Pop Culture Fix: Reba McEntire and Norman Lear Are Making a “Fried Green Tomatoes” TV Series

Well hello and good day to you, my friends! Here’s your Monday Pop Culture Fix!


+ Norman Lear and Reba are remaking Fried Green Tomatoes as a TV series. SURELY it will be gay!

The hour-long drama project is described as a modernization of the novel and movie that explores the lives of descendants from the original work. When present-day Idgie Threadgoode (McEntire) returns to Whistle Stop after a decade away, she must wrestle with a changed town, estranged daughter, faltering cafe and life-changing secret.

+ What the heck is this, Shutterstock?

+ Here’s our first look at Viola Davis’ Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which: I don’t even need to tell you how excited we are for this dang thing!

+ Javicia Leslie’s Batwoman is getting her own goddamn Batmobile!!!!!!!!!

+ Kristen Stewart on making the Yuletide super-gay in Happiest Season

+ Star Trek: Lower Decks‘ showrunner says every character on the show is “baseline bisexual.” 

+ Rebecca: From gaslighting to queer history, why Daphne du Maurier’s women remain so relevant today.

+ This is Chyler Leigh talking about Wynonna Earp, which is smack dab the middle of a the Venn diagram of Valerie Anne’s heart.

+ Read the open letter 270 fed-up Latinx writers sent Hollywood.

+ She-Ra and Kipo’s Karen Fukuhara on her animated journeys coming to a close. (SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!)

+ Okay, number one: did you know Doc McStuffins‘ creator is a lesbian? Well, she is. And number two: she’s doing a whole slate of inclusive preschool animated series for Netflix!

+ Tatiana Maslany is not She-Hulk after all.

+ Hey! Another gay Thanksgiving movie!

+ Hashtag You on Netflix has added another lesbian, which, as Natalie notes, is just to hurt me!

+ The Great British Bake Off and the meaning of life.

+ 🎩

+ The WNBA saw a 68% increase in viewership this season; multiple WNBA athletes saw a 600% increase in social media following.

+ How Dakota Johnson’s house built a queer cult following.

+ Pose and Mucho Mucho Amor won the top prizes at the Latino Media Fest Awards.

+ Danai Gurira and Lupita Nyong’o’s Americanah the latest female-helmed show canned by COVID-19. I’m sure am noticing a pattern here.

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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.

12 Comments

  1. “What the heck is this, Shutterstock?”

    Well it looks like Shutterstock already knows Reba is attached to the new Fried Green Tomatoes project, and it also knows the secret ingredient to a very special barbecue recipe.

  2. Paul Rudd was point blank denying being Ant-Man well after he had already been cast because Marvel hadn’t offcially confirmed it yet, so we can’t take Tatiana’s word for it at this point. It’s only official when Marvel puts out a press release. It is annoying though cause I want her to get the role so bad and I wish they’d just confirm it already!

  3. That Great British Bake Off article is SO WEIRD!! It is like pure unselfconscious nostalgia for colonial England?? Positively references to Kipling AND Churchill? I thought that the pleasure of that show was that it is escapist and apolitical and in a way that we sort of know is silly but allow
    ourselves temporarily, not see as like, a way we wish everything was?? Idk. And sorry, I am not criticizing it’s inclusion here just saying it’s a weird article.

  4. Rebecca is actually plagiarism from a brazilian novel called “A Sucessora” (The Successor) from Carolina Nabuco, a renowned author, Daphne and Hitchcock basically stole the plot from Carolina, the original version is better than the copy.
    The queer plotline is less than subtle on the original version, which makes more interesting.

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