Grace Chu's blog

Every week on The Real World: DC, a couple of the cast members fight. This week Ashley and Andrew get into the ring.

I’m just going to throw it out there: Am I just getting old, or is the cast of The Real World especially emotionally stunted this season? Watching this past episode was like watching several small children attempt to converse with brick walls. On a completely unrelated note, we find Nemo (and Dory!) in the Real World fish tank.

The show begins with Ty and Emily reverting back to their old games. They compete, snipe at each other, and repeatedly tell the camera that they don’t have feelings for each other. See, their “unique” situation is just “for fun.”

The cast is at a rock climbing wall, and both Ty and Emily try to see if they can outclimb one another. Emily wins, teases him, and Ty gets surly.

Watching the Emily and Ty show can be awkward, so now for something completely different! We find Nemo! He is trapped in the Real World fish tank. Poor Nemo. Someone grab a jar and a net and save him from this misery.

Rejection: an unpleasant fact of life that often pushes a person to extreme measures. Some lock themselves up in their rooms and listen to Joy Division for days. Others self-medicate. Still others write cryptic songs about not getting the girl and sell millions of records. Finally, at least one scorned lover has concluded that burying an entire town with an immense pile of dirt is a valid coping mechanism.

After having his poor heart broken, Samuel levels an entire hillside town to the horror of his followers. Many of them say “peace out” and leave the carnival. Samuel realizes that he needs to regain their trust and starts hatching a plot to recapture his place as the Big Kahuna of the carnie clan.

Mass murder, just a minor indiscretion. I’m sure everyone will understand.

Meanwhile, Gretchen drives Claire to The Notorious HRG’s house. She tells Claire to tell HRG that Sylar resurfaced by poking his rodent-like head out at a review session at school and that maybe the HRG needs to play a little whack-a-mole. Claire is still giving HRG the silent treatment and responds, “It’s not like it’s a big deal.”

Yesterday afternoon, Oprah sat down with Rosie O’Donnell on The Oprah Winfrey Show and asked her about the past two years, where she has largely been absent from the public eye. The two chatted about Rosie’s divorce, her new girlfriend, and her new media ventures. It has been 13 years since Rosie last appeared on Oprah, and she was a bit anxious.

“Why are you nervous?” asked Oprah.

“Because it’s you!” replied Rosie.

For the past two years, Rosie told Oprah that she sat at home trying to figure out the next chapter of her life — how to balance real life and her public life. She separated from her wife Kelli Carpenter in 2007, and she was quick to note that they did not get a legal divorce, because they were married in the first group of San Francisco same sex weddings in 2004, which were eventually annulled.

On this week’s Real World Andrew tries to get laid and fails, Mike and Ashley fight, and the boys discover how it feels to be a girl.

The bulk of this show discusses Andrew’s difficulty in getting women to sleep with him. It doesn’t help that he attempts to go from “hi” to tongue-down-the-throat within ten seconds. (Says Emily, “Sometimes I think Andrew is a virgin, because you just don’t jump on [a girl] and do it.”)

It doesn’t help that he peppers his speech with Beavis-like laughter. Oh, and this look doesn’t help either.

Maybe he could increase his odds of getting laid if he showed women examples of his “edgy” humor, like this cartoon he drew for his school paper, The Rocky Mountain Collegian:

Cartoon woman: “Wrong hole, you idiot.”
Cartoon Andrew: “See, this is why I didn’t ask, cause I know you’de [sic] freak out!”

Not.

2009, the year of Hope and Change, has come and gone, and it was, for the most part, a year of waiting with bated breath with an air of cynicism and itsy bitsy teeny weeny baby steps. So it is no wonder that we believed that the Claire/Gretchen arc, which teased us with a glimmer hope that a major television network would once again air a long-term lesbian storyline between teens — something that had been elusive since Buffy the Vampire Slayer and possibly The O.C., had been swept away and buried by Samuel’s preposterously powerful dust storms and preposterously weak storyline.

Last we checked, Gretchen drove back to school alone while Claire remained in the carnival, wondering whether she should make it her new home. Eventually, Claire realized that Samuel was a megalomaniacal douche and returned to school, but oddly enough, there was no sign of Gretchen — even though Claire and Gretchen were supposedly roommates. A couple of episodes ago, Gretchen left a sign on the door, saying that she was in the library, but other than that, Gretchen was M.I.A.

