Excuse Me, Did True Blood’s Rutina Wesley Just Come Out By Announcing Her Gay Engagement On Instagram?

Exactly one day ago, Queen Sugar/True Blood star Rutina Wesley posted what seemed like a pretty normal and not-at-all gay quote on Instagram. “Overthinking is our biggest cause of unhappiness,” the quote proclaimed, “Keep yourself occupied. Keep your mind off things that don’t help you. Think positive.” Not bad advice. Okay, but it wasn’t just a quote. It was a photo gallery. Rutina and a pal having a nice meal. Rutina and a pal posing for a selfie. Rutina smooching her … gal(?) pal on the cheek. A diamond ring on her engagement ring finger. Hashtags:

#StillRingsTrue

#AlwaysMORENeverLESSISaidYES

#SheFeedsMySOUL

#IWasLookingAtHERAndFoundMyJOY

#ImHavingAPrivateParty

#LoveOfMyLIFEYouAreMyFriend

#AllIHadToDoWasTurnAround

@chef_shonda #ILoveYouMoreThanWORDS

Exhibit A (not gay)

Exhibit B (pretty gay) 

Exhibit C paired with Exhibit B paired with #AlwaysMORENeverLESSISaidYES (gay)

Go ahead, scroll through her Instagram gallery yourself; I’ll wait.

Rutina Wesley just came out by announcing her engagement to a woman on Instagram. Right? Y’all, right? Rutina and Chef Shonda, congratulations! Autostraddle wishes you all the happiness in this world!

15 Of Those Actresses Who Were In That Show

You know the ones: the actresses you keep seeing in everything and you don’t know their names but you swear you’ve seen her in something else! Firstly, I hope you know Jane Lynch’s name, if not, it’s probably Jane Lynch. Or is it Lili Taylor? Lorraine Toussaint? Double-check, I can wait.

Okay. So: they aren’t ever the lead character, they’re not getting interviewed on talk shows or put on the cover of magazines. They’re not winning huge awards or starting fashion lines or having their relationships invaded on TMZ.

But they keep showing up on our shows!!!

They’re not always playing the queer character — ’cause if they were, we’d know their name — but these actresses all have a knack for showing up on shows that have some kind of queer content or are otherwise on our radar.

1. Aasha Davis

Remember when she was: Chelsea on South of Nowhere
And then you saw her in: Pariah

Wherever you are, she is too: breaking Alike’s heart in Pariah, getting preggers in South of Nowhere, trying to keep Smash in line in Friday Night Lights. You’ve spotted her in Criminal Minds, Chasing Life, House, ER, Gilmore Girls and Grey’s Anatomy. She’s also starred in two queer webseries, Nick & Nora and Cowgirl Up; and one not-queer but super-awesome webseries “The Unwritten Rules” about “the comedic realities of a Black Co-Worker in a predominantly white workplace.”

2. Kim Dickens

You know her from: She was Saracen’s Mom on Friday Night Lights
Wait is that Saracen’s Mom in: Gone Girl

She’s remarkably versatile but still has such a memorable face. You may know her from her recurring roles on House of Cards, Sons of Anarchy and Treme. I first noticed she was one of those women I saw everywhere when the woman who long-conned Sawyer on Lost showed up on Saracen’s doorstep. Then there she was, not having aged a wink, playing a cop on Gone Girl! She’s also dropped in on White Collar, FlashForward, 12 Miles of Bad Road, Numb3rs and Spin City.

ETA: And apparently she played a lesbian in Deadwood!

3. Adina Porter

You know her from: Tara’s Mom on True Blood
You were pretty sure that was Tara’s Mom you saw in: The Newsroom, The 100

She played Tara’s mom, Lettie Mae Thornton, on True Blood, and Grounder warrior Indra on The 100, but she’s also shown up in queer favorites like Grey’s Anatomy, Glee, American Horror Story and lesbian classic Gia, in which she played “the girl at group therapy.”

Aside from her gigs on True Blood, The 100, The Newsroom and the 2002-2003 series American Dreams, she’s rarely a series regular. That’s given her plenty of time to appear in one or two episodes of every other show in the world: NYPD Blue, Crossing Jordan, ER, CSI:NY, Prison Break, Without a Trace, House M.D., Law and Order SVU, Cold Case, CSI, Saving Grace, Hawthorne, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, Private Practice, Ringer, Prime Suspect and The Vampire Diaries.

4. Anne Ramsay

You know her as: The first woman who dared to date a post-Marina Jenny on The L Word
But you might also remember her from: A League of Their Own

I’m so consistently surprised when people don’t know who Anne Ramsay is. She has been in EVERYTHING, y’all! She was Jenny’s girlfriend in The L Word. She was an out lesbian Mom on Secret Life Of the American Teenager. She played ball in your favorite not-gay gay movie, A League of Their Own. She was even in my favorite show of all time, Six Feet Under! But if you’re of a certain generation you might know her best from Mad About You. Regardless, it’s impossible to have missed her boat entirely, as she’s played recurring roles on Hart of Dixie, Hawthorne, Dexter, Related, Dharma & Greg, Star Trek: The Next Generation and, most memorably, on Mad About You.

5. Annabeth Gish

You know her as: The therapist on Pretty Little Liars
Or maybe: The X-Files, The Bridge

This is a generational situation — if you’re young, you probably saw her for the first time in Pretty Little Liars. If you’re my age or older, though, you probably have been aware of her for a long time. I mean, she was nominated for a young actress award for Mystic Pizza! Remember Mystic Pizza? The first time I looked her up was when she showed up on The Bridge, and I was like, WHERE DO I KNOW HER FROM. Mhm. Dr. Sullivan, y’all. Also The West Wing, obvs. But you’ve also seen her in The X-Files, Once Upon a Time, Parenthood, Parks & Rec or Sons of Anarchy and movies like Beautiful Girls and SLC Punk!

6. CCH Pounder

Recently crossed my radar as: Mrs. Frederic on Warehouse 13

If you already knew this woman’s name than you are a wiser and better human than I am, because she’s one of the most accomplished working actresses of all time and yet I didn’t know her name until today. She’s scored regular roles on NCIS: New Orleans, Sons of Anarchy, Law & Order SVU, The Shield, ER, Women in Prison,  and Brothers. She was featured in Avatar, Face/Off and Orphan and has lent her talent to shows ranging from Cagney & Lacey, The Cosby Show and Hill Street Blues to The Practice, Girlfriends and Revenge.

7. Senta Moses

She danced the night away with Rickie on My So-Called Life and I forgot about her entirely ’til she reappeared as Principal Penelope on Faking It. But she was also Kevin McAllister’s cousin in Home Alone! Or maybe you saw her in Rizzoli & Isles, Castle, Greek, Girl Meets World, NCIS, Beckman’s World or Sister, Sister? Her hair has been perfectly curly for ages.

8. Rekha Sharma

This woman who is long overdue for a magazine cover: Canadian actress Rekha Sharma has navigated the murky ethical codes of the post-apocalyptic human race in featured roles in The 100 and Battlestar Galactica as well as popping up on Arrow, Supernatural, Once Upon a Time In Wonderland, V, Dark Angel and Smallville. She also allegedly appeared as “Lori” in the first two episodes of The L Word but I can’t find her in it for the life of me.

9. Michelle Hurst

You know her from: Orange is the New Black
You saw her again in: Law and Order
and again in: Law and Order
and also one more time in Law and Order

As Stef noted in her epic And Now Every Character From “Orange is the New Black” As They Appear In “Law and Order”, Michelle Hurst has played nine different characters in various shows in the Law & Order franchise. She’s also shown up on queer-friendly shows like Broad City, Last Tango in Halifax, The Good Wife and Sex & The City. 

10. Kathryn Hahn

You know her from: You’ve been thinking that she’s Ana Gasteyer this whole time

She was that rabbi who made the mistake of falling for Josh in Transparent, but she’s also been in Girls, Hung, The Newsroom, Parks & Recreation, Kroll Show and 115 episodes of Crossing Jordan. She looked the most like Ana Gasteyer in We’re the Millers. That picture of her is from Anchorman.

11. Beth Grant

Beth Grant has 182 IMDB credits! She’s been in over 70 feature films, appeared in over thirty plays, guested on every television show to ever exist… AND YET. She’s Beverly on The Mindy Project, but you’ve also seen her in Criminal Minds, Friends, Six Feet Under, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, CSI, Everwood, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, The Office, Grey’s Anatomy, Modern Family, Pushing Daisies and Bones.

ETA: LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

12. Amy Hill

You might recognize this Japanese-Finnish-American performance artist and actress’ voice moreso than her face, but you probably recognize her face, too, ’cause this woman has been working. I think I first saw her when, at the age of 41, she played Margaret Cho’s 65-year-old grandmother in All-American Girl. In addition to doing voices for Lilo & Stich, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, American Dad!, The Legend of Korra, King of The Hill, Kim Possible and The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, she played Judy Harvey in Enlightened, Dr. Laura Brown in General Hospital, Mrs. DePaulo in That’s So Raven and did guest spots on Grey’s Anatomy, Ghost Whisperer, Glee, Law & Order, Arrested Development, The League, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Frasier, Six Feet Under, Without a Trace, Friends, Third Rock From The Sun, The Hughleys, The Closer and Desperate Housewives. Her film work includes 50 First Dates, Cat in the Hat and Next Friday.

13. Justina Machado

She was definitely Rico’s better half on Six Feet Under and also has played recurring roles on ER, Goode Behavior, Private Practice, Three Rivers and Welcome to the Family. She also turned up in Season One of The Fosters and has guested on shows including Ugly Betty, Switched at Birth, Desperate Housewives and Kath & Kim.

14. Melora Hardin

You know her from: She played Jan on The Office
And weren’t sure where you recognized her from when she showed up as: a lesbian on Transparent

Melora Hardin has 103 credits on IMDB, and is known primarily for The Office and The Hot Chick — but she’s actually been working consistently since she was nine years old. So in addition to popping up on classics like Lois & Clark, Murder She Wrote, Friends, Matlock, Little House on the Prairie, Diff’rent Strokes, The Love Boat, Quantum Leap and starring in the failed 1988 Dirty Dancing TV series, she’s also been busy these days with stuff like Scandal, Wedding Band, Outlaw, Monk, Gilmore Girls and Cover Me. Also she had lesbian sex in Transparent, so.

15. Tina Majorino

One of the most notable aspects of this actress’ career is that you’ve maybe accidentally seen everything she’s ever been in, and she hasn’t been in a ton of stuff. Just, you know, stuff like Napoleon Dynamite, Big Love, Grey’s Anatomy, Veronica Mars, True Blood and Bones. She was a child star when I was an aspiring child star, too, turning up in all my favorite films like Andre, Waterworld and Corrina, Corrina. Yet so many people still get her mixed up with Jenna Malone! I feel like she’s one TV show away from the cover of BUST Magazine. Am I the only human on earth who didn’t already know her name, though. Be honest with me.

So, how many of these actresses did you already know?

Top 17 Most Devastating Breakups in Lesbian Television History

by riese & heather

Yes, it’s time to look back on all the times television kindly informed us that Love is a Lie. We did not include queer couples who broke up because one of them died, as so often happens — such as Pepa and Silvia on Los Hombres De Paco and Tara and Pam on True Blood — because that’s like, a whole ‘nother level of tragic.

17 Heartbreaking Queer TV Breakups, In No Particular Order

1. Naomi and Emily, Skins

After Naomi was brave enough to want Emily back but before they rode off into the sunset for their Happily Ever After (because Skins Fire never happened; so say we all), Naomi and Emily had the saddest breakup in British TV history. In the wild, carefree, sexy days of finally just being together, Naomi panicked and cheated on Emily with some random girl on a train. Emily found out about it, of course. It was hard not to find out about it when the train girl got so obsessed with Naomi that she hurled herself off the ledge of a club right in front of them when she realized Naomi had just used her for cheaterpants sex. And so Emily also climbed to the ledge of a building and yelled and cried and told Naomi how special they were and how fragile everything in life is, while Naomi cried and yelled back about how sorry she was. Emily hopped down to the roof and looked at Naomi with saddest sad eyes ever. “You’re always sorry,” she said. And she left her up on that roof all by herself.

