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Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever. (March 2, 2007)

PEE-WEE HERMAN TO ELLEN: “I WANT MY SHOES BACK

Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscar-hosting gig last weekend received mixed reviews from critics, but she is credited with significantly increasing the number of female viewers, as well as a slight increase in viewers overall (no easy feat considering the event’s declining ratings in the last few years).

On her talk show this week, Ellen showed a video her producers put together chronicling her experience hosting the Academy Awards, including a scene of Ellen in tears a few hours before she put on her cute red velvet suit. And those not-so-cute white shoes.

Melissa Etheridge, meanwhile, was asked by reporters after receiving her award for Best Original Song if she was trying to make a statement by kissing her wife, Tammy Lynn Michaels, on the lips when she was announced as the winner. Melissa rightfully responded, “I was kissing her because that’s what you do, you kiss your loved one when you win an Oscar, that’s what I grew up believing.”

The Academy Awards were unusually lesbian this year (check out our “lesbians at the Oscars” slideshow for proof), but let’s face it: That just means there were six five out women, instead of two. That’s not even enough to field a softball team.

British writer Stella Duffy makes a good argument in the Guardian this week against seeing Ellen’s Oscar-hosting gig as a sign that lesbians have become mainstream (as Time and many other publications have been claiming). The fame of Melissa, Ellen and Rosie, “and the way the U.S. takes the cult of personality to extremes, is powerful and helps perpetuate the myth that lesbianism is now mainstream.” But, she insists, “when the daily, weekly, constant inequities are added up – when it’s still special and important that a woman who happens to be a lesbian presents the Oscars – then, no, we are not accepted by the mainstream.”

I’m inclined to agree with Stella on this one. If I hear another straight person or gay man point to Rosie, Ellen and The L Word as proof that “lesbians are everywhere” when there are almost no lesbian characters in mainstream films, we don’t have a single regular lesbian character on network TV, and Tina Fey is still heterosexual (dammit!), I’m going to … um, complain about it in this column.

For another take on the Oscars, check out this column on the newsmagazine site HollywoodToday.com decrying the Ellen Oscars as “the Girly Show” that needs an injection of “more of a straight male point of view.” The author goes on to complain about the “overload” of commercials for “women’s products” during the show, and even Ellen’s vacuuming bit, which “left many men scratching their heads” because “the words hosting and cleaning are far from synonymous to the average guy throwing a party.” No, I’m not kidding. It’s sexist stereotypes on parade. I will give him this, though – he doesn’t appear to think it’s a problem that Ellen’s a lesbian. Just that she’s a woman.

ACCORDING TO THE 2000 CENSUS, UNICORNS MAKE UP ONLY 10% OF THE HORSE POPULATION

On last night’s episode of The Sarah Silverman Program on Comedy Central (watch clips on the official site), Sarah temporarily decides she’s a lesbian when she meets a butch lesbian cop named Tig and starts fantasizing about her. It was all downhill from there – in a very funny way – with a hilarious montage of Tig looking sexy on her motorcycle, Sarah’s ridiculous turn as a flannel-wearing lesbian folksinger, and her awkward attempt to show Tig just how OK she is with lesbianism by asking, “What is a lesbian? What is anything? Like, what’s a unicorn? It’s a horse with a horn on its head that’s magic. A lesbian is just a woman with a horn on her head that’s magic.”

Another great moment? When Sarah chided her straight friend by telling her sternly, “As a lesbian, I resent your laughter. And all laughter.”

WHO DOESN’T HAVE A WEAKNESS FOR BEAUTIFUL WOMEN?

I mentioned a few weeks ago that the pilot for the Darren Star-created drama series Cashmere Mafia has a lesbian/bi series regular. The role has since been cast, and the cosmetics industry VP who plays for our team will be played by Bonnie Somerville, formerly of NYPD Blue, Kitchen Confidential and The O.C. Here are photos of Somerville as both a blonde and a brunette; I can’t decide which I like better:

In other fall pilot news, there’s yet another potential series in the works with a lesbian character (that makes four so far, including Hackett and Traveling in Packs).

