How could you look at that face and not go gay? (courtesy mtv)

There’ve been gay characters and situations on TV since before I was born, but my first “wow, this is real and I am loving it” crush on a gay TV personality was on Danny Roberts from MTV’s first New Orleans edition of The Real World.  As I sit down to write my final article for TNG, I can’t think of a better way to wrap things up than to muse on where it all started.

I was a junior in high school and my family didn’t have cable, so in order to watch Real World I’d hang out with my friend Liz.  Liz and her friends were all Mormons, and Liz and I thought we were into each other.  We gave it our best shot, but really we didn’t stand a chance.  Plenty of gay guys had sex with girls in high school, but I doubt many of them did while hanging out with Mormons and watching a TV show featuring adorable, openly gay, too-good-to-be true Southern hunk Danny Roberts.

It took a few more years for me to fully admit my thing for Danny to myself, and then to tell others.  There were plenty of signs along the way.  But Danny really made things pretty plain.

Ever wonder what the rest of these guys are up to? No, me neither (courtesy wikimedia commons)

That’s one of the huge reasons that I love TV so much.  It’s how we tell stories about ourselves, and it’s how we try on other lives to see if they fit.  We’re lucky – we live in a time when there are so many stories being told every day about how we can lead happy and healthy lives with honesty.  If that means we’ve got to put up with season 2 of Bachelor Pad, well, it’s probably worth it.

So thank you to the Dannys of the world, both in front and behind the camera, who have truly made life just a little bit easier for all of us gays watching at home.

And if, like me, you’re frankly more fascinated by one specific Danny in front of the camera, then you’re probably just as psyched about the new about him that hit a couple months ago – Danny Roberts is filming an as-of-yet untitled project right now, and there are leaked shower make-out pics.  We may not be around to share with you whatever this turns into, but it’s not too hard to imagine what my coverage of the show would be like: “Danny hot. Writing bad. Over it.”

It’s been a real pleasure counting myself as a TNGer this past year.  Thanks to the fantastic group of dedicated people who made this blog a great place to share.  More importantly, thanks to you!  It’s humbling to think that so many smart people took the time to read what I wrote.  If you want to stay in touch, feel free to drop me a line on Twitter (@TopherBurns).

I hope you had some fun, because I sure did.  Bye for now!

PS – Did you know that Danny schilled for a gay soft core video series called Boy’s Briefs? Yowza!

Fierce lesbians doing what they do best - experiencing orgasms on a magnitude most humans are not even physically capable of imagining (courtesy wikimedia commons)

I assumed that up to now we homosexuals weren’t featured because we don’t need any help having mind-meltingly amazing orgasms.  As we all know, it’s perhaps the only stereotype about us that’s 100% founded in fact – gay people are uninhibited sexually-perfect hedonist love gods who need no help keeping things spicy.

Much to my dismay, K-Y has taken a slanderous stance with their new commercial featuring a lesbian couple – foully insinuating that a homosexual couple might actually need outside help in order to bring each other to mutual and multiple waves of soul-shattering sexual ecstasy.

Ok, so I’m not actually offended.  I’m always pleased to see gay couples represented in the media.  And sexual health for gays so often ends up being about AIDS; while a worthy subject for discussion, certainly, it’s nice to see discussion around the broader category of sexual well-being for LGBT people.  I think gays too often buy in to their own positive stereotype, expecting amazing sex all the time with everyone.

As these ladies prove, sometimes we gays like to bring the sexy back, and shouldn’t be afraid to look for a little help to do it!

I hear ya, buddy. She is the worst. (courtesy sharetv.com)

In a way that’s good (always great to get fresh voices and a new perspective), but in a way that’s bad, because before chick laughs were hot, only good chick laughs made it on the air.  Liz Lemon’s been slaying for five seasons, may she ever grace our airwaves and Netflix queues!  SNL has consistently featured a strong female cast in our time.  The Golden Girls are still widely revered.  Chelsea Handler’s crass self-deprecation is a delicate work of art.  Now everyone wants a piece of the estrogen joke pie, and they’re not too choosy about where they get it.  Enter Whitney Cummings.

Exhibit A, if you will please: a teaser for NBC’s Whitney. This is the laziest, most hackneyed set of dusty lame-ass “you know what’s crazy about women?” pseudo-observations that I have ever experienced.  My grandpa has fresher material, and he still calls Asian people “Orientals.”

Ugh.  Clearly Whitney has skated by in life by being trashy-hot and loudly saying bad things about herself that she tries to pass off as the truth about women.  Sorry, Whitney, not all women are emotionally manipulative and proud of it – that sounds like a you thing.  Frankly, this crap goes way beyond misogyny into sociopathy, because the much bigger crime here is being committed against humankind in general.  This “I’ll tell you the truth about women” thing has been done to death by far greater comics than Whitney Cummings.  Being offensive in comedy is often forgivable, but being boring and behind the times is an unpardonable transgression.

I’m pretty sure we’ll get some satisfyingly savage reviews of Whitney – the laugh-track alone has critics smelling blood in the water – but Whitney might actually net out ok on the heels of her OTHER upcoming chick-com 2 Broke Girls.  It features Kat Dennings (Norah, from Nick and Norah’s Infinite Sucksville) whose talents I hold in very low regard.  But Kat’s not afraid to talk about her period so the show might do ok.  You know what women are like, always shopping and blah blahing about their periods.  They’ll love that shit.

If listless stereotypes about women are your idea of a good time, Whitney premieres on NBC at 9:30/8:30c on Thursday, September 22^nd.

Reality television.

When MTV’s  The Real World began its edited broadcast of 7 strangers residing together in a house in 1992, it was clear that their actions would leave the world of televised entertainment changed forever.  The intimacy, the honesty and the grit were impossible to recreate in small screen fiction, and the viewer addiction was dangerous.

Fast forward 20 years and it’s impossible to click through even a few television channels without landing on a reality show. In fact, the variety has increased to a level where we don’t even think of the shows as being of the “reality” genre – they are just TV now. There are still “sharing a house on camera ” shows like The Real World and Big Brother,  but there are also “get help” shows like Intervention and Hoarders, “warning/encouraging bad behavior” shows like 16 And Pregnant,  as well as animal shows, wedding shows, buying/selling house shows, survival shows and plastic surgery shows. There are even shows with no detectable premise (Keeping up with the Kardashians).The list is endless. Today, it could be said that getting your own reality show is one form of Making It in America.  And if that’s true, maybe this trend has brought one gift to the gay community – a slow yet steady increase in visibility.  Gay reality stars have been making a serious impact on visibility of LGBTQ issues, and maybe even acceptance as they stream into American households every night.

The beginning of this impact can be traced to The Real World’s third season castmate Pedro Zamora. The openly gay and HIV positive Zamora brought LGBTQ issues and AIDS awareness into millions of American homes in the early 90s, a time when we were still not talking about openly about homosexuality and certainly not AIDS.  Diagnosed HIV positive when he was only 17, he auditioned for the cast of the show intentionally to spread more information about AIDS awareness. Zamora passed away from HIV related illness just days after the final episode of the season was broadcast. He was 22.

Unfortunately, not all LGBT representatives can be as admirable as Zamora. Sometimes reality shows reinforce negative stereotypes, like Patti Stanger’s attempt to pair up a gay millionaire on Bravo’s Millionaire Matchmaker (read AfterElton’s POV and AfterEllen’s POV on this episode) or LOGO’s The A-List which features a cast of selected stereotypes of gay men, and, as the Washington Post commented in 2010, doesn’t make a great social study but feels more like depressing voyeurism.

More often in recent years, a reality show might feature participants who just happen to be gay, thereby helping to normalize homosexuality. On TLC’s Baby’s First Day a lesbian couple is featured celebrating the birth of their child.  Gay couples get married on wedding shows or buy houses on house hunting shows. (Look honey! Those gays like bamboo flooring, just like us!”)

We have a revolving door of gay competitors on shows like Project Runway, Top Chef, America’s Next Top Model, The Amazing Race, and even a few on American Idol. These shows do a lot to normalize LGBTQ folks. Their sexual orientation comes second to their design ideas, knife skills, vocal talent or travel smarts. Americans root for them for these talents, and maybe sometimes forget that they aren’t hetero. They aren’t gay chefs or gay models – just chefs and models.

We still don’t have a same-sex couple on the US version of Dancing with the Stars (they do in Israel), which is broadcast into 10 millions homes a week, but the cast might be ready for it.

The popularity of reality TV shows might be a result of a lack of creativity of TV execs, our own creepy desire to peer into someone else’s lives, or our desperate wish to feel better about ourselves by focusing other batty people, but they might also be a subversive tactic in the LGBTQ fight for normalcy.

What are the best and worst representations you have seen of LGBTQ folks on reality TV?

courtesy wikimedia commons

It’s been a while since TNG anointed its last New Gay Sex Symbol, so we wanted to really take things to the next level.  Sure, guys are hot and all, but you know what’s hotter?  Dogs.  Being attracted to human males just isn’t cutting it these days – it’s so DONE, ya know?  And one pooch in particular has really got us howling: Wilfred.

