LGBT community lauds Facebook over 'real name' policy
A group of activists joined Facebook’s Chief Product Officer to applaud Facebook’s promise to change its "real name" policy. Duration 01:07.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQWZvv-1uLQ&feature=youtube_gdata
Hot Sheet: October 3, 2014
Hot Sheet: October 3, 2014
Our top 10 entertainment and events highlights this week include Gay Days at the happiest place on earth; gays in Russia, the unhappiest place on earth; Stevie Nicks; and American Horror Story: Freakshow.
Advocate.com Editors
www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/hot-sheet/2014/10/03/hot-sheet-october-3-2014
Melissa Etheridge: 'Famous People Apologize To Me For Not Coming Out'
Melissa Etheridge: 'Famous People Apologize To Me For Not Coming Out'
When Melissa Etheridge’s fourth album “Yes I Am” catapulted her to international stardom in 1993, the record’s title was especially significant considering she had publicly come out as a lesbian earlier that year. The media was riveted by the story of a mainstream artist admitting her homosexuality at a time when such a proclamation was still exceptionally taboo, and the coverage turned Etheridge herself into a magnet for coming-out stories, she told HuffPost Live on Friday.
During a conversation with host Ricky Camilleri about her latest album, “This Is M.E.,” Etheridge recalled the period when she “talked about being a lesbian for three years, basically,” but she said she didn’t mind as long as she was “helping normalize this otherwise mysterious thing, this scary thing in the world.”
But it turns out Etheridge wasn’t the only one making such a personal confession.
“It was a time when actually more people came out to me. I had more reporters and people go, ‘Can I tell you I’m gay?” she said. “I had a lot of that. People still do that. Famous people do that to me. Famous people apologize to me for not coming out.”
Check out Melissa Etheridge’s recollections of coming out in the video above, and click here for the full HuffPost Live conversation.
Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live’s new morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before!
Zack Morris Will Judge Your Drag, Willam Models American Apparel And “Sex And The City 3″ Is Coming
Zack Morris Will Judge Your Drag, Willam Models American Apparel And “Sex And The City 3″ Is Coming
Rev your engines! Zack Morris Former Saved by the Bell star Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Dallas heartthrob Josh Henderson will join Melanie Griffith, Marie-Louise Parker and headliner Kathy Griffin at the judges panel for the 12th annual Best in Drag competition. The event, which has raised over $3 million for Aid for AIDS, takes place October 5 at L.A.’s historic Orpheum Theatre.
Last week we showed you Marie Osmond‘s transformation into Judy Garland, Madonna and other entertainers. Now, watch the “I’m a Little Bit Country…” singer morph into beloved icon Dolly Parton.
A third Sex and the City film might be on the way. Jennifer Hudson who played Carried Bradshaw’s assistant in the first film revealed what she knows about it to Dish Nation. “Somebody just came to me talking about that,” Hudson shared. “So if it’s in the talks, it might happen. So look for it. Look for Louise from St. Louis!” Consider yourselves warned.
Earlier this week Cissy Houston broke the internet by throwing some serious shade while singing backup during Aretha Franklin‘s rendition of “Rolling in the Deep” on Letterman (watch below if you’re the one person who hasn’t seen it already). This morning she was conspicuously absent from Ree-Ree’s performance on the Today show. The lesson here is simple: Never steal focus from a queen the Queen of Soul.
Willam, Courtney Act and Alaska Thunderfuck have partnered with American Apparel for a limited edition T-shirt collection and, naturally, a music video for their cleverly-titled new single, “American Apparel Ad Girls.”
Girls creator Lena Dunham and longtime boyfriend fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff have vowed to postpone marriage until Lena’s lesbian sister and all other LGBT people in the U.S. are allowed to legally wed. “We’re not against marriage,” she told Howard Stern. “But I wanna wait … my sister [Grace] is gay and it just doesn’t feel good to me to do something she can’t do.”
Forget American Horror Story and any scary movie you can name, this Jimmy Kimmel video is the stuff of nightmares.
Jeremy Kinser
Cheerios Celebrates The Joy of Human Connection in New Ad Featuring Gay Family: VIDEO
Cheerios Celebrates The Joy of Human Connection in New Ad Featuring Gay Family: VIDEO
First Honey Maid, and now Cheerios.
General Mills’ new Cheerios ad is set to air in Canada starting next week, but the video has been released a few days early online. In it, André and Jonathan share the story of their love for one another and their unexpected journey into fatherhood.
Check out the adorable and heartwarming ad, AFTER THE JUMP…
Marketing Mag adds:
“The Cheerios Effect,” is the colloquial name some have given to a phenomenon that anyone who’s eaten a bowl of the cereal knows: when two Cheerios float in milk, they tend to attract one another thanks to surface tension. Cossette is using this as a jumping-off point to address the broader issue of social isolation and loneliness.
