Hello it’s Wednesday and nuclear war looms ever-brighter on the horizon. Let’s talk about pop culture stories!
+ The Young and the Restless is debuting its first lesbian storyline with a building relationship between Mariah Copeland and her new friend, Tessa Porter. I’m sorry, her new “friend.” Some fans are stoked and some haters are pissed and I’ll tell you what, f*ck the haters.
+ Hey look! It’s a clip of the “Doc McStuffins’ episode featuring same-sex parents that Alaina told you about on Sunday! Out lesbian actresses Wanda Sykes and Portia De Rossi are to this groundbreaking situation: an interracial lesbian couple with kiddos on a Disney cartoon! Wanda Sykes told Out, “The diversity of the show and having an African-American little girl be the star of the show — and also being a doctor — it sends a great message.” Also, One Million Moms hates it.
+ Out actress Jane Lynch has been cast as Sophie Lennon, the most famous female comic of her time, in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” The 1958-set dramedy stars Rachel Brosnahan as a Jewish housewife who discovers that her husband sucks and also she’s really good at stand-up. Amazon has already picked up the show for two seasons. Early buzz is VERY positive.
+ The Groundbreaking Trans TV Moment On Laverne Cox’s ‘Doubt’: “While it’s weird to realize that something as mundane as “three trans women hanging out and talking about stuff” hadn’t appeared on scripted TV before Doubt, it’s even weirder to think about how close it came to never airing at all.” (Also, read Natalie’s take on the episode here: Laverne Cox’s “Doubt” Love Story Imagines a Better World for Trans Women)
+ QTPOC Roundtable: TV and Movie Characters That Made Us Feel Seen: This is real good y’all.
+ The Television Critics Association press tour included two GLAAD-hosted panels, “Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Trends on TV” and “Transgender Trends on TV.” Vice was there and wrote this for you: Laverne Cox, Lena Waithe, and More Explain Why Representation Matters.
+ The TCA tour also included some very important news about The L Word reboot.
+ “In its first year, Ryan Murphy’s Half Foundation has succeeded in its plans to see, as its title would suggest, more than half of the prolific showrunner’s TV programming be directed by women.”
+ Praise be: Insecure will return for a third season on HBO in 2018!
+ IDK if you’ve noticed this or not: lgbtq characters on tv are still overwhelmingly white cisgender men
+ Ellen Page gives an emotional dance performance in queer-themed ‘Slack Jaw’
+ Master of None: Lena Waithe on Her Historic Emmy Nod, Ready Player One
+ All 16 Gus Van Sant Movies Ranked From Worst To Best
+ 55 Trans Women Actresses You Should Know and Also Love (I wrote this)
+ The Roseanne revival will feature the first gender non-conforming child on network television, which’s interesting considering Roseanne’s transphobic comments about bathroom bills.
+ Hari Nef and Ana Lucia Fabrega Make Religion Funny And Sexy In “Let Me Die A Nun”
+ Aaron Carter isn’t a lesbian after all! He came out as bisexual on Twitter last weekend.
Nothing gladdens my heart more than queer cartoons.
“Also, One Million Moms hates it.” – Andddd I’m automatically on board.
I thought the same, and then I thought, ‘But wait, there must something that’s actually bad that they hate too, they hate a lot of things’ so I checked their website.
Results: One Million Moms hatred = 100% reliable recommendation service.
*must be
I just thought if One Million Moms hates it then they must be doing it right. They should be required to call themselves Not Even 100,000 Moms. I demand truth in advertising.
Aaron Carter *sigh*
My first memory of Aaron Carter is sitting in a hotel in Bangkok, Thailand watching MTV Asia and his video for Crazy Little Party Girl came on. I can’t say it changed my life, but I certainly remember it. This story doesn’t have a punchline.
I hope he gets his shit together, but the Magic 8 Ball says things are grim.
Are usually talk trash about this guy but… Very good, Ryan Murphy, very good
Okay so I was reading that article about Roseann being a transphobe(seriously ugh), and then got to an article about Allyson Hannigan being anorexic, which the article also included this:
“During her Sabrina days, Melissa Joan Hart once made out with a girl in a limo on ecstasy. She also experimented with weed, mescaline and ‘shrooms. That robot cat was actually a drug hallucination.”
http://jezebel.com/alyson-hannigan-stretched-once-and-now-shes-anorexic-b-1399731732
I watched a few episodes of the Young and The Restless storyline this week and you can tell right away that Mariah and Tessa have far more chemistry together than they do with their boyfriends. This is going to be all sorts of messy because of that. Especially since Tessa is dating Mariah’s brother!
General Hospital is also bringing back Parker, which likely means a return of the Parker/Kristina relationship. I believe she comes back next month.
I applaud whenever soaps even make the attempt at doing any sort of LGBT storyline because the fans are notoriously older and conservative and always complain every time it happens. These two storylines in particular have already got some people riled up by parroting the usual “it’s digusting/propaganda/etc.” Which I don’t even get because the way soaps handle intimacy because same-sex couples is still VERY old-school and tame in comparison to even prime time tv.
I was going to add this to the BOYT comments later this week, but since Riese posted info about Tessa & Mariah, I’ll do my soaps update here…
Since my last update there have been big changes at the two soaps that are looking to tell lesbian stories this summer. Sally Sussman is out as head writer on Y&R, with Executive Producer Mal Young taking overseeing story development. Meanwhile, Jean Passanante has retired as head writer at General Hospital and Shelly Altman has taken the reins there.