You might have caught an episode or two of his eponymous show Wilfred on FX (if you haven’t, scamper on over to hulu where you’ll find the whole season streaming).  He and Elijah Woods have great on-screen chemistry in this charming American version of an Australian hit comedy.  Fortunately for us, when the show migrated from down under they brought the dog with it.

Here are the reasons why we’re hoping to cross the final frontier, and make Wilfred into man’s best friend with benefits:

1) They don’t call it doggy style for nothing, amiright?!  This puppy knows how to treat a bear.

2) Conservative crackpots like our own dear Ruben Diaz equate homosexuality with bestiality – isn’t it time we reached across the aisle in a gesture of fellowship and understanding and proved them right?

3) Wilfred’s already totally down with the swerve. When giving advice on how to settle a dispute, he urges Elijah to “march over there, look him straight in the eye, and tell him I’m the man who shat in your boot.  Then bend him over and root him right up the ass.”  A dubious Elijah asks Wilfred if he’s done that before, to which he replies “every goddamn day.”  I hear that!

4) The show’s American producer David Zuckerman describes Wilfred as “part Labrador Retriever and part Russel Crowe on a bender.”  It’s like he’s reading my dream journal!

5) I don’t care what species you are, if you’re from Australia you’re automatically sexy.

Sometimes the little fella can get a tad preachy, and he seems to have a deep compulsion for manipulating those around him, but that’s no worse than your last boyfriend, right?  And unlike that loser, Wilfred actually gets excited when you bring out the leash.

That’s right world, FX has got us in the mood to give a dog a bone, and we’re not afraid to bark about it!  Tell Elijah he can feel free to drop Wilfred off at our house for a long weekend any time – we’ve got some new tricks to teach him.

Documentary film director and noted glamorhound Morgan Spurlock strikes a pose (courtesy Current)

Need a reason other than Smuggy Smuggersons (the ever-lovely Keith Olbermann) to watch Current TV?  Here’s one that’s the exact opposite of an obnoxious white guy in a suit: Paris Is Burning.  To borrow a ballroom phrase, this documentary IS EVERYTHING.  Morgan Spurlock must agree, because he’s listed the film as one of his picks in the Current TV show 50 Documentaries To See Before You Die.  It’s good that they didn’t ask me to do the show, because it’d be a much shorter list, but Paris Is Burning would be my #1!

Spurlocks’ 50 Documentaries kicked on Current earlier this month, and lands on numbers 20-11 tonight.  Paris Is Burning shares the episode with films like Bowling For Columbine and Food Inc, but there can only be one queen of the hour and we all know which documentary is claiming that crown.  As guest commentator Santino Rice sagely notes in the episode: “If you’re gay and you haven’t seen Paris is Burning, your pass is revoked.”  Quick side note: if Santino is not in season 4 of Ru Paul’s Drag Race, I am going throw dishes!

But Santino’s right.  The first time I saw Paris Is Burning I had already worked for two years as a host at Perry’s Sunday drag brunch in DC.  I’d already seen two seasons of Ru Paul’s Drag Race!  And all these small gestures, attitudes, and slang terms that I associated with drag culture or even gay culture at large just leapt out at me.  I felt like I had walked into a room of people laughing years ago, and someone just now told me the joke that I missed.  More importantly, Paris Is Burning in a small way helped me feel more connected to gay culture and our hard-won history.

(courtesy wikimedia commons)

The documentary, directed by Jennie Livingston, centers around the drag ballroom scene of the mid- to late-1980’s in Harlem.  The balls were a place for homosexuals, transsexuals, transvestites, and queer culture in general to live proudly and loudly; each ball consisted of individuals “walking” in runway competitions ranging from vogue-offs to executive realness.  Voguing was invented here, later inspiring Madonna to do her thing.  Beneath this celebration, though, the film explored the broader context of the lives of the people who went to these balls, which in some cases were tinged with poverty, homophobia, racism, and AIDS.

So, is it fair for me to claim the culture portrayed in the movie?  A lot of the struggles captured in the documentary are far removed from my own life experience.  What really strikes home for me, though, besides the sobering realization of how fortunate I am not only as a person but as a gay man to have come from where I come from, is the sense of pride and joy.  In the face of lives that might from the outside look bleak or at least extremely challenging, the people in Paris Is Burning find a way to celebrate and express themselves, unbroken.

In 50 Documentaries To See Before You Die Morgan Spurlock goes to Pittsburgh to investigate the ballroom scene.  Think Spurlock’s got what it takes to strike a pose worthy of joining the legendary House of LaBeija?  I don’t either, but it should still be worth seeing.

You can catch a quick clip of the episode here:

The episode of 50 Documentaries To See Before You Die featuring Paris Is Burning airs tonight (Tuesday, August 23^rd) at 9pm ET

It is not at all clear what Bert and Ernie’s ages are supposed to be. The fact that they share an apartment without adult supervision says nothing on this score given that Big Bird, who is eternally 6 years old, lives alone in his nest and is cared for by the community. The monster characters all seem to be at some stage of what we understand as childhood, with the adult (and sometimes child) human characters explaining the basics of emotions and numbers and relational concepts to them for the benefit of viewers. Bert and Ernie, however, are not monsters. They look as though they were designed as representative of human characters, and therefore we may feel more of a need to investigate and understand the truth of their narrative in human terms than we do of absurd characters like a green furry grouch living in a garbage can or a red furry monster with a speech delay.

The question for me, however, is not whether Ernie and Bert are a gay couple. I will admit that years ago I wrote a short story about the two puppets as actors on the show with their own off-camera life as a couple, talking about how they wished they could be “out” on Sesame Street… however, it was not an expression of my desire for them to reveal any such truth on the show. I wrote it after reading a news story similar to the ones generated by the petitions to have the characters marry now that gay marriage has been legalized in our state. An independent film had been shown at a festival in which it was satirically suggested that Ernie and Bert were gay. Then, as now, it was not the suggestion itself, but rather to The Children’s Television Workshop’s response to the suggestion that had got me riled.

Back then, CTW’s response was much more hostile in its defensiveness. This time it seems they’ve taken a more diplomatic tone, but the reaction still strikes my ears as laced with a certain sense of dismissal if not disgust, the brushing off of a patently absurd idea. The attitude that I perceive is echoed by responses from the public: How could anyone suggest that these characters might be gay? Why would we introduce this subject to a children’s show? Why must these innocent best friends be sexualized? Why should sexuality come up at all in a children’s show? Don’t our kids grow up too fast already?

These questions belie the very societal prejudice that they seem so fastidiously to avoid stating explicitly. “There’s nothing wrong with being gay but…” doesn’t remove the inherent homophobia implicit in the rejection of the “preposterous” suggestion that Bert and Ernie could be gay. The fact is, sexuality is, and always has been, a central theme of Sesame Street. We don’t see it as such of course, because we don’t think of Gordon and Susan’s marriage, Maria and Luis’s engagement and marriage, Bob’s relationship with Linda, Maria’s pregnancy and the birth of Gabby, or the adoption of Susan and Gordon’s son Miles, as having to do with sexuality… these events are about relationships and families, about love and attachment, things that children experience and process in their daily lives. But a gay relationship? That is seen as just sex, and something that children need not be exposed to.

I don’t need Ernie and Bert to be gay. I think it is a good thing that they are two best friends living together as roommates, teaching kids about compare and contrast, about agreeing and disagreeing, about friendship despite, or in light of, differences between people. I think that non-sexual, platonic, close friendship is something that needs to be depicted in the world of Sesame Street and I think that Ernie and Bert are the perfect vehicle for the lessons of friendship.

What bothers me, is that Sesame Street has always been openly about diversity, about relating to people different from you. The fact that the central families on the show are African-American and Hispanic is not a coincidence. There was a reason that American Sign Language and Spanish were emphasized. Jim Henson’s vision for Sesame Street was that it should both reflect the child’s life, and broaden her horizons, teaching her not only tolerance, but acceptance, and appreciation for differences between people, and recognizing at the same time the things that make us all the same. That is precisely what Bert and Ernie have taught us all since we were children.

Instead of getting up-in-arms about the suggestion that Bert and Ernie come out of a closet that they may or may not be occupying, perhaps we should all take a step back and realize that this is not about the orange and yellow, short and tall, messy and neat, type b and type a best friends who live in the basement apartment of 123 Sesame Street, and their sexual orientation. This is about a reality of our children’s lives that they are not seeing reflected in the show that helped us all understand and process lifecycle events and emotional truths and the variety of humanity. All of the families on Sesame Street are heteronormative. Why can’t we let those of our children with two mommies or two daddies see their lives normalized? After all, aren’t LGBTQ folks the people in your neighborhood… the people that you meet each day?

Bravo would have you believe this is the best Dallas has to offer (courtesy Bravo TV)

Bravo’s Most Eligible Dallas premiers this evening at 10/9c, and I’d strongly advise you to make other plans. The show centers around six single people whom the network describes as “the brightest lone stars in the state.” While I would agree that they’re fundamentally lonely souls, I doubt anyone else in their lives has ever referred to these cast members as bright, much less stars. Even the fact that they are in Texas seems dubious.

