Grace Chu's blog

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!”

Some of you may be elated to hear that there is a Battlestar Galactica film in the works. Not so fast: According to Universal Pictures, the film will be "a complete re-imagination" of the franchise and X-Men director Bryan Singer will direct.

Seriously? Announcing the complete rebooting of a franchise months after the finale of a critically-acclaimed run on Syfy from 2004 to 2009 — one that brought in mainstream audiences and featured many strong and complex female lead characters — just seems wrong. Furthermore, Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, a film starring the cast of the Syfy series, has yet to be released. (Its current release date is October 27.) Let's also not forget the Syfy Battlestar prequel, Caprica, which is set to air in January 2010.

When negotiations with Universal were still preliminary, the studio indicated that the feature film will be based on the original BSG series from 1978-79. So will this "re-imagination" be a reboot of the reboot by returning to the preboot? My head is spinning and I've already lost interest.

I've always been perplexed by the "man-hating lesbian" stereotype. Ever find yourself included in a mass e-mail of man jokes? If you have, I'm sure you've noticed that most of the recipients — and the sender — are straight females. It makes sense, because why on earth would lesbians, whose dating drama doesn't involve men, ever be compelled to unleash such vitriol against guys?

Here is a snippet from an actual e-mail that was passed along by a straight woman to 10 other straight women — and me.

Q: What do you call a handcuffed man?
A: Trustworthy.

Q: What does it mean when a man is in your bed gasping for breath and calling your name?
A: You did not hold the pillow down long enough.

Q: Why do female black widow spiders kill their males after mating?
A: To stop the snoring before it starts.

Seriously, I can't relate. Send me an e-mail about an exciting new product with which you can spray the walls of the one or two lesbians bars in town to repel your exes so that you can scope the ladies in peace, and I'll think about being amused.

Fortunately, however, the world is coming to realize that lesbians and straight men have a lot in common and might even gravitate towards each other as buddies. A recent feature in Details magazine examined the relationships between lesbians and "Lezbros," or "straight guys who like, but don't like like, lesbians."

Today, Mediatakeout.com gleefully reported that "Beyoncé Knowles has confirmed that she will star in an upcoming film adaptation of Sarah Waters' Tipping the Velvet, which chronicles protagonist Nan Astley's lesbian romps in Victorian London."

Mediatakeout.com appears to be especially excited about this news, judging from its liberal use of exclamation points and Drudge-style boldface. (I'm surprised they didn't go all out and insert a Drudge-inspired siren next to the proclamation — and gay it up with rainbow colors.)

Last year, rumors began circulating that Eva Longoria and Beyoncé would star in a U.S. version of Tipping The Velvet, but those rumors were promptly shot down by all parties allegedly involved.

When a few AfterEllen.com readers tipped us off that the video for Papa Roach's latest single, "I Almost Told You That I Love You," contains a bunch of girls making out, my first reaction was "Papa Roach? They're still around?"

Papa Roach was part of the late '90s/early 00s nu-metal explosion that was ushered in by Korn and Limp Bizkit and was kept alive by bands like Linkin Park. Then, by the end of 2004 or so, the world got tired of hearing white dudes from California shriek-rap about their troubles with girls and not being loved by their parents, embracing instead eyeliner-wearing white dudes who shriek-wail earnestly yet cryptically about their troubles with girls and not being loved by their parents.

As emo became recycled and repackaged for mainstream audiences, nu-metal bands like Papa Roach faded from view. (OK, perhaps they haven't really gone anywhere and are still selling records, but for the past few years it was hard to see anything on MTV other than those boys falling out while panicking at the disco.)

But then, of course, after my moment of unplanned nostalgia, I searched for the video, sat back and cranked up the volume, because lesbians will sit through anything just to see ladies lock lips, and the last time I checked I was still a lesbian.

You can watch it on their site — and, just a warning, it's probably NSFW).

After reading the New York Times article "Anne Heche is Playing it Normal Now," the phrase "save the drama for your mama" has never seemed so wrong. Actress Anne Heche dishes about family life, her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, and her strained relationship with her mother, who never acknowledged Heche's sexual abuse at the hands of her father.

In the article, Heche reveals that she has never introduced her children to her mother, and for good reason. In addition to denying that Heche's father abused her as a child, her mother became a Christian therapist, representing evangelical James Dobson’s Focus on the Family in its goal to encourage gays to “overcome” homosexuality. She told the Times:

My mother’s had a very tragic life. Three of her five children are dead, and her husband is dead. That she is attempting to change gay people into straight people is, in my opinion, a way to keep the pain of the truth out. People wonder why I am so forthcoming with the truths that have happened in my life, and it’s because the lies that I have been surrounded with and the denial that I was raised in, for better or worse, bore a child of truth and love. My mother preaches to this day the opposite of that core of my life. It is no mistake that she still stands up against love. And one wonders why I’m not rushing to have her meet my children.