Studying? Why didn’t the writers choose a more plausible explanation for her extended absence, like discovering the World of Warcraft, in which case, there would be no chance that she would ever be seen again?

So, let’s get to the point. Can an interrupted same-sex romance involving a female teen main cast member of a primetime series become resurrected by a team of writers known for killing off characters as soon as they introduce them? Or more broadly speaking, can an interrupted same-sex romance involving a female teen main cast member of a primetime series become resurrected after sweeps period?

Is it alive? Is it dead? Or is it just lonely?

Welcome to 2010, the year of Hope and Change: The Reality Series, where materialization of the hopes that were dashed last year stop being impolitely swept aside and start being real.

Last night’s episode starts out with Claire poking at her oatmeal in the dining hall, looking all emo and glum.

This week on The Real World, we learn two things:

1) Never date yourself.
2) Never call a girl fat.

The cast members don’t have television so they must rely on each other to fulfill their voyeuristic desires. First, Andrew, Erika and Ashley slink up to Emily and Ty and attempt to ascertain whether they had sex. The two act coy, but it is plainly evident that they did the lambada under the sheets — before Emily cut out of the room because she doesn’t cuddle after sex.

Emily and Ty are pretty much twins separated at birth except with slightly different levels of melanin. Macho and prideful, they spar in their everyday personal exchanges as they do in the gym. They are always trying to one up and upstage each other, and the roommates dub them the “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” of the house, except admittedly, watching Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie make attempts at each others lives was much more entertaining. This is like watching your annoying cousins bicker at a family reunion that you cannot escape.

Variety reports that The Real L Word has been cast and that it will premiere this summer on Showtime. This means, of course, that filming will be taking place shortly, so if you want to get in on the action (i.e. become one of the Shane clone’s flavor of the hour for a brief moment of infamy), it’s time to scoot on over to the area in and around North Robertson Boulevard in West Hollywood, home of lesbian or lesbian-friendly staples The Abbey, Girl Bar and Truck Stop. Rev up your cell phone cameras to perpetuate Facebook drama, and (of course), don’t forget to hide in a restroom and text all of your friends the juicy details, a la Alice Pieszecki.

To refresh your memory, in late August of last year Showtime placed a wanted ad for hopefuls in The Real L Word, Ilene Chaiken’s foray into the reality television genre. (See See Dorothy Snarker’s post on the casting call.)

Ilene Chaiken with Showtime's Bob Greenblatt

The producers wanted to form a cast that was “every bit as glamorous, fashionable, fabulous and even as cutthroat as their celebrated-but-fictional counterparts.” The “glamorous, fashionable, and fabulous” part may rub a few people the wrong way, but let’s be honest: This is Los Angeles, the land where butches wear layers of eyeliner — this isn’t The Real L Word: Northampton. No offense to Northampton, of course, but LaLa Land is what it is and ain’t what it ain’t.

This week's episode starts out with Ashley on the phone dishing to her BFF about her roommates. Andrew is the one who “breaks the ice.” (Sure, if “breaking the ice” means making inappropriate comments that lead to uncomfortable laughter and perplexed looks.) Ashley rattles off the list of roommates, making generally positive yet slightly judgmental comments about each of them.

And then she comes to Mike. See, Mike is — whisper — “bisexual.” Her friend reacts with a surprised “Oh, OK.” “But he has green eyes, tan skin, and an athletic build,” says Ashley, who clearly wants him.

Meanwhile, Andrew tries to woo Callie by showing her offensive cartoons. You know, the ones that were “offensive to women and lesbians and stuff” and got him fired from the student paper. Someone send this kid to charm school!

It has been a good couple of months for singer songwriter Ke$ha. Last week, her debut single “Tik Tok” broke the digital download record for a track by a female artist. The previous record holder in that category was Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance,” and for those of you who like music stats, the record holder in all genres is Flo Rida’s “Right Round,” in which Ke$ha sings the hook, although she is uncredited.

