OLIVIA AND NATALIA KISS ON GUIDING LIGHT
Guiding Light characters Natalia and Olivia are friends and roommates who together take care of Olivia’s daughter, Emma. At school recently, Emma put together a presentation of her “two mommies,” and Natalie and Olivia were taken by surprise.
Fans, however, could probably note the sexual tension between the two, which came to a head when the friends returned home and discussed what the other parents had most likely “been thinking,” which culminates in a kiss. Watch the clip below:
Interesting how the word “lesbian” remains unspoken, but a kiss is what illustrates the point. Will this relationship move to a romantic level? Is this just CBS’ attempt at competing with All My Children?
LESBIAN QUOTE OF THE WEEK NO. 1
“I’m really attracted to strong women … let me rephrase that, I’m really attracted to strong female characters.”
–Portia de Rossi to reporters at the TCA Winter Press Tour, about her character on the upcoming ABC comedy Better Off Ted
PORTIA DE ROSSI WANTS YOU TO BE ANIMAL-FREE
Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres had a completely vegan wedding, so it’s not a surprise that both women follow the diet themselves. Ellen is a more recent convert, and Portia told reporters at TCA last week that they’ve both changed a lot since they began dating:
When Ellen and I first got together I was wearing fur and Ellen was wearing very expensive Italian calfskin leather. She was giving me a hard time about wearing the fur and I said, ‘Why is a fox any more important than a cow?’ … We took that idea and went all the way with it. We are doing what we can.
Fashion being just as important to the women as what they eat, Portia is going to be launching her own vegan shoe line.
Considering Natalie Portman‘s vegan shoes didn’t fare so well, I wonder how Portia’s will be much different. I also wonder how she will have the time, considering she has a new TV show and is also (hopefully) going to be working on the Arrested Development movie in the near future. She’s currently starring in the newly released film, Ambition to Meaning: Finding Your Life’s Purpose.
Maybe she’ll name the pumps after herself and a special sneaker line or other sensible shoes after her wifey.
– by Trish Bendix
KAKI KING TALKS RELIGION AND WHY SHE HATES THE L WORD
Kaki King has been quite busy since her latest album, Dreaming of Revenge, featuring the single “Pull Me Out Alive,” was released in March. The out musician has toured with the Foo Fighters (Dave Grohl‘s a fan), scored music for CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute toured like crazy, recorded The Mexican Teenagers EP for her upcoming tour of Australia/Europe tour and just collaborated with mega-star producer Timbaland.
King must not sleep much, because during all of that, she’s also been working on doing an original score for an upcoming documentary on religion and homosexuality, called Fish Out of Water.
While she’s no stranger to providing music for films, (two of her songs were featured in the 2007 Sean Penn film Into the Wild, and she was also Freddie Highmore‘s hands in August Rush, playing the guitar parts), this is the first time there’s been a personal connection to a film project.
Somewhat of a rarity, King is known as simply a great musician (and “guitar virtuoso,” “indie songstress, Rolling Stone‘s first-ever female “Guitar God”, etc.) as opposed to a great queer musician. Though she’s out, her talent transcends label and sub-genres. So it might seem odd that she’s chosen now as the time to tie herself to such a gay project.
“It didn’t take much convincing,” she told me, adding that it was the Chicago-based filmmakers, Ky Dickens (director/executive producer) and Kristen Kaza (producer) that inspired her to get involved.”It’s a project they’ve been working on so hard, for so long. They were just really inspiring. As well as the subject matter itself.”
King grew up in the south, attending Christian schools and Sunday schools, so she’s very familiar with religion and the skewed views many Christians have on homosexuality.
“I’ve had people call me a sinner, and I’m like, ‘I’m not a sinner, I’m a great person,'” she says. “I’m a big fan of Jesus, even though I’m not a Christian, but in his role as a philosopher. His message and the message of Christianity can get so twisted, and for such weird reasons.”
