New York Lesbians! Watch the Best Sapphic Cinema This Week at the Film Forum
Over a decade ago, I went on my first real date to go see Les Diaboliques at the Film Forum in NYC. We both loved the movie and everything was going great… until the evening was cut short by my date’s ex-girlfriend and a crisis of jealousy worthy of the sapphic drama we’d witnessed on-screen.
My love story with this girl may have been cut short, but my love story with the Film Forum had only just begun. In the years that have passed, I’ve seen a wide variety of premieres and classics, discovering new gems and revisiting old favorites.
Starting today, the Film Forum begins their series Sapph-O-Rama billed as “a broad look at the eccentric, enduring, and genre-encompassing history of the Lesbian image in cinema through the last century.” From today through February 13, there will be screenings of films including But I’m a Cheerleader, Pariah, Mädchen in Uniform, Desert Hearts, Saving Face, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, and The Watermelon Woman.
In addition to the classics, there are also lesser known and lesser available films including Caged, Fucking Åmål, She Must Be Seeing Things, MURDER and murder, A Woman Like Eve, and Madame X: An Absolute Ruler. And, finally, some Hollywood classics with very textual subtext properly being entered here as canon: Salomé, The Wild Party, Calamity Jane, and Johnny Guitar.
Best series ever, right? What if I told you there is even more? There’s also: Je Tu Il Elle, Born in Flames, Shakedown, Tomboy, The Killing of Sister George, Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, Daughters of Darkness, Desperate Living, Dark Habits, and Caged Heat.
I recently moved back to New York for a lot of reasons and the best repertory film programming in the country was among them. This series, programmed by Andrea Torres and Emily Greenberg, is a dream — a perfect combination of films to revisit and films to discover.
If you don’t live in New York… well, I’m sorry. But it’s a good reminder to check out the repertory programming in your city or town! Also a lot of these films are available online if you want to have your own mini film festival.
What’s most important is to remember the history of sapphic cinema is rich and plentiful! My job is watching lesbian movies and even I haven’t seen six of these.
I’m excited to change that the way these films were meant to be seen: on the big screen.
Check out the full schedule for Sapph-O-Rama on the Film Forum website.
Quiz: Which Obscure Lesbian Movie Should You Watch?
There are so many lesbian movies. There are so many good lesbian movies. And those good lesbian movies have an immense diversity in type and who they’re about.
I understand if this doesn’t feel true — after all, Hollywood’s improved inclusivity has not come nearly far enough. But venture beyond the buzziest queer titles and you’ll find a whole world of cinema waiting for you.
Since putting together Autostraddle’s 50 Best Lesbian Movies of All Time and The Autostraddle Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema, people have often asked where to start. 250 total films can be daunting! That’s where this quiz comes in.
Answer these questions and you’ll get a personalized recommendation for an obscure lesbian movie. Every option is in our top 50 but has fewer than 5,000 logged views on Letterboxd.
And, hey, if you’re one of the few who have seen your result, let me know in the comments and I’ll recommend something else!
Quiz: Which Obscure Lesbian Movie Should You Watch?
“Water Lilies” Is a Memory of Gay Adolescence
In Lost Movie Reviews From the Autostraddle Archives we revisit past lesbian, bisexual, and queer classics that we hadn’t reviewed before, but you shouldn’t miss.
The first time Marie sees her, Floriane is wearing a nose clip. Her hair is pulled back. She has on a one-piece swimsuit — orange, red, black, sparkly. She moves with the same violent grace as the other girls. She fits in like Marie never could. And yet she doesn’t. She stands out. She’s better. In a moment, she becomes Marie’s entire world.
I was 15 the first time I watched Céline Sciamma’s Water Lilies. The same age as Marie. I am now 27. The same age as Céline Sciamma when she made the film. At 15, I was shy, confused, and eager for my first kiss. At 27, I am outgoing, less confused, and eager for my next one. I have doubled the age of my earliest adolescence and yet I think about the era with a pathetic urgency. I recount stories to friends, I process in therapy, I write personal essays, I write movies. This doesn’t make me unique. Queer people are obsessed with our teenagehoods. We may be granted a second adolescence, but it does nothing to erase the first. It’s impossible to forget a feeling like sitting on the bleachers watching Floriane swim. It’s impossible to forget the drowning.
Water Lilies turns our tropes into a poem. Marie is an awkward closeted lesbian whose only friend, Anne, is an awkward heterosexual. They’re both desperate for their first kiss — Anne with cute swim boy François and Marie with François’ aloof girlfriend Floriane. Anne towers over the other girls while Marie disappears. Anne is insecure about her bigger body while Marie wants to prove she’s not the child she so obviously still is. And then there’s Floriane.
Floriane is a character we know well from lesbian coming-of-age movies and our lives. She can make you feel like the most important person in the world with only a look. But then you feel your skin peeling off and your organs draining every time she runs off with a boy. It seems like she likes you — you almost kissed once maybe? — but then it seems like she doesn’t… but then it seems like she does! Boundaries are put in place and vanish and are rebuilt again. The whole time you are dying.
But the greatest strength of Sciamma’s film is that Sciamma herself is the point of view — not Marie. Each girl is written with depth and affection and performed with sensitivity from Pauline Acquart, Louise Blachère, and especially Adèle Haenel. Floriane is not presented as the normal straight girl nightmare we’re used to seeing and reminiscing about with a pained chuckle. Floriane is just another queer girl struggling in her own way. Years give Sciamma and us that perspective. In one scene, Floriane recounts her lifetime of harassment and abuse to Marie. She has been objectified and taught to leave her self-worth to the judgements of men. Marie is her escape — and every time Marie literally helps her escape an encounter with a man her gratitude is genuine. But that doesn’t mean she can have the same desires as Marie. Not yet. To ignore the role society has given her would be to lose her false sense of power. 15-year-old Marie cannot make up for that loss.
But, of course, Marie doesn’t understand that. Marie feels tortured and in love. She follows Floriane around and does whatever she asks. She feels the wrongness of the dynamic, and occasionally sticks up for herself. But then she feels the rightness of the dynamic — their connection — and she returns and says yes and keeps hurting.
Water Lilies is a movie about teenage girls having sex they don’t want to have, because they so badly want to kiss. The brutality of Anne’s sex scene — a boy using her body with no regard for her humanity — is matched by the “sex” between Marie and Floriane. The spark that’s felt in all their interactions disappears in a sterile act neither are ready for that’s all in service of that same cruel boy. They do not kiss. Floriane cries due to pain and so much more. There’s an intense contrast with the later moment when they do finally kiss. The sex scene is violence born out of tender affection — the kiss is a beautiful relief surrounded by harsh reality.
The choices these girls make are frustrating in their obvious wrongness. Their cruelty toward one another feels so unnecessary. They’re kids. They’re girls. They’re girls navigating patriarchy with no one to hurt but each other. It doesn’t make it easier to watch, but it does feel true. They act the way we acted until we learned there were other ways.
Sciamma’s latest film Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a memory of love. The story begins after the film’s central romance has long past and a painting brings us back into the artist’s memory. And while the structure of Water Lilies suggests a more straight forward narrative, I can’t help but see the film as another kind of memory of love. I know little of Sciamma’s biography, but I know what it’s like to be 27 and think about adolescence. I know that the film feels trapped in an urgent past.
With every glance I see memory forming in Anne, in Marie, in Floriane. I see moments they’re not old enough to understand that will be revisited again and again until they do. I see three girls desperate for belonging and connection and normalcy who will someday become women desperate for belonging and connection and individuality. Everything feels like the most important thing to them. The state of being okay feels so distant. But they’ll be okay. I want to reach into the screen, reach back into my memories, back into my past. I want to hold that confused child and tell her it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. She has no idea.
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5 Relationship Lessons from Queer Films Past and Present
Although we have more movies about lesbian and bisexual women than ever before (and more of them are actually good!), they are not necessarily realistic or reflective of our real day to day relationships. Which is fine! Does anyone really want to eat that much spaghetti, even over a timeline of several years? Even so, they can still bring us meaningful and constructive relationship truths, regardless of how far removed from our real lives their plots are, or how many falcons they contain.
You Can Still Get Something from a “Failed” Relationship
Kissing Jessica Stein
I’m aware that along with Sarah Sarwar I am one of maybe a dozen people on earth who like this movie, but hear me out. Did Helen and Jessica end up together happily? No. Is it fair to question whether there was a reciprocal sexual attraction there at all in the first place? Perhaps. Is the “returning to men” trope less than ideal and potentially reinforcing of harmful mistrust of bisexual women? Definitely. However! The relationship also represents a real growth experience and turning point for Helen, and arguably also for Jessica? It didn’t work out, but wasn’t a mistake for either of them. Something can be ultimately wrong for you without being bad for you! A relationship that doesn’t last forever isn’t a failure! She learned about the lipstick layering thing, and also the life lessons sort of heavy-handedly implied by it!
Opposites Can Make It Work
D.E.B.S.
One of the many! I would argue! Underappreciated aspects of D.E.B.S. is its thoughtful depiction of an opposites-attract situation. Outside the sort of literal enemies-to-lovers fanfiction trope (not a dig! love it! big fan!), many of us have wondered whether it’s a fool’s errand to try to make something real with the girl who listens to the RENT score on repeat while you’re playing astrophysics lectures and German death metal at the gym. Aside from the many strong points it makes about Jordana Brewster’s shiny hair, D.E.B.S. shows us that it’s totally possible! As long as both parties can respect and value the importance of other’s priorities even if they don’t share them, and as long as some core values are overlapping — Lucy and Amy are both ambitious, hardworking, and independent! — you’ve got at least as good a chance as the rest of us.
