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Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever. (May 18, 2007)

CASHMERE MAFIA, COMING SOONISH TO A TV SCREEN NEAR YOU As I blogged earlier this week, the new ABC series Cashmere Mafia has Bonnie Somerville’s character falling for another woman. The bad news? ABC’s not planning to debut it until midseason (around January). So no lesbians on network TV this fall. Again. Although we do have Sarah Shahi playing a cop on NBC’s Life, but that doesn’t really count.

To tide you over, here are some new official Cashmere cast photos, and watch this short video preview: ROADKILL ON THE SUNSET STRIP NBC has officially canceled Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which co-starred Sarah Paulson, one of the only out actresses in a lead role on TV. NBC is burning off the last six episodes weekly beginning May 24th, just as the series is gearing up to debut in the U.K.

In more depressing no-lesbians-on-TV news, Jane Lynch’s comedy Area 57 did not get picked up by NBC, so we’re currently slated to have no – that’s right, zero – out lesbian or bisexual actresses in starring or even supporting roles on prime-time TV next season. (And no, Sarah Shahi doesn’t count here, either, no matter how gay she looks in her cop outfit!)

TOP MOHAWK Bravo has unveiled the contestants for the third season of its popular cooking reality series Top Chef, set in Miami this time, and out lesbian Miami Beach chef Sandee Birdsong is among the chosen few. Here’s her official bio for the show:

A Georgia native, Sandee specializes in southern soul food. Her signature dish is grilled hamachi collar with southern collard greens and soy sherry reduction with jalapeƱo corn bread. Enough said. Not a chef by trade, Sandee never attended Culinary School and has only worked at Tantra, a hot South Beach restaurant. Hired as a line cook, she has worked hard and studied just about every book around to become the Executive Chef. Since taking over the kitchen at Tantra, she has received 3-stars and rave reviews. Strong and independent, she is not a pushover. Sandee is aware that everyone will underestimate her, but she is adamant that while her opponents are playing it safe, she will work harder because she doesn’t know any other way. Sandee says, “Dream as if you’ll live forever, and live as if you’ll die today.”
Looks like the “P.S. She’s gay” got cut for brevity. But then, I guess her hair already says that.

The new season premieres on Wednesday, June 13 at 10:00 p.m.

DESERT HEARTS 2: THE WRATH OF KHAN Remember the classic ’80s lesbian movie Desert Hearts?

Malinda interviewed director Donna Deitch last week for a longer piece we’ll run in a few weeks, and Donna revealed that she’s making a sequel:

It’s actually going to happen. It’s going to be some time later, and it’s going to not simply be about these characters, it’s going to expand into new characters as well. I envision actually more than one Desert Hearts sequel, ’cause I’m thinking of making several of them. Since this one was in the late ’50s, I have some room to move around here, right? And I think it’s time for me to get off my day job and get on with doing this because I can see several sequels. That’s kind of how I’m envisioning it, but at the moment I’m just writing the next one. The original actors will be in it, but the sequel is not meant to simply follow those two characters. It’s going to have an organic branching out into the era and geographical location in which it’s going to be set
Sounds interesting, as long as we don’t go too far into the future and have Vivian cheating on Kay with Battlestar Galactica‘s Starbuck. You know she would so be Vivian’s type.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A LESBIAN AND A STRAIGHT WOMAN IS … JACKIE WARNER? Work Out went out with a bang this week with a reunion special that addressed questions like “Why is Andre so jealous of Jackie’s ability to get ‘straight’ women?” “Did Rebecca hook up with Jackie just to get more screen time?” and “Are Jackie and Rebecca still together?” Jackie declined to answer the last question (and Rebecca respected her wishes), but the answer to that is firmly “no” according to everyone I know who knows Jackie.

Jackie and Rebecca also said no to the second question, insisting that Rebecca’s feelings for Jackie were/are genuine, and this one I believe. Here’s the thing about Rebecca: I didn’t like her in the first season, at least not as she was portrayed. She was way too inappropriately sexual and flirtatious, and frankly, came across like an airhead. But my opinion about her changed for the better this season, and not just because she’s suddenly playing for our team.

First, a disclaimer: As a businesswoman, I found it completely ridiculous that Jackie would date an employee and that the two would flaunt it in front of the other trainers. Jackie’s excuse – that “it’s different in a gym” – doesn’t fly with me or most of the other women in business I know. Dating a co-worker is one thing, but dating your employee and openly fawning all over her at company events isn’t kosher, no matter what line of work you’re in.

But this is a reality show, after all, where inappropriate behavior is not only condoned, it’s required.

So that issue aside, I admire Rebecca’s willingness to be open about her evolving sexual orientation, as well as her refusal to define herself as gay or straight just to make other people comfortable. Don’t get me wrong – I like a clear definition myself and am quite happy to call myself a lesbian. But I know that doesn’t work for everyone, and I admire Rebecca’s resolve in the face of pressure from the other trainers and viewers for her to pick a side. It shows a strength of character I didn’t expect, given how she was initially portrayed. Even if some of her motivation was to get more camera time, I don’t think that was all or even most of it.

