The Red Carpet

03/19/10

"Runaways" Revolt

Standing backstage with Joan Jett at San Diego Gay Pride some years back I couldn’t help but ask why she avoids talking about her sexuality. She said she doesn’t and walked away.

So I was curious to see if The Runaways, which she executive produced, would allude to the topic that over the years she made clear is nobody’s business. It does.

I attended a benefit screening of The Runaways earlier this week in Los Angeles for Equality California, the group that has helped implement 63 pieces of legislation that are important to LGBT citizens. The film is a bloodied Valentine of sorts, a peak at what went down when a group of 15 and 16 year old girls formed the Runaways in the 1970s. The group stuck around only a few short years but long...

Posted at 03:23 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

03/11/10

Is Shiloh Too Butch?

I’m standing in line at the grocery store where I eyeball a headline blaring reports of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt turning their three-year-old into a “cross-dresser.”

Because a person’s sexuality is enough to incite a national uproar these days, it’s hard to take even the most absurd comment lightly. So when a fashion “expert” calls Shiloh Jolie-Pitt’s look a “complete shocking transformation,” accusing her of “pushing the boundaries of a tomboy look and crossing over to cross-dresser territory,” just because she wears cargo pants with a toy sword stuck in her belt, it begs for further investigation. I find that some pundits are wondering if dressing Shiloh this way confuses her gender...

Posted at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments: 4

03/03/10

Wanda Sykes on Rosie Radio

What started as a respectful little chat between two high-profile female performers last week evolved into a discussion on the gay celebrity burden. Both Wanda Sykes and Rosie O’Donnell started out as standup comics, both married women, have children and have become spokeswomen for the gay community.

When Wanda called Rosie’s radio show on Sirius XM, they began dishing about their personal lives and coming out. Rosie reveals that she felt pressured by the gay community. That’s not so surprising, but do celebrities "owe" anything to the community, merely because they happen to be famous and LGB or T?

If it weren’t for celebrities cozying up to Americans in their living rooms, LGBT people might still be seeing themselves portrayed primarily...

Posted at 04:13 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

02/19/10

Desert Hearts at 25

Desert Hearts set the bar for lesbian films when it came out 25 years ago. Since then, fans have been kicking up dust about a sequel.

But everything we need to know about the torrid love story is in the original film. Based on Jane Rule’s book Desert of the Heart, the film depicts a fiery attraction that draws two women of a different age, class and background together into a forbidden, passionate affair.

Producer-director Donna Deitch hit the jackpot with Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau as Vivian and Cay, two women as different as cactus and cauliflower colliding in Reno, Nev., circa 1959.

She creates a setting that reeks of sweat, cigarette butts and beer that is about as welcoming as a rattlesnake to Vivian (Shaver), the...

Posted at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

02/03/10

A Super Week?

As Super Bowl approaches, CBS is getting spanked for allowing an ad from a religious group that features quarterback Tim Tebow and insinuates that you might birth a world-class athlete if you don’t abort him first, but then disallowed two ads that feature gay characters.

Last Sunday gay groups shook a finger at the Grammy Awards for nominating Buju Banton, the reggae singer whose little ditty about killing and burning fags earned him the hate monger moniker.

As a journalist, I tend to support a person’s First Amendment right to free speech. Without that, the United States would be like other countries that dictate what a person can or cannot say (and wrongly assume that they won’t think it either). I believe it’s better to know what others are...

Posted at 03:51 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

01/27/10

Lily Tomlin: It’s Personal

Lily Tomlin is a long-time fan of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles, author Ann Bannon’s 1950s lesbian pulp stories. Lily, who has a nice Emmy/Tony/Grammy collection to show for her eclectic and electrifying career, jumped onboard as executive producer when The Beebo Brinker Chronicles rattled New York stages Off and Off Off Broadway in 2007-08.

The first time I picked up one of Bannon’s books a few years ago, I saw Beebo as a brutish butch probably written by a straight man. But it was a different time then, I’ve come to learn, before people even acknowledge that they were gay, let alone felt gay pride. The publishers required the few lesbian love stories they accepted to end badly for the women in love (suicide, hetero marriage, etc.).

The...

Posted at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

01/20/10

Candice Bergen’s Big Night

What comes to mind about Candice Bergen as she’s inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame this week is how she combined beauty, brains and a sense of humor.

Murphy Brown, her signature role, is a good example. She was a strong, smart, professional woman, a TV journalist, who wasn’t perfect and even a little prickly, but admirable just the same. Her more recent role as Shirley Schmidt on Boston Legal shows similar qualities.
I sure few would’ve expected such a solid comedic career after her serious and controversial start.

