Cranky Lesbian

Look what the homosexuals have done to me!

Author: Cranky Lesbian Page 29 of 54

Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.

Americans Reject Religion; Religion Seeks Comfort in Tub of Häagen-Dazs

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On March 10, 2009

In In the News

Finally, the rest of America is catching up to the gays in the really-fucking-sick-of-religious-zealots department. From a CNN report:

America is a less Christian nation than it was 20 years ago, and Christianity is not losing out to other religions, but primarily to a rejection of religion altogether, a survey published Monday found.

And why might that be? Mark Silk of Trinity College thinks it could have something to do with evangelical crazies scaring the bejesus out of everyone.Again from the CNN article:

“In the 1990s, it really sunk in on the American public generally that there was a long-lasting ‘religious right’ connected to a political party, and that turned a lot of people the other way,” [Silk] said of the link between the Republican Party and groups such as the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family.

“In an earlier time, people who would have been content to say, ‘Well, I’m some kind of a Protestant,’ now say ‘Hell no, I won’t go,'” he told CNN.

I find it hard to believe that Americans have started to tire of waking up early on Sunday mornings to listen to kooky pastors like Rev. Willie Wilson rant and rave, in graphic detail, about the nuts and bolts (or nuts and screws, as he puts it) of Very Important Subjects like gay sex. But there are lots of things I’ve never understood about Americans — everything from how we made REO Speedwagon popular to why we allowed Alan Alda to become so self-important—so there’s really nothing new there.

If You Like Photography…

By

On March 9, 2009

In In the News

Check out this article about Ruth Jacobi. (I have nothing rude to say about it, which doesn’t happen very often.)

So Long, Suckers (and Good Riddance, Betty!)

By

On March 9, 2009

In TV

Pam Grier is prepared to defend herself against another Papi-centric story line.

The L Word was put of out of its misery last night after six seasons of unwavering mediocrity, and while I didn’t see the finale (a few episodes into the shortened final season, when it became clear that the writers had again failed to come up with any kind of game plan, I bailed), some guy who did says it sucked. He misspelled Pam Grier’s name in his review, by the way, so I’m not quite sure that he can be trusted, but…Oh, who am I kidding? There’s no way in hell the finale wasn’t every bit as terrible as all the episodes that preceded it. And if you’re looking for a second opinion, Entertainment Weekly‘s Nicholas Fonseca agrees the big denouement left something to be desired, but ends things on a more philosophical note, writing:

But years from now, will it even matter how the show went out in its final hour? It was really the other 69 episodes that made The L Word a TV milestone.

If by that he means a milestone in unbridled—and unrivaled—awfulness, then I agree. But Fonseca continues:

As the retrospective that aired beforehand reminded us, its impact expands far beyond its barrier-busting stories: TV’s first deaf lesbian, its first regularly occurring transsexual character, bisexuals of both genders, drag kings, the US military’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy, biracial identity, gay parenting, sex/drug/alcohol/gambling addiction, sexual abuse, midlife sexual awakenings, breast cancer…this show took on a lot. Judging by the frequent erraticism of its storytelling, it probably took on too much. In the end, I say, thank goodness it had the guts to take them on at all.

My thoughts are slightly different. Maybe, on occasion, when you know you’re failing miserably at something, you have to stop trying to do it. I know that’s the kind of crazy notion that runs contrary to everything the entertainment industry normally believes in (after all, these are the same brain trusts who thought Freddie Prinze Jr. was a good idea in the ’90s), but can you honestly say that The L Word was successful in its handling of any of those issues?

It didn’t entirely botch the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell story line (which was less effective than it would have been had viewers been given more reasons to care about Tasha, the new character who was the focus of the subplot), and no missteps were made with issues of biracial identity, but the failures of all those other story lines were pretty massive. What The L Word did best was frivolity and froth, and even those episodes (which were mostly the work of writer-director Angela Robinson and not Ilene Chaiken, the show’s demented creator and resident peddler of overpriced L-Word-themed jewelry) were few and far between.

Altogether, this is a series that will be remembered for two things: having a bunch of lesbian characters (which is good) and inspiring eight trillion shitty YouTube fan-edited clips of C-list actresses making out with each other while Sarah McLachlan wails in the background (which is bad). Call it a draw.

What Is On This Lesbian’s Head?

By

On March 3, 2009

In In the News

And did she kill it before putting it there? I’ve never seen Jane Velez-Mitchell on CNN (or Headline News) before, but it would add to the excitement of the broadcast if there was always the possibility that her hair — which appears to be a roadkill-inspired variation on the Carol Brady shag — might get up and walk away. (That’s the kind of suspense that keeps me watching Frank Cusumano’s sports segments on KSDK, don’t you know.)

