This is your weekly Pop Culture Fix. I’m your co-host, Heather Hogan. I ordered oatmeal with acai berries for two dollars more this morning and let me tell you something: Acai berries are a lie. It’s just blueberries.
Teevee
+ Women and People of Color Directed More TV Than Ever This Season
+ After NYT’s Louis C.K. story broke, Jen Richards wrote on Twitter: “Welp. I guess I can say this now: I was one of the stars of The Cops. There was going to be an animated trans character, voiced by a trans actress, on network television. The consequences of these actions go far.” Allison Raskin wrote about her and Gaby Dunn’s similar struggle two years ago in a piece for Splinter called Don’t Let Female Creators Be Collateral Damage When Male Abusers Go Down.
We want to make this very clear: Losing a show is nothing compared to the agony of sexual assault or harassment. What we experienced is not even in the same category as the many brave women who came forward about Deen, and the women (and men) who have come forward in the past month. That said, it’s a bizarre, painful thing for your career to be the collateral damage of someone else’s wrongful acts.
+ The Handmaid’s Tale will be back in April with 13 new episodes.
Movies
+ Look, just read Caity Weaver’s profile of Gal Gadot already.
Gal Gadot is very hands-on. As in: When you meet her, she will put her hands on you many times, in many different places. Israeli culture is so touch-oriented that guides for Americans traveling there warn they may feel their personal space is constantly being violated in formal settings. Gadot might wordlessly reach out to brush a crumb off your face while you are eating, or lightly rest her palm on your thigh for half a minute while she tells you a story. She might scrunch up her hands into little claws and tickle you with quick finger flexes, the way you would a baby’s tummy, if something about your demeanor suggests to her that you need to be tickled in that moment. Even as Wonder Woman sequels and spin-offs propel Gadot to new heights of global stardom, she probably will not lose this habit of touching, because she is a charming, beautiful woman, and it will never occur to people to shrink away from her. In speech, too, Gadot has a compulsive tendency to create intimacy, like when, the morning after the beach, she smiles conspiratorially and tells me she is taking me to a little place near her house that she loves, and it turns out to be a small store where she buys laundry detergent.
+ From io9: Thor: Ragnarok’s Valkyrie Shows How Far We’ve Got to Go for LGBTQ Representation on the Big Screen
+ Jessica Wiliams charmed JK Rowling into giving her a part in Fantastic Beasts 2 without even trying.
Queer Humans, Out and About
+ Anna Paquin came to Ellen Page’s defense immediately after she posted on Facebook Friday about the abuse she has suffered in Hollywood, especially at the hands of Brett Ratner.
I was there when that comment was made. I stand with you .@EllenPage https://t.co/DEIvKDXeEL
— Anna Paquin (@AnnaPaquin) November 10, 2017
If you can't think of the glaringly obvious reason I remained silent then perhaps you've forgotten that I've been in this victim grooming industry since before I hit puberty.
— Anna Paquin (@AnnaPaquin) November 10, 2017
+ Paquin is also being added to Canada’ Walk of Fame this week.
+ Here is an excellent profile and deep dive into Dee Rees’ work, her chance of seeing Mudbound get an Oscar nod, and all the women she pulled up with her along the way.
+ Out chatted with Patty Schemel, the lesbian drummer from Hole, ahead of the release of her new memoir, Hit So Hard. It’s mostly about Courtney Love, but she also talks about being a queer woman in such a male-dominated music scene.
Once I started to expand my world a bit beyond Seattle, I would go to shows and see girls playing music. I saw Donna and she was in a band called Danger Mouse. She played her bass, and was so amazing and so intense and so right on. I knew she was gay, and it was sort of like a mental acknowledgement and then I felt really safe. Eventually when I joined Hole, I felt comfortable enough to be an out lesbian, because “fuck you” if you had a problem with it.
+ Rosie was on Watch What Happens Live this week where she talked about knowing Whitney Houston was in a relationship with Robyn Crawford. “Everyone sort of knew it,” Rosie said. “I thought it was very surprising when Clive Davis came out and said that he never discussed her being gay, and I was like, ‘Well, I don’t believe that for one minute.'”
+ “Rivals, turned teammates, turned mothers!” This is a good gay story.
Excellent Roundup! I now have FIVE new open tabs on my desktop. Thanks Heather :)
Caity Weaver’s profile was absolutely wonderful and it completely reinforced my desire to have Gal Gadot punch me in the face.
“You are at Wonder Woman’s mercy.” …um yes please?
Haha. The whole profile is so gay for Gal Gadot, and I mean: same.
I really, really, really want to meet Gal Gadot.
If only Jessica Williams was replacing Johnny Deep.
If you can’t think of the glaringly obvious reason I remained silent then perhaps you’ve forgotten that I’ve been in this victim grooming industry since before I hit puberty.
Holy shit.
Jen Richards’ tweets come across as insensitive at best, self-centered at worst. She’d be applauding all these women if their stories weren’t affecting her career? Seriously? She seems more concerned with her career than the safety and dignity of others.
Raskin and Dunn seem to be putting things into perspective, on the other hand.
