VIDEO: AutoNatic Does GLAAD 2010 in LA – Glambert, The Lynch & More!

Relative to the entire timespan of human history, the Los Angeles GLAAD Awards occurred pretty much an hour ago. You already know who won, and you already know how cute everyone looked, but until you see Nat Garcia for AutoNatic at the GLAAD Awards 2010 in Los Angeles, you have no idea.

Watch Nat give a lot of high fives and interview our favorite people in the entire world including Adam Lambert, Constance McMillen, Wanda Sykes, JANE LYNCH BECAUSE THE LYNCH CAN DO NO WRONG, the ladies of The Real L Word, Bryan Batt aka Sal from Mad Men, Nicol Paone and more! Also, she gets Johnny Weir to pretty much come out on Autostraddle today, which is, coincidentally, on Cinco de Gayo! (more…)

Glee Guide: Glee Returns With Extra Gay, Gaga, Madonna and Britanna

GLEE:
Glee‘s back nine premieres tomorrow night (Tuesday) at 9:38 pm on Fox with an episode entitled “Hell-O,” directly following Adam Lambert’s appearance on American Idol, making tomorrow night essentially the best night of television to happen since the 90210/Party of Five days, and really the gayest night of television since the last time we declared something the gayest night of television ever. ON FOX.

Will we need a new GLEE drinking game? Will Brittany & Santana ride the hobby horse? Will Sue Sylvester sing? How can Will Schuster have sex with someone who uses so much anti-bacterial hand sanitizer?

Early reviews are pretty glowing: “If you thought “Glee” was good before, get ready to be dazzled. Not since the heyday of “The Sopranos” has a series gone off the air for such a long time and returned with such energy and spectacle.”

The season opens following the Gleeks’ win at sectionals: “In the new spring season of Glee we find Glee club member, Rachel (Lea Michele) dating high school jock, Finn (Cory Monteith). Glee fans should expect plenty of fireworks from the unlikely couple this season as Finn becomes disgruntled with the rules of high school dating.”

Guest Stars: Rachel will date a boy from the rival squad Vocal Adreneline, played by Jonathan Groff, one of Lea Michelle‘s best friends and her co-star from Broadway’s Spring Awakening, where they fully had sex on stage and it was smokin’ hot. (Groff is gay, P.S. FYI). Other Broadway stars slated to appear: Kristin Chenoweth will reprise her role in the April 27th episode “Home,” Neil Patrick Harris in the Joss Whedon-directed episode and Idina Menzel (Maureen, RENT) as Rachel Berry’s birth mother. You can catch interviews with these folks and more at SpoilerTV.com.

Here’s the HD trailer for tomorrow night’s Premiere:

Madonna Episode: April 20th’s episode, “The Power of Madonna, will feature covers including “Borderline,” “What it Feels Like For A Girl,” “Open Your Heart,” “Express Yourself” “Like a Prayer,” “Like a Virgin,” and “Vogue”.

Lady Gaga Episode: May’s Lady Gaga episode looks amazing, judging by these behind-the-scenes photos:

Brittana: Broadway World has a video of Rachel Berry (Lea Michelle) performing Give You Hell by the All-American Rejects from tomorrow night’s episode and there are lots of little moments between Brittany and Santana in this — actually if you pay attention to them too closely you’ll catch a sloppy cut in the middle but whatever — which brings us to this interview with the Executive Producers of Glee about a lot of stuff but most importantly, BRITTANA:

Can you talk about how the character of Brittany developed?
IB: “Heather Morris is just a total comic genius. Occasionally we would just kind of toss her a few lines, and then they ended up being so shockingly hilarious. And then randomly being able to pair her with this twosome in Heather’s character and then Nya’s character, Santana. They’re like this kind of weird, wonderful, brilliant, comedic duo that we stumbled upon. They’re absolutely my favorite stuff to write now.”

Are you writing more towards them in the back nine?
BF: “Definitely. They have some stories. I know Nya gets to sing in the back nine. We have such an incredibly talented cast that a lot of stuff comes out of just sort of being with them and seeing what they do, what they’re good at and what makes them laugh.”

GLEE is also promoting the show by staging more dancing flash mobs, like this one where over 800 dancers performed in Westlake Park, Pioneer Square and Seattle Center on Saturday, April 10, 2010:

To recap, this is how gay Glee is:

– Two openly gay lead actors, Jane Lynch & Chris Colfer.
– Guest stars include openly gay actors Neil Patrick Harris & Jonathan Groff as well as major gay allies Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel (who played gay in RENT, the movie and the Broadway show) (furthermore Kristin & Idina accidentally became gay icons via their lead roles in WICKED, in which they did not play lesbian lovers, but many young gay Broadway geeks like to think that they did.)
– Gay characters include lead role Kurt as well as Rachel’s Two Dads (who we haven’t met yet). Lesbionic undertones abound between Brittany & Santana.
– An entire episode will be devoted to the music of out bisexual and gay rights activist Lady Gaga and another to queer icon Madonna.
– This is all probs related to the fact that the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, is also openly gay.

ANYONE BUT ME:
Rachael Hip-Flores took home the “streamy” award last night for Best Female Actor in a Drama Web Series for her portrayal of Vivian in lesbian-themed series Anyone But Me, in a category that also included Crystal Chappell in weberies Venice.

Other winners of interest include Gamer goddess Felicia Day for Best Female Actor and Best Directing for a Comedy Web Series. Overall; the web’s opinion of the ceremony seems to be ‘it sucked’ and everyone wore terrible outfits.

CORONATION STREET:
Coronation Street‘s first ever lesbian kiss was seen by around seven million people! (@digital spy)

OPRAH:
Kity Kelly’s new Oprah book is coming out soon, and already there’s speculation about Winfrey’s sexuality and her relationship with Gayle King. Except honestly there really isn’t. Quoting Rosie’s comment about Gayle & Oprah is lame, and the quote from Erica Jong is as non-committal as it gets: “I would not be surprised if Oprah is gay. If she is, she is. It certainly fits.” (@usa today)

What If This Headline Made Something Up About Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt Breaking Up

BIG WEEKEND: If you are a famous person, someone took your picture this weekend somewhere. The Hope for Haiti Fundraiser on Friday night raised $57 million dollars, and featured performances by The Roots with Jennifer Hudson, Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z & Rihanna & The Edge & Bono, Alicia Keys, Beyoncè, Bruce Springsteen, and more. You can purchase the Hope for Haiti album at iTunes and all profits go to Haiti!

Sundance is happening (The Runaways will premiere there tonight) all the way in Utah, and in Los Angeles the Screen Actors Guild Awards happened and once again Glee won for Best Comedy Series.

Mini-gallery of the weekend’s festivities:

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ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE HAIRCUT: We thought it would be funny to post this tweet from Kim Stolz. Is it funny? She’s so cute!

90S NOSTALGIA: Salute Your Shorts: Where Are They Now? (@celebuzz)

CIVIL UNIONS: It looks like civil unions are on track to happen in Hawaii, one of the first states to approve a gay marriage ban in 1998. “We’re very pleased that the Hawaii State Senate took action and passed the civil unions bill today,” Tambry Young, co-chair of Equality Hawaii, said in a statement. “The Senate acted with great courage, conviction and integrity. They did the right thing for all Hawaii’s families.” (@ontopmag)

CONAN: Regardless of what you think about Conan and Leno and NBC and Tina Fey’s glasses, I think we can all agree this is a pretty classy farewell on Conan’s part. Add him to your list of People You Could Probably Have Very Mature And Adult Breakups With!(@huffingtonpost)

STARLITE: I have never heard of the Starlite Lounge before this, and am now v. upset about it.

“Why shouldn’t there be a bar in Crown Heights that is popular with white and black, gay and straight people, where gentrifiers and locals with long lineage drink the special punch next to one another on bar stools, where young, beautiful club types sweat it out to house music alongside 50-something veteran party organizers and standard-issue retirees who happen to live down the block? Doesn’t every place have one of those?”

Sadly, Starlite’s days may be numbered because of new management, which is TRAGIC because it sounds like they have many pretty girls and were one of the first black-owned establishments that didn’t discriminate against gays and also, most importantly, have a killer drag show on Friday nights. Get your drinks there while you can, ladies! You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here! (@nytimes)

JUSTICE: Remember Lindsay Harmon, the 29-year-old lesbian who was stabbed in the freaking eye while leaving Roxy’s Bar in Buffalo, NY on New Year’s? An arrest has been made in connection with her case – “Suzanne Grover, 21, a former Buffalo resident most recently living in Florida and who is now being held on $75,000 bail after being charged with 2nd degree assault.” Also, there will be, um, “enhanced lighting” in the area where she was attacked, and a memo sent through the police department saying hate speech is not ok! Baby steps, I guess. (@wgrz)

PORN STARS: We’ve been attempting to ignore this story for about a week now BUT IT WON’T GO AWAY. It’s like a strange rumor gone mad… Porn star Alexia Moore, who has been arrested for prostitution, may or may not try to argue in court that, based on the fact that much of her porn has been “of a Sapphic nature,” she is actually a lesbian and therefore did not solicit a man for sex. Um, lesbianism is not a defense against prostitution! We know lots of lesbian sex workers, Aside from whether or not this is inherently, well, ridiculous on its own, can we talk about this article? “The curvy Moore, whose real name is Cassandra Malandri, was “dancing” at New York’s “Big Daddy Lou’s Hot Lap Dance Club” in 2008 when she, along with fellow stripper Falynn Rodriguez, allegedly offered an undercover NYPD officer a “threesome” for big bucks.” Is that funny to anyone else? Defense lawyer Ikiesha Al-Shabazz has been quoted as saying this plan “doesn’t even make sense.” Also, here is Moore’s picture, apparently from Facebook. (@cbsnews)

ROSIE: It looks like Rosie and her new lady, Texas-based artist and activist Tracy Kachtick-Anders were on Oprah. Oprah asked if the couples’ plans included living together, Rosie said “Yes, as soon as we can arrange the kids’ thing where she lives in Texas, you know.” By “kids” she means all 12 of them, which is how many she and Tracy have combined. That is so many! (@shewired)

TWEETS: If even our Prop 8 trial recaps are a little too much for you – for example, if you were one of several commenters who said Mr. Tam had literally driven you to drink – you might be interested in following @protectmawwiage, the account that’s running an awesome parody of the official ProtectMarriage twitter. (@queerty)

NOH8: Adam Bouska and Jeff Parshley, the creators of the NOH8 photo campaign, appeared on MSNBC to discuss their silent but powerful campaign against Prop 8 and of course Cindy McCain as the latest/most titillating addition to the project. Also: I think they might have some NOH8 billboards in the works!

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MORMONS: Right on the heels of Outrage, there is another important-looking film released about gays & politics, and this one is narrated by our BFF Dustin Lance Black! 8: The Mormon Proposition “contends that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built on decades of anti-gay teachings to justify its political activism and tried to hide its role as the driving force behind the coalition of conservatives that helped pass Proposition 8.” Church spokespeople do not seem excited, saying “it appears that accuracy and truth are rare commodities in this film,” but I guess they wouldn’t be, would they?(@abcnews)

FASHION: Apparently a) Berlin has a Fashion Week and b) yesterday, designer Patrick Mohr put on a show called “Are We Shaved?” I really want everyone who thinks Lady Gaga’s clothes are “weird” to watch this and rethink that. Other feelings I have: this is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. (@gawker)

CAPRICA: Do you watch Caprica? Are you still a little sad Starbuck wasn’t gay? Me too, but apparently Caprica is supposed to feature a gay dude (Sam Adama, Joseph Adama’s brother) and a bisexual lady character, Sister Clarice Willow. “However, executive producer Jennifer Espenson said gay is not a word Caprica will use. 
”Why do you have to have a different word for who they fall in love with?” Espenson asked on AfterElton.com. “Having a different word for a same-sex relationship struck me as something this culture wouldn’t have thought of since those relationships were just considered on a par and unremarkable.” What an interesting idea! (@advocate)

ANGELINA & BRAD: We’re not into this story about how they’re splitting up, except that it’d mean she’d be back in the running to be our next girlfriend. It’s actually kinda fascinating how quickly this story spread despite any verification from the source or even a reliable publication. Yeah?

