Throwback Thursday: ALT-POTUS 45

Somewhere, in a parallel universe so very far, far away, Day 9 happened for Madam President, and for the other, luckier versions of ourselves:

DAY 9: STILL NO NAZIS ON THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL OR IN MY MOTHERFUCKING WHITE HOUSE.

— ALT-POTUS 45 (@IfHillaryHad) January 30, 2017

Also in this parallel universe, Susan Sarandon and Jill Stein didn't Thelma & Louise certain segments of the left off a motherfucking cliff by acting like Trump and Clinton were both just as bad as one another. FUN TIMES!

And yes, one of my coping strategies is dark humor, ha ha HA, why do you ask?

Damn: Trish Bendix Writes AfterEllen Eulogy

AfterEllen, the popular lesbian and bisexual pop culture site, is shutting down. Or, at least, is going to be significantly changing. [NOTE: See update]

Editor in Chief Trish Bendix wrote a eulogy yesterday on tumblr, noting that the company that owns AfterEllen wouldn't let her post her piece at AfterEllen:

 "Here are the facts: Evolve Media purchased AfterEllen from Viacom two years ago. They gave us two fiscal years to become their LGBT property and profit in that space, and they found we are not as profitable as moms and fashion. And, yes, “they” are mainly white heterosexual men, which is important to note because not only is this the story for us, but for a lot of other properties—large-scale media outlets, lesbian bars out-priced by neighborhoods they helped establish, housing in queer meccas like Portland that is being turned into condos and AirBNBs. 

 At the very same time, queer women and culture is being celebrated on the Emmys, in the legalization of both mothers being included on their newborn’s birth certificate, and our namesake, Ellen DeGeneres, being one of the most well-known, well-liked and undeniably profitable television and lifestyle personalities of our generation.

Somewhere, there’s a disconnect. AfterEllen is just one of the homes lesbian, bisexual and queer women will have lost in the last decade. It was a refuge, a community, a virtual church for so many. I’m not sure that some people outside of us can really ever understand that.

Evolve has decided to keep the site and its archives alive for now, with a promise of periodically publishing freelance pieces in the future. I am not sure what that will look like, as Friday is also my last day, after 10 years of contributing writing and eventually coming on to work full time as a blog editor, then managing editor, and, for the last two years, as Editor in Chief."

With all of the usual disclaimers that I haven't agreed with all of the site's content or moderation practices, this space has been important for so many women during its 14 years in existence, including to me. Participating in The L Word forums circa 2004 were some of my first experiences interacting with an online community of queer women.  I even had a completely awkward (on my part) meetup with founder Sarah Warn when she was visiting the city in which I live, and which she probably 100% doesn't remember, LOL. But, I drank too much and we talked about my shitty ex, Desert Hearts, and how/why she created the site.

It's a bit unfathomable to me that the site will be changing or will no longer exist in its current incarnation.

Through its interviews with lesbian, bisexual, and trans (LBT) actors and those portraying them on TV/film and through its recaps, reviews, and different contests (like the AfterEllen Hot 100), I think the site has had an extremely important (and perhaps overlooked) impact in terms of letting the TV/film industry know both (a) that LBT women exist as a fanbase, and (b) we care A LOT about how we are represented in TV/film.

Without being privy to financial circumstances that Bendix refers to with the respect to the company that owns AfterEllen, my subjective opinion as a user is that the site declined significantly in terms of user experience, something I noticed mostly in the past couple of years. I'm not at all referring to the content of articles, but rather, to what seemed to be a greatly-increased commercial presence. When visiting, I always got the sense that first and foremost a company was behind the site wanting to make money off of users, and that sense was almost completely overwhelming when visiting.

I understand the importance of ads being necessary to generate revenue when one is running a commercial site. Yet, a visit to the site to read an article often entailed: seeing a banner ad, seeing ads on the sidebar, having ads on the sidebar with embedded videos that would automatically play, having a pop up ad with video show up once you clicked on an article, and having a pop-up ad play audio/video. Like I said, overwhelming. The ad content was overly-intrusive, made the site slow, and it distracted from the substantive content, so I know my visits to the site definitely decreased over the years.

But, I also think sites ought to pay writers, particularly if they are commercial sites. And, the revenue to do that has to come from somewhere.

