“Anyone had any dirty phone calls lately?” Apparently that’s what a lascivious John Gielgud would be asking if he were still alive. Since he’s dead as dead can be, I’ll ask instead: Anyone had any dirty phone calls lately? I haven’t.
A few days ago I picked up on the third or fourth ring and was greeted by heavy breathing that was ultimately revealed as the work of my grandfather, who sucks in air like Darth Vader over the phone (when he isn’t coughing and loudly repeating everything he’s told to my poor, disinterested grandmother). Was I disappointed? Perhaps, but only a little. You never know what obscene phone calls tomorrow might bring, and I’m always hoping for something that mirrors the famous “212 Fuck You” exchange from Serial Mom.
Anyway, writer Michael Thornton wants everyone to know that Gielgud was a dirty birdy (TM Misery) who liked younger men, didn’t practice monogamy (is that like practicing the clarinet—the longer you do it, the better you get?), and (presumably) whacked it to pictures of a nude Iggy Pop. And then told Judi Dench about it, perhaps.
More mothers would entrust their children to lesbians Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi than to Jennifer Aniston, international tabloid sensation “Brangelina,” and media titan Oprah Winfrey (whose omnipresent “best friend” Gayle King was not mentioned in the survey), according to a poll conducted by some website I’ve never heard of before.*
While this might seem mildly interesting on the surface — Ooh, heterosexuals trust the gays not to corrupt their children!—I think it’s important to remember that Jennifer Aniston has kissed women on TV (and appeared in a Melissa Etheridge music video) and is way too obsessed with her hair not to travel everywhere with at least one gay man.
For that matter, Angelina Jolie is rather famously bisexual, and there’s long been speculation that Oprah (whose South African school for girls is apparently a hotbed of sinister 1950’s-style predatory lesbianism, let us not forget) and Gayle conduct revealing interviews with each other’s genitalia during their famously Stedman-free sleepovers. In other words, those kids are gonna be around some degree of “the gay” regardless of who watches them.
(For the record, while I don’t have real children yet, my girlfriend and I have an imaginary son that I wouldn’t be opposed to letting DeGeneres and de Rossi babysit, but only if they promised not to pass him off to Ellen’s hairstylist’s family, à la lggy.)
* The Reuters website has been a bit unreliable for me today; if it doesn’t work for you, freakin’ Google the goddamn story. Don’t be lazy!
Big Mama Morton keeps an eye on Shell Dockley and Nikki Wade during the Larkhall talent show.
Queen Latifah, recently seen registering a dozen or so perfect confused facial expressions as moderator Gwen Ifill in SNL’s epic vice-presidential debate sketch, is profiled in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine. She succeeds in dazzling writer Alex Witchel, dazzling her bosses at Cover Girl, and pretty much dazzling the normally dazzle-resistant me — until the lesbian issue comes up:
One topic of persistent speculation on the Web is Queen Latifah’s sexuality, particularly a supposed romance with a female trainer. She has never addressed her relationships publicly and was in no mood to start. “I don’t have a problem discussing the topic of somebody being gay, but I do have a problem discussing my personal life,” she said. “You don’t get that part of me. Sorry. We’re not discussing it in our meetings, we’re not discussing it at Cover Girl. They don’t get it, he doesn’t get it” — she gestured upstairs, toward Compere’s office — “nobody gets that. I don’t feel like I need to share my personal life, and I don’t care if people think I’m gay or not. Assume whatever you want. You do it anyway.”
It’s better than what we got out of her eight years ago on VH1’s Behind the Music, when she addressed gay rumors by laughing nervously and launching into an awkward, unconvincing, lady doth protest too much response about not being a “fruit,” but obviously there’s still room for improvement. I do think she’s poised to come out eventually, and if she does it while her career is still monster-sized it’s going to be one of the most socially important celebrity coming-outs we’ve ever seen; the question is, how long is she prepared to wait?
By the way, anyone else catch this bit of hilarity as Witchel followed Latifah around her production company:
We walked upstairs to Compere’s office, which was between a screening room and an editing room (they were cutting a reality show about the rapper Ja Rule).
Shakim Compere is Queen Latifah’s childhood friend and business partner in Flavor Unit Entertainment; Ja Rule, who four years ago starred in a Flavor Unit production, The Cookout, made headlines last year with a homophobic outburst that suggested homosexuality is “tearing up America.” Asked about a Congressional hearing into hip-hop, Ja Rule expressed outrage that rap lyrics were being treated as a national concern when more important things were happening, like the Jena Six protests in Louisiana. He could have left it at that and many people — most of us, I’d guess — would have agreed with him.
