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She had me at “Hell no, we won’t go!”

Tootsie, Frances, Cousin Bette, Crimes of the Heart, The Postman Always Rings Twice, hell, even that campy schlockfest Hush. There are just so very many reasons to bow down at the altar of Jessica Lange. So her vocal criticism of George W. Bush and the war in Iraq is just icing on the cake for me.

Lange recently told The Belfast Telegraph that her political opinions have endangered her life more than once. “There were times when it was really lovely to be out there and against the war. But then I had anti-war stickers on my car and some big f***ing pick-up with an American flag tried to drive me off the road. It was scary and I was scared.”

“My anti-war work started four years ago when the drums were beating,” she said. “The few of us who really spoke out at the time took such a beating in the press – even the liberal press – and on CNN; I was on a CNN news program with an arms inspector who had been in Iraq, and we were treated like sh*t.”

I, for one, am outraged. So I’m proposing the formation of a group of freelance lesbian bodyguards for Ms. Lange (I’ll get the ball rolling, but please don’t make me be in charge or set up the phone tree. I’m lousy with order and details). Any takers? It’s the least I could do. After all, without Jessica Lange, I may have never even figured out that I was a lesbian.

Hmm. Well, maybe it’s safer to say that it might have taken me a little longer.

I’ll never forget when she floated onscreen for the first time in Tootsie. The angelic halo around her tousled blonde locks, the dimples, the flirty tone she took with her soon-to-be-almost-girlfriend Dorothy Michaels (Dustin Hoffman in drag) was all a bit too much for my teen brain to process. By the end of the movie, I knew I was a big queer. Still, I saw it about 11 more times for confirmation.

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