Today, her debut album Animal, was released to considerable buzz. Not bad for a girl who, not that long ago, appeared as an extra in her buddy Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” video because she needed the $200.

Ke$ha’s tunes can be described as unapologetic party music with a dirty streak that is delivered with a candy coated pop sensibility one second and bratty snarls the next. Looking for introspection and hidden layers of meaning in her lyrics is a futile task, and frankly, that’s not the point. When you stick a dollar sign in your name, and you drop tracks like “Party at a Rich Dude’s House” you’re pretty much telling the world that you intend to be a guilty pleasure, so drop the attitude, and party until you drop your pants. (Bonus: She also looks she woke up on someone’s lawn in The Hills after sipping too many Mai Tais at last night’s rager, so she definitely looks the part as well.)

A strange and sad development has occurred in the world of Hollywood lesbian socialites. Yesterday, Casey Johnson, heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune and fiancée to Tila Tequila, was found dead in Los Angeles. She was 30 years old.

Johnson was a fixture in the tabloids during the past year. A quarrel between Johnson and ex-girlfriend Courtenay Semel landed Johnson in the hospital last January, and this past November, Johnson was arrested for allegedly burglarizing the home of model Jasmine Lennard. Last month, Johnson and Tila announced their engagement.

Johnson has also been embroiled in a custody battle with her mother, Sale Johnson, for her daughter, Ava, whom she adopted from Kazakhstan two years ago.

The Real World XXIII: Washington, D.C. premiered last Wednesday. Yes, you read that correctly — we are in season 23 of The Real World. Initially starting out as a social experiment that respectfully explored topics such as religion, racism and homosexuality, The Real World over the past decade has pretty much devolved into Eight Strangers, A Lot of Booze And A Hot Tub. It is too early to tell how this season will shape up, but let's meet the cast.

First, the queers!

Emily is 20, has a sexy voice and is from Missouri. She grew up in a conservative Christian cult for the first 13 years of her life and, in her introductory monologue, she states that since leaving the cult, she has been making up for lost time. Cut to scenes of her dancing in a club, getting a tattoo, climbing a rock and shooting a gun.

Later, we learn that she is bisexual. The cast barely blinks when they find out she is bisexual. After being asked whether she is attracted to any of the women in the house, she responds that none of them are her type. She mentions that her ex is a short-haired athlete. Basically, she likes 'em butch. She also has a blog, where she gets all philosophical and emo. We'll be paying close attention to her.

Trying to follow the adventures of lesbian/bisexual/barsexual socialites who want to be reality stars and reality stars who want to be socialites is like playing the bonus level of Diner Dash: As soon as you think you have a handle on one task, like seating three tables of irate businesswomen, a demanding college student and an old guy want their friggin' samosas, and the food critic has steam coming out of her ears.

Meanwhile, the line behind the podium is getting longer, and the food at the counter is getting cold. Eventually, you realize that playing this game is just confusing you and stressing you out over something pointless, so you give up and start playing Solitaire.

With that being said, let's hold our nose and step into hell's kitchen. Warning: If you read past this paragraph you will lose a few IQ points, so if you value your intelligence, or if you are above wading into the septic tank of Hollywood gossip, just step back and load up Solitaire. To the rest of you brave and/or foolhardy souls, onward!

Last week, Tila Tequila announced that she and Johnson & Johnson heiress Casey Johnson were getting married, and she flashed a ring that could have been either a 10 carat diamond ring or a half-eaten root beer float ring pop. It was hard to tell.

But no so fast! Self-proclaimed "lesbian Don Juan" and Curve cover girl Courtenay Semel, who has the dubious honor of calling both Tila Tequila and Casey Johnson her ex, told E! Online that the engagement was a hoax. What? No nuptuals in Provincetown for Casey and Tila? Can Tila at least finish the rest of her ring pop?

New York City may be the only place on earth where people will maintain long distance relationships with people in say, Boston, but if one’s lover moves from Manhattan to Brooklyn, it’s like she moved to Siberia. And Westchester? Despite being 20 miles away, it might as well be Mars. So it is no wonder that, when Vivian and Aster in the web series Anyone But Me were separated by a county line that can only be gatecrashed by Metro North (because no one in New York City can drive), their relationship started to suffer.