GAGA: HI HELLO THESE ARE LADY GAGA COOKIES. There are ten pages of them. You’re welcome. (@queerty)

Golden Globes 2010: Lots of Glee, Some Gay, But No Lady Gaga

GOLDEN GLOBES: Rounding out our assertion that 2009 was The Year of the Weirdo, Glee won a Golden Globe for Best Comedy/Musical Series and dedicated it to “everybody and anybody who got a wedgie in high school,” and then said something sweet about arts education. Even though Jane Lynch didn’t win a Golden Globe, she can still do no wrong and therefore that must’ve been just how Zeus wanted it to be. Look we have a gallery for you with captions!

Ricky Gervais began the program by using the word “penis” and giving an award to Mo’Nique for Precious Based on the Novel “Push” by a Lesbian. Paul McCartney spoke the truth by revealing that animated films are for children and for adults who do drugs. Like Yellow Submarine! An usher [I initially thought it was Usher, which would’ve been hot] almost ripped off Chloe Sevigny’s dress, which would’ve been awesome. Meryl Streep became the most winningest actress ever ever.

There weren’t any musical performances, which was confusing/boring. Luckily Ricky Gervias is really funny, and sometimes the camera would cut to someone from Glee looking cute like they were all hanging out in the cafeteria or something. Also several queers were in attendance, including Jane Lynch, Neil Patrick Harris & boyfriend and Jillian Michaels. We were there and took a lot of photos JK we didn’t.

Also there were many reminders to not get all caught up in the madness and forget about Haiti.

The best coverage from the Golden Globes came from Amanda Palmer and her FIANCE Neil Gaiman.

NO H8: The guys of The Real World: DC were part of the NOH8 photoshoot campaign! They look real good y’all.

LESBIAN SEX SCENE: Eva Green wishes her lesbian love scene in ‘Cracks’ had been raunchier. I had no idea what Cracks was so I googled it, which on second thought sounds like a stupid idea, but according to imdb it’s an Irish movie set in the 1930s where “a clique students participate on the swim team not only to pass the time, but to be close to their swimming instructor, the enigmatic, yet charismatic, Miss G.” A bunch of girls in swimsuits? With a guaranteed lesbian love scene? Sounds like fun! (@bosh)

FASHION: Fashion, Art, Photography, Studology101 Intervention- Randomness for a Lesbian Sunday. (@lezbhonest)

Top 20 Autostraddle Icons of 2009: The Future is Bright For Our ’09 Favorites

Surely someone has proven, scientifically or statistically, that eccentricity thrives in times of economic strife. Because without a doubt; 2009 was The Year of the Weirdo.

The disillusioned proletariat is no longer interested in watered-down standard-issue art! We’ve been left desolate and recessed following eight years of mainstream cracker-jack “traditional” family values, eight years of Capitalist Religion, eight years of folksy dogma disguising the smart-alecky aristocracy joyriding our collective wealth into hell’s barren handbasket!  So what did we do? We turned to the weirdos.

We elected the geekiest president of all time; a scrawny egghead with big ears and questionable athleticism who’s own wife admits she assumed he was going to be a “a little weird, a little nerdy” when they first met.

In 2009 we were nothing if not ready for a pop star who loudly credited the gays with “lifting her up” and forewent boring ol’ nip-slips & for ten-inch crystal-encrusted heels, golden underpants and a model of the solar system orbiting her magenta Goldilocks-Bob wig.

The it-ensemble of this year’s breakout show bears no resemblance to the Kelly Taylors and Brendan Walshes who, back in the 90s, occupied the same Fox time slot that Glee occupies now with the high school drama Beverly Hills 90210. Glee‘s motley crew of oh-so-adorable dorks are frequently subjected to Slushee Facials (not nose jobs) and they often sing rock-pop ballads in their heads, or while washing cars, or alone to the mirror, and with each other, in matching pajamas.

We also lost the greatest weirdo of all time, Michael Jackson, this year, and the reaction to his death was perhaps the only unanimous moment of the year.

There were so many freaks, geeks and losers to fawn over this year — who will, we hope, make 2010 the best year ever. And as you know, we’re all about the queer, outsider perspective on everything, and it may’ve been a bad year for everything else, but it was a great year for Outsiders. So much to choose from!

These aren’t the People of the Year, or the Best of Anything.

They’re just Autostraddle’s most-talked-about most-admired personalities of 2009. They’re our Auto-Icons.

20. Vogue Evolution – Drama Club

America’s Best Dance Crew featured its first all-gay/transgender (Leiomy Maldonado is a trans woman) dance crew, “Vogue Evolution” this year. In their first appearance, Lil’ Mama revealed her secret awareness of the Voguing Ball Competition underground (history sidenote; rent Paris is Burning asap, kids, holler) and all the judges agreed that America is ready. Shane Sparks said, “Y’all just ripped the stage … it’s about time for this style to be exposed. It’s been underground for so long … thank you.”

It’s not often that we’ll say we agree wholeheartedly with Shane Sparks, but these kids did bring a ridiculously significant underground style into the mainstream (quote AC Slater) and event though they didn’t win, they brought some genuine diversity of gender expression, body size, race and sexuality to a show which often congratulates itself for showcasing such diversity (and is #1 in its timeslot on cable amongst 12-34 year olds). We love them. We just really, really love them.

2010: Follow them on twitter and check in at their website for updates. Leiomy will be guest starring on the National Talent Search’s College Tour in Atlanta in mid-January.

19. Jane Lynch – The Queen

We’ve been aware that Jane Lynch can do no wrong for quite some time now — starting in 2000 with her role as a dog trainer romancing Jennifer Coolidge in Best in Show. Really by the time she showed up in Season Two of The L Word and Alex sat behind her on an airplane to Dinah Shore in ’08, we were 95% convinced that The Lynch could do no wrong. And then in 2009, the rest of the world caught on to what we knew already. Lynch guested on Reno 911 and Two and a Half Men, was a series regular on Party Down and is now perhaps best known as Sue Sylvester on Glee.

2010: More episodes ahead of Glee and The Cleveland Show (Jane Lynch does a voiceover). She stars in Paul, a Sci-Fi/Comedy starring Sigourney Weaver, Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Blythe Danner and Jeffery Tambor, which is due out in 2010.

18. Shannon Wentworth – Businesswoman of the Year

Shannon’s a big deal right now. Why? The actual service provided by Sweet Lesbian Travel (Incredibly Awesome Vacations) isn’t even really the point. The point is that she’s created a company which manages to encompass so many of our community’s most reveled ideals — Environmentalism, Community Service, Philanthropy, Social Responsibility, Business Success & Mutual Support — without sacrificing style, fun, hot girls or a good-looking website. Sweet’s celesbian-packed maiden voyage provided an unforgettable vacation and unrivaled networking opportunities — an an inspiring experience to be surrounded by so many ambitious queer and queer-friendly ladies (and the occasional dude!).

2010: Sweet kicks off the year with an African safari from February 7-16, 2010. A Cruise to the Hawaiian Islands goes from July 31 to August 7 2010 and Sweet will take over the Cozumel Palace Resort from September 4-11, 2010.

17. Lindsay Lohan – Dyke Drama of the Year

Even if her first public lesbian relationship wasn’t exactly perfect, perhaps this year Lindsay learned that lesbians aren’t always great girlfriends but they are always great girl friends. No one’s public meltdown could’ve landed on softer more welcoming ears & shoulders. The gossip rags tore her to pieces but the gay media stayed largely polite, and maybe that’s ’cause she wasn’t really so unlike your heartbroken best friend, crying on the floor in the handicapped stall while you stroke her hair and tell her it’s okay. If Lindsay Lohan was your BFF all broken up you would tell the teacher she was sick so she could miss class, and you’d let her cut corners or throw things at the wall or embarrass herself at the party.  And when she got better again, you’d pretend like none of that hysterical stuff ever happened. And you’d tell her she still looks pretty, too.

2010: Lindsay Lohan is set to expand her leggings label, 6126, to a full-fledged contemporary apparel line for fall 2010.

Action/Thriller Machete will premiere April 16, 2010. Lindsay’s co-stars include Michelle Rodriguez, Robert DeNiro, Jessica Alba, Steven Segal, Rose McGowan & Cheech Marin.

“Modern-day fairy tale” The Other Side is currently in production. Lindsay’s co-stars include Jason Lee, Giovanni Ribisi, Woody Harrelson, Kieran Culkin, Anjelica Huston, Alanis Morissette & Dave Matthews.

Musical/romance Dare to Love Me is also in production. Lindsay Lohan plays “La Ritana.”

More importantly, Lindsay has announced on Twitter the following plans for 2010:

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

16. Jill Bennett & Cathy DeBuono – Celesbians of the Year

From executive producing and starring in We Have To Stop Now to their live weekly vlog The Gloves Are Off to globetrotting around film festivals with And Then Came Lola, out actresses Jill Bennett and Cathy DeBuono were very busy bees in 2009. In their spare time they also managed to become cover girls for Curve Magazine and spend some quality time with Autostraddle for an exclusively candid interview.

2010: Season 2 of We Have To Stop Now premieres this Spring. We were on set during filming on the Sweet Cruise and can confirm that the second season will be off the chain. Guest stars include Meredith Baxter, Erin Foley, Nicol Paone and Kate McKinnon among MANY others. Pre-order your subscription for season 2 now!

Next: Funny Girls, Sources & Activists!

2009 Autostraddle Televisionary Awards: Lesbians’ Choice

Carlytron’s Very First Televisionary Graphic!

Sometimes I can’t tell if TV is amazing or terrible right now. On the one hand, I feel like scripted TV is having somewhat of a Golden Age: we definitely didn’t have so many brilliant high-calibre shows all actively dominating the grid until the last couple of years. We’ve got  Mad Men, True Blood, Lost, and 30 Rock just to name a few.

Cable nets are finally able to compete with the major networks and often deliver higher-quality programming.

TV is the most accessible it’s ever been with the advancement of mobile, on demand, and web platforms.

However, on the other hand, there is more trash on TV now than I’ve ever seen before in my life: shows like Farmer Wants a Wife, Dating In The Dark, Hitched or Ditched, and Jon and Kate Plus 8 have taken “reality programming” to all-time lows (and I really love reality TV, I just think we need to draw a line someplace).

But I am an optimist; I think TV is in a really amazing place now! I used to love films but now I only see a few a year (this is due in part to how obnoxiously expensive it is to see a movie, but also I have been less excited about the film options that I’ve seen lately). I think TV is where it’s at, which is why I love it so much. I work in TV, I watch a ton of TV, I read about TV… and while some of my all-time faves have already come and gone (Newsradio, Buffy, and Arrested Development to name a few), I think our television options are great and diverse.

So now it’s time to give out some awards! These are just my opinions, I’m no expert, so sound off in the comments if you agree/disagree/want to punch me in the face.

The Dearly Departed Award

The show we’ll miss the most this year is The L Word. Despite five years of inconsistencies (and that fact that it was not the way that anyone lived) it was the first show about lesbians, and we will miss having that visibility on teevee three months out of every year (also missed: Carmen’s ass). Hm. Maybe we’ll recap the first few seasons for y’all since we didn’t start up our Recap Factory ’til Season Four…and didn’t really get gooood ’til Season Five…

The Gayest Moment of the Year Award

I had to disqualify all of the awards shows from this (Tonys, AMAs, VMAs) because there were too many uber-gay moments to sift through. So I guess the gayest moment of the year would be the moment Vogue Evolution burst onto our screens on America’s Best Dance Crew this summer. On a show that boasts such bravado, seeing our favorite dancing queens take the stage each week was fun, fabulous and revolutionary.

Best New Show of the Year Award

This was so difficult for me to decide that I decided there would be a tie: both Modern Family and Nurse Jackie are the best new shows of the year.

