she didn’t earn. That’s how we raised her, that’s who she is. So you drop this, Nick. Drop it or I’ll show you what a real agenda looks like.

That’s right, Nick, and that agenda isn’t all cobbler and laundry and dinner parties. It’s the Love Agenda, Nick. See? Love:

Pam: Emily, I still don’t understand, but I love you. You’re my child and nobody hurts my child. I’m so sorry if I —

At this point I am basically sobbing, I can’t even type. It’s meaningful and hopefully will brainwash parents into having turnarounds that aren’t necessarily full embraces but are still strong alignments.

Later on Emily’s sitting in her car when Paige drops in for a snack and some gossip! If Paige pulled that shit on Spencer there would be baseball bats in the air.

Paige: Listen, it’s like your Mom said. My Dad is always looking for somebody to blame.
Emily: I have to go home. My Mom’s waiting for me.
Paige: Right, your Mom’s waiting. God why is everything so easy for you?
Emily: Easy? What planet do you live on?! I’ve spent most of my life trying not to feel the way I feel. I come out and they ship my first girlfriend off to God knows where.. and now maybe she’s done with me. So yeah, it’s all about Emily. All Em, all the time.

Well there is one thing that’s all about Emily — PAIGE.

via shaymitchdaily.tumblr.com

Thoughts/feelings?

Genderqueer Outlaw: Meet Franky, Skins Season Five’s Glorious Headf*ck Thing

We weren’t going to write about Skins‘ Season Five because we’d heard that the show was homo-free and we only have room in our budget/calendars to recap programs chock-full of homosexual glory. Skins usually IS that program, and it’s been consistently popular with queers like us for its frank, unsparing and realistic portrayal of the homogay lifestyle. Both UK Generations and the current US incarnation feature at least one gay character — Maxxie, Naomi, Emily, Tea.

This season, eager fans saw the cast photo and assumed one of these humans was a lesbian:

— and were disappointed when Dakota Blue Richards (the girl in the black in the middle, obviously), who plays the not-lesbian, told the press that her character was, you know, not a lesbian.

However! Show creators did hint that “one of the characters in the next generation is very much in the tradition of Skins portrayal of sexuality, but you won’t quite know what or who she is for quite a while.”

So. Two weeks ago last Monday I accidentally downloaded G3-s1 (Skins UK) instead of s1-e3 (Skins MTV) and accidentally started watching it and before I knew it I was typing stuff on my keyboard, deciding to forego the US Skins recap altogether!

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Meet Franky

Skins dedicates each episode to one character or two (premieres and finales occasionally are attributed to “everyone”) and Season Five’s premiere episode featured Franky Fitzgerald.

Franky’s profile on the Skins website cites “Joan of Arc” as Franky’s “Religious View” and names The Little Prince and The Clockwork Orange, among others, as her favorite books. Franky sometimes communicates with a tiny wooden doll who stars in videos Franky films in her room. Franky is very precise about things. She’s the adopted daughter of the cherub/cheery Jeff and Geoff, her “Dads” who met in the army and married in camouflage. She has really nice skin.

Oh yeah and also, she’s genderqueer.

Genderqueer: A difficult/contentious term to define, or a catch-all term for gender identities falling outside the gender binary or transcending traditional meanings of “man” and “woman.” Reflective of the understanding that sex and gender are separable aspects of a human person. Many genderqueers do not define their identity by referencing the binary gender system, some consider themselves to be a third gender, others identify as genderless or androgynous or simply transgressive or otherwise misgendered within the dominant binary system.

In the weeks leading up to Season Five’s premiere, some readers were harassing Crystal and I about our refusal to recap the show, insisting that Franky’s genderqueerness and homosexual fathers were enough gay to warrant a recap.

“What, she has short hair and wears ties or something but the producers aren’t gutsy enough to make her masculine-of-center AND gay?” I thought, imagining that this alleged genderqueerdom would ring about as true as Ashley’s goth phase on Degrassi.

But I’d forgotten that Skins doesn’t play us like that. More recently, a reader wrote me personally:

Unless I am way off base (I don’t believe I am), this character is genderqueer. Frankie may not understand it yet. I had no clue for 26 years. I appreciate the feelings of emptiness and utter loneliness. I’ve seen those looks on people’s faces for years. I know what it’s like to be called a ‘thing.’ People can’t place you and their confusion turns to anger.

Skins always goes for the jugular, steering its narrative into the deepest cesspools of teenage desire and fear, the murky hideaways where adolescence is at its most wretched and hard-fought.

Skins never aims to glamorize anything or anyone, which is the real reason The Parents Television Council’s warnings fall on deaf ears. Skins characters aren’t the impossibly clear-skinned, perfectly-haired, ingeniously-dressed, stick-thin, perfect-jawed plastics on 90210 — they look more like people we know. (Except Effy. Nobody knows anyone who looks like Effy.)

More importantly, the kids in Skins are usually fucked, alienated and often quite sad, though occasionally gifted with transcendent moments of reckless, often drug/sex-induced happiness.

But we don’t want to be the kids on Skins. Why would we pattern our behavior after a group of kids who — in addition to sporting an alarmingly high mortality rate — overdose, go to jail, get beaten up, fail out of school, get sick, get institutionalized, wreck cars, become homeless, get robbed, get hit by cars/paralyzed and repeatedly screw up relationships, friendships and families?

That’s not glamour — that’s hard knocks, and if there’s one thing all the Skins kids have in common it’s this sense that they are HARDENED, that things have not been, in one way or another, handed to them on a silver platter.

Viewers want to be like the characters on 90210 or Gossip Girl; they want those shimmery, easy lives of effortless beauty and impossible, free-floating wealth where dysfunction is always more foreplay than disaster. Viewers envy Gossip Girls’s consequence-free world of framed college degrees and dark, sexy furniture.

We want to be Kelly Taylor or Blair Waldorf.

But we’re already Emily Fitch.

We’re already Franky Fitzgerald.

It’s just that nobody cared enough to talk about us before now.

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Episode 1: Franky

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The fifth season of Skins begins with that strikingly intimate shot of a kid who’s already awake, but still in bed — you know the one —

… while the loose janky chords of The Strange Boy’s “Be Brave” start thumping from the corners of Franky’s lucid, determined consciousness as she wakes and begins her morning routine in the room she’s just moved into. Her sartorial game is determinedly dapper, like a Newsie getting dressed for dinner.

Franky is very little, with small bones and dark, nervous eyes, impeccably clear skin and hair slicked back to reveal her adorkably earnest ears and the wide, clear slope of her face. She’s the kind of kid that adults realize is going to be really fucking badass one day and therefore approach as though she’s a tiny, endangered bird in need of temporary supervision. Franky seems to prefer that everyone just speak their minds, rather than keeping all the ugly stuff to themselves.

Franky, face already defensively perturbed, is advised by her Dads to “try and fit in” but it’s clear, from her outfit, that she’s never gonna fit in. She’s heading out into the cruel cruel world where rascally schoolboys call her a lezzer and try to beat her up, which leads to Franky hijacking a motorized wheelchair and ultimately crashing directly into her first day of school, at which point Mini, the Queen Bee, gaffs, “Wow. Has the circus come to town or what?”

For Franky it kinda has, however — insofar as her first day of school is like a twisted Horror Funhouse of nightmarish Worst First Day Fears, beginning with being thrust immediately into gym class and, sans gym clothes, given dirty white shorts and a Frankie Says Relax t-shirt from the Lost & Found, and proceeding gamely forward into her first awkward locker room scene.

As Franky weaves through the rows of caustic-looking clones in safe, pastel bra-and-panties sets, I felt my own stomach tighten and twist, remembering how terrifying it was to undress in front of other girls when I was 15 or 16 — and how I’d therefore beeline for the handicapped stall when nobody was looking, where I could change without anyone asking why I wore boxer shorts or noticing how severely I did not need a bra. Like I’d accidentally put my clothes on while peeing or something, I couldn’t help it, I was like Superman.

The girls laugh at Franky, especially when they spot what seems to me to be a perfect pair of boyshorts with “Oh my god what the hell are those?” Mini takes it a step further, seizing an opportunity to exercise her social power — “Are you like in fancy dress, or is that like an actual like, choice?”

Here’s the thing about Franky — I don’t think it’s an actual like, choice. This is just who she is.

Later in the episode when she attempts wearing makeup and more feminine clothing to please her new friends, she ultimately breaks down during an English presentation — “I tried today and now I feel kind of less like me, and I’m not exactly over the moon about being me in the first place, but now I think I kinda like it less when I’m trying NOT to be me. Because I just wanna like, be.”

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Franky Meets Other People

The three girls who ‘befriend’ Franky in the first episode are nothing like Franky — or at least it seems that way at first.

Mini and Liv have that look of suburban high school girls who have been popular for so long that their souls have become just another accessory. Grace tags along airily, saying absent/sweet/silly things while remaining inexorably bound to Mini’s haughty hip; a partnership perhaps maintained by the unstoppable inertia of adolescence. Perhaps Mini feels Grace’s child-like goodness could go either way, perhaps she and Liv feel almost generous for allowing Grace to be a teammate rather than a target.

The girls wear bright, trendy clothing and flash obnoxious gummy smiles. Mini’s jewelry clanks with each of her loose strides and Mini is senselessly, compulsively mean, and threatened – clearly – by Franky. There is no room in Mini’s head for a girl like Franky, so it’s easier to call her a dyke and keep Franky’s stubborn subscription to non-conformity far away from Mini’s world of fast-handed boyfriends and magazines about how teenagers should do their hair.

They are the anti-Franky, but something about her appeals to them. Do they want to change her or look at her? And is it relevant that Franky refuses to engage in being submissive, and that even though she is almost constantly fighting weakness, she meets them eye-to-eye?

Because when Franky’s gender non-conformity is challenged, Franky, despite emotional tugs from all corners of the room, maintains an inspiring certainty about who she is and what she feels comfortable wearing.

For example…

In the grand tradition of gender transgressors past, Franky’s new friends submit her to The Makeover. You know The Makeover, right? Yes. It begins in a flurry of Shiloh Panic and usually ends with a mall montage and a happy customer.

We’re in the mall dressing room and they’ve already gotten Franky to try eyeliner and lipstick. Mini’s found a dress Grace describes as a “punky butterfly” and they’ve got Franky in it. You can almost feel Franky’s itchy discomfort over being given clothes truly meant for an entirely different human; like when you feel, trying clothes on, that it’d be more efficient just to put them on another person’s skin, but you can’t, and so you squeeze your self-conception into them and feel itchy, even if nothing itches.

This is what Franky must wear, though, says Mini. This is what you need to wear to be in my world, where we carry condoms in our hot pink purses and say shocking mean things to each other for sport and we’re all on drugs so what the fuck ever, you know?

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The morning after their shopping trip, Franky dips her toes in the water of semi-conformity, applying eye makeup and wearing something a bit more flirty. It’s unclear if she’s compromising with Mini/herself here or if she regularly switches up her style. But the compromise doesn’t fly either: “You can’t come to my soiree like that,” Mini tells her. “It looks like she’s been gang-raped by clowns! What about that gorge dress I got you?” Frankie says it’s not right. Mini wants to know why not.

Although Franky’s pain isn’t even slightly obfuscated by her anger, she’s a feisty little firecracker of a girl and that’s something — it’s like confidence without being confident.

We’re meant to understand that Franky’s been bullied a lot at her old school, but Skins skips the “thank god I got a makeover and can be popular now” trope in favor of something slightly more inspiring: despite everything, despite Mini humiliating Franky in front of the school by pulling up photos from from the facebook-esque site started by Franky’s ex-classmates to shit all over her, despite a lifetime of moments like that one, Franky decides, ultimately, to attend the party, and to do so in the clothes that make her feel comfortable.

But first she stops in a field to smoke a joint in a trenchcoat and shoot a pistol into the prairie, where a mysterious boy finds her and tells her she’s beautiful. I don’t know, it’s Skins. He might just be a figment of her imagination, we’re not sure yet.