CBS has ordered to pilot (cast-contingent) The Rich Inner Life of Penelope Cloud, a multicamera half-hour comedy about a former literary star, Penelope, who has an epiphany and opts to pursue optimism rather than cynicism. The lesbian is Penelope’s housemate and ex-girlfriend, Eva, “a choreographer with a weakness for wine, cigarettes, and beautiful young women,” according to the breakdown (the role hasn’t been cast yet). Eva and the mostly straight Penelope had a brief affair years ago and remained good friends after they broke up when Penelope realized she prefers men.

Eva currently prefers her lead dancer, who’s developed an attitude problem in class since they began sleeping together. If I were you, Eva, I’d take a page from the Bette Porter playbook and kick that dancer to the curb before she goes all Nadia on you!

EASY LIKE SUNDAY MORNING

Although it doesn’t have any Beyonce and Shakira hip gyrations in it, check out the video for the song “Goth Girls are Easy” by the hilariously named band Lesbian Bed Death

I can’t make out any of the lyrics besides the chorus (which is, not surprisingly, “goth girls are easy”), but the video involves one goth girl eyeing another across a crowded room, and they both remind me of the girls I secretly admired in seventh grade who used to sneak cigarettes between classes and listen to Depeche Mode on their Walkmans, so I’m in!

Hmm, maybe I’m the one who’s easy …

IS IT WRONG TO HAVE FLUFFY BUNNY FEELINGS FOR A COMIC?

We have more panels from the first issue of the new Buffy comic series, which hits the streets March 14th. In the new “season,” Buffy and Xander are coordinating the evil-fighting efforts of packs of slayers all over the world. Meanwhile, Dawn’s decision to sleep with her boyfriend appears to have very large consequences, but she won’t talk about it to anyone but Willow, who’s off doing who knows what. So what does Buffy do? She makes with the funny, of course! Check out the comment about Willow in the last panel:

Only the first issue and already with the lesbian jokes? Excellent!

Sigh. I miss Buffy.

LESBIAN QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Britney’s new haircut makes her look like a butch dyke. I like it. I think I’ll her marry her, but I’ll have to do it in the U.K.”

– Out singer Beth Ditto of The Gossip, on Britney Spears, according to unsubstantiated tabloid reports.

LOVE THEIR LIFE

A reader (thanks Cat!) tipped me off to a new-ish Japanese lesbian movie based on a manga called Love My Life, which is not the depressing 1993 movie My Life starring Michael Keaton as a father dying of cancer, but according to Yuri blogger Erica Friedman, it’s a “a really cute movie with an undoubtedly happy end where the girl got the girl.” Read a more detailed synopsis here.

It looks like a fun movie, although I can’t really figure out what’s going on in the trailer since I don’t speak Japanese, and unfortunately, neither does my half-Japanese girlfriend. I can’t exactly throw stones, though, since it’s not like I speak Polish, Norwegian or Danish fluently. Or at all. Although I do have a rusty reading knowledge of French, and I taught myself some Yiddish in college (Jewish girlfriend). The latter ought to be a big help when the next Yiddish lesbian movie comes out. Just like my girlfriend’s minimal knowledge of Tlingit (her other half) will come in handy the next time there’s an Alaskan Native version of High Art.

Where was I? Oh yeah: Love My Life. Not a Michael Keaton movie. Happy lesbian ending. Check it out!

SHE SAID WHAT?

This week, we discuss hot women at the Oscars, South of Nowhere and filmmaker Sam Farinella’s Alix Olson documentary, Left Lane.

Next week on SSW: Kim Stolz talks about life after America’s Next Top Model, and I finally learn how to talk in short sentences. Well, one of those two things is true, anyway.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Starting next week, Scribe Grrrl’s L Word recaps won’t be posted until late Monday nights, and her podcast will be up on Wednesday nights. And since there don’t appear to be any lesbian or bi contestants on Cycle 8 of America’s Next Top Model, we won’t be recapping the show, but our brother site AfterElton.com is, so check their site every Friday for your weekly ANTM recap fix.

That’s it for this week! Check back next Friday for another edition of Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever.

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