I was born in Lubbock, TX, and more than half of my extended family calls the state home. Certainly this still leaves me with plenty to learn about not messing with Texas, but I feel fairly confident saying that the show does not represent its home state with anything but lip service. The girls make much mention of “big hair” (one even trotting out a carefully un-branded can of hair spray that in all aspects reminds of a prop for a high school play) but then when they hit the club all the gals wear ponytails and limp Farah-style waves. The men talk about how proud they are to be Texas men, and then mince around putting on hair gel and trying on Urban Outfitter knock-off felt fedoras. I get more Texas flavor from the BBQ wings at my favorite Korean fried chicken joint in midtown off Park Avenue.

Watching Most Eligible Dallas is like sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office next to a middle-aged woman who has just farted. If all the aspects of the situation were different then perhaps it would be a funny story to tell, but instead it’s boring and it’s stinky and just painfully average, and you know it’s going to last for WAY longer than your patience will.

As with every other mediocre piece of reality television out there, the show is about a group of “friends” who clearly never knew each other previous to taping the show. I write about, and watch, a pretty hefty amount of abominable reality television, and this producer’s trick is by far the most insulting to me. Whipping high-strung over-medicated drama queens into a frenzy with imagined slights, pouring boatloads of booze on the situation, and then locking them in a room together – fine. I get that, and I understand the appeal. But I have absolutely no patience for producers telling me that I’m watching a group of “friends” interact with each other when the icy awkwardness and feigned “hey girl hey” kisses are just so brazen. I DON’T NEED THEM TO BE FRIENDS – IT’S OK IF YOU WRITE A SHOW ABOUT PEOPLE WHO DON’T ALL KNOW EACH OTHER.

The only genuinely “Texas” thing about Most Eligible Dallas is the presumptive “your business is my business” sanctimoniousness of its female leads. That seems to come through just fine. Instead of watching other shows where catty bitches argue over who’s prettier or more popular, you can watch catty bitches argue of whether someone is a good mother.

Drew Ginsburg (courtesy Bravo TV)

Oh, and there’s a gay guy. His portions of the premiere episode made me feel uneasy, and sort of sad. The gentleman’s name is Drew, and not only is he clearly not comfortable being gay, but he’s not comfortable in his own skin. He used to be four hundred pounds, and after a gastric bypass, tummy tuck, and chest reduction he still injects himself with hormones normally found in the body of pregnant women in order to fuel weight loss. He lives alone in a giant apartment he’s careful to remind you is one of the most expensive in Dallas. He orders room service chicken caesar salads with a plate of fries (“for the dog!”).

Drew’s family made their money selling luxury cars, and he tries his best to live up to the attitude he thinks should accompany his station in life. In his breathy, shifty-eyed, fat-kid-picked-last-in-gym-class voice, he informs the camera: “You wanna talk carbon fiber, you wanna talk horsepower, you wanna talk direct fuel injection, then I’m your guy. You wanna talk Armani, you wanna talk Versace, you wanna talk the arts, go find another queer.” It’s sort of surprising, but Drew really steps on the q-bomb. In others mouths that sound byte might come off confident and self-assured, but when Drew says “queer” it just sounds like he’s mimicking awful things others have said about him to his face. It sounds like parroted hate-speech.

But don’t worry, Most Eligible Dallas is far too empty to even threaten to be homophobic, or to take a stance of any kind. Drew’s lot in life, like the other wealthy zombies the producers cobbled together into a cast for the show, seems hollow and lame but he’s rich so whatever. Like a warm wispy flatulence, after the episode ends it quickly dissipates in your mind, drifting out of memory as just another unpleasant thing that happened to you. It was unwelcome, but it didn’t ruin your day.

Premieres tonight, August 15th at 10/9c on Bravo

Submission by Patrick Hamilton

I’m Gay, and I love puppets. I especially love the Muppets. On my yet-to-be completed web site, I cite the late great Jim Henson as one of the people who inspires me, for his ability to harness the incredible power of humor to educate, with childlike sweetness and grown-up wit. He was one of those people whose never-ending imagination kindled my own before I even realized how or why. He and his team created worlds as rich and consistent as Rowling’s Hogwarts, without Imax, 3-D or CGI.

My love of the Muppets, of Henson, and yes, even of Bert and Ernie, started on the same street where so many discovered them: Sesame Street. As a kid, it was a daily highlight, one part silly, one part lesson, whether I knew it or not. Even my TV-hating Dad could not disapprove.

Sesame Street was a place where people had familiar traits but without anything sinister, evil, or unhappy. The Count was no Team Edward member. And while there were plenty of monsters, none ever lived under the bed.

It never talked down to kids, and the lessons were clear, sweet and innocent. Learn your numbers, learn your letters, get to know your neighbors (even the grumpy ones), don’t make fun of someone’s imaginary friend, treat animals with respect. It was also the first place I saw kids of different color, from around the world, and the first place this Miami suburbanite learned words like “stoop” and “stickball” and “hydrant.”

At the time, my two most prized possessions were life-size Bert and Ernie hand puppets. And while I did indeed spend an inordinate amount of time with my G.I. Joe out of uniform, (out of curiosity and some funny tingling I couldn’t quite understand or explain), I never made Bert and Ernie kiss, hold hands, or do anything other than do what I saw them do on TV… bicker in the way longtime friends, yes, perhaps even couples do. As a true GIT (Gay In Training), I even had them lipsynch to their 45 records, and the three of us did a mean rendition of “Rubber Duckie” and “The People in Your Neighborhood.” Snap.

But the world of Bert, Ernie, Big Bird and Cookie Monster (even of Bob and Maria) was never saccharine, patronizing or naïve. Oscar lived in a garbage pail. Big Bird forgot things. Grover lost his temper (and taught us all how silly it really is to do so). Bert and Ernie debated why a mashed-up banana with ice cubes and gravy was a poor substitute for a banana split, in one of the first games of compare and contrast I remember.

So you’d think I’d be a natural candidate to endorse the current petition rage to get longtime companions Bert and Ernie to tie the knot, in the wake of New York’s passage of Marriage Equality. But, dear neighbors, you’d be wrong.

A few things, first. I trust Sesame Street, IMPLICITLY, if they chose to, to Out Bert and Ernie. They would know how to do it with grace and clarity, the same sweet way Grover explains marriage or “near and far.” The issue would be woven easily and seamlessly into life on the Street. Which is how it should be woven in on ours. It’s not to say that Sesame Street hasn’t dealt with reality and Big Life Lessons before, even death. They addressed the loss of Mr. Hooper, and did it without preaching, without treading on religious sanctity, without complication, and with the calm assurance with which we all hope we can teach our kids. So it’s not that I don’t trust the good folks at the Children’s Television Workshop. I do.

But making Bert and Ernie marry would, undeniably, make many shut the TV off when those familiar bars of music start to play. Are they right to do so? Of course not. Will they do so? Absolutely. That would be a loss, for so many.

The puppet wedding would also just give more fuel to the zealots who want to disban public funding of PBS, and if we criticize THAT thinking, aren’t we doing what we blame them for doing? It seems a bit hypocritical to me to do so: so many of us are so quick to find fault with Republican or religious claims that the Teletubbies or SpongeBob are part of an evil pastel-colored plot, animated soldiers trying to brainwash our kids into a life of circuit parties and shirtless, sweaty Pride Parades. Well, if we think THAT’S just plain silly, aren’t we doing a bit of the same thing, forcing gender roles (even good ones) onto, um, puppets?

If this bit of reality creeps in over the cobblestones and hopscotch grids on Sesame Street, where do you draw the line for the other people in this fictional neighborhood? If reality hits Sesame Street, are we ready for the consequences? Cookie Monster is binge eater and possibly suffering from Juvenile Diabetes. (And before you go all ballistic, on me, NO, I am not comparing Sexual Identity with a behavior OR a disease.) Big Bird sees things and probably is safer back in the canary cage. And don’t even start on the frog-pig love (dose of reality: There are many who say, with straight face and conviction, that Gay marriage opens the door to an endorsement of bestiality. I am not making that up.) What’s next? A petition to ban fracking on Fraggle Rock?

So where do you draw the line? Gay marriage may be high on my and your git’er-done list, but a lot of other people have things they feel just as passionately about. Do you want those doors to be opened, above a stoop on Sesame Street? If that’s what you want, head to “Jersey Shore” or DVR “16 and Pregnant.” Let the Avenue Q puppet parodies of what “real life” (with worry, STDs, rent, breakups, hangovers and let downs) would do to Sesame Street be the statement, with its own publicized same-sex wedding of Rod and Ricky. That, I have no issue with. It’s part of their schtick (and it’s funny as hell).

But now, this little “innocent” poll is placing these two little puppets at the center of big controversy, and that’s not a place they should be. My main issue with involving Bert and Ernie in the marriage debate is that the discussion, right now, is heated and ugly. I am witness to lots of discussion threads where horrible things are said (even by “grown ups”), hateful words are used too easily, and the feeling is far more battleground than playground. This is not a place I think Muppets should be.