Even though the phrase “Cheerios effect” first popped up on Wikipedia in 2007, surprisingly, this marks the first time that the brand has ever used the phenomenon in a marketing effort.
“We were in meeting with agency talking about issue of disconnection in society, this epidemic of loneliness,” says Jason Doolan, director of marketing for cereal at General Mills Canada. “We talked about the history of Cheerios and the role it could play in bringing people together. Somebody stood up and said, ‘You know, when you put two Cheerios in a bowl, they float together.’ It didn’t take more than 30 seconds on Google for someone to say, ‘It’s a real thing.’ We think it’s a perfect metaphor for human beings’ desire to connect.”
Kyler Geoffroy
17/365 – New Haircut (back to classics).
LGBT White Sox Fans Use Video to Teach the Real Meaning of Sports
LGBT White Sox Fans Use Video to Teach the Real Meaning of Sports
With a new video, LGBT fans ensure antigay voices don’t get the last word on whether baseball is inclusive.
Annie Hollenbeck
www.advocate.com/sports/2014/10/03/lgbt-white-sox-fans-use-video-teach-real-meaning-sports
12 Films to Watch From Austin's LGBT Film Fest
12 Films to Watch From Austin's LGBT Film Fest
Last month, the Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival took over the much-loved Alamo Drafthouse Cinema for a weekend of excellent queer films.
With subjects ranging from blind teenagers clumsy over love to a gang of “killer lesbians” punished for a crime they didn’t commit, aGLIFF presented a variety of viewpoints and perspectives with rapturous full-length features, eye-opening documentaries and silly, sexy and to-the-point shorts.
And of course, a gay film festival program wouldn’t be complete without a handful of adult gay film stars looking to get their big acting break. Here are some of my personal favorites.
Kate Bornstein Is a Queer & Pleasant Danger
Director: Sam Feder
To Mx Justin Vivian Bond, Amos Mac, Rocco Kayiatos and pretty much every gender outlaw living today, Kate Bornstein is the iconic queer grandma. This documentary follows the eccentric but charismatic writer as she struggles with defeating cancer and having to put up with her fair share of Internet haters. Watch the film trailer here.
Appropriate Behavior
Director: Desiree Akhavan
A cinematic gem first discovered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, the funny and poignant Appropriate Behavior has writer, director and star Desiree Akhavan trying to reconcile her Persian-American identity with her bisexual longings. After her brother gets engaged, Akhavan’s character beings to rebel, testing both society’s boundaries and her own emotional limitations as she tries to decipher why her relationship with her ex-girlfriend ultimately failed. This is what The L Word would have been if it had been created by Lena Dunham. Watch a clip from the film here.
Dior and I
Director: Frédéric Tchengc
Following the outstanding fashion documentary, Valentino: The Last Emperor, filmmaker Frédéric Tchengc takes us inside another iconic fashion institution, the House of Dior. Viewers get an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the pivotal, career-defining moments right before Raf Simons’ highly-anticipated debut collection as Dior’s artistic director. As in his previous Valentino film, Tchengc captures both the surreal, often loony, day-to-day of the fashion elite and the stress-filled job of continuing a revered legacy, all while documenting the disappearing art of the atelier. Watch a clip from the film here.
The Way He Looks (Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho)
Director: Daniel Ribeiro
Fresh off winning big awards at prestigious festivals such as Berlinale, San Francisco’s Frameline and Los Angeles’ Outfest, The Way He Looks is a tender coming of age story that manages to pack an emotional punch without relying too heavily on sappy sentimentality (a rare feat for a film in the “coming out” subgenre). Leonardo, a blind teenager living in Sao Paulo, yearns to see the world, but manages to fall in love with a happy-go-lucky new boy in school instead. This unexpected but charming love story does not sit too well with Leonardo’s best friend, Giovanna, who gets her first lesson in unrequited love. Watch the film trailer here.
Mala Mala
Director: Dan Sickles & Antonio Santini
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at aGLIFF, Mala Mala presents an unflinching portrayal of the trans community in Puerto Rico. The diverse cast of characters in the film all work together to prove that the personal is political as trans activists, drag queens and sex workers fight for their right to be while undergoing radical self-awakenings. Both tragic and uplifting, the documentary is an eye-opener for privileged viewers, and an inspiration for persevering over adversity, even when you can’t always tell the difference between glitter and shattered glass. Watch the film trailer here.
Eternity: The Movie
Director: Ian Thorpe
An ode to 80’s homoeroticism and a surprisingly apt take on the music industry then and now, Eternity is one giant double entendre with sexual innuendos and the total ridiculosity of 80’s campy sensibilities, from the wardrobe to the music. Watch the film trailer here.
