Archive for ‘women in entertainment’

March 17, 2009

The “wife” heard ’round the world

Last night, The Accountant and I curled up on the couch to watch a DVR’d episode of Ellen.  I’d been waiting for weeks, and the day had arrived – Portia was going to be a guest on Ellen!

Portia on Ellen

Ellen started the show as she always does, walking out to her theme song and loud cheers, before gleefully announcing, “My wife is here today!”

It’s funny because it seems like a small thing, Ellen having Portia as a guest on her show, but it felt huge to me.  As someone who has struggled in every day life with using the very appropriate word, “wife,” to refer to my spouse, it seemed revolutionary to see Ellen say it with such ease on television.  I can’t tell you how many times I have used the word “wife,” only to be looked at like I’m an extraterrestrial with three heads and a horn growing out of my forehead.  And now, here’s the most famous lesbian in the country, saying it on tv to enthusiastic cheers from the audience!

Portia on Ellen - dancing
Of course there was some dancing

The interview was very sweet, with Portia talking about how married life is great, but she had to get used to Ellen being so famous and getting recognized everywhere they go.

My favorite part though, was right at the start, when Ellen took Portia’s shoe off and made her show the audience that she is not taller than her without the heels!  So adorable!

Portia on Ellen - shoeThanks for the picture, Dorothy Snarker!

They also played The Newlywed Game against a straight couple from the audience and won!

Portia on Ellen - newlywed gameSeriously, look at the way they are looking at each other!

The winning question: What’s the best gift your spouse has ever given you?  Both Portia and Ellen answered “her heart.” Awwww…

And then of course, Portia sang with Ellen in the bathroom (if you don’t watch Ellen – this is a recurring segment with guests).  Their song? “I Got You Babe.”

Portia on Ellen - bathroom concert

If you missed the show, you can catch the full bathroom singing segment on Ellen’s site, and the interview and Newlywed Game on Dorothy Surrenders and AfterEllen.

All pictures (except the shoe one) from Ellen’s website.

March 7, 2009

Did you catch this?

Rachel Maddow was on The View this week.  Generally, I avoid that show with its shout-y, maddening, roundtable discussions, but this, is worth watching:

I was kind of surprised by how much they focused on Rachel’s sexuality.  I guess I just find it funny that at 30something years old, she’s still telling her coming out story, but on the flip side, I thought the View ladies presented all the gay questions pretty well.

And how about Whoopi?  Did you catch the “That door’s been open for years,” comment? My, my!  As far as I’ve seen, no one in the media is harping on that one.  Have we just accepted Whoopi as an out-but-not-out-but-probably-definitely-gay celebrity (you know, kind of like our favorite silver-haired news anchor…)?  Does  Whoopi’s sexuality being a non-issue mean a step forward for all of us?  Or am I totally off base – AfterEllen seems to think she’s straight (or perhaps open-minded, see Sarah Warn’s comment).  Who knows .  Love to Whoopi either way!

It’s too bad they had such little time with Rachel – you could tell they were rushing from topic to topic to get it all in, and by the time they got into some real politics, the show was over.

I think it’s great for lesbians that Rachel appeared on The View, which is my grandma’s favorite show.  She came across as charming and intelligent as always, and her “gay Desperate Housewives”  comment hit the perfect note for the audience.

Now please excuse me while I go daydream about Rachel Maddow showing up on my doorstep to clear my yard…

November 4, 2008

So much for that…

Say goodbye to the Callie/Erica storyline on Grey’s Anatomy, because after this week, it’s gone.  That’s right: gone. 

The End of Callie and Erica

Brook Smith, the actress who plays Erica Hahn, has been fired from the show, and THIS THURSDAY NIGHT will be her final episode.  (Full story HERE.) According to Smith, she’s not even properly written out of the show:

“My final scene is just me heading to my car. I honestly don’t know what happens in the next episode.”

Apparently, things were getting a little too gay for ABC.  Smith being fired isn’t the only change – AfterEllen reports that ABC is also going to de-gay a new character named Sadie who was originally slated to be a bisexual intern with some sort of history with Meredith.

This doesn’t even make any sense!  This is ABC we’re talking about, home of Ugly Betty – aka Possibly The Gayest Show in History!  I guess gay characters are okay until they start having like, real emotions and relationships, like, you know, human beings?

