Pop Culture Fix: Kate McKinnon Is Making All Your Childhood Dreams Come True

Teevee

+ An Orange Is the New Black season five teaser trailer has arrived in the wild. No new footage but here’s some new information: The new season kicks off on June 9.

+ Hey, Marvel’s Runaways, which is coming to Hulu later this year, has cast its main characters and they’ve replaced two white characters from the comic with Latinas which makes me even more excited for this show. It’s by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, who did Gossip Girl (the first three seasons of which were perfect TV; I don’t care what you say!). And Karolina Dean is one of the first lesbians I ever saw in print!

+ Jasika Nicole is voicing her own Adventure Time character! Her name is Freida! KaeLyn pointed out to me that QueenBean03 pointed out to her that there were strong gal pal undertones between Freida and Susan Strong in last week’s new miniseries.

+ Somebody told Kate McKinnon how to get to Sesame Street.

+ Another childhood dream of yours Kate McKinnon is making come true is: She’s taking over a rebooted version of Magic School Bus. She’s filling the shoes of Lily Tomlin, who voiced the original Ms. Frizzle in the ’90s series. Just a true legacy of magical lesbianism being animated right before our very eyes. (As always: Thanks, Canada!)

+ Netflix’s serialized adaptation of Dear White People lands on April 28.

+ Orphan Black will be back on June 10. Valerie Anne will continue her recaps for the show right here on Autostraddle dot com.

+ For real why can’t Shonda Rhimes just take over the world?

Movies

+ LISTEN UP. Vita & Virginia is a new movie about the romance between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. It’s a real thing. A real movie. And it’s going to star Eva Green and Gemma Arterton! What I feel about this is ecstatic, especially because it gives me a reason to revisit their brilliant letters to each other and one of my all-time favorite lover’s pleas.

Look here Vita — throw over your man, and we’ll go to Hampton Court and dine on the river together and walk in the garden in the moonlight and come home late and have a bottle of wine and get tipsy, and I’ll tell you all the things I have in my head, millions, myriads — They won’t stir by day, only by dark on the river. Think of that. Throw over your man, I say, and come.

+ This year’s highest grossing Oscar-nominated film? Oh, it’s Hidden Figures all right.

Queer Humans, Out and About

+ HuffPo has Evan Rachel Wood’s full speech from the Human Rights Campaign event she attended over the weekend. She didn’t know she was bisexual until she heard another actress say the word bisexual!

As an actor, my job is to look at a stranger and find myself in them ― to connect the dots, to have such empathy for a character that I can read someone else’s words and be moved to tears. Turning empathy into vulnerability… and it wasn’t until I saw the effect that it had on other people that I really started to see how powerful really allowing your most vulnerable parts to be seen was. I saw another side to what I did, and it was the power of visibility.

+ People interviewed Gigi Gorgeous about realizing she’s a lesbian. “I was new to living life as my authentic self, so when I found someone who accepted me, I was on top of the world,” she says about her first relationship with another woman. Gigi also has a new documentary out that focuses on coming out as trans and also coming out as a lesbian; you can watch it on YouTube Red.

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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 1719 articles for us.

41 Comments

    • I was just thinking to myself recently that YouTube red is youtube’s way of avoiding an annoying and long, legal battle because redtube originally copied YouTube’s model and has claimed that name for years. So by the time YouTube wanted to expand into a related venture by referencing the red logo, it was already taken and synonymous with another company.

  1. Virginia and Vita movie. With Eva Green and Gemma Arterton. OMG. OMG. Is this real life? What have I done to deserve it?

    And by the way, I totally agree about Gossip Girl.

  2. One of my friends told me about Kate McKinnon and MSB at work a few hours ago. Dorothy Ann was my first childhood role model and I was literally unable to function in my office for about 5 minutes while my brain fought to process Kate McKinnon and Magic School Bus in the same sentence.

  3. SO MUCH GOOD NEWS TODAY!

    When I saw the news about Kate McKinnon as Ms. Frizzle I immediately sent to to AS via the A+ contact box, but of course I didn’t need to tell you this important information, ya’ll were already on top of it, as per usual.