King wrote seven different pieces for the film, to tie into various scenes, including interviews with priests or other religion experts, members of the queer community as well as animated scenes. She said she’ll be wrapping up her commitment with the film sometime next month, and that the film should be released sometime in the next year.
In the next few months, King will be touring Australia and Europe – and definitely not watching The L Word.
“I will go on record just so every lesbian in America will hate me,” King says. “I don’t think The L Word has ever been a very good show. I don’t think the writing is all that good and i surely don’t think the directing has been all that good. And sometimes I think the acting has just sucked. … It’s a soap opera about lesbians and a lot of times it’s flat out terrible.”
If one thing’s for sure about Kaki King, it’s that she’s quite passionate about what she believes in (or believes totally sucks).
– by jamie murname
SUGAR RUSH COMES TO THE STATES
Those of you familiar with the award-winning British series Sugar Rush will be glad to know that that here! TV will begin airing season one on Feb. 6.
Those of you unfamiliar with Sugar Rush (those of you, for example, who understand lesbian teenage drama within the hand-holding confines of South of Nowhere) better hang on to your baseball caps.
Where Ashley and Specer’s shenanigans generally included hair-braiding, Scrabble night and sometimes having caffeine after 9:00, Kim and Sugar are into more legitimate adolescent hijinks, like making out in public and sharing bubble baths and plotting escapes to Paris.
The show begins with Kim, who moves from London to Brighton with her family and develops one of those exhausting crushes on her best friend that only happen between the ages of 15 and 75.
The first season deals with alcohol abuse, STDs, coming out, getting clean, and the the all-consuming power of teenage lust.
In other words, this ain’t your mama’s Saved By the Bell.
Don’t get all sassy in the comments, now. I love Spencer and Ashley as much as the next person who had to grow up watching Kelly and Zack.
Sugar Rush is just a little more, well, explicit.
– by StuntDouble
LESBIAN QUOTE OF THE WEEK NO. 2
“What this inauguration means is that in front of a White House that was built with slave labor in an inaugural week that starts at the Lincoln Memorial, where the second inaugural address is etched into the wall, which is about our country shedding a drop of blood by the sword for every drop of blood that was drawn by the lash, in this country, we are electing an African-American president.”
– Rachel Maddow to reporters at the TCA Winter Press Tour
LILY ALLEN LANDS A COVER STORY TALKING ABOUT LESBIAN DREAMS
Lily Allen has been getting a lot of attention lately, and somehow I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Recently, she apparently bought a beach in Jamaica while drunk (shopping after you’ve had a few is never a good idea) and sent topless mobile photos to the wrong person (they went to the Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson but she’s “joked” it was intended for ’80s singer Rick Astley – not sure which is worse.)
Allen also “slipped” and said she’ll be playing the Glastonbury Music Festival; and the festival organizers haven’t even confirmed any of the acts. She’s been candidly telling the press various things like she doesn’t think she’s talented and that she makes no money from and hates her first album, Alright, Still.
Even her dad is supposedly trying to tell her to shut up – but not before she claimed that, in addition to everything else she’s been up to, she also had sex with not one, but two lesbians – twins, no less.
She’s on the cover of February’s Gay Times, and in the interview, she told the magazine:
I was on the sofa and I had them both, I was dancing and shoving my arse on one of them and one on my front bottom. … That’s the only time, but I do have wet dreams – lesbian dreams – quite a lot.
First of all, way too much information. Front bottom? Really? Secondly, I bet there’s no connection to all of this and the release of her new album, It’s Not Me, It’s You next month. The first single, “The Fear,” comes out next week.
While she could just be on some wild guerrilla publicity rampage, I do give Lily credit for her support of equal rights. After dishing about her “lesbian snog,” she told the Gay Times:
I just feel you have no right to hate anyone because of how they’re born …I think if you’re a human being with a heart in your chest, you’re the same as everyone else.
I think Lily and I actually have a lot in common. Though I won’t be buying any beaches in Jamaica anytime soon.