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Of course Mini is furious at Franky for arriving, especially dressed like THAT. Mini is the Queen of the party and doesn’t appreciate this deviant crasher. “Look at you just standing there like –” Mini begins, but Franky interrupts:

Yeah, nice try. She’s heard all that before. When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose after all, and Mini’s response is fear, mostly. I mean, Mini is vulnerable too, but she covers it up by being mean. Franky is vulnerable but she’s sure-footed in her vulnerability. That’s scary.

Although lesbian slurs are thrust constantly at Franky, she doesn’t confirm or deny anything; when she meets the mystery boy in the field, however, there is a heightened romantic energy not felt in her other scenes. In later episodes, there’s some tension with [SPOILER ALERT] (Mini), but it’s really hard to say and regardless, doesn’t seem pressing thus far.

When Rich and Alo turn to Franky for advice on how to talk to girls (because she’s “like a girl, but not like a girl”) in the second episode, Franky tells them: “I don’t know anything about girls either. I don’t have a Mum or a sister; my experience of girls is mostly being beaten up by them.”

Ultimately one of the most fascinating and progressive aspects of the term “genderqueer” is that it provides a whole swath of previously “undefined” people with a word they can use to describe themselves, which they must do because it makes other people feel safe. Perhaps the labeled person wants also to feel like a Thing, everybody wants to be a Thing.

But at the same time, the word itself evades any definitively consequential definition. It’s kinda rad, really — it’s like a loophole and also a big room for people to run around in. It’s a word for what some people are, but that word offers a lot of room for said people to figure out exactly who they are (or aren’t).  I can’t imagine a better thing for a teenager to see than this on their television.

Franky’s episode ends when, after being rejected by Mini; Franky, Rich, Alo and Grace ditch the party in favor of a much better time — some random abandoned swimming pool. It made me think of this song I really like by a band my high school friends were in, called White Flowers.

	Flashpapr – white flowers
	Found at white flowers on KOhit.net

It’s all about being young and in your underpants, I think, going “over the fence of the senior’s complex to their swimming pool, the perfect view of the night shining bright,” which is maybe a place to start when you’re still small and splashing around, trying to find a place to float.

Skins finds new stories to tell, and the fact that they thought of this one before any angry human demanded representation is perhaps one of the most admirable things this show has ever attempted to do. The space has been queered, ladies and genetleman and otherwise-identified human persons; the water’s warm, dive in.

Jennifer Beals, Sarah Shahi and Other ‘L Word’ers on Your Teevee, Elsewhere

You’ve surely heard about Jennifer Beals‘ new FOX show, The Chicago Code that premiered last week to pretty favorable reviews. So far my number one feeling is I Miss Bette Porter, but I’m willing to see this thing through. The good news is that girlfriend was ALL OVER TV promoting on Chelsea Lately, Craig Ferguson, Good Day LA and Access Hollywood. Oh, and so far her Chicago Code wardrobe has consisted purely of a power suit, cop uniform and white tank top, which might pique your interest.

She also gives this really funny/astute quote to New York Magazine:

“There were times on The L Word I longed to be around testosterone, or needed to have more of a balance. I loved being with all the women and I loved the way people processed things so much — and there was a lot of talking going on. About everything. At first I got really frustrated because I was like, “Let’s just do it, let’s stop talking about it.”

Rachel Shelley popped up randomly on Joey Tribbiani‘s new Showtime series, Episodes last week. They film this in London (even though it takes place in LA) so her casting suddenly makes a lot of sense. Also, she does a valley girl accent and it’s pretty fun.

JB isn’t the only girl headlining a brand new series: I’ve been staring at our very own Carmen de la Pica Morales plastered all over subway platforms for her new USA series, Fairly Legal for the past month. Sarah Shahi has also been doing the talk show circuit with appearances on Jimmy Kimmel and The Today Show.

Leisha Hailey has a horror movie, Fertile Ground, out in limited release (wait for DVD) and costars none other than Gale Harold! Warning: She has simulated sex with Brian Kinney and I may be scarred for life. Also, building buzz for the their upcoming second album, Uh Huh Her is doing a 12-date west coast tour beginning in March. Strangely, the Los Angeles dates are April 1-2 falling over Dinah Shore Weekend when every LA dyke makes their yearly migration to Palm Springs. Target demo anyone?

Have you watched The Chicago Code or Fairly Legal? Thoughts/feelings?

Pretty Little Liars 116 Recap: Je Suis Une Amie and Paige Est Une Lesbienne

This week on Pretty Little Liars, nothing overtly gay happened besides me beginning to develop a mini-crush on Spencer and someone infusing the school swimming pool with a jetstream of lezzy energy, which I believe SPOILER ALERT will be followed up on next week in “The New Normal,” an episode title which sounds like the headline of a New York Times Sunday Styles trend piece about unmarried twentysomething urban farmers living in communes outside of Philadelphia which is the New Williamsburg. But it’s not. It’s just this Pretty Little Show.

Here’s the preview for next week’s show, when we definitely maybe but probably not will find out who A. is:

Anyhow let’s not get ahead of ourselves! Wee still have Episode 116 of Pretty Little Liars, “Je Suis Une Amie,” to discuss. Here, watch it:

This week on Pretty Little Liars, Spencer successfully pulls off a shirt/dress which I believe was initially spun by silk farmers as a tablecloth/napkin set for the Queen of England and has since been ruffled, cinched at the shoulders, BELTED, accessorized, and dropped onto he leggings-clad body of Spencer Fucking Hastings. Hanna spends more time with the Hatted Foster Child, who has been living in the high school like that kid who lived in the NYU library, even though he makes more money than I do “upgrading” phones to ring “Single Ladies” in 40 different languages, including braille. Hanna tells Aria that she was the one who gave Aria’s mom the museum tickets (WHY? WHY DID SHE TELL HER? JUST LIE, THAT’S WHAT THE SHOW IS ABOUT, LIE!), which makes Aria’s big beautiful eyes fill with tiny tears that cannot be soothed by Mr. Fitz b/c that actor was not on contract for this episode. Aria’s brother is gay and wants to eat at the sausage restaurant, Spencer’s sister is pregnant with Ian’s Devilbaby, and A. continues pushing her unlimited text messages plan into “taking advantage of Sprint’s generosity” territory.

Now let’s talk about the lesbian.

via echofades.tumblr.com

The Emily Story begins with Spencer playing stakeout from Emily’s window, wherein the entire neighborhood and all its liars/supsects are visible. Toby’s mailbox has been hate crimed by a bigot who hates alleged murderers, blind people and cats and so Toby’s outside getting some fresh air/picking up the literal and symbolic pieces.

Spencer wants to apologize for disbelieving Toby but Emily says Spencer should just apologize to Toby. See, now that the Keebler Elfmadam from the Woods has targeted Spencer as the bracelet-buyer, Spencer knows how it feels to be accused of doing something you didn’t do — ’cause clearly Spencer wouldn’t ever jewelery shop in Pooh Corner, girlfriend has a Bloomingdales Credit Card for that kind of thing.

Paige & Emily tied for Best Swimmer of the Pool and need to have a swim-off to determine the new “anchor” for the team, which sounds like a punishment but is apparently an honor.

Emily, persistent in her refusal to raise her voice above a consistently simmering monotone with minimal eye movement, says to Paige,”I guess we’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

“You figure it out,” Paige says. “I need to win.”  Right-o. Everyone got that? Paige needs to win, Emily should figure it out. She should drug herself or not shave her legs, maybe.

When Em tells Spencer about the swim-off, Spencer tells Emily that she will win and Emily says probably not because Paige wants it more. “No,” Spencer insists. “You want it more, and it is okay to admit that.” Emily is rendered powerful by the rays of school spirit emanating from Spencer’s eyesockets and defers, whipping out Emily Facial Expression #4, “The Demure Acceptance of my Fate as Instructed to Me By Somebody Else (usually Spencer).”

The girls spot a poster advertising for a French Tutor for a home-schooled kid. Apparently the other French students haven’t exactly been jumping at this opportunity because everybody knows that home-schooled kids don’t believe in Evolution or France, which is creepy. But not as creepy as Toby — or, rather, EXACTLY as creepy as Toby because Emily says it’s Toby’s poster. Spencer, in the interest of diversifying her Burberry-scented resumè, takes a number.

Emily is suspicious of Spencer’s motives — does she really want to conjugate verbs, or does she want to play Nancy Drew and the Case of the Missing Bitch We All Hated Anyhow with Toby as her special informant? Spencer will not let Emily get in the way of her ingenious multi-tasking. She wants it more, is what I’m saying. Elle en veut plus, as they say in Epcot Center.

Also, can we pause to admire the clip art Toby has employed on his flier to indicate the country of France? I think that’s a picture of the tower at Kings Island.

Later that night or really whenever, Emily, who is perfecting the art of sleeping without messing up her hair, gets a text message that inspires her to immediately trot downstairs to answer the door for a stranger, because you know, it’s a very safe neighborhood, like Canada.

It’s Paige, soaking wet/dripping like a hot mess with problematic bangs who’s been riding her bicycle around in a thunderstorm at 2am like a crazy person or a girl in a horror movie about to become What You Did Last Summer.

Emily: Paige are you okay?
Paige: No.
Emily: What happened?
Paige: You have every reason to hate me, I don’t even know why I’m here.

Luckily, we do. She is here because she has A BIG FAT LESBIAN CRUSH on Emily.

Emily: I don’t hate you.
Paige: I would, I do.
Emily: Don’t say that.
Paige: I’m sorry, Emily. I just wanted you to know that.
Emily: Wait — Paige —

Now Paige is unlocking the biggest secret she’s gotta keep it which is that Emily is not a hater. Emily don’t hate nobody (except maybe Allison). Emily would probably fingerblast those tears right out of Paige’s eyeballs if she could, or maybe let Paige run her moist hands down Emily’s exposed spine in that backless t-shirt, but instead Paige dashes off on her Brian Krakow bicycle into the dark/stormy night.

Is it Emily’s homogayness that makes her so patient/understanding of the inner turmoil beating beneath the breasts of other outsiders like Paige and Toby? Perhaps. She gets how all that hiding and lying can make someone get real mixed-up and mean inside.

The next day at practice, Coach Shark Week tells her baby sharks that the anticipated swim-off will not be happening, just like the Dance-Off and the Bake-Off that got canceled because lesbians ruin everything. No actually it’s apparently because Paige had a little bicycling accident last night because that’s what happens when you try to orgasm by rocking gently against the bicycle seat all the way home from your Lesbian Crush Scavenger Hunt. Or maybe A. did it. You never know.

In any event, my interest has shifted to this underrated actress in the glasses, where’s her scene/lesbian awakening? She looks like a young Deanne Smith.

A hop skip and a waterski-jump later, it’s time to crank up the emo pop-punk and get our swim meet on!

The most important part of this scene is Shay Mitchell’s legs:

Emily glides through the water like a fish in the body of a really cute lesbian. It’s probably a stunt swimming double, but a girl can dream, especially with such DREAMY MUSIC playing. Emily wins, the terrorists lose.

Emily always swims in slow motion, yet she always wins. There’s some queer superpowers for you. Paige and her bangs even make a guest appearance because she is not going to miss the chance to watch Emily swim in a context that does not inspire envy or competition but rather pure, unbridled, closeted lesbian lust.

Later on Emily, wearing one of those athletic swimtunics they’ve always got around at the Olympics, finds Paige soaking her feet in the pool, probably wondering if Emily has ever been toed and if so, by whom.

Emily: You okay? You didn’t return any of my calls.
Paige: I’m fine, it’s nothing. I didn’t know what to say. I was riding home on my bike and totally wiped out.
Emily: What were you thinking about?
Paige: How easy things would be if I wiped out. I’m kinda done with swimming.
Emily: Yeah, I used to feel that way.
Paige: Obviously you got over it — how did you get over it?
Emily: I started swimming for myself, I quit trying to be better than everyone on my team and I just relaxed. When was the last time you swam for fun?

YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?

SLOW-MOTION SWIMMING MONTAGE!!!!

The sweet sweet sounds of Selena Gomez radiate throughout the aqua-blue building as Paige and Emily set off ‘shipping into the big blue seapool. Emily, still straining to execute a wider range of facial expressions and ultimately failing, takes off her goggles to get a good look at this chick’s assets and everyone gets a little chloriney tingle of expectation in their gut. Maya who?