Worst New Show of the Year Award

Three Rivers. Sorry Shane. Perhaps they figured any ol’ medical drama would succeed, but the organ donation hospital niche was about as special/exciting as Law & Order: Parking Violations Unit. Hopefully next year they’ll set a drama in my dentist’s office and I can throw a table at someone if forced to wait for over three hours.

The Least Surprising Thing That Happened This Year Award

Also not surprising? Ilene Chaiken’s L Word spin-off The Farm wasn’t picked up by Showtime.

Most Improved Show of the Year Award

Obviously I think we can all agree that Parks and Recreation is the most improved show on tv right now. I almost stopped watching it after its lackluster first season, but I’m glad I stuck with it — it’s become one of my favorite shows over the course of the year. I guess we should’ve all known better than to doubt Amy Poehler… sorry girl!

Honorable Mention: Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty (though I’m sure no one will agree with me, both have improved greatly over the course of their current seasons)

The Really, Papi, Really!? Award for
the Worst Storyline of the Year

WHO KILLED JENNY SCHECTER?! And basically all of L Word season 6. What the hell happened there? This was somehow worse than all of the crap we had to endure on Grey’s Anatomy, a feat I considered impossible until I saw the final season of the L Word.

The Guiltiest Pleasure Award

There are so many guilty pleasures on tv these days, what with Jersey Shore and The Hills and everything on the E! network. But I’m still a sucker for The Real Housewives franchise. I love all of them — Jersey, NYC, Atlanta, and the original crew in the OC. They provide us with hours and hours of mindless entertainment year-round, and for that I thank them (and Bravo).

The Too Much of a Good Thing Award

You guys, I srsly love So You Think You Can Dance, but Fox’s decision to air an extra season this fall was a total disaster. The contestants weren’t as strong as previous seasons, no Mia Michaels, and there is already way too much on during the fall to be able to make time for several hours of this show per week.

The Award For the Most Bizarre Ending to an Amazing Series

Battlestar Galactica (bet you thought I was going to say The L Word, eh? The L Word isn’t really “amazing”) definitely wins this award. Half letdown, half confusing as hell… totally bizarro ending to a really fantastic show.

Best Social Commentary on Television Award

This award signals somewhat of a passing of the guard; although Battlestar Galactica has ended, Mad Men continues to thrive. Both of these shows continually delivered stellar writing and acting layered with spot-on social commentary, making them not only enjoyable to watch but some of the best television programming of the decade.

The Award For the Most Gays in a Kitchen

With all of the reality competition shows — specifically the cooking-related reality competition shows — it’s not hard to decide which features the best and most numerous gay castmembers: Top Chef on Bravo. This year we got to meet gaylady chef Ashley Merriman, who managed to charm the aprons off of everyone I know (male, female, gay, straight, otherwise).

The Syndication Awards

The syndication of television shows is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, you can see your favorite shows all the time on random channels; on the other hand, you are subject to seeing shows you hate all the time on random channels. The worst show that is on every channel at every hour is King of Queens (close runner-up: Everybody Loves Raymond); the best show that is on every channel at every hour is the Law and Order franchise.

The Best TV Event or Made-For-TV Movie Award

We should just call this the Revolutionary Costume For Today award, because even though made for tv movies can be sorta crappy, HBO’s Grey Gardens proved itself to not only be a critical success but a fan favorite worthy of Edie waving an American flag around excitedly.

The Liz Lemon Award For the Best New TV Catchphrase We Learned This Year

Generally I speak in 30 Rock-isms, but I’m actually giving this award to “tardy for the party,” a phrase that I’ve picked up from The Real Housewives of Atlanta and the name of Kim Zolciak’s ridiculous song. Hey remember that time she performed it live?

Honorable Mention: “Prostitution whore!” (Real Housewives of NJ), “That’s a dealbreaker ladies!” (30 Rock)

The Best Award Show of the Year

There were so many award shows this year, right? The Grammys, the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the Emmys, the AMAs, the VMAs, the Logo NewNowNext Awards, Bravo’s A List Awards… it’s a lot to follow. But I’d have to say that my favorite award show this year was actually the MTV Video Music Awards, due to the amount of YouTube-able moments (Kanye making Taylor Swift relevant, Gaga thanking God and the gays, all of those amazing performances!).

Next:
The funniest lady on TV, Maddow, Our favorite talk show, Shark Week, Award Shows that were worth it, the OMFG Award and more…

Hot Lady Friday with Jessica Clark, Jane Lynch, Gaga, Rihanna, Meredith Baxter & Lilo Obvs

GLEE: Ryan Murphy on the future of GLEE and his conviction that The Lynch can do no wrong Obvs – ”Sue will never take a backseat on the show ever because Jane is so fantastic and we write so heavily toward her… people love her. If you thought she was bad in the first 13, she’s doubly wicked and funny in the [rest].” Kristen Chenoweth coming back, 10 Madonna songs:

“I just think you had to fall in love with the characters,” he added. “It’s a very universal idea that everybody feels like an outsider, I think that’s what the show’s about. Everybody feels that way no matter how popular or famous or rich you are.”

Murphy told The Wrap that next season, he’ll be doing “an average of eight to 10” songs per episode. (@thewrap)

GAGA: Lady Gaga is MTV News’s Woman of the Year! We just want you to know that when we finally finish all our year-end lists, that we started them like three weeks ago so we’re not copying: “Gaga’s work shows a sense of performance-art and theater that, these days, is arguably rivaled among major artists only by that of Kanye West, which is why their ultimately cancelled “Fame Kills” co-headlining tour made sense artistically (although many were baffled by it). She makes every public appearance into an event.” (@mtv)

JESSICA CLARK: Smokin’ hot model Jessica Clark has some tips for gifts for the lesbian in your life. Probs you have lots of lesbians in your life, unless you live with polar bears or straight people. HAPPY FRIDAY (@ourscenetv)

MEREDITH BAXTER: Meredith Baxter is gonna write an autobiography. Riese finds this very exciting because she loves reading memoirs or auto-bios by people who went to her boarding school, like Marya Hornbacher’s Wasted, which we also recommend, and which is probs a bit more depressing than Meredith’s book, which I bet will be super good and have lots of Michael J Fox gossip in it. (@cnn)

LOHAN: Lindsay Lohan has had a busy week! At Voyeur with Kevin Connolly on December 16th, where Courtenay Semel was inside, talking smack about Tila Tequila and Casey Johnson (she gives them “five more days”) but not commenting about whether she’d seen LiLo there. On December 17th she was at Brian Wilson’s Hollywood Hills shindig with Leonardo DiCaprio and other famous people.

ELLEN VON UNWERTH: Ellen Von Unwerth (our second-favorite photographer) shoots Lady Gaga (our favorite person) and Cyndi Lauper (our favorite ally) for M.A.C. Viva Glam (our favorite makeup). Like everything Ellen touches, this is sure to be golden:

’09 AWARDS: Best TV Lines of 2009, contributed by hundreds of people on Twitter. (@latimes) BONUS: Many of the quoted shows are Televisionary regulars.

VOGUE: Vogue Lets You Choose Best-Dressed Women of the Decade and I hope you all pick Lady Gaga. (@vogue)

AVATAR: Fox banks on James Cameron’s $380 million Avatar (@washingtonpost), Men snapping up Avatar tickets in pre-sale; women, not so much (@nydailynews)

CLASSIC MOVIES: BBC’s crib sheets on how to pretend you’ve seen 10 classic films, including Autostraddle favorite Alien:

Alien

In a line: Ultimate parasite hitches a lift on a space freighter.
Plot summary: Intergalactic miners are wakened from their hypersleep by a distress signal from a planet they pass. They investigate and find a mummified craft with egg-like structures. One of the miners gets a crab-cum-hand thing attached to his face. It disappears as mysteriously as it attached itself but later, something suddenly bursts through the host’s gut after a meal. It proceeds to eliminate everyone on board with the help of an android crew member.

Buzzword bingo: Hypersleep, parasite, molecular acid, cryogenics.
Key line: “It’s a robot. Ash is a goddamn robot.”
Key scene: Ripley has managed to escape to the shuttle but has forgotten Jonesy the cat. She just has to go back and get it.

TINA FEY: Steve Carell & Tina Fey are attached to star in Mail-Order Groom, a film conceived by 30 Rock writers. (@latimes)

JERSEY SHORE: Teacher who punched Jersey Shore girl apologizes. (@nypost)

New Study Shows “Decade of Progress” for LGBT Equality! Mostly!

this photo represents happiness & equality

BIG GAY IMPROVEMENTS: New Report Documents ‘Decade of Progress’ on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equality in America – Two-thirds of the 36 statistical indicators compiled in A Decade of Progress on LGBT Rights showed significant advances, including sharp increases in the number of LGBT Americans protected by nondiscrimination and family recognition legislation at the state level. Just over a quarter of the indicators were negative, and two showed mixed results.

The Movement Advancement Project reports:

+ The number of states outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation increased 83 percent, from 12 to 22, between 2000 and 2009.

+ The number of Americans living in a state that offers some protections to same-sex couples nearly tripled, from 12.7 percent to 37.2 percent.

+ The number of openly LGBT elected officials in America rose 73 percent between 2000 and 2009, from 257 to 445.

+ The percentage of the public supporting the right of openly gay and lesbian people to serve in the military grew from 62 percent to 75 percent.

+ Support for marriage equality has grown from 35 percent in 2000 to 39 percent today; a larger increase in support for relationship recognition that involves many of the rights of marriage, from 45 to 57 percent.*

+ BAD NEWS INCLUDES: The percentage of LGBT students reporting hearing homophobic remarks in school has remained above 99 percent and LGBT students who report experiencing harassment in school edged up (up from 83.2 percent to 86.2 percent.)

* 35 PERCENT TO 39 PERCENT? REALLY? THAT’S IT? WTF IS GOING ON? Also they point out that now a ton of states have outlawed gay marriage, which was not happening 10 years ago. Of course we had nowhere to go but up this decade, but what do you think? Has progress kept pace with your expectations?

VOTE: Vote for SheWired’s Favorite Gay Woman of 2009! Looking through the (eight pages of) nominees is sort of inspiring ’cause you’re like, hai 8 pages, hai there’s a lot of gay ladies on here, and they’re so cute, Nicole Pacent hi!! and hai there’s a photo of Kim Stolz from the Autostraddle Photoshoot with Kim Stolz! Go vote, obvs I voted for Jane Lynch because I have to follow number one life rule, “The Lynch Can Do No Wrong.” (@shewired)

KIDS THESE DAYS!

SEXTING: 1 in 6 teens have participated in “sexting,“ which is defined by this new study as sending nude or nearly nude photos of themselves to others via text or receiving these these photos. I thought “sexting” meant dirty talk via text message, in which case I was gonna say that 4 out of 6 kids lied to the survey taker. Anyhow, it’s sort of upsetting – “Teens explained to us how sexually suggestive images have become a form of relationship currency.” WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?(@mashable)

GOOD NEWS: John Mayer has given up dating.

SEX ED (OR LACK THEREOF): According to a new study, most teens have already had sex by the time parents get around to talking about it. Hopefully your children will be lesbians and therefore will not already be pregnant by the time you get around to talking about it. Unless they’re lesbians who are dating men. So you should probs just put them on a bus and send them to Planned Parenthood. Luckily we had Sex Ed. Also most sexually active unmarried young adults believe pregnancy should be planned, but about half do not use contraception regularly.

ON A HAPPIER NOTE: For Improv Everywhere‘s latest public spectacle, its agents recruited a 13-member handbell choir to “provided some unexpected accompaniment for a Salvation Army bell ringer on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.” Take a look at the video after the jump.

Glee Mini-Recap: Episode 112 – Mattress

Just a quick aside before we begin: I kept saying “leave off the last ‘s’ for savings!” to myself while writing this. Ok, Glee time!