The most important parts of yesterday’s New York Times profile of Velez-Mitchell were the following:

Jane Velez-Mitchell is a true-crime author, a television talking head, a lesbian, an animal activist, a recovering alcoholic and a vegan.

and…

Ms. Velez-Mitchell’s hour of water-cooler talk, delivered with heavy doses of opinion, reached an average of 596,000 viewers in February, up 74 percent from the slot’s average for the same month last year, when the conservative commentator Glenn Beck was the host.

That’s fantastic, isn’t it, when HLN viewers prefer a lesbian vegan/animal activist to the insufferable Glenn Beck? The only thing I don’t understand is why the Times had to point out that she’s a recovering alcoholic: I’m pretty sure that “true-crime author” is a euphemism for that, so it was a little redundant.

P.S. If I ever get a gig on CNN, I plan on either wearing a clown wig or a Tina Turner circa Private Dancer wig on-air. Actually, who needs CNN as an excuse? I’m going to wear a rainbow-colored clown wig all day tomorrow just for the hell of it.

Uganda Confronts the Gay Menace

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On March 2, 2009

In In the News

“Shh… We don’t want those men who are singing show tunes to know we’re here.”

Take a look at this press release straight out of Uganda:

Family Life Network and other stakeholders in Uganda have organized a three-day seminar to provide what they termed as reliable and up to date information so that people can know how to protect themselves, their children, families [sic] from homosexuality.

What kind of protective “how to keep your kids away from the evil gay agenda” measures do you think the Family Life Network will advocate at this seminar? I hope parents are encouraged to take a page from Jodie Foster’s book and build a panic room. The joke would go right over their heads, of course, but you’d have to assume that happens with some regularity when you’re dealing with people who feel compelled to defend themselves against homosexuality. Which reminds me: I saw an obscure Bela Lugosi movie on TCM last October — they played it in the middle of the night, after yet another screening of White Zombie — that suggested garlic will do the trick.

Clutch Those Pearls, Irish Lady!

By

On March 2, 2009

In In the News

Parents can be funny about “the gay.” My mom and dad, for example, were fine with my coming out; their only complaint was that I waited too long to tell them. (My parents, it should be noted, are insane: I came out to them when I was in high school. What was I supposed to do, celebrate my fifth-grade graduation by flinging the closet door open? It’s not like I had a clue what was going on back then. When I turned on VH1 hoping to catch George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” video, I thought it was because I liked the music.)

But even though they’ve adopted this “Give me a G, give me an A, give me a Y!” rah-rah attitude, voting for pro-gay politicians and seeing Brokeback Mountain in theaters (which was good because it meant my dad had to watch guys make out, but bad because he doesn’t seem to realize now that not all gay people are tortured ranch hands from Wyoming), they still use a few phrases that make me cringe. The most popular one is “We just want you to be happy.”

Shouldn’t that go without saying, that your parents want you to be happy? How often do parents, even really poor excuses for parents, tell their children, “We want you to be unhappy. Seriously, Tim, we’ve never liked you. We’re not even indifferent to your happiness. We hate you so much that every Wednesday and Saturday, right after we pray to win the Powerball jackpot, we ask God and Jesus and your dear departed grandpa up in heaven to make sure your life is full of heartache and misery.”

And what about this one: “It’s just that it’s such a hard life.” What the hell are the people who say that talking about? What is so hard about being a gay adult in the United States in the year 2009? Fine, so the world is full of homophobes. The world is also full of racists and sexists and anti-Semites, yet not once has anyone ever sat me down and said, “You know that I love you and accept you, and that I’ve never had a problem with you being a girl. It’s just that I worry about you. It’s such a hard life, having to sit when you pee and not being guaranteed the right to vote until 1920.”

When my dad hauls out the old “such a hard life” chestnut, I have to take a deep breath to keep from snapping, “Having cancer is hard. Learning to use a prosthetic leg is hard. Living in dire poverty is hard. Being transfixed by Eva Mendes’ ass is not.”

But there’s something else I won’t complain about from now on: My dad. Because over the weekend I read something in The Irish Independent that put all his hand-wringing in perspective. Behold, the parents who are “devastated because our only son says he’s homosexual.” The mother’s hysterical letter to an advice columnist includes passages like:

I have prayed until I am sick. My husband is on medication for high blood pressure, is severely stressed all the time, and cannot sleep. He says “never a day goes by that I don’t cry.” What a waste.

I am distressed, crying bitterly, and full of guilty questions like where did we go wrong. What did we do, or fail to do? I cannot close my eyes at night without crying out loud and wondering and worrying about him. How can we relieve this situation?

We have not discussed the issue with friends, although some close relations are aware of it. We feel we have to sell our small business and move away from here. I don’t think I can bear this any longer. Yes, we think of the anguish our son must have gone through/must still be going through, his loneliness and isolation. Yet he is happy to visit gay clubs and meet with other men.

