FROM FOUR CHANNELS TO FOUR OUT ACTRESSES: NETWORK TV, HOW YOU’VE GROWN
I used to expect a lot from network television. I had to: I grew up in the middle of nowhere with four channels and one cranky dad who had to keep climbing up on the roof to adjust the aerial antenna. But then I grew up, moved on, got cable and discovered that TV could be both abundant and adventurous. So now I expect a lot less from the networks – which only means I’m pleasantly surprised sometimes. Like when two out actresses land prominent roles on prime-time series.
First, as we reported earlier this week, Cherry Jones has joined the cast of 24, Fox’s Emmy-winning drama. She’ll play President Allison Taylor. That’s right: The show that brought us Mia Kirshner as an assassin (arguably, The L Word has done the same thing) now brings us Cherry Jones as the leader of the free world.
At this point, we don’t know much about President Taylor, but I for one don’t need much: Jones is a phenomenal talent and deserves big fame. Plus, maybe she’ll be able to get her girlfriend Sarah Paulson a better gig than Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – together they could develop Studio 24, combining sketch comedy with political intrigue and ushering in a new era of drug-free, round-the-clock disco. (Arguably, The L Word has done the same thing.)
It’s a short trip from the White House to Beantown, where we find a second out actress on network TV. A few weeks ago, Malinda reported that Saffron Burrows would guest star in several episodes of Boston Legal – but just three weeks into the filming of the fourth season, Burrows has been made a permanent member of the cast.
We could have told you she’d impress you, ABC: You think Fiona Shaw dates just anyone? Hey, let me apply the get-your-girlfriend-a-job idea here and suggest that Burrows try to get Shaw a part on Boston Legal as Denny Crane’s nemesis. It’s an Aunt Petunia—Captain Kirk smackdown! My money’s on Harry Potter’s pinched but tenacious guardian.
Burrows won’t be playing gay (apparently her character once seduced James Spader’s), and it doesn’t sound like Jones will either. We still have to turn to cable for some things, like Portia de Rossi playing a lesbian on Nip/Tuck and Glenn Close teasing lesbians on Damages.
We actually lost a network gay character this week: The lesbian cheerleader on NBC’s Heroes has vanished in a puff of unsatisfactory explanations. As Malinda reported from the Television Critics Association press tour, Lyndsy Fonseca, who was set to play April the gay cheerleader, has moved on to other things. Un-heroic, un-gay things.
An NBC spokesperson made this statement in response to our request for more information: “Lyndsy Fonseca was a guest star in an episode of Heroes, playing a cheerleader. She was cast in another series and wasn’t able to continue with Heroes. Our show embraces and has showcased diversity in a variety of ways and will continue to do so.”
Yeah, that clears it all up. As AfterEllen.com reader Samfeasor said on the blog, “I remember when science fiction used to be groundbreaking.” And I remember when spokespeople used to be information-conveying.
So let’s do the math for the fall TV season: That’s four out actresses (Jones, Burrows, de Rossi, plus Rosie O’Donnell returning to Nip/Tuck) plus one lesbian/bi businesswoman (Cashmere Mafia, see below) minus one diversity-showcasing cheerleader (Heroes), for a total of better than nothing.
DOES TCA STAND FOR “TANTALIZING, COQUETTISH ANSWERS”?
The Television Critics Association press tour wasn’t all bad news: In Sarah’s live blogs from the TCA, she captured the good stuff, and some of it was downright flirty. Angie Harmon‘s new show on ABC, Women’s Murder Club, doesn’t feature any lesbian characters, but Harmon joked that there’s “lots of sexual tension” among the (all-female) cast.
Later, Harmon had some tension of her own with Bonnie Somerville (whose Cashmere Mafia character, Caitlin, has a relationship with Alicia, played by Lourdes Benedicto). Malinda had just finished interviewing Bonnie and had asked her who her character would hook up with if there were a Cashmere Mafia—L Word crossover. We’ll save her answer to that one for the interview, but Bonnie then told Angie, who was passing by, that she’d happily hook up with her (oh, to have been a fly on the wall at that moment!).