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2. Shane & Carmen, The L Word

Pro tip: don’t leave a girl at the altar. Really, just don’t do it. It’s super-expensive, for starters, all that fuss and no ceremony? Plus, it’s embarrassing for her, and she’s wearing really nice makeup and her hair looks really fantastic and you’re gonna go and make her cry? This is especially devastating when you were all set up to marry THE HOTTEST GIRL TO EVER EXIST IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY and then you um, don’t show up? Show some respect, brah.

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3. Bo and Lauren, Lost Girl

It’s hard out here for a human doctor in a fae world, especially when the love of your life is a magical succubus who insists on saving the world from imminent destruction every week. It makes you tired. That’s what Lauren told Bo when she was explaining that she needed a break. And Bo said okay. She said they could take a break and of course Lauren was tired and they could focus on her for a little while and Bo wasn’t going anywhere and they’d just work on giving Lauren what she needed and they could take one tiny little moment apart and that was all and they loved each other and everything was going to be okay because it was just one small, insignificant, barely-there step back. “It is just a break, right?” Bo said, when she was getting ready to go, but they were both crying their beautiful eyeballs out because they knew it was more than just a break. And the whole time Adaline was crooning “Say Goodbye” in the background and everything was awful and a million angels cried!

(hh)

4. Marissa and Alex, The O.C.

These two had only just begun when they were ripped mercilessly apart because Alex didn’t see a place for herself in Marissa’s life — but neither did Ryan, once, so why couldn’t this work? Well, This was back in Ye Olde Dark Ages. We knew this would be Marissa Cooper’s one and only dalliance into girl-on-girl culture for the duration of the show, ’cause those were the rules of television.

Alex let herself have feelings for Marissa and Marissa seemed to have genuine feelings for Alex but they didn’t last long because, you know, Ryan Atwood. And despite what Julie Cooper told Alex when she was telling Alex about how Marissa was just using her, Ryan Atwood does not look nearly as cute in a white tank top as Alex does. Not nearly!

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5. Helen and Nikki, Bad Girls

Bad Girls is basically Orange Is the New Black, but it aired on British network TV in the 1990s. The first three seasons revolve around Helen Stewart, the Governing Governor of the G-Wing of Larkhall Prison. She was fierce and idealistic and unwilling to compromise her black-and-white morals, until she fell in love with an inmate named Nikki Wade who was in the clink for murdering a man who tried to rape her girlfriend. Their love story was tender and tentative and sweeter than just about anything you’ve ever seen on TV. It was also full of starts and stops, because Helen had real qualms about being Nikki’s lover and her jailor. One night, Nikki broke out of prison — dressed in a blonde wig, looking for all the world like Dusty Springfield! — and showed up at Helen’s house. Helen yelled. She threatened to call the cops. And then she made sweet lesbian love with Nikki right on her couch. She did take Nikki back to prison, though. She sneaked her right back in the front gates. And that’s when broke up with her, because the way they loved each other was making them do foolish, dangerous things. (They got back together, though! In the series three finale! When Nikki finally got out of jail!)

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6. Alice & Dana, The L Word

We waited for a solid half of Season Two for these two to finally get together, and when they did it was glorious! Well… mostly. I mean, after they got past the “omg we’re finally together!” bliss, it was pretty clear that Alice was the one who cared more, you know? She was the one ready to say I love you and ready to move in first, she was the one made uneasy by the re-appearance of Lara. Anybody who’s ever been the one less in love knows what an anxious, slippery place that is to be. Then we returned for Season Three to discover that they’d broken up and Alice had gone off the rails. Then Dana gets cancer and dies. So.

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7. Emily and Paige, Pretty Little Liars

The first time they broke up, it was only kind of sad. Emily couldn’t be with someone who wouldn’t come out, after all. The second time they broke up, it was much sadder. Emily was furious at Paige for telling the police that Emily’s ex-girlfriend/Paige’s ex-bully had been buried alive and pulled from the grave by a psychic witch and was now in hiding. The third time they broke up, it was the worst. Paige’s parents insisted that she leave Rosewood to go to Stanford for her swimming scholarship before her senior year was over, because her parents caught onto the fact that no teenage girls survive in Rosewood, PA. Emily tried everything to get Paige’s parents to let her stay, but in the end Paige confessed that she wanted to go. She was tired of fighting. This was the beginning of life and if she spent everything she had just trying to stay alive, what would she have left for living? They kissed and hugged and kissed and cried, and Paige got on a plane and flew away.

(hh)

8. Tara and Naomi, True Blood

This wasn’t just Tara breaking up with Naomi, this was Tara realizing that she probably couldn’t ever date anyone, ever, not if she wanted to live. “Everyone who’s ever been with me has ended up dead,” Tara tells the girlfriend who tracked her down and cracked her open. “It’s not a long list, but it’s a bad one to be on.” Naomi tells Tara she is going to regret this and Tara says that she already does. We didn’t know yet that Tara would become a vampire and then find vampire-love (before getting killed, obviously), so this felt like it. That moment when you realize your life is too toxic and dangerous for you to find a space in it for something so precious as love. That rare circumstance when you know the best way to love a person is to ask them to leave you, forever, alone and fighting for your own life. The camera pans out to reveal Tara in front of Merlotte’s, wailing and sobbing and struggling to remain standing, alone.

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9. Rachel and Lisa, House of Cards

Rachel and Lisa’s timid friendship-turned-romance was one of the most surprising things to happen on House of Cards. It’s a show about horrible people doing horrible things to each other to get more power to control more horrible people in horrible ways. So the fact that these two young, broken women who had been used and abused by the system found comfort and love with each other was shockingly sweet. And they only had each other, that’s it! Then Doug Stamper, Frank’s Chief of Staff/main henchman, decided they couldn’t even have that because he was obsessed with Rachel and he didn’t like her loving anyone who wasn’t him. (She never loved him.) He forced Rachel to break up with Lisa, with no explanation, and that’s exactly what she did. Lisa wailed and threw things and begged Rachel to stay, sobbed about how she didn’t understand what had happened or was happening, but Rachel walked away anyway, because she did love Lisa, and it was the only way to keep her safe.

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10. Bette & Tina, The L Word

Bless us all — but especially the loyal Tibetters — that these two were happily reunited by the end of the show, because their break-ups were brutal. The first breakup was the most painful, and it happened after Tina saw Bette and the carpenter in a departing hand-hold-release that betrayed a thousand other stolen moments. This lead to one of the best and most intense sex scenes in television history — that raw, angry, hate-sex scene that closed out The L Word‘s first season. They both understood the road that had led them there but had higher hopes for each other. Bette can’t swallow the idea of Tina ever leaving her and Tina is so angry about being so hurt and so blindsided. Sometimes you hate how much you love a person and the only thing to do besides kill them is fuck them.

It wasn’t even their only breakup! They broke up again! And it was terrible that time, too, although not QUITE as terrible, it was still terrible.

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11. Cosima and Delphine, Orphan Black

Cosima told Delphine she just wanted to make crazy science with her, and she probably thought that was true. But she was in love and that’s so much more than science. So when she found out Delphine had been working for Dr. Leaky all along, she got on a bus and ran away. And when she got where she was going, heart shattered into one zillion pieces, she also realized she was dying from Clone Lung Failure! Cosima and Delphine finally made up and tag-teamed to take over the world of genetics (and to save Cosima’s life), but Cosima finding out Delphine was her handler was one of the most heartbreaking things to happen in two whole seasons on Orphan Black, and that’s saying something since the main plot of season one was the systematic murder of a whole family of sister-clones.

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12. Sophie & Sian, Coronation Street

When this went down I wished Sian had just run into traffic instead of running away from the wedding because what went down broke my heart into a million little pieces. Sophie and Sian’s story had been tender and realistic and complicated and, well, long, like, very long, like many years long. They were friends and then they were more than friends and they worked through every Lesbian Relationship Trope in the book, all the way to the chapel. There they were in the front of the church in their big poofy wedding dresses with their pretty hairdos and Sophie’s reading her vows and then her doofus Dad is like, “Hey maybe don’t!” Sian finds out that Sophie kissed another girl and runs out of the church, and Sophie runs after her, and then they make up and decide to get married after all but then Sian — oh fuck, I can’t. I can’t even get into what happens next or I’ll cry and throw up all over again. It’s torture. It’s absolute torture, the whole goshdarn thing.

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13. Brittany and Santana, Glee

Oh, Santana! One does not simply break up with a magical math genius unicorn dancing queen simply because one has an “energy exchange” with some random lesbo in the library! Which is what Brittany tried to tell you! But oh-ho, no! You wouldn’t listen! You broke our hearts and you broke her heart and dumbest of all, Santana Lopez, you broke your own damn heart! You knew she was your lobster! Luckily y’all are married now and honeymooning on Paradise Island with Wonder Woman and her sisters, but we’re never going to hear “The Scientist” without breaking down into wracking sobs because of what you almost destroyed.

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14. Shane & Cherie, The L Word

Shane’s entire life people told her that she would become a psychopath if she didn’t know how to feel. Her entire life! And she would like to know what’s so great about feeling, Cherie. Because she finally let herself feel — she let herself feel things FOR YOU — and she feels like her heart has been completely ripped out. DO YOU HEAR THAT CHERIE? COMPLETELY RIPPED OUT! She had this insane idea that you and her could be together! Because it felt real! I know, Cherie, I know: it wouldn’t make a difference, right? What difference would it make if you did feel the same way about her? What if that were true? Would you still be able to leave your husband, your child, your houses in Bel-Air and East Hampton and your trips to paris? Your black-tie galas? To run to some rank little love nest with a 25-year-old assistant hairdresser who barely has her foot in the door? Well apparently not, Cherie. Because in this fucking ugly world, that kind of love does not exist.

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15. Willow & Tara, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

It’s nearly impossible to write about Willow and Tara breaking up because it makes you think about Willow and Tara getting back together, which makes you think about Tara getting shot in the literal heart and dying in Willow’s arms, which was the worst thing to ever happen, period. Tara didn’t even want to break up with Willow! They were thinking about taking Dawn from Sunnydale and moving away to start their own family! They were in love forever! But dang Willow got too addicted to magic, and when Tara called her out on it, Willow tried TWO DIFFERENT TIMES to magic Tara’s brain into forgetting they’d talked about it. So Tara had to step back and move out of the Summers’ house where she and Willow had been raising Dawn. They finally did get back together because they loved each other too much to stay apart (and Willow dialed back the magic), and one second it was, “Can you just be kissing me now?” And the next second, Tara was dead. And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

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16. Callie and Arizona, Grey’s Anatomy

Callie and Arizona’s breakup was almost unbearable to watch because it was way too true to life. That thing where you know a relationship is over and that both of you will be so much better off in the long run if you’ll just walk away, but you love the other person too much to ever walk away. So you spend months (or even years) bleeding all over the place and wounding each other more and more and patching up flesh wounds with Band-Aids, even though you’re a literal surgeon and you know better. And then the moment when one person summons the courage to say, “I can’t imagine my life without you, but I will be miserable forever if I keep trying to live my life with you.” GOD. It’s like a knife in the face of your soul watching Callie and Arizona rip each other up and finally say goodbye.

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17. Emily and Maya, Pretty Little Liars

Maya St. Germain was Emily’s first love. Well, her first love who loved her back. Okay, her first love who loved her back, openly. Maya gave Emily the courage to come out of the closet loudly and proudly. She helped Emily relax. She made Emily really, truly happy (when Emily wasn’t being tortured by her omnipotent cyber stalker/terrorist). But Pam Fields couldn’t handle the fact that her daughter was gay, so she rifled through Maya’s backpack and found a couple of joints stashed in an Altoids can and had Maya shipped away to drug camp. The night Maya left, she and Emily shared a romantic, heart-wrenching, candlelit goodbye. In retrospect, it’s even sadder because it’s at drug camp where Maya would meet her fake cousin who would end up murdering her and burying her in Alison’s grave in Spencer’s backyard.

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Here’s 35 LGBTQ Female TV Characters of Color Who Made 2014 A Very Queer Year

2014 was a remarkable year for queer women on scripted television. Five years ago, broadcast and cable networks clocked in at 32 queer female characters, total. This year, they boasted over 100. When I started covering lesbian media back in 2008, we didn’t have enough content to split between five writers for one weekly column; these days, we couldn’t recap every show with a queer female character if we had a full-time army of writers. TV still has a long way to go, both in terms of the quantity and quality of writing for LGBTQ women and trans women in particular, but we have come a really long way in a really short amount of time.

