Autostraddle’s Pop Culture Fix is a weekly round-up of the queer arts and entertainment news you need in your life.
Ellen Page Ellen Page Ellen Page
Ellen Page’s name is on the wind! And also in exactly 40 percent of all entertainment news headlines on the internet this week. For example, my five favorites:
+ Ellen Page and Girlfriend Are in Tuxes, in Love
+ Ellen Page shows off lesbian lover
+ ‘Freeheld’ Review: Julianne Moore and Ellen Page in a Shameless Tearjerker
+ Elizabeth Warren and Ellen Page take on Ted Cruz over Planned Parenthood, LGBT rights
+ Move Over, Bieber: Ellen Page Is Ruby Rose’s True BFF
What is happening here is that Freeheld debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, Ellen Page is Out with a girl for the first time, and Into the Forest has a arrived. You might say we are experiencing a perfect storm of Ellen Page at this moment in our world’s history.
The reviews from TIFF for Freeheld are just okay. Variety says:
Despite a credible and moving love story driven by strong performances from Julianne Moore and Ellen Page, director Peter Sollett’s film is an oppressively worthy and self-satisfied inspirational vehicle that views its story primarily as a series of teachable moments, all but congratulating viewers for their moral and ideological superiority to roughly half the people onscreen.
The Hollywood Reporter agrees:
It’s an ennobling tearjerker that pats us all on the back for how far we’ve come by relating one of the countless real-life stepping-stone victories against LGBT discrimination that ultimately led to marriage equality. But it seems legitimate to expect something less pedestrian from director Peter Sollett, who brought so much heart and intimate character observation to Raising Victor Vargas, and put his own sweet spin on the teen movie in the flawed but pleasurable Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist.
Whatever, though, you know you’re going to see this movie. In fact, the first clip has been released and this is it and it’s gonna sell you so hard.
Do you also want to see Ellen Page talk about some things? Okay! Here she is with Evan Rachel Wood talking about financing a film with two female leads.
And here she is with Julianne Moore talking about discrimination against LGBT people.
One more Freeheld thing and then we’ll move along: Miley Cyrus and Linda Perry tag-teamed on a song for it.
Wait, one more: The New York Times chatted with Page, too.
Teevee
+ HELLO! Is Cookie Lyon going to reveal that she’s bisexual on this season of Empire and hook up with Marisa Tomei’s lesbian billionaire? A lot of people sure do seem to think so! If it is true, I might finally forgive Ilene Chaiken for killing Dana Fairbanks. (LOL, JK.)
Shane, Shane, Shane, Shane…
+ Mulan is returning to Once Upon a Time! She revealed herself as a queer lady many seasons ago, you’ll remember, and then just walked right off of your teevee screen and never returned. (It was one of the dumbest TV coming outs I’ve ever seen. I mean, I was glad, but come on.) But Jamie Chung is on her way back to Storybrooke at this very moment. E! reports:
While the details surrounding Mulan’s return are being guarded more carefully than Rumplestiltskin’s dagger, a reunion with Aurora is a possibility, now that the princess has made Storybrooke her home. And that reunion is something Chung has been looking forward to since her last appearance on the show, once telling E! News, “Are you kidding me? I think it would be really disappointing to leave the audience with this giant question mark. I would go back in a heartbeat.”
+ Some shows/TV movies you love won some Creative Arts Emmys. (Manhattan, Transparent, and Bessie.)
+ Vanity Fair‘s cover story this week is about why late night TV is better than ever, and so the photo on the cover is, of course, one hundred men. The internet was not pleased. Samantha Bee, who will host her on late night show on TBS this season, spoke for us all:
.@VanityFair BETTER pic.twitter.com/EfPbTQ3qZ8
— Samantha Bee (@iamsambee) September 14, 2015
+ Surprise! A new study shows that women are still underrepresented on the actual TV and behind the scenes of TV. Women accounted for 40 percent of speaking roles on TV during the 2014-2015 season, and only 27 percent of behind-the-scenes roles. (Only 22 percent of show creators are women.)
Miscellany
+ I don’t know how to break this to you, but Mary Poppins is getting a sequel or a reboot or something. Disney is making a new Marry Poppins movie, is what I am saying. The world is over, time to blow up the sun, etc. (I know this isn’t technically queer news, except for that Mary Poppins is so dang queer.)
+ After her eyebrow-raising press tour last week, which included that appearance on Ellen, Caitlyn Jenner wrote a blog post to talk about her evolving stance on marriage equality.