I have no idea what’s actually going on in these photos from the TCA conference, but I like to think Bonnie is asking, “Well, whaddya say?” and Angie is amused yet amenable.
It seems that Bonnie, who recently shot a movie with Sarah Shahi, takes her lesbian street cred very seriously:
Malinda: Is there anything you want to say to the queer women who are going to watch [Cashmere Mafia]?
Bonnie: That I think I should be in the [AfterEllen.com Hot 100] top five and bump Sarah Shahi out next year.
Keep up the coy commentary, Bonnie, and you probably will!
Meanwhile, Kevin Wade, the creator of Cashmere Mafia, told reporters those three little words every lesbian wants to hear: that it “wouldn’t be realistic” if there were no lesbian or bisexual character in the cast of high-powered New York businesswomen. (You mean lesbians and bisexual women are, like, real people you just might encounter in the course of doing business? Kevin, where have you been all our lives?!) Oh, scratch that: It was Kevin’s businesswoman friend who said that. Kevin’s friend, where have you been all our lives?! And do you have Bonnie Somerville’s phone number?
Wade also told Malinda that Lourdes Benedicto’s character, Alicia, is going to be on the show for at least the first half-dozen episodes. The series doesn’t start shooting until next month, but he’s in the middle of writing the fifth and sixth episodes, and he said that Alicia’s still in the running to be Caitlin’s next top – oh, oops! Wrong show.
Read Sarah’s blogs for more TCA tidbits and lovely photos of flirty straight celebrities clamoring for a spot on the AfterEllen.com Hot 100.
THEY’RE HERE, THEY HAVE NAVELS AND THEY’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE
This week’s episode of Kyle XY on ABC Family was titled “Free to Be You and Me,” and it was just as forward-thinking as that fabulous 1974 album of the same name. I hadn’t seen the show before – confused_ndn‘s forum post alerted me to the whole thing – and I’m not sure I’ll ever watch it again. I mean, XY is right there in the title: It doesn’t exactly call to me, you know?
But the episode was very gay-friendly and fairly amusing, even if the title character is just plain weird. (He has no navel. Figuring out why and where he comes from is the whole reason for the show, but never mind – let’s talk about the gay-friendly stuff already.)
In the episode, straight friends Lori (April Matson) and Hillary (Chelan Simmons) decide to go to the Beachwood High spring dance together, having had their hearts trampled on by thoughtless teenage boys. (Sorry, “thoughtless” was redundant.) But Lori and Hillary can’t get tickets to the dance because the school administration sees them as a same-sex couple. Duly horrified by this behavior (“Apparently they’re still living in the 20th century,” says Lori), the two friends join with another friend to hold an alternative dance where all couples are welcome and antiquated attitudes are banned. They even post rainbow flyers and consider it an act of civil disobedience.
I know things have changed a lot since I was in high school, but the idea that teenagers would be shocked by homophobic attitudes is – well, slightly shocking to me. In a good way. Of course, a couple of Beachwood High’s denizens turn out to be homophobes too, but the rest of the main characters are not only supportive of gay rights but also inclined to mock anyone who isn’t.
Even the parents fare well: Lori’s mom joins the cause without a second thought, and Andy, the dance-organizing friend, reveals that she has two moms. As for Kyle himself, he’s thoroughly befuddled by the idea of discrimination against same-sex couples, to the point of noncomprehension. If this is what it means to have no belly button, sign me up for an innie-ectomy!
Here’s a compilation of clips so you can get the gist without unraveling all my rambling:
Yeah, did you see that kiss? Too bad it was sort of a stunt kiss. And too bad the students who are actually gay (Andy’s two “dates”) are merely mentioned, rather than really shown – they didn’t even get to speak for themselves.
And then there’s the clunky line, “We’re not a same-sex couple; we’re just two girls who currently hate men.” Because that’s not any kind of stereotype.