Conflicts and Misunderstandings Can Be Moved Past with Communication and Demonstration of Trust
The Handmaiden
Betrayals of trust, whether something obvious like cheating or something personal and particular, like plotting with a nefarious villain to have your girlfriend committed against her will in order to steal her inheritance, can be difficult to move past even if both parties agree they want to stay together. Although not all of us can relate to meeting our girlfriend through a complicated double-bind inheritance scam, the way Hideko and Sook-hee work through it is exemplary: they committed to total honesty and transparency after the fact, and renewed their trust in each other by working together to run a scam within their scam, a high-tension activity that requires absolute faith in the other person. Couples’ therapy is also an option, but they’re probably going to tell you basically the same thing.
Appearances Aren’t Everything! You’re Fine.
Suicide Kale
As a people, we’ve been on the roller coaster ride of watching the current community darling of lesbian coupledom fall in love, buy a sex bench together and then tragically break up so many times. Whether it’s a celeb couple or just Brynn and Bree who met their freshman year of college and finish each other’s sentences and just started fostering dogs and they get adopted really quickly now because they feature them on their super popular instagram!, Suicide Kale is a good reminder that even the people we idolize most for having their shit together don’t, not really. Which is not to glory in their dysfunction, of course, but just to say – you’re fine! You’re doing totally fine, or at least as fine as the next couple, which is maybe not really fine at all but that’s ok; we’re in this together, etc. At least you guys don’t have to worry about what to do with all those dogs you’re fostering.
Maybe Just Let It Go!
Lost and Delirious :(
What can be said about Lost and Delirious that isn’t “Oh, gosh“? Consider this: what if Paulie had just, you know, not? To detour briefly into my own personal organizing principles, I think it’s important to maintain a strong awareness that You Can Just Not. There are so many points at which people in this movie could have Just Not! Imagine an alternate version of this movie where Paulie decides to let this one go, and writes in her journal a lot for the rest of the semester and lets Tori live with the quiet self-loathing that will surely follow her for years to come. That movie is about 40 minutes long and doesn’t have any falcons in it! We could all live in that world, to the extent that we could all make a collective decision to, you know, let it go when possible. Get off the ride before the falcons get involved.
The Carmilla Movie Trailer Is Here to Break Your Brain and Set Your Heart on Fire
If, on Saturday, you heard what you thought was the sound of a thousand queer humans shouting and then crashing to the floor as they fainted away like a bunch of goats, you were correct. That’s exactly what you heard. The noise came from Canada, where Toronto FanExpo was in full swing, and the source of the ecstasy and agony was the release of teaser for The Carmilla Movie, which stars your queer favorites, Elise Bauman and Natasha Negovanlis.
It is … surprising! All in good ways! For starters, it’s bizarre and delightful to see a camera moving around these characters instead of sitting stationary like the webcam format of the web series. The production values are much higher than I expected. Dominique Provost-Chalkley (Waverly Earp!) is everywhere. And lord, the nostalgia. The series hasn’t been gone long enough for the movie trailer to set my heart on fire like this, but here we are! Also, apparently, TIME TRAVEL. It’s sexy and weird and sexy and pretty and sexy and sexy.
The Carmilla Movie lands on October 26, just in time for Halloween!
It’s Completely Legal To Think Nia Long and Idina Menzel Are A Couple In This Trailer for Lifetime’s “Beaches” Remake
feature image via youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuKOIHqPuWM
In this trailer for Lifetime’s remake of the movie Beaches – a movie I’ve never seen and don’t know the plot to and please don’t tell me anything about it because if I’m being honest I’m probably never going to watch it and that’s just my prerogative – Nia Long and Idina Menzel play a couple, and it’s not illegal, yet, to think that.
It’s completely legal to assume from this minute and half long teaser that seems to intentionally toe the line in obscuring the nature of their relationship that these two beautiful, talented actors depict two women whose lifelong friendship turns into a love affair. How lucky that I’m perfectly within my right as a citizen to disregard the original plot of a movie that’s been out for 28 years and choose to instead interpret their connection as romantic and not platonic. What a just world we live in, that I can go on thinking for the rest of my life that Lifetime put out a movie where a woman whose face I enjoyed staring at in Friday and a woman who is forever immortalized by John Travolta spend 50 blissful years together as a committed same-sex pair that raises a child together. What a testament to the human spirit and quite frankly our judicial system that I’m able to blow past accepted social norms between friends and assert my truth that in this trailer when Nia Long and Idina Menzel lie in each other’s beds, catch each other’s eyes from across the room, kiss on the cheek, hug, and cradle each other on the floor, it’s because they are gay girlfriends.
If this kind of freedom inspires you, too, join me on January 21th, 2017, 8/7c, when Lifetime airs for the very first time this story of two women in love.
“Pride” is the Uplifting Story of LGBTQ Activism and Solidarity We All Need Right Now
Feature image via rogerebert.com
We may have finally struggled out of 2016’s clutches, but I’m sure I’m not the only one with half a brain still in the holidays. My girlfriend and I split Christmas between our hometowns for the first time this year, and even with both our families being as loving and supportive as you could ask for, I was feeling decidedly run down by Boxing Day (aka ‘The Day After Christmas Day’, aka ‘Why Do We Call It Boxing Day, Anyway?’, aka ‘Yes, I Know I Made This Exact Joke In My Bake Off Article Last Month, But I Can’t Trust That All Y’All Know What Our Weird Made Up Holidays Are Called’). Like a lot of queer folk, my memories of home are heavy with the weight of years of isolation in the closet. That loneliness lay on me even heavier this year, as the year drawing to a close inevitably meant not just looking back at the global shitshow that was 2016, but forward to the global shitshow that 2017 is likely to be. More personally, moving to London this past summer had meant leaving the incredible queer community I’d built up since I first left home and starting anew 300 miles away. And now my friends, both old and new, were scattered across the country for Christmas, many of them feeling just as alone as I was.
Luckily, a scheduler at the BBC had decided to send us a gift.
If you’ve never spent the festive season in the UK, you might not be aware of the extent to which TV plays a part in proceedings. More or less every show on telly will air a Christmas special, either on the day itself or the week surrounding it, and the schedules fill up with movies of all description; the ordeal of keeping track of what’s on means the TV listings magazine Radio Times publishes a double-sized issue, and poring over it with a highlighter is a Christmas tradition for families up and down the land. And so it was with highlighter in hand that I noticed that Pride was on the schedule on Boxing Day night. Of course, I highlighted the fuck out of it.
Have you seen Pride? If you haven’t, you really ought to. I bet you’ll like it. It’s based on the true story of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), a group set up in 1984 by queer activists in London to show solidarity with coal miners, then on strike across the UK following the threat of widespread pit closures. In the face of hostility from both the LGBTQ and mining communities, as well as the general public, LGSM forms an unlikely alliance with a Welsh mining town. The film follows the burgeoning friendship of the two groups as they come together to take a stand against the prejudice and cruelty of Thatcher’s Britain.
My family has roots in a northern ex-mining town still struggling in the aftermath of the pit closures; when Pride came out, I went to see it with a friend from South Wales, whose community had similarly been decimated by Thatcher’s cuts. We bawled through the entire thing, and when we left we found another group of pals red-eyed and sniveling in the corridor. Half a year later, the day after the Tories won the 2015 general election, my girlfriend and I gathered together our scared and exhausted friends and we cried through it again in our living room. That’s not to say Pride is one of those gay films you end up watching on Netflix at 1AM where everyone spends the entire 90 minutes fighting and then dies. It features a dance sequence, and Welsh housewives giggling about dildos and every middle-aged leftie’s favourite film critic, Mark Kermode, described it as “irresistibly uplifting”!
In fact, Pride is as heart-warming as it is a rousing call for radical resistance and solidarity between oppressed groups. The main characters, miners and queers alike, are all struggling against the police and state, and supporting each other in that struggle. It’s a message that’s only become more important over the last couple of years, as vocal parts of the left have responded to right-wing victories by driving a wedge between the ‘white working class’ and ‘minorities’ (as if the two are mutually exclusive, and can only win victories on the back of the other) and discouraging visible protest. Perhaps that’s why the movie has been so embraced by the British LGBTQ community. Since Pride‘s release in 2014, LGSM t-shirts have become ubiquitous at queer events (if you want your own, I bought mine from the radical booksellers, Housmans), the movie has been on heavy rotation among LGBTQ socieites and community groups and its anthem, “Solidarity Forever”, is an increasingly common refrain at Pride marches across the country.
Amidst the wave of publicity following the release of the movie, a number of the original members of LGSM came together to reform the group. The new LGSM currently works to document and archive material relating to the 1984-5 strike, and its legacy of radical activism is continued by groups like Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants. Pride is nowhere near perfect – the film is dominated by gay men, and the main cast is overwhelmingly cis and white. But its story of solidarity and community in the face of adversity is exactly what we need as we step fearfully into 2017.
It’s a shame, then, that Pride remains little-known among the worldwide LGBTQ community. It’s understandable: outside the UK, it only received a limited cinema release in France and the US, and its queer subject matter has hamstrung its distribution on home video; when Pride was released in the States, the MPAA gave it an R rating and the DVD cover was altered to remove any references to homosexuality – including photoshopping out a banner reading “Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners” from the promotional image on the back cover. And the miners’ strike may have reached mythological status here, but if it’s known elsewhere, it’s only really through similar movies like Billy Elliot or Brassed Off. Whether you’re familiar with the context or not, though, if you’re looking for a film to hold your hand amidst the struggle of existing in the world we live in now, you owe it to yourself to check out Pride.
But back to Boxing Day. As Pride started that evening, my social media filled with happy messages from friends watching along. After the movie had finished, LGSM gained over 1500 new followers and have been inundated with supportive messages. In the middle of the toughest time of the year for a lot of the queer community, Pride let us forget the separation of distance, or the closet or unsupportive families. Instead, for a couple of hours, we could come together – in solidarity.
