Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever. (January 14, 2011): Mary Portas goes undercover, “Glee” gets real
Athlete Ally. The site was launched by (heterosexual) former college wrestler Hudson Taylor as a “resource to encourage athletes, coaches, parents, fans and other members of the sports community to respect all individuals involved in sports, regardless of perceived or actual sexual-orientation or gender identity or expression.” His goal? To end homophobia in sports.
Mary Portas. The Queen of Shops star has a new show, Mary Portas: Secret Shopper, premiering January 19 on Channel 4. In it, she’ll go undercover in big chain stores and expose their “hopeless customer service.” We’re pretty sure she’s going to make someone cry, too.
The Glee Project. Ryan Murphy will produce the Oxygen reality competition for which the grand prize is a seven-episode guest-starring role on the show. The show premieres in June, which gives you plenty of time to start stretching and figuring out how to trick Murphy into giving you a Full Etheridge scene with Brittana.
Sick of Sarah. The band’s new “Overexposure” music video debuts today on MTVu, playing at the top of every hour starting at 6 am (and on mtvu.com). You’ve been up since six anyway, right?
Christine Vachon. Out producer Vachon and Pam Koffler (Killer Films) are teaming up with the guys at Moxie Pictures to form KillerMoxie Management, repping “indie-minded filmmakers, actors, and recording artists.” Good news for artists (out or otherwise) everywhere who want smart, talented people on their side.
Kathryn Brenny. The former U. of Minnesota golf coach (who alleges she was relieved of her duties when the golf director at the school learned of her lesbianism) served a lawsuit on the university this week. Her lawyer has already won a $1.25 million suit (unrelated to Brenny’s) against the school. The U of M athletic department should check out Athlete Ally. Could be very educational.
Judge C. Randall Lowe. Advocate.com is reporting that the Virginia circuit court judge who once prevented a lesbian from legally taking the last name of her partner reversed the decision and allowed the name change.
Lady Gaga. Forbes is reporting that Gaga will earn $100 million this year, some of it from her upcoming album Born This Way, due out February 13 (the same day as her newly confirmed performance at the Grammys).
Maryland. The state may become the sixth in the U.S. to recognize same-sex marriage. We trust the state that brought us John Waters and Old Bay Seasoning to do it right.
The GLBT History Museum. The first gay museum in the nation opened this week in San Francisco, showcasing “a variety of items ranging from Harvey Milk‘s pink-framed sunglasses to manuscripts and sex toys.” Sure beats the same old Impressionists exhibit!
Bad hetero rom-coms. On the heels of the erotically charged (and kinda gay) Black Swan, both Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman are starring in what look to be bad (and super straight) booty call movies. Coincidence? You were acting in that Black Swan sex scene. We get it!
Portlandia. When we talked to the show’s co-creator and star, bisexual singer/actress Carrie Brownstein and asked if they would consider adding queer characters to it, she referenced two sexually ambiguous ones and said, “I think we’re OK with that area that is a little undefined. That’s what’s nice about art and about creativity is all the areas that don’t fit into specific categories. But of course. We’re always open to having a recurring character that would be gay.” That’s nice, but how about a plain old “yes”?
Glee. At TCA in Los Angeles this week, Trish Bendix talked to Heather Morris and Naya Rivera and learned that they don’t have any information on any further developments with a Brittana romance. Morris likes the Brittany/Artie storyline, telling us “I think we’re in love. I know we’re in love.” And AfterEllen.com readers? Not so much.
The Director’s Guild of America. No love for Lisa Cholodenko and The Kids Are All Right from the DGA this year. Female directors were completely shut out of the DGA awards, which are regarded as one of the strongest predictors of who will win the Oscar. Doesn’t this seem like just the sort of mess that Annette Bening‘s Nic could fix?
Hillary Clinton. While her husband is now pro-gay marriage, our Secretary of State recently said that she still isn’t. She told the Advocate, “Well, I share his experience because we obviously share a lot of the same friends, but I have not changed my position.” She also said she has a “strong negative reaction to prejudice, discrimination, hatred, violence – anything that tries to delegitimize or marginalize any of our fellow human beings.” Huh?
Grey’s Anatomy. We won’t spoil it for you in case you haven’t watched it yet, but Calzona took a nosedive into some all too familiar TV lesbian territory last night. Someone please popularize a new plot device that we can overuse on lesbians. We nominate amnesia. Old school.
McDonalds. The restaurant chain offers free WiFi in their New Zealand restaurants, but have been blocking gay news sites in order to stay “family friendly.” There are reports that the chain is allowing access to “some gay related websites” but others will remain blocked.
Cardinal Francis George. The Cardinal voiced his opposition to same-sex marriage, insisting that anyone for it “has lost touch with the common understanding of the human race.” Blogger Pam Spaulding rewarded him by ordaining him “Homophobe of the Day.”
Top Chef. Both of the out cheftestants, Jamie Lauren and Tiffani Faison got the boot this week after a fishing challenge. That just reduced the number of our openly queer women on TV by about 24%. On the plus side, Tiffani revealed she had a girlfriend before she packed up her knives and left for good. Nothing tastes as delicious as visibility!