The last role a young actress in the 1960s would choose for her film debut would be a lesbian, one would think. But after following in her mother’s footsteps as a fashion model,...

Posted at 02:31 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

01/13/10

Six Degrees of Gay

With all the award shows this month, the accolades seem redundant. Look them over with a queer eye, they get a little more interesting. Using the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game (look it up), I’ve come up with a partial list connecting gay, played-gay or gay-friendly nominees from a month jammed with awards. (On Sunday, Jan. 17, is the 67th Golden Globe Awards; Jan. 20 is the Television Academy’s Hall of Fame induction; Jan. 23 marks the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Jan. 31 are the Grammy Awards. Not to mention the People’s Choice Awards that already took place Jan. 6.)

Start with Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer), nominated in two categories for SAG and Golden Globe awards.

Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife) is...

Posted at 04:39 PM | Permalink | Comments: 1

01/06/10

Thank You Erica Kane

The first decade of the 21st Century brought lots of new, more positive LGBT images on film and television. Some might argue that Showtime’s Queer As Folk made the biggest impact, raising the bar dramatically with its depiction of a community of gay and lesbian friends.

Or that The L Word in 2004 not only broke ground but created a mild earthquake in its depiction of a group of hot, sassy, professional women who happened to be lesbian. How about the debut in 2005 of an entire channel devoted to LGBT images, MTV Network’s LOGO?

But if you’re talking mainstream acceptance, I don’t think any of these can touch the impact of Bianca Montgomery when she came out to her mother, Erica Kane, on All My Children to kick off the new...

Posted at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

12/31/09

On the "Girltrash" Set

My most memorable moments volunteering as a production assistant (PA) on Girltrash: All Night Long: Standing in for Rose Rollins (The L Word), a tall and slender former model (I tip-toed out at 5 feet 2 inches); getting recruited with other PAs to jump and bump like groupies in a concert scene at a Hollywood club, and finally, passing out on the couch in the middle of a sorority house fight scene at about 3:30 a.m. with a fever of 102.

Shooting on Girltrash: All Night Long resumes in January but my peepers are already privy to what’s gone into the making of POWER UP Films’ second feature. A raucous musical based on Angela Robinson’s web series Girltrash, it’s written by Robinson (D.E.B.S.) and directed by her...