But it’s still impressive that “Free To Be You and Me” was on ABC Family, of all channels. Julie Plec, supervising producer/writer of the show, told AfterEllen.com that some viewers cried “gay agenda” right after the episode aired: “We got hammered on some of the chat boards.” But that won’t stop them from including a gay character on the show, if the circumstances are right:
I think that it’s always a possibility. I mean, I’m a big believer that what you never want to do is … just introduce a gay character for the sake of having a gay character. … I love it when they do it on other shows because it’s very important, but to just kind of like, “Hey, guess what? This character is coming out, and it’s very painful,” and you know we’ll never see them again – I don’t want to do it that way. I think that as seasons go on, there’s always the possibility of that, because I think a positive portrayal in television is … sort of the most important thing we can do.
Yeah, it sort of is – to us, anyway! Maybe I will watch this show again sometime, if the ABC Family execs are going to be that cool.
The thing that surprised me most about the episode, though, was the use of the word “lesbionic.” Since when is that part of the larger pop-culture parlance? Can a show called The Lesbionic Woman be far off? It could star Katee Sackhoff as a kick-ass technologically enhanced baddie and … oh, wait.
Just for fun, here’s a clip of Free To Be You and Me, the celebrated kids’ album and TV special created by Marlo Thomas. It’s devoid of gay teenagers, straight teenagers who kiss to prove a point and navel-less teenagers stymied by systematic oppression. Otherwise, it’s exactly like Kyle XY.
Yep, that’s Michael Jackson and Roberta Flack. They have navels, last I heard.
PUTTING TOGETHER RETASO (FRAGMENTS)
A reader (thanks, MJ!) sent us some info about a new Filipino film called Retaso, slated to screen at the Cinemalaya 2007 festival.
MJ helpfully translated the trailer thusly: “In their small world, two women, Lena and Delsa, are slaves to their plight and succumb to their ordinary lives. But fate will bring them together: a woman who’s lost in her own past and another who wants to escape. One tries to find peace, and the other is haunted by her past, but both are in need of protection. They will be brought together by destiny to reconstruct their lives from fragments. With each other, can they escape, or do they have to become one to be truly free?”
OK, I’ve seen the trailer, and I think the bigger question is: Why do these trailers always have to end just as the women are about to kiss? Translate this, trailer people!
HEATHER, JANE AND A BECOMING FRIEND
Here’s a picture of out actress Heather Matarazzo at the premiere of Becoming Jane in New York this week.
I have no information about her friend, Caroline Murphy. As Jane Austen herself might say, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good lesbian friend must not be assumed to be gay. Not even at the after party.
A SERVING OF CAKE FOR AN ACER OF SERVES
I don’t know how I missed this over the Independence Day holiday, but I recently caught a rerun of the July 5 episode of Ace of Cakes, in which tennis star Martina Navratilova got a very special, very unwieldy cake for her 50th birthday. (Skip the boring stuff at the beginning to behold the challenge of making tennis balls out of flour, sugar and spray paint.)
Cake-baker extraordinaire Duff Goldman actually seems kind of moved, doesn’t he? I just like the way Martina situates her own cake, like a champion who’s used to photo ops.
Also, I like the whole idea of a cake that reflects your profession. Next year, I’d like someone to make me a cake that looks like a fountain pen, a MacBook Pro or a vat of coffee – aka the essential tools of my trade. If you can combine them all into one magnificent, Day-Glo cakelike sculpture, you might get your own show on the Food channel! Or at least a mention in this column, which might actually have a bigger audience than Ace of Cakes.
BECAUSE FRIENDS JUST LIKE TO BATHE TOGETHER SOMETIMES, OK? GAH.
The upcoming film The Edge of Love, starring Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley, has had a lesbian aura swirling around it for a while now. The movie (which was originally called The Best Time of Their Lives and starred Lindsay Lohan) spins a yarn about Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, his wife and her childhood friend. Some of the production stills seemed awfully promising, like this one:
But in a recent interview, Miller said it’s not as thrilling as it looks: “It’s about friendship, and female friendship can be misunderstood. We have a bath together. But I think the whole lesbian ménage à trois thing has been totally exaggerated.”
