Pop Culture Fix: Um, No Thank You Grimes, Janelle Monáe Already Gave Us a Perfect Lesbian Space Opera

Hello, my friends! I hope you’re having a safe long weekend (if you’re getting a long weekend; I hope you’re having a safe three days either way). Here’s your Monday Pop Culture Fix.


+ Um, no thank you? Grimes says her next album will be a space opera about a lesbian A.I. romance. Probably some kind of branded content for Elon Musk’s personal space program anyway.

+ Javicia Leslie has shared some amazing behind the scenes pics and videos of Batwoman season one over on her Insta.

+ If this is for real I am gonna LOSE MY MIND: Batwoman is reportedly looking for a Renee Montoya for season three.

+ Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin has cast Chandler Kinney and Maia Reficco:

Kinney will play Tabby, an aspiring director and horror movie buff. Like the other Little Liars, Tabby’s hiding a secret.

Reficco will portray Noa, a striving, sardonic track star who’s working hard to get her life back to normal after a summer spent in juvenile detention.

+ There’s queerness afoot in the season two trailer of This Way Up.

+ Charlize Theron says the Old Guard sequel script is finished and filming will begin soon.

+ Da Brat opens up about romance with Jesseca ‘Judy’ Dupart with new reality series Brat Loves Judy.

+ Watch Billy Porter slay as Cinderella’s new fairy godparent.

+ Pose has donated its set furniture to a shelter for trans youth who are experiencing homelessness.

+ How The Bold Type went from an irresistible feminist fantasy to an out-of-touch disappointment. (This is really good.)

But the biggest way The Bold Type failed the feminist fantasy it peddled was in its repeated bungling of the character of Kat, its sole Black and queer lead. The writers never seemed to know what to do with the burgeoning activist, who was fired from Scarlet midway through the series’ run and ended up, uh, running for city council before serving drinks at the Belle. Most disappointingly, the show paired Kat romantically with Eva (Alex Paxton-Beesley), a conservative lawyer whose powerful father, a board member at Scarlet’s parent company, finances conversion therapy. Kat was dinged by the writers for being too closed-minded about dating Eva despite the latter’s compliance, at best, with the active harm her father enacts on a community Kat belongs to.

+ Tig Notaro becomes a cartoon in the delightful trailer for her animated HBO comedy special.

+ Why Fear Street is built around a queer love story.

+ A new documentary highlights the resilience and joy of Nigeria’s queer community.

+ The best queer anime.

+ The evolution of queer humor on SNL.

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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.

11 Comments

  1. PLL: OS sounds like a nightmare, its PLL done Riverdale style, below Marianna’s Trench expectations for this. That said I am a sucker for queer stuff and I am expecting at or above original PLL levels of queer in this, so I’ll give it a shot.

    Really interested how Renee Montoya will fit in in Batwoman, especially romantically with Kate Kane not being in Season 3 as far as we know right now.

    This Way Up season 1 didn’t have enough queer content to watch it only for that, but the show is just really good and it seems the same is true for season 2.

    Old Guard was really meh imo, can’t really drum up any excitement for a sequel.

    Also, I feel personally offended that Netflix hasn’t recommended me Fear Street yet or even let me know its available to watch. I’m here, I’m queer, now finally recommend me the good stuff!

  2. Aw, I’m really excited for Grimes’ new music, because I have enjoyed the rest of her music and think she’s a talented musician and composer. And AI has been a theme of her stuff for a long time. Idk, obviously Janelle Monae is amazing and I travelled six hours to see her in concert, but to me it’s not a zero sum game I guess?

  3. “Kat was dinged by the writers for being too closed-minded about dating Eva despite the latter’s compliance, at best, with the active harm her father enacts on a community Kat belongs to.”

    Yoiks! Series I’m glad I missed…

    • The sad part is that the series was really good up until last season/this truncated final one! Kat’s initial coming out/deciding on bi as an identity was well done, and the show’s central female friendship was always super believable and fun to watch. The show was… comforting, I guess? Any issues were resolved quickly; when you watched an episode you knew you were going to see women supporting each other and ultimately succeeding. I think that’s why the recent tonal shift was so disappointing.

  4. Please don’t erase bi/pan representation by lumping them under the title lesbian.

    Yes beautiful woman/ woman content but not lesbian content. Bi-erasure means refering to all wlw content as lesbian, it’s not.

    Dirty computer was the perfect queer distopian sci-fi.

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