But at the end of last season, Vivian finally made out with Aster in public, and they live happily ever after.

Or do they?

The preview of last week's episode of Heroes showed some promise, at least in the minds of AfterEllen.com readers, as it revealed that Gretchen accepted an invitation by Claire's dad, the Notorious H.R.G., to Thanksgiving dinner at the Bennet residence.

However, weekend at Bennet's ends up being a buzzkill, as H.R.G. and his ex-wife both bring dates, Claire announces her intention to drop out of school, and severe awkwardness ensues.

Eventually, Claire becomes fed up with everyone, slices her hand at the table and spontaneously heals to prove that she cannot fit in at school.

This causes her mother's dweeby date Doug to faint, which also prevents him from speaking. Everyone present is secretly thankful for the latter.

Courtenay Semel is going to be on the cover of Curve. Yep, the heiress who has been linked romantically to both Tila Tequila and Lindsay Lohan — and who allegedly set her ex's hair on fire. And I couldn't be happier.

Oh, put down your pitchforks already. What could be more delicious than a young Hollywood-type celesbian gracing the cover of a lesbian magazine that has been called "a lesbian magazine" "for Women and Womyn — in flyover states." Seriously, don't hate. If the straights can have their Paris Hiltons, we should be able to have our own tabloid regulars like Courtenay and the Twitter-challenged Tila. And should I drive home the point that this is Curve and not OK! Magazine or Perez Hilton? It's truly the dawn of a new day!

Because, sometimes, some of us just want to relax and read mindless gossip about our own without being judged by "enlightened lesbians" and having to pretend to care about impossibly-perfect-to-achieve representations of lesbians in the media twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. (Karman, please don't fire me.)

In a recent interview with Germany’s version of In Touch magazine, lesbian singer Beth Ditto revealed how she came to the conclusion that she was gay, dishes about her possibly gay ex-boyfriend, and discusses her insecurities about her weight.

Caveat: I've been told that the interview in In Touch is somewhat garbled. It is most likely a German translation of an interview with Ditto in English. The following is an attempt by a native German speaker and me to translate the garbled German back into English. (We also have a bad case of food coma, so please bear with us.)

In Touch: What do you have to say about people being intimidated by you?
Beth Ditto: I haven't noticed that yet. But I think that many people may be afraid of me. Maybe they're intimidated, because I am a lesbian. Most men are scared by that.

In this week’s episode of Heroes, Claire and Gretchen spend the entire episode talking about their kiss and defining their relationship. Unfortunately, their lesbian processing keeps getting interrupted by attempts at Gretchen’s life. What a bummer.

As you know, Claire and Gretchen shared a kiss two weeks ago, rendering Claire temporarily catatonic. This week’s episode opens with Claire and Gretchen lying on separate beds facing away from one another in their spacious dorm room. (What kind of college is this? I was sharing a 6x10 foot room with a flimsy bunk bed my freshman year. )

It is 4:40am. Neither is asleep. Awkwardness permeates the uncommonly large freshman dorm room.

Claire breaks the silence. “You awake?” she asks Gretchen.

Several online tabloids and gossip sites have reported that Bobby Brown has recently released (or, in some reports, is about to release) a new tell-all memoir called Bobby Brown: The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But. And in this book, he apparently reveals his ex-wife, Whitney Houston, married him to quell rumors that she is bisexual.

First of all, how many times does a story need to be recycled to make the news? The rumor that Whitney Houston married Bobby Brown to deflect attention from her close relationship with assistant Robyn Crawford dates back to the 1990s. For example, the book So You Want To Be A Lesbian by Liz Tracey and Sydney Pokorny included this tidbit: "Whitney Houston marries Bobby Brown, giving her 'personal assistant' Robyn Crawford a Mercedes as a consolation present."

That book was published in 1996, the era known as "Before Ellen."

These same rumors resurfaced in April of 2008, when excerpts of Brown's memoir leaked to the press. An excerpt from the New York Post from April 3, 2008 reads as follows:

I think we got married for all the wrong reasons. Now, I realize Whitney had a different agenda than I did when we got married ... I believe her agenda was to clean up her image, while mine was to be loved and have children.