Also I found some cute tumblrs, like prettylittlepictures, prettylittleliarss, -sparkles, shay mitchell daily and pretty little liars x. Look at all the stuff you can obtain on the internet these days!

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COME BACK NEXT WEEK SPOILER ALERT:

Play Our “Parents Television Council Match Game,” Win a Thing

I’m obsessed with the Parent’s Television Council television recaps and so I’ve created a Match Game for you. But first, I want to talk a little bit about The Parents Television Council television recaps. You know how we only recap the lesbian parts of our favorite shows, like Pretty Little Liars and Skins Season 3? Well, the PTC does something similar with their recaps — they only recap the sex, drugs and profanity, and they do so with the same meticulous fascination we take to homosexual content.

For example, from last week’s episode recap of Skins on MTV:

The episode opens with the camera lovingly focusing on Chris’ massive store of erectile medication. Then the viewer is treated to multiple scenes of Chris’ erection tenting out his shorts; Chris staggering to the bathroom and urinating on his own face due to his erection; and finally, Chris relieving himself against a shower curtain.

To be perfectly honest I don’t think that the PTC’s concerns are always off-base — they have some compelling points to make about violence against women, for example, and they are careful to avoid homophobia. There are some recaps that I even actually agree with in parts, like this one of Sex Rehab With Dr Drew.

But I do find their opinions on drugs and sex to be counterproductive, ignorant of how life really is, and excessively puritanical. I do not find Janet Jackson’s nipple or Adam Lambert’s Big Gay Kiss remotely offensive or damaging to children but I am offended that The Parents Television Council is offended by Janet Jackson’s nipple and Adam Lambert’s kiss. You know?

In any event — what I dislike most about The Parents Television Council is their conviction that it’s the responsibility of the networks and the advertisers to monitor and censor content for children. It’s not. That’s your parents’ responsibility, period. Furthermore, the PTC should give kids and teenagers a little more credit — they’re not blind sheep dumbly patterning behavior after teevee shows, they’re whole entire human beings with original thoughts & moral compasses. Etc!

Anyhow — SO! Are you ready to play a game?

Here’s how it works. First, I’m giving you this list of just some of she shows The Parents Television Council has recapped as one of the Worst Shows of the Week:

How I Met Your Mother, Family Guy, Two and a Half Men, A Double Shot at Love with The Ikki Twins, Nip/Tuck, Ugly Americans, UK Skins on BBC America, Rock of Love Charm School with Sharon Osbourne, 90210, Mad Men, South Park, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,  American Dad, Jersey Shore, The Real World: Back in New Orleans, Glee, Law & Order: SVU, Criminal Minds, House, Desperate Housewives, Gossip Girl, Love Bus With Bret Michaels.

Now below I’ve pulled descriptions of some of those shows listed above from the Parents Television Council recaps. Your job is to match the description with the show!

Share what answers you DO have in the comments, if you want, and the first person to get them all right or the person who has gotten the most right wins an Autostraddle 2011 Calendar and a vintage Autostraddle sticker.

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Descriptions of Teevee Shows By the Parents Television Council:

1. “[This show is filled with] repulsive hookups, drunken binges, and profanity-laced grunts posing as speech. This program is an evolutionist’s dream; if ever there was proof that Man is descended from apes, the cretins on [this show] provide it.”

2. “…the scatological show has emerged as cable television’s top compendium of social perversity… seemingly rips storylines from a dictionary of deviance.”

3. “Like a recurrent bout of dysentery, [this show] is the gift that keeps on giving. The [most recent episode] of the sex-slathered drug-addict drama continued its efforts to portray teenage life as crushingly depressing, obsessed with meaningless, emotion- and consequence-free sex, and manageable only through the ingestion of massive quantities of controlled substances.”

4. “A steady stream of bleeped expletives and one unbleeped f-bomb from some of the lewdest, crudest, most conniving women on television.”

5. “…a blood-soaked, sex-laced medical soap opera.”

6. “It is nearly impossible to watch an episode of [this show] without feeling sickened… a TV program that exploits child molestation for the purpose of “entertainment.”

7. “Given the increasing amount of graphic sexual situations on television, perhaps in 30 years, it will be perfectly normal for parents to regale their children with sordid tales of their sexual conquests.  But for now, the premise behind [this show] is grossly inappropriate.”

8. “Jobless twenty-somethings being housed in a palatial home in an exotic setting for free, then turned loose on a month-long spree of drunken carousing, casual sex, and overly dramatic and immature personality conflicts, while being followed by camera crews every second.”

9. “[This episode of this show was] an endorsement of narcotics abuse, public masturbation, and school sanctioned burlesque. But perhaps most troubling is the deification of a troubled pop star into a symbol of empowerment and self-esteem.”

10. “One short week after showing a character eating out of a baby’s full diaper, eating vomit, and licking the baby’s rear, viewers got an episode with an outrageously stereotyped gay father having a sex-change operation, graphic violence and sexual innuendo, and yet more vomiting.”

11. “…what could be better than a lovelorn bi-sexual, marginally famous, scantily-clad car model?  Why, two lovelorn bi-sexual, marginally famous, scantily-clad car models, of course – and identical twins no less!”

12. “…behind whatever thinly-veiled social commentary… just an excuse to make fart jokes … no matter where they come from… when did the word “comedy” become synonymous with “heartless” and “disgusting”?”

13. “When future generations look back and wonder when America’s cultural decline began, they may consider a variety of possible starting points; but there will be no argument that, at least in terms of entertainment, the metaphorical apocalypse was well underway by 2010… as proof consider exhibit #1 [this show]… a particularly disgusting mélange of violence and gore.”

Pretty Little Liars Tells The Truth in “If At First You Don’t Succeed, Lie, Lie Again”

Things are looking up for us, I think. See — television affects children irrevocably, according to the social scientists and also to The Parents Television Council, who believe all children should be raised by their televisions. That’s why the PTC grades each television on its ability to parent, like the PTC is a really twisted social worker or something. Anyhow even if they’re right I think things are looking up for us.

Last year, when the kids were dying of self-loathing and everyone was suddenly eager to talk about it, Glee did an Issue Episode, reminiscent of Blossom‘s Very Special Episodes, after-school specials, etc. In the 80s and 90s, Special Episodes taught us how to handle a thing, like abortion or bulimia or abuse. We saw Kelly Martin handle it, and then we decided how we would handle it. Glee’s “Issue” was gay bullying. In the episode, Kurt’s hetero friends rally behind him to defend him and they beat the bully and ALSO SING AND DANCE.

So there we have our first example of what you should do when your friend gets gay-bullied okay? Okay good, moving on to the topic at hand, Episode 115 of Pretty Little Liars:

In Episode 115 of Pretty Little Liars, no lesbians made out or rocked each other gently in a candlelit room. However, plans were made and fucks were gave and suspects were raised.

via prettylittlepicspam.tumblr.com

Last night on Pretty Little Liars, Spencer told Emily’s swimming coach that Paige, the Psychotic Swimmer Girl, had said something mean to Emily about her homosexualspectacularness. See, Paige — who looked cute in her first scene and then transformed into a douche — wants to be captain of the swim team, but now that Emily’s back from her homosexual vacation, because everyone knows being gay is a full-time job that prohibits you from participating in extracurricular activities, Paige is worried that Emily will get to be captain because Emily is : 1) a better swimmer than her, 2) not Totally Fucking insane. Paige is probably a closeted homosexual, because she looks at Emily a lot with those “I hate that I want to bang you” eyes of despair.

So Paige threatened to out Emily to her team if Emily dared to beat her, and Emily was like, “Are you A.? Yes or no? If you are A, then you are one scary motherfucker. If you aren’t, then you are NOT the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me. SUCK IT.”

No just kidding, Emily says if you want to be a better swimmer, then work for it, or something very tough & dykey like that.

Later that day, Emily tells her friends what happened with Paige and Spencer apparently just naturally went and told the coach.

Emily is then shocked/appalled when the coach calls Paige and Emily aside after practice and says she understands that a homophobic remark was made and she wants to punish somebody. Emily is totally confused and says everything is fine and she will take care of it herself. In other words, Emily is pretty, she’s little, and she’s lying.

Then later on Spencer asks what happened with Paige and Emily is like WHAT and Spencer was like, oh yeah, I told the coach, that girl always talks shit about the homogays. Emily gets pissed and says she can take care of herself. The thing about that, though, was the nonchalance. Like it was just one more bossy thing for Spencer to do, because you know, she wears plaid cardigans and looks really smart and seems to “have her shit together.”

Near the end of the episode via flashback we find out that Allison was not just a bitch, but perhaps actually completely and totally evil. We still care who killed her though, despite the fact that this mystery has more holes in it than Helena Peabody’s character arc but whatever, what-the-fuck-ever, give us the tea and talk about our eyes being windows to our soul, for crying out loud we’ve been sitting here all this time JUST FUCKING TELL US WHO A IS AND THEN EVERYBODY MAKE OUT.

Also, Paige tries to murder Emily in the swimming pool and there are some nice underwater sequences with good music.

Anyhow back to Spencer telling the coach about how Paige made a bad joke to Emily about the breakstroke and what “team” Emily was on and how Spencer seemed so nonchalant about telling the coach, like Of course I told her. Because that’s what you do.

Didn’t you know?

That’s what you do when someone says something homophobic to your friend, you go tell somebody in a position of power who can use that power to impart wisdom and execute discipline to whomever dared to do such a terrible, terrible thing. That’s what you do, kids. Say no to drugs, say nope to dope, always use a condom, wear your seatbelt, don’t walk alone at night, no means no, there is no excuse for violence against women, judge a man by the content of his character not by the color of his skin and there is no excuse and zero tolerance for homophobic language. Everyone got that? Okay. Thank you.

What did you think of the episode?

Pretty Little Liars 114: Careful What U Wish 4, U Mite Have 2 Recap This Episode 3 Days Late

First of all I HATE IT WHEN TV SHOWS USE TEXTSPEAK IN THEIR TITLES. It’s not cute or clever. It’s lame. This week was not heavy on lesbian content although for the first time since the show’s launch, our Lesbian Lead — AND DARE I SAY IT THE ENTIRE CAST — displayed hints of what we like to call “personality.” Yes, behind the Precious Moments eyes, the frequently-mentioned-by-me SHIMMERING LOCKS OF HAIR and the impeccable skin and teeth we may find nuance. Especially when someone gets drunk!

As per ushe, we will be covering “the lesbian parts” which right now just means “the lesbian character” because her girlfriend has been shipped off to some kind of rehabilitation center in the woods for kids who smoke the reefer. It’s called “True North.” Suspiciously enough (it’s the music, this show is constantly playing this “everything is suspicious” music) — Emily is having trouble getting ahold of Maya the Maidenwoodnorthflower.

Well, She Does Have AT&T and Their Network is Totally Clogged by iPhones, So That’s Probs It

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We hope it’s not an ex-gay camp, right? Because Maya’s hippie parents wouldn’t ever send her to an ex-gay camp. Right? Right. Okay.

Emily says they’ve taken away Maya’s phone so the only people she can talk to are her parents.

Hannah then, strangely, for NO REASON WHAT-SO-FUCKING-EVER, transitions Emily’s concerns about not talking to Maya into an offer to hook up Emily’s Phone with the New Guy in School so that The New Guy can give Emily’s phone “more memory” and “apps.”

Probably The New Guy is gonna go straight home and upload this sucker.

PHONESPRETTYLITTLERICHGIRLSGAVEME DOT TUMBLR DOT COM

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Although Emily never expressed a desire for additional applications or ringtones on her mobile telephone, she is now waiting apparently several days to have her phone “pimped out.” That’s why she looks so sad here, as she strolls down the cobblestone streets with her dry-cleaner and Pride Shoulderbag to demand The New Guy give that shit back ’cause she has to call Maya.

Guy: “Where is she, rehab?”

Emily: “No, it’s not like rehab — it’s like — who told you rehab?”

Guy: “A cushy town like this? I’m guessing rehab is the new “boarding school.””

Emily: “Well, it’s not. She’s not a pothead. She shouldn’t even be there.”

