Ellen DeGeneres and Neil Patrick Harris are two of my favorite comeback stories. Both are household names now, but it’s their second time around after fading into relative obscurity between their first tastes of fame and their renewed celebrity in the last 10 years.
This week’s Huddle: Who is your favorite comeback story?
Grace Chu: All the comebacks in Orange is the New Black, obviously. The cast of American Pie, Captain Janeway and the chick from That ’70s Show all got thrown into a women in prison series, and it was a gay old time.
Erika Star: What does it say about me that my first thought was Tatyana Ali?
Kim Hoffmann: Robyn’s comeback. As an 8th grader, I remember wearing out “Show Me Love” (the song, not the Swedish lesbian movie-though I wore that out too) and she fit the bill as far as ’90s dance music was concerned. BUT MAN, talk about a comeback. Watching “Call Your Girlfriend” for the first time was a religious experience. Robyn’s transformation from ’90s dancehall queen to pixie-cool fembot a few years back made her an icon within an icon. My respect and adoration can only be best applied in an electric slide.
Heather Hogan: Jane Austen wrote and wrote and wrote for all of her whole life, dreaming away about being a published author. Her first go at publishing Pride and Prejudice was met with a five-word rejection letter: “Declined by Return of Post.” The first guy who bought Northanger Abbey never even bothered to print it. And five years after her main life goal came true, five years after she published Sense and Sensibility, she got super sick and died. But rejection letters didn’t stop her! Unpublished manuscripts didn’t stop her! Death didn’t even stop her! Jane Austen is the comeback queen!
She published four novels when she was alive, and then she came back from the dead and published two novels from beyond the grave! 19th century critics wrote her off after her death because she was all about the ladies and the love, but she came back when Sir Walter Scott was like, “Dude, she’s accessible Shakespeare, she’s sardonic Homer.” 20th century literary elitists thumbed their noses at her because she didn’t conform to the Romantic and Victorian styles of Dickens and Eliot, but she came back when F. R. Leavis and Ian Watts and Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson were like, “LOL, she’s mocking you haters with subversive satire you don’t even have the wit to comprehend!” 21st century feminist scholars booed and hissed at her about the patriarchy, but she came back again when Claudia Johnson and and Susan Gubar and Sandra Gilbert were like, “Er, hello? Do you not see how fucking angry Austen is that the institution of marriage is the only path to economic security for women? Did you miss the part where she values education and free-thinking more than beauty or social graces or anything else in her heroines?”
Every time the world thought they were done with ol’ Jane, they were so very wrong. She’s come back with books, with letters, with movies, with TV shows, with web series’, with plays, with e-books, with BBC miniseries’, and she will do on and on until the sun burns out and the earth floats off into deep space.
(Also, though, she’s just the greatest writer of verbal comebacks. Hatey-haters? “I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”)
Lucy Hallowell: In high school, I used to walk by this poster every day in our dorm.Flashdance is an amazing movie with iconic moments echoed in TV and film (Rachel Green and Spencer Hastings both used to take your bra off under your shirt to mixed success). But after it, Jennifer Beals sort of went into the ether (or Yale). She popped up here and there but nothing major until she swagger into Bette Porter’s power suits. My teen crush on Alex the welder/dancer returning to TV as a badass, often assholic, power lesbian? Oh hell yes. Welcome back, Jennifer. Please don’t leave us again.
Dana Piccoli: How appropriate Lucy, because my favorite comeback happens to be BFFs with Ms. Beals. Anyone who grew up in the ’90s, lived and breathed Saved By The Bell. Elizabeth Berkley played the caffeine pill-addicted, smart and beautiful Jesse Spano. She was so much cooler than Kelly Kapowski. After the show ended, Berkley had the world at her fingertips-and then came Showgirls.