One of the main things to cheer about this year was that there were more LGBTQ characters of color on television than ever before. I counted 34 on broadcast, cable and streaming TV services. That’s more than the total number of lesbian/bi characters on TV in 2009, which is good news! It’s not great news, but it’s good news!

The reason it’s not great is because of those 34 characters, ten of them won’t be returning in 2015 due to being killed off their shows, written off their shows, or having their shows cancelled. There’s some overlap here. Nenna (Crossbones), Tara (True Blood) and Rayna (Matador) were killed off, for example, but their shows were also cancelled. The other thing that makes it good-not-great news is that of the remaining women, only six can really be counted as main characters. And, of course, fictional queer women of color only make up about 30 percent of the total number of fictional queer women on TV, and it’s still painfully uncommon to see a same-sex couple on TV where both women are of color.

Like I said, we’ve got a long way to go.

But, it’s encouraging that the number of queer female characters on TV has increased 300 percent in five years. And it’s encouraging that it is becoming commonplace to add queer female characters to new TV shows, and that these characters won’t always be white. And it’s super encouraging that streaming TV services are making broadcast network models of making television completely obsolete. Things are changing faster than I ever thought possible, visibility-wise. So, as we keep pushing forward for equality in mainstream media, let’s celebrate the 34 queer characters of color who helped usher in one of the most promising years of LGBT TV in history.

Adriana Mendez, The Bridge

FX didn’t renew The Bridge for a third season, but for 26 exciting episodes, Adriana gave Lois Lane a run for her money when it came to investigative reporting.

Arika, Dominion

I don’t want to spoil the dozen surprise plot twists and turns of Syfy’s Dominion, but I will spoil this one: Arika isn’t who she says she is, and that includes the part where she pretends to be into doing it with David Whale (played by Anthony Head Stewart, so: Old Man Giles, basically).

Callie Torres, Grey’s Anatomy

She may have called it quits with Arizona this season, but she’s not calling it quits on being one of the most kickass surgeons at Seattle Grace.

Camilla and Jocelyn, East Los High

This couple surprised us in the very best way on season two of Hulu’s original drama.

Carolyn Hill, Under the Dome

First, her wife died. Then, the Dome’s magnetization caused her house to knock her out. Then, she was almost shot for discovering a stockpile of food and supplies. But Carolyn survived Stephen King’s hellscape, and she’ll be back for season three!

Diana Barrigan, White Collar

USA finally pulled the plug on White Collar this year after a six-episode mini-season, and while the show never gave Diana the screentime she deserved, they also didn’t brutally axe-murder her to further the plot of the three main white guys on the show. Progress!

Emily Fields, Pretty Little Liars

She will go down as one of the most progressive lesbian characters in the history of television. This year, she even scissored a resurrected ghost.

Kalinda Sharma, The Good Wife

Kalinda’s story was on the back burner for many of the early episodes of season six, but she’s back in the thick of things now. She’s even building a relationship with Lana that might actually be serious.

Kay, Marry Me

Tymberlee Hill‘s “soft butch lipstick flannel queen” is the best new original queer character of the 2014-2015 TV season, hands down.

Korra and Asami Sato, The Legend of Korra

It’s canon, y’all.

Lena Adams-Foster, The Fosters

2014 was an emotionally devastating year for Lena, but at least she and Stef finally got rid of that sex-killing hospital bed Annie Potts bought them.

Luisa Alver, Jane the Virgin

Accidentally artificially inseminated the wrong woman because she was in shock that her wife cheated on her? Check. Slept with her step-mom? Check. Tossed into an asylum? Check, check. Luisa lives in Miami, but it might as well be Rosewood.

M-Chuck, Survivor’s Remorse

She’s the sister of an NBA legend in the making, but M-Chuck is the real superstar of her family. She keeps them together. She doesn’t pull punches. And sometimes she makes out with ladies in church.

Max, Black Sails

Max is a sex worker in a brothel in Nassau who finds true love with Eleanor Guthrie for a hot second before things get bad like they always do when pirates come to town.

Nyssa al Ghul, Arrow

The only good thing about Sara Lance getting murdered is it opened the door for Nyssa Al Ghul to finally make her way back to Starling City to settle some scores. She’ll be back in 2015, too, with Flashback Sara at her side!

Poussey Washington, Orange Is the New Black

We cannot get enough of this character, which was easily one of the most beloved of the year.

Renee Montoya, Gotham

A kickass Latina lesbian of color who re-won the heart of the woman who is engaged to the whitest white hero in the history male whitedom. And she did it while taking down bad guys and wearing heels! If you thrive on the tears of fanboys, Gotham is your eternal sustenance.

Santana Lopez, Glee

She won back Brittany. She won Rachel’s Broadway role. And in the (merciful) final season of Glee, she is actually getting gay married. Who’d have thunk it back in season one when she was just a lesbian throwaway joke? Four for you, Santana Lopez. You go, Santana Lopez. (And none for Ryan Murphy bye.)

Shana Fring, Pretty Little Liars

She turned out to be a maniac who died by falling three feet off a theater stage, but at least we still got to see her in flashbacks/the multi-camera funeral her family filmed from different angles and uploaded to YouTube.

Sophia Burset, Orange Is the New Black

Laverne Cox didn’t come close to having enough to do in season two of Orange Is the New Black. She was fierce as hell, but super underused. Season three is going to be her time to shine, we’re sure of it.

Tara Thornton, True Blood

Another casualty of 2014 on another TV show that lasted three seasons past its expiration date. Ah, Tara. You really were too good for this world.

Unique Adams, Glee

There are rumors that Unique’s class of New Directions won’t be back for the final season of the show, but I’ve Stopped Beleivein’ anything about Glee until I see it with my own bleeding eyes.

Reagan, Faking It

There’s a lot to love about this 19-year-old DJ who succeeded in pulling Amy away from her crush on her straight best friend, Karma, like that she’s awesome and a feminist and hot and also that she’s Not Karma.

Kate, Last Tango in Halifax

Thank the gods of Public Television that they brought this show (legally) across the pond for us. Kate and Caroline are one of the sweetest queer couples we’ve seen in ages.

Nenna, Crossbones

The show only lasted a minute, but it was a beautiful minute of Tracy Ifeachor playing a lesbian pirate.

Dr. Jean Fisherman, The Mindy Project

Jean made her entrance with a Sweeps Weeks-style lesbian kiss of a very straight Mindy, but we were willing to overlook it because there was so much to love about her character. Now all we need is more of her.

Brook Soso, Orange Is the New Black

It turns out Piper 2.0 might actually be even nuttier than Original Piper, which always makes for good game on Orange Is the New Black.

Reyna, Matador

Reyna was one of way too many lesbian characters that were murdered on TV this year, but at least El Ray pulled the plug on the show in a moment of sweet comeuppance after the end of the first season.

Natalie, Switched at Birth

In addition to being a woman of color, Natalie is the only deaf lesbian on TV since Marlee Matlin‘s Jodie Learner on The L Word. She refuses to wear a dress to prom, refuses to give up her Prom King crown, and refuses to stop making out with her girlfriend in her school’s hallways. She’s pretty badass.

Lt. Alisha Granderson, The Last Ship

Much like Ming-Na Wen‘s character on Stargate Universe, Lt. Granderson leaves her girlfriend on earth to go do stuff in space. Specifically, she’s looking for a cure for a virus that wiped out 80 percent of the world’s population. So, like Interstallar without Matthew Mcconaughey mansplaining everything the whole time.

Suzanne Warren, Orange Is the New Black

Uzo Aduba deserves every award nomination she’s pulled down for her nuanced, powerful portrayal of Suzanne in Orange Is the New Black‘s second season. She was the highlight in every single way.

Tituba, Salem

Is she canonically queer? Is she not? Let me just quote Rachel here: “I mean, what kind of a world do we want to live in, where we watch someone have gay witch sex and then try to second-guess it?” And there you have it!

Dani, Glee

She only showed up for one episode of Glee in 2014, but she did it in so much style.

In Which Anna Paquin Had To Explain Bisexuality To Insufferable Larry King

This week, True Blood actress and out bisexual person Anna Paquin went on Larry King Now, presumably to talk about the upcoming and final season of her wildly popular television program. While they did discuss a great deal regarding Paquin’s acting career, her marriage to True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer and the cast’s feelings about the show’s conclusion, the interview included one particularly cringe-worthy exchange between the two.

Anna Paquin famously came out as bisexual in 2010, when she filmed a PSA for the Give A Damn campaign declaring herself as such. Although she’s told Zooey magazine that her orientation was “a minor biographical detail,” she has continued to publicly champion LGBTQ rights. Unfortunately, Paquin has also had the frustrating and all-too-familiar experience of having to explain her sexual orientation over and over again in great detail, and clarifying that her marriage to a man does not invalidate her identity.

During her sit-down with Larry, King asked Paquin if she considered herself a “non-practicing bisexual.” When Paquin replied that she was “happily, monogamously married” to her husband, King responded with, “But you were bisexual?”

Suspension of disbelief miraculously includes vampires, not bisexuals.

As Paquin good-naturedly replied that she didn’t consider her orientation to be in the past-tense, King continued to press her for more details. Finally, she asked, “Are you still straight if you’re with somebody? If you were to break up with them or they were to die, it doesn’t prevent your sexuality from existing. It doesn’t really work like that.”

“Stop with the wishful thinking,” King joked. Just like that, the sounds of a thousand groans overwhelmed the Hulu soundboards as everyone with any basic understanding of human sexuality barfed in unison.

You sad little man

Paquin answered again, “I’m just saying, it doesn’t really work like that.”

For starters, I would imagine that trying to explain one’s sexual fluidity to an 80-year-old white dude who’s been married eight times to seven women would be a lot like trying to explain one’s sexual fluidity to their cranky old uncle, which is why I haven’t really ever explained my sexuality in depth to any of my cranky old uncles. The very concept of one’s longterm relationship or marriage magically transforming them into a “non-practicing bisexual” is not only invalid, it’s damaging and hurtful. There exists a great myth that committed relationships can invalidate a person’s orientation, which causes infinitely frustrated bisexuals to be perceived as attention-seeking, greedy or not “real.”

Although she handled Larry King’s clueless questioning like a pro, this certainly won’t be the last time openly bisexual celebrities are questioned about the validity of their identities. It would be fantastic for mainstream media to accept that bisexuality is real and that sexuality can be fluid, but in the meantime it’s still heartening to see stars like Ms. Paquin and Evan Rachel Wood fighting the good fight, being proud of their relationships and calmly explaining what bisexuality means and doesn’t mean to a large audience. Thank you, Anna Paquin, for taking it in stride… for all of us.

55 Ways To Leave Your Lesbian Vampire Lover (According To True Blood)

by vanessa and cara

Have you noticed how much of the dialogue in True Blood is basically lifted from lesbian breakups? Well, we have.

1. “Tell her to get the fuck out of my life forever.”

2. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Well if you don’t want to hurt me, why don’t you… just not?”

3. “We are a team! And when I came to you to offer my resources, my money, my connections, and my love, you said nothing would separate us!”
“I said it, and I meant it.”
“Then do not walk out that door.”
“I have to go.”

4. “You assured me this would be violent.”

5. “Will you shut up about your shit when the world’s about to end?”
“Honey, I don’t know about the world, but I’m about to end your face.”

6. “How long have you known this was going to happen?”
“I didn’t.”
“But you can see the future!”
“These visions, they come to me as they come. I have no way of controlling what I see.”
“HOW VERY CONVENIENT FOR YOU.”

7.  “You’re no fucking god.”
“I never said I was.”
“Get out. Leave my house.”
“I’m already gone.”

8. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Oh sweetie I know, life is really a shit-sandwich sometimes.”

9. “I am dead and you’re still overprotective, isn’t that just perfect.”

10. “I’m scared. It feels like the world is spinning out of control and… I have been greedy, and lustful, and wrathful.”

11. “You know this wasn’t just sex, this isn’t just some simple infatuation.”
“No, it never is.”

12. “Where’s Emma?”
“In the bathroom, crying.”