What would “pothead rehab” even be like?

The gang comes together at the Dance Marathon, which involves students with numbers on their backs sort of reluctantly tapping their feet back and forth. The girls have a mission to retrieve Spencer’s laptop from Ian, who stole it because he killed Allison or had rough sex with Allison or just tossed Allison into the dirt and then ran off while someone else killed Allison or is A. or killed Laura Palmer or Mr. Burns or shot the Sheriff but didn’t shoot the deputy or killed Jenny or did absolutely nothing besides be just another boring-looking white dude on this show. White dudes, they all look the same, amirite?

The dance marathon thing is not like this, FYI:

Later on, Emily’s finally gotten ahold of Maya but their conversation was apparently disappointing. Spencer, who’s Especially Responsible and Grown-Up this episode, finds Emily sulking in the alley.

Emily: “It was like she was there… but she wasn’t.”

Spencer: “Oh sweetie, she’s in wilderness boot camp, you know, she’s been talking to bears. And besides I bet her counselor was probably watching her the whole time.”

Emily: “No, she was alone. Maybe she’s moved on.”

This is problematic — because first of all, who cares about that brand-new Jessie J ringtone if nobody’s even blowin’ up your phone. And secondly, we haven’t seen any other actual lesbians in her school, so this significantly decreases our chances of having minimal chaste lesbian content to over-analyze and bitch about. Lucas seems kinda lez, though.

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Listen, You Can Always Go Back to Having Crushes on Straight Girls.

Now that a girl has made Emily’s heart hurt, Emily turns to THE DRINK (Hannah’s got a flask) and gets really sassy.

Firstly, Sassy Emily wants to know why Hannah’s dancing with Lucas when Hannah knows how much Lucas likes her.  (A. has made Hannah a Temp Escort for the night, long story) Then Emily brings up Allison, who used to do that straight-girl-teasing-her-gay-BFF routine you all know so well, which is the first time she’s brought it up since the initial outing. It’s a nice touch — every girl has their own specific resentment towards Allison, and it’s interesting how at least for these two, Allison focused on things they couldn’t control (body type, sexuality) to wield absolute power over them while faking comradeship.

Emily: “Allison did the same thing to me. It makes you feel powerful, huh?”
Hannah: “No. Just the opposite.”
Emily: “It’s too bad she’s not here tonight, Allison would have been really proud of you.”

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He Ran Into My Knife Nine Times

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After emptying Hannah’s flask into her empty heart, Emily decides to tell Ian, the Number One Murder Suspect, how she really feels. Why? Because “he shouldn’t be here. He’s not a chaperone, he’s a killer. Why is Toby at home wearing a [something] while this freak can go anywhere he wants, do whatever he wants, marry your sister [Spencer]!”

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Do Not Even Fuck With Me, My Girlfriend is in Boot Camp Right Now

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Spencer cleans up that mess as Emily is taken outside by her bestbestfriends.

Emily refuses to go home because that’s what you do when your Mom sends your girlfriend into the wilderness and also, as aforementioned, she’s drunkity drunk  drunk.

The highlight of the episode is when Emily yells “I CAN OPEN MY OWN DAMN DOOR” and then proceeds to not be able to open her own damn door.+

THANK GOD THIS DIDN’T BECOME A DONNA MARTIN GRADUATES SITUATION

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Back at Spencer’s, Emily gives Hannah drunky rage eyes and gets her phone to call Maya, who I imagine is asleep, but whatever.

Emily: “Hannah, those things I said to you in the courtyard –“

Hannah: “Don’t apologize. You were right. The truth is, I was worse than Allison tonight, if that’s even possible. And I do know how Lucas feels about me. It wasn’t messing with him for fun, I had to–“

But Emily’s already asleep, probably dreaming about Shane.

Here’s something nice for you. I cried for no reason.

Thoughts on a TV Show About American Police Women

Hello. Have you seen this show, Police Women of Cincinnati? Apparently it’s a four-part installment of a larger reality TV franchise on TLC that follows police women on the job in various major cities, engaging in any number of dangerous, blood pressure-raising law enforcement activities. You’ve probably seen it. Maybe you caught Police Women of Memphis because you heard there was a hot, out, married lesbian by the name of Virginia Awkward and you were like, “she’s hot / MUCH RESPECT.”

virginia awkward

I don’t watch shows like this because I don’t like danger and I generally don’t enjoy being nervous or listening to people yell. Also, and I’m just going to go ahead and put this on the table, in the same vein as COPS and Border Wars, there’s such a giant racist pink elephant in almost every scene, and that makes it hard / impossible to take an interest in these projects.

colleen deegan

I’m telling you all of that in order to tell you this: I’m going to watch tonight’s episode so I can fall all over myself re: Officer Deegan. Colleen Deegan is an Iraq war veteran and is part of the Central Vice Control Section of the Cincinnati Police Dept., which I think is like, the vice squad. Like, THE vice squad. Like Miami Vice, but in Cincinnati. I’m positive that Officer Deegan is very intelligent and interesting and fundamentally good as a person, which is why I’m super interested in her arms / ass / overall deal.

There are only two episodes left of the Cincinnati run, so it’s not like I’m necessarily supporting this type of entertainment. Although, it’s worth pointing out that Police Women could practically be considered progressive, at least for a reality show, w/r/t its positive representation of single working mothers and lesbians in general, and its celebration of women demonstrating traits that are traditionally considered ‘masculine,’ like ‘being a badass’ and ‘doing dangerous, physical things really well.’

“These fearless female officers will encounter intense cop drama and action, all while balancing kids, significant others, and life at home.”

But anyway back to the hot cop.  I feel like tonight’s episode will involve a lot of Officer Deegan talking authoritatively and furrowing her brow and devising intricate plans. And sorta strutting / running. And she has handcuffs, you guys.

Handcuffs.

You can watch a video of Officer Deegan being really cute in an SUV and running after a drug dealer on TLC.com. Yeah I said cute.

10 Great Muppet Show Musical Numbers

The Muppet Show aired from 1976 to 1981 on CBS. It was for adults and also one of the best shows ever on television. Glee Shmee.

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1. “The Rainbow Connection” with Debbie Harry (1981)

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2. “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” with Paul Simon (1980)

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3.”School’s Out” with Alice Cooper (1978)

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4. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (Beatles cover)

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5. “Crocodile Rock” with Elton John (1977)

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6. “Fever” with Rita Moreno (1976)

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7. “Last Time I Saw Him” with Diana Ross (1980)

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8. Gonzo’s Song to Camilla

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9. Julie Andrews, “The Lonely Goatherd” (1977)

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10. Johnny Cash – Ghostriders in the Sky

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Skins US Episode 102 Recap: Tea is a Lesbian Who Likes To Kiss Girls

This week we watched an entire thirteen minutes and forty-seven seconds of Skins before turning to drugs, which means everything the Parents Television Council was worried about is true.

aboutskins.tumblr.com

Without a doubt, however, the most unrealistic aspect of this week’s episode is that on a random weeknight, there just-so-happens to be a hoppin’ lesbian club night that lets in 16-year olds within walking/bussing distance of Tea’s house. I mean they take ten busses and a hydroplane to get to school and it’s only a hop/skip/jump to pussy palace?

We open in Lesbian Cruising Spot #1 — NOT THE PLANET THE PLANET ISN’T REAL — History class! Is this what happens in high school these days, children? Is it?

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Tea invites Betty to join her at Lesbian Club Night in Fantasyland via mysterious table-dropped note which reads “Northern Soul.”

Tea roars sexily through her busybusy life, surrounded by noise and chaos, eventually escaping into the dear refuge of her bedroom where we can watch her undress and check out her literary tattoo:

via fyeahteamarvelli.tumblr.com

Tea’s got her lesbo-jeans, lesbo-shoes and GLITTER SHIRT on, as well as a giant coat that is not fucking around. IT’S TIME TO MEET THE LADIES

But This ID Says “Maxxie Oliver”?

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No lesbian bar would ever be named Northern Soul, it would be named “Lick” or something. Which is the name of an actual lesbian bar in Vancouver. This is how we prevent anyone wandering into Meow Mix looking for Monday Night Football or e-harmony speed-dating.

Tea’s confident and demurely plucky, like a girl with a lot going on in her head and no suitable receptacle for her feelings. Thus she saunters confidently towards the Lordess of the Dance.

Someone Get That Girl a Blog

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Also? Tea’s got this little dance she does that makes you want to cuddlefuck the hell out of her glittershirt and Chucks.

Betty, dressed like her namesake from the Archie comic books, arrives, as promised…

I See What You’re Doing With That Bra and That Tank Top And I Like It

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Before long, Tea and Betty begin Lesbian Kissing each other in a way that suggests they will soon be Lesbian Vadgeblasting. Get your gas mask on, the apocalypse is nigh.

Betty, just like Showtime, has NO LIMITS and before long she’s back at Tea’s casa, clam-diving in what could not possibly be A DARKER ROOM UNSUITABLE FOR SCREENSHOTS.

According to our chart…

Yes. They had sex.

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This was not Palex sex…

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…or Spashley sex…

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…or Emya sex…

I mean, people definitely went down on each other. Just saying.

Already sleeping naked together, at such a young age.

The next morning Betty puts that godawful dress back on and trods downstairs into the madhouse that is Tea’s family, which is when we meet NANA THE SURPRISE STAR OF THE SHOW:

As Betty’s being awkwardly introduced and spoken to by everyone in the room because Tea’s Dad knows her boyfriend or something, suddenly, Tea’s brother calls out LOOK IT’S THE LESBIAN…

…and Mom says we can’t use that word here you know how Grandma hates it and the Dad says what word and Mom says “The L Word” and who can’t relate to that, right? I mean, who killed Jenny = so dumb.

The one in leather or the one in plaid, you decide

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But they’re talking about Daisy, who’s not a lesbian. She doesn’t even have a personality yet, let alone a sexuality. Duh.

Dad jokes that Tea is very “open-minded” and Daisy wonders out loud if Tea will ever tell her family that Daisy isn’t the fingerblaster here. Then Betty has her requisite morning-after freakout —

Betty: “So look, I don’t want — you better not tell anyone about — just — DON’T.”
Daisy: “Uh, you might wanna work out an explanation for those hickeys, though.”
Betty: “Shit, Bobby’s gonna — SHIT. I’ll see you.”
Tea: “Sure.”
[Tea leans in to kiss her]
Betty: “DON’T. For Chrissakes.”
Tea: “Scaredy cat.”

Tea describes her night of passion to Daisy as ‘alright’ with ‘a lot of licking.’ How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop/Tea’s heart? Time will tell!

Oh but first it’s time for our morning commute!

It’s another leisurely morning in RandomeasterncitymaybeBaltimore, where the children appreciate the morning light, have 2-3 feelings, ride the bus, get some bacon & eggs, and then wander into school just in time for lunch.

Hey Did You Get That at Kohl’s Back to School Sale? I Love Pencils!

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Abbud needs to stop it with this OMG SEX thing. It worked when Dev Patel did it, because that dude is a good actor and I believe his lines were slightly better, but this guy is just irritating. Nice hoodie, though.

Ah, lunch. Such a pivotal time in the life of a young person. Lunch brings out the child in all of us, apparently, the child who can’t eat a chocolate bar without smearing it all over his face…

… the child who is so fascinated by FRENCH KISSES WITH TONGUE that when Michelle & Tony play a bit of tonsil hockey, the world must cease as the children stare on in wonderment, offering a verbal play-by-play…

… the child who is so nervous to use the word “sex” that he says “making monkey” instead …

… the child who is so titillated by saying the word “breasts” that it must be repeated, multiple times, slightly different but no less exciting every time, just like the idea of the cheerleader showing everyone her boobs at halftime, which I think counts as child pornography.

But back in grown-up land, SOMEBODY HAS FEELINGS and is sharing those feelings with Tea via eye contact.

