Lily Tomlin’s “Grandma” Is as Angry as We Are About Anti-Abortion Assholes

In Lost Movie Reviews From the Autostraddle Archives we revisit past lesbian, bisexual, and queer classics that we hadn’t reviewed before, but you shouldn’t miss.

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I had my first experience with an abortion provider because of a lesbian Christmas movie. Happiest Season, to be exact. I was killing time in Pittsburgh, waiting to interview the cast on-set, looking for a used bookstore near my hotel, when I wandered into a crowd of furious men shoving bloody, crudely Photoshopped pamphlets at me and shouting about cursed wombs and lakes of fire. It was disorienting and terrifying and of course the man screeching the loudest was wearing a Ben Roethlisberger Steelers jersey. You know, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback accused by who-knows-how-many women all over the country of sexual assault. That Ben Roethlisberger.

I’m not often scared of men, especially on crowded sidewalks in broad daylight; the exact opposite, in fact. I’m usually galvanized by the mere presence of men, and itching for a fight. A walking angry lesbian cliche. Or, as Lily Tomlin’s lesbian poet, Elle Reid, says in her 2015 film, Grandma: “I have an asshole problem. When people are assholes, I get angry.”

I was in a holiday headspace that day, a hopeful lesbian movie headspace. I was looking at a map on my phone, mentally rehearsing ways to sound cool when I was introduced to Clea DuVall, and then I was stopped in front of an abortion clinic and a man was screaming so loud, so close to me that his spittle landed on my face like rain. My body, my brain, my hammering heart: they wanted me to run. But my thoughts landed and stuck on Lily Tomlin’s Grandma. Her rage, her impetuousness, the exaggerated and reverent way she says “Simone de Beauvoir” — and of course the scene where she wallops her granddaughter’s boyfriend. He got Sage pregnant, he promised to scrape together the $630 she needed to get an abortion, and then he bounced. I smiled when I remembered it — “Everyone’s gonna talk about it at school!” “What’s he gonna say, ‘Sage’s grandma beat me up?'” — and smiled harder when my smirk made the screaming abortion clinic man step backwards. I fully grinned when I realized he was having to look up to yell at me. I snatched the entire stack of ghoulish pamphlets from his hand, told him to run, and he did.

I wanted to be proud of myself for standing firm, but mostly I couldn’t shake the terror of finding myself in that situation, and I didn’t even need an abortion. Had never needed an abortion. Not for some morally superior reason, but because I learned at a very young age that men — including pastors, deacons, grandfathers, and uncles — cannot be trusted. In high school, I famously left one of the stars of our boys basketball team stranded at a Texaco station in the middle of Nowhere, North Georgia in the middle of the night because he wouldn’t keep his hands off me on the drive home from an away game. I’ve done everything in my power, my entire post-third grade life, to never be alone with any man who isn’t my dad or my dad’s brothers or my dad’s dad.

I never made it to the used bookstore in Pittsburgh. I wobbled back to my hotel and then spent the rest of my time sitting knee-to-knee with Kristen Stewart, with Mackenzie Davis, with Mary Steenburgen. Lush garland, fresh pine trees, twinkling Christmas lights wrapped around everything in sight — and I couldn’t stop clawing at my cheeks. Kristen Stewart winked at me. Winked! At me! And I could feel that guy’s spit on my face, no matter how many times I rubbed the imaginary flecks of outrage away.

If it was that bad for me, how much worse was it for the people who needed to be there?

I rewatched Grandma the day after Supreme Court Justice Alito’s leaked draft opinion was published, with its stated intention to roll back the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. And I marveled, once again, at how prescient Lily Tomlin’s best roles are. Her overworked, overlooked single mom in 9 to 5. Her aging, divorced artist in Grace and Frankie. And yes, her grandma in Grandma. Elle Reid is a woman in her 70s who has recently lost her partner of nearly four decades. She tries it on with a younger woman to manage her grief, and decides paying off her debts will be a more rewarding late-life experience. She’s misanthropic, by her own admission and her own daughter’s accusation. She’s sometimes even cruel. She’s that angry lesbian feminist we grew up being warned about, a leather jacket-wearing ball of fury and Feminine Mystique quotes who is determined to scrape together abortion money, no matter what it costs her.

It’d be reductive to call Grandma a lesbian movie, or a road trip movie, or a coming of late-age movie, or The Ghost of Girlfriends Past. It is all those things, but that’s not all it is. The catalyst is the granddaughter’s abortion, but what Elle and Sage find on their quest is a connection that’s deeper than DNA, one that forces them to examine who they are and what they really want with what’s left of their lives. Grandma is hard on men in all the right ways, but mostly it ignores them. Elle says men are okay, that her dad was a man. Sage says her dad was a sperm. And Sage’s boyfriend, the one who got her pregnant — like I said, Lily Tomlin kicks the shit out of him.

I chose Grandma last week because I was looking for a little hope, but, like Sage, Lily Tomlin gave me more than I asked for. Or, maybe it’s more accurate to say she gave me exactly what I needed. I was back in Pittsburgh as I was watching Elle and Sage drive all over the place looking for ways to get money to get not-pregnant. I could feel that screaming guy’s breath on my cheeks all over again. But I could feel Lily Tomlin’s influence too. She’s a grandma, but not the apron-wearing kind. And she’s a grieving widow. And she’s a complicated parent to a straight, over-achieving, workaholic daughter. And she’s a poet. And my god, she is fucking furious.

When most people hear “grandma,” they think “cookies” — not “abortion.” And that’s kind of the point. Sometimes you need a chocolate chip treat and a hug. Sometimes, as Lily Tomlin’s lesbian poet says, you need to learn to say “screw you.”

I’m angry. You’re angry. Grandma is angry. And that makes it just right for right now.

The True Accurate History of Queer Women and Acting Oscars

The history of LGBTQ representation in the acting categories at the Oscars is a wild one: we’ve got heaps of possibly-queer actors who are now dead, a handful of actors who weren’t out when they won but are out now, and a small, tiny little teacup of out actors nominated after coming out — including 2022’s historic win from Ariana DeBose, the first queer woman of color to win an Oscar for Acting.

Ultimately we are left with a key question: why have so few LGBTQ+ actors been nominated for acting Oscars? The problem here likely doesn’t start with the Academy, as so many problems do, but with whomst even sees mainstream movie stardom as a possibility and who is able to “get ahead” in Hollywood, an industry still run by cis men who are usually also straight and white.

Although young people have been coming out in droves over the past five years and audiences are less likely than ever to insist gay people can’t play straight, the average age of Oscar nominees is late 30s – early 40s, and the marquee names that comprise typical nominee cadre remain heterosexual. Many gay or closeted actors still fear or know that coming out can hurt their career. In 2015, Variety wrote that “no A-list film actor has yet to come out publicly while at the pinnacle of his or her career” which is still mostly true, although Kristen Stewart has since become a notable exception. Top-grossing LGBTQ+ films tend to star straight actors in gay roles. While I absolutely don’t think only gay people should play gay roles, it remains a troubling trend.

So, let’s look back at the history of LGBTQ+ people in the Lead Actress and Supporting Actress categories!

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The Unconfirmed But Possibly Gay Oscar Nominees of Early-to-Midcentury Hollywood

Early Hollywood was a hotbed of lesbian activity, as Silver Screen stardom was one of a very small number of ways for queer women to generate enough wealth to live independently, build thriving lesbian social lives in a liberal environment and eschew traditional expectations to marry young and procreate. Many bisexual stars of the era had relationships with both men and women, some had lavender marriages sold to tabloids as juicy romances, and most had a very good time. Called “The Sewing Circle,” this group of possibly-gay-or-bisexual women encompasses a major swath of the era’s top talent, and documentation of their activities comes from a variety of sources. Thus, the first three decades of Oscar nominations are dripping with “maybe” to “definitely but unconfirmed” lesbian and bisexual women, none of whom ever personally confirmed their own gayness.

The first-ever actress to win a Lead Actress trophy was Janet Gaynor in 1927/28 for 7th Heaven, Street Angel and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. Gaynor has been linked romantically to Broadway’s Peter Pan, confirmed bisexual Mary Martin, and it has been said of Gaynor that “Janet Gaynor’s husband was Adrian, but her wife was Mary Martin.” Janet Gaynor was also nominated in 1938 for A Star is Born.

In 1930, bisexual actress Marlene Dietrich was nominated for Lead Actress for Morocco — a film that marked the first time in film history that two women shared a kiss onscreen.

In 1939, Hattie McDaniel, who was rumored to have had relationships with women, became the first-ever person of color to win an Oscar for acting for Gone With The Wind. If Hattie McDaniel was gay for real, she’s the first queer person of color to win an Oscar for acting and Ariana DeBose is the second. But we’ll never know for sure, so!

Almost definitely bisexual Katharine Hepburn was nominated for 12 Academy Awards for Lead Actress between 1934 and 1982, and won four. 

Other probably-queer actors who earned acting nominations or wins in the 1930s-1950s include Greta Garbo, Jeanne Eagels, Billie Burke, Edna May Oliver, Claudette Colbert (who won for It Happened One Night in 1934), Barbara Stanwyck, Jean Arthur (another former Peter Pan), Spring Byington, Joan Crawford (who won for Mildred Pierce in 1945), Elsa Lanchester and Ethel Waters. (Waters, who was 100% queer for sure, was also the second Black actress nominated for an Academy Award.)

In 1966, actress Sandy Dennis, who allegedly had “many lesbian relationships,” won Best Supporting Actress for playing Honey in the film adaptation of gay playwright Ed Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Eva Le Gallienne, another member of the Hollywood “Sewing Circle,” got her first nomination for Resurrection in 1980, making her the then-oldest nominee. She was definitely a lesbian but refused to confirm it.

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The Out or Eventually-Out Nominees of the 1970s – present

Tatum O’Neal

Tatum O’Neal was a literal child when she won a Supporting Actress Oscar for “Paper Moon” in 1974 — the youngest winner in Oscars history. O’Neal came out in 2012, making Tatum O’Neal the first eventually-out queer actress to win an Oscar.