It’s yearbook photo time, and The Lynch had her tearducts removed for the occasion. Apparently the Glee club doesn’t get a photo (Sue’s doing, natch). The Glee club has, historically, had their yearbook photo defaced every year, so the kids are ok with remaining anonymous.

But not Will! Noooo sir. He goes to Figgins, who demands $1,000 to let their photo in.

Great, maybe they can have another bake sale or car wash or something, maybe there can be singing or we could find another minority group to mock (Santana could sell tacos at lunch!).

Wow, lots of voiceovers this week. Let’s see. Rachel is really into posing for photos in preparation for becoming a star and thus has joined like every single club, Rushmore-style, so that she’s in as many photos as possible. She’s also hellbent on getting the Glee club a photo in the yearbook and plays the gay-dads-with-close-ties-to-the-ACLU card to try to do it.

Quinn misses being a Cheerio and wants back in. OMG SHOW! In and out, in and out. You quit, you join, you get kicked out, you don’t show up, you’re fired, you’re back, you’re hired, one or the other, you pick this one, but sneak into that one — when Glee becomes a board game, it’s going to be very easy for The Parker Brothers to conceptualize.

Terri doesn’t want Will paying for a quarter-page ad (which somehow costs more than a quarter of what a full-page ad costs but whatever why do I know this) so he sneaks Figgins the money and then gets far too excited about it when he tells the kids that they only have room for a photo of two team captains, so they’ll have to vote. Everyone votes for Rachel (including Rachel) because no one wants their photo in the yearbook.

Ken schedules his wedding to Emma on the same day as sectionals so that she can’t go to sectionals. Will is all, “Hey Emma, what’s up with that?” and she tells him that she’s defo marrying Ken, end of story. That’s also coincidentally the beginning of the story and the middle of the story because we still have no idea why exactly this relationship is happening, these people need their own season on A Shot at Love or something.  I mean, Ken as a husband for Emma? At best Ken would be a good mover-of-objects or something. Like he could move all of Emma’s objects into Will’s house and move Will’s wife and her objects into the sanatorium.

That’s right! Nothing will stop her from marrying Ken! Even if Will finds out that his wife is actually a psychotic manipulative craft-hoarding twat who’s been faking her pregnancy, or even if Will were to notice that his marriage seems to be a total disaster from the writer’s room complicated … where was I? YES!

Will tasks Rachel with finding a co-captain, but everyone else is busy washing their hair. She snags Finn with a triumphant leadership speech she learned from either Tyra or Gypsy probs, and he agrees to be in the picture with her.

Then she sings “Smile” by Lily Allen to teach him how to… smile. I like this song a lot, so I approve of this musical number. They’re acting all cute together too… wow that guy really skulks around doesn’t he? How am I only noticing Finn’s utter lack of grace now, 12 episodes in? (I totally just set up a really amazing Will-not-knowing-Terri-is-pregnant joke there, didn’t I?) No wonder his twitter username is “frankenteen.”

Later he gets accosted in the locker room by football meatheads who try to draw on his face in preparation for his yearbook photo. Wow I really don’t miss high school.

Wait can we just talk for a second? Why the hell does anyone care if someone draws on their photo? It’s not YOUR yearbook that someone else is drawing on, it’s on their own. What the eff? Sorry, digression over. If everyone whose picture I drew on felt that personally offended by it … anyhoo.

So uh, naturally Finn doesn’t show up for photos. Rachel is about to run out crying when she gives herself a mirror pep talk like Stuart Smalley and totally nails the photo on her own. SMIZE, RACHEL!

The photographer has to leave though, he has a casting session for a commercial to do. Because Rachel cannot only cry on cue but can also read minds, she suggests he forego the casting and instead just hire the entire cast of GLEE, a great new show on Fox Wednesday nights at 9.

She informs the kids that they’ll be in a commercial which will make them stars, and then no one will EVER draw Hitler mustaches on their yearbook photos again. What’s the ad for? Mattresses! I have a feeling this is not going to be the star vehicle Rachel thinks it’ll be, but it worked for the Bananas in Pajamas.

So, mattress commercial shoot! Rachel suggests that the Glee club perform a number instead of reading a silly ol’ script, so they perform Van Halen’s “Jump,” in jammies on giant mattresses. Not gonna lie, that was awesome (although I was slightly concerned about THE FETUS IN QUINN’S GODFORSAKEN STOMACH FOR CHRISSAKE).

I wanna jump on a bed right now!

And then… finally… the moment I’ve personally been waiting all season for…

Will finds out that Terri isn’t actually pregnant at all!!!!

Seriously, how many drinks for this?

Only took TWELVE EPISODES. He’s looking for his pocket square and instead finds one of her fake baby bumps. He calls her out and she keeps denying it up until he pushes her against the wall and lifts up her shirt. Seriously, dude? This is your wife, how the fuck did you not know?!? I wish they’d done a musical montage with him trying to lift up her shirt and her backing away, like a “Halo/Don’t Stand (So Close to Me)” mashup.

She gets very scary looking in this part like it’s a real show about feelings.

Naturally she blames it on him and the Glee Club. They have a really intense, real, awful argument. She fesses up her steal-Quinn’s-baby plan and all of her lies. Will storms out; Terri is left alone; we go to the commercial break. Wow. That was very well-written. No snark from me.

“I loved you Terri. I really loved you.” – Will (oh burrrrn!)

Will goes to the school and finds a stack of mattresses with a note attached thanking the Glee club for their hard work.

These don’t look nearly as nice as the ones they were jumping around on, btdubs.

Riese Sidenote: At this moment, I yelled to Alex OMG I WISH CARLY WERE HERE SO WE COULD SAY “OH, HE’S GONNA SLEEP ON THE MATTRESS OBVIOUSLY TO SHOW OFF OUR EXTREME SHOW-PLOT-PREDICTING TALENTS.”

He is confused but happy to have found a place to sleep. Glad they didn’t do a commercial for bowling balls! Hey-o! Jokes!

Sue is at the TV station shooting another Sue’s Corner segment — which I wish had their own online web-series like Subtle Sexuality — when she sees the mattress ad on the teevee. The next day Quinn asks Sue to be in the Cheerios yearbook photo but is turned down.

“You’re too busy chasing tail and loading your hair with enormous amounts of product. I mean today it just looks like you put lard in it!” – Sue (to Will)

Later Figgins and Sue are are telling Will that the Glee kids are disqualified from sectionals because they were in the ad. And since Will slept there they can’t return all of the mattresses. This is silly. Under pressure to explain his IRRESPONSIBLE MATTRESS PAWNING, Will reveals that he’s thinking of leaving Terri.

Figgins tells him that Glee club is over. The Lynch is way too happy about that, as you can imagine, because she has no heart, but however can still do no wrong. Anyhoo, she should know by now that Glee never gets shut down for good, is the show called “Cheerios” no it’s not. Is the show called Honey Nat Queerios? No, unfortunately also.

Quinn shows up in Sue’s office in her Cheerios uniform to prove that her uniform still fits (how?!?) (is she also faking her pregnancy?) (wtf) and she should be able to be in the Cheerios’ photo.

She blackmails Sue into letting the Glee kids have a full page yearbook ad and letting her back onto Cheerios by threatening to tell Figgins that Sue gave the Cheerios gifts all the time. Yeah Quinn! This scene was crazy awesome, like when Tina stood up to Bette for the first time, except without the sex afterward, which is probs ’cause Quinn’s No #1 relationship is with God.

Quinn tells Sue that she actually doesn’t want to be back on the stupid Cheerios since Sue’s a crazy Nazi and storms out. Woo!

Will talks to Emma about the Glee kids, and she tells him to stop worrying about that and focus on his own life and divorce. Wait, who said anything about a divorce? Um, he really needs to divorce that crazy bitch.

Will tells the Glee kids that since he accepted the mattress by sleeping on it in a pit of despair, he will quit the club and let them continue on to sectionals without them. Oh, it’s that simple? Ok! Super. He gives them a moving speech and they all get gussied up for their yearbook photo, which means: montage. You guys know how I feel about a good montage. We end on the football players defacing the entire Glee club photo. Like, they messed up everyone’s face and changed “Glee Club” to “Geek Club.” Hm. They’re… thorough?

Overall I have to say this episode was pretty good. A lot better than the past few, by far. I think I would have appreciated most of this episode a lot more had the rest of this season not been so weird and uneven and repetitive but it was good, with some great moments (Terri and Will’s fight… damn!). The final Glee of 2009 airs this coming Wednesday, and then it’s on hiatus until the spring, so let’s hope everyone can keep it in their pants and not quit between now and then, and that no one comes back preggers.

Glee Recap – Episode 109: Wheels

I have a lot of mixed feelings about Glee. On the one hand, I am super happy it’s back on! And on the other hand, this episode was sorta awful, right? I’m sorry if that’s an unpopular opinion, but it’s true. There were some bright spots and really touching moments though, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Basically this week was an after school special, and was written as such. I found the writing to be mostly bad this week. I guess my biggest complaint would be that it was terribly uneven.

So, the story. Six minutes in, my roommate Rebecca had predicted most of the plot of this episode, just FYI. The major storylines this week were: the Quinn/Finn/Rachel/Puck love quadrangle and related baby daddy shenanigans, Kurt and Kurt’s dad and Kurt’s gayness coexisting, and disability as plot device as it related to Artie, Tina, Will, and Our Glorious Lynch. MVP of this episode was Mike O’Malley (Kurt’s dad), but more on that later.

Quinn is continuing on this ridiculous charade of making Finn think that he’s the father of her baby. Still. Nine episodes in. Awesome. That was one of the more exhausting parts of this week, as Quinn was reduced to just having the same argument with Finn over and over again. Her scenes with Puck were really sweet though, I can’t wait for them to resolve this already. They get into a food fight in the Home Ec room while baking for a bake sale and end up almost making out. Fictional Universe Rule #257: food fights always end in makeouts (sadly the one time this didn’t apply was on an episode of The Practice that I was particularly fond of, but I guess that’s what fanfic is for).

So yeah, Puck continues to be charming this week, trying to prove to Quinn that he can be a real boyfriend for her. She is touched but ultimately chooses Finn (who does show a modicum of growth by episode’s end), but only after he gets into a totally amazing fistfight/wrestling match with Puck in the middle of the hallway.

Will: “Let’s get this party staaarrrrrteddd!”

Carly: “Please do not ever say that again.”

The aforementioned bake sale is Will’s way of raising money to get a handicapable bus for the whole Glee club to take to Sectionals, so that Artie can ride with the team (the school can’t pay for it). Will has obviously been reading my recaps because this week he made a concerted effort to Not Be Oblivious To Everything. The Glee kids are super insensitive to Artie’s situation from the get-go but Will doesn’t let them get away with it, forcing them to all spend 3 hours a day in a wheelchair all week. Which is odd, because we see them in the wheelchairs for almost the entirety of the episode. I noticed this because the wheelchairs are played for laughs and site gags quite a bit, which seems counterproductive to the message they’re trying to send here, but I guess it is a comedy after all.

They end up actually raising the money necessary after Puck bakes a ton of goodies laced with weed (which he hilariously gets from Sandy after pretending to be in pain from an injury that left him in a wheelchair), but Artie decides to just get a ride with his dad after all, and gives the money to the school to build some ramps for future students. Aw. Will is super proud of all of his kids… for doing exactly what he told them to do. Great work, everyone.

Artie gets a lot of face time this episode, which is nice. He’s pretty adorable. His crush on Tina is exposed — she likes him too! — and they kiss. Then she confesses that her stutter is fake (I KNEW IT!) and he gets mad at her and storms off. The final number is “Proud Mary,” performed by the entire Glee Club in wheelchairs. The choreography is cute but, really? “Rolling on the river” in wheelchairs? Eye roll.

Principal Figgins makes Will help Sue hold auditions for a new Cheerio to replace Quinn. Obvs Sue is not happy about this, as historically all Cheerios are handpicked. So we are treated to an audition montage. Attention universe: until someone can top Bring It On‘s audition montage, no one is allowed to do any more. Ever again. We are treated to many stereotypical wannabees, including: The Gay Boy, The Fat Girl and The Scary Mannish Girl. Thanks, show. Are you really telling me that no one else wanted to be a Cheerio? I call bullshit.