How This 1976 Landmark Lesbian Film Helped Me Find Myself
Forty years before Carol sent lesbian hearts swooning, a landmark lesbian telefilm made its debut on PBS. Like Carol, The War Widow tells the story of two women who meet, fall in love and end up together, despite insurmountable societal obstacles. When The War Widow first aired in October of 1976, I was two months shy of my 13th birthday, painfully aware of my sexuality and scared of being discovered. I secretly searched for anything to assure me that I was “normal.” I desperately searched for comfort in books, movies and TV. Mostly, I got the message, loud and clear: gay people led sad, secret lives and ended up alone. But then one day, I saw it, in black and white on the pages of TV Guide: “a sensitive mood piece about love between two young women.” I memorized those words for days, wondering if I had dreamed them. Little did I know that this sweet, lovely film was about to impact my young life.
When the day of the premiere arrived, I made sure that my door was locked, the volume was turned low and my parents would never find out. As I watched this groundbreaking drama unfold on my small black and white TV, I felt both terrified and excited. For the first time in my very short life, a movie spoke to me. But what did it have to say? How did I, a girl growing up in 1970s New York City, relate to a drama about two women who fall in love during WWI? And, why has it remained with me for 40 years?
Written by playwright Harvey Perr for the PBS anthology series “Visions,” The War Widow beautifully captures intimacy between two women in ways that I had never seen before. In my young life, I was already used to seeing lesbian characters who were miserable, and who were apologizing for their mere existence. I barely had words for my own feelings, and when I allowed myself to have a crush on a classmate, to embrace those feelings, I became sick to my stomach. But here was another shocking alternative. Here was a movie about lesbian women who had a happy ending. For the first time, I allowed myself the possibility of falling in love with another woman.
Set during WWI, the film centers on Amy (Pamela Bellwood) a wealthy young wife and mother whose husband, Leonard, is serving overseas. Leonard is never seen. He is only heard through his letters (voiced by Tim Matheson). Amy reads these letters half-heartedly. She lives with her domineering mother (Katharine Bard) and young daughter (Stephanie Retsek) in a mansion outside New York City. While taking care of her child and waiting for Leonard to return, Amy drowns in the mundane.
During a trip to the city, Amy stops by a ladies tea parlor, where proper manners mean don’t even make a sound when stirring your tea. In a beautifully staged scene by director Paul Bogart, Amy and Jenny (Frances Lee McCain) have a chance meeting. Amy, suddenly realizing she’s late for her train home, drops her teacup on the floor and cries; Jenny, whom we barely notice at a nearby table, immediately rushes over to comfort her. In that instant, a connection is made. Jenny tells Amy that she’s “lovely” and that her eyes are “so sad. So deeply, painfully sad.” Amy is instantly smitten.
Soon, Amy and Jenny are spending all their time together. Jenny makes her living as a photographer and asks Amy to become her assistant. She spends more and more time with Jenny and it’s too much for Amy’s mother, who refers to Jenny as “that woman.” Amy is changing, the world for women is changing and all Amy’s mother can do is watch helplessly.
What I most adore about The War Widow is its quiet delicacy. Director Bogart masterfully depicts the smallest nuances and details. In a pivotal scene at a beach house, Jenny finally tells Amy that she wants and needs her. Amy is both stunned and relieved to hear Jenny voicing her own thoughts. The mere act of Jenny reaching for Amy’s hand—the most physical they get with each other—becomes an exquisitely powerful moment of sensuality. I had never before seen two women express such deeply emotions for one another on TV.
I won’t pretend that The War Widow solved all my problems. In reality, I spent many long, painful years coming to terms with myself before finally coming out at the age of 28. Forty years later after that day in October, I can now report that I have a happy, satisfying marriage. My wife and I have been together for over 25 years and we still love each now as much as ever. I will always treasure how Amy and Jenny stood up for their love, even if they couldn’t shout it from the rooftops. Sadly, The War Widow is largely a forgotten pioneer. Though it’s never had a proper VHS or DVD release, another fan has posted it on YouTube for a newer generations to enjoy. On the 40th anniversary of that first screening, I want to thank the The War Widow for giving me hope when I really needed it the most.
You can watch the restored and archived The War Window on Vimeo.
“AWOL” Tackles Rural Poverty in a Brillant Lesbian Love Story
“I wanted to run away from who we had been seen to be, who we had been. That desire is one I have seen in other members of my family. It is the first thing I think of when trouble comes — the geographic solution. Change your name, leave town, disappear, make yourself over,” Dorothy Allison writes in her seminal essay “A Question of Class.” While watching Deb Shoval’s first feature film AWOL, it’s all too easy to imagine these escapist ideations racing through the two main characters’ minds.
In the drama, shiny new high school graduate Joey (Lola Kirke) is nudged by her overworked grandmother to make something of herself. An Army recruiter promises the teen that she’ll get to see the world if she signs on the dotted line. All Joey really wants to do is be elsewhere, not necessarily Afghanistan. Like so many young rural Pennsylvanians before her, it’s the promise of a reliable paycheck that nudges Joey in the Army’s direction. Around that same time, she encounters 27 year-old Rayna (Breeda Wool), an immaculate piece of trailer trash who doesn’t miss a beat. It’s not until Joey has seduced and been seduced that, in the haze of a hungover morning, she’s forced to acknowledge that Rayna has children and an unhappy, distant marriage of convenience with a trucker; neither of these things deter her. Joey, however, is deterred from her military commitment. Together, the two women drum up a plan — one that, given their stagnant reality, always feels a tad more fantastical than real — to flee their pocket of Appalachia for Canada.
Breeda Wool in AWOL
AWOL — which has been honored by the Kansas City LGBT Film Festival, qFLIX Philadelphia, and the North Carolina Gay & Lesbian Film Festival — got its start as a short film at Sundance in 2011. At a Q&A after the feature-length film’s world premiere at the Tribeca this spring, Deb Shoval noted that AWOL, which is an indulgent yet brief 80 minutes, took an arduous four years to make.
Of course filmmakers experience a sense of time uniquely theirs; it is impacted by money (crowdsourcing was integral to AWOL’s completion), bodies (Kirke was temporarily unavailable while filming Noah Baumbach’s Mistress America), and the right words (the gifted Karolina Waclawiak co-wrote the final script). However, this made me pause to consider Jack Halberstam’s notion of queer time, the one that Lila cited in a beautiful essay a month before AWOL’s premiere: Queer time for me is the dark nightclub, the perverse turn away from the narrative coherence of adolescence–early adulthood–marriage–reproduction–child rearing–retirement–death. In scenes where Joey and Rayna are sneaking away on a camping trip like they’re in the throes of a youth they both missed out on, or are coiled around one another in a room opposite Rayna’s slumbering children, Shoval’s flick certainly fits Halberstam’s definition.
Yet it feels important to consider one more construct: Rural time. The six years of silence before the cicadas return. How a 15-minute drive through a sparse town often feels like it’s peeling years away from your life. The way having nothing to do means that there’s nowhere to be. Rural time seems to be AWOL’s blessing and curse: the movie, which was shot in Shoval’s bucolic hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania — is so committed to the speed of the beautiful place where it’s set that it’s initially slow-going. If one’s not patient with it, she might make the fatal error of mistaking it for one of Wolfe Video’s saccharine direct-to-DVD releases. It’s okay if you can’t figure out if you’re watching a Great American Love Story or yet another Tale of Tormented Lesbian Love within the first 30 minutes (full disclosure: AWOL is neither).
AWOL approaches its characters with the same delicate dignity that it approaches place. Lola Kirke has a great reputation for portraying alluring, drawling hick tomboys (look no further than her scene-stealing bit part in Gone Girl where she effortlessly hustles a Yankee), but this role feels special because her character, who is of a rarely depicted archetype, is both prominent and well-written. In that previously mentioned essay on class, Allison also writes, “The choice becomes Steven Spielberg movies or Erskine Caldwell novels, the one valorizing and the other caricaturing, or the patriarchy as villain, trivializing the choices the men and women of my family have made. I have had to fight broad generalizations from every theoretical viewpoint.” Joey resists being both a poster girl for both hillbilly kitsch and tragic poverty porn. This is because, before anything else, AWOL is a movie about class: every single move made, be it across the Canadian border or setting foot into a pawn shop, has an impact on Joey and Rayna’s wallets and the contents of their families’ bellies.
“Initially, some people were seeing earlier cuts of the film and really wanting to talk about gay marriage or Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and some topics that maybe are not the pressing thing right now,” Shoval mentioned in an interview at Columbia University earlier this year. “And for me, this film, in the largest sense, is about class and disparity of wealth.”
The actors understand this, too. “If anything, I love my daughter,” Dale Soules, who plays Joey’s mother, said at the premiere, speaking as her character. “That’s the main thing and though there are these sexuality questions, the economic questions are more pressing…I’m a single mother with three jobs. I don’t know how to economically help her right now, although I don’t want her to get stuck in rural Pennsylvania.” It’s too easy to note that small places are slow at addressing issues of gender and sexuality while not exploring why. This is the answer to the why (and it’s one that AWOL addresses exceptionally well): Because there are far bigger fish to fry, including rural poverty, social class stratification, and racism. It’s easy to avert one’s eyes from the mildly troubling act of homosexuality when your birthright has already picked bigger battles for you.
Lola Kirke in AWOL
Not unlike moments in Sunshine Cleaning when one sister hands another a few bucks to make it through the week or when Michelle Williams’ character anxiously scribbles down her dwindling budget in Wendy and Lucy, poverty’s tension is exhaustingly palpable throughout AWOL. The viewer wonders when Rayna’s husband is going to kick her out, or when Joey’s final military stipend will run dry — What will happen to them as a duo then? It’s not regional intolerance that strains them; it’s the limitations of their own bank accounts.
