Monday, February 25, 2008

James Wolcott on the L Word

I think James Wolcott's commentary is always on the mark and pretty funny, too. Check out his latest post which mentions the L Word -- like me, he skipped the interminable Oscars broadcast to check out Tina and Bette --


Of course tonight I have nowhere to go apart from the few feet separating our cathedral bathroom from the TV room, where I should be tweezering out sociocultural nuances from the Oscar broadcast, pondering the intimations of mortality peeping through the plush self-congratulation, but instead find myself docked in front of The L Word, hooked on the negative suspense of whether Bette and Tina, America's most boring lesbian couple, will get back together and spare us another season of Marlee Matlin's sign-language overacting, and when, where, and how the bratty, insufferable poseur Jenny will finally get hers. Oh, when will the long-postponed reckoning come? Well, not tonight, as the big dramatic payoff featured the annoying, nattering Alice reprising the climax of An Office and a Gentleman lesbian-style with her black lover. I recognize that if you're not a regular viewer of The L Word, it may seem as if I'm trafficking in obscurities, but to those of us who have watched The L Word from its pagan beginnings, these are matters of utmost doctrinal importance, testifying to the emptiness of our entertainment lives.

I mean, the way they've diminished the role of transgendered Max is a crime, particularly since s/he has emerged as the moral center of a series that's misplaced its center and now spills in every ugly, impulsive direction.

Friday, February 22, 2008

For that other k.d. --

Since I promised -- I hoped it would have more context and I hoped it would be closer up --

And for me --

k.d. and Ariel Levy

After Ellen's Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever. linked to this article in New York Magazine on k.d. lang. It's interesting especially in its consideration of butchness. Curious about the author, Ariel Levy, I googled her and, though her regular gig is writing for NYM, she came out with a book a few years ago called Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture where she --

cleverly leads us to explore the role models women aspire to emulate. We are not pursuing the confident, self-determined, powerful, free ideal the women’s liberation movement would have dreamed for its daughters. Instead, our icons are porn stars and strippers and prostitutes. Paris Hilton and Jenna Jameson flaunt their successes in the pornography industry, and in doing so seem to earn our adulation.
Also, can I just say? Ariel Levy is pretty hot:


And she got married to her gf, Amy Norquist, in Virginia near where I grew up --

No wonder she was able to speak so knowingly about butchness. (What's she carrying by the way? Did she bring work with her to her wedding?!?)

Here are a couple of clips from a Dutch documentary called Beperkt Houdbaar --





Aaaand, if you're interested (and I know some of you are), she wrote this piece on Hillary.