Posted at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments: 1

	03/19/10 "Runaways" Revolt Standing backstage with Joan Jett at San Diego Gay Pride some years back I couldn’t help but ask why she avoids talking about her sexuality. She said she doesn’t and walked away. So I was curious to see if The Runaways, which she executive produced, would allude to the topic that over the years she made clear is nobody’s business. It does. I attended a benefit screening of The Runaways earlier this week in Los Angeles for Equality California, the group that has helped implement 63 pieces of legislation that are important to LGBT citizens. The film is a bloodied Valentine of sorts, a peak at what went down when a group of 15 and 16 year old girls formed the Runaways in the 1970s. The group stuck around only a few short years but long... Posted at 03:23 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 0
	03/11/10 Is Shiloh Too Butch? I’m standing in line at the grocery store where I eyeball a headline blaring reports of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt turning their three-year-old into a “cross-dresser.” Because a person’s sexuality is enough to incite a national uproar these days, it’s hard to take even the most absurd comment lightly. So when a fashion “expert” calls Shiloh Jolie-Pitt’s look a “complete shocking transformation,” accusing her of “pushing the boundaries of a tomboy look and crossing over to cross-dresser territory,” just because she wears cargo pants with a toy sword stuck in her belt, it begs for further investigation. I find that some pundits are wondering if dressing Shiloh this way confuses her gender... Posted at 01:58 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 4
	03/03/10 Wanda Sykes on Rosie Radio What started as a respectful little chat between two high-profile female performers last week evolved into a discussion on the gay celebrity burden. Both Wanda Sykes and Rosie O’Donnell started out as standup comics, both married women, have children and have become spokeswomen for the gay community. When Wanda called Rosie’s radio show on Sirius XM, they began dishing about their personal lives and coming out. Rosie reveals that she felt pressured by the gay community. That’s not so surprising, but do celebrities "owe" anything to the community, merely because they happen to be famous and LGB or T? If it weren’t for celebrities cozying up to Americans in their living rooms, LGBT people might still be seeing themselves portrayed primarily... Posted at 04:13 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 0
	02/19/10 Desert Hearts at 25 Desert Hearts set the bar for lesbian films when it came out 25 years ago. Since then, fans have been kicking up dust about a sequel. But everything we need to know about the torrid love story is in the original film. Based on Jane Rule’s book Desert of the Heart, the film depicts a fiery attraction that draws two women of a different age, class and background together into a forbidden, passionate affair. Producer-director Donna Deitch hit the jackpot with Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau as Vivian and Cay, two women as different as cactus and cauliflower colliding in Reno, Nev., circa 1959. She creates a setting that reeks of sweat, cigarette butts and beer that is about as welcoming as a rattlesnake to Vivian (Shaver), the... Posted at 03:25 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 0
	02/03/10 A Super Week? As Super Bowl approaches, CBS is getting spanked for allowing an ad from a religious group that features quarterback Tim Tebow and insinuates that you might birth a world-class athlete if you don’t abort him first, but then disallowed two ads that feature gay characters. Last Sunday gay groups shook a finger at the Grammy Awards for nominating Buju Banton, the reggae singer whose little ditty about killing and burning fags earned him the hate monger moniker. As a journalist, I tend to support a person’s First Amendment right to free speech. Without that, the United States would be like other countries that dictate what a person can or cannot say (and wrongly assume that they won’t think it either). I believe it’s better to know what others are... Posted at 03:51 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 0
	01/27/10 Lily Tomlin: It’s Personal Lily Tomlin is a long-time fan of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles, author Ann Bannon’s 1950s lesbian pulp stories. Lily, who has a nice Emmy/Tony/Grammy collection to show for her eclectic and electrifying career, jumped onboard as executive producer when The Beebo Brinker Chronicles rattled New York stages Off and Off Off Broadway in 2007-08. The first time I picked up one of Bannon’s books a few years ago, I saw Beebo as a brutish butch probably written by a straight man. But it was a different time then, I’ve come to learn, before people even acknowledge that they were gay, let alone felt gay pride. The publishers required the few lesbian love stories they accepted to end badly for the women in love (suicide, hetero marriage, etc.). The... Posted at 02:42 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 0
	01/20/10 Candice Bergen’s Big Night What comes to mind about Candice Bergen as she’s inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame this week is how she combined beauty, brains and a sense of humor. Murphy Brown, her signature role, is a good example. She was a strong, smart, professional woman, a TV journalist, who wasn’t perfect and even a little prickly, but admirable just the same. Her more recent role as Shirley Schmidt on Boston Legal shows similar qualities. I sure few would’ve expected such a solid comedic career after her serious and controversial start. The last role a young actress in the 1960s would choose for her film debut would be a lesbian, one would think. But after following in her mother’s footsteps as a fashion model,... Posted at 02:31 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 0
	01/13/10 Six Degrees of Gay With all the award shows this month, the accolades seem redundant. Look them over with a queer eye, they get a little more interesting. Using the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game (look it up), I’ve come up with a partial list connecting gay, played-gay or gay-friendly nominees from a month jammed with awards. (On Sunday, Jan. 17, is the 67th Golden Globe Awards; Jan. 20 is the Television Academy’s Hall of Fame induction; Jan. 23 marks the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Jan. 31 are the Grammy Awards. Not to mention the People’s Choice Awards that already took place Jan. 6.) Start with Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer), nominated in two categories for SAG and Golden Globe awards. Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife) is... Posted at 04:39 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 1
	01/06/10 Thank You Erica Kane The first decade of the 21st Century brought lots of new, more positive LGBT images on film and television. Some might argue that Showtime’s Queer As Folk made the biggest impact, raising the bar dramatically with its depiction of a community of gay and lesbian friends. Or that The L Word in 2004 not only broke ground but created a mild earthquake in its depiction of a group of hot, sassy, professional women who happened to be lesbian. How about the debut in 2005 of an entire channel devoted to LGBT images, MTV Network’s LOGO? But if you’re talking mainstream acceptance, I don’t think any of these can touch the impact of Bianca Montgomery when she came out to her mother, Erica Kane, on All My Children to kick off the new... Posted at 03:56 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 0
	12/31/09 On the "Girltrash" Set My most memorable moments volunteering as a production assistant (PA) on Girltrash: All Night Long: Standing in for Rose Rollins (The L Word), a tall and slender former model (I tip-toed out at 5 feet 2 inches); getting recruited with other PAs to jump and bump like groupies in a concert scene at a Hollywood club, and finally, passing out on the couch in the middle of a sorority house fight scene at about 3:30 a.m. with a fever of 102. Shooting on Girltrash: All Night Long resumes in January but my peepers are already privy to what’s gone into the making of POWER UP Films’ second feature. A raucous musical based on Angela Robinson’s web series Girltrash, it’s written by Robinson (D.E.B.S.) and directed by her... Posted at 12:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 1

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