WE’RE LEAVING MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ OFF THE SUGGESTION LIST BECAUSE SHE’LL BE BUSY FOR THE NEXT 180 DAYS
In 2003, we reviewed Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez‘s novel The Dirty Girls Social Club, about six Latina friends from college in their mid-to-late-20s, one of whom is a closeted lesbian.
This week, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Princess Diaries producer Debra Martin Chase and producer-writer Nely Galan are teaming up to bring the novel to the big screen. Galan, the former president of entertainment at the Telemundo network, optioned the film rights from Valdes-Rodriguez, who wrote the screenplay and is set to executive produce. On her website, Alisa writes, “We’re moving fast on this exciting project, and hope to have something completed by this time next year.”
More good news? A sequel to Dirty Girls Social Club, called Dirty Girls on Top, is slated to hit bookstore shelves in the spring of ’08.
Casting on the cinematic version of DGSC is reportedly set to begin in the next few weeks, and we have a few suggestions for who should play Elizabeth, the Colombian-born, born-again Christian and former model who is now a well-known news anchor in Boston with a white butch girlfriend.
There’s the obvious choice, of course: America Ferrera. If you can afford her.
Then there’s Heroes‘ Dania Ramirez, who would also be a good option.
But our favorite nominee? Degrassi hottie Deanna Casaluce, who recently completed her last season on the popular Canadian teen drama and is now in L.A. trying to break into American film and television.
Speaking of Degrassi …
PALEX IS A BATTLEFIELD
Palex is back! Here’s a preview of tonight’s episode of Degrassi that airs on The N, called “Love is a Battlefield,” in which Paige gets ready for a job interview while Alex lolls around in bed:
It’s not quite the morning-after scene from South of Nowhere‘s Season 2 opener, but it’s still cute.
Will Palex stay together? Maybe not, according to this promo. But they’re young. Heartache to heartache, they stand. No promises, no demands … sorry, I couldn’t resist.
“You were better off as a stripper”? Um, that’s “exotic dancer,” Paige.
ROSIE O’DONNELL ROUNDUP: GOSSIP, ART & DETOX, OH MY!
The internet was abuzz last week over rumors that Rosie O’Donnell was fired from The View because she made fun of Barbara Walters. But given that the “news” sources reporting this story are the likes of transworldnews.com, let’s not rush to judgement.
Rosie herself responded to the rumors on her blog, explaining (sort of):
i asked for 10 million
they said no
it was a joke in a comedy club taken out of context
i was soing an impression of a woman at the mall
watching me yell at blake
saying
“oh she is mean …i see y barbara fired her…”
creative editing people
the reason for no press interviews
context seems irrelevant
2 many
If I understand her correctly (which is debatable), Rosie was at a comedy club doing an impression of a woman at a mall who had seen her yelling at her son, Blake. The woman at the mall then commented, “Oh, she is mean, I see why Barbara fired her.” Then the “news” outlets decided that a joke = reality. WTF? People r dum.
Oops. Let’s get back to English.
For those of you who are interested in seeing another side of Rosie’s life, some of her art (titled Rosie O’Donnell: Solace) will be exhibited Oct. 9—Dec. 2 at the Gallery at New World Stages in New York. Here’s some of her work:
Not enough Rosie? You can also now get her latest book Celebrity Detox (The Fame Game), which was just released this week.
AFTERELLEN.COM’S LESBIAN REALITY TV STAR AWARDS (NO, TILA’S NOT A WINNER. YET.)
TV Squad recently posted their list of the top 10 bad-ass women of reality TV. Unsurprisingly, several of the women are lesbians, including Coral Smith from MTV’s Real World: Back to New York (No. 9), Heather West from Season 2 of Hell’s Kitchen (No. 7) and Jackie Warner of Work Out, who tops the list as the No. 1 Bad-ass (defeating even Janice Dickinson, who must be pissed!).
Here’s what TV Squad says about Jackie:
When watching the show, you can really tell that the key to her success is that she demands the best from both her trainers and her clients. And her employees, who sometimes disagree with Jackie in their confessionals or private conversations with one another, never really have the guts to tell her off. Why? Because they know, they’d probably be out of a job. Furthermore, they know that if it wasn’t for Jackie’s awesome abs, they wouldn’t have clients in the first place. So, show some respect, meatheads!
I am not one to disagree with this assessment. You can’t compete with Jackie’s abs. Or the rest of her muscles, either.
Given the large number of lesbians and bisexual women on reality TV (not to mention the debut this week of Tila Tequila’s dating show), this seemed to be an opportune moment to call out some of reality TV’s best most memorable lesbian contestants. Here’s how I would reward their narcissism:
Back on Season 9 of CBS’ Survivor: Vanuatu, which was split into tribes of men vs. woman, Ami held together a women’s alliance until she was voted off the island, making it to the final six contestants. The guys noticed, too, characterizing her leadership skills as “woman power.” Ami, to her credit, never rejected that label and stuck with the women womyn till the end.
On Season 6 of CBS’ Big Brother, Ivette became the first openly lesbian houseguest and immediately proceeded to generate a bad reputation for herself by making awful remarks about Muslims. Nonetheless, she made it to the top two, showing that bitchiness does pay (at least on TV).
Who could forget the infamous night-vision camera recording Kim’s midnight rendezvous with fellow model wannabe Sarah Rhoades, a small-town heretofore heterosexual girl from Boonville, Mo. Kim certainly wasn’t shy, declaring after kissing Sarah in the ANTM limo, “One down, 11 to go!” Clearly, Kim thought she was a contestant in America’s Next Top Lesbian.