Talking about class can be ugly. Yet as AWOL asserts, when you dare to comment, sometimes it frees up room for beauty to unfurl.
In a particularly magical sequence, Joey, whose relationship with Rayna is on the rocks, is working as an Army recruiter in a shopping mall. Tanned and muscled up from basic training, she’s immediately cruised by Haley (played by Britne Oldford, who some may remember from the American reboot of Skins) and invited to her party. The attraction is mutual; Joey, looking for an escape between escapes, accepts.
When the night arrives, we find Joey around a dinner table table with her ultimate adversaries: Youthful, Seven Sisters-educated practitioners of queer theory. The kids inaccessibly wax intellectual over their own identities, the horrors of capitalism (to which they’re the least susceptible), and Joey’s military affiliation. This moment can easily be paralleled with Max nee Moira’s infamous lobster dinner moment on The L Word. Here we have yet another class interloper in dungarees and button-up flannel who is overwhelmed by the upper echelon’s sophistication. But unlike Moira, Joey isn’t painfully eviscerated for the sake of socioeconomically comfortable viewers. She doesn’t nervously fiddle around with her sparse salad and attempt to fit in by telling a tone-deaf story about crustaceans. Joey, incredibly self-aware, sees through all of the pretense and puts up with none of it. After all, she’s only there to get laid. When Joey ambles up to leave, she’s stopped by Haley. That night, the girl shoves a pair of military grade combat boots into Joey’s chest, who immediately indulges Haley’s secret military fetish; Woke Black Girl and White Trash having their escapist needs met, at the same time, by one another.
AWOL is quietly meandering around the country and is certainly worth following. The film was shown at the Reel Creative Cinema Fest in Miami in early August and will screen at the Bradbury Sullivan Center in Bradbury, Pennsylvania on September 8th. To stay abreast of AWOL’s screenings and release, follow the film’s Facebook Page.
22 Lesbian/Bisexual Movie Covers Featuring Women’s Faces Just Inches From Each Other
Say what you will about the human race – that it’s in need of an Atlantis- style restart, as one example – but what an array of emotions we’re capable of experiencing! Dogs have like panic and joy, cats have disdain and getting spooked, and bugs just seem constantly stressed. But humans, we get them all. And every one of us engage with these emotions in our own unique way!
Oh, besides women experiencing love towards other women. Yeah, those women pretty much only have one way to express that emotion, and it’s like this: with their faces just inches from each other, mouths slightly open like they’re about to kiss but not actually kissing, no, no, no, it’s too taboo, perhaps they will never kiss and just exist in this void until the end of time. Women who love women experience love in the upside down world, where occasionally their heads follow suit. Remarkable.
How do they do it? What is it like? These and other questions. Let’s turn to a medium with an unparalleled look into this phenomenon. Dim your lights, won’t you? It’s time for a special presentation of Lesbian/Bi Movie Covers: My Face is Close to Your Face.
Girl Play
A New York Love Story
passion in the city goes just barely there
Loving Annabelle
Ties of Love
And Then Came Lola
A Perfect Ending
Alto
Blue is the Warmest Color
Butterfly
Freeheld
Bye Bye Blondie
Kamikaze Hearts
Kiss Me
Summertime
Lightswitch
Liz in September
Lost and Delirious
Anatomy of Love Seen
My Normal
Carol
While You Weren’t Looking
Romeo and Juliet
7 Movies Lesbian Director Kelsey Jannings from “BoJack Horseman” Probably Made
BoJack Horseman’s third season hit Netflix over the weekend, and it’s weird and devastating and hilarious—everything you can expect from the brilliant animated comedy about a washed-up celebrity horse-man navigating the wicked world of fame. Season three is groundbreaking and heartbreaking and pushes BoJack even deeper into his depression and destructive behavior.
On a slightly lighter note, season three also brings back the serious and dry lesbian movie director we know and love: Kelsey Jannings (voiced by Maria Bamford). Her return isn’t exactly sunshines and rainbows…BoJack fails to make amends with her and actually ends up worsening their fraught relationship, but nonetheless, it’s good to see Kelsey Jannings back and doing what she does best: directing off-kilter indie films with highly specific premises.
This time around, she’s trying to get the rights to a story about a girl who loves jelly beans (?), but back in season one, Jannings mentions her movie Women Who Love Women Who Love Recycling, which sounds like the best movie never made. And so, I have come up with a list of other movies I imagine Kelsey Jannings made in the early days of her directing career. Please enjoy this collection of fake films made by a fictional cartoon character.
Dirty Dancing In Danskos
This art-house film is one of Jannings’ more experimental works from her film school days. It’s just a 75-minute erotic dance floor scene intercut with close-ups of clogs. As an added twist, all of the women featured in the film are Jannings’ exes.
A Christmas Carol: A Documentary About Seeing Carol With My Girlfriend On Christmas
The title pretty much says it all. Jannings is working on a companion documentary called Imagine Me & You Watching Imagine Me & You.
Lesbianception
In this indie rom-com, three identical triplets all played by Ellen Page all fall in love with the same girl only to find out that she, too, is a triplet with identical gay sisters, all played by Lizzy Caplan. The special effects required to make this film work led to Jannings going way over budget, and she ended up having to invest a lot of her own money in order to finish it, but she later described the project as “totally worth it.”
Independent Angels
Her most ambitious and hard-to-find undertaking to date, Independent Angels is Jannings’ unauthorized entry into the Charlie’s Angels filmic canon. An ardent fan of the Charlie’s Angels universe, Jannings always felt conflicted over the possessive nature of the title. Why do they have to be Charlie’s angels? Shouldn’t the angels exist on their own? Does Charlie even do anything other than give orders and fulfill a weirdly fatherly role for the trio of clearly queer superspies? Independent Angels is actually a shot-for-shot remake of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle that cuts out all scenes featuring Charlie and also brings the subtext of the original film straight up to the surface. The only member of the original cast who stars in Independent Angels is Drew Barrymore, whose character’s name has been changed from Dylan to Dijon for legal purposes.
Riding In Cars With Girls Because Carpooling Is Environmentally Responsible (a followup to Women Who Love Women Who Love Recycling)
After Women Who Love Women Who Love Recycling, Jannings realized there was a very small but very passionate target audience for environmentally conscious lesbians who wish to see themselves represented in cinema. This led to the romantic but sensible Riding In Cars With Girls Because Carpooling Is Environmentally Responsible, which is still sometimes shown in warehouses across Brooklyn.
The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Flannel
Four friends who are all extremely different from one another except for the fact that they are all lesbians discover a flannel shirt that magically happens to fit all of their disparate bodies. Faced with spending a year apart because they all get into different MFA programs around the country, they decide to take turns with the flannel as a way of keeping in touch. The final scene of the movie shows one of the friends getting married in the flannel.
The Mare Witch Project
Her brief work on Secretariat was actually not Jannings’ first time working with a leading horse. Several years prior, she made a movie about lesbian horses who also identify as witches.
My Favorite Lesbian Rom-Com of 2016 is This Commercial For Disposable Razors
There’s a new lesbian rom-com out there that gets my little gay heart fluttering, and no, you can’t watch it in a movie theater. But you can probably catch it upwards of 16 times in a row when trying to stream something on the CW’s website.
Indeed, I was introduced to the greatest lesbian rom-com of 2016 whilst trying to rewatch the season two finale of Jane The Virgin. Normally, I multitask during the 250 commercials the CW site tries to make you watch, but something happened to catch my attention and set off my Gay Detective senses this time: this BIC Soleil commercial for disposable razors. You may be familiar with Caroline and Tarah, the women of the Payless BOGO commercial series who are most definitely in a complicated relationship according to my very close, very queer reading of those shoe commercials. They’re not the only gal pals hidden in plain sight during commercial breaks.
In just 30 seconds, this commercial for BIC’s Shine razors tells a complex and beautiful narrative about two women falling in love and living their best damn lives. I shall break it down for you:
“I’m so silly… but also fabulous”
First, we meet Jen. I made that name up, but look at her. She looks like a Jen. Like any good rom-com protagonist, Jen is clumsy af but, like, super cute about it. She trips down stairs but still looks like she’s posing for a J.Crew catalogue when doing so. “Some days, my life feels like a blooper reel, but I stay sunny,” she muses. That’s probably her Tinder bio, too.
“We’re so silly… together!”
At this point, we meet Olivia. Now, it might look like Olivia and Jen are old friends who have known each other for a while, but that’s not the case at all. This is actually the first time Olivia and Jen have met. This is their meet-cute. They’re both trying to catch a bus as it speeds away, laughing, because everything seems funny when you’re falling in love at first sight. They miss the bus and reach for each other. There’s an instant connection, an instant comfort. It’s a classic meet-cute, and they both know it, because Olivia and Jen are both fans of romantic comedies and realize they are suddenly living in one. (Jen’s favorite rom-com is 13 Going On 30, and Olivia’s favorite is Imagine Me & You, a disagreement that will eventually be the cause of their first fight.)
Hoping to keep the magic of their meet-cute alive, Jen invites Olivia to the farmers’ market with her. When Jen’s bag rips as she’s filling it with oranges (oranges she will later feed, in slices, one by one, to Olivia), Olivia exclaims, her surprise effectively communicating the sentiment “holy shit, our meet-cute is still happening.” There’s more arm touching, more laughing, more rom-com vibrance.
Then there’s a little description of the actual product this commercial is peddling, but that’s of little importance. Jen notes that she gets a “sunny feeling” from the feel of these razors in the morning, but I think it’s safe to assume that “sunny feeling” is coming from the feel of Olivia’s hand on the side of her face in the morning. The commercial ends with the BIC Soleil Shine slogan: “Make your own sun,” a phrase that will be repeated in Jen and Olivia’s wedding vows. Caroline and Tarah of the Payless BOGO commercials might be going through a rough patch, but Jen and Olivia look blissfully in love. I’m gonna need BIC to drop several more commercials featuring these lovebirds.