I’m so disappointed.  I was really looking forward to watching the Callie and Erica romance unfold – not to mention the fact that lesbian or no, Erica Hahn was a such a great, strong female character.

Feel free to contact ABC and tell them what you think of this.

August 21, 2008

More Ellen & Portia!

Ellen has a couple of wedding pictures up on her website!  I know we’ll get to see much more tomorrow, when the People magazine issue hits the stands, but why wait until then??

So far, everything looks gorgeous – I can’t wait to see more!

August 21, 2008

Weeknights at Nine: It’s a Date.

This:

is Rachel MaddowAir America radio host, political commentator, Rhodes Scholar,  Standford and Oxford University grad, super hot lesbian, and my standing date for 9:00pm every weeknight beginning on Monday, September 9th.

That’s right, Rachel Maddow is getting her very own show on MSNBC.  And lefty, politically minded lezzies everywhere rejoice!

If you’re not familiar with Rachel Maddow, check out this clip of her in action, doing what she does best - kicking ass:

Ah, Rachel Maddow – she’s hot, she’s smart (again - Standford, Oxford, Rhodes Scholar, oh my!), and she’s coming into my living room.

For those of you keeping score, we will now have TWO daily television shows starring out lesbians.  This is TWICE the amount we had before (hey, small victories…)!

August 19, 2008

Ellen & Portia

Hooray!

Okay, so I know a wedding is a private matter and celebrities are perfectly justified in keeping everything secret if that’s what they want, but I am so so so happy that Ellen and Portia let a magazine (any magazine! I’m not picky!) take pictures for us all to see!  It’s such a thrill to see a lesbian wedding as the cover story of a mainstream magazine.

Hi. I’m Portia DeRossi, and I’m freakin’ gorgeous

So far these are the only picture up on People’s website.  To see the rest (how can I resist??), we’ll have to wait until the issue hits news stands on Friday.

June 25, 2008

This Is How It’s Done

Allow me to begin by stating that Ellen DeGeneres is not a celebrity crush of mine.  However…

This look really does it for me.  H – O – T.  This is how you rock a menswear look.  Well tailored, just rumpled enough with the loose tie and popped collar, and of course, a beautiful lady on your arm.  Me-yow.

Speaking of Ellen and Portia, they have set a date!  Of course they will not share the details of where or when, but Ellen did hint at the impending nuptuals being a star-studded event when she said that “incredible people” will sing at the ceremony. She also said that she will share a little bit of the wedding on her show.  Thank goodness we have DVR!

I can’t wait – a glamorous celebrity lesbian wedding!  Here’s hoping Ellen rocks a delicious ensemble like this one for the big day – but maybe minus the sneakers…?  We’ll see!

 

Digg it

May 23, 2008

TV Alert! Ladies in Love!

Let’s start at the beginning – The Accountant and I started watching Grey’s Anatomy with Season 2.  We were instantly hooked and came back for Season 3, which…started to really suck, especially towards the end.  By the last handful of episodes, I was dreading watching, but still wanted to know what happened, so I suffered through.  The Accountant was over it.  And Addison left.  We loved Addison.  They took the Meredith drama way too far.  I hated the Callie/George/Izzie mess.  We were really disappointed and decided not to tune in for Season 4, but…

On a couple of Thursday nights when nothing was on tv, we ended up watching Grey’s and found… It was good again!  We rejoiced and got back into faithful watching.  And now we have been rewarded.

With this:

As Sarah Warn at AfterEllen put it, “It’s a lesbian Christmas miracle (in May)!”

It’s been cooking for a few weeks now, and so far I la la love it!  I really liked how they showed Callie’s journey of realizing her feelings for Erica and how Sloan got a chance to be the good guy.  I loved that he encouraged her in the end to go for it and exited the scene gracefully, sans drooling/gawking/etc.  And how about that smooch??? Yowza!

As if the steamy smooch wasn’t enough, we now have the guarantee of one lesbian couple (though we don’t yet know either character’s sexuality for sure) for the fall network tv season!!  Callie Torres and Erica Hahn. H – O – T.

Over at the Grey’s Writers Blog, Shonda talked about this plot development.