    Also, on behalf of Canada, you’re welcome :D

  4. I didn’t realize it was Lily Tomlin was the original voice of Ms. Frizzle, it now all makes sense. Also, speaking of PBS and Sesame Street, I saw a good article or was it a tumblr post, on how the show was already underfunded. And how taking away their government funding is a way for Republicans to make sure kids don’t learn about diversity and respecting others. So, I guess the point is donate to PBS and Sesame Street, our future needs it!

  5. Once again, Shonda Rhimes proves herself to be one of the smartest women in Hollywood. Luvvie Ajayi is a rising star and I’m thrilled to see her get this opportunity. If you’re not following Luvvie on twitter or reading her blog, you definitely should start…she’s hilarious.

    • Luvvie! She’s come into her own, and it is her time! I follow her on Facebook, and it’s one of the better choices I’ve made there. Glad to see her get a shoutout here!

    • Yassss! I went to high school with Luvvie and she has been the most legit always. So so so happy for her.

  6. A) Lily Tomlin? omg, she is just the best. I love finding out that actors that I’m just coming to know are actually ones I have known forever, and just not realised.

    B) You can keep thanking Canada for Magic School Bus, the new one is in production up here.

    C) I did not know it was Kate McKinnon doing the voice for Miss Frizzle!

    I’m so glad Hidden Figures is doing well! It was a great film, I really enjoyed watching it. I’ve recommended it a bunch!

  7. OITNB: okay, I’m gonna give a look, then you give a look, then she’ll give a look, and so on and so on and people will lose their shit.

    Accurate.

  8. That Virginia Woolf quote is pretty awesome but it also makes me really sad because we know how things turned out and it wasn’t like that. :'(

  9. June 10? Argh, four more months of crappy TV, that’s gonna kill me.

    OITNB? Well I will happily wait for Autostraddle’s spoilers as a precautionary measure because honestly I don’t want to destroy my TV or computer

  10. OMG, a Runaways TV show? One in which Vaughan is actually involved? I LOVE that comic, and I read very few comics. And Karolina/Nico is the doomed ship of my heart!

    Also, keep on kicking ass, Hidden Figures! And I can’t wait for the Vita & Virginia film.

  11. KATE MCKINNON AS MS. FRIZZLE!

    RUNAWAYS!

    So many things to be excited about right here!!! My enthusiasm for Runaways is dampened only slightly by the fact that they cast Liam Booker in it, but I’m sure I’ll get over it.

  12. I’m excited about Runaways! Looking at those cast photos though, seems like the kids playing Chase and Molly are way too old, isn’t Molly 10 when the comics start? I feel like her being a proper ‘little kid’ is kind of vital to the plot and the entire joke about her powers. Also hope the girl playing Gert isn’t super skinny.

  13. 1 I’m really starting to love Woolf now
    2 I really want to see this movie :) and ideally at the cinema which is a big deal to me as I have social anxiety and don’t tend to go anywhere so I watch all movies in my lounge or just miss them
    3 pardon the pun, when does this movie come out in the UK?
    4 I find it a bit spooky that the first time I read this article (first place I read about this movie) I was in the midst of writing a poem to my on-off/muse in which I referenced Mrs Dalloway.
    That is all.

  14. Is ANYONE more than a little apprehensive about the Vita and Virginia film????!

    I like Eva Green and Gemma Arterton well enough but I just don’t see these conventionally beautiful people as Woolf and Sackville-West. And what if they actually downplay the whole writers-in-love part?! It would be so easily done!

  15. OMG THE RUNAWAYS TV SHOW! I must say I like the cast so far, but just I can’t say I’m surprised to see Gregg Sulkin (of “Faking It”) being cast as Chase Stein. Perfect match and I’m disliking him already :)

  16. All of this is so marvelous I can’t stand it (Orphan Black!!!) and when I saw Eva Green will be in the Virginia/Vita movie I couldn’t breathe for a second because I lovvvvve her.

    However I’m totally on board with Hannah’s point about the conventionally beautiful people issue…I hope they don’t make these important figures too shiny and pretty.

  17. HOW is Orphan Black not top story? Am I the only fanatic here? Say what, I am? Oh, okay. Four more months of dreaming of Cophine, then..

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