There’s a blizzard on its way to NYC and this is your Wednesday Pop Culture Fix!
+ Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is only two days away! And here is another wonderful Viola Davis interview!
+ Carmen and Natalie have been doing so many investigations into whether or not Shonda Rhimes’ first Netflix series, Bridgerton, is going to be gay — and finally it has been confirmed with the trailer! Kind of! There’s some ladies in corsets making out at what Carmen suspects is an underground sex party.
We should tempt scandal more often. Bridgerton, from Shondaland, premieres Dec 25, only on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/K1sOOeinqx
— Bridgerton (@bridgerton) December 14, 2020
+ Disney makes up for Tiana being a frog for half the movie by giving her a series.
+ Stevonnie leads the way on Cartoon Network’s new pronoun PSAs!
+ Black Swan is a Hanukkah movie.
+ Over at Wired, Angela Watercutter pulled on the thread of that Charlize lesbian Die Hard tweet and basically made the whole movie!
+ Look who’s making another movie!
Directing during COVID is surreal and weird and kinda terrifying but I’m so grateful and excited to have something new and deeply queer coming your way in 2021 🙏🏼❤️🎥 pic.twitter.com/uV4lKqj0Xu
— Carly Usdin (@carlytron) December 14, 2020
+ At Slate, trans critic Emily VanDerWerff wrote about how Mrs. America reconfirmed that women’s history is her history.
+ The Saved by the Bell reboot gave me an existential crisis.
+ The Wilds cast on queer teen girls surviving on an island.
+ Like you, The Crown‘s Princess Diana loved Mae Martin’s Feel Good and Jo Ellen Pellman uses GBBO as a coping mechanism.
Emma Corrin (The Crown): Feel Good
"I watched it during lockdown. It’s the most uplifting thing ever. I think Mae Martin’s a genius. It’s the most relatable, incredible love story." pic.twitter.com/A0fWgEccVi
— Netflix Queue (@netflixqueue) December 12, 2020
+ Related: Jo Ellen Pellman knew her people were out there.
+ Nonbinary TV characters had a landmark year. Advocates say hold the applause.
+ All American season three is full of secrets.
+ Queen Latifah’s Last Holiday gets its due on Two Old Queens.
+ Since they will never air, here are the loglines for the final six episodes of One Day at a Time.
+ St. Vincent announced a new album yesterday.
+ The Whitney Houston biopic has found its Whitney.
Thank you for your sleuthing Carmen and Natalie! I really hope Bridgeton is both good and queer. I don’t remember any underground sex parties in the books but it is Shondaland. I have hope.
Disappointingly, Bridgerton only had about 2 seconds of queerness. In fact, I felt bamboozled because not only was a queer shot included in the trailer, but the series kept hinting the second son had an infatuation with another man. Seriously, the despondent look on his face when he learned his “crush” was married was real. Yet the shot in the trailer WAS the only queer scene, and didn’t occur until episode six. Benedict’s secret non-queer reveal was ridiculous and redundant thanks to his older brother’s storyline. Since that reveal occurs in the last 15 minutes of the series, as a gay man, I felt strung along waiting for something queer to happen that didn’t. Since Shonda is known for having multiple queer characters in each of her shows, I felt their actions were just to keep some queer extra eyes on the show, knowing nothing was going to occur.