13. “I know you said you wanted to be left alone but I’m going to need you to tie me up.”

14. “Don’t you think she should put some clothes on?”

15. “I’m your number one bitch, don’t you ever forget it.”

16. “Butch the fuck up.”

17. “I just think we have the kind of friendship where we can give each other keys, is all.”

18. “If you agreed to be mine it would all be over. We could be a closed circle, you and me. We could live wherever we want, go wherever we want, day, night! We would be everything to each other because we would need only one anothers’ blood to survive. And we would never have to hurt anybody else, there would never be anybody else, just you and me.”

19. “Pain is a worthless emotion.”

20. “Do not take a tone with me!”

21. “You know love doesn’t have to be a competition between you and everybody else.”
“Fuck off. I mean it.”
“You just don’t want me to see you cry.”
“I’m not crying. Alright I’m crying but it’s because I’m fucking pissed.”

22. “When god’s message is this clear I am a truly unstoppable woman.”

23. “You don’t think that just because we had sex that that means I’m agreeing to marry you?”

24. “I can’t believe I’m leaving all of this in a voicemail.”

25. “What’s your longest relationship, two weeks? We fucked once now it’s you and me, girlfriends forever, that’s what you think?”
“No, I think you’re too busy crying over some unavailable asshole to give what’s happening between us a chance.”
“Oh honey, this isn’t going to be some epic fucking love story.”

26. “BULLSHIT, YOU’RE A LIAR AND A VOODOO QUEER!”

27. “I believe you. I believe in you. I believe that you are divine.”

28. “I’m alright, I’m a little better. Before, it was like someone was scalping my brain away one slice at a time and plucking out my heart with one of those little crab forks. But now, thanks to this [alcohol], it just feels like someone’s crushing my windpipe.”

29. “Excuse me Bitch Sergeant, who the fuck are you and why are you telling me what to do?”

30. “You have always known how I felt about you but you never cared! You always kept me waiting in the wings because there was a more dangerous guy in the picture and now you walk in here and Jesus fucking Christ, your timing could not be worse!”

31. “Yeah maybe you were an asshole, but right now you have the opportunity to make this right.  At the beginning of all this you said I had to protect your humanity. Please do not make a failure out of me.”

32. “I’d rather walk the earth as a corpse than spend another minute thinking about you.”

33. “You’re fucking crazy!”
“I’m getting there!”

34. “Listen, you always seemed like a nice lady, behind the crazy and the hate. But I ain’t the same dumb kid…you know, I’ve been places. I’ve done things.”
“And I am a different woman than the girl you used to know. But you and me, we got some sort of connection. That’s why I’m not giving up on you…I have never felt more holy than when I was with you. And I truly believe god wants me to fuck you.”

35. “Destiny’s too much of a bitch to keep fighting.”

36. “You’re not a killer, don’t do this.”
“Oh it’s not me honey pie, it’s Jesus!”

37. “Did you ever love me?”
“Sure. There were times, hell yeah! Definitely love.”

38. “Don’t you dare leave me!”

39. “Be careful. When your heart runs away with you it’s easy to believe that someone will have your back forever. But I’m learning that forever is a rare thing in this world…”

40. “Meet Violet. She’s European.”

41. “I’ve changed. I can be trusted again.”
“That’s the thing though… even at your best, I could never really trust you.”

42. “It’s our destiny to be together!”
“Fuck destiny.”

43. “Don’t you dare say you love me you psycho freak!”

44. “I feel like I wanna have sex, or die, or die while having sex.”

45. “You’re a filthy fucking liar. You come in here and you say that you love me, and you want me… but you just want to fuck me and own me… well get it through your fucking head, I’m not yours or anybody’s, none of you know shit about love.”

46. “Now you want to save me? I thought I was dead to you.”

47. “I’ve been thinking. Even though your heart is breaking now, maybe it’s a sign. Maybe you and I should think about having a baby!”

48. “Death ain’t the end anymore, we all know that now. Death is just a fucking pit stop on a road that keeps on going. With no end in sight.”

49. “I’ve done an unspeakable thing.”

50. “Do not take me for granted… I won’t have it. When a woman comes to you in black lingerie, you unwrap her!”

51. “You’re a demon whore!”

52. “You know I wasn’t lying when I said I keep my promises, but a lot has changed since I last saw you.”
“You’ve been gone four hours.”

53. “You will drain me of all of my blood until I am but one inch from the true death, do you understand me?”

54. “I feel nothing.”

55. “Have fun with your sluts.”

Real Life Lesbian Jessica Clark Gets Naked For True Blood

This week on True Blood, a lot of weird/gross things happened, none of which matter as much as the fact that out lesbian actress/model Jessica Clark arose completely naked from a pool of blood as the original vampire goddess Lilith in what may or may not have been a group hallucination caused by drinking her ancient blood. Please read that sentence in one breath, because that is how I meant it.

via HBO

You guys, when I say naked, I don’t mean that she just wasn’t wearing clothing and there were props conveniently covering her vag. She was the most naked and you could see all the things. Including her perfectly manicured pubic hair, which was in the shape of the most exact isosceles triangle that has ever been on a vagina. So, the question on everyone’s mind: was it a merkin?

In addition to being naked, Clark gives a great vampire roar and breathes a cloud of blood cells. It’s a pretty exciting debut.

I would like to motion to make this scene a classic of the Nude Lesbian Canon, up there with Shane’s full-frontal pool scene in episode 101 of The L Word. That was the original naked lesbian moment of my heart. I remember watching it with my first girlfriend before we were dating/before I was out and I said, “I am attracted to that person.” And she rolled her eyes and was like, “Duh of course you are.” That’s a tale as old as time, I guess. If you want to take a fun trip down lesbian memory lane you should read Riese’s recap of that episode. I just did.

Anyway, you might remember Jessica Clark from the exclusive Autostraddle premier of the short film Sara and the corresponding Autostraddle interview. Since then, she’s landed a number of television gigs, and was also on the cover of Vogue India. Clark is married to fitness guru Lacey Stone, who is also her personal trainer. Of her feelings about her wife being naked on True Blood, Clark told the Advocate that Stone says, “At least they can see how great my work is.”

Indeed.

Dispatches From Ballroom 20: All Day, All The Panels

If you read “So Many Cunning Hats: “Firefly” Superfan Attends ComicCon’s “Firefly” Reunion, Loves It,” where I completely fangirled out, you know I slept in line the night before to get into Ballroom 20. What you didn’t know is that I was essentially in there all day, for all of the panels. And I took all sorts of notes! So let’s go in order of panel, shall we?

Community: “Four Season and a Porno! Six Seasons and a Movie!”

Community Panel

Panel Members: Dani Pudi (Abed), Allison Brie (Annie), Joel McHale (Jeff), Gillian Jacobs (Britta), Yvette Nicole Brown (Shirley), executive producer Russ Krasnoff; new showrunners David Guarascio and Moses Port, writer Megan Ganz (wearing my favorite shirt of the day that said “Save The Cape”) and writer Andy Bobrow.

The Down Low: Hilarious and informative! First and foremost, the panel did give now-dismissed creator Dan Harmon some love as well as talked in a way that suggested mere tolerance of Chevy Chase. Lots of love for the devoted fans that have helped keep the show on the air too!

We also learned that:

-For the Law & Order episode (written by L&O fan Megan Ganz) they got Dick Wolf’s blessing to use the “chunk chunk” for the breaks. They now want to do a Law & Order SVU ep.

– Dani Pudi says it was hard to play Abed in a rift with Troy because he’s so used to the dynamic he has with Donald.

– Dani Pudi, Gillian Jacobs and Allison Brie (sexily) chair danced for us.

-Yvette thanked us for sleeping outside. They knew what we were up to, they have Twitter.

– Season 3 DVD set will contain commentaries on every single episode, 20 mins worth of outtakes and a special behind the scenes featurette of Pillows VS. Blankets.

– Despite being a fan favorite the actor who played Star Burns got tired of the character and left.

– Jeff’s dad! He will be in Season 4! Joel McHale says he will reveal who is cast and it is Eddie Murphey.

– We will finally go inside Pierce’s eccentric mansion.

– This is the senior year for many of the characters, however it was hinted that even if people do graduate Greendale the show will go on.

– Troy and Britta may actually be a real thing.

– The fooseball players may be back.

– The new guys replacing Dan Harmon stress that they were mega fans of the show before they got the call to come in.

– Oh, and there will be an DR. SPACE TIME CONVENTION IN THE SHOW.

Best Thing Ever: An outtake they showed us from the DVD was of Allison Brie in the study room free style rapping and actually being pretty good at it.

Legend Of Korra: So Much Cosplay

Panel Members: Janet Varney (Korra), David Faustino (Mako), P.J. Byrne (Bolin), Seychelle Gabriel (Asami), creators Bryan Konietzko and Mike DiMartino, co-executive producer Joaquim Dos Santos and voice director Andrea Romano

The Down Low: First off despite the fact this panel was inundated with restless Browncoats waiting with baited breath for their panel, there were some great fans. I saw a lot of LoK cosplay the entire weekend and a good deal of it at the panel. And lots of Korras! It was good to see so many girls dressed up and embracing badass main character of the show. Also a lot of people who had never heard of Korra wanted to start watching after this panel because we learned:

– The Book 2 (season 2) starts off 6 months after the end of Book 1.

– It will expand the world building, with the season primarily in the Southern Water Tribe.

– But we’ll also be in the spirit world quite a bit as well as visit the now-restored Southern Air Temple.

– We were showed concept art of all of these locations. The art was absolutely breathtaking and lush for each setting. Also there will be a festival in the South Pole the gang will be attending.

– The cast gets a wardrobe upgrade, with mostly coats and longer sleeves to combat the winter down south. Korra has some arm warmers and a darker pair of threads, but she’s still keeping her sleeveless muscle shirt look.

– We will learn more about Korra’s family and explore the family dynamic.

– We’ll see more of the original GAang all grown up.

– Aang and Katara’s other children: the wild and crazy Bumi and the spiritual and ‘hippieish’ Kaya will be in this season.

– Lots of new characters were introduced! Including Korra’s father’s brother who is a mentor to Korra, his emo androgynous twins and a Howard Hughes-esque character named who will help out Asami and have a nice repore with Bolin.

– There will be lots of spirits as well. We saw some designs and they were very other worldly.

– The big deal is we’ll be learning about the history of the Avatar and how the Avatar came to be in two special episodes during the middle of the season.

– There will be 4 Books for the entire series split over 52 episodes.

– We watched an animatic that introduces the new season. In it Bolin is still Pro-bending, but with new team members who are absolutely terrible. Mako is now a police officer. Asami has taken over Future Industries (with a new Amelia Earhart-esque wardrobe!) however she finding being a businesswoman difficult as no investors willing to trust the company. And Korra is now able to tap into the Avatar state with ease, but doesn’t take it seriously as she uses it to give herself a boost during an air-scooter race with Tenzin’s kids.

Best Thing Ever: Two things. First off, Andrea Romano directed the cast in a reading of scenes from season 1, accompanied by pictures of the scenes as they read. It was so cool to see them slip into their characters with ease during the read. Secondly, she decided to tap into the crowd and recorded us making sounds! We’ll be used as a pro-bending match crowd, which is super cool.

Bones: Something About A Roll Of Quarters, And I’m Not Making That Up

Panel Members: Emily Deschanel (Brennan), David Borneanaz (Booth), executive producer Stephen Nathan, Creator Hart Hanson was not able to attend.

The Down Low: Can I be honest here? I didn’t know Bones still existed and sat there and ate a sandwich. Because it was the first thing I had consumed since six in the morning and after I did the Firefly thing I felt like I may die of starvation, so I like… don’t have much for you. I’m sorry. I do know:

– Stephen Nathan said they feel like they avoided the Moonlighting Curse by not showing the sex between Booth and Bones.

– Bones is at a very interesting and conflicting point in her life. She’s living a life she condemned her father for living and she’s not only living it with him, but also with her baby.

– Booth is emotionally wounded and will be searching for her by any means necessary.

– The new villain of the season is someone who we’ve never seen before. The gang has always been able to keep ahead of their bad guys, but he’ll always been two steps ahead of him (as someone who watched four seasons, wasn’t that like, ALL the major bad guys they’ve had?)