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Lily Tomlin

In 1975, Lily Tomlin was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Nashville. Although she began dating Jane Wagner in 1971 and it was widely known within show business and the LGBTQ+ community that she was gay, she didn’t officially come out to the world until the 2000s.

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Jodie Foster

In 1976, 14-year-old Jodie Foster earned her first nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role inTaxi Driver. Foster, who was always a tomboy and veered from the typical Hollywood startlet mode, was dogged by lesbian rumors and pressure to come out from the jump.

In 1988, Jodie Foster won her first Lead Actress Oscar for playing Sarah Tobias in The Accused. She brought British actor Julian Sands, who she met on the set of the 1987 film Siesta, as her date. This makes her the second eventually-out queer woman to win an Oscar for acting.

In 1991, Jodie Foster won her second Lead Actress Oscar for playing Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, a film many saw as extremely homophobic. (“The Silence of the Lambs was protested upon its release by cis gay men because Buffalo Bill was read as gay and male,” Drew recently wrote of the film. “But Buffalo Bill is undoubtedly a trans woman.”) Much of that outcry against the film from LGBTQ+ activists held Jodie Foster personally accountable for being both in the closet and in the movie. 

In 1993, Foster began dating Cydney Bernard, and they eventually would have two children together. They broke up in 2008. (Foster is now married to Alexandra Heddison.)

In 1995, Jodie Foster was nominated for Lead Actress for Nell, and brought her gay friend Randy Stone as her date. Stone’s film Trevor, about the suicide of a gay teen, won an Oscar that year, and inspired the founding of The Trevor Project.

In 2007, Foster publicly acknowledged her relationship with Cydney in a speech at a “Women in Entertainment” luncheon, but her “official coming out” is generally cited as her 2013 Golden Globes speech.

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Linda Hunt:

Linda Hunt won Best Supporting Actress for “The Year of Living Dangerously” in1983, in which Hunt, who is white, played a Chinese-Australian man. Both Hunt and the character she played have dwarfism. Her physical transformation into the role married drag with “yellowface,” which included prosthetics to alter the appearance of her eyes. She’s among the nine white actors who’ve been nominated for playing East, Southeast or South Asian characters.

Hunt began dating her now-wife, psychotherapist Karen Kline, in 1978, but it appears she was not officially out until the 2000s.

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Anna Paquin:

Anna Paquin was 11 when she became the second-youngest ever Oscar winner, winning Best Supporting Actress for The Piano in 1994. Paquin came out as bisexual in 2010.

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Angelina Jolie:

Angelina Jolie was the first openly queer woman to win or be nominated for an Oscar for acting when she won Best Supporting Actress for Girl Interrupted in 1999. Depending on how you read her character, she is also the first and only openly queer woman nominated for playing a queer or trans role. Only three out LGBTQ+ actors have been nominated for playing LGBTQ+ roles, the other two are Ian McKellan (Gods and Monsters, 1998) and Jaye Davidson (The Crying Game, 1992).

But that’s not all! The first openly-queer person to be nominated for acting was Nigel Hawthorne in 1995, though the specifics are contestable, as he was outed in the run-up to the ceremony so he technically wasn’t out at the time of the nomination. I’ve also mentioned McKellan (also nominated in 2002) and Davidson.

But none of these guys won, which I think makes Angelia Jolie the first openly queer person to win an Academy Award for acting.

Jolie dated Jenny Shimizu while they worked together on Foxfire in 1996, and never shied away from identifying as bisexual, telling Girlfriends in 1997 that “I probably would have married Jenny Shimizu if I hadn’t married my husband. I fell in love with her the first second I saw her.”

Jolie was nominated for Best Lead Actress for Changeling in 2008.

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Queen Latifah:

In 2003, Queen Latifah was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Chicago. The degree to which Queen Latifah is out or not has been a consistent topic of heated debate in our community, but we can safely say she was not out at this time and that she is out now. This makes her the first eventually-out actress of color nominated for an Oscar.

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Elliot Page:

In 2007, Elliot was nominated for Best Lead Actress for Juno. Page came out as gay in 2014, and then as a queer non-binary trans man in 2020. This makes him the first and only transgender Oscar nominee for acting, although nobody knew he was trans when he was nominated. Meanwhile, eight cisgender people have been nominated for playing transgender characters, two of whom won.

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Lady Gaga:

In 2018, openly bisexual actress/musician Lady Gaga was nominated for Lead Actress for A Star is Born. This makes her the second openly queer actor nominated for an Academy Award for acting. She didn’t win for acting, but she did win for Best Original Song.

The first openly queer woman to win Original Song was Melissa Etheridge in 2006.

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Cynthia Erivo:

In 2019, actress/singer/songwriter Cynthia Erivo was nominated for Best Lead Actress for Harriet. She came out in August 2021, telling The Standard, “I am queer… I have never felt like I necessarily needed to come out just because no-one really asked.” This makes Erivo is the first and only eventually-out queer woman of color nominated for Lead Actress.

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Ariana DeBose:

In 2022, Ariana DeBose won Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story. This made her the first openly queer woman of color, and the second Afro-Latina, nominated for an acting Oscar, and the first openly queer woman of color to win an Oscar for Acting.

She is also the first Afro-Latina and the second Latina woman to win an Oscar for Acting, and she won it for the same role Rita Moreno won it for in 1962. (Some count Mercedes Ruehl amongst Latina winners because her Grandmother is Cuban, which would make Ariana the third winner.)

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Kristen Stewart:

In 2022, openly queer actress Kristen Stewart was Nominated for a Lead Actress Oscar for Spencer, which I enjoyed quite a bit.

Stewart is the first female Lead Actress nominee to bring a woman she is openly in a relationship with as her date to the Academy Awards.

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In total, this list of LGBTQ+- related acting nominees now contains:

• Four people who were openly queer at the time of their nomination for Lead or Supporting Actress (Ariana DeBose, Kristen Stewart, Angelina Jolie and Lady Gaga), of whom two won (Ariana DeBose and Angelina Jolie)
• Eight people who were not openly LGBTQ+ at the time of their nomination for Lead or Supporting Actress, but are now, one of whom was nominated four times (Jodie Foster).
• 20 straight cisgender women who were nominated for playing lesbian, queer, or bisexual roles, two of whom were nominated twice for doing so.
• Five cis men and one cis woman nominated for playing trans women and two cis women nominated for playing trans men
• 17 now-dead women who may have been LGBTQ+ according to historians but never personally identified that way themselves on the official record.

Grace Hanson Is a Confirmed Bisexual in Grace and Frankie’s Gayest Season Yet

This review contains spoilers for season five of Grace and Frankie. 

In the second episode of Grace and Frankie‘s fifth season, which landed on Netflix last Friday, Grace flat out asks Frankie if she wants to have sex with her. They’ve just tucked the miniature pigs they’re pet-sitting (long story) into their pin and settled down onto the makeshift mattresses they’re using to sleep on while they squat in their former beach house. Frankie, as usual, flirts with Grace and Grace finally calls her bluff. It makes Frankie topple over giggling, but Grace wants to know what’s so funny. She didn’t just appear in the world the second she and Robert appeared and Frankie and Sol’s life. Before she was a wife, she was Just Grace and Just Grace made out with girls.

Grace Hanson: confirmed bisexual!

The revelation isn’t played for laughs or shocks; it’s another moment that deepens Grace and Frankie’s relationship. Sadly, they do not hook up. But they do engage in Grace’s first-ever sleep-over, complete with secret-sharing about their childhoods. And that is just another in an endless parade of glorious rom-com tropes that leave me more convinced than ever that Grace and Frankie are just so very, very, very in love. (The season ends with an alternate reality where they never met followed by them running toward each other on a beach in actual reality, falling into each other’s arms to reconcile as waves crash their harrowing harmony alongside sweeping piano music, okay? It’s a goddamn Nancy Meyers movie.)

Of course, that’s been true all along. What makes this season especially romantic is how Grace and Frankie’s relationship storyline mirrors Robert and Sol’s. Where Sol decides he’s going to stop being Mr. Nice Guy and start doing things that make him happy, leaving Robert to wonder nightly where his dinner is, Frankie decides to return to her roots of veganism and living in a yurt. Can a relationship survive when one person inside it makes big changes? Can two people grow as individuals and as a couple? How do respect your person’s autonomy and empower their growth toward their best self and deal with the fear that your person is going to change so much they won’t want to be with you anymore? Sol and Robert don’t find out the answers to those questions, and at the end of the season, their relationship is up in the air. Grace and Frankie, however, do figure it out by realizing they wouldn’t be who they are as individuals without the life they built together.

It’s not all pathos, though. You know Grace and Frankie is as wacky and empowering as ever. Frankie works her activism to get the city to add a few seconds to a crosswalk so she and her friends can make it from the overflow parking lot to the new crab leg buffet before it runs out of food. Grace tag-teams with Brianna (June Diane Raphael is back from maternity leave and gloriously here for the full season!) to try to save Say Grace. Frankie makes a huge Twitter snafu that results in her owing about fifty thousand free vibrators to their followers. Grace tries to figure out what to do about Nick. And the whole time they’re employing their new motto about ageism and sexism and everything else: Fuck it.

There’s plenty of other gay stuff going on this season. Barry, Brianna’s accountant boyfriend, signs on to be the sperm donor for two of his college friends, a lesbian couple named Erin and Liz, who are both delightful. A non-binary actor named Peg tries out for the role of Sancho in Robert’s gay theater company’s production of Man of La Mancha. (“I’m Sancho — or am I Sancha?”) RuPaul brings the aforementioned miniature pigs. And all of Robert and Sol’s gay stuff and gay friends are gaying around. Also did I mention Grace Hanson is A CONFIRMED BISEXUAL?

I was going to write about how I love this show more than ever in this, the 40th year of my life on this earth, afflicted as I am just recently with perimenopause and early onset arthritis. But you know all that already.

Instead I want to tell you this story: Since the 2016 election, I have begged and pleaded and cajoled and sob-cried trying to get my grandparents to stop watching Fox News. Finally, very recently, they got rid of their cable full stop to get rid of Fox News, for me. For the last ten years, probably, they’d been watching Everybody Loves Raymond reruns on TVLand before bed. Once their cable was gone, though, they turned to Netflix, which recommended this brightly lit comedy starring two of their faves from 9 to 5. I laughed so hard when my grandma told me, imaging her and my grandpa watching Jane Fonda wield a vibrator like a sword, but then she said a thing that pierced my heart. She said she was glad a show exists where Stacy and I can see “two old women living together, happily ever after.”

