Best.
Lesbian. Week. Ever.
by Sarah
Warn,
AfterEllen.com Editor
The
lesbian pop culture column
Friday, November 10, 2002 (page 2)
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1 / 2 - Home
IF
IT WALKS LIKE A DYKE DUCK, AND LOOKS LIKE A DUCK...
So is Law and Order: Criminal Intent's Det. Maggie
Wheeler a lesbian? "I honestly don't know, they haven't
told me", said Julianne Nicholson, the actress who
plays her, when I ran into her and husband Jonathan Cake
(Six Degrees) last weekend in New York. But Julianne
was definitely open to the idea - and so was Jonathan, who
joked, "if they haven't told you anything, then it's
up to you, right? So let's just decide right now that she's
gay". Yeah, I liked him right away.
Nicholson, who previously starred in Ally McBeal and
the short-lived L&O spin-off Conviction,
definitely plays a lesbian in the engaging upcoming movie
Puccini For Beginners, where she provokes Saved's
Elizabeth Reaser into facing her true feelings (and Gretchen
Moll into overacting, but I'll save that for the movie review).
BUT
SHE ISN'T WORRIED ABOUT OPRAH COMING AFTER HER?
PlanetOut just posted Jenny Stewart's great interview
with Tina Fey in which Fey talks about whether she's
considering bringing Stephanie
March's lesbian character back to 30 Rock ("I
definitely could see her coming back at some point"),
whether she'd sleep with Gayle King or Ellen (Gayle, because
"I don't need Portia de Rossi coming after me"),
and why she has so many lesbian fans ("Maybe it's because...they
can tell that I actually know some lesbians, and that it's
clear that I'm like, not afraid of them?").
THE
MOTHER OF ALL COMING OUT SCENES
All hell breaks loose on South
of Nowhere tonight when Spencer's mom walks in
on her and Ashley in a compromising position. Nevermind
Paula: this means viewers actually get to see Spencer
and Ashley in a compromising position, albeit very briefly.
There's no doubt that this series has been groundbreaking
in its frank portrayal of teen sexuality, but creator Tom
Lynch's queer street cred is being seriously undermined
by the increasingly obvious (and lame) disparity between
Spencer and Ashley's quick kisses and teasing gazes and
the show's straight teen couples routinely make out in public
and shag in bathroom stalls. As one AfterEllen.com reader
summed
it up, "I don’t need porn, but some snuggling
and open-mouth kissing would be nice."
To
be fair, even the straight couples on this show tend to
be a lot more talk than action on camera, but c'mon, Powers
That Be: a little more same-sex kissing isn't going to make
the Religious Right hate this show any more than they already
do.
BUT
THEY'LL MENTION BRITNEY'S 2-YEAR MARRIAGE TO K-FED AD NASEUM
An AfterEllen.com reader (thanks Jen!) tipped me off that
six-time Tony Award-winning costume designer Florence Klotz
died last week at the age of 86, six years after the death
of her partner of 30+ years, stage manager and producer
Ruth Mitchell (who worked on many of the shows she costume
designed for). Not surprisingly, almost none of the media
coverage of Klotz' death mentioned Mitchell; here's
one that did.
BUT
WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
We have a date for the fourth season premiere of The
L Word: January 7th.
Studio
60 on the Sunset Strip and Men in Trees
were both
picked up for full seasons this week, so there will
continue to be at least two openly queer women on TV this
season (Sarah Paulson and Anne Heche, respectively).
NBC
is
streaming Passions online for free. Now you
can watch schlock on your TV and your computer!
Here
TV has renewed Dante's
Cove for a third season.
We
had such a crush of traffic to our new blog this week -
clearly, one should never underestimate lesbian interest
in Jodie Foster! - that we had to move the blog to a new
server so it wouldn't take the whole site down with it (it's
all fixed now). Besides the news
about Jodie, other popular topics on the blog this week
include Lena
Headey's new TV role, Toyota's
lesbian car ad, the
lack of good movies about female athletes, and why
there are so few women listed in a new "out gay celebrities"
slideshow.
This
weekend I'm off to L.A. for Power
Up's annual lesbians-in-entertainment gala, where I'll
be the least famous person in the room and probably misidentified
in photos as Cherry
Jones's girlfriend Sarah
Paulson, because we're both blond-ish and have the same
first name. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.
That's
it for this week! Check back next Friday for a new installment
of Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever. or read past
installments here.
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