I’m putting my money on “credits Tea with her lesbian awakening, falls in love with her”

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I Know This Mini-Bar

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Tea chases lunch with a mini-bottle of vodka but luckily evades an open container law as she lives in no-mans land. I mean that could totally just be a mini-bottle of clear Tabasco sauce or some kind of lesbian witch potion. OH LOOK WHO IT IS —

Look Me in the Eyes And Tell Me You Didn’t Find My Little Debbie Dress Attractive

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Betty: “Hey–”
Tea: “Oh–”
Betty: “I was thinking–”
Tea: “Betty. We had sex. But I’m not really looking for anything else.”
Betty: “Why not?”
Tea: “Somebody mentioned a boyfriend? What’s that for, show?”
Betty: “I have to have a boyfriend.”

Liquid Courage In Action

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Tea: “Sounds like pretending to me, and that’s bad stuff I have to avoid. And I don’t want a relationship.”
Betty: “Why’s that?”
Tea: “Because nobody matches up to me.”
Betty: “You’re just an arrogant bitch really, aren’t you?”
Tea: “Sorry, scaredy cat.”

Tea’s family is playing “who can talk the loudest” and at first we think Tea’s going to come out while everyone talks, like when Bette told Jodi that she slept with Tina (or something like that, I can’t remember) and Jodi couldn’t hear her which was like, really mean but also weird, but no instead Tea yells for everyone to be quiet and everyone is for about a minute and then chaos re-erupts.

Nana notes, “What’s the difference in Arkansas, it’s a skill! Mazel Tov!” Word.

Breakfast in Bed at Tiffany’s

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Tea’s getting intimate with Audrey Hepburn in her dreams when Nana strolls in, which would be embarrassing if Nana didn’t think she was walking into a Nuremberg Rally.

Blair Waldorf (at least in the books, IDK re: the TV show) Also Loves Audrey Hepburn, Maybe They Should Bang

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Probs Nana is thinking, “Audrey Hepburn sure is looking lovely these days.” She calls Tea “Ruthie” and says she doesn’t want her marrying that boy. Tea figures this would be a good time to bounce her private ideas off somebody who has a lot of love but not a lot of memory.

Tea: “Something’s wrong with me Nana. I want the sex but the girls I sleep with? Bore me. They’re catty and clingy and I dunno — it never feels like enough. Is it too much to ask for someone to be interesting? I just wanna feel equal.”

And I Said, What About Breakfast at Tiffanys and She Said “I Think I Remember the Film”

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Two thumbs up for the “gay AND.” As in: she’s not a one-note lady for whom navigating homosexuality is the only issue. ‘Cause it ain’t — relationships are complicated & confusing regardless of gender, and by often watering down teevee homo plots to “Gay” being enough to ride a character, writers really shortchange us. So Big Up to Brian.

Oprah Celebrates 25 Years of Telling Your Mom About Homogays: Our Favorite Episodes

Yesterday’s Oprah was actually advertised as her “gayest show ever” and it sure was – although Oprah & Gayle’s Yosemite camping adventure was a close second, believe me. You know how sometimes, even when a thing isn’t “gay,” it’s still totally GAY?

Anyhow, this special show about her 25 years of supporting the LGBT community brought back some of her most memorable guests, including the Olympic gold medalist diver Greg Louganis who came out as an HIV+ gay man way back in 1995 and India’s openly gay prince, Manvendra Singh Gohil.

Oprah’s influence on the gay community shouldn’t be taken lightly. Oprah’s prime demo – housewives in Middle America – worship her like a deity and using her show to increase visibility and normalize gay people is more than we could ever ask for. Even as I was preparing this post my mom called me all excited asking if I had my DVR set. Exec Editor Laneia’s mother texted her to let her know about the topic of Oprah yesterday. That’s power people. Let’s not forget that Oprah has also given Rosie O’Donnell a brand new daytime talk show on OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) set to debut in the fall.

Did you know that Oprah actually helped change homosexual laws in India?! See, Prince Manvendra is the only known person of royal lineage in modern India to have publicly revealed he is gay. He came out on Oprah in October 2007, and has since traveled the world as a kind of Indian gay ambassador.

Manvendra credited the big O with helping to change the laws in India regarding homosexuality. Previously, homosexual acts were punishable by 10 years to life in prison. But after he came out on her show and traveled to Australia and Brazil, the publicity made Indians reappraise their thinking about gays and the law was taken off the books. You go Glen Coco!

So, I’d like to take this moment to pull out some of our favorite homosexy Oprah episodes and share with all of you. Most of her theme episodes (with non-celebrity, regular gay commonfolk) aren’t on the internets but they are definitely some of the more memorable shows. Girl, I KNOW you remember watching Wives Confess They Are Gay (featuring a pre-Real L Word Nikki Weiss) after school that day.

+ A Secret Sex World: Living on the Down Low
+ Can You Pray Away Being Gay?
+ Ask Deepak: How to Accept Your Sexuality
+ Accepting Gay Children
+ The Dina McGreevey Interview
+ Free from Life on the Down Low
+ Ted Haggard Talks
+ Chely Wright Comes Out
+ Rosie O’Donnell on Life, Love and Family
+ Why Women Are Leaving Men for Other Women
+ Transgender Families
+ Gender Identity
+ Comedian Carol Leifer’s Midlife Surprise
+ New Faces of HIV/AIDS
+ Same-Sex Parents

Autostraddle’s Fave Homosexy Oprah Episodes

(that we could find on YouTube)

Ellen’s Coming Out Interview, May 1997

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Ellen & Portia’s First Joint Interview, Nov 2009

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Ricky Martin Comes Out, Nov 2010

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Melissa Etheridge & Tammy Lynn, Fall 2003

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Adam Lambert, Jan 2010

So, what’s your favorite gay Oprah show?

Pretty Little Liars 113: When You Know Your Mom is a Homophobic Frenemie

Hello and welcome to another episode of Pretty Little Liars, winner of a Golden Globe Award for Best Most Flowy Hair in a Television Series, Mini-Movie, Comedy, Musical or After-School Special. This week Hannah ate some cupcakes, wore a weird “fat suit” in a flashback, and found money in a paper towel dispenser. Meanwhile, Noel threatened to out Aria’s relationship with the teacher, who maybe pulled off two additional facial expressions this week. Spencer’s sister wants to have a baby with Ian, who turns out to be the guy on the video with Allison. I keep forgetting what Spencer’s plot-line is.

But more importantly, this week EMILY’S MOM UNLEASHED HOMOPHOBIC TERROR and all the other girls kinda wished they had Emily’s love life instead of their own, which def means that they are two L Word episodes away from scissoring.

Here is it is, episode 113, KNOW YOUR FRENEMIES!

Emily & Maya have been secretly developing their romantic relationship far away from the camera’s intrusive gaze, as is evidenced by their lovey-doveyness exhibited at school.

Maya asks if it’s still okay to come over and study later, and Emily says it is, even though her Dad is gone that her Mom knows how her Dad feels about Maya and it’s okay because her Mom won’t be home.

Hannah: Is that [studying]  girl-on-girl code for romance?
Emily: No, Hannah, we’re actually studying.
Maya: But your friend is quite the romantic.
Hannah: Is she?
Emily: Walks in the rain, picnics by the lake, dancing naked in candlelight —

[silence]

Emily: I’m just kidding. we go to dinner and a movie just like you guys!
Maya: She’s only partially kidding — Emily would love to do all of those things.

SEE TEH GAYS ARE JUST LIKE US HURRAH!

Mom is doing her mid-afternoon hallway creeping rounds when she spots four lady-calves all wrapped up in each other as homosexual giggles echo in the sullied homosexual air:

Mom busts in to ask if Emily has ever been toed JUST KIDDING she busts in to be a bitch.

Mom: Emily!
Emily: Mom, what are you doing?
Mom: I won’t live like this.
Emily: Like what, I thought you were gonna be out —
Mom: And that gives you permission — I can’t even imagine where this was headed!
Maya: Pam, I promise we were studying, that’s all.
Mom: Mrs. Fields. I am Mrs. Fields to you.

DID SOMEBODY SAY MRS. FIELDS!!?!?

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LET’S GO TO THE MALL!!!

Maya obviously realizes she could get yelled at by her own parents if she wants to and doesn’t feel like getting yelled at by someone else’s. Also the actress who plays her is 32, sidenote.

Maya: I should go.
Emily: I’m so sorry Maya.
Maya: It’s okay, you didn’t do anything wrong.

That last bit there is doublespeak b/c she’s also communicating, “being gay isn’t wrong.” They didn’t even get to the making out part of studying and already Maya’s left the building and Emily is PISSED and rightly so.

Emily: “For the first time in my life, I am ashamed that you are my mother.”

Yup. This is way worse when Mrs. Fields told everyone at Thanksgiving that Emily wet her bed sometimes.

But for real, it’s good to see Emily stand up for herself and not let her mother’s bigotry make her feel ashamed of her sexuality.

Later on Mom pulls a Nancy Drew, going through Maya’s bag to discover that her and Maya have been getting down and dirty with some magic markers and notebooks. She then picks up an Altoid tin and because you know, all high school kids hide weed in Altoid tins (for real), she opens it and OMG IT’S MARIJUANA and it is NOT BEING STORED PROPERLY.

Mom tells Emily she went into Maya’s bag and wants to know if their relationship involves more than just muff-diving —

Mom: “Your friend left her backpack here. I returned it to her parents. Are you doing drugs with her? Is that what this whole thing is about?”
Emily: “What are you talking about?”
Mom: “Are you stoned?”

[MOM REACHES OUT TO HIT EMILY??!]

Emily: “No!”
Mom: “Look honey I want you to know that this has nothing to do with her being a girl, if it were was a boy –”
Emily: “You wouldn’t have looked through her things. Are you lying to yourself or me?”
Mom: “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

Emily: “You’re right about that.”
Mom: “You’re no longer allowed to see her.”
Emily: “You can’t do that.”
Mom: “Watch me.”
Emily: “This doesn’t change the way I feel about her.”
Mom: “Don’t bother calling your father. He’s as disappointed in you as I am.”

LIAR!!

Okay quick story: this one time in high school my brother’s car got broken into, and they took out all his stereo equipment and CDs and shit, and his backpack. But then they threw his backpack on the neighbor’s lawn before departing the scene of the crime. The neighbors then returned the backpack to my mother and all that was left in it was an Altoids tin with a pipe and weed inside. So basically his car got robbed and he also got caught with drugs, all at one. Shitty, right?

My mother responded to this by requiring him to be honest about his drug use from then on and putting some kind of poster on his wall with steps on it. Idk, I was in boarding school. I actually don’t know exactly what she did, but it was not SEND THE CHILD TO JUVIE CAMP.

Yup, Maya is on her way to “True North” where someone (according to Hannah) went for huffing spray paint and came back singing gospel music.

Emily can’t get ahold of Maya. Luckily, Emily has really nice friends, even if they’re all pretty and little and probs lying.

“I am officially jealous of Emily’s love life,” says Hannah as Emily departs to see what her surprise is upstairs. The other girls smile a lot and probs think about what it would be like to attend a clambake.

What could it be? Is Donna losing her virginity to David tonight? Is The Craft filming a sequel in someone else’s bedroom? Is Frankie gonna shave some girl’s legs in the bathtub?

NO, IT’S MAYA!!!!

And what better way to spend your last night together for several months than standing together, hugging each other, while listening to cheesy romantic music.

If this means Emily’s lesbian plotline is over for the season, I am CRACKING SKULLS.

Skins US Mini-Recap 101: Tony Parks His Car in MTV’s Garage

On Monday January 17th, the United States of America’s Very Own Skins television program premiered on MTV, the network responsible for I Want a Famous Face and My Super Sweet 16, but also for My So-Called Life re-runs and True Life: I’m Addicted to Plastic Surgery.

Awakening this morning from their innocent teenaged slumber, fans all over the world were relieved to discover that the premiere of Skins MTV did not, in fact, result in the spontaneous combustion and irreversible corruption of the original Skins. The original is still available on Netflix, at your local video retailer and via a number of online video stores.

I watched Skins MTV with a Canadian who’s never seen Skins before, and after an informal poll of 3-4 of my friends and a few kids on formspring, I’ve determined that she and I were the only ones who enjoyed last night’s episode of Skins. She also correctly identified Toronto as the filming location and didn’t believe me that Tony wasn’t gay, so. I mean I have a few questions for the guy who plays Tony.