Season five ends with a shock I haven’t spoiled for you. Frankie, for one, doesn’t know how they’re going to get through it. I don’t either, but I know they will. Grace and Frankie might never make out, but that doesn’t mean they’re not soul mates. “Bad things happen when we split up,” Frankie tells Grace early on in the season. Grace agrees. She calls Frankie “my partner.” Also, “Frankie, it’s a little thing, but can you not put my phone in your boobs anymore?”

Grace and Frankie Acted Gayer Than Their Gay Ex-Husbands In Season 3, Am I Right Ladies

WARNING: This post contains a million spoilers for Season Three of “Grace and Frankie”

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Riese: Look, I know how television works. I know the rules, I know the caps. I know that a show about two gay men who come out to their wives later in life and then get married and buy expensive in-home stereo systems is not going to make its titular female characters also a gay couple. I know that the hit Netflix television series Grace and Frankie has presented itself as a rare glimpse at the fulfillment and companionship two women in their golden years can access through platonic female friendship. I mean, I can’t complain about a program that makes the argument that even for heterosexual women, men can be made entirely unnecessary. But also…

Erin: Grace and Frankie are a couple.

Riese: This definitely wasn’t the case in earlier seasons. Sure, there was innuendo, sure, it was shippable. Sure, Grace has consistently expressed a relatively aggressive rejection of men in general. Sure, they’ve got this “odd couple” vibe down pat. But when I invited Erin to watch Season Three with me, I did not know I was inviting her to the viewing of a lesbian mini-series. (Oh and just for the record, Erin and I are platonic roommates who have been living together since both of us had breakups of long-term relationships around the same time. You know how it is.)

Erin: I agreed to the marathon viewing even though I’ve never seen season one or two, and it’s really nobody’s business but mine as to why I’d do something like that. I’m just one woman with one life to live.

Until this past weekend, the only thing I knew about Grace and Frankie was that it used special camera filters in order to accommodate women of a certain age. I never knew what to do with this information. I’m not necessarily upset that I have it, because it is sort of fascinating to know what goes into filmmaking, but also I don’t want to know the details behind it, like how that kind of decision gets made, and so I tell a lot of people about it to disperse some of the burden that goes along with keeping it.

Riese: Erin told me about the special filters in January, and now every time an older woman is on screen and somehow has more youthful skin than I do (read: all the time), I have to ask Erin about the special filters. It’s all I can think about. Look, now we’re all sharing this burden together.

Erin: I’m glad we watched Season Three of Grace and Frankie because if we hadn’t watched Season Three of Grace and Frankie, we’d never know just how much the writers of the show are daring the audience to assume a romantic relationship between the main characters.

Riese: There is no way this isn’t even slightly intentional at this point. These two women are in love! It’s obvious! Is this queerbaiting and if so, why am I not more upset about it? I hate queerbaiting!

Erin: Look, if I’m speaking personally, and I am (Erin), I hate to be a person that takes seemingly straightforward pieces of pop culture and salad shake in some gay dressing, one, because I hate a reach, and two, because it’s a little sad to get so invested in something that was purposefully pivoted away from bringing gay people joy, but on the other hand I absolutely love being that person. And while it’s true that friendship can often be as complex as romantic relationships and can even involve the same kinds of displays of affection as romantic relationships, season 3 of Grace and Frankie took that concept, ran with it, kept running with it, jumped a fence, and then punted it into moving traffic.

Riese: As Erin and I died and had to bring ourselves back to life every 45 seconds throughout the season’s run, I felt that voice in my head, not everything is gay you guys. why do you have to act like everyone is gay. some people are just friends. not all characters have to be gay. can’t women just be best friends without being gay? can’t women live together and support each other without being gay? why are you projecting all this gayness onto everybody?!!! But! Here’s the thing — everyone IS a little gay. I honestly believe this. The time has come for us to get real with each other about this brave new world we’re in where for many women, at least, sexuality is accepted as more fluid than ever before, and only 48% of teens ages 13-20 identify as exclusively heterosexual and only 65% of millennials identify as exclusively heterosexual. The human capacity for being a little gay is, quite frankly, tremendous. I see no legitimate reason why Grace and Frankie could not be bisexual women in love with each other on a show that already has a gay couple on it. It could be like the last season of Glee, when nobody was paying attention anymore and therefore they were able to sneak in a double-gay wedding episode featuring a gay couple AND a lesbian couple. Look this show queerbaited me for an entire season and I’m not even mad at it, is this what life is like in the Age of Trump.

Erin: The notes on every script must have looked like this: “Hey, love this. Any way we could make it more like these two are in a relationship and it’s supposed to be an unspoken agreement between us and audience, or at the very least that they’re in love with each other and it’s an unspoken relationship between them?” Did the writers ever deliver.

Take a look at the evidence below and tell me these women aren’t on their way to a bead shop in Provincetown as we speak. (spoilers)

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To start, they are two unmarried older women who live together and tell people they’re roommates, which is the basis for every lesbian joke for the past several decades.

They argue with each other about whether or not they’re starting a chicken coop together:

Grace has a not so subtle disdain for Frankie’s boyfriend, Jacob, and men in general:

They’re making vibrators together, which significant because it echoes/resembles two other lesbian traditions — going into business together and mutual masturbation.

There’s a scene where you could replace them talking about their vibrator business and women’s aversion to talking about masturbation with “same sex attraction” and it would make the same exact sense:



They spend all their time together:

They speak as “we”:

The constant vibes of this show feel like:


Classic friend stuff:

Then there are these kinds of statements:

Or the kind of banter between two people who are two glasses of wine away from a making out:

Dealing with the love triangle like:

When Frankie tells Grace she might be moving to Santa Fe, everything gets much gayer very quickly. Everything gays right out of control. Every word spoken is a word unspoken, and also a word that could easily precede the words “you have to stay because I am in love with you.”

Frankie: It was one bad day at the office. We’ll fix it.
Grace: We’ll? There’s no more we’ll!
Frankie: That’s not true!
Grace: Oh, yes it is. Because half of WE’LL is abandoning me.
Frankie: And why wouldn’t I? You’re acting like I’ve already left. You wrote this letter without me, you were going to this meeting without me. I don’t even know if I’m going yet.
Grace: Of course you’re going. Santa Fe is the place you’ve been dressing for your entire life.
Frankie: Don’t you understand that this is an impossible choice? I don’t wanna lose Jacob, I don’t wanna lose you. What am I supposed to do?
Grace: Oh I told you. I can’t tell you what to do.
Frankie: Well you can say something.
Grace: Like what?
Frankie: I don’t know like “don’t go, I’ll miss you,” or something else a human being might think or feel.
Grace: You think I don’t feel anything about this?
Frankie: I don’t know what you feel, you won’t talk to me.
Grace: There’s nothing to talk about until you decide whether you’re gonna run off with your boyfriend.
Frankie: What would you have done if things had worked out with Phil? Would we all be living together at the beach house because I don’t think so.
Grace: Why the hell would you bring up Phil?

Wish I had “why the hell would you bring up Phil” on a needlepoint, because that question is always valid. Like these questions:

It’s totally normal for best friends to not know how to talk about their intense and co-dependent feelings of friendship towards each other. It can be hard to find the words!

Dancing around those three words:




And finally the symbolism of the completion of this arc:

Well, I’ve got a guess!

The Magic School Bus’ Ms. Frizzle Is A Queer Legacy

In 1994 nothing — not even a chilled Capri-Sun — was cooler than The Magic School Bus. The animated series followed Ms. Frizzle and her merry band of students as they went on field trips to exotic locales like the Arctic and strange places like Herp Island, where they all turned into reptiles. Of all the characters on The Magic School Bus, no one could compare to the charismatic, colorful Valerie Felicity Frizzle, also known as “The Friz,” voiced by the incomparable Lily Tomlin. She became our favorite teacher, all light-up earrings and wisdom, and much like the actor playing her, she was never short on jokes.

It’s been a long-disputed among amateur (read: internet) critics (read: the general public) opinion that Ms. Frizzle is a lesbian. Once you head down that search-engine-wormhole, though, there’s no coming back: I never needed to see the words “The Friz,” “Mary Poppins,” and “porn” in the same sentence, and yet, the internet exists, and thusly so does that fan fic.

You may be asking yourself what exactly makes Ms. Frizzle’s sexuality interesting, and there’s no clear answer. Some stray comments and seemingly-satirical articles suggest that the show championed witchcraft, which, in the 1990s, was not the compliment that it is today. An interesting notion to consider, as witches historically rode their broom as a means of absorbing a potent herbal concoction through the mucous membranes of the vagina. The herbs used were hallucinogenic, so while the witches of yore galloped — I mean, masturbated with broomsticks — through their homes or the woods, they might have felt the transcendental powers of the drugs in a way that felt similar to flying. Perhaps, even, hallucinations that could transport them to a herpetological island, where they shape-shifted into the native creatures. Witches have long been rumored to be lesbians, and vice versa, (and socialist feminists) at least if Pat Robertson had anything to say about it.

So, maybe the far-flung connection is there. I’ve heard worse theories.

While Ms. Frizzle’s sexual and romantic leanings aren’t revealed in the series, the woman who played her, Lily Tomlin, has left her own orientation no mystery. In 2013, her orientation was publicly confirmed when it was announced that at age 73, she would marry her long-time partner, writer Jane Wagner (77 at the time) the same year. For decades, Tomlin has battled the expectations placed upon women by the media and public alike, famously making Johnny Carson’s audience uncomfortable by stating that she didn’t want to have children in 1975 — the same year Time magazine tried to bribe her into coming out. In their attempt to be the first to reveal a much-rumored part of her, they dangled a juicy carrot in front of her face: her face, actually, on the cover of the magazine.

“I never did not come out,” she told the Washington Post, “I wanted to be acknowledged for my work. I didn’t want to be that gay person who does comedy.”

She didn’t bite.