What are the odds that all the “anguish” her son is going through has more to do with having nutcase parents than liking gay porn? (She mentions porn in the full letter.) And what does she think selling her business and moving is going to accomplish? She’s still going to know her son’s a big ‘mo regardless of where she lives.

And her husband! His blood pressure’s through the roof, he can’t stop crying… He sounds a little queeny himself with all the melodrama. If I were the hugging type, I’d hug both of my parents today. And once the shock subsided and they asked what it was for, I’d say, “For not being fuckheads.” Warms the cockles of your heart, doesn’t it?

A Great Way to Bring a Conversation to a Grinding Halt

By

On March 1, 2009

In Stories of Triumph and Inspiration

“I met three men in a Tiki bar once in Texas who were married to each other.”

So said Chloë Sevigny in a recent Los Angeles Times interview with her Big Love costars Bill Paxton, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Ginnifer Goodwin. Here’s the reaction to Sevigny’s remark:

[Silence]

Paxton: Wow.

Tripplehorn: That was a conversation stopper! What do you call that? Gay-lygapous? Gay-lygamy.

Sevigny: They loved the show.

As well they should! By the way, for anyone who has ever asked him or herself “Gee, I wonder what Bill Paxton thinks about gay marriage,” you get your answer here. In response to a question about the Mormon campaign to pass Proposition 8, Paxton says: “I just feel like, God, live and let live. As long as somebody’s not trying to make me live a certain way, or people are consenting adults, I have no problem with it. But I’m a libertine and a liberal.”

So there you have it — the guy from Twister (and my personal favorite Apollo 13 astronaut) supports your right to get gay-married. No word on whether the stars of Volcano, Dante’s Peak and every other disaster movie Hollywood hurled at us post-Twister are of similar minds.

P.S. As a parting bonus, here’s a kind of gross clip of Jeanne Tripplehorn making out with Salma Hayek in Time Code. (For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s an experimental film in which four story lines are followed by four different cameras simultaneously and in real time with no edits; the audio you hear in the YouTube clip belongs to the action taking place in another quadrant of the screen the YouTuber didn’t bother showing. Tripplehorn plays a typical nutty lesbian character in the movie, which was oddly appropriate given her involvement in Basic Instinct.) If you prefer the retro butch look, you can check out Chloë Sevigny in If These Walls Could Talk 2. A few of the search results will probably be age-restricted, but some of you pervs might like that.

Wanna Despair of Humanity?

By

On February 26, 2009

In In the News

More than usual, I mean. If so, read this. (Or you could just wait a few months for the inevitable Law & Order episode based on this particular crime to hit airwaves.)

Why Does Xbox Live Hate the Gays?

By

On February 25, 2009

In In the News

I’m not a video game person (though I used to take down fierce opponents — namely my mom and her best friend — in matches of Tetris and Dr. Mario, and was known to break the occasional window in games of Paperboy), so everything I’ve heard about Xbox Live has come directly from my brother and his geeky pals.

What they’ve told me is that more than a few of their fellow gamers are hateful, foul-mouthed bastards with a fondness for anti-gay slurs. All of which adds to my confusion about Microsoft’s purported practice of suspending users who identify themselves as gay in their player profiles. Why is the word “gay” considered offensive when it’s used by a gay person, but acceptable when employed by trolls as an insult? And if Microsoft isn’t willing to give the gays a break here, what code word should they use to get the point across without risking a suspension? I tried to come up with something all smart-assy, but I’m stumped.

Between Awards, An Oscar Observation (2009 Edition)

By

On February 23, 2009

In In the News

Boy, those musical numbers are really going to go a long way in making people think Hugh Jackman isn’t gay, aren’t they?

“What? Marisa Tomei for My Cousin Vinny?!”

UPDATE (10:04 AM Monday): Holy Bob Hope, was that a boring night. Lots of predictable and undeserving winners, which was par for the course, but the producers didn’t offer anything to make up for it. And most of the speeches were so scripted and awful (still, anytime Penélope Cruz wants a date, I’m free), with the exception of Dustin Lance Black’s, which was the best and most moving of the night.

The insipid New Age-y/Oprah-style “We Speak Your Name” nominee ego-stroking in the acting categories was also problematic; only a few of the presenters (Eva Marie Saint, Whoopi Goldberg and Robert De Niro come to mind) were able to pull it off. Next year I propose having Steve Martin hand out all of the awards. Yes, my love for him is known far and wide, but he excels at taking the piss out of the same pretentious, self-congratulatory nitwits whose approval Hugh Jackman so nakedly desires. And so what if Jackman’s a song-and-dance man? Anyone who has seen Pennies from Heaven and All of Me knows that Martin can cut a rug with the best of them.

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