BIC also released a French version of the commercial, which is somehow gayer:
This whole razor saga begs the age-old question: Wouldn’t it be nice if rom-coms about two women falling in love were as pervasive and accessible as rom-coms about straight people? And also longer than 30-second ad spots?
10 Imaginary Lesbian Christmas Films to Grow Your Holigay Heart Three Sizes
If you want to see a a queer woman in a Christmas movie, you’ve got to dig through the deleted scenes on your Love Actually DVD, where you will find about 15 minutes of — spoiler alert! —an elderly lesbian dying while her elderly partner tries to stay strong and make her laugh in her final, wheezing hours of life on this planet. HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 2105 was a pretty good year for queer women at the movies, so to continue that trend, I’ve brainstormed ten sure-to-be-blockbuster Christmas movie ideas featuring queer women. You’re welcome, Hollywood!
It’s A Wonderful Lifestyle
Hannah is home and still gay for the holidays. Her less-than-accepting parents have invited the Greens over for Christmas Eve Eve. Hannah’s mom points out that Sean — who went to high school with Hannah — is single, if you get where they’re going here. Sitting at the dinner table under false pretenses, in the house where she grew up and now feels stunted in, with people that she has no connection to, Hannah flips the table and runs out of the house into the snowy night. She goes to her favorite park where she used to sit and think.
For a moment she wonders if she should just appease her parents when all of a sudden an angel appears next to her on the bench. The ghost, played by Queen Latifah, explains she was dispatched when she heard Hannah’s awful thought. The angel shows Hannah what her life would have been like had she gone forward with the sham of a straight relationship — flashing before Hannah’s eyes, the images of being talked at about FanDuel over dinner, a BBQ at Sean’s buddy Shaun’s, and standing in line for a new movie about some chess prodigy — are awful enough that Hannah returns home with a renewed confidence in her gayness.
Love Symbolically
This is the story of eight unconnected lesbians who are cosmically bound by one thing: their Jennifer Lawrence and/or Sarah Lawrence vision boards. Holed away for weeks gazing into a series of varying hairstyles, open-mouth smiles, and bloopers, each is convinced that this is real love. Bri opens the movie trying to fight the holiday shoppers at the mega mall to buy her crafts. Bri meets Alex in the felt aisle, and their discussion starts a chain of events that impossibly leads to Jae meeting Keely, to Nicki meeting Allie, and to Alicia meeting Gabriella. The genuine human connection made that day inspired each to throw out what is essentially a growing piece of trash and commit to love… actually.
The Family Healing Crystal
With the likes of Meryl Streep, Ted Danson, Tina Fey, January Jones, Chris Evans, Carrot Top, Julia Roberts, and Kevin James, it really is a white Christmas! This family that looks nothing alike is missing just one thing: their cranky sister! Janeane Garafalo stars as Helen, who considers herself a witch first and lesbian second. She’s also the resident black sheep — or so she thinks. Her family has actually been overwhelmingly supportive and love her unconditionally, they’re just bummed out she invests zero interest in their lives and instead talks nonstop about things like energy grids, foot reflexology, the Goddess Tradition, essential oils and in particular oregano oil, and about whether she has a weak Saturn or a strong Saturn.
There is a montage of Helen performing cleansing rituals with her friend, Nevada, in preparation for what she calls a “toxic environment”. But when she arrives to her parents for Christmas dinner, it’s revealed instead that her entire family has gathered to celebrate Saturnalia, the week-long unruly pagan celebration during the winter solstice. Someone ascends, but I won’t say who.
The Polar Limited (Too)
All aboard! The train to the everyone’s favorite underground queer night is taking off for an all-inclusive holiday bonanza, and it’s full of women dressed in clothes from Limited Too. It’s hard to tell — because of the clothing reserved for teens in the 90s — if someone is 18 or 32. It’s freezing out and the doors keep opening for every stop, but even though everyone is wearing some variation of cropped mesh, velvet, and polyester blend, no one’s “even cold”. Dialogue is indecipherable in this movie as phrases like, “Are you a top or a bottom”, “As someone who ___ I find that incredibly offensive”, “So you’re femme right”, “Wow real leather really”, and “cis-heteronormative” meld into a humming frequency that mimics the trains’. The movie reaches it climax around the same time as the girls in the back cart when someone writes “MISANDRY” with puff paint on the back of conductor’s jacket.
Leave Me Alone
Straight bars, woof! *Queer woman screams not in the mirror alone but in a crowded bar* Kira’s traveled back to her small town to be with family for Christmas, and she’s been invited by the one person she still keeps in touch with from high school to meet at the local townie bar. Her friend is running behind and two straight men on the hunt spot Kira by herself. Approaching from all sides, they try and infiltrate her defenses. They dodge the “I’m gay” swinging paint can, carefully tiptop over the “I’m taken” toy race cars on the steps, and extinguish the “I’m not interested” blowtorched hat. This continues for what seems like hours until finally Kira’s friend arrives and hits both of the men with an actual shovel.
A Christmas Carol
The ghosts of Erin Past, Erin Present, and Erin Yet to Come meet for coffee to discuss the movie Carol. Time doesn’t exist now, and neither do they. Had they ever? The answer is no. The concept of space has also slipped from their reality — they are now chained to the confines of a world that lives in a screen. Most of the movie is them just staring at the table peppering the silence with unfinished thoughts. As they get up to leave they dump their coffees all over the Christmas tree inside the cafe because since no one else really “gets it” they’re also Scrooge now. Without a separation of self to create a system of checks and balances, all four of them slowly but surely sabotage every relationship they’ve ever had based on a movie. There is no turn around moment for Erin and god blesses no one at the end.
Elf
This 2015 reboot stars Ellen DeGeneres because it’s a great idea.
Tim Burton’s Christmas Hellscgaype
Guess who knows another gay person from your hometown and has arranged you two to meet at the gay club directed towards men? It’s your cousin! This movie stars you, weirdly, and the car ride you thought you were taking with your cousin to escape your extended family is in fact a kidnapping. You are escorted inside and immediately two gay men squeal, “Ewww, what are lesbians doing here!” Your cousin makes you go get her a drink while she finds her friend and you end up paying 18 dollars for two gin and tonics. Your night is spent with two people you could not have less in common with, listening to dubstep remixes of Adele, and having gay men remind you that you have a vagina and saying it’s gross.
A Christmas Story
It’s 1940 and nine year old Christine, “Chris”, wants nothing more than to receive a Red Ryder B.B. gun for Christmas. But no matter how much she persists, her parents, her teachers, and even Santa himself protests that this is not the toy for a young girl! “You’ll scare the men off!” they all taunt. One snowy night, her mom calls her downstairs and is standing in front of the tree with a wrapped package. Chris is convinced her Christmas wish has come early, but when she unwraps the rectangular package, it’s not a gun at all — it’s an abhorrent dress. Her mom forces her to try it on for the whole family and Chris is inconsolable when she comes downstairs in the long-sleeved velvet travesty.
Finally Christmas morning arrives and Chris is presented with dolls, baking utensils, and more dresses. She’s given up on her ideal gift when her dad unveils one last present. She tears it open to reveal to Red Ryder B.B gun. She immediately takes it out back and her first shot hits the neighbor boy in his glasses. Success! Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight.
It’s Doggone Christmas!
The 89th installment of the Air Bud series tells the story of a dog destined to save Christmas — and his moms! Murray the dog has been witness to the decline of his moms’ six year relationship, and the stress of the holidays have really amped up their tension. More and more he has been used as a mouthpiece between the two with things like, “Wow, your mom really haphazardly strung these ornaments up!” and, “Hm, never knew your mom was so into the consumerist aspect of Christmas!”
In a last ditch attempt to salvage their floundering marriage, Jen and Francine take Murray for a Christmas portrait with Santa at their local mall. While on Santa’s lap, Murray telepathically requests for his moms to be like they were when it first started. Santa winks and sprinkles nutritional yeast on Murray’s moms right as the camera flashes. Jen and Francine turn to really look at each other for the first time in years. Their gaze is only broken by the dog chorus that’s arrived and started to bark Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine”. As the credits start to roll, Murray winks at the camera.
Queers On Film: Stoked For Kristen Stewart as Lizzie Borden’s Lover, Raging Over Michelle Rodriguez’s “Gender-Swapped” Assassin
We’ve been doing pretty well with lesbian movies this season — Freeheld is wonderful and devastating and Carol might be the best lesbian movie ever made. Meanwhile, Stonewall, The Danish Girl and About Ray each found their own unique way to misrepresent and malign trans people.
Three new movies were announced yesterday with lesbian or bisexual characters and/or actors, and although I generally don’t care about the future and don’t like movies, these films remain relevant to my interests. Well, two of them do. One of them looks awful and we just want to bitch about it with you.
So let’s take a look at The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!
The Good: Hannah Hart in “Dirty Thirty”
The big guns at Lionsgate have picked up “Dirty Thirty,” a comedy starring YouTube sueprstars Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart and Hannah Hart. The longform digital film is about a birthday party that goes off the rails, and was co-written by Mamrie and Molly Prather. 2014’s Camp Takota was a hit, and partnering with Lionsgate will bring this winsome threesome to a whole ‘nother level. We are basically assuming that Hannah will be playing a queer character because you know — it’s Hannah.