If casually telling a talk show host you didn’t plan on getting pregnant was a scandal at that time, it’s hard to imagine a rainbow-laden, happily-ever-after coming out story would have followed. No person is defined entirely by their sexuality, but someone living in the spotlight does not only belong solely to themselves; a celebrity is a force beyond the boundaries of their body and mind. They’re a public entity, a brand. They are, in part, a character. Coming out is a deeply personal process for many, though, and not something anyone — famous or otherwise — owes to anyone, including the media, or their fans. In addition to living her life in the limelight, Tomlin was concerned, as so many are, about the reaction her mother would have had.

“My mother would have died. Literally. If she’d lived to see me come out,” she said in 2015, “Bless her heart, she was Southern, basically fundamentalist, but she was very witty and sweet and kind and she adored Jane. She died ten years ago. She was 91. So that was always kind of a dilemma for me.”

There aren’t enough carrots in the world to convince someone to come out if they simply aren’t prepared to do so. It makes sense, on many levels, that Tomlin waited until so recently to officially invite the world to see her true colors.

It just so happened to be the same era that fellow actor and comedian Kate McKinnon did.

McKinnon’s coming out story could not be more different from Tomlin’s. After considering her “physiological reaction” to watching The X-Files, she realized that it wasn’t David Duchovny’s stony gaze that was so broomstick-ridingly exciting.

“It was Gillian Anderson who still is the queen of my heart. So I knew then. I told some of my friends, eventually I found my mother. She found me crying and said, ‘What’s wrong?’ And I said ‘I think I’m gay’’… and she said, ‘Fine. Love it. Whatever you want to be.'”

Before becoming the first out Saturday Night Live cast member in 2012, McKinnon was featured on Logo’s The Big Gay Sketch Show. Like Tomlin, she’s familiar with breaking down boundaries: in 2016, she played a gender-swapped scientist named Jillian Holtzmann, the brains behind the Ghostbusters’ inventions, and the unofficial queer heartthrob of the year. Much to the surprise of absolutely no one, a lot of sexist dudes were very unhappy about the casting of women in the rebooted cult classic. The world continued turning. And now, in the year of our holy mother Beyonce, 2017, Kate McKinnon has been announced as the new Ms. Frizzle in Netflix’s reboot of the original series, making the character a queer legacy.

It’s official, folks: Ms. Frizzle is here, she’s queer, and she’s ready to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy.

If Women’s Magazine Covers Were Aimed at Queer Women

It’s no surprise that a quick scan of a magazine stand yields few results in the queer department. Maybe we get a picture of Ellen and Portia in the top corner of a cover standing side by side with the posture of two people whose names have just been called one after the other at graduation and then one of their moms is like, “Okay, let’s get a picture with you two!” but like most things in modern media, especially “women’s magazines,” we are cameos, not stars.

Until now! Introducing the Magazine for Women Who Aren’t Straight: JKLAFGHD. The name was inspired by what happens when I want to express frustration or extreme joy online, which I think is a good baseline of emotions for our approach. Every so often we’ll check in here to catch up on the latest not-straight trends, get updates on the not-straight classics, and check in with our favorite not-straight celebrities via JKLAFGHD front covers, all while staying true to that timeless, attention-grabbing style. Up first in our July through September editions are Lilly Tomlin, Aubrey Plaza, and friend of Autostraddle, Brittani Nichols.

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July – Lilly Tomlin

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August – BISEXUAL, Aubrey Plaza

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September – Brittani Nichols

Rebel Girls: 25 Women Who Changed the Game in 2015

Every year, someone goes and says it was “Year of the Woman.” I’m not here to make that sort of outlandish claim, but I do think it’s worth it to revel in the badassery of womankind at the end of every year and take stock of how we shook things up. And thus, here’s 25 women who changed the game in 2015 — across realms, state lines, and life experiences.

Author’s Note: 25 is not a lot of people. PLEASE DON’T GET MAD AT ME! It’s important to note, I think, that everyone who was mentioned in this parallel list last year didn’t get re-mentioned this year, not even Nicki Minaj, so you know I’m a woman of my word. Also, if you think I passed someone by, it might just be because you were destined to leave a comment about their badassery. Do that!

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Amandla Stenberg

When 16-year-old Hunger Games star Amandla Stenberg called out Kylie Jenner on Instagram in July for posting a picture in cornrows, she sparked a massive conversation around cultural appropriation that’s long overdue. But even better is that in April she dropped a bomb on Tumblr of the best kind with her video “don’t cash crop my cornrows,” which is video evidence of Amandla being a total badass who will school us all, amen.

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Amber Rose

2015 was the year Amber Rose carved out a new space in feminism for bad bitches, which I appreciated on a personal level. She stood up against slut-shaming on social media and sassed Kanye West, hosted a SlutWalk in Los Angeles that honored all kinds of survivors and made room for new kinds of activists, and released a how-to guide for living your best life, all while continuing to be an Instagram sensation.

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Annise Parker

Houston needed a HERO this year, and Mayor Annise Parker isn’t letting them miss out on one. After her city rejected legislation that would protect LGBT rights, she spoke out abut fighting on — and I think we can rest assured that she was damn serious.

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Ayanna Poole & Danielle Walker

Another year, another batch of badass Black women coming to save the day. Last year, the #BlackLivesMatter movement led by Black queer women changed everything. And this year, Ayanna Poole, Danielle Walker, and other women at Mizzou led the #ConcernedStudent1950 movement against a racist administration and sparked conversations and other activism around what it means to be of color on campus.

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Bree Newsome

Someone had to do it, and so Bree Newsome did. Here’s to hoping that in fifty years, this picture is in history books. (And here’s betting that, knowing the world, it won’t. So go ahead and store it in your heart and pass it on.)

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Cherno Biko

It’s been a mixed year for trans women. Amid a record number of trans portrayals in Hollywood and an upshot in visibility for their community, trans women — primarily trans women of color — also faced record levels of violence in the streets. In a year, over 20 trans women were brutally murdered. And through it all, trans activist Cherno Biko was there. She made sure murdered trans women weren’t misgendered in the media, organized their vigils and fundraisers, and then made some time to meet with Hillary Clinton about the epidemic levels of violence they face.

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Edith Windsor

2015 will forever go down in history as the year the gays got married all over the damn place and gay marriage became legal across America. We wouldn’t have so many damn showers to plan if it weren’t for Edith Windsor, though, who championed this fight for our love (and money) and won. Cheers to you, Edie! Stay gold.

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Grace Dunham

Lena Dunham could learn a lot from her sister. She’s spent the year stumping for Happy Birthday Marsha, amplifying the voices of queer and trans women, and being BFFs with Reina Gossett. Also, she said smart words about activism on this very website that deeply moved me this year, just letting you know.

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Hari Nef

Hari Nef is definitely 2015’s breakout star of the year. The New York-based model and actress headlined the Selfridges Agender campaign this year, and then became the first-ever trans model signed by agency IMG. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, she landed a spot in season two of Transparent. She’s mighty busy now, but still makes time to speak out on trans issues and raise awareness in all of her interviews. Because that’s how the cool kids do.

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Hillary Clinton

This list didn’t exist in 2008 or 2009, and thus Hillary Clinton has never been named a Rebel Girl of the Year. And that is just an unforgivable shame, especially since Hillary Clinton is Woman of the Year every single damn year in my heart. 2015’s been a big year for the former First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State, however, since she launched the second-ever viable campaign by a woman for President of the United States, blessed us all with more opportunities to watch her absolutely own a bunch of dudes in debate settings, and presented us with an awesome gay agenda of our own. May the Force be with you, Hillary, and may we one day get brunch together.

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James Dawson

Queer and trans kids need to feel just as at home in the world of YA Fiction as the rest of the world. And when James Dawson came out as a trans woman this year, she carved out a little more space for them there.

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Jazz Jennings

Kids these days! It seems like you turn around and they’re writing books, starting reality shows, inspiring entire cities, and deeply moving us all. Or so it is, at least, when it comes to Jazz Jennings, the trans teen who is telling her story in an effort to make room for trans people, and especially trans kids, in this world.

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Lily Tomlin

Lily Tomlin’s best life is happening right now. She’s finally out and playing gay characters on the big screen! (And to much acclaim!) She’s landed a role opposite Jane Fonda as a presumably slightly higher version of herself! (Again, to much acclaim!) And also, I finally watched 9 to 5 this year, which I think we can all attest to being a huge accomplishment for Tomlin as well as myself.

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Loretta Lynch

Loretta Lynch is, as of this year, America’s first-ever female Black Attorney General. And even if she had to wait months to finally be allowed to assume it, she’s finally watching her rightful throne for the benefit of us all.

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Margaret Cho

In September, comedian Margaret Cho opened up about suffering sexual abuse for years as a girl at the hands of a trusted adult in her family, and then she released feminist anthem “I Want to Kill My Rapist.” We’ve always been big fans of comedian Margaret Cho around these here parts, but these two amazing acts of truth-telling and rebelling made me fall even deeper in love.

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Marilyn Mosby

Maryland’s Attorney General Marilyn Mosby pulled no punches when Freddie Gray’s death sparked riots in Baltimore this year, and she made it clear that police brutality wasn’t going to go unpunished on her watch. In a time of turmoil, she stood up and made sure people knew they were being heard — and set a standard for how cities, states, and police departments should react to police violence on their turf.

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Miss Piggy

It’s been a tumultuous year for Miss Piggy. She’s got a new, independent life to live, and a new television show to do it on. Any year the Muppets return to pop culture with something new for our eyeballs is a great year, and I’m always certain it’s because of Miss Piggy’s overwhelming importance to all of our lives. This one’s for you, you fabulous diva bitch.

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Missy Elliot

Missy Elliot’s comeback was the thing that went down in 2015. I dare both you and the people you were between 1997 and 2008 to say differently.

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Monica Jones

When Monica Jones, a trans woman of color, was unfairly profiled by police and found guilty of, essentially, “Walking While Trans” in 2014, she fought back. And when the whole debacle was over, and her conviction was vacated, early this year, she could have rested. She could have sighed with relief and walked away. But instead, she vowed to fight on and end both the unfair profiling of trans women and especially trans women of color as well as a fucked-up system that tries to “rescue” sex workers when they don’t need any saving.