Last week, Claire and Gretchen engaged in flirtatious knife play while wearing very lesbionic white tank tops. This week, Claire Bear receives the most awkward kiss ever from Gretchen and is rendered speechless. You’ve seen the hype about this moment since the spoilers from Comic-Con, so without further ado, let’s jump into the recap of the episode containing the most hyped lesbian kiss on network television in the last few months and get it over with.

At the beginning of the episode, Claire and Gretchen are noshing in the dining hall, and Claire cannot stop grinning. Gretchen asks why Claire is smiling, secretly hoping that Claire would reveal that the reason why she grinning like a Teletubby on ecstasy is because she is basking in the glow of Gretchen’s presence. But, alas, Claire states that the reason why she is finally at ease is because no snipers and serial killers are hunting her down. Sorry, Gretchen.

At that very moment, a very wholesome looking girl named Becky approaches the table and cheerily states, “Claire Bennet, you can’t escape your destiny.” Becky then tells Claire to rush her sorority, because Claire’s mother was in the same sorority.

Before Claire can answer, Gretchen cuts in and snaps, "She's going to have to pass." Getting jealous and territorial are you there, Gretchen?

The Heroes lesbian storyline between Claire and Gretchen is still in the process of limping to the starting line, but word has it that it was Hayden Panettiere, who plays Claire, who introduced the idea of the lesbian story arc to the writers.

The actress said she suggested that her character of cheerleader Claire Bennet fall for her college roommate [Gretchen, played by] Madeline Zima in the forthcoming plotline. "I kinda threw it out there,” she told the Daily Express. "[The writers] put you in relationships and I was like, 'Can I just be with a girl or something? Let's do that."

"So they took it and ran with it. She's a great girl ... and we have a blast."

Last week, Nerve.com ran a piece on "10 Sexual Controversies That Changed TV," which chronicles television execs' incurable fear of receiving scolding letters from the religious right. Among the controversies that got network higher-ups' tighty whiteys in a twist are an interfaith romance ("Bridget Loves Bernie") and a divorced female protagonist ("D-I-V-O-R-C-E").

Scared yet?

Hold on for dear life, ladies, because we're going to talk about the unique ability of homos to get network suits running scared. Three of the ten incidents covered in the Nerve article involved lesbian characters or perceived lesbian vibes.

1) The Cagney and Lacey switcharoo

In 1982, the first season of Cagney and Lacey starred actresses Meg Foster and Tyne Daly as two female police detectives patrolling the streets of New York City. But then, Meg Foster mysteriously disappeared and Sharon Gless began wearing Chris Cagney's badge.

Warning: Possible spoilers ahead!

The torrid affair between Celia and Raylene on Weeds, like all things on that show, has gone to pot. I had predicted that Celia, whose addictive personality is rivaled only by Pete Doherty's, would become addicted to strap-on sex, since she never stops talking about it in Episode 11. Unfortunately — or fortunately for our delicate eyes — the lesbian storyline looks like it is about as dead as Pilar.

In the season finale, Celia, after tying Doug up in a storage unit, waxes poetic about kissing ladies but then declares, "Oh, who am I kidding. I need dick."

However, where there is no overt lesbian storyline, there is always Plan B: Subtext!

Step aside, Z and Vielpunkt.

You too, lesbian seagull from South Park.

There is a new out and proud critter in town.

This week, Jessica Simpson outed her maltipoo, Daisy, on Twitter.

Weeds is a show you probably shouldn't watch if you're the type of person who doesn't like to "go there," because, my darlings, this show not only lives there, it has redefined what "there" is — and that is why this show is so awesome.

Weeds is known for its flawed characters and for pushing those flaws to the limit, but every so often, a glimmer of humanity manages to shine through their dysfunctional exteriors, except in the case of Celia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins), who stands out from the pack by having absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

The terminally bored Celia, whose life is now on the upswing after she hatched a plan to bundle pot with makeup at her job as a cosmetics saleswoman, is looking for an outlet. That outlet has presented itself as a sexually aggressive female admirer, cosmetic line owner Raylene Reynolds (Jamie Denbo), whose signature line is, “My nipples are hard, and my lady is wet because success turns me on!”