I Am Happiness on Earth (Yo Soy la Felicidad de Este Mundo)
Director: Julián Hernández
The term “contains explicit sexual content” may be a bit of an understatement when it comes to this masterful Mexican film. I Am Happiness on Earth is sexually-charged from beginning to end, but the truly explicit content is part of an experimental, meta-narrative that may catch some viewers off-guard. The primary story is the age-old tale of boy meets boy, boy loses boy because he’s addicted to online escorts. Director Julián Hernández has created a beautiful, almost suspenseful, rendition of a modern-day urban fairy tale, where ballet and modern dance are used as conduits to admire the beauty of the male body. Watch the film trailer here.
Peter de Rome: Grandfather of Gay Porn
Director: Ethan Reid
If Kate Bornstein is our iconic queer grandma, then Peter de Rome is our granddaddy of porn. A successful Hollywood cinematographer with an affinity for attractive men of color, Peter de Rome made sexually explicit films from the 1950s until the 70s, and he did so in a refreshingly unapologetic way, especially for a time when gay sex was not only taboo but actually illegal. Smut aficionados will get a kick out of seeing many of de Rome’s ambitious works, including Greta Garbo’s final film appearance. Watch the trailer here.
BFFs
Director: Andrew Putschoegl
A lesbian romantic comedy that acknowledges the twist element of embarking on a same-sex relationship but doesn’t dwell on it, BFFs features actors well-versed in comedic timing to make it truly a standout. The conflict comes from the two main characters negotiating a fruitful way of going from best friends to partners in crime to fully-committed lovers and realizing the trust that true love really requires. Watch the film trailer here.
When My Sorrow Died: The Legend of Armen Ra and The Theremin
Director: Robert Nazar Arjoyan
This documentary about cheeky concert performer and “high society gender illusionist” Armen Ra takes viewers to another time and place: Iran right after the revolution, New York in the golden age of nightclubs. Through the highs and lows, Armen Ra never loses his bejeweled spirit in this hyper-real documentary, the only way this larger-than-life character could be accurately captured on film. Watch the film trailer here.
Blackbird
Director: Patrik-Ian Polk
From the creator of the gay soap, Noah’s Arc, Blackbird is a compelling drama about an African-American high school senior struggling with coming out in the small religiously conservative Mississippi town. Academy Award winner Mo’Nique plays his emotionally unstable mother who has to deal with an absentee husband, an abducted daughter and — what should seem like the least of her problems — a gay teenage son. Watch the film trailer here.
Out in the Night
Director: Blair Doroshwalther
To activists they are collectively known as the New Jersey 4, to the mainstream media, however, they were basically a “Gang of Killer Lesbians.” Out in the Night traces back the horrific events that brought seven young African-American lesbians to prison after an act of self-defense. Charged with gang assault and attempted murder, the New Jersey 4 were victims of a racist, sexist and homophobic system that looked down upon them from the day they were born. Watch the film trailer here.
This post originally appeared on Confessions of a Boy Toy.
Lena Dunham Takes a Stand for Marriage Equality
Catholic University Cancels Screening Of “Milk” For Fear Of Appearing To Support LGBT Awareness Month
Catholic University Cancels Screening Of “Milk” For Fear Of Appearing To Support LGBT Awareness Month
A Catholic university in Washington with close ties to the Vatican, aptly named Catholic University, has pressured students to postpone a screening of the Oscar-winning 2008 film Milk over concerns that the event promoted gay lifestyles.
The event flyer, seen right, advertises the screening as “kicking off LGBT awareness month with the CUA College Democrats,” with special guest Dr. John White, author of such scintillating books as Eros Defiled: The Christian and Sexual Sin. It features a rainbow flag, and also implies there will be cookies, which is more than enough reason to show up anywhere in our opinion.
University spokesperson Victor Nakas said:
“For university administrators, it called into question whether the event had changed in nature from one of education to one of advocacy. Given the confusion caused by the advertising, the Office of the Dean of Students contacted the College Democrats to postpone the event.”
Jasckson Tovar, a 19-year-old sophomore who is active in the College Democrats, is quoted saying:
“I’m still confused and still disappointed in my university that an event like this cannot go on for the reason that it says ‘LGBT awareness month.”
We’re guessing it has everything to do with the rainbow flag. Gay tolerance/awareness? Permissible. But gay pride?! What would The Pope think?
“Who am I to judge?” is what he’d think. Maybe it’s CUA takes a few pointers from their main man in the robes.
Or maybe it was the cookies all along. Students shouldn’t be consuming all that sugar.
via Washington Post
Dan Tracer