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Patricia Velásquez

MARTA IS GAY, YOU GUYS. MARTA. IS. GAY. May the coming out of supermodel and actress Patricia Velásquez make your regular re-watch of Arrested Development more pleasant and also the world a little bit of a gayer place, amen.

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Raffi Freedman-Gurspan

White House history was made in August when the Obama administration welcomed Raffi Freedman-Gurspan into the West Wing. She’s the first-ever openly trans White House official, and she’s now its Director of Outreach and Recruitment for personnel.

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Reina Gossett & Sasha Wortzel

In a year forever tainted by the presence of the white-washed mess that is Stonewall, Reina Gossett and Sasha Wortzel stood up and asked the Internet for a favor: to help them tell the truth. And thus, Happy Birthday, Marsha! was born, a soon-to-be-released short film about revolutionaries and LGBT rights icons Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson and Sylvia Rivera that paints a more accurate picture of the historic Stonewall riots.

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Serena Williams

Serena Williams is officially the best athlete in America, and she’s gonna go down in history as one of the best ever, that’s for sure. This was the year she kicked more ass than ever before believed possible, faced down her demons, and became Sportsperson of the Year. (Fuck the horse.) I am here for all of this.

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Stoya

When Stoya came out swinging this month on Twitter with a rape accusation against James Deen, she started an avalanche. Slowly, other women in the adult industry began coming forward with their own tales of terror or just plain creepiness on behalf of the man-child porn star, who insists he never called himself a feminist but is really just a bold-faced liar. It was a strong year for feminism in porn, but Stoya’s courage takes all of the cake.

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The USWNT

There’s really not much that needs to be said for the USWNT’s year, aside from the fact that it was truly epic. They won the Women’s World Cup in July, becoming the first participating team ever to win three titles in the tournament and the most successful team in it ever as well. Afterward, they became the first women’s sports team to be honored with a ticker-tape parade, and they received a 2015 ESPY for Outstanding Team and a Teen Choice Award for Fave Female Athletes. Even later on, they were invited to the White House. All the while, they managed to wage a battle for equal pay, fair playing conditions, and an end to FIFA sexism, which I think is truly outstanding. But truly their crowning moment was the time Abby Wambach made out with her wife on TV, making 2015 the year we’d never realized we’d been waiting for.

Pop Culture Fix: Lily Tomlin, Laverne Cox and Robin Roberts Hang Out, Talk About “Grandma” And Other Mesmerizing Stories

Autostraddle’s Pop Culture Fix is a weekly round-up of the queer arts and entertainment news you need in your life.

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Big Screen Bombshells

+ Yesterday morning, the planets and stars aligned to create a gorgeous, significant moment in queer pop culture when both Laverne Cox and Lily Tomlin appeared on Good Morning America to talk to Robin Roberts about their new film, Grandma. It will be released in New York and Los Angeles on Friday and seems destined to grant Tomlin the Academy Award that has long eluded her.

Watch Lily:

ABC Latest News | Latest News Videos

Watch Laverne:

ABC Latest News | Latest News Videos

You want to know something that’s always so weird/gross when other people do it but is frikkin adorable when Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner do it? Share social media. Also, Dolly Parton says she wants to hang out with her 9-to-5 co-stars on Grace and Frankie, so get on that, gracious goddesses of pop culture. (Please.)

+ In the wise and eternal words of The Backstreet Boys, Cate Blanchett needs to quit playing games with my heart. First, she’s had many relationships with women. But then wait, no, she has not had many relationships with women. And now she is having an on-screen relationship with Rooney Mara in the first trailer for Todd Haynes’ Carol and my swooning has reached peak levels. As you know, Carol is based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 lesbian pulp novel, The Price of Salt, in which Carol falls in love with a department store clerk even though she’s married (to a really boring, really rich guy, played by Coach Eric Taylor in this movie). As you also know, Cate Blanchett + period drama + lesbianism = The Ultimate Oscars bait.

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I Want My MTV

+ The Teen Choice Awards happened this week. That is a thing where teenagers use social media to vote for their favorite things and the winners receive surfboards. Cara Delevingne won a surfboard. So did Liars who are Pretty. Ellen won also, and it was her seventh anniversary with Portia on that night and she gave the sweetest speech about being chosen and also being different.

https://youtu.be/VNeggYRqLng

A brand new season of The Ellen Show lands on September 8th, and her guests the first week are: Hillary Clinton, Caitlyn Jenner, and Malala Yousafzai!

+ Maybe Xena is coming back, after all? I can’t take this anymore! Just tell me something real, NBC!

+ The Real Housewives of Atlanta has added its first transgender cast member. Model Amiyah Scott will replace Nene Leakes on the upcoming season. I’m never going to watch some Real Housewives, but Nene Leakes was a marvel on Glee.

+ This is the hands down best thing I’ve read about Orange Is the New Black‘s third season: Uzo Aduba really wrote The Time Hump Chronicles!

“I don’t know if they have gone and taken it and now fleshed out the entire ‘Time Hump Chronicles,’ but when we were shooting it… those pages that were walking around, that you are watching in the scene, is the story,” Aduba said. “That is actually, legitimately, a story that I had to take home with me. They were like, ‘Put it in Suzanne’s words. How would Suzanne write this if she were to write this?’ That’s my handwriting, all of it. I put it out. I was crossing out things, just how I would imagine trying to pen this story. I was crossing things out and drawing because it’s supposed to be illustrated and drawing pictures… I don’t know where I was going with that stuff, but I was like, we are just going to let your imagination go.”

So when you see a woman in Litchfield — prisoner or guard — enjoying herself thoroughly while reading “The Time Hump Chronicles,” know that it’s because Aduba herself wrote each page by hand, in character. Making this story about a woman trapped between loves — including one with two, um, “instruments” — all the more personal.

WHAT! That is so amazing.

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Video Killed the Radio Star

Julia Nunes has released a video for “Something Bad” from her upcoming Some Feelings LP. It’s one of the most adorable things I’ve ever seen.

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Queer Folks Queering It Up Around Town

+ Cara Delevingne is speaking out about sex harassment and the dangers of body image in the fashion industry. In an interview with The Times, she said:

“I was, like, fight and flight for months. Just constantly on edge. It is a mental thing as well because if you hate yourself and your body and the way you look, it just gets worse and worse … I am a bit of a feminist and it makes me feel sick. It’s horrible and it’s disgusting. [We’re talking about] young girls. You start when you are really young and you do, you get subjected to … not great stuff.”

+ Rosie O’Donnell‘s daughter, Chelsea, was missing this week but now she has been found. I’m telling you this because it has been trending on Facebook for 48 hours and I was worried but now I am not worried. She disappeared with her dog and didn’t have her medicines!

+ Kristen Stewart and Jane Lynch were not straight together on Live! With Kelly and Michael on Monday. This video is pretty amazing. Michael Strahan keeps trying to get in on the conversation and failing.

https://youtu.be/P2FOPeZf75Q

+ Remember how much everyone looooved Hannah Montana? Well, Miley Cyrus hated it.

“From the time I was 11, it was, ‘You’re a pop star! That means you have to be blonde, and you have to have long hair, and you have to put on some glittery tight thing.’ Meanwhile, I’m this fragile little girl playing a 16-year-old in a wig and a ton of makeup. It was like Toddlers & Tiaras. I had fucking flippers.”

“I was told for so long what a girl is supposed to be from being on that show. I was made to look like someone that I wasn’t, which probably caused some body dysmorphia because I had been made pretty every day for so long, and then when I wasn’t on that show, it was like, Who the fuck am I?”

+ Megan Rapinoe was voted to the USWNT all-star squad.

+ Caitlyn Jenner covers Vanity Fair‘s special Trans America issue.

The issue also features Renée Richards, Chaz Bono, and Laverne Cox, and Andreja Pejic.

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Also.Also.Also.

Pop Culture Fix: Interviewer Thinks Cara Delevingne Needs To “Take A Little Nap” And Other Less Infuriating Stories

Autostraddle’s Pop Culture Fix is a weekly round-up of the queer arts and entertainment news you need in your life.

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The Tevee

+ NBC has decided to stage another live musical for TV, but this time it’s going be hella rad because it’s The Wiz and it’s going to co-star Queen Latifah and Mary J. Blige, who will play the Wiz and the Wicked Witch, respectively. It’s all happening on Dec. 3, just in time for Christmas, because Santa Claus loves us.

+ At Netflix’s TCA presentation yesterday, the main thing was “we’re doing it better than anyone, duh” and also, “like you, we want more Arrested Development.” They’re going to have to duke it out with Scandal for Portia de Rossi; she was promoted to series regular in May.

+ Speaking of Netflix, there’s about a billion Orange Is the New Black season three think pieces on the internet right now, but I’m really into Casey Cipriani‘s IndieWire one about how OITNB highlights the way almost all religions fail women.

The trouble for these women is that far too many of the world’s religions consider them daughters of Eve, born of Adam’s rib and his natural subordinate, rather than those of Lilith, the mythological first woman who was created of the same Earth as Adam and was either cast out of or voluntary left Eden after refusing to be subservient to Adam. The show seems to be presenting the idea that religion has been a hurdle for these women in their past lives; for some it was even the thing that landed them in federal prison.

For many, their religion turned their backs on them, so they’ve turned their backs on their religion and look elsewhere while inside for spiritual growth. This reflects the true reality of many inmates who convert or find a new religion while incarcerated, but in a series that prides itself on its depiction of diverse women from multiple backgrounds, more often than not, their religion failed them. This is not only true for women in prison; news stories about how various religions oppress women around the world surface every day.

+ Tig Notaro landed herself an Amazon pilot!

+ MTV has renewed Scream for a second season already; here’s hoping Audrey makes it through the first season!

+ Wanda Sykes was amazing on Jane Lynch‘s Emmy-nominated Hollywood Game Night this week.

+ And so was Rosie O’Donnell. (She’s playing my second favorite Rosie character on The Fosters right now; she’s so good. Second favorite after Doris in A League of Their Own, obviously.)

+ Raven thinks Caitlyn Jenner is moving “too fast, too soon.”