Sue ends up choosing Becky, a girl with Down Syndrome whom we only first met earlier this episode. Oh, she’s friends with Britney? You know that blonde Cheerio in Glee, the one who never talks? Yeah, she got a personality this week: dumb blonde. Thaaaat’s a reach. So Britney is friends with Becky and now Becky is a Cheerio too! Later, Sue is riding her hard, pushing her as much as she’d push any other student. Will tells her to back off but Sue rightly points out that all Becky wants is to be treated like everyone else, so he’s the one who’s discriminating. Boo-yah! We find out that Sue actually has a sister with Down, whom she’s extremely close with. Interesting development there, that Sue Sylvester can be so heartless at school but has a heart underneath all those dry-cleaned track suits. And the Lynch’s heart grew three sizes that day.

I’m just saying, this show keeps trying to go against type but keeps falling into it anyway due to bad writing. There’s a way to subvert stereotypes for laughs (see Ryan Murphy’s previous opus Popular), but Glee keeps failing at this, which is really disappointing. I’m just saying, this episode felt flat and uninspired. Like they had some diversity casting quota to meet and decided to fill it in one episode. I just expected more, is all. Aside from the Kurt parts, that is.

“I’m full of ennui.” – Kurt (girl, you and me both)

The Glee club is going to sing “Defying Gravity” from Wicked. Rachel is obvs getting this one, but Kurt wants a chance to audition too. Will — doing exactly what he was preaching all episode about not doing — tells him he can’t ’cause he’s a boy. So his dad finds out and has a meeting with Figgins and Will, totally yelling at them, which is AWESOME. I love Kurt’s dad! He’s kinda clueless but he loves his son unconditionally, and that’s really important to see in mainstream media. Oh, whoops, sorry. Don’t trip over my soapbox on the way out, guys.

So they have a diva-off, which actually has nothing to do with RuPaul’s Drag Race, shockingly. Rachel vs. Kurt. Only Kurt throws the entire thing when he doesn’t hit the high note at the end. You see, dear readers, someone called his dad and anonymously told him, “your son is a fag.” In case you’re wondering, the proper response to that is, “why thank you for noticing!” but instead he gets pretty upset. Not mad at Kurt though, but he does want him to dial back the… uh… pizazz? Yeah, let’s go with pizazz (what’s up, Andy Bellefleur?). So Kurt throws the big game and has a totally emotional heart to heart with his dad where he tells him that he understands how hard it is for him, and that he will in fact de-pizazz himself a bit for the time being. Wait, can you even say “fag” on network tv? Probs only on Fox. LOLWTFOMGBBQ.

Sigh. Don’t get me wrong, I love Glee. I think it’s a fantastic, campy, fun show. I just want it to live up to the wildly and impossibly grand expectations we all have for it. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Lesbians FTW: Liz Feldman’s New Show, Lilith Fair’s Fantasies & Lynch’s SAPPHIC Page Sixing

Little lesbian lambs there are so many incredible things happening for you today. Strais & Bisexuals too, obvs. Let’s begin:

LILITH FAIR: Over at tripwire, everyone’s getting excitant about the return of Lilith Fair: “we thought we’d make a little Fantasy League of the Main Stage acts, featuring some of the artists that are sure to be on the roster and some that we really really wish were.” For those of you that missed this fantastic event in the 90’s, your life unfortunately is incomplete. SORRY!

So — did y’all go to Lilith Fair? Who would you like to see play? [Riese sidenote: In Detroit we had Sarah McLachlan, The Indigo Girls, Sinead O’Conner … and I can’t remember the rest. We had hummus and, I believe, um, mood enhancers?]

Tegan & Sara, Sarah McLachlan, The Indigo Girls, P!nk, Santigold and Uh Huh Her are listed as “shoo-ins.” I’d put in votes for Chris Pureka, Melissa Ferrick, Fiona Apple, Amanda Palmer, Sleater-Kinney, Emily Haines, Imogene Heap … thoughts?

LIZ FELDMAN: Lesbians are gonna be on teevee? Really? I can hardly believe my eyes — Dorothy Snarker has the lowdown on Liz Feldman’s new project!

THE LYNCH CAN DO NO WRONG: Jane Lynch has finally made it. Now that she’s mainstream, she’s now reported on in Page Six: “SAPPHIC 6-foot blonde Glee star Jane Lynch locking lips with her much shorter brunette gal pal at Blue Ribbon Brasserie in SoHo.” It is kind of hilarious that they all-capsed “SAPPHIC.” (@nypost) The Lynch also spoke to New York Magazine and provided this gem: “I don’t know how to dress. I’m not very good at it. My mother also has a perfect body. She can take something off the rack, pay $1.99 for it, looks fantastic on her. I spend thousands of dollars to look like a homeless person, and I have to go to the tailor.” (@nymag)

GLAMBERT: Some lucky bitches over at Yahoo were treated to a top secret listening session of Adam Lambert’s upcoming musical masterpiece: “I am too excited about the audio glitterbombs that have been blasted directly into my unsuspecting ear canals … Yes, the music was THAT good, people. It was EXACTLY the extraterrestrial electro-opus I hoped and dreamed it would be...” Also, FYI, Adam Lambert is well aware of his album cover’s terrible/AWESOMENESS. That’s kinda the point. (@yahoo)

TRUE BLOOD: Would never do us wrong. We heart Alan Ball 4-evs, especially his promise of more gayness on True Blood for Laneia to recap! (@advocate)

BEING A FRIEND: Bea Arthur left 300K in her will to the Ali Forney Center. [Riese Sidenote: Haviland & I went to an Ali Forney Center benefit a few years ago and I did serious research about these cats the next day and what they do is f*cking AWESOME and SO NECESSARY. Yay Golden Girls!] (@velvetpark)

HOT CHICKS: Friends of Autostraddle fitness guru Lacy Stone & model Jessica Clark have started up a new webseries about lesbians in love, you should watch it b/c they are super cute!

BOOKS: After a petition with 4,000 signatures on change.org, children’s publishing company Scholastic says that it will include Luv Ya Bunches, a book that it previously banned from its book fairs over a set of lesbian characters. (@advocate)

RENT: Parents are seeking to stop a high school in Nevada from staging two plays, Rent and The Laramie Project, claiming the productions about gay characters are “not suitable for students.” Concerned Parents of Green Valley High School Students filed a 5-page lawsuit seeking to stop the shows from opening in November. (@advocate)

GAY MEN ON TV: A Cliffs Notes version of every gay (male) character on television for the past quarter century.  It’s Time Travel Thursdays, starring: that guy from Dynasty, Melrose Place, Dawson’s Creek, Desperate Housewives, and those guys from Brothers & Sisters. In retrospect, the cut-away kiss is completely insulting and shows how far we’ve come since the early 80s with series like Queer as Folk and The L Word. Attn: People with old VCR tapes – please make a lesbian version of this compilation!

ALICE : Preview the extended trailer for the upcoming Tim Burton film Alice In Wonderland. (@spike)

DOCUMENTARY “TRAINING RULES”: Training Rules, a new documentary that examines how women’s collegiate sports, caught in a web of homophobic practices, collude in the destruction of the lives and dreams of many of its most talented athletes is making it’s way around the festival circuit and will be released on DVD early 2010. We talked about it like 10 years ago, so maybe you need it again now. Unless you’re like 10 years ago or something.

Glee Recap – Episode 108: Mash-Up

Hi squirrel friends! You look great today! Is it because it’s Friday or did you do something with your hair? Keep doing what you’re doing! It’s Glee time!

Stars this week: Puck, Kurt, Sue Sylvester, and maybe 7-11? Those “Big Thirst” cups of “Slushees” look a whole lot like “Big Gulps” full of “Slurpees,” but I digress.

Confession time: My DVR went apeshit and decided to not record the entire 3rd and 4th acts of this episode, which is bizarre, so on first watch I thought: 1) this episode was terrible, and 2) it is time to get a new DVR. Perhaps I was too rash in my thinking on both (Spoiler alert: eh, maybe not).

Let’s begin!

We open with Finn getting a Slushee dumped on his face, signifying the end of his and Quinn’s popularity and the beginning of the Great Slushee War of 2009. It’s like the Shot Heard ‘Round the World, except tastier (and colder! What a brain freeze that must be).

Emma and Ken ask Will to come up with a mash-up of “I Could’ve Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady and “The Thong Song” for their wedding. Romantic! I love how they’re combining old-school fairy tale femininity with modern-day female objectification! The latter I fully endorse, obvs, we’ll be playing “Poison” by Bel Biv Devoe at my wedding.

Anyhow, everything about this conversation is horrifying, from the fact that Emma is actually marrying Ken to the ensuing discussion of Ken’s toenails or lack thereof. The number one way to get me to leave a room is a discussion of feet (Number two: telling me there are snacks in a different room).

Anyone else getting tired of this Emma-Ken storyline? I guess I’m actually more tired of the fake-baby storyline, but that doesn’t really get addressed this week as Terri is nowhere to be found (maybe she’s off blackmailing her future pediatrician? Dentist? Gardner?). I hate shows where our suspension of disbelief is challenged by these constant reminders of how actor’s contracts work (L Word, I’m lookin’ at you) — as in, each actor is contracted for a certain number of episodes, which’s why one is often mysteriously missing each week.

“Something tells me that if I didn’t love this show unconditionally, I’d hate it.” – Carlytron

Will challenges the kids to come up with a mash-up of “Bust A Move” with another song of their choice. No one wants to take the lead so Will decides to inspire the group by stripping down — to a t-shirt! — and dancing like he’s 17 (He really loves his spin moves!). It’s so ridiculous; as usual, the best part is Kurt.  (Much like life itself, the gay boy saves the otherwise unbearable moment.)

You know, I’m not sure how much more of Will rapping I can take. And while this is a song that I happen to rather enjoy, it does seem sort of inappropriate for high school. And all of this before the credits! How busy!

“So how can I help you kids? Is it too many friends on MySpace, or… ?” – Emma (Obvs Emma does not read my recaps.)

Quinn and Finn go to see Emma to try and be more popular. That’s like asking Liz Lemon for dating advice (sidebar: I relate very strongly with both of these ladies, I’m not sure what that says about me other than that I am a neurotic mess 24-7). She slips and says something about “sunglasses” being sexy and by “sunglasses” she means “Will” because he’s mugging outside her office in some shades. So she cleverly suggests the kids wear sunglasses. ‘Cause if it works on Miami Vice then it will definitely work in high school!

Then she puts on a wedding dress and goes to see Will to learn how to dance. It’s the worst dress in the world, she looks like a cake topper who has never actually eaten a piece of cake in her life.

Robin: “Oh my god, they’re going to dance to the Thong Song.”
Carly: “WHY DOES HE ALWAYS RAP!?”

This is horrifying, I can’t come up with another word for it, it made my eyes water SO BADLY. This song conjures up unfortunate memories from high school and I am not really prepared to go there right now.

Then they CONVENIENTLY end up on the ground on top of each other and almost make out. Wait, I’m still hung up on how people are actually seriously dancing to “Thong Song” at their wedding. And are they doing like hip-hop choreography too? I am so confused!

Football time! The guys make like a hundred gay jokes (no homo) and get into some fisticuffs and Coach Ken has to give them a serious pep talk and tells them that he’s adding a new practice during… you guessed it… Glee practice! Seriously Glee Club is the new Universal Health Care, obstacles at every turn.

This is Ken’s way of punishing Will, as he caught him in a compromising position with his soon-to-be-wife. Ok, time out. I’m sorta getting tired of this, every single episode has the same formula: someone tries to sabotage Glee, someone quits Glee, someone gives someone else a pep talk, Will learns a lesson, everything is back in its right place by the end of the hour. Am I on glue?