In a case of life imitating art, reports of the Heroes lesbian storyline have shifted and morphed more times than Sylar. Initially it was announced that Rachel Melvin of Days of Our Lives would play Claire's love interest in Season 4, but over the weekend, it was revealed that Madeline Zima would play Gretchen, Claire's college roommate and fling. Zima's last role was Mia Cross, the jailbait vixen who seduces David Duchovny's character Hank Moody in Californication.

An extended Season 4 teaser trailer debuted at Comic-Con this past weekend, and although it hasn't been released as of the time of publication of this post, here is an amateur video of the trailer. (Want to see the Claire/Gretchen kissing scene? Don't blink at 4:47.)

OK, you were probably distracted by Ali Larter's naked shoulders and back right before the kiss, so I made a screenshot.

On Monday, out superhero Kate Kane (aka Batwoman) announced her candidacy for mayor of Washington, DC. Batwoman hopes to unseat current mayor Adrian Fenty. If elected, Batwoman, who came out in 2006, would be the first lesbian mayor of our nation's capital. Voting is currently taking place today at this polling location, and polls will close at 6 p.m. ET today.

At first, I encountered some difficulty in tracking her down. After all, she is a busy woman. However, her campaign manager, Bilerico Project's Michael Crawford was able to set aside a couple of minutes for me to interview Batwoman — after she intervened in a carjacking near Georgetown and before she retrieved a frightened cat stranded in a tree in one of DC's Maryland suburbs.

AfterEllen.com: Thanks for setting aside the time to speak with AfterEllen.com. I know you're short on time, so I'll go straight into the issues. I've read that you opposed Prop 8, but let's talk about some other issues that affect the LGBT community. It is estimated that up to 40% of homeless youth are queer. Do you have any plans to combat homelessness in the LGBT community's most vulnerable demographic?

Batwoman: I am glad you've called attention to this issue — it's a huge concern of mine. As mayor, I would mandate comprehensive training for all social service agencies that deal with youth on how to serve LGBT youth effectively. I would increase funding for social service agencies that provide counseling for LGBT youth and their families. Also, I would enact strong anti-bullying legislation that protects all students.

Last month, IGN reported Heroes will feature a storyline in which Claire (played byHayden Panettiere) and a new character named Annie (Rachel Melvin, formerly of Days of Our Lives) will "share sleeping quarters (and maybe more)." Conceivably, the "maybe more" could have been a guy whose secret power is being a lothario, but of course, both IGN and I took the ball and ran with it, concluding that Claire and Annie will be involved in a lesbian affair.

Yesterday, Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello confirmed that yes, Claire and her college roommate will at least, you know, make out and stuff. Ausiello writes:

I'm not sure about a full-blown relationship, but I can confirm that the college roomies will engage in a little sapphic experimentation. At least that's the plan.

Variety reports that CBS will start broadcasting its new reality series, There Goes the Neighborhood, on August 9. Producers of the show erected a 20-foot wall to enclose a block of eight homes in suburban Atlanta. Sounds like a suburbanite's dream come true, doesn't it? After all, aren't gated communities supposedly desirable?

As with any reality show billing itself as a social experiment, the producers have made sure that the participants are comprised of a diverse group of families, including a lesbian couple.

Also in the mix is a single mother and an interracial couple.

Variety writes:

Neighborhood centers on eight families locked inside that compound and competing in various games for $250,000.

With little electricity and no contact with the outside world, the families are forced to reconnect as they face off with their neighbors.

“This show is truly a social experiment,” said exec producer Mike Fleiss.

Marijuana. The word conjures up images such as college-aged slackers passing around a water bong, American tourists in Amsterdam laughing uncontrollably after munching on spacecakes, or Snoop Dogg "rollin' down the street smoking endo, sippin' on gin and juice."

You've heard that using cannabis makes you stupid and forgetful. Remember the Afroman song, "Because I Got High," in which he lamented becoming a paraplegic and ended up sleeping on the sidewalk, because he got high?

With all of the slacker burnout imagery surrounding marijuana, it is no wonder that proponents of using marijuana for medical purposes still have an uphill climb in convincing policymakers and the public of its healing qualities.

However, the movement to legalize medical marijuana has recently picked up a high-profile advocate in Melissa Etheridge, who is most certainly neither a slacker nor a burnout. In target="_Blank">an interview with Anderson Cooper, Etheridge said that she used marijuana during her recovery from cancer and that it was extremely effective at muting the side effects of cancer treatment.