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The Moovies

+ Jenny’s Wedding (aka Rory Gilmore and Izzie Stevens Big Day) opens in select theaters this weekend. Am I going to review it for you? Yes, I am.

+ Judy Greer is happy she made out with Lily Tomlin in Grandma. In an interview with Out magazine:

You’ve never played an LGBT character before, right?
I’m going to say you’re right, but I might look back later and be like, “Oh, but I did do that.” Though my role in Grandma is super “out,” in terms of making out with a woman — which is awesome. Especially when the woman is Lily Tomlin.

She also says she never has to pay for drinks in gay bars, for which she is eternally grateful.

+ (Lily Tomlin is nominated for an Emmy already this year for Grace and Frankie, and there’s Oscar buzz for Grandma as well. If anyone deserves to EGOT, it’s Tomlin!)

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The Sportz

+ Megan Rapinoe was inducted into the National Gay and Lesbian Sport Hall of Fame this week!

+ Minnesota Lynx superstar Seimone Augustus wrote a beautiful thing about marriage equality and her wife for The Players Tribune. You’ll cry if you read it, I promise.

The first year in our relationship, I had to go overseas to play in Russia during the WNBA offseason. It was terrible. I was in a foreign country by myself, didn’t speak the language, couldn’t navigate Moscow and hated the food. I was miserable. The second year, LaTaya came with me. She found her way around the city immediately — how to get to the gym, the grocery store, the clubs. She went out with my teammates and really immersed herself in this new life. I wasn’t miserable anymore. Sure, it’s hard to travel across the world to live in a place with so many fundamental cultural differences, but when you fall in love, home is found in a person, not a city. Moscow felt like home because she did.

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Cara Delevingne

Cara Delevingne went on Good Morning Sacramento to promote Paper Towns and the news anchors were so horrible it took me like 15 minutes to watch this whole clip. They told her to go “take a little nap.” And then when her satellite feed was gone, one of the guys was like, “She was in a mood!” Between this and that Vogue guy mansplaining her bisexuality to her, I wouldn’t blame her for never doing another interview again! Anyway, here’s the clip; prepare to be bamboozled.

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Also.Also.Also.

Pop Culture Fix: Everyone Is Bananas For “Carol” at Cannes and Other Important Stories

Hello, peaches and pears and plums! Welcome to your weekly Pop Culture Fix! This isn’t Cannes, so feel free to wear what you want. Heels, flats, oxfords, feety pajamas. It’s totally up to you!

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Gender Discrimination Redux

+ Last week, Riese talked about how shit is getting real for gender discrimination in Hollywood, and the battle rages on. Famous ladies are breaking the code of silence all over the place. This week, Selma Hayek spoke at a UN panel about her experiences with “sexist, ignorant” movie creators. Melissa McCarthy smacked down a Variety reporter for a profoundly sexist review, calling Hollywood’s attitude about women “an intense sickness.” And, at Cannes, Parker Posey said, “We’re at war. The culture is eating nature, it’s overpowering storytelling.”

+ The Feminist Majority Foundation honored Shonda Rhimes and Jenji Kohan with the Eleanor Roosevelt Global Women’s Rights Award this week, and their speeches will have you throwing up praise hands emojis.

Rhimes on her assistant telling her she wants to be a straight white man for one day to see what it’s like to “have all that”:

My assistant wants to walk through the world, just for a day, without some guy hitting on her when she runs to Starbucks to get me coffee. So as to not be called cute by the security guard. She wants to not be told that she should be a model. She wants to not take a look of surprise on someone’s face when she tells them where she went to college. She wants her boobs to no longer be a topic of conversation. She wants to not make 70 cents on the dollar. She wants to not have old men legislate her vagina’s rights. She doesn’t want to even know that a glass ceiling ever existed. She wants to not believe that having a baby will end her career. She wants everything in the world to be made for her, be about her and speak mostly to her, because that’s how it is for men.

Kohan on her daughter loving Hello Kitty:

There was one thing about Hello Kitty that drove me nuts: she has no mouth. According to the company, she speaks from the heart and is an ambassador to the world who is not bound by any language. They want people to project their feelings onto the character and be happy or sad together with Hello Kitty. My motherly response, and my deep-down feeling and my feminist response, is “That’s bullshit.” I feel it’s a statement about girls. I feel that this toy was telling my daughter that she should look adorable with her pink bow, and not express her thoughts or feelings. Let others project them onto her? That’s not okay.

But she really liked the stuff and I spent a fortune. So I grabbed a sharpie and started drawing mouths. I drew mouths on every single girl-dressed-as-cat object that she owned. Open, close, smiling, frowning, sometimes just a line — but they all had mouths. I had to face them all by giving them all full faces.

Read the whole speeches; they’re so good.

+ Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin were rightfully pissed when they found out what Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen, the guys who play their husbands on Grace and Frankie, are getting paid.

“[Tomlin] found out [Waterston and Sheen] are getting the same salary that we are,” says Fonda. “That doesn’t make us happy.”

Tomlin adds, “No. The show is not ‘Sol and Robert’ — it’s ‘Grace and Frankie.'”

+ To punctuate Hayek’s point that ignoring the economic power of women is a stupid move by Hollywood, Mad Max and Pitch Perfect 2 crushed it at the box office this weekend. That’s a female-driven action movie about a woman who rescues a group of sex slaves and destroys their captors, and a film written/directed/starred in by nearly all women. AV Club says the only real loser at the box office this weekend was misogyny.

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Straight Blanchett

We went through a real roller coaster of feelings last week with Cate Blanchett, huh? I’m still a little shaken, but we’ve got to get it together because we’ve got to talk about Carol, which is leading the Palme d’Or buzz at the halfway point of Cannes. Here are Blanchett, Rooney Mara and director Todd Haynes talking about the film while sitting on a yacht in the sunset. V. relatable.

+ The Hollywood Reporter thinks Mara and Blanchett are “outstanding” and that Haynes’ direction is “fastidious, intelligent, and somewhat leisurely.”

+ HitFix is sure Carol can “enlighten minds” and have a”meaningful calling beyond its artistic achievements.”

+ The Playlist warns that Carol is going to “burst the banks of your heart.”

+ Variety finds the film groundbreaking in terms of examining queer identity, and also: “Even high expectations don’t quite prepare you for the startling impact of Carol, an exquisitely drawn, deeply felt love story that teases out every shadow and nuance of its characters’ inner lives with supreme intelligence, breathtaking poise and filmmaking craft of the most sophisticated yet accessible order. ”

+ The Independent is bananas for Blanchett: “Blanchett’s performance matches that she gave in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine. She is a fascinating actress because she brings such Clytemnestra-like fury to roles as fragile and vulnerable women.”

+ Vanity Fair is bananas for the whole shebang: “By the film’s extraordinary final scene—another charged, multitudes-containing look across a room—both Carol and Therese have emerged from a shared crucible more fully human, not immune to whatever pain might await them, but certainly stronger in themselves, better armed.”

So, get psyched! But keep your psyched-ness in check! I don’t want another heartbreaking debacle like last week w/r/t The Lady of the Golden Wood.

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Hot Takes on TV

There are two things on the internet’s collective mind this week: Game of Thrones and Mad Men. Okay, also T-Swizzle’s “Bad Blood” video and Bey + Nicki Minaj, but we’ve already talked about those things. Here are the other two things:

+ Sansa Stark’s rape on Sunday night’s Game of Thrones has people canceling HBO and breathing fire. If, like me, you only watch Game of Thrones when your girlfriend shows you clips of dragons on YouTube because of how the show is 80 percent rapes and decapitations, you might be wondering why one more rape has set people off so much. Apparently, Sansa was not raped in the books and it had already been established on the show that: Sansa is a victim, the guy who raped her is a psychopath, and the people who were forced to watch her being raped are impotent and/or unfeeling when it comes to helping her.

The storyline has caused Senator Claire McCaskill to disavow the show, The Mary Sue to pull the plug on their coverage, and Flavorwire to declare that the Golden Age of TV has been replaced by the Age of Rape and Torture. Bitch says the guilty pleasure of watching has become too guilty. Hells bells, even Deadspin is now calling GOT  “gross, exploitive and out of ideas.” And HitFix says the controversy isn’t going away.

+ Mad Men ended its six season run on Sunday and oh, I cried. I just want to point you in the direction of some of the smartest feminist things I’ve read about one of the smartest shows to ever air on TV.

“What the Fates of Mad Men’s Women Say About The Show’s Stance on Feminism” (Time)

“How Mad Men Helped Me Understand The Anger In My Mother’s Feminism” (Jezebel)

“In Mad Men’s Finale, Joan and Peggy Switched Places and Became Complete” (IndieWire)

“What Mad Men gets right about the history of feminism” (Vox)

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TV Tidbits

+ According to my buddy Heather, the new Fox comedy Grandfathered is going to feature a lesbian character of color. Let’s hope she fares better than all the other lesbians on sitcoms so far this year.

+ Portia de Rossi has been upped to series regular on Scandal.

+ The Bronte sisters are getting a BBC biopic. I hope they explore Charlotte’s relationship with Ellen Nussey, the one that had Nussey’s husband so upset that he was always freaking out about how they needed to burn their letters because of the passionate language they used with each other. The actual phrase Nussey’s husband used to describe their letters was “more dangerous than Lucifer’s match!”

+ Andy Cohen acted out 9 to 5 with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin the other day. (WHERE’S DOLLY, Y’ALL.)

+ Queen Latifah doesn’t care if her lesbian love scene in Bessie made you uncomfortable.

+ Leisha Hailey is going to guest star on ABC Family’s Chasing Life, maybe offer some queer advice to Brenna and Greer.

+ Kim Kardashian says “she’s beautiful” in reference to Bruce Jenner.

+ The official Scream Queens trailer is here. I will not because of Ryan Murphy, but you might! It’s very lady-driven!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FtenR69qmk

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Also.Also.Also.

This duck is very excited when his human gets off the bus.

Daily Fix: Emma Stone and Elizabeth Banks Will Both Play Billie Jean King And Other Exciting Pop Culture Stories

Happy Wednesday, snozzberries! This is your weekly Pop Culture Fix, the place where we talk about the queer/feminist things that are happening in the world of entertainment that don’t require a 5,000-word think piece!

