I’ve often thought that there’s a Ph.D. thesis to be written on the overarching effect of the internet on the gay and lesbian community. On the one hand, there’s the fact that the net potentially exposes the gay user to homophobic hate groups spewing more bile than (hopefully) he or she encounters in the real world on the average day. On the other hand, there are communities like ... well, like AfterEllen.com, which mean that you no longer have to live in a big city or be a bar bunny to gain some sort of feeling of belonging to a lesbian community.

And then there’s the phenomenon of the lesbian (or lesbianish) fan video. Fed up with searching for nonexistent out lesbian characters in TV and film, some people just get hold of a film editing program and create their own story lines and emphases out of the raw material provided by the networks.

Which means if I want to see a video that focuses on the subtexty bits between, say, Serena and Blair on Gossip Girl, then it doesn’t take me very long to find one:

And a well-made one at that. Admittedly, there’s a bit more of Blair rolling around with various interchangeable boys than I need to see, but I think this video does a great job of capturing the fact that the most powerful emotional relationship on the show is really between the two girls. Which makes a nice change after all the shows — from Starsky and Hutch to Nip/Tuck — focused on male pairs who secretly seem to need each other more than they really need the inconsequential women who pass between them.

Then there’s this video centered on Andie (Anne Hathaway) and Miranda (Meryl Streep) from The Devil Wears Prada: … continue reading

I think I remember the first time I really, really wanted to look like somebody on TV. It was the late 1980s; the show was Saved by the Bell; the actress was Tiffani-Amber Thiessen; and the relevant monstrosity was this:

Now, you might be saying, that isn’t really so bad. I mean yes, the top is mauve, the jeans are floral, the hair is big and static ... but that Tiffani-Amber Thiessen is a pretty girl, right? No wonder at eight years old you wanted to look like her.

Well — yes. I mean, I’m sure the fact that Tiffani-Amber Thiessen is pretty had an impact on it — but I’m afraid I can’t excuse myself so easily. It wasn’t just that when I watched Saved by the Bell, I wanted to have Kelly Kapowski’s hair, or Kelly Kapowski’s smile. No, I wanted to have Kelly Kapowski’s look, her whole gloriously '80s pastel-and-neon wardrobe — complete with a pale orange T-shirt with rolled up sleeves that I remember particularly coveting. And — since it was the '80s — I think I more or less got it.

Fast-forward five years, to the premiere of a show called My So-Called Life in 1994. Jordan wore plaid flannel. Danielle wore plaid flannel. Rayanne had a plaid flannel shirt that reached the ground. And Angela ... well, Angela had red plaid flannel shorts that she wore with black tights. To quote a poster on TelevisionWithoutPity.com, “I can’t believe how normal I used to think these outfits were [...] Today, it looks to me like she’s wearing cutoff pajama pants over leggings.”

Did I run from this sea of flannel? Did I say “no plaid for me?” No. I had a pair of plaid green shorts that I hoped would make me look like Angela (they didn’t).

Plaid got a different, less grungy and more preppie twist the next year, when Clueless hit the movie theaters: … continue reading