Here's part of the interview:

When I read the headline to the article, "Is Being A Lesbian The 'Hip' Thing To Do?", I expected it to be yet another article about how lesbians seem to be everywhere, even though they have existed since the dawn of time.

However, it turned out to be a textbook example of "how to look supremely out of touch with reality and have it immortalized in print." An excerpt:

Gay, however, seems to evoke more clout these days than stigma. Today the word "lesbian" does not mean butch or jock or drab. Rather it means power, sophistication and open mindedness. Svelte Bonique and Lisa could somehow reference art, politics, Manolos and stinky cheese in the same sentence. While chatting to B&L, we noticed another lesbian couple across the room giving each other a dainty kiss over a $200 bottle of wine. They were also wearing Chanel boots. Lesbian women rock.

Could I too enter the realm of the hip homosexuals?

We are in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Fashionistas are actually squabbling with one another to see who spent the least for their fab duds. Conspicuous consumption is SO 2007. Cheap chic is in. Remember when lesbians were stuck with the stigma of wearing flannel way after the grunge movement expired? That's right. $200 bottles of wine and Chanel boots, like flannel from the mid '90s on, are out.

Chastity Bono, the only child of singer and gay icon Cher and the late entertainer and congressman Sonny Bono, is in the process of transitioning from a female to a male, his spokesman Howard Bragman confirmed on Thursday. Chastity Bono, now known as Chaz Bono, has been a staunch advocate for gay and lesbian rights, once serving as a spokesperson for the HRC and as a director for GLAAD.

Bono was outed as a lesbian by a tabloid in 1990, which he found "terrifying" at the time. 1990, after all, came and went during the period known as "Before Ellen," years before "lesbian chic" and The L Word, and way before the passing (and possible rekindling) of Lindsay Lohan and Sam Romson's lesbian relationship, which was treated like any other relationship by the media.

Remember Heroes, that extraordinary show showcasing the lives of extraordinary humans that quickly turned into a mediocre show full of extraodinarily baffling non-sequiturs? Well, here's the latest spoiler from the beleaguered series.

Apparently, Claire (Hayden Panettiere) may become involved in a lesbian storyline in the new season, as IGN reports:

Days of Our Lives actress Rachel Melvin will also be joining Season 4 playing a character named "Annie." Annie "also will share sleeping quarters (and maybe more) with Claire." So, of course, it's the "and maybe more" in parenthesis that intrigues us.

Could they really be gearing up for a lesbian storyline for Claire?

So will The Cheerleader come out in a sea of glitter and rainbows, finally tell her amoral horned-rimmed adoptive dad to "shove it" and run off in sapphic ecstasy with Annie, where they will fight crime together like a female version of Batman and Robin, the original homoerotic partners in crime?

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is not known for being polite. In fact, if he does not say something rude or boorish within 10 minutes of appearing on air or in public, he probably has a bad case of laryngitis.

Usually, however, he needs to be provoked before he launches into his trademark expletive-ridden tirades, and I use the term "provoked" broadly. "Provoking" Gordon Ramsay includes horrifying transgressions such as appearing within his line of sight or breathing in his presence.

On Friday night, Ramsay was interviewed by Australian television personality Tracy Grimshaw on A Current Affair, where he commented on a mole on her lip, asking, "Is that a wart? It looks like your little sister's on your lip." This type of behavior is completely normal for Ramsay — and even expected — but his perplexing rant against Grimshaw on the following day was excessive, even for Ramsay.

Saturday, at the Good Food and Wine Show in Melbourne, Ramsay launched into an offensive diatribe against Grimshaw, in which he called Grimshaw a lesbian and even showed a visual depiction of Grimshaw as a naked subservient female pig. Usually, the victim of his invectives is directly engaging with him at the time, so dragging out the verbal abuse a full day after an interview is simply bizarre.

Ramsay told an audience of several thousand people that Grimshaw was "a lesbian," the Sunday Herald Sun reports:

AfterEllen.com reader Emily M. tipped us off to a casting call for an upcoming show on Dr. Phil: "Teen Pretending To Be Bisexual?":

Is your teenager rebelling by pretending to be bisexual? Has your teen pretended to be bisexual because he/she thinks it's cool? Or has your teenage daughter pretended to be bisexual to attract boys?

I know I am going to sound like an old bat, but after reading some of the other upcoming show topics for Dr. Phil, I find myself hankering for the old days, when teenagers used to rebel by sneaking out to smoke cigarettes and drink beer.