Femslash ___Day: VillanEve

What day is it? What time is it? What along decade it's been, huh?

I recently realized, only half-jokingly, that I measure time now by when it's time to watch Killing Eve again, and then I realized it's been fully 10 million years since we've had a Femslash Friday in Fannie's Room.

So, why not bring it back pandemic-time's sake?

I can't explain why I like Killing Eve so much, as it's a show I would be extremely not into if either of the two main characters were men.

I just started Season 3. So, I will need to digest the series more before I have anything more intelligent to say than the obvious fact that I, uh, appreciate the Sapphic subtext. And, maybe I will find time to write longform again when we're not in the middle of a fucking pandemic.

On that note, smell you later, and enjoy today's Villanelle/Eve fan vid.

In other news, I love how the Navy has basically confirmed the existence of UFOs and things are so awful right now that nobody even really cares.

Femslash Friday: Agent Canary

I know there's a lot of important and troubling stuff going on in the world right now, but I'd like to take a step back from all that and admit that I don't know the most logical way to watch the various DC show multi-episode crossovers.

There's one arc, but it spans across multiple shows? Whyyyyyyyy? (I know, to get us watching all the other shows, but still).

Are we really expected to keep up with the current seasons of Supergirl, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow simultaneously? That seems like it would be the best way for the multi-episode crossovers to make sense. But, I don't have cable, which means I would have to buy season passes for each show, which I'm really only willing to do for my top tier shows. In addition, if I have to stay current on all these shows, how would I have time for anything else in life? My free time is limited!

Now, another approach could be to stay current on Supergirl and, even though I'm not up to speed on the rest of the shows, watch only the related crossover episodes of the other shows. But, would I then be exposed to spoilers?

This is a predicament.

Nevertheless, this is all a long-winded way of saying  OH MY GOD THEY MADE SARA LANCE/ALEX DANVERS (AGENT CANARY) HAPPEN IN THE 4-EPISODE "CRISIS ON EARTH X" CROSSOVER!

If you can believe it, this is a ship that I had not, until this crossover, considered. To be honest, I haven't even watched "Crisis on Earth" yet, because I'm two episodes behind on Supergirl! But, it's hard to avoid spoilers on Twitter. So, when I found out, I immediately began further investigations. All I can say is, yes please, this ship should be a whole entire TV series.

The "Crisis on Earth" Supergirl recap will be forthcoming. But, for now, enjoy today's Agent Canary fan vid (NSFW):

Femslash Friday: Arrow

Had anyone told me about Sara Lance I would have started watching Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow much sooner. Bisexual badass hero? Yes please.

Enjoy the fan vid below (Felicity/Sara).

Also, this is like the third fan video in the past week that I've seen that uses this "Hey Na Na" tune. I've actually heard this song sung live by singer/songwriter Katie Herzig, when she was opening for Brandi Carlile. She said that she had pitched it to Sex and the City (hence the references to "Mr. Big"), although I don't think they used it.

Don't say you never learned anything here in Fannie's Room!

What's everyone else reading, watching, listening to, or playing these days?

Femslash Friday: L Word

Entertainment Weekly got (some of) The L Word cast back together for a reunion chat and photo shoot.

I miss that show so much.

From the chat:

[Erin] Daniels: We all went to sing karaoke together once.
Sarah Shahi (Carmen): What did you sing?
[Jennifer] Beals: Oh, I had to do “What a Feeling.” They poured water on me with a Perrier bottle. [Beals starred in the iconic 1983 film Flashdance.]
Daniels: Then the three of us got up and sang “Maniac.” We clearly got over our intimidation factor at that point.

Also, the conversation references the Sunday night viewings that were held at (primarily) lesbian bars across the country during the 2004-2009 period the show ran. You know, back when we still had lesbian bars. Anyway, ladies, brother-sestras, and non-binary individuals, I'm here to tell you that you haven't truly known fear until you've been angrily shushed by 75 queer women trying desperately to hear what's happening this week on The L Word.

Enjoy this fan vid of funny moments:

Preferred Pairing: Dana/Lara (the soup chef)

Mashup Monday

Did I miss anything while I was gone?

Ha ha, just kidding. Of course I did.  Let's take it back to San Junipero for one more day then. Or, better yet, to this Taystee/Poussey Orange is the New Black Mirror mashup, which I'm 100% here for.

Femslash Friday: Bend It Like Beckham Edition

You have to love women's sports movies that include zero lesbian or bisexual female characters. Especially if that sport is soccer, but I'm also looking at you A League Of Their Own. Bless Hollywood's heart.

Now, my main issue with Bend it Like Beckham isn't that it's devoid of queer characters, in fact it actually includes a gay male character(!), which for 2002 was still somewhat of a novelty. Perhaps the producers of Beckham believed that introducing a gay male character would distract audiences from any sapphic homoerotic undertones associated with women's sorts, relieving the tension so to speak.

Perhaps they thought wrong.

Never underestimate what audiences deprived of representation can read into a film. Thus, my main issue is that, like Pitch Perfect, Beckham includes a completely superfluous male-female romance even though it's clearly the two female leads who have the most chemistry with one another.