And if you don’t think, even among proponents, that there aren’t jokes circulating about which is the Top and which is the Bottom in the Bert and Ernie relationship, then you live in a bigger fantasy world than the street of Sesame. I don’t like it.

So, like for many couples, I think it’s just too soon to make anything more of Bert and Ernie’s relationship than it is… for now. I’m sure (I hope?) the time will come, in my lifetime, where same-sex marriage is a non-issue, where it just is. And while some may (plausibly) argue that a coming out on Sesame Street would pave the way for that understanding to happen faster, I think it’s too ugly an issue, right now, to make its way onto a street where time has been kind, and life’s lessons are still innocent and easy. There aren’t many places like that left out there, in case you haven’t noticed.

So no, I’m not signing the petition, or sharing the link, even out of good-natured fun. Call me Oscar. I’ve been called worse.

There are some places I hope are never spoiled by reality, and Sesame Street is high on that list. While we can’t seem to keep the Church out of our State, it would be nice to keep politics, for now, off of Sesame Street. Let Bert and Ernie have their peace. Let them simply go on sharing a funny little room with wallpaper and twin beds, where they drift off to sleep in pajamas and night caps, and never age a day. Give the world around them a chance to grow up. Our kids grow up too fast, already.

To be crystal clear, I think “loss of innocence” is not about “discovery of shame,” and I am not equating same-sex marriage with anything shameful, wrong or naughty. But let the lessons be taught by real-world couples who live with dignity, out of love, and with the occasional marriage license. Let the lesson be taught because OUR neighbors live life honestly, in the open. This is our fight, this is our opportunity. Do we really want to hand the job over to, well, hand puppets?

If Gay human characters were introduced to Sesame Street, this would all sit better with me. But let’s leave the lovely, simple, innocent fantasy of the not-so-human side of the street out of the equation. As they end each performance of Avenue Q, if only for now.

Maybe I’ll change my mind in, vun, two, three! years. For now, just tell me how to get to Sesame Street.

Now Batman and Robin… THAT’S another story. That’s a wedding I’d happily attend. I may even start a petition.

At once both Kenny-G and Sideshow Bob, her hair is ubiquitous on this week’s news programs and for some reason it is hitting all my buttons.  There’s just something about those twisted crimson tentacles that draws me in heart and soul.  While she stone-facedly simpers and apologizes to the press and public, her tresses tell a totally different story: “I’m lying!  I’ve never been sorry!  I’d do it all again in a heartbeat you mewling cowards!  I will live to see all of you crushed and destroyed, ground into the dust under the heels of those who dare to conquer and take what they will, laughing as the wind whips away the final piteous moans of the defeated!”

I’m not the only one who’s clued in to Rebekah’s vibe.  My new favorite blog LesbianHair picked up what Bekah’s laying down.  In a post that positively capers with Britishness, LesbianHair sums up Ms. Brooks’ blithely bad-bitch ‘do as such:

(courtesy ssoosay, flickr.com)

“1. She’s a bit of alright.

2. If you plonk a ginger wig atop Kate Middleton’s lollipop head, and you get Rebekah Brooks.

3. It’s not entirely ridiculous to suggest that she could be played by the beautiful Amy Adams in the film all about this. (No surprises as to who Michael Sheen would play.  I’m vying for a shar pei in glasses to channel Murdoch.)

4. She is very possibly from a parallel universe where Nicole Kidman didn’t use Botox.

So, we know she’s fit.  But is Rebekah’s hair lesbiany?  Yes.  Why?  Because of the 90s.  Her hair is massively 90s, and 90s seems to be big in the queer scene right now.  Also, she’s powerful and sexy and mean.  She might not deserve to retain her role as CEO of News International, but she certainly deserves to be [on our site].  We’re crushing hard.”

Now that they mention it, she does have a flash of early-nineties Shannon Doherty about her, doesn’t she?

Bottom line, could we call all these criminal proceedings over and done with if Rebekah danced to Willow Smith’s “Whip My Hair”?

(courtesy kristenlovesputi, flicker.com)

God I get so bored with liberal smugness.  It’s like having a man who you know is impotent try and talk dirty to you.  Just lay off, we both know nothing’s going to come of this!

Last week the airwaves were abuzz about Michelle Bachmann.  Now, let’s not get confused – bitch is crazy.  Nonetheless, watching Janeane Garofalo and Keith Olbermann fumblingly insinuate that Michelle’s husband Marcus Bachmann is a repressed homosexual just makes my soul sad.

First of all, calling a vociferous opponent of gay rights a repressed homosexual is so early 2000s.  We get it, we all understand the connection.  It’s just sort of tragic now, it’s not funny.  Second, we have better things to say about Bachmann!  Things that are more substantive, things that actually matter!

He’s sort of an ass, but I thought Bill Maher handled it better (per Gawker.com, or see the full episode of Real Talk here).

The reason why I think Bill’s closer to the truth than Olby is when talking about Bachmann is because he treats her as a threat to be taken seriously.  In certain circles it’s easy to dismiss her as ignorant and irrelevant, but that’s not how she’s seen in many other parts of the country.  Her ridiculous opinions carry weight in America, which is why they must be fiercely and seriously debated.  She’s wrong, but she’s a lot shrewder than Sarah Palin and that makes her more of a threat.

Liberal members of television media are good for lots of things, but I’d hate to see them so busy patting themselves on the back for being enlightened that they underestimate powerful and pernicious evil.

Chad Allen as Donald Strachey (courtesy here! media)

In our single lives we’ve all had those people who we sleep with, but we don’t necessarily make a big deal about.  We don’t introduce them to our friends, we don’t call them to spend a nice evening out on the town together.  Generally, we text them on our way home from a bar and say “what’s up? You wanna hang?”  It’s harmless, if hollow, recreation.  Such are the Donald Strachey mysteries, adapted from book to television movie for here! tv.

As with the booty call, in the stark sober light of day they may not meet standards for public avowal  I can’t picture myself recommending these movies wholeheartedly to all my friends on Facebook.  And yet, again like the booty call, they possess a certain allure when facing an evening alone with a few glasses of wine.  “Why don’t I pour another glass,” you say to yourself, “and treat myself!”

The books upon which the films are based are all written by Robert Stevenson.  Starting with Death Trick in 1981 through 2010’s Cockeyed, Stevenson’s mystery novels center around Donald Strachey, a gay private investigator living in Albany, NY who gets and cracks cases because of his understanding of “the community.”  I haven’t read any of these books, but when I do I will compare them to my all-time favorite author Agatha Christie, and my only hope for Mr. Stevenson is that he wins in the “more gay sex?” rubric of my complex novel-rating algorithm.

Always a compelling mystery to be investigated in the locker room, right boys? (courtesy here! media)

Speaking of gay sex, that makes it into the films, and in just enough quantity to keep you interested but not so much that you’d be embarrassed to watch it on your laptop next to a stranger while riding Bolt Bus.  Chad Allen (sullen semi-hottie from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) plays Donald Strachey, and he and Sebastian Spence who plays Strachey’s partner Timothy Callahan both do a really excellent job, I think.  The opening credits are fun and film-noir-moody, the dialogue is at times bright and witty, and the portrayal of a gay couple’s committed relationship is charming and honest.

What keeps these movies (four in all – Third Man Out; Shock to the System; On the Other Hand, Death; Ice House Blues) from being something you’d feel comfortable telling your mom and friends about is the hefty list of negatives.  Characters like Kenny Kwon, Strachey’s assistant and purveyor of luke-warm “yeah, I slept with that dude” sass, were added to the film version but have no reason to exist much less speak.  Many of the major plots twists and moments of character development are handled in a ham-fisted painfully obvious manner.  And frankly, sometimes it just gets too gay.  “You think he’s scary?” Strachey once comforts Timothy by saying, “Just picture him in a speedo in Provincetown.”  We GET it!

If you rent or download a Donald Strachey mystery, you’ll never find yourself saying “hm. Could this be it?  Could this be the movie I watch for the rest of my life?”  But if you’re looking for a quick film on the sly, a little red light special for a slow Friday night, I’d heartily recommend Strachey.  He’s very discreet.

Glaad to meet ya, handsome! (courtesy Greg Hernandez, flickr.com)

Robert Gant is best known for playing Michael Novotny’s HIV positive boyfriend Ben on the American version of Queer as Folk.  He’s very talented, an out and proud actor, and very vocal on GLBT issues.  Also, my friend met him once and said that he’s totally really nice and that his ass looks incredible in jeans.

Whycome is it, then, that I saw him in an Olive Garden commercial yesterday?

Here is a man with an impeccable resume playing both straight and gay characters, he’s got the piercing blue eyes of a Siberian husky, and yet the man is shilling for unlimited breadsticks?

This isn’t the first commercial Robert’s been featured in lately, either.  Volkswagen had him a couple years ago, and before that he was the twinkle-toed Good Humor man!