Callie and Erica. Callie and Erica!! My god, did we discuss this a lot around here. Because Callie kisses a girl. We had this really cool meeting with GLAAD where we talked about the idea that a woman could decide she had feelings for another woman after being perfectly happy with men and we all got joyous because the chemistry between Callie and Erica and Mark is hot and interesting and fresh and like nothing any of us had seen on TV before. And we wanted it to be real – not some stunt to get people talking. We wanted to see what would happen if a woman suddenly had feelings for another woman.

You’ll be very surprised when you find out where this story is heading next season. Because we don’t do things the easy way. And none of this will be easy. Not for Callie. Not for Erica. And not for Mark Sloan…

This little blurb does make me a little nervous that they will overload the storyline with drama, but at the same time it makes me really optimistic that Shonda wants to be realistic rather than stunt-y. I mean, I feel like it’s kind of inevitable that Callie will end up realizing she’s straight in the end (“one lady realizing she’s straight” ties “lesbians are psycho-killers” for first place on the list of Most Popular Endings for Lesbian Love Stories), but I can hope! And we can certainly enjoy it while it lasts.

And enjoy it we will! Callie happens to be The Accountant’s #1 Grey’s crush, and she’s my #2 (dark and twisty Meredith with her freckles and her husky voice take the #1 spot) – plus I wanted Erica to be a lesbian from the very beginning!

So all you lezzies who stopped watching Grey’s with us after Season 3 – now is the time to tune back in! Do yourself a favor and go watch what you missed!

May 21, 2008

Can we get some butch love please?

With the promotion bonanza for the Sex and the City movie well under way, Cynthia Nixon and her girlfriend Christine Marinoni have been all over blogs and entertainment sites. The reader comments have been off-color at best, and downright cruel and homophobic at worst.

I happen to think they’re a hot couple (though I am a lesbian with a lifelong penchant for redheads, so I guess I’m a bit biased), but it seems many straight blog readers just can’t get over Christine’s butch-leaning appearance. If I read, “Why doesn’t [Cynthia] just date a man” one more time, my head is going to explode.  This mentality comes from one of two places: sheer ignorance, or male arrogance/insecurity.

In the case of the simply ignorant, they fail to understand that short hair and collared shirts do not a man make. Butch lesbians are women. To say “Why doesn’t she just date a guy” is to say that the only diffrence between a woman with a butch appearance and a man is a penis, and isn’t that really what women want, so why not just go for the “real thing.”  This kind of thinking underminds lesbian relationships. It discounts the fact that women who are in romantic relationships with other women actually desire one another and have a romantic and sexual attraction for one another. Cynthia’s girlfriend might not be our Maxim Magazine Culture’s idea of a hot lady, but I’m sure plenty of lezzies find her hot! Some people, myself included, find a little androgyny (or a lot!) to be very sexy. And that brings us to the male arrogance and insecurity.

By exclaiming, “Why not just date a guy,” they are negating the possibility that – shock! horror! – butch lesbians may have something they don’t. Some men do realize this possibility and it makes them insecure; now this woman is viewed as competition, and they have to put her down to make themselves feel better, just like in grade school. So they call her ugly and make fun of her.

I’ve seen multiple comments from men saying they “Wouldn’t want to see that,” as if lesbian sex exists solely for their viewing pleasure. Well, guess what fellas, you don’t want to see it? We (and I will gladly speak for all lesbians here) never wanted to show you in the first place! Classic male arrogance at work.

Reading all this crap had me pretty fed up.  So lets look at some lovely not-so-girly ladies to cheer me up, shall we?

    

      

Ah…  Much better.

April 24, 2008

There’s bad news, and there’s good news

The bad news is, Marlee Matlin was voted off of Dancing with Stars this week.

Two consecutive weeks of performances that weren’t her best sealed her fate.  Major bummer because I love watching her, and prior to the past two weeks – she was awesome!

The good news is… I don’t have to watch that show anymore (I can’t tell you how happy the Accountant is!).  Marlee was really the only part I liked.  That cheesy music!  The annoying hosts!! That judge who was always yelling!!!

But much more importantly… I have learned that I am connected to Marlee Matlin by merely THREE degrees of separation!!!  How is this possible?  Well, last week Marlee was visited on the show by Henry Winkler who gave her a pep talk. This week, when she was voted off, she took a moment to thank him for his many years of friendship and support. And it just so happens that my high school mentor/teacher was college roommates with Henry Winkler and has continued to keep in touch with him over time! So it looks a lil’ something like this:

 Um, this has seriously made my week.

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