Pop Culture Fix: Look Out Lesbian Ken, Gay Agenda Barbie Is Here and She Looks Great

+ Bye, Batman: Coco Beats Justice League Over Holiday Weekend

+ A Mister Rogers documentary is coming our way via Focus Features

+ Daphne and Velma are getting their own live-action origin story in what I just learned is called The Scooby-Dooby-Dooniverse and I’m not just telling you that because I wanted to say Scooby-Dooby-Dooniverse. Here’s the wacky logline:

Before their eventual team-up with Scooby and the gang, bright and optimistic Daphne and whip-smart and analytical Velma are both mystery-solving teens who are best friends but have only met online — until now. Daphne has just transferred to Velma’s school, Ridge Valley High, a tech-savvy institute with all the latest gadgets provided by the school’s benefactor, tech billionaire Tobias Bloom. And while competition is fierce among the students for a coveted internship at Bloom Innovative, Daphne and Velma dig beyond all the gadgets and tech to investigate what is causing some of the brightest students in school to disappear — only to emerge again in a zombie-fied state.

+ The trailers for the new season of Black Mirror are rolling out; here’s the horrifying one directed by Jodie Foster.

+ Do you remember Tabatha Coffey, the lesbian stylist who was on the first season of Bravo’s short-lived reality series Shear Genius and then on her own show, Tabatha’s Salon Takeover? Well, she’s back in a show kind of like Tabatha’s Salon Takeover but this time she’s working with family-owned businesses only. Megan Reynolds over at Jezebel is very excited.

The added twist of Tabatha acting as an ersatz family counselor is just enough to keep me riveted. Scream at me, Coffey! Tell me my business acumen is trash! Give me your opinions about why the concept for my 24-hour “real estate concierge” service makes absolutely no sense! Bury me in your sharp-tongued opinions and shower me with your platitudes about family, my blonde, alien queen!!

+ Call Me By Your Name (or, as Erin calls it, Carol For Boys) officially inserted itself into the Oscars conversation last night, taking home Best Feature at the IFP Gotham Awards (aka the Iowa Caucus of the Academy Awards). Get Out, Atlanta, and Lady Bird were the other big winners.

+ BuzzFeed has some theories about why so many queer women are obsessed with Harry Styles.

+ Apparently inspired by all the attention lesbian Ken received, Barbie has decided to start “promoting the LGBT agenda” by donning a Love Wins shirt and paling around with this gal and her cat. Okay and they’re also sharing some avocado toast. See you at A-Camp, ladies!

+ Eden Riegel (aka Bianca Montgomery) loved Natalie’s post about Tessa and Mariah on The Young and the Restless

+ Rana and Kate smooched on Coronation Street on National Coming Out Day and it gave some kids in the UK the courage to come out to their parents. (I’ll always have the softest spot in my heart for Sophie and Sian.)

+ The Good Place will be back for a third season during which Eleanor will no doubt continue to fawn over Tahani.

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Heather Hogan

Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior editor who lives in New York City with her wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Heather has written 1718 articles for us.

16 Comments

  1. It’s hard to tell with that dog in the foreground, but are Barbie and her gal pal… handcuffed together?

  3. I love this headline so much. I had to take a second to stop and process each word in that sentence to fully appreciate the magnificence, because magnificent it is. Bless you, Heather Hogan.

  4. It looks like they’ve cast actual teen girls for Daphne and Velma, which is rare. So I doubt it will be as gay I want it to be.

    Call Me By Your Name is Moonlight for white gays. I’m only half-joking about that. Like Moonlight, it will get many awards show nominations. They will be holding on to this movie for years, like they do with Brokeback Mountain. I hope it’s good. The LGBT community only ever get a handful that actually are top quality in a sea of shitty low budget ones with really bad actors.

  6. I’m actually gonna get the Barbie. As a 26 year old Goth woman, I don’t give a fuck! <3 I am walking out of Wal-Mart (or Target) with that doll that has black hair and red shirt! <3

  7. Oh, look, the actress who played one of the most influential TV characters in my whole entire life posted on twitter about how she liked a thing I wrote…

    I stumbled onto the Kate and Rana storyline on Coronation Street on Youtube and, though I have a few misgivings, I’ve been enjoying it. I’m really interested to see how they continue to grapple with Rana’s colliding identities…and everything I’ve read thus far, leaves me hopeful that they’ll allow for a nuanced portrayal of Islam.

  8. I love queer storylines on Corrie. To me it just represents so much that queer people exist in totally normal, annoying, northern families and towns just like my own. And its watched by like 2/3 of women over 65, a group of people queer storylines are not traditionally catered to.

    • Yes! Corrie is HUGE in NZ (where I’m from) and my 60-something year old mum is obsessed with it. I like to think the Sophie/Sian storyline helped her understand me a bit more because she used to like, not at all. And Kate/Rana has such huge potential to touch homophobic AND racist AND Islamaphobic viewers. Win! Win! Win!

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