– The general audience consensus was David was totally drunk at the panel and/or had consumed some really fun drugs. He wouldn’t shut up and went on the weirdest, often sexual, non-sober tangents. Regardless of the fact the rest of the panel tried to keep him reigned in, he kept at it. He also interrupted fans during the Q & A and worked the crowd to drum up support for a new Angel project with Joss Whedon (who has said several times he’s not going to do any live action Angel anytime soon).

Best Thing Ever: Anything that came out of Borneanaz’s mouth, because there was no filter and it was all face palm worthy.

Arrow: Gratuitous Male Shirtless Scene, Check

Panel Members: Stephen Amell (Oliver), Katie Cassidy (Laurel), executive producer Andrew Kreisburg, executive producer Marc Guggenhiem and director David Nutter

The Down Low: We were shown the pilot in it’s entirety. It received a pretty good reception from the audience, however I left feeling pretty indifferent by it. The story has potential, but there’s a lot of generic CW gloss and drama dripping off of it and its been ‘re-imagined’. Which means it’s further from the source material than Smallville ever was when it began. It’s not the must watch show of the fall for me but I may check out episode 2 to see if it can rise above it’s pilot, which is what is most new shows face. The cast was charming though and it was hinted that (Dinah) Laurel Lance may be donning the Black Canary fishnets earlier than we anticipated.

Best Thing Ever: 

“That one that looks like the chick from Twilight.”
“What’s Twilight?”
“You’re better off not knowing.”
*audience cheers*

EW’s Women Who Kick Ass! Panel: “Let’s All Pray Lucy Doesn’t Go To Prison.”

Kick Ass Women

Panel Members: Anna Torv (Fringe), Kristen Kreuk (Smallville, Beauty and the Beast), Sarah Wayne Callies (Walking Dead), Nikki Reed (Twilight), Kristen Bauer von Straten (True Blood) and surprise panelist Lucy Lawless (do I really need to list what she’s been in?)

The Down Low: It was just a really chill panel asking the ladies about various things, mostly having to do with being a women in Hollywood. They were all funny, intelligent and well spoken.

– Apparently Xena could be doing some serious jail time for a Greenpeace protest where she (illegally) climbed a 174-foot drilling tower on an oil rig. This quickly and firmly established her as the biggest bad ass of the panel. And she didn’t even have to break out the chakrams.

– She also explained how to use a Go-Girl “You gotta tuck!”

– When asked about whether Hollywood’s perception of women has changed, they agreed it is changing, but at the same time actresses should also “be warriors” and pursue their own projects.

– Sarah Wayne Callies explained that women are often told to consider one another competition in Hollywood. However that’s the opposite of the truth and Lucy actually taught her that on her very first show (they worked together).

– When asked about whether it’s challenging for women to find projects with great characters, Kristen said that there are actually a lot of great character driven parts and stories out there.

– Nikki explained she grew up surrounded by strong women her entire life, and she continued to surround herself with them. So it was never an issue that she could never do something because she was a girl. She had been brought up knowing that if she wanted to do it, she should do it.

– The group was asked about whether or not the Hollywood bias that men don’t want to watch strong female women is true. The panel all pretty much said Girls (which has a large male following) is a perfect example of that being false. Lucy pointed out older women are reigning on TV in shows like Damages (and she’s loving it). Writing is also a factor, and if you look on TV you can find a lot of female characters who don’t fall prey to the stereotypes. They all agreed there will always be some kind of resistance.

– When asked about bad costumes, Kristen Kreuk said a lot of the wardrobe on Smalleville made her uncomfortable because her character was supposed to be a seventeen year old and they’d have her in lingerie. Anna Torv explained Fringe has really relaxed clothing and the worst thing she’s ever had to wear is a skintight suit to make her look nude. Nikki Reed said to ask her in about five years when she can talk about Twilight. Sarah Wayne Callies replied that the Walking Dead is the enemy of vanity and they pretty much just slather her with sunscreen and throw dirt on her instead of there being makeup (and she likes it). Lucy Lawless said it was a bad merkin they had her wear on Spartixcus. And Kristen Bauer von Straten exclaimed that on True Blood she actually wears more clothes than the boys (which is refreshing!) however the stuff they have her wear for Pam is generally uncomfortable. Because of all the nakedness she believes the cast of TB is healthier, because they’re more conscious and eat their veggies more often.

-They sighted Sigourney Weaver as a major inspiration. Also Elizabeth Moss and Kate Blanchett.

-During the Q&A they were asked what was the biggest hurdle facing women’s rights. They talked it over in depth and came out on the other side agreeing that Comic Con wasn’t the best place to talk it over, simply because they didn’t have enough time to give the question the answer it deserved. There are a lot of issues that span from national to international, there are so many issues and rights it’s not fair to the question.

-Anna Torv did say that she feels a hurdle we do face is that we are the generation to trailblazers. We’re this new generation of feminists who don’t have an extended past to look back on as a good example. Yet at the same time we don’t really see ourselves as trail blazers and that gets lost.

– Most of them can totally tell when a guy writes dialog for them.

-Kristen Bauer von Straten wants Pam and Tara to HOOK UP on True Blood.

– The final question was what cliches did they all wish would go away. Lucy loves cliches and thanked the sci-fi community for being so supportive of women, even through embracing cliches. Kristen Bauer von Straten said she was tired of the black widow cliche (even though she admits Pam kind of is one). Sarah Wayne Callies said women running in a bikini without anything moving. Nikki Reed said the issues of body image and the fact that men do not have it to the degree we do as well a the effect it can have on a women’s career. Kristen Kreuk agreed and said she also wants what it means to be a strong female character to be redefined. That it will no longer be about kicking ass and taking names, but more about inner strength.

Best Thing Ever: All of them the entire time. Also Sarah Wayne Callies cracking a joke about being able to help spring Lucy Lawless out of prison (as her show before WD was Prison Break). Also, also, also Kristen Bauer von Straten going off into a hilarious tangent about nudity.

Dark Horse: Joss Whedon “Well, it’s been an interesting year.”

Panel Members: Just one guy who’s name starts with a J wearing a black shirt that said “Much Ado About Nothing”.

The Down Low: Not a whole lot or breaking news here. Joss didn’t come prepared to say much as he has been talking pretty much since he arrived to the con and everything had already been announced. It was mostly a big Q & A, however:

– The movie Much Ado About Nothing (aka ‘Me and my friends got together and decided to do Shakespeare’) just wrapped post last Wednesday. Joss not only directed the movie, but wrote the entire score which was a first for him. The film is actually in black and white and they’ll be shopping the film to festivals soon.

– About 45 minutes after finishing Much Ado he began working on Dr. Horrible 2! Some songs are already done and they are hoping to get things started next spring.

– The CW will air Dr. Horrible itself for the first time ever on TV!

– Right after SDCC he was flying to England to get together with comic writing star Warren Ellis about their collaborative project Wastelands.

– There will be 25 issues of Buffy comics.

– 25 issues of Angel and Faith with one of the main story lines being Angel and Faith trying to resurrect Giles.

– There will be a Willow mini series.

– And a Spike miniseries.

– There will be more Firefly Comics. Both comics that delve into characters pasts a la the best selling “The Shepherd’s Tale” as well as comics that push the story forward after Serenity.

– If you bounce the Wonderflonium you may bring about the Zombie Apocalypse.

– His advice to struggling artists is to make more art, to not wait on others and do it themselves and “make it happen”.

– He would like to return to TV because he really loves the medium of television, however he has no plans to do so at the moment.

– He was a bit dodgy about whether or not he would direct the Avengers sequel.

– Joss would really like to do a stage musical, but has a lot of projects possibly lined up.

– He would like to write more Fray and Sugar Shock, but it’s the same issue of other projects.

Best Thing Ever: When he opened up the panel to Q & A he said he wanted questions like “What’s it like to work for FOX?” and then proceeded to mime being trapped in a box.

‘Glee’ and ‘True Blood’ Panels at Comic Con, Abridged

This past weekend at San Diego Comic Con, theater dorks and vampire enthusiasts alike had their cravings for spoilers moderately satiated as Glee and True Blood panels revealed teeny tiny bits of information about the shows’ upcoming seasons.

Glee

The Glee panel featured executive producers Brad Falchuk, Ian Brennan and Dante Di Loreto, with cast members Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, Darren Criss, Kevin McHale, Jenna Ushkowitz and your imaginary girlfriend Naya Rivera. If you’ve watched Glee from the beginning as I have, you probably have a lot of feelings regarding its slow and painful descent into the kind of show that you hate yourself for watching but just can’t stop watching, because what if it starts to get better and you missed it? It’s hard to tell from the hints that the cast dropped whether or not Glee is going to return to its original glory. For example, they didn’t mention anything about introducing an additional queer female character with a gender presentation other than high femme, something that I’ve been waiting for since the beginning — not that I don’t love Santana! I mean just watch this video.

via The Huffington Post

What they did reveal is that season four will begin with Santana at the University of Louisville, cheerleading, rather than in New York with Rachel. Santana and Brittany’s relationship will be in a “good spot,” which is unfortunate if you were hoping that Santana’s College Lesbianage would involve her hooking up with lots and lots of girls.

Kurt will still be at McKinley, working as some sort of teacher’s aid to Mr. Schue as together they fill the Glee Club’s empty spots. Hopefully he will be getting paid for his labor. Also, that means Kurt and Blaine will still be together, and probably still tearfully processing what will happen to their relationship if/when Kurt moves to NYC. The producers hinted that Kurt will indeed be joining Rachel in NYC eventually, so you can count on a lot more processing in the upcoming season. Also, Darren Criss had a beard, which apparently did not go over well with the audience.

Rachel will be taught by guest star Kate Hudson at NYADA, who will be the anti-Mr. Schuster in terms of teaching strategies – which makes her sound a lot like one Sue Sylvester. Speaking of Sue, she will have given birth at the beginning of the season, but we still won’t know who the father is. I’m not sure why that’s important, since she signed up to have and raise the baby as a single mom, but apparently it’s a thing people are curious about. Ian Brennan assured the audience that Sue will still be Sue, and even though she’ll be raising a baby she’ll still delight in tormenting others.

The second episode of the season will be yet another Britney Spears tribute.

Also: Will and Emma are not yet engaged but are “doing dirty things.” Mercedes and Puck will be in LA. Damian “Irish Breakfast” McGinty won’t be returning, at least not for the first half of the season, but Samuel “Teen Jesus” will, along with fellow Glee Projector Alex Newell. Finn remains the “question mark of the season,” much to my overwhelming indifference.

via Zimbio.com

True Blood

The True Blood panel featured Alan Ball, Alexander, Skarsgard, Christopher Meloni, Kristin Bauer, Ryan Kwanten, Sam Trammell, Rutina Wesley, Joe Manganiello, Nelsan Ellis, Deborah Ann Woll, Setephen Moyer and Anna Paquin and her baby bump. The panel began with a brand new preview reel jam-packed with vague yet thrilling glimpses of scenes in which Sookie maybe tries to become human, Tara has some pole-dancing skills and a confrontation with her mom, Jessica sleeps around, Godric Returns, Russell Edgington eats people and also wants to be with Eric, and overall it seems that there is an impending war between humans and vampires. I’m into it. After the preview reel, the cast members took turns showing off their superior abilities to body roll.

via Zimbio.com

There hasn’t been any good sex on True Blood yet this season, but don’t worry, that’s apparently about to change. Alan Ball said that there will be much more sex in the next few episodes, during which “all tastes will be satisfied.” ALL THE TASTES! I think that’s an awfully ambitious statement to make. Did they make a list of all the tastes first? Also, there will be three new romances that are yet to be revealed. These are the three romantic combinations that I think would fulfill all the tastes: Tara and Pam, followed by Tara and Jessica, followed by Tara and a new butch-ish vampire named, oh I don’t know, Shane.

Speaking of Tara, Wesley said that playing her character as a baby vampire is an “overall joy” involving her “more leathery side.” She means this literally with regards to her new wardrobe, which perhaps we can all feel “overall joy” about.

Moyer and Skarsgard got their flirt on as they discussed how much they love working together, discussing their “bromance” that exists both on-screen and off. There is apparently something from their history together that we haven’t seen yet, and I’m thinking it might involve them sensually rubbing their chest muscles on each other.