I can’t really hold the Good Humor thing against him, because that was when he was just getting started (also, he’s just goddamn adorable in that.  Deliver ice cream to me any time, Bobby!).  But Volkwagen and (I still can barely say it) Olive Garden are both post-QAF.  I understand that the man’s got bills to pay, but come on!

So what’s happening here?  Is Gant financing a big comeback project?  Or can he just not find work because he’s too gay, too old, or perhaps at this point just too commercial?  Whatever the forces keeping Robert Gant from pressing his chiseled features toward those of another man, maintaining electric eye contact whilst they passionately remove each other’s shirts, I am virulently opposed to them.

We’ve taken enough crap as homosexuals, we should not have to suffer seeing one of our own brought so low.  Now that marriage is legal in New York, I’ve been looking for my next fight and I think this might just be it.  Damn the gay ghetto, damn ageism, and DAMN Olive Garden!  GET ROBERT GANT SOME REAL shirtless WORK!

In the meantime here’s another fun video he did:

La Lucci!

On April 14 of this year, my entertainment viewing life changed forever when ABC delivered the devastating news that they canceled All My Children and One Life to Live, with their last episodes airing September 23, 2011 and January 23, 2012 respectively.

I know you want to make fun of me, and frankly I don’t blame you. But here is one thing I do know: soap opera writers are some of the most creative people working in the entertainment business. Just try and keep up the schedule of writing for multiple characters over criss-crossing storylines, day after day, week after week, without ever having the luxury of a rerun ever. And just think about some of the storylines that they come up with, we all know them by now – the evil twins, the possessions, the multiple personalities, the coming back from the dead and on and on.

But not only that, soap operas have been willing to take on social issues in stories that no other genre would touch. From drug and alcohol addiction to abortion and divorce, there’s nothing the soaps have been afraid to take on in their own worlds.

Further, soaps have been at the forefront of numerous LGBT issues, having gay and lesbian characters in real relationships, and dealing with HIV/AIDS before many politicians were afraid to even say the word. Sure they dealt with them with high melodrama, but they dealt with them, that’s a lot more than can be said for much else that was coming out of the entertainment business.

I’ve always been an ABC soap watcher, inducted by my mother and grandmother from a young age. I grew up with Erica Kane and Victoria Lord and all the other characters running around Pine Valley and Llanview on All My Children and One Life to Live. I’ve never been much into General Hospital the most watched and last surviving ABC soap opera, but I did watch Ryan’s Hope and then Loving when I was very young.

And it’s true, I don’t watch them regularly anymore, I don’t record them and I don’t read up on what happens. But it was always nice to know that they were still there, each weekday with their lives continuing, moving forward without interruption for decades. They changed with the times, tried to keep up with changes in entertainment and viewing patterns, but sadly, one by one, they’ve been falling away. And finally, the only two I ever really cared about have gone the way of others before them like the long running CBS soaps Guiding Light and As the World Turns.

I bow my head for my soaps, you led a good 40 years, and I’ll never forget you.

The man himself, Tyler Wisler (courtesy HGTV)

The New Gay: What did you know you were first – a designer, or gay?

Tyler Wisler:  I knew I was gay first.  My mom actually asked me when I was 15, which is when you get your first job in Hawaii [which is where I grew up].  My mom was a single mother, and I had a sister, so when I turned 15 I got my license and got a job working at the mall.  There was this guy who worked at the hair salon, and we became friends and ate our lunches in the food court together.  My cousin (who was much older than I was) had just come out to the whole family so Mom started going down the line.  She asked me if my new friend was “bi,” and then asked “are you…?”  I just said “yeah, I think so.”  Two weeks later Mom and I are in a therapy session!  I don’t remember who the therapist was, but they asked if I had any issues and I didn’t really.  Mom cried, worried that she’d done something wrong.

TNG:  How long until your mom was cool with it?

TW:  She held out hope that things would change until Adrian [my husband] and I became foster parents!  [laughs] She was always pretty cool with me being gay, but when she and I meet people and they ask if I have a girlfriend, that is still awkward.  As soon as I had a son, though, she couldn’t care less who I was married to!

TNG: And your dad?

TW:  My dad and I actually just recently started talking.  He wasn’t a presence in my early life, but that had nothing to do with being gay.  In fact, when we sort of had our re-introduction that included me coming out to him.

TNG:  How are things now with your father?

TW:  Things are much more open between us, and he really likes having grandkids.  To a certain point, parents always know.  Not just including my parents, though, I’ve never really had much of a backlash to being out – everyone’s been really cool about it.

TNG:  And are things better with your mom now too?

TW:  Before we adopted our son, Mom always called Adrian my “friend.”  Now she calls him my husband.  I think the barrier before was that she was really scared by the thought of not having grandkids, but now she’s very happy with the whole situation.

TNG:  So tell us more about Adrian.

TW:  We met when we were 17 and 18 years old, at this club in DC called Tracks.  It was actually a Thursday night, which was supposed to be a “straight college” night at that gay bar, and I was taking some prospective AU freshmen out on the town.  Adrian was bringing some friends from out of town there too, and we got to talking.  Seventeen years later, and we have one child, two cats, and a dog!  It’s the American dream!

TNG:  What was the process of adopting a child like for you and Adrian?

TW:  Day one Adrian knew he wanted to be a dad, but I wasn’t sure.  He was relentless, and absolutely did not give up.  Finally we made a pact that when I turned 30 we would figure out our game plan.  By the time the date arrived, we’d already gotten married the year previous (in Toronto – our ceremony missed our anniversary by just one day).  We had a pretty Swedish friend of ours who offered her eggs, and my sister offered to carry the child for us, so we started thinking about it but the cost of a procedure like that became preventative.  That’s when we started attending Wannabe Moms + Dads seminars at the GLBT community center, where they discussed different adoption methods.  All the people leading the classes brought their kids, and talked about this magical land in New Jersey that has tons of gay parents.  At the time Adrian and I were living in Queens, so we rented a car and checked out Maplewood and South Orange in Jersey.  We decided to move there, and within eight months we were filling out paperwork to become foster parents.  We got fingerprinted, investigated, and PRIDE trained for foster certification – the whole thing!

TNG:  So now do you bring your son to the Wannabe Moms + Dads seminars?

TW:  The whole process actually took three and a half years to complete – we just completed the official adoption in February.  Sometimes the process takes less or more time, you really can’t tell going into it.  It’s been crazy, but now that the dust has settled I’d love to go back and bring Paolo [my son] with me.

Tyler and others get down to design biznasty (courtesy HGTV)

TNG: Ok, so that’s all the gay stuff.  When did you know you wanted to be a designer?

TW:  At American University I was going to be an Art Design major, and while I was in the dorms there everyone came up to my room and said “you should be an interior designer!”  I transferred schools, moved to New York City, and Adrian came with me!  After a while of the New York scene, we realized we couldn’t keep up with the pace, so we moved back down to DC and I graduated from Marymount.

TNG:  Do you think there’s a pro-stereotype for gay men in the design industry?

TW:  Yeah, definitely.  You automatically trust a gay guy when he says something is fabulous.  That’s why straight guys are architects!  Then again, in New York you can never tell whether the guy telling you something is fabulous is gay or straight, so maybe it doesn’t matter.  On the show the male group was actually half gay and half straight.  It was nice.  It sounds weird, but I’d actually never had the chance to work with a straight guy on design before!  Surprise, they pretty much function the same.

TNG:  How did you being on the show affect your family?

TW:  It was really tough on them.  We’ve never been apart much.  Adrian and I didn’t go on our first date night after getting Paolo for years!  I think we really overcompensated for feeling like we were being held up to extra scrutiny and were terrified of making mistakes, so we ended up being this incredibly traditional family with food on the table at six o’clock every night and always eating dinner together.  When I was out for weeks taping the show, it really threw off our family routines.  My entire reason for being on this show, though, was to show Paolo that anything is possible.  He’s already overcome obstacles in life that he didn’t even know existed, like being adopted by a gay couple.  Me being on this show is the third time I’ve tried out, and I’m so honored that I finally made it.  I want to show Paolo to work hard, and earn his dreams.  He deserves them!

The dashing, devil-my-care main character is Jack Harkness, an immortal bisexual con-man from the future who was spun off from the Dr. Who series. Yes, that’s right, I just used the words “immortal,” “bisexual,” “con-man,” and “from the future” to describe the main character of a wildly popular television show. Perhaps Armageddon is much closer than anyone thought.

When Starz announced that it would be broadcasting an American spin-off called Torchwood: Miracle Day, my little ears perked up when I heard they were keeping Jack Harkness and that he’d be played by the same very handsome John Barrowman.  Barrowman himself is gay, has been with his partner since 1993, and is an outspoken proponent for LGBT civil rights.

John Barrowman (left) giving the fans what they want. Courtesy flickr.com/photos/donabelandewen

All this begs the question: will Starz be delivering the gay goods with Miracle Day?  From the previews they seem to be focusing a lot more on the action instead of the romance, which may be the right way to market sexual subversion to American audiences (sure, he may kiss a dude in this episode but did you see how many helicopters he hit with a bazooka?).  Then again, if they do in fact plan to maintain Jack Harkness’s free-wheeling pansexualism in the Starz version, NOT making a big deal out of it might backfire.  Either situation begs the question – is America ready for a non-hetero action hero?