LET’S HOPE ONE OF THEM DOESN’T GO OUT TO THE PARKING LOT AND NEVER COME BACK
In March, ABC is debuting a new animated series from Mike Judge (King of the Hill), about “a family obsessed with doing the ‘right’ thing, whether it’s environmentally, politically or socially. Unfortunately their efforts often have unintended comic consequences.”
They have an adopted son from Africa, a biological daughter named Bliss (voiced by Linda Cardellini), and a dog who is (forcibly) a vegan.
They also have lesbian neighbors, voiced by Lariane Newman and Julia Sweeney.
Judge told reporters at the TCA Winter Press Tour that he got the idea based on a lesbian couple he and his wife knew from their child’s nursery school:
There was a lesbian couple that was so cool, and everybody wanted to be friends with the lesbian couple. So it – we have an episode where [the main couple on the show] want to desperately have lesbian friends, but they miss the mark with the cool lesbians and end up with these lumpy, blue-collar lesbians who are a bit of an embarrassment and who, actually, the other lesbians look down on. But they become recurrent characters, and it’s so funny to have blue-collar lesbians who are kind of lumpy and – oh, God, Laraine Newman and Julia Sweeney are so fantastic.
After the panel, we got a little more from Judge about the lesbian characters. The couple is named Mo and Trish, and one of them works at a tire shop while the other formerly worked on an oil rig. They have a 17-year-old son Kevin.
“They’re not attractive, but they’re adorable,” he said, explaining that he created these characters as “frumpy, blue collar lesbians” because that’s something we never see on TV.
He’s right about that; it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Not so interesting? One of the lesbian couple’s storylines is about – you guessed it! – trying to have another child (the straight male lead character is insulted they don’t want his sperm).
Yes, American broadcast TV is apparently still incapable of having adult lesbian characters whose storylines don’t involve trying to get pregnant.
I would rant yet again about what is wrong with this trend, but I’m too busy googling potential sperm donors.
AFTERELLEN.COM SHORT FILM CONTEST WINNERS!
I know we promised you the winners in December, but it turned out to be such a crazy-busy month that we decided to hold the results until January.
We received so many great entries – thanks to everyone who submitted a film! – that we decided to let you choose the Grand Prize Winner among the six winning films, which will be rolled out one per day starting today through next Friday.
On Monday, Feb. 2, we’ll open voting on the films, and the creator(s) of the film that gets the most votes will appear in a promo on Logo’s television channel in late Spring, directing viewers to watch their film online.
Look for the first contest winner later today!
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
Milk received 8 Academy Award nominations.
Finnish wedding program Meidän häät (Our Wedding), which focuses on a different couple’s wedding each episode, featured a lesbian couple this week; check out this gallery of stills from the episode. (Thanks to Ilona for the tip!)
On British soap Emmerdale, Debbie (Charley Webb) and Jasmine (Jenna-Louise Coleman) kissed this week; when Debbie’s cousin caught them, he said they were “doing a Lindsay Lohan.” (Thanks to Juliet for the tip!)
Now you can buy sneakers designed by Tegan & Sara.
Wanda Sykes was on Leno again this week.
Slate.com published an article about lesbian romance novels involving Secret Service agents.
Cherry Bomb and Come With Me If You Want to Live are back for a new season starting today!
The next new episode of the teen web series Anyone But Me won’t be released until March, but StrikeTV may send us some related shorts before then to tide you over.
We launched a new Community hub yesterday, which you can get to by clicking on the “community” tab in the header at the top of every page. It’s not super hubb-y yet – we’ll be adding more content to it over the next few weeks and months – but it’s a start! Register or log in to see a personalized version of the page that shows your friends’ status headlines, topics you’ve commented on, and who’s online.
That’s it for this week! Got the inside scoop on a hot new lesbian/bi actor/musician/TV show/film? Tell us at [email protected]. Check back next Friday for another edition of Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever.