Rachel is rehearsing in her room with… Puck? They’re performing “What a Girl Wants.” Aww, I love that video. He asks her if she wants to make out, and she’s like “sure” because one time his mom told him to date a Jewish girl and he had a dream about Rachel. Anyway, this is hilarious. More Puck!

“It was a message from God. Rachel was a hot Jew and the good Lord wanted me to get into her pants.” – Puck

Also his first name is actually Noah, not Puck. How biblical! She stops the makeout and tells him he needs to sing a solo in order for her to be into him (which is secret code for “you are not Finn” and is a very specific request).

So he sings “Sweet Caroline” with a guitar to the entire Glee Club, which is a song that I happen to hate (and I love Neil Diamond, but… no). He and Rachel make dreamy eyes at each other while Finn looks confused and Quinn looks like she’s in love. Later, in the hallway, the football team drenches Finn, Quinn and their new Ray-Bans in Slushees.

Then Sue Sylvester is on the news sort of not-talking about gay marriage. It’s actually really special and one of the best moments ever, which is a nice break from the ridiculousness that preceded it.

“I, for one, think intimacy has no place in a marriage. Walked in on my parents once and it was like seeing two walruses wrestling.” – Sue

Sue gets asked out on a date by Rod, the newscaster, but Sue says that she thought he had a wife. He says his wife drowned, like Ophelia.  Sue looks super excited.

Cut to: Sue and Will doing the Lindy Hop or something. While this is probably the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen, it’s not really in character for either of them. They decide it’s nice not being at each other’s throats and Sue tells him how she’s in love with Rod after only one date, where they played Battleship and he invited her to complete in a swing dance competition with him (and, I think, tells her that he’s a swinger, which is an entirely different thing).

Sue lets it slip that Ken is making the football players choose between football and Glee so Will goes to talk to Ken. Ken yells at Will because Emma is settling for him and Will is leading her on, so Will tells him it will never happen again.

Will goes with Emma to get a wedding dress. Um, this is exactly the opposite of “I will not lead her on anymore, Ken, I promise you.” She looks beautiful, totally like Audrey Hepburn. They practice her My Fair Lady song and Emma sings!! It’s cute but like, why is this happening in a store? This is just like Pretty Woman. And honestly, no offense, but those POV spinny cams do no one any favors.

The Glee club waits to see which football players will stay with Glee and which will go back to football.

Final verdict: Finn is the only jerk, Puck, “other Asian,” and “Shaft” return to nerdville.

Also, apparently Kurt quit football, in case you were wondering about that storyline. Now that he’s back on the team, Finn is supposed to drench Kurt in a Slushee so the football jerks don’t kill him, and Finn cutely prefaces his dunk with “I know you’re really particular about what skincare products you use on your face” — and in a stunning move, Kurt dumps it on himself and tells Finn that no one on the football team would have drenched themselves in Slushee for him. Then Kurt asks the girls to take him to a day spa, “stat!” so they all go into the ladies room, which is just precious. MORE KURT.

“I came by special to show you my zoot suit.” – Sue

Then the most amazing thing happens: Joyce Wishnia Sue Sylvester stops by the TV studio to show Rod her amazing zoot suit (in McKinley High red, no less!) but catches Rod with his co-anchor. So he is THAT kind of swinger. Rod breaks her heart into a million pieces and she leaves. Puck & Rachel have another heart to heart because they are lesbians and instead of joining forces to break up Quinn and Finn, they just get pissy with each other and break up.

Carly: “I hate this part.”
Robin: “Why, because he tells him to ‘go long’ and he backs up four feet?”

Will talks to Finn about making tough decisions or whatever and I’m just so over this constant need to give people pep talks so that they won’t quit Glee. New plot device, please! Finn talks to Coach Ken about how making them choose between their extracurriculars is “not cool” and he relents, going back to their old practice schedule. Tiny victories, folks.

“Schuester! I’ll need to see that setlist for sectionals after all. I want it on my desk, warm from the laminator, at 5pm. And if it is one minute late I will go to the animal shelter and get you a kitty cat. I will let you fall in love with that kitty cat. And then on some dark, cold night I will steal away into your home and punch you in the face.” – Sue Motherfucking Sylvester

Given recent developments, Sue’s back on the warpath (thank God). You can tell because she’s wearing her black track suit, as she is clearly in mourning. She demands Will’s set list for sectionals and kicks Quinn off of the Cheerios FOR-EV-ERRRR!

Will talks to Emma — who has apparently built a time machine and borrowed Wilma Flinstone’s necklace (tell Pebbles I said “yo, what’s up?”) — and tells her that the two songs just DON’T FIT TOGETHER though they are GREAT SONGS ON THEIR OWN and like, I wonder what they are talking about? I have no idea. Is this a metaphor? More secret code? Pep talk in disguise? He walks sadly out of her office and right into…

Glee practice! Everyone is back and they are drinking some Big Quenches to celebrate. Quinn is wearing her street clothes now that she’s been kicked off the Cheerios and this is actually the first time we’ve ever seen her out of her Cheerios uniform. WEIRD. Surprisingly she looks just as not-pregnant in this outfit as she did in her former outfit.

Will realizes that he’s never gotten a Slushee Facial, so the kids rectify that situation for him:

+

Sigh. I love this show but they really need to change it up a bit and resolve some of these really annoying plots (Finn isn’t the father, Terri isn’t preggers, Emma marrying Ken, everyone quitting Glee all the damn time). Luckily, it’s still one of the most clever and creative shows around, and The Lynch Can Do No Wrong.

‘Tron out!

Jennifer Beals’ Photography Book Preview is Only Highlight of L Word S6 DVD

JENNIFER BEALS: The seriously/awesomely dedicated curators over at Tibette.com got a second-hand sneak peak of the Hong Kong edition of The L Word Season 6 DVD, which debuts in the states on October 20th.  You know, the day that you’ll all be listening to Tegan & Sara’s livestream. The good news is, Jenny isn’t killed, she’s actually immortal and is presently writing poems and drinking something precious on the porch. Wait … no, I think Sue Sylvester brought Jenny back to life because she didn’t like Ilene Chaiken playing Sue Sylvester. NO!

The bad news is, it’s the same show we saw on the teevee last year. The good news is some of the photos from Jennifer Beals’ upcoming photography book about her time on lesbian superseries The L Word is in there. Some of the photos we’ve seen before, but some we haven’t. The other bad news is according to Tibette.com who I trust as the Authority on All Things Beals Related, there’s still no info on when the book will come out and how to get our hands on it.

“Me in my Trailer” is really interesting. I mean that, she summons something really compelling in that shot.

TWITTER: Sue Sylvester is the new Chuck Norris. Have we mentioned that The Lynch Can Do No Wrong, and she is gay, well it’s true.

@DontScrewWithSS Death once had a near-Sue-Sylvester experience”.

@jaypickern Sue Sylvester does not go ‘hunting’, because that kind of terminology implies the possibility of failure. Sue Sylvester goes killing.

“Sue Sylvester doesn’t need a Twitter. She’s already following you…”

@linzeeJ722 Sue Sylvester had to get a concealed weapons license just so she could put her hands in her pockets.

@mb_hatter Sue Sylvester destroyed the periodic table, because she only recognizes the element of surprise.

SPICE GIRLS: The Spice Bus is owned by a fan, and it looks a little apocalyptic in there.

QUEER AS THE FACTORY: Justin from Queer as Folk is playing Andy Warhol at the Yale Rep! (@variety)

GLAMBERT: New Adam Lambert Song will be officially released today. (@rockstarweekly)

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE: And ten other controversy-causing children’s movies –– Oh my God, North, I saw North, “I hated this movie as much as any movie we’ve ever reviewed in the 19 years of doing this show,” said Siskel. Ebert agreed: “It’s deplorable. There wasn’t a single gag that worked. Yo couldn’t write worse jokes if I told you to. The ethnic stereotyping is appalling, it’s embarrassing. It’s junk, first-class junk.” (@nymag)

MAD MEN: Mad Men Creator Has Feelings About the Internet: “Are you just like sitting with your phone and you’re kissing your girlfriend and saying, ‘I’m kissing my girlfriend! This is so great, we’re having sex!'” EXPERIENCE THINGS!”” Wasn’t there just an article about how people tweet right after they have sex? (@nymag)

BTW have you tried to win a copy of Tegan & Sara’s new album Sainthood? You should. All the other kids are doing it. They’re also all trying to win a Caribbean cruise with the Team, you should do that too. Really this week is OOC. (@autostraddle)

Glee Mini-Recap – Episode 107: Throwdown

This episode was all about The Lynch, who got the best lines and continues to be the best part of this show. If she is not nominated for an Emmy I will be VERY MAD. There was also a considerable lack of Emma going on. Sadness. Anyway, this episode was all about haters! We got to see the insane rivalry between Sue and Will, the smaller but more after-school-special face-off between Rachel and Quinn, and the realization that Will is marginalizing most of the Glee squad to focus on Rachel and Finn. We open on an awesome slow-motion argument between the Lynch and Mr. Shue, but first let’s jump back in time and see what’s going on!

Our dynamic duo is all smiles and jokes with Principal Figgins who lays down the law about their new partnership, but they don’t crack until he asks them to hug it out. Uhh, let’s just say, it’s awkward.

I don’t remember what happens next, but I wrote in my notes, “Wow, a Xica da Silva joke! Wow that really brings me back to Honors Seminar in college.” So there’s that.

Will takes Quinn and Finn to get an ultrasound and the menfolk have a heart-to-heart. Finn’s biological clock is ticking or something and he’s bummed that Quinn is giving the baby up for adoption. Key moment in this scene: Quinn is having a girl, and if you remember correctly, Terri told Will they were having a boy. Dun dun DUNNNN.

That creepy horny nerd boy appears to be this school’s version of Gossip Girl. [Riese sidenote: this is straight out of Sixteen Candles] Actually, I hope he’s Gossip Girl‘s actual Gossip Girl, wouldn’t that be incredible? Blair would have a field day with him. He blackmails Rachel by making her give him… her underwear? Sick. And I refuse to say “panties,” as that is a word I do not acknowledge.

The Lynch gets a trick double-headed coin so that she wins all the coin flips. She’s like a magician! She wants to divide up the kids, Will doesn’t want to. Naturally, she wins. She forms “Sue’s Kids,” taking all of the minority students (Santana Lopez, “Wheels,” “Gay Kid,” “Asian,” “Other Asian,” “Aretha,” and “Shaft”) and letting them do their number, “Hate on Me,” which they NAIL on the first try without any rehearsal. That’s really something.

“I don’t trust a man with curly hair. I can’t help but picture little birds laying sulfurous eggs in there, and it disgusts me.” – Sue

Sue calls Will a paranoid schizophrenic and spills a student’s soda. She tells him that now that she’s involved in Glee she’s determined to make them succeed, even if it means getting Will fired. He talks to Terri, who tells him to get CRAZY so he flunks all the Cheerios. Apparently the school has been letting half-wit cheerleaders get by with fake grades for years. SCANDAL! They have a totally insane meeting with Principal Figgins and Sue loses her shit. Movie trailer music plays and Sue goes on a RAMPAGE and it is AWESOME.

Finn interrupts a Spanish test to tell Quinn that he wants to name the baby they’re not keeping “Drizzle.” I can’t imagine a better name besides Portard the Gaymo.

Finn’s adorable in this scene and Quinn’s super mean to him, with good reason but it’s still sad. After class he tells her that he wishes she were more like Rachel. Ouch. That is a sore spot for her, Finn, come on.

Then the Glee kids are all rapping in unison, to “Ride Wit’ Me” which is just horribly embarrassing. But they’re singing live which is nice for a change. Then they all get sad about not seeing each other anymore. This scene is really weird, is this the last-day-of-classes-before-summer-vacation episode of Saved By the Bell or something? JK, you know they all actually worked at Malibu Sands with that lesbian. Anyway Will shows up with his number for sectionals for the “white kids.” Then Finn and Rachel perform the best song of all time, “No Air.” Suddenly they’re in a music video sorta? Quinn is giving Rachel angry looks while she dances with Finn. Everyone is so angry this episode!! Beer o’clock, brb. This recap was brought to you by Red Stripe and Darrell Lea’s raspberry licorice.