Now, I probably love Showgirls more than what is acceptable, but not everyone can appreciate it’s nuanced charm. Ok, the movie is an unmitigated hot mess. The thing is, Berkley was only 23 years old when she starred as the unforgettable Nomi Malone. Someone she probably trusted advised her to take that role, a lead role in a Hollywood blockbuster at 23. Who wouldn’t be swayed? And she she gives that role her everything. Can you imagine, that one role, would end up making you a Hollywood pariah. The butt of a joke? At 23 yrs old! I have always thought it was so shameful that she was discarded in such a way.
In the years since Showgirls, Elizabeth Berkley has created a website and subsequent book, called Ask Elizabeth, where she invites young girls to express themselves and come to her for advice. I think that is pretty damn fantastic. She is a person who has stared humiliation in the face, and found a strength inside of her that she now shares with others who need guidance. A class act.
She is a contestant on Dancing with the Stars this season, and she’s amazing. She’s really embraced her fans and tweets things like #Imsoexcited without pandering or an ounce of insincerity. That is a woman who has got it together.
Elaine Atwell: A few months ago I did my biannual Well-I’m-Depressed-Anyway-So-I-Might-As-Well-Watch-My-Girl thing, and afterwards, as I mopped up my tear puddle, was filled with the urge to google what ever happened to Veda Sultenfuss. As you may know, Anna Chlumsky gave up on acting for a number of years, but returned to be in Veep. I haven’t actually gotten around to watching it yet (although I’m sure when I do my childhood crush on her will return, stronger than ever), but it’s just nice to know that she’s out there, being functional and intact. I wish more child stars could say the same.
Punky Starshine: Sarah Michelle Gellar. Granted, only time will tell if The Crazy Ones will be any good, but she’s back on my television, and she has finally joined twitter, and while she never went anywhere in my heart, I’m glad she seems to be making a comeback in the public eye.
Chloe: Amanda Bynes will rise again, likely lobotomized a la Britney. Imagine if Amanda Bynes did a come back sequel of She’s The Man but every ends up going gay? Even I think Channing Tatum crushing on another dude would be hot. And Amanda Bynes as a cute soccer lesbian who doesn’t realize how Ellen Page, the smart as s drama nerd, is the one until one night underneath the goal. The stadium lights would flash on, the stands would cheer, and Channing Tatum would hook up with Adam Brody under the bleachers.Ali Davis: In the middle of my “Holy crap, a show with women kissing?!” astonishment and my “Holy wow, a show with women ding WAY MORE than kissing?!” astonishment and my “Wait-they’re gonna have long-term same-sex relationships, probably without someone getting sent to another city or killed off! (Sorry, Dana!)” astonishment, I managed to find time to be thrilled that Pam Grier was on The L Word.
I went through a phase of fascination with low-budget movies in college, and finding Pam Grier’s action flicks was a moment of jaw-dropping joy. If you haven’t seen Coffy, you need to right now. It’s the movie in which Grier taught me that if you know a cat fight is coming up, you should take a little me-time to put razors in your wig, so that anyone who tries a hair-grab on you will have something to think about.
She was always an amazing screen presence, and The L Word, for all its flaws, gave Grier a compelling but completely different kind of character to work with. I can’t wait to see what she does next.
Trish Bendix: I’m sufficiently psyched about the comeback of Luscious Jackson. Their new video has assured me they might be in 2013 but they haven’t lost their ’90s awesome.
Karman Kregloe: I promise that my answer to every Huddle question is not going to be “Jessica Lange.” However, I have to pick Lange again this week. The woman who kindly help me realize that I was gay by being so dreamy in Tootsie didn’t exactly go underground in the 30 years since I first noticed her. She continued to act and even picked up an Oscar (for Blue Sky) and Emmy and Golden Globe noms (for Grey Gardens) along the way. But thanks to the success of American Horror Story, I once again see her on the cover of magazines, walking red carpets and even trotting off with an Emmy (after wisely thanking her writers for making it possible). Lange has been my favorite actress since I was a high school thespian, and I am thrilled to see her being rightly worshipped by the masses.
Emily Hartl: Even though I don’t get to watch The Talk that often I really am happy that Sara Gilbert is back on the scene. Darlene 4-ever!
Those are some good ones. Do you have a favorite comeback success story?