Here’s the emails I had in my inbox this morning:

Televisionary Carly: “I only watched the UK version this past weekend — I’m a bit behind on pop culture, as evidenced by the fact that i also watched the girl with the dragon tattoo & whatever the 2nd one is called yesterday — so it’s still fresh in my mind. This US version is a joke right? There was no charm or… anything! I also felt even pervier watching the US one than I ever felt watching the UK one (I’m about halfway through season 2 on the UK one at the moment). It was just missing something. I will keep watching because of the lesbian and because I have an uncanny ability to withstand large quantities of teen programming without faltering.”

Crystal: “I really really wanted to like it, but I didn’t. I thought for the most part the acting and the dialogue were horrible, it was like a cheesy British pantomime based on the original version. They even beeped out the swearing, for fuckssake. I was hoping that if it wasn’t going to be amazing then it’d at least be terrible/amazing, like Rizzoli & Isles or Home & Away. But no, it’s just terrible.

I thought Tea and whoever plays the new Jal were good, on the bright side. But the US Effy broke my heart. Overall I think I’d hate still it even if I didn’t have anything to compare it to, you know?”

We’ll do a real recap next week because IT’S THE LESBIAN EPISODE, but for this week lets just go over the main plot points and major feelings.

1. What the Eff

We open with Eura/Effy, who apparently has been up all night dumpster diving, shooting heroin into her lips and rubbing her eyeballs in a vat of liquid liner. Also Taylor Momsen called, and she wants her look back.

I wish I could find a better Taylor Momsen photo for this comparison, I know it exists

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2. The Long-Distance Talker

The young rascals of Baltimore awaken on what I believe is a school day. Michelle is taking a nice leisurely bubble bath, as we so often have time to do before 6:30 AM Social Studies, Daisy is blowing her horn, and Stanley apparently was masturbating earlier by looking at several pornography magazines at the same time. It’s an ADD thing. Kids these days!

I hope none of Tony’s friends have the same commute Tony does because they’re all going to be late. He took more busses, sidewalks, streets and alleys than poor New York underemployed hipsters take to get to the JFK airport on a Saturday. (It’s a lot). This show is set in Baltimore so I imagine he’s attending school in the Virginia area.

The impetus of today’s episode is that it’s Stanley’s birthday and Tony wants to get him laid. I didn’t like this plot in the original and I didn’t like it this time, either!

BUT OH THE GLORY OF THIS…

Becoming this:

Abbud: “Me and Chris promised we’d go to Tea’s Big Gay Lezorama Night.”
Tony: “Is Chris gay?”
Abbud: “No.”
Tony: “Are you gay?”
Abbud: “No. It’s girl-on-girl man, it’s like live porn. And Chris says we can probably convert them and then it’d be like girl on girl on dudes.”

The other plotline I loathed from Skins UK — partially out of disbelief, partially out of ‘why the fuck who cares this doesn’t really matter’ and partially out of sorrow for so much weed being wasted — is repeated in this pilot episode: the drug deal.

Tony suggests that Stanley acquire $900 of marijuana from a scary-looking drug dealer, which Tony is certain they’ll sell at a party later on that night.

This seems so much more difficult than just smoking a bowl, I have no idea.

Is there anything about that image that appeals to any of your senses? Me neither.

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3. Tea Party

via skinsuscaps.tumblr.com

When Tony rings Tea, she’s in the middle of cheerleading practice. Already like five stereotypes have dissolved into the warm sweaty air of the high school gymnasium in which an un-apologetically gay lady hops, jumps and shows off her abs while chatting on her bluetooth device.

Tony: Forget the big gay night out Tea, we need you.
Tea: Sorry, promised Chris and Abb I’d take them on a voyage of wonder and discovery.

Tea is going to carry the show and then lesbians will get equal rights.

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4. Cold for Teacher

We then visit a high school classroom lead by a teacher who will almost definitely have an affair with Chris, and hopefully also show us her boobs. Daisy is reading a handout about depression, because subtext is tedious.

Who is this actress/character. I think she wandered in off a Season Five episode of Saved by the Bell and Slater’s gonna offer to carry her books and Jessie’s gonna get real jealous and feministy on him.

There was clearly an error which I’ve taken the liberty of correcting:

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5. LEZORAMA BANANA WHAMMA WHAMMA DING DONG

All of the best quotes were about Lezorama.

Tea: Who’s telling him we’re not going to his lame-ass Gossip Girl party?

Later that night, Tea & Daisy & Abbud & Chris head over to the rich girl’s party Tony got them all invited to via one girl from a nearby prep school who has a crush on him. The rich girl talks like a psychotic illiterate bunny, I don’t even know. Why oh why did they leave Lezorama?

Abbud: Well that’s the last Lezorama I ever go to, it sucked.
Tea: Quit moaning.
Abbud:They don’t even look at you, it’s like you don’t exist. And to top it off they don’t even make out like proper lesbians!
Tea: Proper lesbians?
Abbud: Yeah, like in films right, when they [something] a man for 60 miles, and foxy foxes gotta make do? That’s real lesbians!

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6. Team Party Crash

The highlight of this week’s episode, in my humble and clearly unpopular opinion, was the party-crash.

The comradary  between characters was palpable and believable, and class consciousness was made apparent in a way I never noticed in the original (which could just be ’cause I’m from the US). You know that accidentally beautiful girl in the blue hoodie watching the monied blonde glamourpuss try to steal her man. You know the misfits who know how to dance and they sex/drug it up and everyone is horrified and it’s lovely.

When the Blonde Dumb Girl screams “too Urban! Too Urban!” it’s ON, and the whole crew jumps into action with their streetsmarts. This viscious catfight gives Tea an opportunity to punch someone in the face while wearing a leather jacket.

7. Cadie

This is all we have to work with so far:

So you know. Who the fuck knows.

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In conclusion, if I judged every show by its pilot… actually to be honest I wasn’t crazy about the first episode of First Gen Skins UK, either. But next week looks fucking kickass.

Skins – MTV Shows

Even in this muted, occasionally imperfect episode — I still felt, at times, that I know these kids better than I’ve known the kids on any other American high school TV shows. Watered-down Skins UK is still more authentic than South of Nowhere or anything appropriate for network television.

This is owed in part to the age-appropriate casting, a technique also employed by the creators of Canadian teenaged tv program Degrassi. See, other shows have REALLY OLD ACTORS. Bianca Lawson, who plays Maya on Pretty Little Liars, is 32. Luke Perry was 24 when he played 16-year-old Dylan McKay on 90210. Cory Monteith and Mark Salling, who play high school students in Glee, are both 28.  But the Skins kids are all in their teens.

I was these kids. High school is a battlefield for your heart in which only two major cliques are immune from social judgment/torement/excursion (and instead subjected to their own in-crowd destruction and other personal problems)  — the popular athletic disproportionately attractive rich kids and the popular drug-indulgent badass kids who don’t give a fuck and somehow end up being cute/hot in an alternative/unexpected way. This is high school told from the fuckups point of view, and to be honest, where else do we ever see that? High school TV seems obsessed with rich, traditionally popular and incredibly good looking — or else, occassionally, the geek’s POV. But the fuckups usually don’t get their own show.

I think Skins UK is so raw that it’s spoiled us, we forget what the world was like when it was fully populated by Dawson and his creek and also by the fine young children of Beverly Hills, The O.C. and the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

What did you think?

Skins UK Remembrance Day: Our 10 Favorite Skins Scenes

by crystal & riese

Tonight is the premiere of the fantastic and/or blasphemous premiere of Skins MTV/USA, which will take the original series from the UK to Baltimore and replace the gay guy with a lesbian. SOOOO we thought, as the two recappers of Skins for Autostraddle (yes we work harmoniously as a team, it’s lovely), that we’d take this opportunity to share with you our very most favorite scenes from the first four years of Skins UK.

Also, if you’re not following Skins FTW on Tumblr, you should be. We snagged some pics from there as well. That’s why we’re telling you to follow them. Because they have such snatchable photos.

Our Ten Favorite Skins Scenes From the UK Original

via yougottalivetoparty.tumblr.com

CRYSTAL’S TOP FIVE

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1. The Best Day Of Chris’ Life

1st Generation (Series 1, Episode 4)

In Skins Series 1 Chris has a lot going on. When his mother skips town and he turfed from his own house by squatters, Chris visits his father only to be reminded that his father thinks he’s a fuck up and doesn’t care that he’s homeless & broke. But despite all this, instead of whining about his shitty life Chris decides to connect with Jal by telling her about the best day of his life, how his deceased brother Peter once saved him from humiliation at cub scouts.

This scene captures everything I love about Chris, who’s my favorite Skins character to date. Here’s a kid struggled through most of his scripted life and, although he didn’t make life easy for himself, I admired his fighting spirit, the way that when shit got hard he looked on the bright side and kept getting back up. Well, until he didn’t. RIP.

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2. The Worst Day Of Chris’ Life

1st Generation (Series 2, Episode 9)

This is really the most important “Chris” scene because in it, Chris dies. He has a seizure in Cassie’s arms while trying to remember Jal’s name and it’s horribly, tragically sad. What I liked about this scene was the way it hit hard & fast, like a steel fist to the gut that came out of nowhere but not the ‘oh, Freddie just got murdered by the therapist’ kind of nowhere which is a place so fundamentally ridiculous and pointless that it can’t possibly be real.

Chris’ death felt real. It felt like it’s entirely possible that one moment you can be smoking weed on the couch with your friends and then the next, you’re dead. Just like that. It was ugly and brutal and unfair. It felt like the other shoe dropping even though I’m not completely sure when the first one hit.

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3. Tony Loves Sid

1st Generation (Series 2, Episode 10)

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Tony: “I’ve always loved you the best, Sid.”

Overall the Tony & Sid relationship was torturous to watch. I loathed its familiarity and  the feeling that I was giving Tony the benefit of the doubt when I probably shouldn’t have been. I spent most of the series in hope that he’d eventually prove that he was capable of showing compassion to someone other than Effy, and this scene felt like the reward. The beauty in it is that Tony finally shows Sid how much he loves and needs him by letting him go. He buys Sid the ticket to New York City and allows himself to be that guy who stands in the terminal and cries.

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4. Naomily, Blowbacks

2nd Generation (Series 3, Episode 6) (recap)

Naomi: “I don’t understand blowbacks, why can’t anybody just smoke the thing straight?”
Emily: “It’s fun. Have you tried it?”
Naomi: “No, but I’ve seen it and can tell it’s shit.
Emily: “Come on, anything once.”
Naomi: “Fuck it. Go ahead and disappoint me.”

Every scene I’ve selected for my top 5 so far has been sad, so let’s take a moment to appreciate that scene where Naomi and Emily drank vodka and smoked weed and had sex beside the lake. Thank you Skins, I mean really. Thank you for casting those two girls. Thank you for giving them the courage to finally get it on. Above all, thank you for teaching this new generation of young lesbians that doing blowbacks is the quickest way to get a girl to kiss you.

You can read more of our slightly depraved feelings about how hot this scene was here.

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5. Effy’s Spotless Mind

2nd Generation (Series 4, Episode 5) (recap)

Freddie: What have I done? What did I do?
Cook: You went to the end of the fucking earth, man. The end of the fucking earth. You’re gonna have to go further now, mate. For her. For you. For me.

MY GOD it was so difficult to choose my favorite scene from that time in Series 4 when Effy gets high and loses her mind and almost loses her life. Last year Riese and I had a lot of feelings about it, specifically how sad and confusing and kinda sudden Effy’s sickness was and also how hilariously qualified we were to comment on it.

Given the time restraints that come with 8-episode seasons, I think the writers did a reasonable job at showing Effy’s fall from sanity and the huge impact it had on her loved ones. Notable attempts include Freddie and Effy huffing over the kitchen sink and lying in the meadow. But the scene that had the biggest impact didn’t feature Effy all – it was at the very end, post suicide attempt, when Freddie burns up Effy’s crazy collage and Cook steps out of the shadows to tell him that all he can do is push on. The love and fear and desperation in this scene SLAYS ME.

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RIESE’S TOP FIVE

I can’t actually do this. Like I can’t actually pick five. So these are like “some” of my favorites. I want to Facebook Like every word that comes out of Cassie’s mouth, sidenote.