Like many people, there was a time when I didn’t realize how important it is for gay couples to have the right to get married. But after hearing from my gay friends and learning more about the hardships they faced because of discrimination, it became clear to me that everyone should be able to marry the person they love. I can only hope that by sharing my story, there’s someone out there whose mind has been changed about trans people.
That’s all for me for today. Join Riese next week as the Ellen Page hurricane reaches Category 5!
When people inevitably start talking about “peak Ellen Page” I petition to call this Snapback Peak Page
Mulan AND Ruby are coming back this season. I wonder…
When you wish upon a star…. *wishes like blazes*
Oh no! If that happens, I’ll have to actually start watching the show again!
I’m betting all the things that it’s gonna be Mulan and Merida. Not saying I ship it, not saying I don’t. Just saying it’s gonna happen. And they’ll be gone after the half season. Cuz you know how this show works.
Also, what really happens on Empire:
Marisa Tomei suggests Cookie shakes the lesbian phone tree, and out falls Betty.
Oh, and apparently the rest of the season for “Faking It” was leaked online. So there’s that.
http://www.spoilertv.com/2015/09/faking-it-entire-season-2b-has-leaked.html
That Vanity Fair photo is 100% male, but not all of them are white men (though if Wilmore and Noah were Photoshopped to look lighter-skinned, I wouldn’t be surprised).
I was thinking the same thing, I think they made Wilmore look lighter. Also four of them are protégé of Stewart(Samantha included), & one is replacing him, which is kind of impressive when you think about it.
There is always room for more Ellen Page in my life
As someone who is a HUGE Julie Andrews and Mary Poppins fan, I cannot tell you how upset and depressed I was to read they were remaking this classic movie. It better be good and I mean REALLY FUCKING GOOD or I’m going to have to fist-fight everyone involved. Why do this? Why?
I’d pay to see these fights.
I got $20 that Turkish wins the fight
ELLEN PAGE
And wasn’t P. L. Travers, the author of Mary Poppins, queer though?
I’m in the midst of reading a bio of P. L. Travers (Mary Poppins She Wrote) and yes she was queer. She had three intense relationships with women that ended in bad breakups. The author says no definitive evidence, but it seems pretty clear.
This makes me happy.
My feelings about Miley Cyrus keep getting more and more complicated. Def going to check our that song, though.
On an interesting note she’s banned from China for being racism.
shipping cookie and mimi so hard
Cookie with anyone but Lucious would be great. With a lesbian billionaire played by Marisa Tomei? AMAZING.
ELLEN PAGE IN THAT CLIP.
**falls down**
**never gets up**
You’ve fallen, and you can’t straighten up?
*Golf claps*
Comment award
So my hatches remain throughly unbattened with regard to cat. 5 Hurricane Page… Nay I may not survive, but what a way to go…
I have been stockpiling tissues and ice cream to sooth myself for the inevitable cry-fest that Freeheld will be for yearrrsss, since y’all covered it forever ago when it was in early production stages. I’m glad they finally got the movie made. It’s probably not enough tissues and ice cream tho.
Ellen and Evan in a survivalist movie? I’m in! Prepare the bourgie popcorn and the dainty little paper fan that I will use to fan myself.
Wuuut? Mulan is coming back to OUAT? If Mulan returns to the show, I might too. I stopped watching after she left and then checked out completely after Autostraddle stopped doing recaps. Jamie Cheung in that armor tho…
Sometimes I wish you could edit your comments on Autostraddle because I end up noticing my glaring spelling errors only after I’ve posted a comment. Forgive me y’all!
Paging @jenlabarbera! QUEER MULAN (Jamie Cheung) IS COMING BACK.
@kaelynrich I SAW THIS AND IMMEDIATELY THOUGHT OF YOU AND I AM SO EXCITED.
Like, I know they’re going to fuck up and/or abandon this QWOC storyline again because it’s Once Upon A Time and we cannot have nice things, but still. BUT STILL.
ALSO I saw that they’re bringing in Princess Merida from Brave this season who we all know is hella queer and omg KaeLyn what if Mulan and Merida meet and fall in love?????
Shipping Mulida (merlan?)
But they’re also bringing back Ruby, so what if it’s both of them? #WolfWarrior
Remember when a reader bought AfterEllenPage.com and made it redirect to Autostraddle? No? Was that just me? Okay…
i remember
i remember it well
Ellen Page could be in exactly 100% of all news headlines and I would be okay with that
Freeheld is going to make me cry and it’s going to be beautiful. Also, Ellen Page in flannel is NOT FAIR. I CAN’T TAKE THAT LEVEL OF BABE-NESS RIGHT NOW.
“Do you also want to see Ellen Page talk about some things?”
Yes. But not as much as I want to see Ellen Page make out with Julianne Moore.
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