And I’m not sure it even matters. Rebecca’s process of self-discovery – and that of Jackie’s other girlfriend this season, Tiffany – is one a lot of previously straight women can relate to. Watching both women’s low-key, matter-of-fact acceptance of their newly discovered attraction to women was heartening (and sexy – as Malinda noted in her review of Season 2 , “Work Out presents some of the better-lit lesbian kissing to be seen on television”).

And if this season’s been good for anything, it’s showing America – and Andre, apparently – what lesbians around the world already know: that most a lot of straight women are only one hot woman away from being not so straight anymore.

LESBIAN UNICORN SIGHTING Now here’s something you don’t see every day: a lesbian Korean-American hip-hop artist. And she’s good! Check out Skim Skima at myspace.com/skimmusic.

FIRST LESBIAN QUOTE OF THE WEEK “Maybe some day I’ll meet my own Karen. But that is a, you know, not … a man. A man version. But uh, until then, I can hold my head up. (pause) I’m not gay.”

– Pam (Jenna Fischer) on The Office “The Job, Parts 1 & 2”

DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION This weekend The New York Times published a special feature on the first international same-sex ballroom dance competition held in New York, complete with an audio slide show using photos taken by out lesbian photographer Angela Jimenez. Here’s a sampling, but check out the article and the slide show here (the more people who go to the site, the more it will encourage the Times to run features like this in the future!): Hey, is that Tina Fey in the red dress?

NINA AND LISA’S HEAVENLY ROMANCE The summer’s LGBT film festivals are about to start in the U.S., and one of the lesbian feature films showing this year is Nina’s Heavenly Delights, which we reviewed late last year when it premiered in the U.K.

The film is like Bend It Like Beckham meets Fried Green Tomatoes, with an explicit lesbian relationship and without the soccer. Or the long, agonizing death.

REMEMBERING KATE FLEMING The 2007 Audie Awards – the highest award in the audio book world – is coming up on June 1st, and among this year’s nominees is the late and well-respected narrator Kate Fleming, aka “Anna Fields,” for her reading of Kati Marton’s The Great Escape.

Fleming, who unexpectedly died in a flash flood in Seattle last December, will be honored at the event, and Kate’s partner Charlene Strong, as well as her mother, will be there to accept the award on her behalf should she win.

She narrated A Beautiful Mind about mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr., parts of the 9/11 Commission Report from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, and 250 other books. In 2004, she won an Audie Award for her work on All Over Creation, a novel by Ruth Ozeki about farmers in the age of agribusiness. Fleming was also the owner and executive producer of Cedar House Audio.

Reader Kate G. wrote in to tell me more about Kate’s legacy:

This past December, Kate died in a tragic flood in Seattle, when she was trapped in her basement trying to rescue audio equipment. Despite her partner, Charlene Strong’s attempts to save her, Kate later died at the hospital. At the hospital, Charlene was initially denied the right to be at her dying partner’s side, until family members intervened and she was finally allowed through in Kate’s final moments. Charlene has since testified before the Washington legislature about her ordeal and was recently at the governor’s side when she signed Washington State’s Domestic Partner Bill, which passed largely due to the testimony about Kate and Charlene’s tragic ordeal (at least one key republican vote was swayed by the testimony). An impressive legacy for any actress, narrator, producer, lesbian, person to leave.
Impressive indeed. For more info on Kate, read her obituary in the Los Angeles Times or see her Wikipedia entry.

SECOND LESBIAN QUOTE OF THE WEEK “I like pin-up girls. I’m not a lesbian though – not before a sambuca anyway.”

– Singer Amy Winehouse to Digital Spy

BECAUSE CHUTESANDLADDERSTV.COM WAS ALREADY TAKEN Tired of browsing online for lesbian-themed videos and finding nothing but white women and porn (not necessarily in that order)? Check out JengoTV.com (that’s Jengo, not Jenga like the game), “an LGBT people of color media network” which features original video and podcasts. What’s in it for lesbians? Video shows like Chick Chat, podcasts by authors such as Fiona Zedde (Bliss) and Lisa Moore (Spirited), and video interviews with women such as musicians Hanifah Walidah and Angie Stone, and out comedian Sandra Vall.

If you don’t know who Sandra Vall is, here’s a short clip of her doing stand-up: Of course, Jo and Blair end up in bed together by the end of the skit.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Canadian poet Dionne Brand has been short-listed for the Ontario government’s prestigious Trillium Book Award.

This weekend in San Francisco, The 9th Annual Funny Girlz: A Smorgasbord of Women Comedians features a lineup of “African-American, Latina, Jewish, lesbian, and straight comics, plus one drag queen.”

The Daily Show reveals why lesbians like to watch the news. Damn, our secret’s out!

I’m taking a much-overdue vacation next week, testing the heretofore unproven theory that it’s possible for me to stay off the computer for seven days in a row. So that you won’t be deprived of your weekly dose of lesbian entertainment news while I’m gone, Karman has graciously agreed to write next week’s Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever. column. As my middle school teachers used to say when we had a substitute: Be nice to her, or I’ll make you watch bad lesbian movies when I get back.

That’s it for this week! Check back next Friday for another edition of Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever.

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