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1. Naomi Has Loved Emily For So Long

2nd Generation (Series 4, Episode 8 ) (recap)

The last episode of Skins upset me on about 45 levels, which I extrapolate on in detail here, but there was definitely a beam of lesbian sunshine beating its way through all those always-oddly saturated clouds —

Naomi: I loved you from the first time I saw you. I think I was 12. It took me three years to pluck up the courage to speak to you. And I was so scared of the way I felt, you know, loving a girl – and so I learned how to become a sarcastic bitch just to make it feel normal. I screwed guys to make it go away, but it didn’t work. When we got together, it scared the shit out of me because you were the one person who could ruin my life. I pushed you away and made you think that things were your fault, but really I was just terrified of pain. I screwed that girl Sophia to kind of spite you for having that hold on me, and I’m a total fucking coward because I got these tickets to Goa for us three months ago. But I couldn’t stand – I didn’t want to be a slave to the way I felt about you. Can you understand? You were trying to punish me back and it’s horrible, it’s so horrible because really I’d die for you. I love you. I love you so much it’s killing me.

It was a perfect scene; the dialogue digs underneath Naomi’s skin into her heart and the whole history of her life up until now. The holes are filled up, just like that, and sealed with a kiss — and it’s the first time we’ve really gotten a good conversation out of either of them regarding what it was like to grow up gay, or always feel different, or what happened back in their youth of stolen kisses.

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2. It’s a Wild World

1st Generation (Series 1, Episode 9)

Skins – Wild World
Uploaded by omiKASE. – Explore more music videos.

So Magnolia! They pulled this shit off, and I appreciate that. Also, “Wild World” truly is that song you hear in your head when shit got crazy and now it’s quiet and you’re going from Point A to Point B and the journey is all.

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3. Psychedelic Slumber Party

2nd generation (Series 3, Episode 4)

This scene really ‘explored the social dynamics’ between this set of male friends and also of female friends and it was f*cking hilarious. Also, I started watching S4 before the rest of Skins and I admit I didn’t really “get” Pandora or her place on the show. But in S3 she made me laugh like, 500 times.

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4. Maxxie Comes Out to Anwar’s Dad

First Generation (Series 1, Episode 9)

In a show chock-full of disappointing, absent, cheating, drunk, negligent, drugged parents & teachers & psychiatrists — it’s Anwar’s strict Muslim father who truly mans up and does what grown-ups are supposed to do — break down the big things into little things and show their children where to go.

Also, on the gay /Maxxie tip, I wanna sneak this one in there as one of the funniest moments of Skins…

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5b. Classroom Confessions

First Generation (Series 1, Episode 7)

[starts at about 4:00]

Maxxie: “I got off with Tony on the Russia trip. I only did it ’cause I fell out with Anwar when he said he hated gays. So I got upset and Tony said he’d give me head to cheer me up, you know? And it didn’t mean anything but I lost my head, then he gave me head, then we got deported from Russia and I’m really, really sorry for being a slut, okay?”

I also like how nonchalantly sexual fluiditity was handled in this episode. Skins has always been remarkably honest about its homos.

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5. Cassie’s Exam

First Generation (Series 2, Episode 9)

When Cassie says to Sid, “I’ll love you forever Sid,” and he says “Is that right” and she says “Yes, that’s the problem,” I mean… GOD.

The final exchange with her teacher at the end of the exam is like a referendum on the Skins kids in general — how do you reconcile your self-destructive relationship to life’s slings/arrows with a need to stay alive and an uncertainty regarding your desire for happiness or how to go about getting some. And in the end, all you can really do is dance.

Cassie: Is it possible to truly enjoy power?
Lawes: Sorry?
Cassie: It’s question three.
Lawes: I’m not supposed to help you with your exam.
Cassie: I stopped eating, and then everyone had to do what I said. That was powerful.
Lawes: And did you enjoy that?
Cassie: I think it was the happiest time of my life. But I had to stop because I was going to die, because… otherwise it wasn’t fun…. You wouldn’t understand.
Lawes: You’re wrong, Cassie.
Cassie: Did you cut yourself, too?
Lawes: People will do anything to– People will do anything to work out why they feel bad, won’t they?
Cassie: And did you? Work it out?
Lawes: Like I said, I’m not supposed to help you with your exam.
Cassie: I want you to tell me!
Lawes: What?
Cassie: How to stop bad things happening.
Lawes: Doesn’t work, does it? That’s why you have to start eating again.
Cassie: … I fell in love.
Lawes: Ah, love. Why cut yourself when you can be in love?
Cassie: You think passing an exam will make me happy?
Lawes: Cassie, passing exams generally only makes life more complicated, but there’s lots of other stuff that makes things bearable, and you don’t even have to use a knife.
Cassie: … Like?
Lawes: Disco.

A;ex’s Team Pick: Heather Morris Presents “Nuthin’ But A Glee Thing”

Coincidentally, this is exactly what I imagined a slumber party with Heather Morris would be like!

Sofia Vergara: “Comparing Jane [Lynch] to the rest of the cast is like comparing the Great Barrier Reef to a pile of dog shit.“

All-Star Cast:

Pretty Little Liars 112: Salt Meets Wounds, Lesbian Meets Other Lesbian’s Family

Last night on Pretty Little Liars, four unusually attractive adolescent females went to school, went to one another’s houses, received text messages, gave Noel Kahn a lot of dark, brooding glances, and probably spent at least ~25 minutes a day making their hair look perfect. Or else they all just wake up looking that good. I don’t know. I’m gay, my hair looks like shit.

Here watch it!

Pretty Little Liars, Episode 112: “Salt Meets Wound”

So! Let’s get down to the homobusiness.

Emily’s family has decided to invite Maya to dinner so they can send discouraging vibes to Maya’s face rather than behind her back.

Mom: So does your friend have any allergies?
Emily: What?
Mom: Is there anything I should know about what Maya eats?
Emily: No, she eats everything.

Emily’s Dad seems game for the event but Emily’s Mom is, of course, silently mourning the death of her dreams that Emily could be heterosexual, just like her friends! After all, why would you want your daughter in a (seemingly) stable, monogamous relationship with a sweet, smart, hot girl like Maya when she could be dating the English teacher or dodging the bullets of a prior affair with her older sister’s former-fiancee or wheelchair-bound while a douchey jock and a drunk dork fight over you at a party on a school night? Yannow?

Emily: Dad, I know I asked for it but if Mom can’t handle this dinner tonight I’ll just tell Maya–
Dad: We’re looking forward to it. Your Mom was up all last night preparing the menu.
Emily:You don’t think she’ll try and poison her do you?
Dad: (LOLs) Your mother, it’s not her style. She’ll kill her with kindness.

p.s. abc family wants you to help the lgbt community

At skewl, Emily asks Maya to wear a dress to dinner and Maya makes a butch joke and Emily goes Dr. Killjoy on her, insisting that she not make any butch jokes because her family won’t think they’re funny. This isn’t the Etheridges or the O’Donnells, Maya.

Aria recommends that Maya at least iron her jeans. Do people really iron jeans.

Maya asks if Emily still wants to do this and Emily says yes but also says her parents have been acting “weird” since she came out. They have been whispering and “changing the channel whenever Ellen comes on” which is upsetting, what else is on at that hour, Dr.Phil? Idk.

Later, Emily gets some advice from Spencer, who says to not let Maya talk too much.

At the dinner, Maya nervously talks about herself and her family, upsetting Emily’s Mom with tales of her parents hippie lifestyle, like the time her Dad proposed to her Mom and instead of a ring, drew one on with a Sharpie. Or the time her parents met at a “No Nukes” rally at Berkeley. And also the time that her parents didn’t get married until Maya and her brother had already got born. Deviance is genetic, duh.

This situation was uncannily similar to my own experiences, as my parents were dirty hippies and my ex-girlfriend’s Vietnam Vet Dad liked me way more than her Mom. Swap “allergic to citric acid” for “allergic to seafood” (mhm that’s right, Emily somehow forgot that Maya can’t eat fish [WHAT ABOUT A FISH TACO LOL]) and basically THIS IS THE STORY OF MY LIFE.Or not really, but I’m trying to find something relate-able/special/not-generic here to run with.

When Emily’s Mom gets up and heads into the kitchen, she turns around and spots Emily & Maya playing footsie while joking around with Dad…

…and then Emily’s Mom goes into the other room to sob silently to herself.

After dinner, Maya and Emily go outside to process their feelings and Maya admits she was nervous as fuck but had to hold it down earlier just to make sure Emily didn’t totally lose it. That’s a very sweet lesbian thing to do.

Mom peeks outside just as the twosome are sharing one of their Very Special Totally Chaste Not Even Remotely Sexual Lesbian Kisses, and gives Maya some food to bring back to her soybean farm.

When Emily gets back from Hannah’s Disaster Surprise Party, Mom tells her that Dad’s been called back to Texas.

Emily: “Tonight meant a lot to me. Thank you. Maya had a great time.”
Mom: “Your Dad thinks she’s very sweet.”
Emily: “She is. And I’m glad you’re okay with it.”
Mom: “I’m not okay with it. The whole thing makes me sick. Sick to my stomach.”

Everyone needs to take some tums and settle down, clearly.

Next week on Pretty Little Liars, the girls get EVEN CLOSER to finding out who “A” is! Watch the preview here.

How did you feel about last night’s episode or the 75% of the plot points I did not discuss here?

MTV’s Skins USA Apparently Awesome, “Tea” Apparently Awesomest Lesbian Character Ever

The first round of critics/bloggers/writers have seen the first four episodes of MTV’s Skins USA, a new spin on the groundbreaking original UK series, which debuts January 17th, — and they like it. They like it a lot.

AfterEllen’s Skins Scholar Heather Hogan says the show will not disappoint:

US Skins is a blaze of heat and heart, a skilled harmony of pathos and peculiarity. It does its predecessor proud.

Furthermore, our lesbian character, Tea (in the UK original, the homogay for Seasons 1 and 2 was Maxxie, a boy, but they did a gender-swap for the MTV version which totally annoys everyone in the world except for us, for whom a lesbian replacing a gay male character is probably the third-best thing that could ever happen to every show on earth, after “a lesbian replacing a straight male” and “a lesbian replacing a straight female” because you know we love straight people and all, but we are insane about lesbian characters, I mean duh, there’s basically an entire website dedicated to tracking the two-minute appearances of said lesbian characters and it’s called AfterEllen.com, which brings us back to where I began, which is that Heather Hogan has seen the first few episodes of Skins USA and she liked it. I should get out of this parenthetical statement and get this show more valiantly on the road) is the awesomest lesbian character ever:

In typical Skins fashion, Tea’s episode (the second episode of the season) is warm and sexy and real, with just a hint of trademark absurdity. (And in typical Skins-lesbian fashion, the camera loves Black-D’Elia.)

I think I’ve watched every episode of every show that has ever featured a lesbian or bisexual character. I’m so familiar with queer TV tropes I could write a thesis on them in my sleep. But “Tea” is unlike anything I’ve ever seen on American television. Her story tickled my heart and cuddled my brain — and then it punched me right in the gut.

Don’t let the pile of nakedness distract you: Tea is everything you hoped for, and nothing like what you’re expecting. “You want to know what we do, right?” she asks Tony. “What goes where? Who licks what? So tedious. I screw girls! So what?”

So what? is so right. One of the most brilliant things about Skins is that its gay characters are always so much more than what goes where and who licks what.

Mark O. Estes at TV Overmind echoes Heather’s praise:

One character to look out for is the lesbian cheerleader Tea, who is portrayed by Sofia Black D’Elia. The most original character out of the entire cast, Tea’s inclusion helps create the diverging line from the U.K. series in terms of unique material for the show. If I say anymore, I could possibly ruin how much she rocks on the show.

via iloveyoumorethancheese.tumblr.com

At The Huffington Post, Tina Wells admits that she was hesitant to like Skins USA, but ultimately, “Skins wins where Gossip Girl failed“:

I want to be honest and tell you that I was prepared to hate this series with a passion. There’s nothing I detest more on TV than glamorizing bad teenage behavior. Weirdly, Skins does not come across as glamorous at all; it’s gritty at best. So how does it win? A fantastic cast, brilliant writing, and relatable situations.