The writing change at Y&R is leading to some disagreement about how/if the show will move forward with Mariah and Tessa. TV Insider’s Michael Logan says TPTB are skittish about the storyline, while Jamey Giddens of Daytime Confidential seems confident that the storyline will go forward, though it will be a slow burn.
I’m not sure how slow the burn can be when, according to spoilers, Mariah and Tessa will soon be housemates, thanks to a timely suggestion from Tessa’s boyfriend/Mariah’s half-brother. This week, as Tessa (a singer-songwriter) heads into the studio, we’re getting a bit of backstory on her character. Personally, I’m not sure what to make of it yet, but I’m glad they’re giving the character more depth. If you want to catch up with the storyline, you can watch it, in its entirety, here.
The writing change at GH shouldn’t pose too much of problem for Kristina and Parker, since this storyline isn’t new (though we haven’t seen Parker in nearly a year). You can catch up on Kristina and Parker’s entire storyline, here, and look for Ashley Jones to reprise her role, on-screen, during the week of August 14.
I’m playing catch-up a little bit with Bold and the Beautiful but from what I’ve read, there might be something brewing between Maya and her brother-in-law, Zende.
Anyhow, I’ll be keeping an eye on soaps and reporting back if/when something interesting happens.
I watched two or three episodes of Y&R, one of which was the one where Tessa and Mariah kiss very briefly. They seem to really be playing up the forbidden sexual tension thing with these two and the actresses seem excited about the storyline. I’m surprised to hear they are thinking about axing it but I wasn’t aware of the head writer shakeup so I guess that makes sense. I hope they move forward with it.
I am looking forward to Parker returning to GH though as I think Ashley Jones is such an underrated soap actress. I hope they use her more this time. I know they were limited last time due to her maternity leave.
@turkish Interestingly enough, Daytime Confidential just posted an interview with outgoing Y&R head writer, Sally Sussman, and she talks a lot about Mariah and Tessa’s story. While she’s obviously not in the loop about what’s happening now, her comments about CBS and Sony’s initial reaction make me doubt Logan’s story even more. The network knew what they were getting into with this storyline.
I’m looking forward to Parker’s return because I really enjoyed the initial storyline…but I’m really weary about investing in GH after the way they dropped the story before. I get that Ashley had a new baby and other projects but they’ve barely whispered about Kristina’s sexuality since. We’ll see what happens.
I have not watched soaps in years, but I LOVE this update!
@iamamisfit1, I don’t get to watch them regularly anymore but I’ve been a soap fan since I was a kid, watching alongside my mom and grandma. Hopefully I’ll have more stuff to share in the coming weeks.
Parker coming back to GH makes me want to start watching again. Ashley Jones makes happy and I should probably check in on Alexis. Thanks for the update!
Thanks for this update. I used to watch GH regularly, and haven’t in a long time. Maybe I’ll start watching again for the Kristina/Parker storyline. I guess I last watched in May for Tracy Quartermaine’s last day.
My 4-year-old loves Doc McStuffins. I read about the episode with the two moms on Sunday afternoon; said 4-year-old was tired and grumpy but when I told her the new episode of Doc had a doll family with two moms, she was immediately interested and wanted to see it. So, after some fighting with the Disney Jr website, me, my wife, my 4-year-old, and her 8-year-old sister all watched the episode together. It was cute (as Doc usually is) and the fact that the Doll family had two moms was NBD to everyone in McStuffinsville. My kids are lucky and have never experienced any negativity about them having two moms, but it still mattered to them to see a family like theirs on TV.
Aaron Carter came out as bisexual…this week. And 2 weeks ago he was crying on ET talking about how people on the internet body shame him for being too skinny and a month before that he was arrested for something.
Look all this may be true but I am cynical at best, this kid had semi hit song that played on Radio Disney back when he was like 12 (maybe he was big in Japan). He never reached the level of success that his brother Nick did with The Backstreet Boys and to me he keeps looking for that opportunity to be in/stay the spotlight.
That whole family is a sad mess. Literally, every member of that family has had a rough go of things and from physical abuse to alcoholism and heavy drug abuse, incredibly low-self esteem, manipulative role models and growing up in a crime riddled area. This seems to be the breakthrough for specifically as he’s apparently been hiding this since he was 13 and he first kissed another boy.
That Lou Pearlman documentary also heavily implied that Nick Carter may have been sexually abused by Pearlman during the early days of the Backstreet Boys. His inappropriateness with young boys is well-documented by much of his former talent roster over the years.
Can we please talk about how Lena Waithe deserves her own show? She’s mad talented and I’d do anything to watch more of her in a lead role.
An acquaintance from middle school, who I see occasionally around town, posted an article on facebook about how christian parents need to watch out for Doc McStuffins, now that it has lesbians. I don’t usually engage with others on facebook, but I’ve been drafting a private message to her in my head and debating between unfriending her and hiding her. Does she think my two little foster kids would be better off if my wife and I were not caring for them? Seriously?
In other TV news, I read last night that Sarah Paulson and Allison Pill’s American Horror Story: Cult characters will be a couple and have a child. I’m so excited, but also nervous since it IS AHS… Bulletproof vests for these characters ASAP.