We just got streaming Netflix at my apartment recently, so it’s been hard for me to justify watching anything that doesn’t feature Tina Fey and/or aggressive queer-baiting, but if your tastes are slightly more developed than mine, Torchwood: Miracle Day seems like it’s worth at least a few episodes’ chance.  The premise is that people stop dying on earth, and at first that seems awesome but then it proves to be terrible. And if you have as lascivious tastes as I do, the show might still be worth a peek.  According to the scant sources currently keeping an eye on the crucial question of American Torchwood gayness, we shall not be disappointed.

If Starz’s track record with homoeroticism is anything to judge this on, I think we’ll all be in for a treat.

Torchwood: Miracle Day premiers on Starz this Friday, July 8^th at 10pm et/pt.

"Boots on TV" by Alex Jacobi, taken from Wikimedia Commons

“People knock on my door, ringing my phone
Telling me the things I gotta get done today
To satisfy them, but what about me?
Lately I’ve been wishing I was brain dead
No responsibilities in my head today
Maybe we’ll see what’s on TV”

–“Nothing With You” by the Descendents

This is not the Summer of Love (unless you’re offering to make it such); this is the Summer of My Netflix Account and DVR. In my adventures in screen-viewing, I have learned one basic tenet:  You have to go through a lot of shit to find a gem. This is especially true when trying to find portrayals of trans and intersex characters that aren’t cringe-worthy or hollow two-dimensional characters. We have to sit through Boys Don’t Cry (which will make you want to hide in the closet forever), Quagmire’s Dad episode of Family Guy, The L Word,” and the like.

Here are five episodes or films that didn’t make me want to bang my head against a wall:

Warning: Major Spoilers Ahead

1. Degrassi: The Next Generation, episodes “My Body Is a Cage Part 1 and 2” (2010)

Every time I completely write off Degrassi, it finds some way to pull me back in. Degrassi did an interesting and brilliant thing in not revealing that the character Adam Torres was trans. He was just portrayed as an ordinary underclassman boy who liked comics and hanging out with his best friends. So he already had a fanbase (and quite a few straight teen girls who thought he was cute) before these two episodes aired. He comes out to his best friends and, though they have a few trans 101-type questions, they are perfectly accepting. Adam desperately wants to be a regular kid though, mentioning how annoyed he is that he can’t play contact sports like his older brother, and then gets brutally rejected and outed after the girl he’s flirting with finds out he’s trans, which leads to some horrific bullying. It also shows his family’s path to real acceptance, who still have trouble with pronouns and letting go of their “daughter,” though they love and support Adam.  I really hope Degrassi doesn’t fuck this up later (as they tend to do).

2. XXY (2007)

This is a gorgeously shot little film out of Argentina that centers on an intersex teenager. Alex, living in a small coastal town with her parents, is raised female, but is clearly rebelling against that placed identity. When a doctor and his family come to visit, at the suggestion of Alex’s mother, we learn that the intention is to wager on the idea of genital surgery to make Alex “more female.” The parents and the doctor figure out that Alex has been hiding away the estrogen pills rather than taking them, and are very torn about this. Alex’s mother is the one pressuring her to consider surgery, while her father believes in the right to choose on her own how to live, whether it is as his daughter or his son.

Alex also forms a close and sexual bond with the quiet, gay son of the doctor, which in turn causes him to be more accepting of his sexuality and less introverted. Both are teenagers discovering who they are and their path to happiness, like everyone did at that age, queer or not. In the end, Alex chooses not to continue hormone treatments or have surgery and decide for herself (or himself, the film deliberately leaves the final decision ambiguous), and everyone else in the film in altered for the better.

3. Freaks and Geeks, episode “The Little Things” (2000)

This was one of the three episodes that were unaired during the original NBC run, and it was actually one of the first two Freaks and Greeks episodes I ever saw. Also, one of the very few times on a mainstream US broadcast that an intersex character isn’t played for laughs or shock-value. It also deals with gender identity vs. sexual orientation.  When Ken’s (played by Seth Rogen) girlfriend Amy tells him in a moment of intense trust that she was actually born intersex (yet asserts that she’s absolutely a girl), Ken doesn’t immediately reject her; he is confused, but initially says that he’s fine with it. After getting some cruel remarks from his closest guy friends who say that he’s gay because she’s “not really a girl,” Ken starts to act more distant towards Amy, who then feels like he’s rejecting her.

After figuring out that he’s not gay in a scene involving experimentation with 80s gay porn magazines and dance music, (which shows the lack of information available about gay people in pre-Internet suburbia) Ken still feels pressured to break up with Amy even though he clearly really likes and cares about her.  In a chance encounter in the bathroom hearing about Sam’s girlfriend problems (she treats him badly, is a Republican, and likes none of the same stuff he does), Ken realizes that Amy is a great girlfriend, he loves her, and that none of the other stuff matters.  He apologizes to her for being foolish and kisses her in the hallway before her school band concert.

4. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

Okay, I admit that I am pretty biased about this film because it is one of my all-time favourites. Basically, Bernadette takes no prisoners. She’s lived an interesting and hard life (the movie starts out with her learning that her lover died). It is refreshing to have a film that doesn’t go through Trans 101, is absolutely hilarious without being cruel, and has a trans character that is self-reliant and unafraid.

Hell, in a scene where she and the other protagonists are refused service in a rough and rural town by a very rude and gruff woman, Bernadette delivers the epic line, “Why don’t you go light your tampon and blow your box apart … Because it is the only bang you’re ever going to get.” Then proceeds to defeat the woman in a drinking contest and win the respect of everyone in the bar. In the end, she even finds love, and we can only help to assume that she and Bob proceed to spend the rest of their twilight years together. Plus, this is one of the few ways I can hear ABBA and not want to kick something.

5. Better Than Chocolate (1999)

The film itself was mediocre, but it is in this list just for this scene. Maybe I should write a song like this called “I’m Not a Butch Lesbian.”

And for being one of the very, very few films I have ever seen that shows a trans character as not a heterosexual. The only other one I can think of would be the Danish film En Soap, currently next on my Netflix queue. Judy eventually ends up with the shy lesbian bookseller, Frances. Personally, I wish the film had been mainly about Judy and Frances rather than the central couple and the family drama between them.

• Honorable mention: Normal (2003)

I was about 12 years old when this film came out, and I saw it on HBO. I was pretty floored by it, though didn’t understand all of it, especially anything to do with sex and love. I watched it again during Spring semester to see if it still had the same effect it did on me when I was a pre-teen. It actually affects me more now than it did back then. It is almost too painful to watch now in many parts, but the fact that love and family transcends intolerance and ignorance is really powerful.  Other than Degrassi, this would be what I would show my family in hopes of better understanding, because it is quite straightforward without talking down; these are average people in the American midwest. Not to mention it was extremely well-acted. (Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Lange are pretty much always amazing, duh.)

I’ll disclaim now that these selections are only my personal tastes.  Though it is interesting to note that two of these films are not from the US (okay, Degrassi is technically Canadian, but that doesn’t count); XXY, as previously mentioned, is from Argentina, and Priscilla is Australian.  In my research (aka surfing Netflix), I have noticed that there are actually quite a few foreign films that have trans characters. Spanish director Pedro Amodovar has had numerous trans characters in his films, like in All About My Mother and Bad Education; there’s also the Spanish musical film called 20 Centimeters, Beautiful Boxer from Thailand, Belgium’s Ma Vie En Rose, and the gender-switching Orlando in the UK film adaptation of the book. All these films are of trans women. Unfortunately I have yet to find any foreign films that feature trans men. Even here in the US, in terms of  trans men in non-documentary films, there is pretty much only Boys Don’t Cry and Itty Bitty Titty Committee, both of which I hated.  And don’t even get me started on Max from The L Word.

If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to email me or post below.  Once again, I’ll admit that I am certainly no authority on films or trans people, but no one technically is, which makes both more wide-ranging and complex.

My first Kathy Griffin experience came when my family had one of its far-too-seldom dinners in front of the TV (Mom’s a big proponent of family dinner time, but even the best mothers out there sometimes find in themselves the need to say “here’s your shit, now eat it, shut up, and look at the television”).  We were watching the episode of Seinfeld where Kathy Griffin creates a whole standup routine around Jerry being terrible, and while my mom clucked away to herself at how mean-spirited Kathy was I just chortled away.  It was like watching Slappy the Squirrel in real life!

Since then Kathy’s been delivering a non-stop master’s course on how much fun bitchy is.  Long may she teach. Gurrl Down! did not abandon the formula, with plenty of vicious celeb and semi-celeb takedowns. Some folks on her hit list: Bill O’Reilly, Kirstie Alley, Bristol Palin, and the Real Housewives of Atlanta.  Duck and run for cover ladies because, as RuPaul would say, this honey’s throwing beaucoup shade!