The Bad: Michelle Rodriguez in “Tomboy: A Revenger’s Tale”
Don’t get too excited by the title. Michelle Rodriguez will not actually be playing a tomboy. In fact, if The Human Centipede didn’t exist, this particular flick would be a strong contender for the Worst Movie Idea of All Time. Rodriguez will be playing a male “ace assassin” who gets double-crossed by gangsters and is then forced to receive gender reassignment surgery under the guardianship of a rogue surgeon played by Sigourney Weaver. The assassin is horrified to wake up as a woman and sets out TO GET REVENGE, “aided by a nurse named Johnnie, who also has secrets.” I hope Johnnie’s secret is that he works for GLAAD and is going to yell at everybody by the end of the movie.
Apparently the project originally had Frieda Pinto involved but “Pinto is no longer involved.” Good job Frieda Pinto! GLAAD has already weighed in on the project, declaring, “We haven’t read the script, but it’s disappointing to see filmmakers turning what is a life-saving medical procedure for transgender people into a sensationalistic plot device. We are at a crucial moment in the public’s understanding of transgender issues, and stories like these have the potential to undermine the progress we’ve worked so hard to achieve.” It’s also a ridiculously misogynistic premise, period. It’s bad for women, bad for tomboys and bad for trans people.
Plus it’s not even about a trans person, although it’s already being billed as a movie about a “transgender hitman.” A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth, this movie is about a man who was assigned male at birth and is surgically altered against his will to more closely resemble a cisgender woman. As our Trans editor Mey Rude told me, “It seems like the cheapest way to capitalize on the trans “trend” that I’ve maybe ever heard. Having surgery doesn’t turn a person from a man into a woman, it just changes how he looks. Also it makes me sad that Michelle Rodriguez and Sigourney Weaver, two actresses I love, would agree to be in a movie like this.”
The story is based on a story by Denis Hamill. This isn’t the first time Hamill’s work has been adapted for the big screen — previous projects include “Critical Condition,” which starred Richard Pryor as a con man who fakes insanity to avoid jail time and then finds an opportunity to impersonate a doctor during the chaos of a power failure. Walter Hill, known for The Warriors and 48 Hours, will direct.
The film will come out in 2017, by which time everybody will already hate it.
The Ugly BUT AMAZING: Kristen Stewart in a Lizzie Borden movie
I’m sorry but I am obsessed with the Lizzie Borden story, so I cannot even be upset that the only film on this list that promises actual lesbian action (“actual lesbian action” is a top criteria for me when assessing a work of art) is about a sociopathic axe murderer. I’m also of the mind that stories like this aren’t necessarily offensive because the crime in question is so singular that it doesn’t really reflect on the lesbian/bisexual/queer female population in general. It’s the more subtle yet absolutely misleading and damaging contemporary tropes peddled by movies like Chasing Amy that fuck us up. Also it’s nice to hear that this film already isn’t intending to cut the lesbian parts out, like so many stories based on historical events do.
Last year’s Lizzie Borden Chronicles TV series starring Christina Ricci fizzled for me much like WGN’s Salem did — it was compelling at first, but once it began veering dangerously off the course of the historical story it was based on, it got stupider and stupider and became eventually unwatchable.
Director Pieter Van Hees is taking his own crack at the story with a film starring Chloe Sevigny as Lizzie Borden and Kristen Stewart as her live-in maid, Bridget Sulliva, with whom Borden obviously had a love affair. I CAN’T WAIT.
Without a Safety Net: Talking Women-Owned Tech Startups with Section II’s Allie Esslinger
I’ve covered the Lesbians Who Tech Summit twice now, and each time I got to meet the fabulous Allie Esslinger. Aside from being a generally wonderful and wonderfully nerdy person, she’s also the co-founder and CEO of Section II — a sort of Netflix with just lesbian/queer women’s content. LBTQ. None o’ that “G” up in here. You heard right. It’s an entire website dedicated to films that reflect our bit of the rainbow. If that wasn’t cool enough to catch up with Allie for an interview for Queer Your Tech, then you should also know that her business cards are indie films reworked to include queer lady protagonists. I have a really cute one that’s Garden State, except real gay. She’s awesome, y’all.
Meet Allie Esslinger, via Lesbians Who Tech
Hey Allie! Nice name! Let’s get right down to it — why did you choose to start Section II?
I grew up in Alabama — which is home to the only ABC affiliate that did not air Ellen’s coming out episode in 1997. It took me a long time to understand myself in the context of the larger world because I didn’t have access to it. The time has come that there’s no reason that should be the case for anyone anymore. And the progress of technology and content has created a world where lack of access is something we can fix. Section II of the Motion Picture Production Code outlawed homosexuality on screen until 1968. We are reclaiming our namesake and starting a new narrative for queer women on screen.
Do you have a background in the tech startup industry? If not, how did you find your way into owning a startup?
I come from the content side of things, but I’ve had experience as a producer and an editor working at major content startups like Maker Studios and Major League Gaming. Being a film producer is a lot like being an entrepreneur — a lot of creative thinking and troubleshooting — but the start-up world is new to me. We were lucky to participate in the Dogfish Accelerator program, which is a film accelerator based on the Techstars model. It not only gave us a huge insight into new distribution models and a large network of Industry mentors, but it also gave us a crash course in lean start-up ideas and great basic tech mentalities that have helped us develop the business model quickly and efficiently. Techstars is the most famous accelerator program. Companies apply to the program and, if chosen, go into a 3-month acceleration phase where they meet with mentors that Techstars collaborates with and pairs them with in order to drive progress. TechStars takes an equity stake in the company in exchange for some seed funding to allow the founders to focus 100% on the company throughout the program. Dogfish took this model and tried to apply it to the film world — content creators and innovators looking to advance distribution models or financing options, etc. We received $18,000 in seed financing to incorporate the company, build the beta version of the website and shoot the Julie Goldman special. They receive 8% of our revenue for the first 5 years of operations.
HEY LOOK! IT’S JULIE GOLDMAN!
So I hear you talking a little bit about how the tech industry can advance the film world. How can technology put control of our narratives in the hands of queer people?
The advances in technology on the production side have empowered filmmakers with very accessible tools for creating content. It’s cheaper than ever to put together a team and gear and go shoot something. It’s becoming a more agile craft.
Technology has also given distributors, like Section II, a chance to approach content dissemination more creatively. We can make it available throughout the production process. We can stay engaged with fans from crowd-funding through a theatrical release. We can invite people along for the ride as part of the team.
There is a lot of opportunity right now to re-define how people receive and consume content. And technology will continue to play a large role. It will continue to evolve and, as a distribution company, we are tasked with making it the best possible experience for both content creators and content consumers. And that’s what keeps us fired up — with LBTQ content specifically, we have a unique point of view as people who enjoy making and watching this content. It lets us be allies to the producers and the consumers.
What advice do you have for queer women if they want to dive into startup culture?
Start-up culture is odd. There’s a lot that I struggle with — it’s not something particularly designed for anyone who isn’t already privileged. It’s hard to go into it without a safety net. There’s a certain element of romanticizing struggle that is hard to internalize as a woman, a queer woman, and/or a woman of color. But it’s so important to have innovation coming out of all backgrounds and perspectives. Otherwise it doesn’t serve all backgrounds and perspectives.
I give myself epic pep talks every morning because it’s sometimes really hard to deal with all the odds that are not in our favor as a company working at the intersection of two well-defined sectors like tech and content.
But I’ve been lucky to find female mentors and peers that are encouraging and can understand the frustrations and the hurdles. My best advice is to look for confidantes — ask for the help you need and also ask for opinions about the help you need from other people. Be open to feedback. And apply what makes the most sense to your ultimate vision.
About finding female mentors and peers — that’s sometimes hard in an industry where we’re often so invisible. Where have you looked for your mentors? What kind of successes have you had?
I have found women with experience in both film and tech who have taken meetings from cold calls, offered advice over coffee, and helped shape my pitch and my documents. Emily Best, CEO of Seed&Spark has been especially helpful — her entire team has been a network of support and encouragement. She is about 2 years ahead of us as a company, and having someone with similar experiences to bounce ideas off of is invaluable.
The biggest thing is know who you admire and figure out how to get on her radar. Ask for what you need. It’s the only way to expect someone to know how to help. I’m a firm believer in cold calls and persistent follow-up. Until you get a no, just put yourself out there and ask for help.
What does the idea of more startups being owned by queer women/lesbians mean for women in technology?
I hope that as we are able to start new companies and increase our numbers within the overall community, we will realize that there’s no harm in helping each other. Right now, I think we live in a world where there’s fear of a certain allotment of slots for women, for queer women. And that we’re competing with each other all the time to be the ultimate queer woman in tech. But that’s outdated. We can always make new spots for people, and that’s what we should be doing.
How is Section II working toward ending the gender gap in tech startup culture?
Section II is probably the only company where it’s progressive to hire straight white guys as part of the culture of diversity. And my partner Matt is of that category.
But we are so excited to be working with such talented content creators from across the LBTQ spectrum and applying their outlook and their skill sets to our model and our company culture. We are thrilled to have so many talented women on our team and benefit from the alchemy of all these different perspectives plotting towards #BetterRepresentation of LBTQ women in pop culture.
A Benefit Corporation is a new business model that is a for-profit company with a Public Benefit Mandate written into its bylaws. Our mandate is for #BetterRepresentation of LBTQ women in pop culture. We’re a double-bottom line company. Our focus is on revenue but we aren’t willing to sacrifice the founding principles — like increased quantity and quality of content — to achieve our goals.
We are not a nonprofit and it makes it very hard to raise money for content and for the start-up itself. But I think it’s important for there to be LGBT/LBTQ companies — for-profit and for good. We can’t assume that we only deserve charity within our community.
So speaking of raising money, tell me about this non-kickstarter you’re doing on this new platform?