With the shuttering of The Toast earlier this year (which I also find heartbreaking, and which also seems like it was done at least in part for financial reasons), the LBT and feminist blogospheres will have to continue to explore models of sustainability - models that pay people and in which the user/reader experience is not eroded. Readers seem to not like paid subscription models. Although, I know other sites (like Shakesville) use a donation model.

Personally, I would love to blog/write about LGBT pop culture and feminism on a full-time paying basis, but it's difficult to conceive of doing that in a way that would pay the bills. Hence, Fannie's Room, something I do in my free time. (YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR, SUCKERS!)  And, there's almost a Catch-22 component to it: if you work full time at a non-blogging job, you have less energy to write during your free time. If you work full-time at a blogging job, you probably have more trouble paying the bills.

I guess my point is that I don't have a simple answer. I'm sad to hear this news about AfterEllen. It seems like the end of an era, in some ways, and I hope we can find a way to collectively fill the void. What is after AfterEllen?

[UPDATE: An Emrah Kovacoglu, General Manager of TotallyHer Media, posted at AE today that the site isn't shutting down, but that Bendix has been fired as Editor, that people would still be able to access content, and that they hope to work with freelancers to generate new content. This claim aligns with what Bendix said in her tumblr.

In the comment threads, multiple current writers for the site have said that this information had not previously been shared with them, and that the editorial change was abrupt. The way TotallyHer has handled this situation has led to distrust within the community that AE would be now (mis)managed by straight men and eventually shut down when not profitable enough. I will certainly be monitoring developments.]

Butch Tuesday

Let's be real, Brienne of Tarth is everything.

She's certainly one of the more honorable characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, as portrayed in both George RR Martin's books and the TV show Game of Thrones. (And therefore almost certain to die a horrible, unjust death).

I had an unexpected appreciation of her evolving relationship with Jaime Lannister.

Jaime is largely an ass, albeit somewhat humbled by the loss of his right hand. And, while he ridiculed Brienne when they first encountered one another and she, in turn, had little respect for "the Kingslayer," the two came to, I believe, respect and ultimately love one another.

That is to say, I believe theirs to have been a subtextual romance plot, deserving of highlighting today. Portraying men attracted to and in love with butch women is, obviously, a rarity in TV and film.  Hell, even portraying butch women as heterosexual, as Brienne ostensibly is (*sigh* a shame), is just as rare.

(Advice to Cersei: Forget about Jaime. Woo Margaery. "Keep your enemies closer" and all that).

Enjoy today's featured fan vid, a tribute to Jamie and Brienne.

Femslash February: Giant Lady Houses

When I was but a wee lesbian, I think I often imagined that as an adult I would live in a large house with a bunch of other women.

Sort of like a sorority for grown-ups where one did not have to attend frat parties or "rush" to get into (is "rush" the right lingo, I don't know). Honestly, I'm still not entirely convinced that one day I won't find myself living in such a situation. Even if it's at a retirement home for queer women. Which would be entirely amazing.

Anyway, some of my favorite examples of group female living scenarios from TV/Film include:

• The Rockford Peaches' house from A League of Their Own.  Sigh. All those baseball players and not one lesbian or bisexual gal? I don't buy it! You know Doris was tip-toeing to Ellen Sue and/or All the Way Mae's bedroom after their nights out at the Sudsbucket

• Nonnatus House from Call the Midwife.  Nuns + Nurses + Uniforms  + Simple, Communal Living + Do-Goodism = queer lady catnip. I just started Season 4 of this series and am glad the show is finally introducing an overt same-sex relationship. But will it end well?!

• The Barden Bellas' house in Pitch Perfect 2.  When Beca briefly left Chloe for the Kommisar, do you think they made the giant German sled down the steps? Ja/Nein.

• Miss Robichaux's House in American Horror Story: Coven. A Caveat. Imagine a different version, in which Queenie is the obvious Supreme and, instead of competing with each other, the witches join forces with Marie Laveau and legit take down the patriarchy.  In this scenario, I would also write myself in as Mary Sue/Advisor/Lover of Cordelia Foxx.

I am missing some, and I was going to include Orange is the New Black, but a key characteristic I think is that the living arrangement be voluntary. Although, I will admit that the whole prison/jail theme seems to be a lesbian/bisexual trope/fantasy of sorts.