I didn’t read it that way at all. For one thing, you’re comparing a tweet to an article. Of course an article can have more nuance than a tweet.
She never once says she’d be applauding these women if it weren’t for the damage done to her career. To me it sounds like she’s saying that in addition to these guys being scumbags to the women they’ve harassed, they’re also tanking entire productions. She’s putting additional blame on the abusers, not the abused who are speaking up.
Yeah, she continues after that tweet to add “For the record, I will mourn my own lost opportunity for a moment, but I’ll continue to loudly celebrate a complete sea change in the gendered power dynamics of every corner of society. This is so much bigger than any one of us, and in the end will benefit everyone. I know that.”
where did she say she’d be applauding them if they weren’t affecting her career? i looked through her tweets and didn’t see that.
Caity Weaver’s So great
Caity Weaver’s profile of Gal made me teary-eyed all over again about Wonder Woman and also just about Gal in general–she sounds like such a joy of a human. My girlfriend, who is the absolute best, got me tickets to meet Gal at Long Island Comic Con this December and after reading this I’m even more deliriously excited about it. Here’s hoping I wont become a sobbing mess of a fangirl when it happens.
Jessica Wiliams should be in everything. Or better yet replace all the awful men, with her. I saw her Netflix movie and it solidified how awesome and cool she is. Really miss her work on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart(who I also miss).
I didn’t realize there is a Canadian Walk of Fame. Is it also in a seedy tourist spot, where locals only visit for at night to go boozing at a straight boring venue?
Raise your hand if you’re a Canadian who can’t answer Al’s question because you have no idea where the Canadian walk of Fame is. ?
I like that answer, as if you ask most American’s who have never been to Hollywood(or don’t live in or near SoCal) will inccorectly tell you the walk of fame here is a glamours place. I had to burst a young Britts bubble when I told them the honest truth.
Today’s lesson: Walks of Fame are a letdown regardless of location.
(Though I must confess to having had my photo taken on the LA one like a good little tourist)
I don’t blame you, I nearly took a picture of myself standing over a celebs walk of fame star(it’s a part of Hollywood BLVD I usually never walk). Let’s just say thank goodness because know we truly know how bad Bill is.
It’s in Toronto, in the Entertainment District! Down by the TIFF Bell Lightbox and a couple of the Mirvish Theatres (the Royal Alex and the Princess of Wales) and Roy Thomson Hall, but apparently the whole thing is 13 blocks, which is news even to me. I mean, I spend a lot of time there (because I’m a big theatre/classical music person, so I see shows there a LOT), and I wouldn’t consider it particularly touristy, but it’s not…not touristy, either?
I totally get what you mean. Touristy, but not really touristy.
Really Gaby?
“When the news broke, many of our fans turned on her, outraged that she had associated with an accused rapist…
… she was mourning the loss of her fans’ trust, even though she had done nothing wrong. We were guilty simply by association.”
Um, no. She was guilty because she defended that accused rapist and called Stoya a liar. Why? “I was scared and wrong and worried I had just lost hundreds of people their jobs and terrified of having been alone many times with someone I had just found out I didn’t know at all. I cut him out of my life within a week. I am sorry.” Well, she’s had all this time to confess and apologize and she’s doing it now, years later, after she wrote this piece (since now there is a conversation around it), after people call her out on her hyporcy on twitter. And now we have her quote on the subject.
If we could just never again pull apart another woman for the bullshit actions of a man, I’d be happy.
She’s apologized. When confronted with surprising information she chose wrong, at 26 years old. Can we please focus on the predatory actions of the men, and have some compassion for the women who have had to deal with the fallout?
“If we could just never again pull apart another woman for the bullshit actions of a man, I’d be happy.”
Isn’t this exactly what she did to Stoya. I have compassion for Stoya not for the woman who called her tragedy “the rare 1 percent of situations where it is false”
I don’t really like Anna Paquin’s comment. For one, she’s a full five years older than Ellen Page–Page was a teenager and Paquin wasn’t. And two, she had more capital in the industry than Page did at that time. At the very least, I think she should have said, “I know I should have said something and I wish I had.” Idk, that’s what I wish I would hear from people, including other women, who didn’t speak up in similar situations that I’ve experienced. I can’t exactly put my finger on why exactly her comment bothers me so much, but it really, really does.
You know, Brett Ratner bothers me way way more
Yeah, but why focus on the male abusers when there’s a chance to pick apart a woman near them?
Damn, snark when a woman of color says they were triggered by a statement (by a white woman) being praised? That’s a bit much.
I’m entitled to my feelings on the subject as a survivor of sexual assault and harassment, thanks. And also, picking apart a statement and picking apart a person are two very different things. Obviously. I’ve said my piece and I won’t engage you or this subject matter further. You can disagree but snarking/somewhat attacking my thinking out loud about being triggered is ridiculous. Goodness.
I have the capacity to hate Ratner and dislike Paquin’s toneless comment at the same time. There’s also the point that this article was praising Paquin for her comment and I was responding to that.
Boom
Reading that piece about Gal Gadot just added two years to my life.
I can’t believe I only just read the Gal Gadot article. No, I don’t know what is wrong with me either.
The hide and seek bit, oh my…