Furthermore, Wells also likes Tea the best!

My favorite character out of the four episodes I’ve screened is Tea (Sofia Black D’Elia). Tea is a semi-openly gay girl (friends know, parents do not, as witnessed by her dad trying to set her up on a date) whose survival, MTV promises, “will become the most vital thing in the world to us.” I completely concur. Tea is authentic in a TV world full of manufactured gay teens. When she starts hooking up with a guy and stops midway, only to erupt into laughter, you feel her pleasure and disgust.

That being said, most fans remain completely committed to hating Skins USA, apparently forgetting that they probably already spend four hours a day flipping aimlessly through 500 cable channels eventually debating between a re-run of The Millionaire Matchmaker and Two and a Half Men and therefore they probably will end up watching Skins USA if not willingly then by default.

I am not one of those cynical fans. I AM SO EXCITED FOR SKINS USA. As I’ve said before, I’d watch Skins UK re-runs all day and be happy as a clam, so why wouldn’t I watch a stateside remake also constructed by Bryan Elsley? All this gushing over Tea only ups my present level of anticipation.

Digital Spy has a new interview with three cast members including Sofia Black D’Elia:

Asked about her first girl-on-girl sex scene — because that’s everyone’s favorite question — Sofia says:

“My first sexual scene with a girl was definitely an experience, but it ‘s just another part of her character that I had to try and connect to and I was lucky enough that a couple of the girls I kissed were really pretty.”

Here’s the trailer if you haven’t already seen it:

Skins – MTV Shows

I feel like this means I might have to buy a teevee.

“Pretty Little Liars” Returns: Gay Emily is Coming Out, She Wants Her Parents to Know

So last night on Pretty Little Liars, we return to the series where we left off in August of 2010. As you probably don’t recall, because I certainly didn’t, Hannah got hit by a car after a makeup party in the woods that I think she wasn’t invited to or something. There were boys in trees.

Most importantly, at the end of the first half of Pretty Little Liars’ season — two girls kissed and neither got hit by a car!

At last Pretty Little Liars is totally back. What happened this week with our default lesbian twosome of interest?

Just so you know, everyone in the cast is still very fresh-skinned and pretty looking, it’s like a Noxzema Commercial directed by Wes Craven or something. In Episode 111, “Moments Later,” the four girls gave each other a lot of very serious but also mildly stunned looks of apathetic horror while ominous music thumped in the distance. “A” was said at least 56 times. At least three of the male actors look almost identical to me. Allison shows up in a cute outfit to Hannah’s hospital bed but just when you think they’re going to play dead, she returns to heaven, which is like the movie Heart & Souls, if you’ve ever seen it. Great film.

Also, Emily came out to her family! We don’t get much more lesbian action or even SEE Maya this episode. Past midway through, Emily’s on the phone with Maya making excuses for why they can’t have premaritial sex on ABC Family I MEAN HANG OUT when Dad strolls in and asks why Emily is acting like such a weirdo. He volunteers to go punch any dude in the face who is threatening her.

When Dad presses Emily to tell him what she’s afraid of, she says she’s afraid of him because she’s gay. DUM DUMMM. This is her Dad’s emotional reaction to the news:

Then it follows that standard plotline for coming out stories on TV where one parent (usually the unexpected ally) sides with the child and the other yells a lot.

Later on Mom and Dad fight about the situation loudly while Emily listens in from the stairwell, that sneaky girl. Of course Mom shows Dad the photos of Maya & Emily kissing.

Mom: How are we gonna fix this?
Dad: Fix it? This is not like buying her braces. It’s who she is.
Mom: That’s not who she is. This is what somebody else is making her into.
Dad: Maybe she’s just experimenting–
Mom: This is wrong, this is completely wrong and you know it!
Dad: Do you think I like this? I don’t. But when I went in there I didn’t know what she was going to tell me. I thought god what is this ? drugs? This toby kid get her pregnant? Let’s just keep this in perspective here.

Dad says that since he was just in the army and saw a ton of people get bombed and mutilated and died, is it really SUCH a big deal if Emily wants to join the coolest agenda on the whole entire planet? Mom says Emily is ruining her life and they can’t stand idly by while she pursues her own emotional truths, love and the pursuit of multiple orgasms.

Later on Emily is playing with a stuffed bear and telling Aria that she came out and that things are going to be “different” now but it went as expected.

Over the years, a number of children have come out on the teeve. So in today’s Los Angeles Times today, Whitney Friedlander asks:

As it becomes more common for teenagers to realize — and then tell others — that they are gay or lesbian, there is also a growing number of teen characters on TV programs geared toward teens going through the same thing. The CW‘s “90210,”“Greek” and the new MTV series “Skins” in showcasing young, gay roles.

It’s a compelling article that goes into a lot of the history of coming out on teevee. You should read it. Also, there’s this:

“I’m often delightfully surprised at how unshocked young people are,” said Oliver Goldstick, an executive producer on “Pretty Little Liars.” “They just move on. It’s like: OK.”

Goldstick has experience in this area, having previously worked on “Ugly Betty.” One of the main characters on that show was Betty’s often-speculated-about, eventually confirmed young gay nephew, Justin. “Justin was a pre-pubescent [when that show started],” Goldstick said. “We weren’t playing him as a sexualized character. He was accepted in his home for who he was, and it was a joy.”

On the other hand, Emily on “Pretty Little Liars” is older and so, said Goldstick, “It’s more a high school experience. It’s more forging an identity.”

It was also important to the “Pretty Little Liars” staff that Emily didn’t have “any stereotypical look or vibe for a gay woman,” creator Marlene King said. “She’s a pretty little liar just like any other pretty little liar on the show.”

Next week on Pretty Little Liars, Maya goes to Emily’s to meet the family and is warned not to wear jeans but to wear a skirt and if she does wear jeans to iron them.

What did you think of this week’s episode?

The Best Television of 2010 According to a Real Televisionary

Hey squirrelfriends! Autostraddle asked me to say a few words about television in 2010 and considering all of the FEELINGS and OPINIONS that I have on the subject, I had to say yes.

The only caveat I have here is that I’m just one person with one person’s opinions, ergo I am only going to write about the shows I watch. I’m sure you’re all going to have a whole lot of yelling to do in my general direction once you read this, so feel free to sound off in the comments. And I’ll feel free to ignore you!

Let’s start with my 20 favorite shows of 2010, ranked in no particular order and nominated based on overall watchability:

Best of 2010 – Scripted

1. Community
2. Parks and Recreation
3. 30 Rock
4. Weeds
5. Nurse Jackie/US of Tara (tie!)
6. Grey’s Anatomy
7. True Blood
8. Mad Men
9. Modern Family
10. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
11. Party Down
12. Gossip Girl

Best of 2010 – Reality

1. RuPaul’s Drag Race
2. The Fabulous Beekman Boys
3. Tabatha’s Salon Takeover
4. Top Chef Just Desserts – I want Yigit to bake things for me all the time! Also: THE RED HOTS WERE FOR MY MOMMY!
5. On the Road with Austin and Santino
6. Jersey Shore
7. Project Runway (even though Gretchen won)
8. Kell on Earth

Best Moment – Russell takes over the news on True Blood (HBO)

I mean, come on. Russell zoomed in, ripped the anchor’s spine out, and then uttered some of the most fantastic lines of dialogue I’ve ever heard: “Why would we seek equal rights? You are not our equals. We will eat you. After we eat your children. Now, time for the weather. Tiffany?” If that didn’t blow your mind then maybe you’re dead too.

Runner-up: the last 5 minutes of the Weeds episode “Boomerang” where everything goes to shit. That’s a really brilliant episode. Stephen Falk is awesome.

Best Comebacks – Gossip Girl (CW) and Weeds (Showtime)

Both of these have had awesome years. Like, really really awesome.

Biggest Disappointments – The Office (NBC), How I Met Your Mother (CBS)

I’m a big fan of both of these shows but they’re starting to show the signs of their old age. I have no idea what will happen when Michael Scott departs Dunder Mifflin at the end of the current season of the Office, and I almost don’t even care who Your Mother is anymore! But Mindy Kaling, girl, you’re still awesome.

Worst Cancellation – Party Down (Starz)

BLERG! ALL OF THE BLERGS!

Best New Show – NONE OF THEM!

JK I guess. I dunno, 2010 wasn’t a great year for new shows. If I had to choose I guess I’d say Boardwalk Empire and the Walking Dead. Both were big-budget epics with awesome production values but were a little a disappointing. And I really enjoyed Showtime’s The Big C as well.

Best Person on TV – Lizzy Caplan

She should be on every show. EVERY SHOW. Luckily what could wind up being the best show of all time is hopefully coming our way soon.

Best Animated Series – Adventure Time! (Cartoon Network)

A brilliantly bizarre series about a boy and a dog who use math and magic to solve puzzles and battle crazy characters in some sort of trippy candy land. I can’t explain it any better than that, you just have to watch it. It’s really unique and fun.

Best Thing About SNL – Stefon

He’s also the only good thing about SNL right now! I also generally love the Digital Shorts and I’m weirdly obsessed with the Miley Cyrus Show. I also liked the ladies of SNL special they did, where all of the amazing SNL alum ladies (and our perennial fave Kristen Wiig, who has been tragically underused lately) had a Real Housewives-style fake reunion hosted by Andy Cohen himself. But all of these special appearances just point out how good the show used to be, which just bums me out. They’ve had a lot of awesome hosts this season and have managed to make a slew of underwhelming episodes. But I’m hopeful for 2011… they’ve got Jim Carrey hosting in January!

Best Show I’m Embarrassed to Watch – Cougar Town (ABC)

They have acknowledged how awful the name is, if that helps. It’s universally praised by critics and is actually really, really funny, albeit a bit cheesy.

Worst Show I’m Embarrassed to Watch – Glee (Fox)

Good lord, where do I even begin? The second season of Glee has been even worse than the first. I’m going to get too ranty if I start listing all the problems with Glee. Anyone wishing to engage in a lengthy discussion about the pros and cons of Glee can meet me in the comments!

Worst Way To Meet a Bunch of Lesbians – The Real L Word (Showtime)

Whether you loved it, hated it, or loved to hate it (guilty!) this show sure did inspire a bunch of feelings! Unfortunately it was kinda boring and weirdly edited, but once we got to know the ladies of the Real L Word in real life (see what I did there?), it turned out that they were all pretty cool!

Craziest Finale – Mad Men (AMC), Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)

My first reaction to Don Draper’s proposal was “FAAAAAYYYE!” and my second reaction was “sorry new girl, nobody hit your buzzer.” But now I guess it makes a little more sense. Bonus points to the lovely scene of Peggy and Joan bonding near the end of the episode, which made me SO SO VERY HAPPY. And the Grey’s finale with the shooter on the loose in the hospital wasn’t an original premise by any means but it was executed to near perfection. Welcome back into my good graces, Grey’s!

Best Rewatching – Newsradio

After being robbed of my weekly Maura Tierney experience when ABC canceled The Whole Truth a few months ago, I turned to my collection of Newsradio DVDs and let me tell you, these are still really really funny 15 years later.

Best Television Recappers

If you’re like me, it’s not enough to just watch tv, you have to fully experience it as well. And to that end I am a big proponent of tv recaps. In my humble opinion, the best/funniest recappers around are Rich at fourfour, Richard Lawson at Gawker, Jacob at Television Without Pity and our very own Riese! REEEEAAADDD!

Best 2011 Shows – FROM THE FUTURE!

I’m excited to see Episodes and Shameless on Showtime, and Skins on MTV… but goddamn I am SO EXCITED about Portlandia coming to IFC. Fred Armisen and my own guitar hero Carrie Brownstein take their ThunderAnt shtick from the web to television. And I’ll say I’m cautiously optimistic about The Cape and Mr. Sunshine. As far as midseason premieres, I’m so happy to see Parks and Recreation (NBC) and RuPaul’s Drag Race (Logo) return in January. And if you missed it on Sundance, Be Good Johnny Weir is coming to Logo in 2011!