Additions?

It Is a Little-Known Fact

That, while Xena and Gabrielle are endgame, Aphrodite did have a bit of a crush on Gabrielle.

It is easy to miss this one over the course of 6 seasons, especially as some people could barely even admit the obvious Xena/Gabrielle relationship.  However, I did not miss it, and apparently neither did the fan who made the video below.

In fact, don't tell the warrior princess, but it's likely that an actual affair happened at some point between the Goddess of Love and the Queen of the Amazons (and how could it not, when you think about it?)

Just putting that out there:




Did you know that next month is Femslash February*?

(Here in Fannie's Room, every month is femslash month).

Will anyone be creating, consuming, or celebrating appropriately?


*How the fuck does tumblr even work?

Transparent - Beyond the Supreme Court Test Plaintiffs

Are people watching Transparent?

I largely enjoyed Season 2, in particular.  I am also aware of, and sympathetic to, critiques within the trans community regarding the casting of cis male actor Jeffrey Tambor as Maura, a trans woman - and of trans stories in general not being told by trans people.

Perhaps to her credit, creator Jill Soloway has publicly discussed her hiring of trans actors, consultants, and at least one trans writer to help with the production of the show. Is that enough? I'd say that's not my call, as a cis person.

Today I want to highlight the less-frequently discussed character, Tammy (Melora Hardin).

BAM!

Tammy is, to me, hot.  Like, HAF*.

*(I recently learned that's what the kids are saying for "hot as fuck." I also say fuck on this blog now on the regular, apparently.)

Lesbian and bisexual women's portrayal in TV and film is increasing, but butch women, butch queer women, being portrayed is still incredibly rare. It's as though queer women can be depicted, but they can't actually look like how many queer women actually look in real life.

Which, I guess is sort of an ongoing general rule for women in TV/film in general, yeah?

Men, I would argue moreso than women, can be fat, ugly, bald, frumpy, and old and still get acting roles - as they should! Women, however, have to constantly worry about their, in Amy Schumer's words, Last Fuckable Day - the day when the media decides that an actress is no longer believably "fuckable." So, like a woman reaches the age of 40 and from then on she's only fit for roles where she's, say, Tom Hanks' mom.

I would extend that further and note that even for women portraying queer characters, these characters often have to meet the standards of what's commonly thought of as the Hetero Male Gaze. Even The L Word, which was entirely about lesbian and bisexual women, showed approximately 3 butch women ever over the course of 5 seasons. (That might be an exaggeration. Was Shane butch? Debatable).

And, as a lesbian myself, I find many women appealing who do fall into those conventional beauty standards - but, my standards are also much broader.  I like women, like Tammy, who swagger.  I like women who give no fucks about whether men think they're nice, cool, or hot. I like women who are over 40 and are still portrayed as sexual beings. I find many women attractive who are, by media standards, fat (or who call themselves fat).

I like women are stereotypically feminine, androgynous, and yes, I like women who are butch.

So, back to Tammy. She is, in many ways, a mess. She's at times an asshole and, in Season 2, has a cringe-worthy public meltdown. (there, there, Tammy, there, there......sigh.....I'm sorry, what were we talking about?)

Oh yeah, but at the same time, isn't basically every character on Transparent a mess in their own unique way?

Some (ahem, Rod Dreher) who maybe have never seen the show, perhaps fantasize that Transparent is a propagandistic promotion of gender and sexual nonconformity that presents deviance as both desirable and superior than conventionality.

(which it is, obvs)

BUT, the power of Transparent, to me, is not that it depicts fantastical versions of people outside the norm. For one, it doesn't.  On the contrary, I feel drawn to the characters because they are imperfect, because they make bad decisions, and because they act jerky sometimes.  And, they're allowed to, even though they're queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming (and even if they have weird hairstyles - Season 2 Ali, what is going on?).

The show takes us beyond the point where queer characters must be pretty, gender conforming, and acceptably "safe" for a conservative, heterosexual audience (looking at you, Jenny's Wedding). We are invited to care about these characters despite their flaws. They are not the Supreme Court ideal handpicked, sainted, and prepped "test" plaintiffs for LGBT rights.