I hate when that happens. People are always misunderstanding my relationship with my loofah, and I’m fed up. And the whole rubber ducky thing has been totally exaggerated. So what if I read it Welsh poetry and polish its beak?
ANOTHER SHOW FOR CHO
This week, Margaret Cho announced a new off-Broadway show. The Sensuous Woman, opening Oct. 6 (previews begin Sept. 26) in New York, is described as a “burlesque-style variety show.” But its goals are loftier than you might think. As Cho explains: “The Sensuous Woman is an evening of comedy, dance and music celebrating women’s bodies. I have suffered from eating disorders and a horrendously distorted body image for my entire life, and I think the biggest reason is a lack of images of real women’s bodies. Where are they? We don’t see them in movies, on TV, in magazines.”
Well, with the exception of Hairspray, I’m inclined to agree. I’m also inclined to dig that summer of love—esque poster, and to burst into a medley from Hair when I see it. Somehow I doubt Cho will mind. The Sensuous Woman will have limited engagements in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago prior to arriving at New York’s Zipper Factory.
COME TO MY CLASSROOM WINDOW
Melissa Etheridge dropped in on a high school choral workshop in Indiana last week, leading the budding vocalists in a rousing rendition of her climate-change anthem “I Need to Wake Up.” Students in a nearby trigonometry class preferred to go on snoozing.
I WONDER IF MARA LEVI WEARS LEVI’S?
Out folk-rocker Mara Levi‘s new album, What Are You? is now available. For Mara, possible answers to that question include tiny sumo wrestler:
And, of course, peek-a-boo-er:
On a sort-of-related note, is it just me, or is this Levi’s ad kind of intriguing?
Because by “remixed,” we mean “I’m so glad I ran into you and your white tank top in this dark alley.”
HOW FUNKY IS YOUR BURIAL GROUND-DEFILING CHICKEN?
The Cannes Film Festival wrapped a couple of months ago, but a piece of schlock that debuted there is getting slots at film festivals worldwide. Troma Films’ Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead is a trashtastic tale of the fates that befall a community when a fast-food chicken restaurant is built on a sacred Native American burial ground. Go ahead and reread that sentence. It won’t be any more believable than it was the first time.
The important part, of course, is the lesbians. A group of activists called Collegiate Lesbians Against Mega-conglomerates (uh, that’s CLAM for short – eye roll) take a stand against the poultry purveyors, and oozy mayhem ensues. Girlfriends Wendy (Kate Graham) and Micki (Allyson Sereboff) are among the protesters, and aren’t they cute when they’re angry?
Poultrygeist screened in Montreal last week and next heads to Milwaukee and Tucson. On a related note, my apartment is in the same building as a fast-food chicken restaurant (really), and my girlfriend and I protest every time we walk past the smelly chicken guts on the sidewalk. Then we go right in and use our 20 percent building-resident discount!
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
The Kill Point, an “eight-hour television event” that began July 22 on Spike TV, features a black lesbian cop. More details as soon as a lesbian of any color actually tunes in to Spike TV.
Nina’s Heavenly Delights screens in more cities – as in more than none – in October and November. A word of advice: Eat first. The food is the most luscious thing in the movie.
On the Top Chef reunion show, Sandee Birdsong reminded everyone that a fauxhawk is cool and Padma Lakshmi is hot.
America’s Next Top Model has been renewed through 2010. Maybe by then, the whole notion of “big and beautiful” will be more than wishful thinking in a musical, and Tyra’s little show will seem quaint.
In AfterEllen.com’s new weekly audio podcast, Oh God I’m Gay, host Alicia Ross talks to spiritual leaders of different faiths and points of view, focusing on issues that affect the LGBT community. Two episodes are available now.
The CBS reality show Pirate Master has been canceled. The announcement comes one week after lesbian contestant Jupiter Mendoza was made to walk the plank. Watch your back, Heroes.