Man, do these songs tell a story or what!? Puck turns out to be Jewish and the blonde mannish chick is Dutch, did you know that? Shalom, Puck! Quinn, under the guidance of Sue, tries to make them believe that Will is a racist and once she succeeds the Glee club is down to like, three kids. Divide and conquer!

“Sue Sylvester’s rainbow tent will gladly protect you from his storm of racism.” – Sue

Will gets home, all empowered, and tells Terri that he made an appointment for the both of them with her OB/GYN. SHRIEEEK!

Wait, why is Reese Witherspoon in a perfume commercial?! OMG she made a perfume!? This is like something Jenna would do on 30 Rock, when will they get that plotline going?

Will: “I can’t win with three kids!”
Sue: “Not with an attitude like that you can’t.”

That’s totally a shootout to my friend Ryan who always says that.

Terri and her sister go to the OB/GYN and they blackmail him into helping her lie to Will. I really can’t wait to see what happens when Will finds out about all of these shenanigans. I mean, he has to divorce her, right?

Quinn and Rachel have a hallway confrontation. Rachel agrees to back off of Finn but tells Quinn she knows that she’s Sue’s mole. Quinn turns and… musical number! “Keep me Hangin’ On” … I used to love the 80s version of this when I was a kid. It’s a full on musical performance with the Cheerio ladies wearing football uniforms, which: hotttt. Then this text conversation occurred, simultaneously:

Robin: Girls in football uniforms.
Carly: Girls in football uniforms!

Is anyone else wondering why all of their uniforms have the same number? Quinn is really sad. I hope she sings about it later (spoiler alert: everyone does!)

Sue interrupts Will’s kids (all 3 of them) to try and take her kids out for ice cream, until Will flips out on her, so they have a totally insane — and true! — argument in front of all the kids, which takes us full circle to the beginning of the episode. Finn breaks them up and under Rachel’s guidance, they all storm out. The only thing these two have succeeded in doing is getting the kids to all be friends, though everything is completely in shambles. Also, not that I’m complaining, but this happens every single episode: everyone gets mad, at least one person storms out, and Will apologizes in the end after learning how not to be an idiot.

Doctor’s office! The doctor begrudgingly plays along with Terri’s plan to fool Will, even telling her that he misread the sonogram and that they’re actually having a girl. Will cries like a baby and I get sad, because shit’s ’bout to get weird for him!

Uh, actually, can we pause for a second?

Will is totally a moron, right? How on earth is this working on him?

I know he’s distracted cause of work and is “the nice guy,” but actually he might just be a complete idiot. We should accept this as a possibility. Even the idiots on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (and I use “idiots” lovingly, as it is one of my favorite shows) would be able to see right through Terri.

Will goes to see Sue and she says she’s stepping down as co-head of Glee because it’s “too fruity.” Ha! She wants to contribute by checking out his playlists, etc, and says that she was a VJ in the 80s. WHY NO FLASHBACK!? COME ON! Will doesn’t know if he can trust Sue but she gives him a speech about being a winner, and we transition to the kids. Sue blurts out that Quinn is preggers and leaves, clearly hurt about being the last to know. How did that happen!? Apparently Sue did a locker check on Gossip Girl and found Rachel’s undies so he fessed up.

Sue was devastated that her star cheerleader hid this from her so she made him run the story on his stupid blog. God I’m so glad I’m not in high school now, what with the twitters and the tumblrs and the facebooks and iPhones and everything. I was absolutely not equipped to handle this during high school… and probably most of college. I could barely handle having a Livejournal.

Quinn is crying, Finn is nearly crying, everyone sings “Keep Holding On,” by Avril Lavigne. Lots of singing this week, which is fine by me! Quinn is crying which is not very conducive to singing and dancing but she gets a free pass since she is very pregnant and sad. How uplifting! By the song’s end they’re all crying, and then it’s over.

In honor of the best part of Glee, I leave you with this:

Next week on Glee: The cool kids aren’t cool anymore and Emma might be getting married sooner that we thought!

Ilene Chaiken Returns to Her Natural Habitat with Soapy Teen TV Show ‘Confessions’

IFC: Prior to building and subsequently dashing our dreams & desires on The L Word, Ilene Chaiken had quite the career in bad television; she worked with master Aaron Spelling for many years, was on the writing & production team for The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (which we actually LOVE, but let’s face it, not exactly an Emmy Winner) (As the Emmies are clearly hallmarks of great taste, just look at Two & A Half Men!) and Grace Under Fire. Now she’s signed on with the CW for Confessions of a Backup Dancer, a drama adaptation of Alloy Entertainment’s book which “explores the glamorous and gritty behind-the-scenes world of a major pop tour from the point of view of the star’s troupe of backing dancers.” (Alloy is a book packaging company also responsible for Gossip Girl, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The It Girls and The Vampire Diaries) Like Instant Star, but with more sex & drugs & Kevin Federline! We assume that this will be a prime-time hour-long drama, though we have no evidence of this.

I think Three Rivers (bad) and The Beautiful Life (canceled) used the same sentence structure to define their projects — let’s take a tired concept, say we’re going “behind the scenes” with a marginally interesting aspect of said concept, and THAT’S GREAT TELEVISION. Actually, this could easily be a new guilty pleasure. As we aren’t fighting for increasing media visibility for backup dancers (besides, of course, their unjust relegation to the “back”), this might be one IFC project we can sit back and enjoy like a good guilty pleasure.

SISTER SPIT: Laneia went to a show in Phoenix and interviewed the kickass ladies currently crossing the country with spoken-word delights including Michelle Tea and Ariel Schrag! Sister Spit’s New Generation of Queer Poets & Rebels: The Autostraddle Interview! (@autostraddle)

GLEE: Sing It, Sister: Why I Hate Glee. Some good points are made here, especially about the portrayal of women: “We’ve got Shrewish, Lying Wife; Sweet Perky Neurotic; Bitchy Cheerleader; Tracy Flick-esque Nerd; Strong Black Woman.” (@jezebel)

THE LYNCH CAN DO NO WRONG: Jane Lynch is having a very good year: “Jane Lynch is having a very big year, and it’s tempting to believe that this is a sign, perhaps from God, and that things will soon be turning around for the rest of us.” (@la times)

LADY GAGA: Lady Gaga has announced her new tour dates!

MADONNA: Madge graces the cover of the new Rolling Stone: “I see myself in Lady Gaga. When I saw her, she didn’t have a lot of money for her production. she’s got holes in her fishnets, and there’s mistakes everywhere. It was kind of a mess, but I can see that she has that IT Factor. It’s nice to see that at a raw stage.(@rollingstone)

CHENO BACK TO BROADWAY: Fresh off her charming Emmy win and attending the National Equality March, Autostraddle fave Kristin Chenoweth is heading back to her roots on Broadway this spring, starring in a revival of Promises, Promises with Will & Grace star, Sean Hayes. (@nypost)

ADAM LAMBERT: As we await his upcoming musical masterpiece, Adam Lambert took he time to make out with his boyfriend Drake for TMZ cameras. (@ohnotheydidnt)

MICHAEL MOORE & GAGA: Michael Moore gives Gaga a random shout-out in an article for The Huffington Post: “I’m listening to Lady Gaga. I know not this Lady Gaga, but her performance last week on SNL was fascinating.” (@huffingtonpost)

GAY BABY BOOM: T. R. Knight appeared on Ellen and mentioned that he has been inspired by Katherine Heigl: “I want a baby. I don’t know if it’s going to end up working out, but that would be something I would like.”

SPICE GIRLS: Scary Spice has confirmed that the Spice Girls are planning another reunion! “We’re actually working on it right now. I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but it’s really, really exciting.” (@thesunuk)

Ellen Page’s New Project is a HBO Sitcom About Hipster Artists! Really!

HIPSTER SUPERSTAR: It almost sounds like a story accidentally culled from The Onion, but yes indeed, Ellen Page has teamed with HBO for “Stich ‘N Bitch” (sidenote, don’t those ladies who write for BUST magazine have a trademark on that?), a comedy series she’ll write with Arrested Development‘s Alia Shawkart and Whip It actor: “The show follows two painfully cool hipster girls as they relocate from Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood to Los Angeles’ Silver Lake enclave in hopes of becoming artists — of any kind.” The single-camera show might star the young actors but that decision has yet to be made. (We’re voting yes.) Obvs this is further proof that Ellen Page was totally inspired by Drew Barrymore and therefore they are probs in love for real.

THE LYNCH CAN DO NO WRONG: Jane Lynch is declared TV’s new Queen of Mean and discusses her improv roots and love for fencing in a new audio interview with NPR. (@npr)

HEROES: Claire’s lesbian kiss on Heroes is actually a threesome, says EW … or rather a love triangle. I think we need to start with a twosome, people, and then work our way up. Yes?

GAGA & MADGE DANCE-OFF: Attention!  Someone, anyone:  please get this on YouTube ASAP.  Apparently, after SNL, Gaga & Madonna attended her manager’s birthday party where they had a real, live, old school dance-off to Holiday & Poker Face. (@nypost)

GAGA PART DEUX: Lady Gaga released another video telling you to get your ass to D.C. & support the National Equality March.

QUEEN LATIFAH: In a new interview with one of the straightest newspapers ever, USA Today, Queen Latifah discusses her new album, Persona, which has a song about when she was molested as a 5-year-old by a male babysitter.  She also expresses the need for more women in rap: “Never in my career do I remember rap being so male-dominated. In videos, women are basically shown as the girl you shake the booty with. They’re objectified. There are females out there who can rap, who listen to rap. Missy and Lil’ Kim and the young up-and-coming ones need an opportunity to be heard. I think we’re all masculine and feminine, and a society can’t be right if you don’t honor the feminine voice.” Oh, and she also takes a moment to say “I never comment on that” in response to a personal life question. (@usatoday)

MADONNA AND ME: The wonderful fourfour has written an extensive post examining his life-long history of loving Madonna and what it meant for him growing up as a gay kid.  “Madonna has allowed me to see myself, again and again, and as recently as this post. It turns out that she’s meant more to me than I’ve wanted to admit, to the point where the prospect of hitting ‘Publish’ is making me uneasy.” (@fourfour)

GLEE: Chris Colfer, who plays the adorable, “Single Ladies” lovin’ gayboy, Kurt on Glee, does his first gay press interview with The Advocate.  Yes, he’s out in real life. (@advocate)

WOMEN & ART: New York Magazine profiles 7 visionary female artists with new gallery shows.  (@nymag)

TINA FEY BRINGING PALIN BACK?: Tina Fey compares Liz Lemon to Carrie Bradshaw and says her Sarah Palin wig may have to “come out of the closet“ when Going Rogue is published next month. (@harpersbazaar)

Gay Men Shine on TV While Ladies Make Occassional Lesbionic Allusions

GLEE: The number of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters on prime-time broadcast television is up this season, and the folks at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation are crediting Fox’s “GLEE” with leading the way. As you may have noticed, the “L” isn’t exactly center-stage this year. As Carlytron discussed, Grey’s Anatomy is not nearly lesbionic enough this season, and GLAAD confirms, “at the moment, there is only one regular lesbian character on a broadcast prime-time series.” The gay men on teevee sitch is bouyed by Modern Family, a sitcom with two gay Dads that topped the ratings last night. (Autostraddle’s recaps of last night’s Modern Family and Glee will be up tomorrow!)

At The LA Times, “Glee is a little bit sexy”: “Glee has claimed frank sexuality as part of its domain … I’m here to argue that Glee may be just that [family hour show] Not in spite of the straight-on sexuality but because of it.”

AfterElton has a new interview with Glee’s Jane Lynch and check out some of the cast on The View this week.