The show argues, instead, these people - we-  matter and are deserving of dignity, even if not immediately appealing to the mainstream. And that, I think, is progress.

We ARE the Weirdos

Remember the movie The Craft (1996), about 4 young women who pursue witchcraft for not entirely-benign purposes?

 About this film, I will just say it was instrumental in my coming out as a lesbian. It's not a particularly great movie, but if one embraces it for what it could have been, it can work? The ringleader of the group, Nancy (Fairuza Balk), always struck me as like a damaged, gothy power lesbian and I remember feeling both attracted to her while also knowing she would have been completely Bad News to date.


  

I also remember loving that "we are the weirds, mister" line, as corny as it might seem now.

Nancy gave zero fucks about what mere human men thought of her and her non-Christian spiritual practices. And, as coven leader, she refused to let herself and her friends be victims.

Sadly, this movie with so much potential veers into the patriarchal narrative of Powerful Woman Gets Too Greedy With Her Power, ultimately suggesting that women shouldn't have such power at all.  If the film gets a reboot, that should be fixed.

And there should be some overt lesbianism/bisexuality, too, obvs.

Movie Review: Carol

So, I saw the movie Carol over the weekend.

Honestly, I think my better movie reviews are when movies are bad, so I don't have a ton to say about this one. (Flash movie review by gay guy sitting in front of me at the movie theatre: "Too much talking, not enough scissoring!" To that I would just recommend a different movie.)

My take on things is that Cate Blanchett is divine in practically everything she does, and her portrayal of 1950s lesbian/bisexual Carol Aird is no exception. To be looked at by Carol, let alone loved, would be everything.

Why yes, I would come visit you Sunday. Thank you for asking.

Secondly, for a film featuring love between two women in the 1950s, I was pleased both by the non-tragic ending and its avoidance of making the heterosexual male romantic interests in the women's lives complete jerks. I mean, Carol's husband, what's-his-face from Friday Night Lights, was a jerk, but in the end seemed didn't turn out to be 100% jerky.

It always feels cheap and easy to get an audience to hate people who are unsympathetic and who have no redeeming qualities. For instance, some lesbian/bisexual movies will feature the women engaging in really awful sex with men, which is then contrasted with eventual fulfilling sex with women (as well as soft lighting and camera angles on unidentifiable body parts).

Yet, in my opinion, the best films and TV show people not as pure monsters or angels.  I don't want to be told who the villains are, I want to decide first if there are villains at all and second who they actually are, for myself.  Life and love are complicated, you know?  So, it feels more rewarding when heterosexual men in lesbian/bisexual films are shown as more nuanced while still inviting the audience to root for the women to end up together anyway (obvs).

That being said, the queer female gaze was strong with this one. Ultimately, I found the most sympathetic characters to be Carol and Therese, and it was their story that was central. Their responses to one another unfolded slowly and both Blanchett and Mara's understated performances seemed to mimic an era when same-sex love had to be subtextual, brimming below the surface, by necessity.

In sum, I thought Carol was an epic A+ lesbian/bisexual movie. And those, as we know, are rare.

A Car Wash and an Ice Cream Cone

Today was brought to you by the opening of Lost Girl episode "Groundhog Fae."


Happy weekend!

Book Update 2015

For the first time in over a year, I've read two books written by men, both non-fiction. 

The first was Bruce Schneier's Data and Goliath, which I thought was great. The second, which I'm still reading, is Lawrence Wright's Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief. 

Wright uses the "gender neutral masculine" throughout (as Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard likewise seemed to do in much of his writing and thought) to refer to all human beings. So I'm find that to be pretty jarring after having had a whole year almost entirely free of that.

Don't worry though, next on my docket is Nancy Manahan's Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence. All will be well again in my world very soon.

Thing I Like: American Horror Story

For 2014, I want to try to remember to do some more "positive" posts.  Not sure why I'm using scare/sneer quotes there, perhaps I have a general aversion to all things toxic-forced-optimistic/positive.  It's my blog and I'll cry if I want to, dammit!

But seriously, many things in life make me happy and are pleasing to me and I want to start a somewhat-regular series talking about those things.  I should note that the media, people, articles, and things I choose for this new series may indeed be, and probably are, problematic in some ways - and I may point those things out (and feel free to do so also). It's a fact of life for me that enjoyment in life often comes with having to compartmentalize racist, sexist, homophobic, and otherwise-problematic elements from entertaining things.

