Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever.
by Sarah Warn, AfterEllen.com Editor
The lesbian pop culture column

Friday, October 27, 2006

HAS HELENA MET HER MATCH?
33-year old Chinese American/Chinese Canadian actress Sandrine Holt, best known from roles in Resident Evil: Apocalypse and the last season of 24, is the latest actress to guest-star on the upcoming season of The L Word (she'll appear in six episodes total, according to The Hollywood Reporter). Holt told Asiance magazine, "This is the first time I'm on the L word. I love it! They have the best wardrobe ever. It's unbelievable! I guess because the entire cast is women. They have Armani, Prada, and amazing clothes." Silly Sandrine. Everyone knows lesbians love Armani. Well, lesbians and Jodie Foster. But I repeat myself.

Holt describes her character, Catherine Rothberg, as "a high society lady who has a bit of a gambling problem." According to my own sources, Catherine becomes involved in an unusual relationship with the newly poverty-stricken Helena, when she makes Helena an offer she can't refuse (literally). Stay tuned!

TOP MODELS CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT BUTTER
That crafty Tyra, always looking for sneaky ways to combat homophobia! This week on America's Next Top Model, the contestants had to practice being sexy and pose for the cover of a romance novel with the king of romance himself, Fabio (of the "I can't believe it's not butter" commercials fame). Out contestant Michelle was assigned a story in which she had given birth to a secret love child while her lover Fabio was away, and (straight) twin sister Amanda was assigned the role of "The Other Woman" which referred both to her role as Fabio's mistress, and the fact that she was planning to leave him for another woman. Here's the end result:

I love how Top Model casually slipped this "leaving her man for another woman" subplot into the ultra-heterosexual romance novel genre, and that they assigned that story to Amanda. Although Amanda has been completely supportive of her sister being gay, she doesn't seem to quite understand her sister's attraction to women. So was it coincidence that Amanda got the same-sex romance story? Sure, just like it'll be a coincidence when Michelle is assigned to be Martina in next week's "Dr. Scholl's Lady Jocks" photo shoot.

AN ISLAND FULL OF PEOPLE CALLED "THE OTHERS" AND YOU CAN'T FIND ONE LESBIAN? C'MON!
So much for the "there might be a lesbian on Lost!" theory. The spoilers were true - in the third episode of this season, we did get a tough character named Colleen in her late 30s with "obvious military training" who "only allows herself to be emotionally vulnerable in front of her significant other." She just wasn't gay. She was an Other whose "significant other" turned out to be her husband, and anyway, she only lasted an episode and a half before she was killed. I guess it's good she wasn't gay, after all, or it might have set a record for fastest death of a lesbian on TV.

SIX DEGREES OF LESBIAN REAL ESTATE BROKERS
This week on CBS's The David Letterman Show, Dave highlighted a humorous ad from a Columbus, OH newspaper that said "The #1 rule in real estate is: Buy from the lesbian!" (because she'll set you straight, or something like that). Funny, but true: my lesbian real estate agent friend in L.A. (shout-out to Jamie Sher!) referred me to my excellent lesbian real estate broker in New York (Dickse Fitzgerald), who then introduced me to my new, highly effective lesbian mortgage broker (Lori Famighetti). Yes, all the lesbians in real estate do seem to know each other! If Bravo was smart, they'd dump that silly Top Hair reality series idea, and do a lesbian real estate broker competition instead (Project Real Estate? Top Lesbian?).

WHAT DO STRAIGHT GIRLS, PLASTICS, AND BI-CURIOUS SHOES HAVE IN COMMON?
If you didn't catch Tina Fey and Stephanie March on a lesbian date in this week's episode of 30 Rock...what the heck are you waiting for? NBC's got the whole episode up online until next Wednesday; watch it (you can start with Part 3 if you're in a hurry), then read my article about why it's one of the best lesbian-themed sitcom episodes we've seen on network TV in a long time.

BECAUSE WE NEEDED AN EXCUSE TO WRITE ABOUT STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE AND JADA PINKETT
We launched a new daily entertainment blog this week, as a way to satisfy the 60% of you who wanted us to expand our content to entertainment that wasn't explicitly gay, and as a place to put all the useless non-lesbian pop culture news and trivia we come across in our daily search for lesbian entertainment and gossip. (I'd love to start a daily lesbian entertainment blog, but sadly, we'd run out of news by Tuesday.) The blog is still evolving, but we've worked out a few of the kinks now, so check it out here, or via the new "Blog" tab at the top, and leave comments if you're so inspired - no registration required, just opinions!

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE
Bad news for Bad Girls fans: the British women-in-prison drama is not being renewed for another season.

Melissa Etheridge's partner Tammy Lynn Michaels gave birth to twins last Friday: daughter Johnnie Rose and son Miller Steven. Tyra has already requested Johnnie's audition tape.

Josie led her team to victory on this week's Top Chef, but put me to sleep in the process.

Nina's Heavenly Delights is playing in New York on November 3rd at the 6th Annual Indo-American Arts Council Festival. Look for our review, and an interview with the director, on the site soon.

Next week's episode of Nip/Tuck kicks off Alanis Morissette's three-episode stint as a guestbian.

Watch Annette Bening hook up with Kristin Chenoweth and Gabrielle Union in Running With Scissors, opening this weekend; read our review here.

We have a new name for AfterEllen.com, and it was one that was suggested by a reader. It's true what they say: 500,000 lesbian heads are better than one. I'm not going to reveal what the new name is yet, but you'll find out sometime in the next few months. Thanks again to everyone who sent in suggestions!

Now go check out our new blog!

That's it for this week! Check back next Friday for a new installment of Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever. or read past installments here.