Quite simply, I am 100% unable to view the film without viewing Jess and Jules as the real romantic pairing of the movie. Also, BONUS FRIDAY FUN FACT OF FEMSLASH: For every femslash pairing that exists in fandom, somebody has made a video to it with "I Kissed A Girl" as the soundtrack. Bend It Like Beckham is no exception.

Femslash Friday: Kyss Mig Edition

Have you seen the the movie Kiss Me (Kyss Mig)?  It is a Swedish delight of a film.

If you haven't, it is still on Netflix just in case you like good queer women's movies. Yes, it involves (spoiler alert) cheating which leads to the same-sex relationship, which is something of a trope I suppose. But, I've watched the movie a good half dozen times and each time pick up something new to appreciate: the portrayal of complicated sexual identity; the way dialogue sometimes fades out at key moments in the script - leaving us with suggestions of character development, rather than definitive answers; the way homophobia still exists in a country that often tops the charts in terms of social progress.

And, the vebabs, of course. Would I eat all the vebabs with Frida? Absolut! (That sounds dirty. But, it's not.)

Super cheesy fan vid below (NSFW).

Lost: Imagine Me and You

In the constellation of femslash fan videos, one of my favorite categories is "fake trailers of the movie Imagine Me & You, with other fandom pairings envisioned as the lead romance."

I think Imagine Me & You was a decent queer women's film. (Lena Heady!! *sigh*)

My main critique is that it seems to cater a bit too much to the heterosexual eye. I believe there are maybe two Luce/Rachel kissing scenes, while it feels like a full third of the movie is spent developing the storyline in which we learn what a great guy the heterosexual man, Hector, is for letting his wife go follow her heart to be with a woman.

Which, good for him. But, I'd rather the women's romance be central. In my fake version of Imagine Me & You, it pends about 10 seconds on Hector and we have about 13 more lady make-out scenes. Would that be too much to ask? I think not.

Today's fan vid is the Imagine Me & You trailer: paring Kate/Claire from Lost.

Happy Femslash February by the way. Is anyone celebrating? And, if so, how and what are you reading?

Funny Femslash Friday

I love a good multi-fandom femslash fan vid.

The one below features Grey's Anatomy, The L Word, Lost Girl, Glee, Imagine Me and You, and I Can't Think Straight.... and I think I'm missing a couple? Anyway, it's funny.


I love the coming out moment featured from I Can't Think Straight:

[Leyla's father arrives home, sees Leyla and her mother in the kitchen]
Leyla (to her parents): I'm gay!
[pause]
Leyla's Father: But I've only been gone two hours!

Throwback Thursday: Lady Love Actually

That time I proposed a Love Actually reboot.

Now, if we could just get that Anna Kendrick reboot of Scrooged......

WayHaught Open Thread Friday

In reading news, I've picked back up Stephen King's The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower, apparently just in time for (MAJOR SPOILER ALERT, highlight the following text if you dare) the death of Eddie Dean. Why????  It is true, sai readers, I am known to cry at movies, TV, and books. Don't let my harsh blogging persona fool you, but I was recently a person on a train crying at a book, say sorry.

What are people reading, writing, watching, playing, eating, and/or drinking? Palaver as you will.

And, speaking of gunslingers, who is watching Wynonna Earp?  It has an actual same-sex maintext relationship, if you can believe it, between (spoiler alert?) Waverly and Officer Haught (pronounced "hot" because of course). Speaking of which. Erma Gerd, do you want to watch the absolute cheesiest fan video ever in the history of fan videos? (I do). 

This is the stuff that makes Internet great, folks. 

And remember, in just three Fridays, Election 2016 will be history! Huzzah! Take care of yourselves. Say thankya and so say we all.

 

"I Can't Think Straight" Tuesday

I am the worst at titling blog posts, so please bear with me. For today, I want to celebrate the film that is I Can't Think Straight.

In this gem of a movie, which is a semi-autobiographical account of director Shamim Sarif's life, Christian Palestinian Tala falls in love with another woman, Leyla, who is a (100% adorable) British Indian Muslim woman. Tala is in the midst of planning her wedding (to a man). Leyla's family, meanwhile, is on her case about not being married or attending religious services often enough. So, the two have some cultural and familial stuff serving as barriers to a relationship (that are also, consequently, working in favor of building the tension).

 (Spoiler Alert) Now, I will say that this film is easily one of my top ten favorites featuring lesbian/bisexual women, and not just because it has a happy ending and nobody dies.  I put it in my top ten because, and I mean this in the best possible way, it has one of my favorite of favorite fanfic tropes: "accidental" but fortuitous bed sharing between two characters who have high sexual tension with one another.

Take, for instance, their first kiss.

In the scene below, Tala and Leyla are away on a trip together (because um?) and, on this trip, they are sharing exactly one room with exactly one bed (because um?).  Nevermind that Tala's family is super-rich and they could probably spring for a double. And nevermind that same-sex hetero adult pal bed-sharing has literally not happened in a movie since Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (disclaimer: unfounded claim).