Disturbingly, Manganiello mentioned that he will sexually “eviscerate” one of the other cast members. Hopefully he will also be getting enthusiastic consent and a safe word beforehand.

We’re also about to learn more about the untimely deaths Mama and Papa Stackhouse. And Anna Paquin gave the not-at-all vague or unsurprising hint that the season finale is going to include a “very, very crazy scene at the end.”

Alan Ball received a standing ovation as this will be his last season with True Blood, since he’s “old and tired.” Apparently, writing and directing one of the most popular shows on television is a really hard and exhausting job.

via LA TIMES

All in all, these panels looked to be a lot of fun but also looked like they didn’t really reveal anything that fans couldn’t figure out on their own. I’m pretty excited for the rest of this season of True Blood, though, and hesitantly looking forward to seeing what will happen with the Diaspora of original Glee characters. What do you all think?

The Trials, Tribulations & Turning of True Blood’s Tara Thornton

In case you don’t watch it: True Blood is an HBO show during which humans, vampires, fairies, werewolves, and other “supes” (that’s short for supernatural if you’re out of the loop) have sex with each other and also often try to kill/eat each other in Bon Temps, Louisiana.

Initially, the writers of True Blood were fairly responsible about addressing issues of race, gender, and sexuality – basically All The Things that queer and other marginalized peoples care about, which is how I initially got hooked on the V. The vampire plight as the gay plight extended metaphor was well thought-out; the main characters were diverse-ish; and the women were allowed to talk to each other about topics other than men (mostly).

And the show also gave us Tara Thornton, played by the beautiful and talented Rutina Wesley. Tara is the BFF of the main character. Tara is also a woman of color. Popular television shows on networks like HBO are totally whitewashed and it’s consistently super problematic (see: Girls), so I was really hoping that this would change and Tara would be a character written with the respect she deserved – because truly in the beginning she breathed fire into the show. She was unapologetically the smartest person in town, she called white people out on their racist bullshit and she stood up for herself and for her friends. Her character was filled with anger because she had some major things to be angry about, like child abuse, and her anger made her stronger.

via HBO

But as the seasons progressed, and we got to know Tara more and more, a disturbing pattern emerged: the more complex her character became, the more she was punished. As her insecurities were revealed one by one, a supernatural creeper would show up to take advantage of her based on whatever weakness had just been revealed.

And most upsetting of all, these various traumatically violent and rapey subplots all involved Tara’s literal enslavement by not one but SEVERAL different supernatural creatures, all of whom are white. If this had happened to her one time amidst a plethora of various other plot lines, it would have been concerning. But the fact that Tara’s enslavement has become the central theme of her subplots throughout all the seasons is horrifying. I am not a woman of color nor am I a rape survivor, so I’m not in any way claiming that I can speak to these experiences with authority. But I do feel confident in saying that True Blood approached a chance to respectfully write a major queer female character in probably the worst way possible.

For example: Tara is kicked out of her house by her alcoholic mother, and so because of her emotional vulnerability and loneliness, she is hypnotically controlled by the evil maenad Maryann. Maryann forces her to do nasty things like eat a human heart pie and build a giant meat statue. While under Maryann’s influence she falls in love with a human named Eggs, who is also controlled by the maenad, and very unfortunately dies. While grieving the loss of Eggs, Tara is kidnapped and held hostage/raped repeatedly by a sociopath vampire named Franklin who wants to make her his forever slave bride.

via HBO

After Tara escapes from Franklin, she’s at her breaking point and leaves Bon Temps. And then the writers give us a teeny tiny gift: they patch up the wounds on her spirit by bringing her back the next season as a lady-who-likes-ladies. A queer lady! No one saw that coming. Tara herself probably didn’t see it coming. But hey, when life hands you lemons, why not start carpet munching? Actually I don’t really think that; I think based on her superior arm structure that she was always destined for lesbianism.

So, it gets better, right? Not yet. Despite being given a super hot cage-fighting girlfriend (symbolism!) and a long-lasting post-orgasmic glow to her face, things only get worse for Tara, and her girlfriend isn’t even on the show for a whole season. Then at the end of the last season, Tara’s girlfriend is killed and Tara actually gets shot in the head while trying to defend Sookie. Oy!

via HBO

Much like last season’s attempt to heal Tara’s soul wounds by making her a lesbian, this season so far says that the only way for Tara to be a survivor and rise above all she has been a victim of is to make her a VAMPIRE. To the margins of society with ye, O damaged woman! It seems the writers couldn’t conceive of a female character who could survive several seasons worth of enslavement and rape and still be a successful human. So time to try a different form of existence. And time to Other her even further.

Fortunately/unfortunately, depending on your general outlook on life, Tara is turned into a vampire by Pam, who is a) another prominent queer female and b) not a Tara fan – she tried to kill her a few times. So now I think we are supposed to be excited that two main queer ladies are thrown together for a shared storyline, which I guess is nice because usually they are isolated from other sisters in straight-land. But also there’s this thing in the vampire world where the vampire who made you actually owns you and can control you forever until they decide not to. And Pam needs someone to bartend, so. Again, Tara finds herself held hostage by someone who doesn’t have a problem abusing her.

via trueblood.wikia.com

This is all to say that despite this season’s repetitively problematic premise for Tara, I have hope and you should too. And here’s why: True Blood has new blood in the form of a writer named Angela Robinson. You might know her as the writer and director of the cult classic lesbian espionage film D.E.B.S. She also created some episodes of a show some of you may have heard of called The L Word. Do you see where I’m going with this? Robinson is a professional lesbian, and a lesbian of color, at that. Do you trust her with Tara’s fate? I would like to trust her. I’m getting old and I need someone to rely on (sorry, that terrible Keane song is stuck in my head).

She wrote Sunday night’s episode and if you haven’t watched it yet, you should go do so right now and then get back to me. But basically this is the most lesbian-ish episode to date, and there isn’t even any making out. Jessica, another vampire, gives Tara a speech that’s totally an It Gets Better talk only the word “gay” is swapped out for “vampire” and sexual attraction is replaced with, um, hunger for blood. It’s tender and hopeful.

And while Pam is still being super abusive to Tara and controlling her every move, there is a notable shift. Robinson wrote a scene in which Tara is wearing Pam’s black glitter corset, and Pam watches her walk into the bar in slow motion. Pam is noticeably aroused by the sight. In this behind-the-scenes video, Robinson says that it’s intentional:

“Tara, at the end of the last episode, has just fed on a human. And then Tara borrows some of Pam’s clothes… I scripted it in slow-mo because I really wanted Pam to see her vampire that she made, and being kind of hot for Tara for the first time, like seeing her with whole new eyes.”

So for the first time, Tara gets to feed on someone, rather than the other way around (literally and abstractly). Even though Pam is standing over her shoulder telling her how to do it, Tara is in charge of this human’s life. And that feeling of complete control over someone else’s life force gives her new power and confidence – even though she’s technically enslaved. Drinking someone’s blood on this show, as long as they are consenting, is erotic. And so the power that Tara gains from the experience is a power that all of the other females on the show have already been given regardless of species. I’m talking about sexual power.

Sure, Tara has had sex and crushes throughout the course of the show, but she has never really been in control of the situations. Meanwhile, everyone in the American South wants a piece of Sookie Stackhouse no matter what that damn girl does, says or looks like. And all the other women pretty much get what they want from the men around them by batting an eyelash or two (except Marnie the witch, but that’s another story for another time). But Tara? Tara has unrequited love and resents people who are attracted to her. She’s been depicted as a sex object to be owned and abused, but now she is starting to be depicted as someone who has the ability to use sex as a currency to attain power.

via HBO

Rarely on a show that’s not specifically for queers do we get to see an actual lesbian woman using her sexual power over other lesbian women. I predict that now that Pam’s got the tingle for Tara, things will start looking up. But if sexual power is going to be the road to Tara’s liberation, is that problematic? Or should she use what she has to get what she wants, just like literally everyone else on this show does?

This begs the question whether or not it is “right” and/or implicative of privilege for a normatively attractive girl to use her sexual power to get ahead in life. I’m pretty sure this is something that has plagued feminists for basically all of time. And it’s especially complicated when you throw in queerness, race and vampires.

Since much of the violence that Tara has faced thus far is sexual violence, I am thrilled that there is potential for her to reclaim agency of her body in a powerful way. So what if she had to drink someone’s blood and wear a borrowed black glitter corset to tap into her own sexual power? But then again, she had to drink someone’s blood and wear a borrowed black glitter corset to tap into her own sexual power. Do you see the problem?

I am hoping above all other hopes that True Blood gets this situation under control. Now that she’s a lesbian and a vampire, it’s not like there are many more things she can come back as if this season once again wears her into the ground. Angela Robinson, will you liberate Tara from the cycle of enslavement that others have forced her into? And will you do so in a way where all the things – queerness, femaleness, race, a history of sexual abuse, vampires – are respected? Say yes. We need this.

TV Fix: True Blood, Mindy Kaling’s Project, The New Normal

Because of Upfronts AND the upcoming season known as “summer,” there’s lots of news in the news about the future of television. Let’s dig in.

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True Blood – Season Five

We left True Blood‘s fourth season finale unsure of Tara’s fate. It appeared she was dying in Sookie’s arms, because television loves killing gay ladies and especially gay ladies of color!

The latest Season Five trailer, released today, doesn’t provide any insight on Tara’s status as a living breathing human person, but Tara appears in posters for the show, IMDB has Rutina Wesley credited as cast for the fifth season, and last year Rutina Wesley confirmed that she’d be back for Season Five, but wasn’t sure “in what capacity.” Hurrah!

True Blood‘s Season Five cast will include lots of fresh and/or familiar faces: Christopher Meloni of Law & Order: SVU, for example — I guess that’s why he left Olivia Benson all alone with that other guy — comes on as Roman, the mastermind of the Vampire’s “mainstream movement” and Guardian of the Vampire Authority.

Lucy Griffiths will play Eric’s “sister,” Nora (they were both turned by Godric) and actress/writer/trapeze artist Carolyn Hennesy joins the cast as Texan Vampire Authority Chancellor Roslyn Harris, who Harris describes as a “broad” who will “have a glass of whiskey with you and then if you cross her, she’ll drain ya.”

Fresh face Jamie Gray Hyder will play Danielle, a werewolf and little Jacob Hawkins will play Alexander, who joined the Vampire Authority when he was a mere 9 years old. Italian actress Valentina Cervi plays Salome, a Vampire character who is “derived from King Herod’s daughter in the New Testament.”

Michael McMillan, who is definitely where he is today because he read the lead in the first reading of my one-act play, Familyland, in 1998 (we were classmates at Interlochen Arts Academy), returns as the creepy religious dictator Steve Newlin –– but now he’s a vampire! Janina Gavankar, aka Papi from The L Word, is back at Luna Garza. More ominously returning is Russell Edgington, played by Denis O’Hare, who was buried in cement at the end of Season Three but has apparently gotten through that stage and is back on the prowl. Sookie’s cousin Hadley Hale (Lindsey Haun) will also be back.

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The Mindy Project

At last, Mindy Kaling will be shining in the spotlight she has always deserved — this time on her very own show, to debut this fall on FOX. Mindy will play “a young Bridget Jones-type doctor who tries to navigate her personal and professional lives.” In addition to Mindy Kaling, this show appears to also feature Toby from The West Wing, Ted from Six Feet Under, Andy from The Office (OF ALL THE PEOPLE!) and that blonde girl from The Good Wife and True Blood.

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“The New Normal”

This new NBC half-hour comedy from Ryan Murphy and Ali Adler features a gay couple obtaining a child via surrogate and then presumably raising said child. There are also females involved. Here’s the trailer:

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Etc.

We gave you the scoop on Season Four of Glee yesterday. The other big piece of news coming out of the FOX upfronts is that Britney Spears will be a new judge on “The X Factor.”

Gallery: 50 Sexy Vampires and Witches For a Happy Halloween

It’s Halloween, which means it’s time to pause and appreciate girls dressed up as witches or vampires. Who’s your favorite witch/vampire?

This is a Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual “True Blood” Post

k-stew looking sharp at comic-con

There’s been a ton of buzz around True Blood for the last week because in addition to being the best show on television, nearly the entire cast visited Comic-Con in San Diego last weekend. Before I continue talking about True Blood, which was amazing last night, last week, and the week before that, let me ask you this — do you know what Comic-Con is? If so, skip the next 2 paragraphs. If not, read on.