Alice Anne LeMay. The Ontario Catholic school district board chair compared gay-straight alliance organizations to Nazi groups. She later apologized, but still doesn’t think she should have to resign. It sounds like Ontario students have way more dangerous things to contend with than gay-straight alliances, doesn’t it?
THIS JUST IN: LESBIANS EARN MORE
According to an ABC news report, old Census data shows that lesbians earn “significantly more” money than straight women. Of course, it doesn’t take a Census to point out that we have Suze Orman on our team, so it’s not entirely a shocker, right?
The data, from the 2000 Census, shows that lesbians made about 7.5 percent more than never-married single women, 9.6 percent more than previously married single women, and 5 percent more than currently-married women.
The findings go on to state that back then, lesbians made an average hourly wage of $18.70, compared to the average straight women’s wage of $13.35.
While the reports are interesting, there’s no solid proof as to why. Of course, there’s no shortage of assumptions. BoingBoing, for example, has a theory that “lesbians are more assertive when it comes to their salaries than heterosexual women.”
Another debunked idea for how this could be was that lesbians could work longer hours as they were less likely to have children at home. Maybe that was somewhat more plausible in 2000 (I stress “maybe”), but we are living in the age of The Kids Are All Right. Lesbians have kids. And jobs.
Since the data is from more than a decade ago, we can’t say that lesbians are earning more thanks to Bette Porter‘s power lesbian style, which could be inspiring more lesbians to dress for success, but I’m surprised that hasn’t been tossed around as another assumption.
The best guess, which still doesn’t tell us much, comes from economist Lee Badget, who tells ABC:
It adds to the weight of what a lot of us have thought: There are some differences in decisions that lesbians might make. You could also look at it to see if they’re not as constrained by heterosexual gender roles. Heterosexual women may want to make those choices, too, but, perhaps in the context in their relationships, they can’t.
Why do you think lesbians are earning more? Is it a coincidence or something else? Please discuss, while I go ask for a raise.
– by Jamie Murnane
Someone at Nature Made vitamins forgot to make out comic Erin Foley‘s commercial outtakes video embeddable. This is a huge oversight (they probably weren’t taking their B6), because it’s really funny. Watch it here.
Do they have support groups for co-dependency in space? We don’t know, but the trailer for the film Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same makes us wonder. The film will make its world premiere January 24 at 11:30PM at the Sundance Film Festival (Park City at Midnight section).
Season 4 of the webseries The Lovers and Friends Show premieres Monday, Jan. 17 at 10 pm EST.
This weekend, Jan. 15-17, you can join thousands of women across the country and the Human Rights Campaign for Her HRC: A Celebration for Women. HRC Steering Committees from coast to coast will host 30-plus special events specifically designed to unite women and engage them in our fight for equality. The festivities include appearances by Melissa Ferrick and Lucas Silveira of The Cliks in Boston, MA, Thea Gill from Queer as Folk in St. Paul, MN, Michelle Clunie from Queer as Folk and Nicole Pacent from Anyone But Me in Los Angeles, CA and many more. For a full listing of events in each city and ticket info, visit HRC.org.
Speaking of Anyone But Me, creators Susan Miller and Tina Cesa Ward are nominated for an Outstanding Achievement in Writing Original New Media award from the Writer’s Guild of America, West for the webseries. Congrats!
The Desperado Gay & Lesbian Film Festival will be held at Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix, AZ January 28-30, 2011. The festival includes three days of shorts, feature films, and some very special guests, including Dreya Weber. Weber is the star and producer of A Marine Story, the closing feature film in the festival. For information on the event and ticket sales visit www.desperadofilmfestival.com, the Facebook page for the festival or on Twitter @desperadolgbt.
Say, do you love good psychological horror films centered on women? Do you love supporting indie filmmakers and AfterEllen.com contributors? Do you love buying cheap things? Well then, you’re in luck! You can combine all three of those passions into one easy action by picking up a copy of Ghostella/Take Back the Knife/Toosday Toons auteur Stacie Ponder‘s first feature film Ludlow, which is now available on DVD. Here’s a page where you can find a trailer, ordering info, and more. Viva la indie horror!
Ali Davis, our expert on all things Rachel Maddow (and RachelWatch writer) is doing a new column for our sibling site, 365Gay. It’s called “This Week in Terrifying Science.” Curious, aren’t you?
Ever wonder what Kristin Scott Thomas would look like in drag?
Debbie Friedman, an openly lesbian composer and singer of Jewish liturgical music passed away this week in California, as did Maria Elena Walsh, the Argentine lesbian author and poet. Condolences to their friends, family and fans.
Check out TheStudMagazine.com! It’s an online based magazine founded in Toronto with an aim to redefine the term “stud” and introduce non-gender conforming people to mainstream media.
The Golden Globes air this Sunday night and there’s going to be a lot of gay involved. Check back on Monday for our coverage, and let’s watch together and share our reactions using #gayglobes.
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].