But after saying “Let’s get into shit like that, because that’s what’s tearing up America, not me calling a woman a bitch or a hoe [sic] on my rap songs,” he felt compelled to continue:
“And if it is, then we need to go step to Paramount, and fucking MGM, and all of these other motherfuckers that’s making all of these movies and we need to go step to MTV and Viacom, and lets talk about all these fucking shows that they have on MTV that is promoting homosexuality, that my kids can’t watch this shit. Dating shows that’s showing two guys or two girls in mid afternoon. Let’s talk about shit like that! If that’s not fucking up America, I don’t know what is.”
It didn’t take long for Ja Rule to backpedal and try to position himself as a social progressive with comments that were about as disingenuous as Latifah’s ancient declarations of non-fruitiness. He should have kept it brief and honest: “Gays aren’t okay when they’re on my TV, but I don’t judge ’em when they sign my paychecks.” I’m sure he’s seen Queen Latifah’s big number in Chicago and can relate to its message: “The folks atop the ladder/Are the ones the world adores/So boost me up my ladder, kid/And I’ll boost you up yours.”
UPDATE: Forgot to mention that Holland Taylor was also interviewed in the Times. No mention of her personal life, which is par for the course, but it’s a good read.
Ellen Page in Hard Candy: “I fucking hate Goldfrapp…but love Team Dresch.”
Clearly this item belongs in the department of delayed reactions bin—this New York article first appeared in late November, before I started spewing nonsense here—but out of the kindness of my heart I’m posting it anyway, for the throngs of young lesbians who have been running straight home from screenings of Juno en masse to Google “Ellen Page + baby dyke.” (I know you’re out there because I’m related to one of you.)
From Page’s interview with Logan Hill:
“What they do to Ally Sheedy at the end of The Breakfast Club,” she groans, recalling how Sheedy’s androgynous loner gets a pink Barbie makeover so she can kiss the jock. “How could that have been allowed to happen? No, really. I mean it. I know it’s iconic…but you’ve got to be kidding me!”
“Think about the poor kids who’ve watched this stuff,” she continues, leaning into her argument. Films like that make tomboys like her “start judging ourselves, just because, you know, you’d rather climb trees than give blow jobs.”
And Hill notes of Juno:
The movie could very well make her a star, not just the next Molly Ringwald but the next Johnny Depp: a transgressive teen idol whose weirdo-hero crossover appeal might evolve into real staying power. But perhaps it really is best that she avoid L.A. Because right now she’s watching herself play one kind of girl yet still being pushed toward another. “It’s just freaky. Like, are we really still stuck there?” she asks, noting that a few photo shoots have already set off waring bells. “Every shoot, I don’t want to be thrown some lacy pink shirt—sometimes I would prefer to not wear a shirt at all. At least I’d be owning that moment.
I mean, Annie Lennox used to be able to dress like a man and sell albums,” says Page, in her flannel shirt and Converse sneakers. “I don’t think a big star could do that right now.”
So, let’s tally things up. Ellen Page calls out John Hughes on his hackiness, points to Annie Lennox as a style icon, and comes out in favor of climbing trees over giving blow jobs. By my calculations that means she kicks ass, and that must be celebrated now, before Hollywood chews her up and spits her out, right onto the sets of movies like Anna and the King and Flightplan. And don’t play dumb about that last part; you wouldn’t be here right now if you didn’t think there were a few similarities between Page and Jodie Foster.
Speaking of which, if you’re disappointed by a lack of explicit lesbian content in this post, thinking perhaps I’d have footage of Page re-creating scenes from Bound with one of her Canadian compatriots to offer you, I have two things to say. First: You’re an idiot. Second: Keep an eye out for an upcoming movie called Jack and Diane, which stars Page and will feature some lesbianism with a lycanthropic twist. It is undoubtedly the film Lon Chaney Jr. always wanted to make.
Stephen Fry, the brilliant actor, comic, writer, and all-around hot piece of ass, wants to know why the media lauds straight actors for playing gay roles. In an interview with the BBC’s Radio Times, he noted that gay actors are never told, “How brave of you to kiss that woman, that must have been very difficult for you.”
“It wouldn’t be that difficult for me to kiss a woman,” Fry continued. “I’ll kiss a frog if you like. It’s difficult to ride bareback backwards while unicycling, but to kiss someone isn’t difficult.” Perhaps we could start a collection to fly Stephen to Los Angeles, so he could explain this to the American media. Brokeback Mountain came out two years ago and I still have a headache from all the stupid questions that were asked of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Given the opportunity, you don’t ask those two if it was hard to kiss. You ask them to apologize for The Four Feathers and Bubble Boy.