Most gratifying, of course, was her Michelle Bachmann material:

Escalatorgate probably won’t do anything to slow Bachmann’s presidential race, but it’s still gratifying to think that the punishment for bigotry is unwanted attention from Kathy Griffin. Besides, it’s a lot better than what that dreamy lame-o Darren Criss did when he met Bachmann – smiled and said, “Cheese!” Darren may have stolen my heart forever, but if he’s going to be gladly snapping shots with right-wing hate mongers he should probably just keep those pouty, bee-stung lips shut about gay rights.

If you missed Gurrl Down! the first time around, catch it on Bravo this Saturday or find clips here on bravotv.com.

courtesy history.com

Watching History Channel’s Swamp People is really strange.  The subjects of the show are speaking English but almost always need subtitles in order to be understood.  They’re conducting brutal wholesale slaughter of alligators but somehow you root for them anyway.  But the biggest “huh?” moment for me is the major re-adjustment the show is doing to my gaydar.

These swamp fellows are so incredibly straight that every instinct I have says “these dudes are totally gay.”  They’ve got military crew cuts or floppy mop-tops, they boldly wear things like two layered muscle-tees and a pair of overalls, and they sport facial hair that hasn’t been stylish since the early 70’s.  They’re muscley and tanned.  They’re everything my brain has been conditioned to flag as signs that this guy might buy me a drink.

The gay movement has been co-opting hyper-hetero style for a long time (hello, Village People!), but watching Swamp People drove home to me how far the lines had blurred.  What distinguishes Bruce and Mike in the show’s opening credits from the avant-garde Brooklyn bears who go antiquing at open-air markets in Park Slope?

As I think more on this weird phenomenon, though, the happier it makes me.  I like it that even bayou gator hunters can be described as having “gay” style.  Perhaps it’s the years of borrowing inspiration from uber-straight attire that have done it, but however it came about now a gay guy can look like just about anything.  Which has sort of been the whole point this entire time, right?

And I watched her until Wednesday, when her show ended after 25 years. I haven’t watched religiously over the years, never recorded, but just caught her when I could. Here she’s on at 9 a.m. and 11 p.m., so I would often catch the late rerun of the earlier broadcast. And to me, the bud hasn’t fallen off the rose.

I don’t know why I get sentimental over this, it’s not that I’m sad, I just feel that Oprah, who certainly is not without her faults like anyone, has presided over herself as a brand that stands for doing something meaningful and worthwhile with your life. Go ahead and be cynical, but there is a lot to be said for someone using the enormity of their reach to do so for the betterment of humanity.

I think that life is all about mixing the high-arts and the low-arts, and to me, few people have done so as well as Oprah. Who else could produce a show that could send people into frenzies of salivating materialism on one day and then produce another the next day telling the story of the Freedom Riders in the South? Oprah, that’s who. And each is entertaining in its own way.

Sure, I understand why people are disgusted by the Favorite Things episodes (I say, lighten up) or why others think she’s a bit too full of herself (I say, she’s earned the right), but you can’t begrudge her the fact that she’s built a brand out of herself that stands for making the most out of your life. This isn’t just sappy garbage for bored housewives, it’s about making a difference and standing up for who you are.

So you may be glad that Oprah’s gone, or you might not miss her show (after all, she’s not disappearing), but you can’t take away her achievements, her message and the differences she’s made in the lives of people around the world.

She says in her final show to find the spark in you that illuminates the world. I like that. I’ll miss you Oprah.

Or is it that great?

courtesy smg.photobucket.com

If there’s anyone who has always rolled his eyes at PSA commercials, it’s me.  I was as sarcastic a kid as I am an adult, and any ad space that ended with the ubiquitous “The More You Know” star and rainbow was prime fodder for my nascent young snarkery.  Isn’t this just another toothless, watered-down commercialization of morals that people either already agree with or totally disregard?

Thinking back before I was a smart-ass, though, I can remember some public service announcements that actually made a real impact on me.  The Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joes, and Captain Planet all had messages to share with me about safety and the environment that I completely absorbed as gospel. One spot specifically I remember had one of the Ninja Turtles warning me about the danger of CFCs, and after watching it I steadfastly refused to order the Big Breakfast from McDonalds (a previous favorite of mine) because it was served on a styrofoam container.

This PSA was no small thing, either – aired to an audience of more than 11 million people, it’s a part of the larger “Think before you speak” campaign driven by GLSEN  and the Ad Council.  Obvi my personal fave is Wanda Sykes’, but Grant Hill’s spot comes at a perfect time to incite discussion in a community of sports fans who are just waking up to the fact that this whole gay thing probably won’t be going away any time soon.

After Kobe Bryant called a referee a faggot, former NBA player John Amaechi penned an eloquent piece for the New York Times, discussing breaking down in a level-headed way what bigotry looks like in today’s world of American pro sports, and tracking the effects it has on LGBT individuals of all ages. I think if anything legitimizes a cheesy PSA, it’s what Amaechi so clearly communicates: what we say matters, and has real consequences in people’s lives.  The more you know, right?

Courtesy David Shankbone

You know, sometimes Brooklyn just rubs me the wrong way.  Last week New York-based queer actor and comedian Parrish Hurley sent us a pilot he’d filmed. He made a case for it that brought me to immediately volunteer to review the episode: he’s pitching it to some major players, who are hesitant to take a risk on explicit queer content in a tough financial climate.

Being sympathetic to such a plight, I went to check the preview, and the brisk wind of my benevolent “I hope I can help this guy get a leg-up” spirit started to flag.  The title of Hurley’s project is the (718), in an homage to the area code that encompasses all outer boroughs of New York City. The show, though, seems to focus on Brooklyn exclusively.  I could tell, because there’s a slam/beat poet guy who gets super real with the main character:

Personally, I haven’t been into beat/slam/freestyle/flow poetry stuff since David from Real World: New Orleans, but determined I pressed onward into the full episode. To my chagrin, the freestyle rhyming thing remained as a narrative mainstay, but things also got much worse.

The (718)’s main premise is that a gay guy’s been living with two straight pals, but then the straight guys find relationships so the gay guy has to “figure out how to be gay — fast.”  Aw jeez.

What really just drove me crazy about this show was the same thing that irks me about vast segments of my generation that so often end up in Brooklyn. The main character is about 35, and he’s still working as an office temp to pay the bills while he continues to chase the dream of being an actor. He and his buds have spent the past 15 years of their lives drinking every evening into oblivion, tortured by the notion that there’s something better out there. They don’t get into long term relationships because no one’s the perfect, right person. They don’t figure out their careers because they’re still convinced they’re mistunderstood artists who deserve to get paid for their vision, dignity, and street cred. When one of them does start to pull his shit together with a fiancé and a few paying gigs, he feels the need to apologize to the other two about selling out and getting boring.

Looking at this dream-world limbo that I’ve seen so many of my peers trap themselves into would be interesting if it was done with a solid point of view. But the perspective of the show seems to flow from a person who’s unaware that he’s still stuck in the midst of this conflict and trying to write a quick happy ending for himself.

I can’t say I’ve never felt a similar disconnect between what I’m doing and what I feel I should be doing.  We’re the generation of kids told that we can do everything and anything we want if we try really hard.  We’ve soaked up more parental care in the form of time and money than any other generation that precedes us.  We’re allowed to fail, to try again, to wait until something “feels right.”  Since I’ve directly benefited from these attitudes it would be ridiculous to claim moral outrage.

Nonetheless, seeing these attitudes clumsily glamorized is tedious. The (718) didn’t help me recognize a kindred spirit, or give me a new way to think about the masturbatory existential crisis of self-described “over-educated” dream chasers. It made me mutter, “Girl, get your shit together,” and shut my laptop. I’ll just have to find some other explicit queer content to promote in these tough financial times.

The X Factor. Credited to itv.com

The X Factor USA made its debut to the US audiences Sunday May 8th at the Galen Center in Los Angeles this week. I have been a huge fan of the X Factor (UK edition) for over 3 years now, watching official clips of contestants by iTV and bootlegged clips by fans of Youtube. I have not skipped a beat. I logged on every Saturday to watch the star-making power of the talent show to create some sensational artists and launch very famous and successful careers, such as JLS and most notably Leona Lewis. This year they are setting their eyes on American talent. Last night on the taping of their kick-off city, Los Angeles, where I was in attendance, the audience was beaming, looking for the next American superstar.

The Format

So what makes the X Factor different from American Idol or the Voice? How will they find this next superstar?

There is a market for kids to enter the pop charts, and the competition is fierce. c. Harry Wad, Wikimedia Commons

The audition process is indicative of many talent shows, but there is more of a feel to the process. While in some shows, contestants sing in front of a panel of judges and they await the decision if they will be going to the next round. And, in traditional television format, there are always the duds that did not make the cut and their hilarious reactions to judges’ criticisms will gather more attention than their actual performance. The X Factor USA , on the other hand, will test the true quality of a superstar: performing in front of an actual audience. If every nerve of any contestant body is not already lit up singing in front of L.A. Reid, Paula Abdul, Sheryl Cole (member of British girl group Girls Aloud), performing in front of 5,000 people will truly test the word, “stage fright.”