Ah, Mimi. Known for her biting, being Brazilian and her artwork of blind, legless chickens, Mimi put the extreme in ex. She topped it all off by throwing a glass (including the water it contained) at then-girlfriend Jackie Warner shortly after the No. 1 Badass screamed, “Leave my existence!” After a brief and fruitless attempt at couples’ therapy, she did. Buh-bye, Mimi.
ALICIA KEYS STANDS BY DE-GAYING. OR MAYBE SHE DOESN’T. HUH?
In this month’s Complex, Alicia Keys talks about her role in last year’s Smokin’ Aces, revealing that the gay story line between her character, assassin Georgia Sykes, and partner-in-crime Sharice Watters (Taraji P. Henson), was somewhat de-gayed over the course of the production. She also revealed that she initially rejected the role, until her agent convinced her to reconsider it.
Here’s what she told Complex:
AK: I got the script, I read 30 pages, and I threw it in the trash.
C: Really? Why?
AK: I was like, “There’s like every stereotype ever in there. And what’s this gay s—, too? So maybe two weeks later, my agent called me and said, “Read it all the way through, you’ll be feeling it.” So I dug it out and I read it. And the more I read, the more that I got it. I was like, “Wow, there’s nothing people will expect from me less than this.” And that’s what I wanted when it came to film. I don’t want to be the singing, piano-playing “girl role.” I want to be something that’s not who I am.
C: Did you have any reservations or concerns that playing a gay character was going to spawn rumors?
AK: Well, my character wasn’t the gay character, my partner was. But there was kind of a –
C: Tension?
AK: There was originally a whole scene where I confronted her about it, and said, “I feel like you’re kind of pushing up on me, what’s going on?” They left that out; they wanted it to be very ambiguous, which is cool. I figured that people would probably run with it, and there was a little misconstruing about it, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t a big deal.
So … her character isn’t gay, but leaving it ambiguous is cool, except some people misconstrued what was going on? And what exactly does she mean by “gay s—“? Note to Alicia: Saying things like “what’s this gay s—” is really what spawns rumors – and not the kind you want, either.
(Go to Rod 2.0 to read the entire interview, and thanks to AfterElton.com for the tip!)
POICHÉ L’ITALIA HA LESBICHE ANCHE
An Italian documentary about The L Word that aired in Italy in August is now available to watch online; here’s Part 1 and Part 2.
Among the folks interviewed for the two-part series are Guinevere Turner, Michelle Wolff, AfterEllen.com contributing writer Shauna Swartz, and myself.
Yes, that’s me in the sunglasses talking about how much lesbians love processing (especially about The L Word). If you’ve ever wanted to hear The L Word in Italian, here’s your chance: All the clips from the show are in Italian (the rest of it’s in English).
Plus, the documentary was shot in Los Angeles, San Francisco and the New York area, and it covered several Pride events, so you might catch a glimpse of yourself, your ex or your ex’s ex in the background. I’m sure there’s a drinking game in there somewhere. Salute!
MEET LOQUACIOUS, LORELAI AND NATALIA STOLICHNAYA-SMITH
On this week’s We’re Getting Nowhere, Karman, Jill and Dara introduced us to three Top Model contestants who weren’t able to make it into the first few episodes because they missed the boat. It’s so funny I’m putting it here, too:
Since there don’t appear to be any other out lesbian contestants on Top Model this season, I sure do hope one of these three turns out to be gay! Tune in next week to find out if all three of them make it to the next round.
VLOG IS THE NEW BLACK
We debuted yet another video blog this week, this time from Michelle Paradise, creator of new comedy series Exes & Ohs. In her inaugural vlog, Michelle responds to some comments from last week’s BLWE and explains why she had to remove her cat from the vlog. Watch it here.
In this week’s episode of The Lo-Down, Sarah P. and I take a big bite out of the first episode of A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila. FYI, there are cowboy hats involved.
On this week’s Lesbian Weeds Watching, Jen and Emma tackle Episode 3.8 of Weeds, complete with re-enactments.
On Saturday, look for another episode of She Made Me Watch This, in which Sarah and Lori discuss how Bionic Woman is the gayest non-gay show on network TV right now, and why A Shot at Love is just wrong. In so many ways.
Finally, just to reiterate, we know there are technical problems with the video players that are preventing some of you (from outside the U.S. especially) from watching the vlogs, but we are hard at work on solving these problems. The last thing we want is for you to be restricted from watching us act like goofballs! Please be patient as we marshal our technical forces.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
An early review of out actress Saffron Burrows‘ upcoming movie The Bank Job has surfaced at Ain’t It Cool News. Sorry, there’s nothing lesbian about the movie, but hey, Saffron Burrows!
Australian gay and lesbian website samesame.com.au released their list of The 25 Most Influential Gay & Lesbian Australians this week, including hockey player Alyson Annan, CEO Stevie Clayton, activist and author Vicki Harding, law professor Jenni Millbank, police officer Joy Murphy and politician Penny Wong. Yes, there are only six women on the list. Let’s hope that next year they recognize an equal number of men and women.
Cool lesbian website alert: Treazuremag.com.
New TV show ‘Da Kink in my Hair – based on Trey Anthony’s award-winning play of the same name and the first show in Canada with an all-black cast – debuts on Global TV in Canada on October 14th.
New episodes of Blood Ties (Lifetime) begin airing again on Fridays tonight, with supposedly-bisexual and definitely cool lead Vicki (Christina Cox).
In honor of National Coming Out Day, our friends Brent and Michael at AfterElton.com have devoted their latest Two Gay Guys video blog to looking at what the world would be like if gays and lesbians didn’t exist. Although they didn’t mention this in the video, one thing’s for sure: the vampire movie genre would be seriously anemic.