I didn’t know what it was until I started this here website, so if over the last week or so you’ve been hearing a bit of chatter about this or that person relevant to your interests/pants saying/doing something neat/important at an event called “Comic-Con” and don’t know what it is, I’ll tell you: Comic-Con International is a four-day conference held annually in San Diego, founded as the “San Diego Comic Book Convention” in 1970. Originally, Comic-Con showcased (yes this is a link to Wikipedia)  “comic books, science fiction/fantasy and film/television and related popular arts” but has since expanded to include “a larger range of pop culture elements, such as horror, animation, anime, manga, toys, collectible card games, video games, webcomics, and fantasy novels.”

Dr.Who Panel at Comic-Con

Events a fan might find at Comic-Con include panels, seminars, workshops, upcoming movie previews, “screening rooms devoted to Japanese animation,” awards ceremonies, costume contests and various screenings as well as an exhibition hall for movie studios, comic book dealers and so forth. There tends to be an undue emphasis on the cast of Twilight, regardless of whether or not a relevant Twilight film is happening any time soon. We’ve already shared with you the Glee revelations from Comic-Con, though honestly I don’t know why Glee was at Comic-Con.

Anyhow! Onto True Blood!

Kristin & Alexander at Comic-Con

At Comic-Con, the cast were given multiple opportunities to field questions and subsequently answer these questions, often on videotape. In addition to sharing selections from some of these interviews, I will also share with you an “extended trailer” for Season Four, which contains spoilers I suppose, and the cast’s “It Gets Better” videos. I will share the extended trailer right now, and the “It Gets Better” videos (which are a tad strange) at the end of the post.

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvvLacE7lcg’]

Firstly, you can watch the entire panel on YouTube, it’s in five sections.  Speaking of videos, Entertainment Weekly interviewed the cast of True Blood and Eric and Pam are super-cute.

But let’s get down to the heart of the matter, and by “heart” I mean “vadge.” Let’s start out with Michael Ausiello, Master of Spoilers, discussing Tara’s sexuality with Rutina Wesley in a videotaped interview (partially transcribed for you by me right now):

Michael Ausiello: Lesbian, bisexual, going through a phase?

Rutina: Going through a phase!? Lemme tell you what I think. This is what I think. My backstory is — this has not necessarily been talked about — I think it’s one of those things that just sort of happened. I think she maybe met her [Tara’s girlfriend], didn’t realize she was being hit on, next thing you knew, things happen and she was like “Hm. Interesting. I kinda liked that”… I think she wanted to spend more time with her and then that sorta led to a relationship. I really do think there’s a love there, and I really do think it is a relationship. I would say she’s bisexual, but I don’t think it’s a phase, because I think she really is into this woman. And I know people who like, there’s been one woman that they’ve been into and then, that’s it. But she’s definitely attracted to her but I don’t think she saw it coming, I think she kinda got sideswept.

Because I know a lot of people are like, I’ve never seen her like women, you know this is like all of a sudden and bla bla… I mean, yeah, [Tara] was sort of was taken for a ride and I think that that’s okay, and I ultimately like it because she’s happy and she’s smiling… it’s nice to see her happy and it’s nice to see her with someone who I think really likes her too for who she is.”

Michael Ausiello: How did Alan Ball explain to you that this was gonna be your storyline? Did he call you to say, “Guess what, you’re a lesbian on the show now?”

Rutina: “I had a lot of little birds tell me things very early on and I was like, fine whatever. I was totally fine with it I mean, I’m an actor. And it’s True Blood. We signed up for a show that was very racy and you have to expect stuff like that. We take off our clothes, we run around naked… we’re having orgies in the middle of the forest! I was a little like OKAY, but I also was like “Is she gonna be happy? Is she gonna be duct taped to a toilet? No? Okay, cool. Fine.”

At E! Online, some follow-up questions regarding my number-one desire for this program:

We loved one idea pitched at last weekend’s panel for the HBO hit: Hook up Pam and Tara, now that T’s ditched dudes for cage-fighting cuties and all.

In fact, we totally can’t believe we didn’t think of it first.

“Wouldn’t that be fun?” Kristin gushed when we asked if she approved of the pairing.

“I would love to work with [Rutina Wesley]. You never know what these guys are going to write. We hear all sorts of different things, and the cast, we cook up stuff we’d like to see, but it would be pretty interesting because they hate each other at the moment. So how these writers would ever manage that, I don’t know. But it’d be fun to see.”

Well if they managed to get Sookie to smooch on sexy (but sometimes über-evil) Eric Northman, we’re sure they could find a way for Pammy and Tara to hit the sack.

Well! That was fun. Now — I promised myself and my grandchildren that we’d never post another “It Gets Better” video on this website. But then Pam went and made an “It Gets Better” video. That being said… well, what do y’all think about these videos? Is it strange that “It Gets Better” videos don’t even mention being gay anymore?

Alan Ball:

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln0A_Tazk-w’]

Kristin Bauer:

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdGq0KukZfM’]

Alexander Skarsgard:

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faw-8iEpfUs’]

Rutina Wesley:

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzHKZlfYWg4′]

True Blood Episode 403: If You Love Me, Why Am I Dyin’?

Last night on True Blood, True Blood attempted to tell approximately 46 stories at once, and pulled it off with mixed results.

Tara, our brand new maybe-lesbian, is looking/feeling better than ever ’cause that’s what happens when you have sex with girls. At one point she tells Sam she’s seeing somebody and Lafayette mentions her girlfriend and that’s that as far as that’s concerned.

the post-scissoring glow in action

Marnie the Witch Lordess accidentally stole Eric’s entire memory so now he’s got no idea that he’s supposed to be a brooding/sarcastic bloodthirsty stone-cold vampire hulk champion. That’s unfortunate for Pam (and I’m assuming we’re all in agreement that Pam is the best character on the show, right?) but delightful for us ’cause now Eric is tender as a chicken strip. He’s got these little wide Jason Stackhouse eyeballs and a crush on/wants to feed on Sookie, who he politely asks “Are you mine? Would you like to be mine?” (She does not.)

Eric spends the first half of the episode without his shirt on and the second half in Jason’s sleeveless hoodie and basketball shorts, proving that one person other than Jason Stackhouse can pull off a sleeveless hoodie. You guys! ERIC IN A HOODIE! So adorable.

where did i get this douchey bed, sharper image?

I’m sure that all the witches probably add a vital element to this program and to Lafayette’s backstory and to Lafayette and Jesus‘s relationship, but some of them perhaps unfairly remind me of those girls from my middle school in the mid-90s who got super into “dream crystals” and pentacles and ritual candles because they liked The Craft. I need to get over this because I spent Marnie’s entire last-scene monologue yelling SNOOZE at the television. I suspect also a Wiccan is gonna yell at me in the comments and I apologize in advance, I respect your spirituality and it probably makes a lot more sense than mine. This girl is the one who annoys me the most:

ANYHOW! The witches are freaked out ’cause Marnie doesn’t know what happened to her and Eric will probably come kill and eat them all. Lafayette‘s like, “Do not fuck around with this, I will go beg his forgiveness right this minute or you’ll all be turned to ashes.” They ixnay that plan and talk about peaceful things like calling the police but Lafayette’s determined to take matters into his own hands.

Also, Lafayette’s outfits are getting more complicated/amazing. I’d really enjoy the Witchery more if it was just Jesus and Lafayette. CLEAR THE EXTRAS!

Bill finally has a job that fits his personality (king of the vampires) and there’s a cute scene in which he actually SMILES ’cause Jessica’s come to visit, seeking Advil and relationship advice. Should she tell Hoyt about sinking her fangs into another dude’s neck in the bathroom at Fangtasia? Bill says honesty is the best policy but Jessica changes her mind when Hoyt flips out and glamours him back to ignorance, which I hear is bliss.

Crystal raided the Walgreens Hair Care aisle and has found a place for every single butterfly clip in her hair and the end result is “crazy lady at the bus stop who’s not actually waiting for the bus.”

i have one hairclip for every little baby cub

Jason’s still strapped to the bed, which makes my fibro flare up just thinking about it, and is maybe a part-panther on his way to becoming Ghost Daddy. Ghost Daddy, apparently, is the guy who gets strapped to a mattress while his girlfriend rapes him and other women wait in the wings for their turn to get pregnant. It was really fucking disturbing and I don’t know what to make of it.

Meanwhile, Tommy‘s still living with Maxine Fortenberry (“The Angus and Natasha of True Blood” -my girlfriend), who might be sitting on some sort of valuable natural resource. Tommy wants to buy Maxine’s house and then sell the gas but Sam is like, “that plan is the plan of an asshole, get the fuck out of here.”

Tara threatens to shoot Pam with wooden bullets if she doesn’t let Lafayette out of the Dungeon of His Discontent. Jesus explains that they made this mess and therefore are most likely to clean it up.

Pam: “I will give you 24 hours to return that witch to me. And if you don’t I will personally eat, fuck and kill all three of you.”

and tara, i will take an extra long time fucking you

To be honest, I’ve never known how to feel about the gay rights/vampire rights parallel because vampires do actually eat/kill humans and also possess super-human powers. Granted, gay people corrupt public education, abuse children, destroy religion and wear unfortunate assless leather pants in flamboyant annual parades, but those things are still a far cry from “bloodsucking.”

Anyhow this week in Vampire Rights Movement the buzz issue is that activists are filming vampires doing evil things and putting them on YouTube so everyone’s gotta be well-behaved. Otherwise King Bill will have no choice but to take that giant stick out of his ass and impale you with it.

Also at the end Eric accidentally kills Sookie’s fairy godmother.

So what are your thoughts on this episode? Do you think Pam and Tara will ever ride the hobby horse together? Let’s talk in the comments!

So Now Lady Gaga’s Got a Tumblr and Jane Lynch Has a Twitter

LADY GAGA:

Not enough Gaga-related re-blogs attacking your online life? Well, Gaga has graduated from Twitter and moved on to the wonderful world of Tumblr, creating amenfashion.tumblr.com where she is now sharing candid photos and random, bizarre quotes with you. Amen Fashion was just created four days ago, so there aren’t too many posts, but here’s a sampling:

JANE LYNCH:

While the Lynch technically joined Twitter back in 2009 (she tweeted one time between June of ’09 and June of ’11) she is obviously being pushed by higher powers [Emmys + book publishing company] to put her 100,000 followers to use because she has some serious shit to promote. She mentions recording the audio book of her upcoming memoir, Happy Accidents, out September 13 and is Twitpic-ing up a storm from behind-the-scenes of various Emmy-related photoshoots.

THE VOICE:

By now you’ve probably heard that the lesbian quotient of The Voice finale sadly came in third and fourth place. However, total cutie Vicci Martinez says she intends to start working on an album within a week and that a deal is already in the works.

“I want it be over in two months. I don’t want to spend six months on it. We got a single out in a week so I think we’re OK.”

ANNA PAQUIN BISEXUAL:

Sookie is V Magazine’s July covergirl and discusses feeling like an outsider her whole life, despite being totes comfortable with her bisexuality (I finally get why she’s naked and fucking every episode!) However, she knows there’s an awful lot of negative feelings towards bisexuals and that’s something she’s hoping to change:

“Frankly no one had ever asked me before … There is a lot of prejudice against us but the more people talk about it, the less of a deal it will be. Who people choose to sleep with – or spend their lives with – shouldn’t matter, not that anyone particularly cares who I’m attracted to.”

HOMOGAY ADVERTISING:

In honor of gay pride month, Adweek has compiled the “50 Gayest Ads Ever,” streaming ads from all over the world by companies including MTV, Sony, Ikea and every beer company imaginable. Here’s one that caught my attention in particular, from the UK-based Silverjet:

True Blood’s Tara: Now a Lesbian Cage Fighter

Is Tara a lesbian? Who the hell knows, maybe she’s bi or straight or an alligator or a spaceship or a wizard (you never know with True Blood), but it’s a hyperbolic weekend.

via black-celebration.net

If this “what the hell let’s make her a lesbian during a season other than sweeps” thing is a trend — and I refuse to declare it so because it’s such a ridiculously obvious thing to say — then I salute this trend. I mean ultimately there are only so many stories to tell and we’ve told a lot of stories throughout the course of human civilization but we haven’t told very many gay stories. So now’s the time! Everyone gather your Lesbian Trope Rosebuds while ye may!

see? i told you

Tonight’s True Blood premiere began with Sookie returning to The Fresh Hell of Her Life on Earth after being gone for what felt like 15 minutes in Fairy/Goblin Starlight World but was actually a bit over a year in human time.

