Art
Skool
I like my convictions undiluted, same as I do my bourbon
Tired
Old
Queen
at the
Movies
Steve celebrates Thanksgiving with Jezebel!Bette Davis sets fire to the screen and goes on to Oscar glory for the second time in William Wyler’s classic tale of the old South, Jezebel (1938). Directed with consummate skill by William Wyler, it was the first of the three films they made together. With able support from Henry Fonda, George Brent and Fay Bainter in an Oscar winning role as Bette’s sympathetic aunt, it’s as close to Scarlett O’Hara as Davis would get and she gives it all she’s got.
Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
Issue 199: Todrick Hall, Derrick Gordon, Cosby, Mykki Blanco, Mike Nichols, Adam Archuleta, Rob Smith, Rio, Westworld, and more...
the week's
news
& pop
culture,
with a
gay
bias.
| think, progress |
Ten businesses to avoid this holiday season if you care about equality.
What does Islam really say about gay people?
Twenty-two of the shortest coming out stories you’ll ever read.
Trans murders are a silent genocide: We must stop it.
Trans murders: Rage against the dying of the light.
The real Michael Phelps "scandal" is the offensive portrayal of intersex people. "Intersex people exist, and we’re fighting for our basic human rights. Stop treating us as props and oddities."
Investors worth billions demand US firms make gay policies global.
Big, bad tech: How America’s digital capitalists are taking us all for a ride.
Why horrific pictures of dead bodies won’t stop wars.
Is it possible the 1950s were more tolerant?
Is gentrification natural evolution?
Issue 198: Blatino Awards, Wilson Cruz, Cosby, Cavill, Haiti, Kele Okereke, Ken Ott, dan mei, Derrick Gordon, and more...
the week's
news
& pop
culture,
with a
gay
bias.
| ponder on this |
From the department of shameless self promotion: I'm delighted to have been nominated for the FlavaMen Blatino Awards, in the categories of Best News Blog and Best Entertainment Blog. Please do consider voting for us!
Six gay clichés that are totally true.
The world is becoming a better place to be gay, apparently.
Would it be better for society to let bigots openly say what they think? "There is evidence that equality legislation has forced racist and homophobic behaviour underground. If people were allowed to express their views, would it be easier to take them on?"
How Kodak's Shirley cards set photography's skin-tone standard.
Are millennials to blame for everything? An investigation (but yes).
Fandom isn’t friendship: How we cope with allegations against celebrities like Bill Cosby.
FlavaMen Blatino Awards
WE'RE ABSOLUTELY thrilled to announce that kaos has been nominated for the FlavaMen Blatino Awards, in the categories of Best News Blog and Best Entertainment Blog.The annual FlavaMen Blatino Awards - for and by men of color - have been running for five years. The public can vote for their favorite personality, channel, website, porn star, clubs, and more. You may vote for one nominee in each category.
The deadline for voting is 31st December 2014. Only one vote is allowed per email (you must confirm your vote via email for it to count).Winners will be announced at a special ceremony celebration in Atlanta, during Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend (16-19 January 2015).
Issue 197: Bros, Bisi Alimi, Cazwell, Kris Evans, Rose McGowan, Michael Sam, Simon Webbe, Looking, Doctor Who, and more...
the week's
news
& pop
culture,
with a
gay
bias.
| ponder on this |
On scally lads.
More people fantasise about gay sex than you realise.
Actress Rose McGowan has blasted the gay community, saying, "Gay men are as misogynistic as straight men, if not more so. I have an indictment of the gay community right now, I’m actually really upset with them." She subsequently took to Twitter to clarify, "I was pissed off when I said that, obvs a gross over generalization, for which I apologize. But my point stands."
Yes there is misogyny among gay men – but our sexist world is the problem. "Rose McGowan is right that the gay rights movement has tended to ignore women. But sexism is everywhere – the bulk of the hate comes from heterosexuals."
Why are The Advocate's commenters so transphobic? "Antitrans vitriol posted in response to The Advocate's coverage of transgender issues is symptomatic of broader divisions in the LGBT population."
If punk is the ultimate anti-establishment scene, why is it still run by all these white men? "As a trans woman in punk, I try to find beauty in a faux-inclusive scene that’s never perfect – and occasionally awful."
Why I don’t believe people who say they loathe Islam but not Muslims. "It is psychologically unnatural to claim that you hate an ideology without hating the people in whose lives it is expressed."
Think school shooters are usually bullied and unpopular? You're wrong.
On haterade. "Commenting culture infects the internet, inviting us not to 'join the conversation' so much as to join a fight–or at least gawk from the sidelines."
Dark water
WHAT I WATCHED
LAST NIGHT
THERE WERE moments - many moments - throughout this year's series of Doctor Who when it felt like the show was on the mend, when we were on our way to a cure.Yes, the series opener, Deep Breath, was as big of a pig's breakfast as everything else since Steven Moffatt took over as showrunner. But Peter Capaldi was immediately captivating, a real Doctor, something the superficial "sexy" Doctors we've had since the 2005 relaunch never were (and from the original series - or Real Doctor Who, as we like to think of it around here - Peter Davison. Like Eccleston, Tennant and Smith, he's a perfectly good actor, but he isn't the Doctor).
Subsequent episodes showed promise. Into The Dalek had something new to offer, and neither Robot of Sherwood nor Time Heist were half as bad as their trailers suggested they would be. Listen, Kill The Moon and Flatline were fine, solid episodes, compensating for the pedestrian The Caretaker, and derivative Mummy On The Orient Express. But there was the obligatory turd: In The Forest Of The Night, an embarrassing misfire filled with stage school brats, that saw the Doctor shrugging his shoulders and leaving humanity to die. .jpg)
Which leaves us with the two part season finale, a game of two halves. The first exhilarating instalment, Dark Water, featured some intriguing ideas, and left us with a truly jaw-dropping cliffhanger. But the concluding Death In Heaven brought us full circle, serving up a proper pig's breakfast - and a thoroughly distasteful one, at that.Death In Heaven is nasty. Ugly, and nasty, with any of the good ideas present in Dark Water sacrificed to overblown emotional histrionics. Missy has orchestrated the whole thing because she wants the Doctor to notice her, or something. Even now I can barely remember the motivation. But it was some tedious bollocks about "feelings" and "emotions", put there to show us how talented and brilliant the showrunner is. Wasn't it more fun when the Master wanted to do things just because he was evil, and wanted to destroy the Doctor? Don't get me wrong: Michelle Gomez, as Missy/The Master, is great fun, but all the wind is taken out of her sails by Moffat's boring, posturing, sub-Hollyoaks emoting. And who thought it would be a good idea to bring back the Brigadier - one of the show's best-loved characters - as a Cyberman? Is that what we're doing now - raping the past for cheap thrills? What will we get next season, Sarah-Jane Smith as a Haemovore?
It's all just such a shame. The talent is there (on screen), but there are forces behind the scenes working against the show. Is it the bean counters at BBC Inc., making sure to milk their cash cow for every last cent? Is it the rampant egos of writers who aren't half as talented as they think they are? Or is the state of Doctor Who just indicative of the current state of British television, which, like every aspect of life in the UK, is dominated by perfectly lovely, well-connected people who all knew one another at university?Who knows. Peter Capaldi is incentive enough to watch, but he's ill-served by the text. As are we all.