We are fundraising on a new crowd funding platform called Seed&Spark. It’s a platform that allows us to break down our budget so that people can donate based on the items on our wish list or based on the incentives that we’ve compiled as tokens of our appreciation. We are raising money in order to upgrade our website and begin creating original content. Our beta site is live now, and you can go rent or buy features, shorts, and series right now. But we want to transition to a subscription model, which will allow our customers to watch as much content as they’d like and allow us to begin building out our slate of originals with content creators seeking funding.
We are so close to realizing our dreams of facilitating content creation and distribution. Things are changing in the entertainment industry, and we have the chance, as the LBTQ community, to lead the charge and create models that can be replicated throughout the indie film industry. We are a loyal, engaged market. And we can improve content systems across the spectrum. Right now is the time for technology and content to merge together and foster creativity as the next step in the fight for equality.
What are your eventual goals for Section II?
We have the opportunity to create content at a pace that’s never been attempted and deliver to an audience that’s never had the chance to consume its fair share. We want to build a destination platform for filmmakers and film lovers that showcases and contextualizes LBTQ content from throughout history. We want to set off across the country for a series of conversations at LGBT Centers and Museums around the country so that we can meet as many people as possible and understand exactly what they want out of the next wave of queer content. We want to create content in this first year across genres and formats that we can release on SectionII.com and build an audience that will allow us to begin financing features by 2015. We want to apply supply-and-demand to our underserved niche market so that production financing becomes easier for filmmakers and so that we can acquire content from festivals and filmmakers and make it available online and theatrically. We want to be a “Netflix for LBTQ Content” with original content as exciting and compelling as Orange Is the New Black and House of Cards. And we’re so close.
Allie Esslinger has a couple of cool things for y’all Autostraddle readers — the first is that you can watch Julie Goldman’s comedy special, Lady Gentleman, for totally free. Just click here and use the PromoCode ItJustGotBetter. And over on their Seed&Spark page, Allie also made Autostraddle readers a very special incentive — a buy-one-get-one-free month of their Spotlight Series for $15 (delivered in August and September). Head on over and help Section II realize the very worthy goal of original queer women’s content! I know I am.
This has been the eighty-fifth installment of Queer Your Tech with Fun, Autostraddle’s nerdy tech column. Not everything we cover is queer per se, but we talk about customizing this awesome technology you’ve got. Having it our way, expressing our appy selves just like we do with our identities. Here we can talk about anything from app recommendations to choosing a wireless printer to web sites you have to favorite to any other fun shit we can do with technology.Header by Rory Midhani
FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: Amazing Girlfriends and God-Awful Lesbian Movies
Hello, Autostraddle! Welcome to this week’s Friday Open Thread! Did you know that from now on there will be a Friday Open Thread every Friday, kind of like how there is a Thirsty Thursday every Thursday? It’s the new rest of the week! Only not really, because the rest of the week exists. But let’s live in the now.
I’ve had a really amazing week because my long-distance total babe of a girlfriend Geneva is in town (!), but she’s been really upset because of a recent discovery that I’ve been living under a rock and never saw any of the formative lesbian movies of her youth. And probably yours.
This is what we look like, by the way.
I’m attempting to bridge this huge gap of understanding in my very serious adult relationship by ordering a pizza, throwing back some beer, and watching a marathon of awful, no-good, can’t-look-away, car-crash-of-a-movie lesbian cinema. It’ll be like the time Autostraddle watched a horrible lesbian movie with The Toast, only probably with more Stella Artois and making out. Our selections will include The Craft, But I’m a Cheerleader, and All Over Me. [Which my editors would like to note are: A) not a lesbian movie but also really good, B) a really good lesbian movie and C) also a really good lesbian movie.]
NOTE: The reason we’re not watching D.E.B.S. or Lost and Delirious is because I’ve already seen them and have them burned into my brain permanently. Also, did you know Lost and Delirious is, in fact, about how two dykes totally ruin poor Mischa Barton’s childhood? My roommates and I used to fight about this all the time: they would be all, the lesbians are the lead characters and I would be like no it’s Mischa Barton and then I’d think, but what if the main character is actually the bird of prey from the weird witch voodoo scenes?
But enough about me. I am but one person in this magnificent Staddleverse and I want to talk about YOU!
What are you doing tonight? What are you drinking? What are you watching? Who are you with? What are you wearing? Sorry, am I getting carried away. Anyway, you should tell me! Seriously. I’ll be here all night keeping you posted on my adventures through my non-existent lesbian past in the comments, and you should keep me posted on your night, too! You can even post photos. Show me yours and I’ll show you mine! By this I mean I will show you pictures of my dog if you show me pictures of your girlfriend. I’ve done this with countless strangers before and it always worked out.
How To Post a Photo In The Comments:
1. Find a photo! This is the easy part. Find a photo on the web, right click (on a Mac, control+click), hit “Copy Image URL,” and then…
2. Code it in to your comment! Use the following code:
<img src=”http://imageurlgoeshere.jpg”>
If you need to upload the photo you love from your computer, try using imgur.
GO FORTH, SPECTACULAR SPECTACULARS. TELL ME YOUR LIFE. IN THE WORDS OF FRASIER CRANE: I’M LISTENING.
You Basically Have to Go: Talking Pictures Movie Interruption with Autostraddle’s Finest
Back at A-Camp 4.0, a gaggle of funny queer women decided to try their hand at interrupting a movie. It was quite the success, which made them think, “Hey! Maybe we should do this again.” So they’ve got the band back together to interrupt Bound on February 20th at 9pm at Los Angeles’ Downtown Independent Theater.
This particular gang consists of Hannah Hart, DeAnne Smith, Brittani Nichols and Carly Usdin for an event they’re calling Talking Pictures. This group of friends will watch movies alongside the audience and let you know exactly what they think about whatever is happening on screen. Expect a lot of feelings, a lot of jokes, and some brutal honesty. You can get your tickets now and RSVP for the event on Facebook. Tell everyone you know! We’re bringing queer comedians and movies to the masses.
“Transparent” TV Pilot Features Trans Mom, Queer Women, Additional Delightful Things
*This posts contains super minimal, like really tiny, baby quarter-spoilers.*
Last week Amazon released a second wave of streaming TV pilots to compete for a spot as the next Amazon original series. Amidst the offerings was Transparent, a family comedy Amazon describes as “An LA family with serious boundary issues have their past and future unravel when a dramatic admission causes everyone’s secrets to spill out.” I think you’re going to like the secret: it’s LBT women. The show opens by introducing you to three adult siblings: Josh (Jay Duplass), a sad-eyed hippie manchild; Ali (Gaby Hoffman), a wry, failure-to-launch depressive; and Sarah (Amy Landecker), a pampered, type A housewife, clearly bored by the monotony of her marriage. The human they know as their father “Mort” — now Maura — invites them over for dinner at their childhood home in order to come out to them as transgender. Unfortunately, the children are so busy selfishly bickering over who should get the house if their parent dies of cancer that Maura’s news never makes it out.
Josh picks his teeth. Ali tries to find meaning in a Jim Croce album. Sarah and her husband primp.
If you think Maura’s children sound self-absorbed and not very likeable, you’re exactly right! The characters in Transparent aren’t aspirational archetypes — they’re quirky, naval gazing weirdos — but they’re well written! After just thirty minutes you already know intrinsically who these people are and what they’re about: in real life, they’d be the annoying acquaintances just beyond your inner circle whose antics you love to hate. Like Lena Dunham meets Wes Anderson — simultaneously off-putting and enthralling. Plus, ten minutes in, we learn that another lead character, Sarah, had a serious relationship in college with a lesbian who resurfaces in the pilot wearing very cute glasses. Against the backdrop of her family, Maura is the most down-to-earth and sympathetic character. Given the overwhelmingly negative portrayal of trans people on TV, any positive representation is a welcome addition. However, the casting choice for Maura (Jeffrey Tambor, best known for his comedic role in Arrested Development) did send up a red flag.
Jeffrey Tambor as Maura.
This pilot comes at an interesting time. Last year’s highest profile trans-inclusive film, Dallas Buyer’s Club, has been winning mainstream awards left and right while simultaneously drawing sharp criticism from queer community members. For one thing, many feel that the casting of a cis man in a trans woman role reinforces dangerous stereotypes of trans people being drag queens. For another, Jared Leto continually fails to be an advocate for trans women and is actually using the platform to be a total ass. I can’t imagine we’d be hearing such tone-deaf remarks from someone with lived experience as a trans person. That a cis man was again cast in a trans woman’s role gives me serious pause, especially when that actor is best known to me as George Bluth, walking punchline. That being said, the decision seems to have been made thoughtfully, with trans actors in supporting roles on screen and numerous trans people involved in production.
Maura’s trans support group. Aside from Tambor, all the actors in the scene were trans.
Director Rhys Ernst, a trans man, explained:
As a trans director, I ask myself, how would I cast a non-medically transitioning trans person, or someone pre-transition? I look at all options, and that may include some cisgender actors. I also see filmmaking as a holistic practice and don’t see casting as the only area to focus on regarding the politics of trans representation. Filmmaking is a team effort and when it comes to trans related subject matter, trans sensitivity needs to be integrated throughout the entire production chain.
He went on,
As a filmmaker I have gone to great lengths to cast transgender actors. It sometimes takes more work to locate trans actors but because of my commitment to trans representation, I feel it’s a step well worth taking…there are certain instances in which casting a cisgender actor in a trans role can be appropriate. I don’t think it’s nearly as often as Hollywood’s track record might suggest, and 9 out of 10 trans characters in Hollywood productions are typically a disappointment, both in their writing and in their casting.
Whatever the verdict on the casting, writer Jill Soloway‘s work shines here. Soloway has written and produced for Six Feet Under, United States of Tara and Grey’s Anatomy in the past, as well as a few episodes of Dirty Sexy Money, the first primetime show to feature a trans character played by a trans actor (Candis Cayne). Soloway described Transparent as her “dream project” post-Six Feet Under, “this idea about a family who inherited a secret about sexuality as opposed to a funeral home.” So far, it seems that Maura is also a lady-loving lady, and aforementioned daughter Sarah might be lined up for her own coming out narrative. (Or something. It’s complicated. But she’s definitely queer.)