LESBIANS ON TEEVEE?: Ming Na on her new Stargate Universe Role: “I didn’t realize that she is actually going to be “Stargate’s” first openly gay character” and Rose Rollins & Mia Kirshner will guest star in the same episode of CSI airing October 14th. Meanwhile over at Hollyoaks, Zoe Lister confirms last year’s girl-on-girl makeout between “Zoe Carpenter” and “Sarah Barnes” was just a drunken mistake: “I don’t think they do have feelings for each other in that way.”

BOOBS: Emily Deschanel, Katherine McPhee, Alyson Hannigan, Minka Kelly and Jaime King are all touching each other’s breasts, to remind you to touch yours:

WHIP IT:Ellen Page & Drew Barrymore head out to the LA Derby and look super cute, per ushe, but definitely not as cuddly as they were in Toronto. At the most recent Whip It! Premiere in Los Angeles, we feel they could’ve spent more time making out on the red carpet, or gazing into one another’s eyes with admiration. Just an idea we had, that’s all.

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN SHOW US YOUR VAGINA: So You Think You Can Dance had a vadge on it apparently, the world is ending. Did anyone else see the Degrassi Movie, btw? Srsly anyone? (@gawker)

AMANDA FUCKING PALMER: Amanda Palmer has a point – “It’s about empowerment and it’s about SIMPLICITY: fan loves art, artist needs money, fan gives artist money, artist says thank you.” – Why I Am Not Afraid to Take Your Money.

GLAMBERT ON TOP (OBVS): Adam Lambert’s musical masterpiece is number 1 on the Amazon.com presales, ahead of new releases by Barbra Streisand, Madonna, The Beatles, and Susan Boyle.  The record comes out November 24th and he just tweeted that he is in the studio with Linda Perry!

MADONNA : Highlights of Madge’s 8th appearance on Letterman this week — watch her eat pizza with Dave!

READ A F*ING BOOK: It’s Banned Books Week! The Bilerico Project made a list of 10 queer books that shouldn’t be banned. The Whole Lesbian Sex Book makes the list, phew.

READ A F*CKING BOOK THURSDAY: The debut novel of Lambda Literary Award-winning writer Ali Liebegott, The IHOP Papers features 19-year-old Francesca, a fledgling lesbian and recovering alcoholic who maybe hasn’t had a lot of experience but is eager to jump into important queer experiences like falling in love with your philosophy professor and also maybe your AA sponsor after moving to San Francisco and supporting yourself with a shitty job at IHOP. “A comic portrait of survival and self-discovery” that is hilarious and heartfelt and sometimes kind of alarmingly true to life. [This recommendation has been brought to you today by the letter R [and a, c, h, e, and l for Intern Rachel!]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vogue Evolution of (America’s Best) Dance (Crew) & Ellen at the Teen Choice Awards

We just had this really important week where you all shared your feelings in the “When Did You Know? Reader Edition.” And we all shared our feelings in When Did You Know Part 1: Riese & Laneia, When Did You Know Part 2: Carly, Stef, Tinkerbell, Robin & interns, and When Did You Know Part 3: Brooke, Alex, Crystal, and interns!

And! There was a contest for best #wheniknew tweet and an independent unnamed Team Member selected @brendogs’s “At the Reba McEntire concert (94ish) when she was crying over him and I was crying because she was crying over him #wheniknew“ as the winning tweet, and Riese’s roommate drew Kelsey & Leah from a Cubbies hat out of all the longer When Did You Know stories we received. Email alex [at] autostraddle [dot] com with your addresses & t-shirt sizes and prizes will go out later this week!

Arts & Culture

Vogue Evolution

AMERICA’S BEST DANCE CREW featured its first all-gay/transgender (Leiomy Maldonado is an MTF) dance crew, “Vogue Evolution” on Sunday night’s premeire episode. Lil’ Mama revealed her secret awareness of the Voguing Ball Competition underground (history sidenote; rent Paris is Burning asap, kids, holler) and all the judges agreed that America is ready. JC didn’t blink and Shane Sparks said, “Y’all just ripped the stage … it’s about time for this style to be exposed. It’s been underground for so long … thank you.” We’re sure there’ll be backlash about tonkenising and stereotypes … but this style of dance — which yes, does embody some typical gay male stereotypes — is RIDICULOUSLY SIGNIFICANT and it IS about time this “underground style comes into the mainstream” (quote AC Slater) and the “feminine” style/attitude is an intrinsic element of the ballroom scene. Members of the group have coregoraphed for Mariah Carey and they work as HIV/AIDS educators in the city. Also? Holler to the not-skinny guy Malechi up there in the white, it’s about time we see a little bit of THAT, too! Here’s the episode, they come in at about the 46:42 minute mark. So vote!

THE TEEN CHOICE AWARDS were filmed last night and will air tonight on Fox. Guests included Ellen DeGeneres & Portia De Rossi, Meghan Fox obviously, Jordana Brewster, Kristen Stewart and Britney Spears. Twilight Won a bajillion Teen Choice Awards per ushe.

Ellen & Portia at the Nickelodian Kid's Choice Awards

BOOKS: The Extra Man: Jonathan Ames Extra-Bisexual Book Will be a Movie: Jonathan Ames’ brilliant, offbeat and very queer novel has been made into a movie starring Kevin Kline, Katie Holmes, John C. Reilly, Patti D’Arbanville, Cathy Moriarity and Paul Dano.” (@examiner)

THE LYNCH: The Summer of Jane Lynch: ”Julie & Julia opens today, which means we’ve officially reached the peak of The Summer of Jane Lynch.” (@afterellen)

HIP-HOP: Queerty delivers 5 Black Homo-Hop Artists You Need to Know About.

MUSIC: Women Rock out at Lollapalooza: ”Several high-profile female singers, songwriters, and female-fronted bands (yes, even Leann Rimes, apparently) performed at Lollapalooza in Chicago this weekend; let’s take a photo field trip and catch up with a few of them, shall we?” (@jezebel)

Everyone Wants a Piece of Britney Spears at the Teen Choice Awards

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All Those Loving Laughing “L Word” Cast Members: Where Are They Now?

While holding court at BlogHer last week, Ilene Chaiken once again blessed her flock with promises of eternal life & salvation via The L Word Movie, which she is currently writing. Also, BETTY, the band responsible for that horrid song, is playing the Highline Ballroom in September. Now that we’ve gotten the people we don’t care about out of the way, what’s the rest of the cast up to these days? Autostraddle has the answers. [Sidenote: if you see that we left something out, comment and let us know!]

Ilene Chaiken in a Straightjacket of Her Own Doing

The Cast of The L Word: Where Are They Now?

Jennifer Beals (Bette Porter)

– Photography Book documenting her time on The L Word to be released December 1, according to tibette.com.
– TV: Returning to Lie to Me on FOX in the fall in a recurring role as Lightman’s ex.
– Movie: Jennifer has a small role in The Book of Eli with Denzel Washington to be released Jan 2010.
–Interview: Runner’s World, May 2009 – “I’m a Runner.”
– Out & About: Attended Stonewall anniversary at the White House w/Obama on June 30 (photo). Also at Marlee Matlin’s Hollywood Square dedication ceremony (below).

Jennifer Behind the Camera at Marlee Matlin’s Hollywood Stars ceremony

Kate Moennig (Shane McCutcheon)

–Movie: Plays “Jilly” in Everybody’s Fine with Robert DeNiro, Kate Beckinsale, Melissa Leo and Drew Barrymore, coming out in December ’09.
– Interview: Appeared on final episode of This Just Out with Liz Feldman; aired July 20, where she met Liz’s Mom who has a gigantoid crush on her.
– Twitter: @katemoennig.
– Television: Leading role in a new show, Three Rivers on CBS in the fall. Kate will play “Miranda Foster,” (more about her character here) a feisty and fearless and slightly damanged doctor at an organ transplant clinic named or her late father, where she will be looking sexy/dramatic and emoting slightly formulaic lines about “the good of the patient” while wearing scrubs, and, it appears, a lot of puffy jackets. Filming for Three Rivers will begin in August in Pittsburgh Los Angeles (according to inside sources, the show is filmed in LA and the Pittsburgh shooting is just for exteriors/B-roll) though exact dates have not yet been set. From what we’ve seen of the new script it would seem that Miranda’s character is slightly less hot-blooded than she was in the original pilot except where the patient is concerned and then she is very passionate.
– ETA 8.1.09: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette does a set visit and discusses the re-shooting of the pilot, which will star Alfre Woodard rather than Julia Ormond (We love Alfre Woodard and are actually slightly more excited for the show now). Interesting tidbits include: “Odd, clingy scrubs that resembled “Star Trek” uniforms in the Pittsburgh pilot have been discarded in favor of more normal-looking scrubs.”
– Updates per always are at the kate moennig fansite.

Kate in “Three Rivers,” Shane would hate this haircut

Mia Kirshner (Jenny Schecter)

– Television: guest starred on A&E’s The Cleaner on July 14 as “April May,” a “talented, troubled, rebellious and slightly immature singer, who has difficult managing her new status as a hot mess paparazzi bait.” (photo from The Cleaner, right)
– Radio: will become a permanent guest commentator on Air America’s new radio show Hollywood! CLOUT, which combines politics with Hollywood. Hosted by Richard Greene from 9-11pm daily, Mia will appear as the “social and international issues” commentator every Wednesday
– Giving Back: In conjunction with the publication of her book I Live Here, which examines the lives of refugees and displaced people in four corners of the world with all profits benefiting relief efforts, Mia hosted an Operation USA fundraising event in June and continues to work with visibility and relief organizations.

Laurel Holloman (Tina Kennard)

– Out & About: Last public appearance was at the Bravo A-List Awards in April, accepting the award for best sex scene for Bette & Tina.
– Television: She will appear in an episode of Castle airing September 21st for a one-episode spot as “Sandy Allen”:

[SANDY ALLEN] Female, late 30s, she is informed by the police that her husband has been murdered. She lives on the Upper East Side in a middle-class co-op.

– Interview: Told Netscape Celebrity that she is taking some down-time after The L Word to be with her daughter: “My baby is still a year old. I want to be with her all the time, but I’m out there looking for the right thing. We’ll see what happens. I think when you’re on a series for a long time, it might need to die down for a little while. I think it’s easy to get worried about what’s going to come up and then you take the wrong thing so I’m trying to be smart.”
–Online: The new officially endorsed LaurelHolloman.net fansite has launched! You can ask Laurel questions, donate to Doctors Without Borders and look at her beautiful face there whenever you want!

Leisha Hailey (Alice Pieszecki)

– Television: Appeared in a small role in the Lifetime mini-series, Maneater (Carly recaps here)
– Twitter: Leisha & Cam both use twitter @uhhuhhermusic
– UHH: working on the next Uh Huh Her album right now (yay!) (lots of photos on myspace!)
-playing the Bumbershoot Festival September 5th in Seattle, Washington.
– Latest Leisha updates can always be found at Uh Huh Her fan.

Rachel Shelley (Helena Peabody)

– Life: Also pregnant — if she was 5 months preggers in March, I think that means she must be giving birth right about now?
– Magazines: Writes a monthly column for Diva magazine: in August she wrote about how all the girls from The L Word are pregnant and in July covered the joys of working with women and in May discussed attitudes about sex. Also in May, Rachel Shelley interviewed Alex Hedison in Diva Magazine: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4.
– Out and About: Will be appearing at The L Word Down Under convention in January 2010, in Australia!

Sarah Shahi (Carmen de La Pica Morales)

– Movie: Plays “Carla” in Untitled Beatle Boyin Project – in production, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, release date: 2010
– Television: Her show, Life, on NBC was recently cancelled after 2 seasons
– Life: Married long time boyfriend, Steve Howey, in Vegas recently.
– Life: Is pregnant and due in Summer 2009 (on facebook says she had a baby boy on July 9th – William Wolf Howey, but this hasn’t been confirmed).
– Out & About: Photo from May 27th, 2009 at the Giggles n’ Hugs Mommy & Me event in California.

NEXT: Papi, Dawn Denbo, Jodi Lerner, THE LYNCH and more continue to do no wrong …