A lot of things have happened in the meantime, including some apparent sexual attention between Jessica and Pam. Jessica’s like, engorged with some kind of pent up anger or sexual frustration and lust or hunger and Pam’s cool as a cucumber, rigid as a rail, ready to snap Jessica right open. Or maybe we’re just projecting.

Most importantly TARA IS A LESBIAN CAGE-FIGHTER.

lesbian oil wrestling, here i come

Tara goes by the name “Toni,” a name most likely inspired by the fantastic hip-hop group “Tony! Toni! Toné!” She’s told her girlfriend she’s from Atlanta, and passes off Lafayette’s “Sookie’s back” text as a text about her grandfather dying. Tara doesn’t have a grandfather. She says she doesn’t have to go back for the funeral and then she sorta smiles a little, knowing Sookie is back.

sunlight taken from the set of "lost and delirious," the worst movie ever

When Jason tells Sookie having her back is the greatest feeling he’s ever had in his life, you imagine for a second what that would be like — the return of someone you thought was dead — and I mean, that’s something. That’s a big feeling. So what will everyone do now.

But what’s going on with Tara’s sexuality? She’s young, it’s not weird that it’d take her some time to figure it out, if that’s what this is. Or maybe there’s never been an opportunity before that seemed to make sense, what with the rest of the shit out there.

It’s clear that after Sookie disappeared, Tara just couldn’t stand to lose one more g-ddamn thing and thought maybe starting over would be the best thing to do. Is her sexuality gonna be a transformation, or will it be blamed on the sexual and physical assault she endured for a good chunk of last season? (I hope not.) Or is it just an identity she’s adopting, sexuality and all? Or… is Tara actually in an alternate dimension or under a witch’s spell or inhabiting the body of another hot lesbian or on the holadeck?

Well, creator Alan Ball told The Hollywood Reporter:

“We felt like it was time for Tara to stop being the victim. It was time for Tara to really take charge of her life in a way that would be surprising and would give us some fun places to go story-wise. We thought, ‘If somebody has been through something like that, maybe they would be prompted to create a whole new life and identity.’ And why not?”

Rutina Wesley was surprised at first but agrees with Ball’s assessment:

“After I thought about it, I was like I can see that. She’s got some new skin so to speak and she’s living life to its fullest and I think that’s a beautiful thing honestly to see a person go through that sort of change. Without putting any labels to it, she sort of fallen in love and that’s OK, you know. I just think that’s amazing.”

Executive producer Alexander Woo:

“Was she always curious? Did she always have sexual interest in men and women? I think we figured that we certainly were careful not to suggest that her life and the course of her life drew her into a relationship with another woman. But I think what Tara does at the beginning of this year is that she sees an opportunity to start completely fresh, start completely new and not being tied down with all these patterns that created so much suffering.”

If you have HBO Go, you can watch the second episode now.

True Blood Characters Who Still Haven’t Had Sex (and Why They Should)

by Meredith Woerner

How in Fern Gully porno heaven will True Blood top last year’s neck-snapping sex sessions and vampire TV broadcasts? By mixing up the sextation on this show. It’s time for Andy Bellefleur to get his! But with whom?
Here’s our list of hookups we’re hoping take place in the new fourth season. Your move, True Blood.

Andy Bellefleur and Nan Flanagan

At first, I was tempted to wish for a sordid past between Andy and Hoyt Fortenberry’s Mama, Maxine. Thus planting the seeds of a potential Andy and Hoyt father-and-son, on-the-road episode (perhaps Maxine could blurt out the truth while juiced up by the dirt sex goblin?). But I just couldn’t do that to Andy — he deserves better. And even though Maxine and I can both get down in a muumuu to Claudine Clark’s “Party Lights,” she’s still a horrible lump of flesh and a rotten excuse for a human being.

Andy needs someone stronger, someone dangerous, someone who’s able to lift him up and physically twirl about his farmer’s-tanned limbs mid-coitus. Someone like Nan Flanigan. Bad ass vampire representative, with a mean shade of lipstick and a bitchy haircut. Sure, Nan may not be that into human men (last time we checked in her limo). But this no-nonsense missus could really turn around our beer-bellied law dog from Bon Temps. Andy needs someone with a little structure, who’s slightly scary (so he’ll actually listen to her). We’re tired of sad sack Andy. Nan, it’s time to cover Andy with your healing blood and vampiric lady-bits. For the good of the show.

Sookie Stackhouse and Alcide Herveaux

Two great tastes that taste great together? Perhaps. Look we all know this is bound to happen. And if Sookie doesn’t get on this soon it could be minutes until we see sneak a peek at Alcide’s muscled man-hiney. Also, if she’s sleeping with Alcide, this means she’s not sleeping with Eric. That’s a win for both my personal fantasy fodder and my rapidly depleting store of Sookie tolerance.

Steve Newlin and Jason Stackhouse

There is a real, carnal attraction here — whether it’s Jason looking for the role model he never had, or the Reverend searching for solace in the arms of the man he’ll never be. The second season was smothered in Steve and Jason’s sexual tension. This year, it’s time for the disgraced Reverend from the Fellowship of the Sun to step into the light of man-on-man sex.

Sophie-Anne Leclerq And Tara Thornton

Perhaps the only way we can save the two most despised characters of the True Blood ‘verse is to get them in bed together? They’re both at seemingly critical lows in their character’s journey. One is a broke, disgraced Queen. The other was kidnapped by a psychopathic vampire, and raped for most of last season (a bit of information that no other character on the show really seemed to care about). Maybe these two could kind find some sort of peace in between the sheets — or just Thelma and Louise themselves? (That’s a great idea as well.)

Barry Horowitz and Ginger

The vampires bellboy/fairy and the skin and bones vampire barback. Ginger and Barry are both such pathetic creatures, they almost deserve one another, don’t they? There’s no doubt that both could benefit from the deep, soft kisses that come from a life time of being the neglected one. But, then again, Barry could also be a delightful, if not slightly more neurotic, replacement for Russell Edgington’s consort Talbot. Still, I think someone needs to spend some serious time stroking both of these shivering, caricatures, reassuring them everything will be OK. Naked or not, that’s all just an HBO plus at this junction isn’t it? (Assuming Russell gets out of his cement prison).

Debbie Pelt and Pam

Coot got Old Yeller-ed. And Yvetta is Fangtasia’s day-old trash. So who will these two turn to for comfort in season four? What about each other? I’m not entirely sure Debbie’s mannerisms would attract Pam from the get-go, but this aged vampire seems to attract strays. This could be a mutually beneficial relationship for both — Debbie will need protection from those looking for revenge on Russell’s lackies, and Pam needs someone to keep her young.

Also on the table (for Pam specifically): Hoyt Fortenberry. Hear me out. I DO NOT think that Jessica and Hoyt should break up. I’m one bad decision away from tattooing this fake couple’s initials in a heart on my behind, that’s how much I love these two. HOWEVER. How great would a “this is how you have sex with a vampire” session between Pam and Hoyt be? Especially if Hoyt gets offended and turns out to be a lanky, yet respectable) demon in the sack? I can see it now: “Excuse me Pam, but I think I’ll take it from here.” (Cue the fast flippy-sex athletics.)

Eric Northman And Bill Compton

This has been a long time coming. Now’s the chance for Bill and Eric to get their sexual frustration towards each other out, and onto the small screen. It doesn’t even have to be pretty — it just has to happen. Although we would delight in a little Compton courting. Flowers, hand-holding, aggressive commands half-shouted in a terrible Southern accent. “Why Eric, I do believe your black heart has chained itself to my lonely soul. Let us retire in each others arms and borough in our pink flesh until the wee hours of daylight.” Huzzah!

Originally published on Io9. Republished WITH PERMISSION MOTHERF*CKERS.

Summer 2011 TV Preview: Five Shows These Homos Will Be Watching

Ah, the sweet sounds and sights of summer television! There’s nothing like curling up next to your air conditioner, flipping on the teevee and basking in the rays of entertainment emanating from your evil box.

This summer is looking especially promising, and I’m not just saying that because I’ve spent the last three weeks watching the first three seasons of True Blood, fully had a dream about Eric last night and cannot wait one more minute for this to happen. Though I’m worried about DVD Withdrawal, which is a condition brought on when, following an episode of a TV program, the patient is not able to immediately view the next episode of the TV program via DVD. This most often occurs when the patient is attempting to watch the program as it airs rather than several years after the airing.

Anyhow! What’s worth watching this season, lesbos? This post was delayed by my discovery and subsequent dismay that Extreme Couponing will not return with new episodes until the fall. Let’s discuss! You’re going to have a lot of tough decisions to make because everything is on Sunday nights. All of the things.

1. True Blood

HBO, Sunday June 26 at 9 p.m.

HBO’s 12-episode season Four of True Blood  is mere WEEKS away and the whole primary cast is coming back for more bloodsucking and more brooding emotional vampire-men and more Pam. Alan Ball and the cast reported at Paleyfest that Eric will return with no memory of the last 1,000 years and Sookie, having broken up with Bill, will consider “multiple suitors.”

Other returning cast members include werewolf Alcide, Lafayette’s new boyfriend Jesus, Holly the new Merlotts waitress, Crystal the Animal Person Jason likes, Sophie-Anne the Vampire Queen of Louisiana (played by Evan Rachel Wood bisexual) and — why God, why?!! — Marshall Allman as Sam’s brother Tommy Mickens. Did anyone else find that storyline entertaining or give two shits what happened to Tommy? Me neither.

And guess who’s joining the cast?

PAPI! Janina Gavankar will play Luna, a shape-shifter who “catches Sam’s eye” and I really hope, for his godforsaken sake, that she doesn’t turn out to secretly be like, the Wolf Mother disguised as a lapdog.

Also joining the show is Fiona Shaw, who’s been in a lot of Harry Potter movies, as Marnie, “a witch whose agenda threatens the vampire establishment.”

Here’s some sneak peeks of Sookie prancing about in Glow-Fairy-Land with the guy who played Mr. Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel, which were fantastic films.

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2. Pretty Little Liars

ABC Family, Tuesday June 14 at 9 p.m.

There’s one part of me that is so excited for the return of Pretty Little Liars and Emily the Lesbian. There’s another part of me that can’t imagine having to write two TV recaps a week for the rest of the month. When you combine both of those parts, we still don’t know who A. is or if whatserface is ever coming back from Gay Rehab camp.

Shay Mitchell told TV Guide Magazine that Emily will have “multiple new love interests” and Troian Bellisario told TV Guide Magazine that her relationship with Toby will “deepen.” I think that means Emily’s not moving to Texas and that she’s like, the flyest lesbian in town upon whom all the ladies wanna go down. See that? I rhymed. Good huh?

Other promises include that we’ll pick up right where we left off, immediately figure out what happened to Ian, and have lots more flashbacks.

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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…

True Blood Ends Underwhelmingly, Glee Begins Showmantically, Hot Girls Outlast the VMAs

Greetings, squirrel friends! The fall television season is upon us! This week marks the much-anticipated return of Glee, as well as a very interesting VMAs and the end of a totally bizarre season of True Blood. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. First, the news!

First, Patrick Swayze died last night, and that makes me really, really sad. NO ONE PUTS BABY IN A CORNER. Second, everyone went crazy. Third, EW’s Michael Ausiello has a post-mortem chat with True Blood creator Alan Ball. And fourth, Television Without Pity finally announced the winners of their Tubey Awards!

Also, in case you haven’t seen it yet, Auto-Fave Kathy Griffin mocked Kate Gosselin awesomely on Jimmy Kimmel Live:

And now, onto the awards!

Jump To:
Glee, by Carlytron
True Blood, by Laneia
Intervention, by Tinkerbell
MTV Music Video Awards, by A;ex
Top Chef, by Laneia
America’s Best Dance Crew, by Intern Vashti
Hot Girls of the Week
(more…)