Tammy is described as a lesbian. Sarah isn’t labeled but her relationships suggest she may be bisexual.
The pilot for Transparent is available streaming free on Amazon. To provide feedback and help this show be picked for further production, complete the survey at AmazonOriginals.com.
Team Pick: Autostraddle And The Toast Watch Awful Gay Movies
Vanessa’s Team Pick:
Hi friends! Did you know that Riese, Laneia, and Rachel are super hilarious human beings? Duh, of course you did, you read Autostraddle dot com every day and get to peek inside their delicious brains on a regular basis.
But!
Do you know what’s even better than just Riese, Laneia, and Rachel being super hilarious by themselves? I will tell you. This is a little thing that I like to refer to as My Current Favorite Thing On The Internet, Even Better Than J.Law’s New Haircut Even Though Her New Haircut Is Everything. What is it? Why, it’s a collaboration with Autostraddle and The Toast! It’s a situation wherein Riese, Laneia, and Rachel sit down with Nicole and Mallory of The Toast and talk about awful gay movies. It’s actually called Watching Awful Gay Movies With Autostraddle! It is the most wonderful thing in the world.
omg intern geneva made this amazing graphic
If you haven’t already gotten yourself addicted to The Toast (and really, what the heck has taken you so long, I told you about this months ago!) please mosey on over and become acquainted with their delightful sense of humor and self. If you already love The Toast, this is just the cream cheese / nutella / peanut butter / cookie butter / whatever the heck you like on your bread on top. And if you’ve never seen Lost and Delirious, I suggest you hop on that train right now so that you can enjoy this deep, meaningful, emotionally charged conversation to the fullest degree.
What movie do you think they’ll do next? What was your favorite part of the discussion? What other shit do you love to read on The Toast? My personal favorite is Texts From Emily Dickinson, but I also really enjoyed Mallory’s very recent Male Novelist Jokes. Oh, and a falcon? Seriously, a fucking falcon?! Let’s talk this all out in the comments, then let’s start campaigning for The Toast to join us at the next A-Camp.
Also.Also.Also: My Mutha’s The Gay, Female Weezy
Happy Wednesday! I’m going to work for the next seven days in a row la la la. Here’s the stories we missed this week while I was eating string cheese for breakfast. (Geneva calls them ‘cheese strings.’ Isn’t that crazy.)
Identity Politics
+ Kiese Laymon tackles female characters, Octavia Young, and all the characters in his universe.
+ Salon asks: “does anyone care about black women?” Don’t ask Russell Simmons.
+ Why Zinnia Jones keeps records of her transition:
The fact is that, for 23 years of my life, I did have a body with male-typical features, and I still have a few of them even after transitioning. Being reminded that I “was once a male”? I call that “looking down”. Photos and records pale in significance next to the experience of living in this body.
I’ve been in it my whole life, through all of its different stages. Trying to erase photos seems futile – more than just photos, I have memories, experiences, feelings. Whether there’s an old photo of me out there or not… I still remember who I was. So having to see old pictures of myself is quite a minor concern – either way, I’ll still have the memories of being that person, which are much more vivid, thorough, and full of emotion than a simple photo.
And I don’t want to forget who I was. That phase of my life is an enormous part of my history. It constitutes the majority of my existence up until now. Yes, there were difficult times, and things I’ve done my best to forget and move on from.
But I don’t feel my life up until now is disposable. This wasn’t some bad dream that I only recently woke up from. It was real, and I can’t deny that. As hard as it might have been, it was not devoid of any value. I was still a human being. I was making the most of my life, just as I am now. And even in those times, there was much worth remembering.
+ Michelle Tea is definitely my kind of cool mom. She talked to Bitch about her new site, Mutha Magazine, which is about the “full spectrum” of parenting.
What’s wrong specifically with the branding and culture on the mothering sites you’re reading?
I mean, you know, they’re fine, they’re just not for me. As somebody who has a really defined aesthetic, going into sites with a bunch of ladies who are trying to have kids who I otherwise would have nothing in common with—I go in there, get information, and leave. It’s not a place I would hang out. I know if I feel that way, there must be a million other women that feel this way. I think alternative experiences are finally being recognized—motherhood, parenting, and fertility shouldn’t be that foreign. I think there are a lot of women who get pregnant and have babies but they’re not part of this cultural traditional ideas of what it means to be a mom and they’re not interested in the media that’s already out there.
In The Courts And Elsewhere
+ In Kentucky, a gay Mayor is advocating for LGBT equality.
But the instructive lesson captured by the Colbert broadcast’s focus on Vicco’s mayor and its townspeople is the fundamental role of relationships in changing people’s attitudes and values. Person after person spoke glowingly about Cummings’s effectiveness in improving their community. The police officer in the segment referred to the mayor as being “like a brother” to him. Clearly, Johnny Cummings has become in the eyes of his community not a “gay man” or a “gay mayor,“ but a man and a mayor who happens to be gay.
And once individuals exist outside the categories (or closets) of our predetermined notions, once they define themselves on their own terms, there is no going back. The uniqueness of individual complexity looms too large to fit into a stereotype.
So maybe, in their willingness to support their mayor on the basis of his merits and in their open-minded acceptance of people who are different, maybe the people Vicco are “destroying” a piece of America, after all. And maybe they are replacing that piece with something better.
+ Proposed legislation in Puerto Rico to support same-sex adoption and LGBT rights educational curricula are causing quite a stir.
You Should Go
Lesbian speed dating at the Lesbian Herstory Archives sounds like a nerdy dream come true in all the best ways. I’m deeply invested in you going to this so that if we ever meet you can describe it to me in great detail.
Obligatory Russia Roundup
+ LGBT Russian folks are looking to the US for aslyum, probably since the homophobia there – if you haven’t heard – is fucking terrifying and awful.
+ Is this the most dangerous lesbian kiss in recent history? I’m not really sure but I can’t really presume life is exactly pleasant for these two dissenting Russian athletes atm.
Two female Russian athletes kissed on the winners podium to protest Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law, reports Sky News. Kseniya Ryzhova and Tatyana Firova kissed after they helped their team win the 4 x 400 meter relay at the World Athletics Championship in Moscow on Saturday. While Sky News seems certain that the kiss was a political statement, others aren’t so sure. Gay Star News says it is “unclear” whether the kiss was merely a sign of affection or whether the athletes were “blatantly defying Russia’s ‘gay propaganda’ laws since neither of the athletes have released a statement.” Regardless, the kiss could land the athletes in legal trouble considering it expressly goes against the much-criticized law that bans anything that may be seen as a promotion of homosexuality.
+ Should the Metropolitan Opera be worried about gay people? In light of Russia, people seem to think so.
#LoveIsLove
+ Congratulations to New Zealanders – they not only have marriage equality now, but they also live in like, the coolest place on Earth.
+ Gay marriage is finally set to hit the courts in New Jersey. Oh, and Chris Christie? Fuck you.
+ Your OB/GYN supports you. Thank god, ’cause that shit was already awkward enough.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (The College) today voices its endorsement of marriage equality for same-sex couples. In applauding the recent Supreme Court ruling providing equal treatment for legally married same-sex couples, The College says that legalizing gay marriage benefits women’s health.
“As ob-gyns, we must be strong advocates for all of our patients’ health and well-being,” said Jeanne A. Conry, MD, PhD, president of The College. “We know that access to health care and the health of women and their families is tied to financial security. Marriage helps provide this financial security for many women, regardless of sexual orientation…As a society, we have made enormous progress, but we won’t have full marriage equality until same-sex marriage is legal in every state.”
+ Same-sex military spouses will begin to receive the same Department of Defense benefits as their (yawn) heterosexual counterparts no later than September 3, which is great for all the military wife hopefuls in the crowd.
The Guest Verse As Social Justice, Or: The Lil Carmen Story
Yo, Kendrick, I’mma let you finish, but Nicki Minaj fucking invented the guest verse. And she’s baaaaack.
Nicki, of course, rapped her ass off employing those same tactics for half of Roman Reloaded, a fact that might have gotten glossed over in the “what-about-the-pop” reaction cycle to the album. But now she’s consistently hopping on more traditional rap songs with everyone’s favorite rappers, and she’s also consistently outshining them. It’s been awesome to watch: she’s taking back her rap credits by lyrical force.
Back in April, in response to a question about whether she feels pressure in the lead-up to her third album, rumored to be titled The Pinkprint, Nicki told MTV, “I care less about the acceptance and more about me being the lyrical, ill bitch that I am, knowing that I am lyrically better than most of the male rappers out there—yes, I’m gonna say it. I don’t get the credit that I deserve… I’ve put in my work lyrically, and people act like it doesn’t exist.” Kendrick should’ve heard her. She’s adamant, and very vocal, about the fact that the requirement to prove herself has to do with her gender. She’s right, and it’s a grim reality—but the better Nicki gets, the closer she gets to inverting it.
You’ve Got To Be Fucking Kiding Me
In Kansas, anti-choice fuckers are citing themselves as nuisances in an effort to get a clinic shut down. Welcome to the realm of pro-life politics, where nothing makes sense and noboody knows how to calmly speak to anyone else.
OINTB: They’re Taking Over, I Like It
This week, Lea DeLaria tackled the Week In Gay (minus Brittani though, which is a huge letdown)…
…While Natasha Lyonne’s “important and funny” “teen comedy” hit Vancouver’s film festival circuit.
LezBuzz
+ Ellen and Lorelei are making a show. I never liked or watched Gilmore Girls but Ellen is my girl. So.
+ Blue Is The Warmest Color or something.