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Hollyweird

Lily Motherfucking Tomlin, Y’all

I am so proud to be a part of this film #Grandma written and directed by #PaulWeitz starring the incomparable and legendary #LilyTomlin and the moving @juliagarner94 with the awesome @nattwolff and the smoldering @kuwaiti_cutie. #TFF

A photo posted by laverne cox (@lavernecox) on Apr 21, 2015 at 6:39am PDT

Lily Tomlin‘s Grandma (which also stars Laverne Cox, remember) has garnered so much good buzz at the Tribeca Film Festival that people are already whispering about an Oscar nomination for Tomlin. Flavowire says that in addition to substantial, “juicy” writing for Cox:

[Writer/director Paul Weitz] writes a leading role for Tomlin that’s worthy of her considerable talents. She’s a hellraiser, fiercely protective and tough as nails, yet never reduced to merely that (and she doesn’t always win her battles, sometimes to great comic effect). Her dialogue is sharp and quotable without feeling “written” (as it might coming out of the mouth of a lesser actor), because Tomlin so effortlessly projects bristling intelligence. It’s a wonderfully, wickedly funny performance.

The New York Times thinks Tomlin is pretty perfect too:

Lily Tomlin, giving a career-capping performance, plays Elle Reid, a renowned poet and outspoken misanthrope who is broke and still recovering from the death of a longtime female partner. When her 18-year-old granddaughter shows up needing $600 for an abortion scheduled that very afternoon, they seek the money from Elle’s past friends and lovers. Elle’s raw, pungent remarks are brightened by Ms. Tomlin’s twinkle, but her character’s bitter, tell-it-like-it-is attitude represents a quaint countercultural sensibility curdled by disappointment and age

Tomlin stopped by HuffPo yesterday to talk about a whole lot of things, including being a lesbian in Hollywood in the ’70s.

Glass Ceilings

+ Variety just released their Power of Women issue, so they’re unloading loads of content about about lady things. For example, this three-year study that confirms how shitty it is to be a female director. It features quotes like: “Nearly half of the industryites surveyed believe that female-directed films appeal to a smaller audience than pics directed by men.” And: “Across 1,300 top-grossing films from 2002 to 2014, only 4.1 percent of all directors were female.” And why? Female directors’ “lack of ambition,” of course. And how they “‘can’t handle’ certain types of films or aspects of production, such as commanding a large crew.”

+ Patricia Arquette‘s speech at the Golden Globes drove Meryl Streep over the edge, I think. She has had it with ageism and sexism in Hollywood! This week she announced she’s melting down her Oscars and selling them off and using the money to fund a screenwriting lab for women over 40. (She’s not really melting down her Oscars; she’s using Paypal like regular America to fund the workshop.)

Tennis Pros

Emma Stone sure is going to play Billie Jean King in Fox Searchlight’s Battle of the Sexes. Fox will be fighting the clock against HBO because it has a similar film in the works, starring Elizabeth Banks in the lead role. Two competing BJK biopics? WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE. Both films will apparently land in 2016.

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Teevee

Renewals and Cancelations

It’s the time of year where networks are rolling out renewals and bringing down the hammer with cancellations. Here’s a run-down of what we know about the queer shows you watch.

+ Faking It has been renewed for a third season.

+ TV Land ordered a second season of Younger.

+ Grey’s Anatomy‘s 12th season is “a sure thing.”

+ Everyone’s been wavering on One Big Happy, but TV By The Numbers now says it’s likely to be cancelled.

+ Netflix ordered a fourth season of Orange is the New Black.

We’ll keep you updated!

Knock Knock, It’s Tig Notaro

 

Tig Notaro’s cross-country road trip documentary, Knock Knock, It’s Tig Notaro, premiered on Showtime late last week, and the reviews have all been pretty great. Flavorwire says: “What you will find, however, is part stand-up, part buddy comedy, and part road trip documentary — and an oddly cathartic one, at that.” Wired thinks it’s amazing (and dark). The A.V. Club agrees. The New York Times is really the only major detractor. They think Tig’s “meta-Americana” can be “awkward and slightly condescending.”

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Wham! Pow! Superheroines On-Screen!

Avengers: Age of Ultron is almost here, and so is Ellen’s supporting role.

After getting the short end of the costume stick in a failed Wonder Woman TV pilot, Adrianne Palicki is finally getting her own superhero show. She’ll continue her role as Mockingbird in a new Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spin-off. The Captain Marvel movie has hired two female writers to bring Carol Danvers to the big screen. Director Michelle MacLaren left the much (and forever) anticipated Wonder Woman movie, but rumored Thor 2 director Patty Jenkins has decided to take up the mantle of the world’s most famous female crime fighter.

Ta-Nehisi Coates gave a fascinating interview to Vulture about the role of superhero comics in changing the world.

But comics companies have started to explicitly say, “We are being more diverse and inclusive,” which is much less coded than a lot of the efforts at diversity in the past.
Marvel opened the doors, right? You have Storm, there’s a black Iron Man in the ’80s, the second X-Men generation — you have the Native American Thunderbird. You have heroes that look all sorts of ways. When I was a kid, I knew that superheroes were not exclusively white and male. And if you have fans who grow up with that, they reach a certain age and they expect you to go to another level. Beyond that, it costs comic books way less than movies to do diverse things. They ain’t got to worry about casting somebody who is going to bring in box office.

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Musics

Yesterday, the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival announced that this year’s 40th anniversary festival will be its last. From the official Facebook announcement:

We have known in our hearts for some years that the life cycle of the Festival was coming to a time of closure. Too often in our culture, change is met only with fear, the true cycle of life is denied to avoid the grief of loss. But change is the ultimate truth of life. Sisters – I ask you to remember that our 40 year Festival has outlived nearly all of her kin. She has served us well. I want us all to have the opportunity to experience the incredible full life cycle of our beloved Festival, consciously, with time to celebrate and yes, time to grieve.

There have been struggles; there is no doubt about that. This is part of our truth, but it is not–and never has been–our defining story. The Festival has been the crucible for nearly every critical cultural and political issue the lesbian feminist community has grappled with for four decades. Those struggles have been a beautiful part of our collective strength; they have never been a weakness.

For more about the festival’s decline, check out Riese’s longform piece from last summer, Michfest Could Change Its Trans-Exclusionary Policy Only If It Tried, Only If It Wanted To.

+ Fun Home: The Musical opened this weekend to fantastic crowds and reviews. The New York Times lost its damn mind over it. I haven’t seen a review this good in their theater section since Neil Patrick Harris opened Hedwig and the Angry Inch. To wit:

“Fun Home” knows where you live. Granted, it’s unlikely that many details of your childhood exactly resemble those of the narrator of this extraordinary musical, which pumps oxygenating fresh air into the cultural recycling center that is Broadway.

[…]

But this production has only improved, not least because of its having to be reimagined for a theater-in-the-round space. (The Public production was on a proscenium stage.) The audience becomes, more than ever, part of the Bechdel family circle. For better or worse — and for me shows this cathartic are only for the better — we’re home.

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Also.Also.Also

Netflix has officially ordered 13 episodes of Fuller House. Next up, Saved By the Bell: Shady Pines.

And anyway, this is how you cuddle with a pony. (Thanks, Cute Overload!)

 

 

Pop Culture Fix: The Bisexual Stoner Loner, Ellen’s World Takeover and Other Very Important Stories

Hello and welcome to your Pop Culture Fix for April 1st, 2015! It’s April Fool’s Day! I hope nobody told you they were pregnant unless they were actually pregnant.

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The Teevee

Ellen

ELLEN IS TAKING OVER THE WORLD SOON SHE’LL BE QUEEN OF THE MOON!!!! You know how I know that, because I read it in a mainstream publication. The Wrap looks inside Ellen’s empire and investigates “how the queen of daytime is conquering Hollywood.” She apparently has shows either on the air or in development, a home design book, Ellen-themed slot machines, a QVC Lifestyle Collection. Telepictures Programming Executive Vice President David McGuire says, “There’s something about Ellen and her voice that has people genuinely believing she’s telling the truth. She has an authenticity about her that comes through.” There’s lots of info in here and it’s pretty interesting.

Grace & Frankie

Out actress Lily Tomlin and legend Jane Fonda will be appearing together in a Netflix sitcom premiering May 8th entitled “Grace and Frankie,” about “bitter rivals who are forced to come together when their husbands reveal that they are gay and in love with each other.” The sitcom was created by Marta Kauffman of Friends.

Tomlin and Fonda play bitter rivals who are forced to come together when their husbands (played by Emmy winners Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen) reveal that they are gay and in love with each other. The sitcom comes from TV veteran Marta Kauffman, best known for her work on “Friends.”

Weird Loners:

Weird Loners, which premiered last night on Fox, features a bisexual woman of color who is described as “free-spirited:

AfterEllen was on the set of a later episode of the Weird Loners (written by out lesbian Rebecca Drysdale) which takes place in a lesbian bar (more on that before the episode airs) and has Caryn hitting on Katie Aselton. But Caryn isn’t gay, and she just likes the attention. It doesn’t keep her from asking Zara for lesbian sex advice, though.

“She tries to and Zara doesn’t have any of it because Zara’s not so into the whole—if Caryn were actually wanting to explore her sexuality, that would be one thing. But if Caryn were using the idea of exploring sexuality for her own selfish benefits, that is another thing and that is wrong,” Meera said. “Not that Zara’s a saint, by any means, which we will definitely see.”

Meera Rohit Kumbhani plays the lead role and says of her own sexuality: “I’ve been attracted to several women, but I guess I’ve just been shy to explore that, if we’re being honest.” Maybe she and Gillian Anderson could go have a beer!

The 100:

AfterEllen talked to Kira Snyder about the bisexual storyline on The 100. They said they’re not sure yet if Lexa will be back for Season Three.

AfterEllen.com: Were you part of creating the Clexa relationship?

Kira Snyder: The stories are all collaboratively written. Lexa was introduced in the episode that I wrote. It just happened to be where I came up in the writing assignment series. It was something we talked about and [creator] Jason Rothenberg was supportive of and the CW was supportive of so we’re really happy to have that storyline and really gratified that it’s sparked the fan response and press response that it has. It just goes down to the issues of representation and seeing [bisexual] people on screen. But that’ something I’m very pleased to be involved with.