Last night was no exception. The audience is the informal “5th” judge because they have the power to sway a judge to pass a contestant. Who better to judge a future longevity of a superstar than a blind audience? If Youtube is any indication as to whether an artist goes viral, it is that the listener will be the most discerning judge of all. Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift can attest to that sentiment.

And how will they find the next superstar? It is in the name of the show. The X Factor is the indescribable star talent, that split second moment when you realize they are more than just a singer, more than a pretty face and a remarkable story but that star quality you can relate with the singer or artist or group and say, “Wow, I want to listen to them and I want more.” You simply cannot get that star quality on any other talent show.

The Talent

How is the talent any different?

The talent this year is promising. Los Angeles is the first stop on the X Factor tour and the contestants came out in numbers. What looked like a line up of ordinary people, the talent featured kids as young as 12 years old and adults as old as 70, from girl groups, boy bands, a cappella quartets, and duos, the variety of talent is spectacular enough to cater to every aspect of the pop market. In competition with the Willow Smiths, the Justin Biebers, the Taylor Swifts, it is clear there is a market for kids to enter the pop charts, and the competition is fierce. Any Youtube search for the next child prodigy is saturated with fantastic Lady Gaga, Chris Brown, Adele, Florence and the Machine, and Bruno Mars covers that will stun any music executive. The kids have their work cut of for them.

Susan Boyle can thank Simon Cowell for having one of the biggest album releases ever in music history. Can the X Factor do it again? Photo c. Deborah Wilbanks, Wikimedia Commons

For the adults over the age of 25, the market is even more closed off to them. More are we willing to see a young 14-year-old absolutely blow up a cover of Adele’s Rolling in the Deep than a 45-year-old single mother, but that’s what makes the X Factor the perfect setting. It’s not the last shot for aspiring older artists to get their foot in the music industry to sing in a talent competition, but it is a good shot for them to get build a fan base that traditional music has not created or that Youtube does not cater to.  Susan Boyle can thank Simon Cowell for having one of the biggest album releases ever in music history. The audience and the world showed that it could be done.

And the ever so lovable but secret guilty pleasure for everyone is the groups. The pop charts have not been so favorable to a girl or boy group lately but with hit makers like the Black Eyed Peas, Edward Sharp the Magnetic Zeros and Glee-like acapella groups, it may be the comeback of the groups this year. The American music market needs another good girl group or boyband and I think there will be some that will genuinely surprise you.

The Payoff

So what? The winner will disappear off the face of the globe if they win.

The payoff: a 5 million dollar contract. That is serious money and the winner of this year’s X Factor will be BIG. The winner will be personally mentored by one of the four judges throughout the process and the American public will be there every step of the way. For those who may not make the cream of the crop, they will have built a legion of fans throughout the process. With that kind of publicity, you can take that to the bank and be the real judge when they release a track or CD of their own.

In an age when going viral is just as amazing as getting a record contract, the face of music is changing from a record executive giving the golden ticket to a panel of judges deciding the future of the record industry to the millions of people who log on and follow their favorite almost-famous artist to media stardom. America will decide who wins or loses not necessarily by the winner of the X Factor but by the longevity of an artist. Will the winner be successful or relevant in 5 years? Will the contestants who make it on the show build a genuine fan base that values their talent on or offline? The payoff will be great for that one special act that gets the nod of approval but absolutely worthwhile for every contestant who has gained a nod from the general public.

So hopefully in September this year when the X Factor finally airs, the talent will be real and the show will be phenomenal. Already this early in the audition process, there was a genuine “Susan Boyle” moment found in one contestant in the LA auditions that gave me chills just listening to her. In addition, a young talent will show us he is just as great as any of the rest of the artists and a duo with promising star quality will have to decide to between being a mediocre group or two outstanding solo acts.  And a contestant who brings gender-bending realness to catchphrase recognition.

My own personal take: a kid will win this competition. Yes, a kid. The Lady Gaga- obsessed, app-downloading, Twitter-following, Facebook-updating, texting maniac, and tech-savvy youth will be the best promoters of any talent you can find. They will ultimately make the choice because they will vote and support someone they can relate to in the music industry and in the long run, develop a more dedicated fan base. Believe it or not, the kids are driving the music industry and they will continue to drive it. Despite the lack of financial resources kids have, a simple, good twitter will get armies of kids to watch and repost.

So tune-in in September and see for yourself.

The curtain is raised. The lights are dim. Watch a star being made.

Courtesy OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network

Covering transgendered issues in mainstream television is a really difficult thing to do. Pronoun confusion might in fact be the lesser of all the potential pitfalls in documenting a subject that can be confusing and uncomfortable for not only the subjects of the story but also the viewer. The Oprah Winfrey Network has made an honest attempt at discussing transgendered issues recently, via Lisa Ling’s “Transgendered Lives” episode of Our America. This week the network will again prompt trans discussion by airing Becoming Chaz, a documentary about Chaz Bono’s transformation from a woman to a man.

Airing this Tuesday at 9pm ET/PT, this will be the television premiere of a documentary released originally at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. The documentary’s strength is in its small moments of daily life. It certainly discusses the major issues associated with being a transgendered individual (filling in the “gender” box when buying an airplane ticket, recalling feelings of body alienation that began during puberty), but the power in Becoming Chaz stems from the small reminders that make Chaz more human and less a trans spokesman. He fights over stupid things with his girlfriend, he makes that silly scrutinizing face we all do when doing our hair in the mirror.

Courtesy OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network

The documentary also threw more light on the other half of a relationship involved in gender transition. Chaz’s girlfriend Jenny was elated when Chaz had a breast-removal operation because she saw how much more comfortable it made him. But when his hormone therapy began to kick in, she began to notice personality changes as he became more “male.” To be honest it’s a perspective on the whole process I’d never considered – imagine dating men, then at a certain point making the choice to pursue relationships with women again. You come out to your family as a lesbian, you become comfortable with the new identity, and then your girlfriend decides to become a man. At one point Jenny confessed to the camera that a lot of the new behavior she was seeing from Chaz was typically “male” behavior that she’d been eager to leave behind when identifying as a lesbian. Chaz was becoming more aggressive, outspoken, assertive, and it was interesting to see Jenny grapple with that shift.

And of course, Cher was crazy. From what I could tell she gave only one interview to the filmmakers, and from this fertile conversation they were pretty much able to have a running thread of Cher through the whole documentary. Chaz, obviously more than familiar with his mother’s quirks, brought a valuable perspective to his mother’s discomfort with the general subject: she looks great and she’s in a young person’s business, but she was born in 1946, so her attitudes will naturally reflect that.

Following Becoming Chaz, Rosie O’Donnell will host The Doc Club with Rosie O’Donnell – a one-hour forum with Chaz as a guest meant to continue the conversations begun in the film (airing 10:30pm ET/PT).

I’ve heard from many individuals, both trans and cisgendered, that they have major concerns with portrayals of trans individuals in the media. While I agree that the potential for exploitation, mockery, and further confusion is indeed real, I’m really happy that outlets like OWN are doing their best to approach the subject with maturity and an open mind. All the terms and pronouns might not be right, and occasional ignorance might reveal itself, but this is how we learn.

During the first summer I was dating my boyfriend, though, I found myself reluctant to carry one around if he and I were together. When he saw them around the house I’d just dismiss his questions and move on to a different topic. The truth was, I didn’t want him to think I was “too gay.”

Courtesy 50Faggots on Facebook

50Faggots, a new documentary web series, explores this strange tension by following the lives of “effeminate gay men” and tracking how those three different words influence the lives of the individuals who describe themselves that way.  The major question, as with the “man bag,” seems to hinge on how and when gay males feel comfortable being girlie.

Shot over two years in New York, Chicago, and D.C., each episode follows a different, self-described “faggot.”  Pulling from a wide range of individuals across the homosexual spectrum, 50Faggots aims to tease out new perspectives on how gender and masculinity define our lives (and how we, in turn, are redefining them).

A common thread in many of the stories seems to be the inherent discord between competing feelings of “I’m gonna wear a purse if I fucking feel like it, bitches can gag!” and “I am definitely not taking the purse out tonight, I don’t want to look ridiculous.” Just as there are different levels of candor, levity, and formality appropriate to different situations, femininity in male behavior is also inconstant. But if being a girlie-guy is truly part of who you are, how do you navigate between being comfortable in your own skin and fitting in harmoniously with those around you?

Don’t look to Spike TV and Sunday Night Football to define what American masculinity is. 50Faggots’s cast of effeminate gay men has a much more thoughtful and honest perspective on what it truly means to be a man in this country.

If you’re interested in learning more about the series you can check out its first episode here. For those readers in D.C., 50Faggots is hosting a party at Cobalt to celebrate the launch of their second episode. Meet some of the cast, watch the premiere of the episode, and then dance the night away with more than just fifty gay boys.

Find out more below and on the event’s Facebook page.