Category Archives: All Posts
Reads of the Week: Shonda Rhimes, LGBT Women & ‘Glee’ Women
Take a look at this week’s Reads of the Week: Great articles about the LGBTQ community, feminism, women and anything else worth reading.
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Photo: @shondarhimes
“I am making TV look like the world looks. Women, people of color, LGBTQ people equal WAY more than 50% of the population. Which means it ain’t out of the ordinary. I am making the world of television look NORMAL. You should get to turn on the TV and see your tribe. And your tribe can be any kind of person, anyone you identify with, anyone who feels like you, who feels like home, who feels like truth. You should get to turn on the TV and see your tribe, see your people, someone like you out there, existing. So that you know on your darkest day that when you run (metaphorically or physically RUN), there is somewhere, someone, to run TO. Your tribe is waiting for you. You are not alone. The goal is that everyone should get to turn on the TV and see someone who looks like them and loves like them. And just as important, everyone should turn on the TV and see someone who doesn’t look like them and love like them. Because, perhaps then, they will learn from them.” – Shonda Rhimes, “You Are Not Alone.”
- “We know — intuitively, from stories, from our own lives — that queer women face unique and devastating economic challenges and are at higher risk for poverty than even straight women and LGBT men. Now, we have clear, comprehensive data that solidifies the seriousness of the problem and provides a new resource for battling it.” – “New Report Finally Gives Crucial Numbers on Economic Disparities Hurting LGBT Women”
- “Glee, another show that started out focusing on a female character whose career dreams kept her going, is now one of the most anti-female shows airing. The show consistently belittles the role of women, using them as little more than emotional leaning posts for their boyfriends, boyfriends who are always heroic and decent. When Finn outed Santana it was treated as a good thing, Finn helping her come to terms with her sexuality by serenading her with a cover of Girls Just Want to Have Fun. After all, lesbianism is just girls having fun, right? Weeks later when Dave Karofsky suffers similarly by being outed it is shown through an emotionally overwrought montage and makes way for a story about teen suicide.” – “Where Have All the Good Women Gone?”
Reads of the Week: Call outs, Kids, Corinthian, Police
Take a look at this week’s Reads of the Week: Great articles about the LGBTQ community, feminism, women and anything else worth reading.
“In the context of call-out culture, it is easy to forget that the individual we are calling out is a human being, and that different human beings in different social locations will be receptive to different strategies for learning and growing.” – A Note on Call-Out Culture
- “The casual dismissal of something you know to be absolutely true about yourself is infuriating at best, and dehumanizing at worst. Let us also acknowledge not only the vast amount of sexism contained within these ideas, but also the cissexism embedded in them as well. Not all women can have children, and not all people who can have children are women. Gender stereotypes like these end up being all the more harmful because they refuse to operate outside of a binary that winds up being exclusionary to the many folks who don’t neatly fit into it.” – Jessica Burnell, I Don’t Want Children–Ever
- “If you owe the bank a thousand dollars, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank a trillion dollars, you own the bank. Together, we own the bank.” – Corinthian 15, on Student Loans
- “Since 1935, nearly every so-called race riot in the United States—and there have been more than 100—has been sparked by a police incident, Muhammad says. This can be an act of brutality, or a senseless killing. But the underlying causes run much deeper. Police, because they interact in black communities every day, are often seen as the face of larger systems of inequality in the justice system, employment, education and housing.” – Yes, Black America Fears the Police. Here’s Why.
Why I’m Not Watching Brittana
Photo: cartermatt
I’ve seen all the pictures and gifs, read a lot of the recaps and many of the editorial posts. Brittana are married. This is amazing, especially when Glee often seemed more determined to walk all over queer women instead of celebrate them. But I haven’t watched an episode, not even the Brittana cuts, and I won’t, at least not for awhile.
Brittana were the couple that completely changed my life, professional and personally, in ways I could not have anticipated as an adult. They were the first time I had seen two women kiss in public (granted, it was on TV and they are fictional characters), and the first story that reached into my soul and into my past and healed wounds I had forgotten about.
But beyond maybe season 3, Glee’s behavior towards queer women–their meta commentary, dismissal of fans by the creators, often offensive storytelling, encouragement of fans more interested in competition than actual people, and a laundry list of other unpleasant ripple effects–has been a complete turn off.