AE: Do you see Clarke as bisexual?

KS: I believe, yes, officially Clarke is bisexual.

AE: That’s so rare—to have the female lead being bisexual.

KS: And that not being her defining characteristic, it’s just something we also wanted to do and have so it’s not, “Oh my gosh! It’s a big revelation!” It’s like, she loves boys, she love girls, and she wasn’t ready to be with anybody at that point. The way in which that unfolded was something we were committed to treating responsibly in a grounded kind of way.

Going Clear:

When I first saw the preview for “Going Clear,” I felt like March 29th was years away and would never come, and then suddenly it was March 29th and there I was, finally watching this documentary about my favorite topic, Scientology, a topic on which I’ve read many longform articles already. Apparently I was not alone — Going Clear is HBO’s most-watched documentary premiere since the 2006 premiere of Spike Lee’s Katrina documentary. Salon has Five Things that weren’t in the documentary and Vulture has 21 Insane Things “Going Clear” left out. You could also learn about those things by reading Lawrence Wright’s New Yorker article The Apostate, The Tampa Bay Times’ Inside Scientology or Scientology: The Cult Of Greed.

Also while we’re on the topic of rich lunatics, here’s Kate McKinnon doing a fantastic imitation of Robert Durst:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/770973

K-Stew:

An insider has spoken on the relationship between Kristin Stewart and Alicia in an article entitled “Kristen Stewart, Alicia Cargile are “Like a Married Couple“:

“With Alicia, Kristen does not have a façade. Very few people can actually get to know the real Kristen and that is how she likes it. But when Kristen is with Alicia, there are no walls around her. She not only acts like herself, but she is also incredibly genuine because Alicia brings out the best in her.” the insider added, “Kristen is finally in a relationship where she is just loved unconditionally, but not because she is a movie star.”

I wonder who makes up these quotes! It’d be such a fun job, I think. I want that job.

Etc:

+ I’m so into this little gay storyline between the teenage boys on The Fosters, and I’m so into the actor who called out YouTube for age-blocking a video of Jude and Connor kissing.

+ The Best (and Worst) Depictions of Asperger Syndrome on TV at Flavorwire. Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds isn’t on the list though, which was sad for me, unless I’m wrong and that character isn’t on the spectrum and somebody in the comments will set. me. STRAIGHT.

+ In Watch My Show: One Big Happy Creator on Why Her Comedy Is Overdue on TV, Liz Feldman makes a case for why you should watch her show, which she describes as “It’s Three’s Company plus Will & Grace times Friends divided by Ellen’s puppy episode plus 18 years times Mom minus the alcoholism and sad parts.”

+ Black TV Actors Never Stop Auditioning: “I can’t tell you how many auditions I have been on where the character is so obviously written for a white woman. One referred to her blonde hair and lack of a tan, no lie. I called my agents like, Really? The onus is on me, the actor, to go into the audition rooms and make them see the character another way — black.”

+ This writer thinks that Peggy Olson Is the Most Accurate Depiction of Women in the Workplace TV Has Ever Seen! What do YOU think.

+ Angelina Jolie gave a cute speech when she won Best Villan at the Kids Choice Awards: “I want to say that when I was little, like Maleficent, I was told that I was different. I felt out of place,” she told the audience, made up of mostly kids. “Too loud, too full of fire, never good at sitting still, never good at fitting in. And then one day, I realized something, something that I hope you all realize. Different is good. When someone tells you that you are different, smile and hold your head up, and be proud … Cause a little trouble. It’s good for you.”

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Music

+ Did you need a new workout anthem? Good news: Janelle Monáe’s ‘Yoga’ Is Your New Workout Anthem.

+ Look, Azealia Banks has a brand-new video where she is an Ice Princess! Literally, not metaphorically.

+ Selena Forever: “From a personal level, there is no other celebrity whose cultural experience can more closely mirror my own. Her music and legacy has shaped my own identity as a Mexican American and the admittedly sugary screenwriting of her biopic, Selena, helped me verbalize my own struggles of being bicultural. While there will never be another Selena, I am hopeful to see how other Latinas will embrace their talent and trail blaze paths of their own. I’ll be honoring La Reina today by eating pizza with hot sauce in my bustier and doing the washing machine to “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom.” How about you?”

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The Future:

As you may know, I have limited interest in the future. But I’m trying to care, for the children.

+ Disney is developing a live-action Mulan! A LIVE-ACTION MULAN! MULAN LIVE ACTION MULAN LIVE ACTION MULAN! A MULAN WITH HUMANS!

+ NBC’s next live musical will be THE WIZ! This is exciting. I hope they don’t mess it up.

+ Hannibal Buress, who plays Lincoln on Broad City, will host the Webby Awards. This matters because Lincoln is one of the only men on television I don’t hate.

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Also! Also. Also.

+ Fun Home is KILLING IT.

Top Five Male Antihero TV Shows That’d Be Better Off Female

We’re celebrating Autostraddle’s Fifth Birthday all month long by publishing a bunch of Top Fives. This is one of them!

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I’ve never been super into TV, but this past year something in me snapped. Shows that centered around male antiheros were suddenly HUGE — I couldn’t get through a conversation without someone bringing up Breaking Bad. It wasn’t just me — other people were noticing too. My indifference towards most television turned into PASSIONATE LOATHING; I have had to spend so much of my real life with narcissistic dudes who thought their inner landscapes were the most fascinating thing in my life that I couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to spend their free time on it. I get that the shows themselves present their protagonists as bad dudes, but acknowledging that you’re doing something annoying doesn’t make it not annoying. The only thing I did feel interested in was the women in the show — the Skyler White effect is so upsetting! The only way I’d ever be interested in watching any of these stupid shows would be if their female characters were upgraded from subplots to the main event. Actually that would be AWESOME.

1. Mad Women

Peggy, Joan and Dawn have suffered for years under the team of self-obsessed sociopathic manchildren they have to work with, and have finally reached the end of their collective rope. When they finally open up to each other, they realize that they share the same problems and can work together to end them. Via a complex strategy involving booby traps and capturing Don and Roger in one of their basements and sending Pete away to a reeducation program, they take over the office and run it themselves, instituting flex time and daycare on the premises. Yes, this is basically the exact plot of 9 to 5, which is why it would be excellent. Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda would have guest episodes.

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2. First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage To A Terrifying Secret Kingpin

Skyler White already has things kind of rough — her husband has cancer, her sister is a kleptomaniac and also an incredibly annoying person, she’s having a baby, and also her hair is so great that it’s actually a burden. Then she starts to suspect that her husband is maybe using his cancer as an excuse to become a murderous self-mythologizing drug kingpin. Her suspicions are confirmed when he essentially forces her to help him and also constantly endangers their family and threatens her. All while dealing with abusive relationship patterns ratcheted up to an insane extreme, Skyler has to try to protect her children, constantly negotiate her safety with her awful husband and keep everything a secret from everyone else. Heroically, Skyler manages to concoct a plan along with Walter’s sometime partner Jesse to kill him and end the nightmare that her life has become. Skyler then buys herself a lake house with Walter’s money and also is crowned queen of a small principality that welcomes her with open arms and builds a statue of her; she goes on to give a series of TED talks about identifying and calling out abusive behaviors.

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3. Oh My God Sherlock What Have You Done Now, Jesus Christ

England is forever indebted to the eccentric genius who sometimes solves their implausible national-level crimes, but is also burdened by him, because he’s outrageously narcissistic and obnoxious. In a lighthearted and clever farce recalling Dennis the Menace, Mrs. Hudson, Molly Hooper and, eventually, Mary are constantly running around London trying to clean up after this detective and his best bro who have no concept of how to interact with other humans and can’t even hold their liquor. When Sherlock and Watson take off on a harebrained caper to protect the Queen from an evil clickbait blogger and somehow leave three crashed cars, a broken engagement, a defaulted bank loan and a case of food poisoning in their wake, Mrs. Hudson and Molly have their work cut out for them. Later in the season, during “The Case of the Foreign Minister and the Biore Pore Strips,” Irene Adler gets called in to consult on what to do about the fact that they’ve trapped the duke’s infant son in a hot air balloon. At no point is Irene Adler required to have a romantic interest in Sherlock because Jesus have you seen Benedict Cumberbatch’s face, also see earlier re: narcissism. This concept is transferable to Elementary if you prefer.

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4. Debra

A talented rising star in the Miami police force begins to realize, via her superior policing instincts, that her adoptive brother is maybe probably a serial killer. She has to struggle with complex moral and ethical conflicts as she deals with this knowledge, and in the meantime does a bunch of badass detective stuff. At no point does she have to be in a relationship with a serial killer or fall in love with her foster brother, because both those storylines are fucked up and unimaginative. Instead, she gets to do detective work that is unrelated to her romantic and personal life, and catches a million serial killers. Her crowning achievement as a detective is when she successfully outwits the What Would You Do For A Klondike Killer, after which she is given the keys to the city and a lifetime supply of Klondike bars. Mariska Hargitay guest stars for that arc, and once it resolves she and Debra go on a cruise together. Season Eight never occurs.

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5. Mistress of the House

Dean of Medicine Lisa Cuddy and hot supercompetent openly bisexual doctor “Thirteen” team up to try to control a giant asshole of a doctor who they have to put up with because he occasionally manages to be good at his job despite his overwhelming failure of a personality. In the meantime, they develop a healthy and nuanced female friendship in which they discuss issues related to their careers and inner life and Thirteen’s dating life, which isn’t portrayed as deviant or fetishized, and only occasionally mention House. When Thirteen discovers and cures a previously unheard of disease that causes your liver to consume all the other organs inside the body every time a Gilbert & Sullivan song is played, she is crowned Queen of Doctors. Cuddy adopts a local shelter cat. The two of them run a successful fundraiser to buy Wilson a personality. Every episode ends with Cuddy and Thirteen getting late-night pancakes at a 24-hour diner, rehashing the events of the episode and strengthening their friendship. Thirteen likes chocolate chip pancakes while Cuddy likes plain with blueberry syrup.

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Header Image by Rory Midhani