So, that being said, I've been binge-watching all of the seasons of American Horror Story.  I've long been a fan of the horror genre and, actually, began reading Stephen King novels at the probably-too-young age of sometime in grade school.

Growing up, I was bored by the Friday the 13th type of slasher shows, and was more drawn to books like Misery where it seemed like the plot could maybe happen in real life or movies like the Nightmare on Elm Street series that, although slasher-y, also contained a scary psychological element.  Like, how awful would it be to be scared to go to sleep because of this scary dude who might kill you in your dreams?  Nightmare also had some pretty badass female characters, too.

*Spoilers and discussion of events on American Horror Story, all seasons; also content note for racism and general horror show stuff*

All of the seasons are remarkable, to me, for having a variety of female characters in addition to their subtle and sometimes-more-explicit critiques of traditional narratives about gender and family. The cast is mostly white, although that somewhat changes in Season 3, yet the female characters include those who are old, young, queer, disabled, mentally ill, thin, fat, and in-between.

While the beginning of Season 1, Murder House, might initially lead viewers to think that Ben, the adulterous, murderous husband, would be the main protagonist, he quickly - in my opinion - becomes supremely unlikable and secondary.  It's largely his wife Vivian, and those who are often mired in "supporting character" roles to the "Ben" roles, who end up as the (anti?)-heroes of the show.

One of my soundbite take-aways from that season is that family success and happiness are not obtainable by simple equations like "1 man + woman + their biological children," but rather honesty, openness, and trust. By the end of the series, the protagonist nuclear family doesn't seem to start effectively functioning as a family until they're all dead, there are no more secrets between them, and they're Beetlejuicing potential new homeowners away from the residence.

I'm currently engrossed in Season 3, Coven, and here are my somewhat random thoughts on it:

• By my calculations it seems as though Coven has the incredibly rare honor of not passing a reverse Bechdel Test.  That is, I have yet to think of any one scene that exists in which two men talk to each other about something other than a woman! I'm okay with that, too. And, I'm going to justify me being okay with that by only noting that I've endured more than 3 decades of movies and TV shows failing the Bechdel Test, so yes, I can be happy about this one of the few things in the media that is so explicitly female-centric.
• Jessica Lange is amazing. She's great in all 3 seasons, actually, I think.
• Likewise, with Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Francis Conroy, and upcoming Stevie Nicks cameos, I find it difficult to think of a TV show or movie that features multiple women aged 55 or over that isn't called Cocoon.
• I find myself more drawn to the older and middle-aged female characters, but of the "young witches," it's Queenie, portrayed by Gabourey Sidibe, who so far is perhaps the most decent witch of the bunch.  She has every reason to hate the racist Delphine LaLaurie, and maybe she does, but she's largely been compassionate. And, the scene in which she forced the body-less Delphine to watch Roots to overcome her racism was bizarrely moving. 
• And, the finality of that scene, in which the white Cordelia's witch-hunter husband opened fire in Marie Laveau's salon, seemed to be a powerful statement about white women's alliances with white men. Until she lost her vision, Cordelia had been oblivious to her husband's membership in a patriarchal "brotherhood" of men who hate, hunt, and kill witches. Ultimately, Cordelia's husband whatever-his-name-is, ends up killing Marie's allies not only because he fears for his own life but because he loves Cordelia and wants to protect her.
• I'm also intrigued by portrayals of female leaders. In Coven, we see several models of female leadership. Fiona was strong, for instance, but seems to have squandered her strength and ability to mentor other women by being selfish and absent. Cordelia is soft-spoken and the acting head of the witch school. Although she seems hesitant to see herself as a leader, others come to see her as one perhaps because she shows a quiet strength.  Marie is the leader of the voodoo practitioners and, through flashbacks, we see that she leads by providing a sanctuary from racism and by seeking revenge on the racists who have harmed her allies. 

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing where Coven will go in the remaining episodes, particularly the potential alliance between Marie Laveux and the Salem witches.  I wish I cared more about what happened with the Frankendude Kyle plot, but I don't. And the zombies? Please tell me zombies will be "out" by the time 2014 ends.

What do others think - are you watching this too?