What matters is that at one point, Tala is listening to music in a little robe and begins dancing.  Leyla, meanwhile, is "reading a book." Scare quotes entirely necessary, as you will see. Tala then beckons the shy Leyla to join her in the dancing. In their one room that has one bed that they are to later share. All of which is 100% heterosexual? (I don't know, is it? Help me out hetero ladies).

ANYWAY, Leyla rejects Tala's advance for a hot second with a half-hearted, "Oh, I have absolutely no sense of rhythm."  But then a millisecond later,  she is all of us: getting her ass in gear and dancing with Tala. Because listen ladies, brother sestras, and those who identify outside the binary, when Tala beckons you to dance, you fucking dance (but only if that's your thing, and in affirming, mutually consensual ways, of course).

See for yourselves (clip contains plot spoilers and is NSFW, probs):


LOL @ "But some of my best friends are Lebanese!"

Samesies.

A Jessica Jones Ship

*gasp*

The Mary Sue is dead to me.

Okay okay, I'm KIDDING.

In the above-linked piece, it is argued that Jessica and Trish should not have a past, present, or future romance in Jessica Jones. Teresa Jusino writes:

How much of the interest in Jessica and Trish being a couple is a genuine desire for ["LGBTQIA"] representation, and how much of it is people wanting to bring their fan fiction to life and watch two women kiss at the expense of a different type of very important relationship? Why can’t women just be really good friends, indeed? Does every single couple that care for each other deeply need to be shipped? Do Sherlock and Watson need to develop sexual feelings for each other? Is romantic love the only kind of love that’s valid on television?

First things first, I agree with sentiment that it is important to portray non-romantic forms of love as valid and important in TV/film. That was the premise, in fact, of my previous Friendship Friday post about some of my favorite female (platonic) friendship pairings.

I would go further, though, and argue that romantic love is indeed not the only kind of love that's valid on television, particularly for women in relation to other women.  It seems, in fact, that women are often portrayed as love interests for men, rivals, or platonic friends.

So, while I wouldn't demand that "every single couple" that cares for each be written into canon as a romantic rather than platonic relationship, I would be deeply uncomfortable with begrudging fans for engaging in the act of shipping that couple as a romance.

Of course Sherlock and Watson don't need to develop sexual feelings for each other.  Has that ever been the argument, anyway? (Or, maybe it has been? Not my ship).  Rather, given the TV/film industry's lackluster representation of same-sex romantic couples, I think we have room to acknowledge both the importance of platonic love while also giving fans space, through shipping and the creation/consumption of fanworks, to depart from platonic representations that appeal to them as well.

We may not own copyrights and canons, but interpretations are ours.

MTV Thursday

Just out of curiosity, how do the kids these days watch/find out about music videos?

I listen to new music mostly through different streaming services, but rarely do I seek out music videos. I grew up in the era of Music Television (MTV) where the station literally mostly played music videos in the early 1980s. (Hey, remember video jockey Kennedy? She's now a conservative Republitarian - that's my made-up word for Republican/Libertarian, or maybe other people say it too, whatever).

ANYway, my point today is that although I have heard the song numerous times, I did not realize that Rihanna's music video for "Te Amo" is.... kind of amazing. And by kind of, I mean a lot. And it's like 6 years old!

The important thing is that I am definitely here for it now. Oh yes. And by that I mean I've only watched it about eleventymillion times in the past week. Is it possible to become more gay when you're already really gay? Yes. I believe so.

Brittana Friday

So, I stopped watching Glee sometime around Season 4. I have no problem with late 20-somethings playing high school students. After all, I came of age when Gabrielle Carteris convincingly played a high school student at the age of 29 on 90210.

In all actuality, I am fine with TV shows that let their characters stay in high school (or college or their shitty job) indefinitely, like The Simpsons.  That environment is probably a big reason why the show works.  Yes, I'm basically saying I don't care if a character "grows" or "moves on with their life."  If a show is good how it is, it seems better to keep that going than to force characters into new environments that fuck with the magic.

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, can't we just enjoy Naya Rivera dancing in a white suit today? Post-Labor Day be damned!

In a hurry? Fast forward to 1:50. Thank me later.


 

I also realize that Heather Morris does some impressive dancing in this video, so props to that!  I literally never dance in my head like that when I go to the dentist.

History Made! And Other Things!

And by other things, I mean Xena-related news, obvs. This is Fannie's Room: Your go-to destination on the world wide web for breaking crossover political-Xena-femslash-related commentary, apparently.

Along with last night's official and historic nomination of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic candidate for President, my night was officially made by evidence of Lucy Lawless approvingly watching the Democratic National Convention:

Holy cow, the #DNC has you crying and 5minites later laughing. What a great celebration of Love. #LoveTrumpsHate

— Lucy Lawless (@RealLucyLawless) July 27, 2016

(I like to think she made a typo there because she was so thrilled with the outcome of the Roll Call Vote - so BACK OFF!)

Just because it's been awhile and I am officially a stereotype, enjoy today's obligatory Xena fan video:





1:00 minute in: Woof!

Yes, Queens!

Welp, I called it, regarding YaraAsha and Daenerys on Game of Thrones!

"I never demand, but I'm up for anything really."

Here's to hoping that actually progresses into maintext.