I am so happy for Brittana. I’m also a little sad this could have been their story over so many seasons instead of saved for the end. But most of all, I’m unwilling to open back up (for now) to a show that has been too careless with people’s feelings and lives.
Reads of the Week: Rose McGowan for the Win
Take a look at this week’s Reads of the Week: Great articles about the LGBTQ community, feminism, women and anything else worth reading. This one’s a little old, but still worth the mention!
“Where does it say that because of a man’s sexual orientation, I don’t get to point out a character defect that some of them may have? When equal pay for women was voted down by every male Republican, there was no LGBT outcry. I wondered why that was. After all, lesbians are women — this affects them too, right?” – Rose McGowan, Advocate
Reads of the Week: Bi-Invisibility
Take a look at this week’s Reads of the Week: Great articles about the LGBTQ community, feminism, women and anything else worth reading.
“In usual form, nearly all the responses, from the media and public alike, ignore the possibility that anyone could be bisexual (or queer). And nearly all the responses attempt to either confidently or subtly assert an identity upon an actress who has never provided any public defining label about her sexuality.” – Raechel Tiffe, “Buzz About Kristen Stewart’s Sexuality Tells Us a Lot About Society’s Discomfort with Bisexuality”
Reads of the Week: Fetishisation
Take a look at this week’s Reads of the Week: Great articles about the LGBTQ community, feminism, women and anything else worth reading.
Photo: gentside.com
“I don’t believe that any single fantasy is innately wrong, but my little departure into those boys’ private lives was indicative of a dangerous pattern of thought. To many people, it often seems that women in the slash community have decided that “gay sex” is always sexy, that queer is always cute, and that we can take ownership of the gay male experience by writing about it and reading each other’s writing.”
“Specifically, these men indicated that straight or bisexual women had repeatedly asked overly personal questions about their sex lives, treated them like adorable puppies instead of humans, and attempted to co-opt the gay male experience or even elevate allies over actual gay men.”
– Jezebel, “On The Fetishisation Of Gay Men By Women In The Slash Community”
‘Glee’s’ LGBTQ Thunder Dome
Glee has this habit of pitting LGBTQ characters against each other, as well as their shippers and fans. While the resulting social media commotion may be an effective way of creating some sort of social capital for a show that should have sunk years ago, it’s at the expense of the very same LGBTQ community Glee likes to congratulate itself for celebrating.
In the latest episode, which contains the much appreciated Brittana proposal and the most sensitive treatment of Brittana since season 2, it also features Santana viciously going after Kurt about why Blaine broke up with him. The result is pretty brutal and unnecessary, even for a character whose razor sharp edge is sometimes a complex, nuanced part of her personality. Really, it was uncalled for, even if Kurt interrupted Santana’s moment.
Beyond the fact that Blaine is the toxic character in the Klaine pairing and constantly escapes any sort of real criticism or challenge, it’s disheartening that Glee doesn’t seem to have room for two hugely important LGBTQ characters to exist in the same space and support each other at the same time.
Reads of the Week: LGBT YA, Outrage, Cosby
Take a look at this week’s Reads of the Week: Great articles about the LGBTQ community, feminism, women and anything else worth reading.
“In 2014, mainstream publishers published 47 LGBT YA books. This is a 59% increase from 2013, when only 29 LGBT YA books were published by mainstream publishers.” – Malinda Lo, “2014 LGBT YA By the Numbers“
- “[…W]e resolved to keep track of what people got outraged about every day of 2014. Since January, a phalanx of editors, writers, and interns has been scanning the horizons for funnels of fury[…]The rage-a-day calendar above contains the fruits of their labor: a comprehensive listing of what was outrageous and whom it outraged, for every single day of the year.” – Slate, “The Year of Outrage”
- “Rape culture, particularly as it manifests in black America, demands that justice for sexual assault victims be positioned secondary to the reputations of “good” black men. And in a white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy that cares little for black men, and even less for black women, “good” black men are too often the only victims we collectively exert the energy to save.” – Kirsten West Savali, “Bye, Phylicia Rashad. Your Romanticizing of Cosby—and Cosby—Is Wrong”
