HAPPY PRIDE 🏳️‍🌈

It's Pride Sunday here in NYC so we're taking the afternoon off for the Queer Liberation march and to get a sunburn. The latter is assumed from past experience no matter how much sunscreen we lather on (thanks Danish ancestry).  On a more serious and celebratory note, isn't it positively inspiring how many out celebrities we have now? We grew up in the 80s when we had only a handful (Rupert Everett, Martina Navratilova, Harvey Fierstein, Jimmy Sommerville, Boy George, and maybe a couple of others). In the 1990s 'coming out' became a more regular but still 'controversial' celebrity occurrence. Today the news cycle moves on pretty quickly from a celebrity's admission of queerness and that's healthy! Today's young people have hundreds of LGBTQ celebrities to pick and choose from to enjoy or relate to or be inspired by during their formative years.

As movie fanatics we knew in our hearts all along (despite protests to the contrary, sometimes frustratingly from the queer community) that once enough actors came out the myth that it would ruin acting careers would be exposed as just that: a total myth. Strength in numbers! Happy pride to all the queer artists and entertainers and Happy Pride to all our LGBTQ+ readers and allies!  

Doc Corner: Tribeca '21 — 'Socks on Fire' and 'North by Current' explore queerness in rural America

By Glenn Dunks

It’s thankfully no longer all that rare to see stories of queer people in rural settings. Especially in documentary. But that doesn’t make it any less special to see their stories—once so often relegated to traumatic narratives centering violence—told by queer filmmakers. Two films in particular at the recently wrapped Tribeca Film Festival examined the changing dynamics of (some) American small-town life. Both take elements of memoir and even non-traditional storytelling to create unique films that make strong arguments for the sheer human decency that many in minority communities desire.

While Bo McGuire’s Socks on Fire and Angelo Madsen Minax’s North by Current tell stories that confront the still very tangible realities of being LGBTQ+ outside of the more accepting big cities, they do so with artistic flair and the confidence that comes from generational change...

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Gay Best Friend: Michael in "Camp" (2003)

a series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope

I wish I looked as good as Michael (Robin de Jesús) at my prom.Back in 2003 there weren’t many places where a gay kid wouldn’t be the “other” person. That’s why the “gay best friend” trope became so prevalent. Film would always show us the “token” gay person in a non-threatening supporting role, reinforcing that they were “different” than the norm. Camp flips this on its head. The comedy takes place at Camp Ovation, a musical theater camp outside of New York. It’s one of the few places where the gays outnumber the straight men.

This dichotomy between being “othered” and being welcomed is established in the first scene, with the song “How Shall I See You Through My Tears” from The Gospel of Colonus. This performance is intercut with the entrance of Michael (Robin de Jesús), as he arrives at prom in drag...

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Dorian TV Award Nominations

by Nathaniel R

Pose leads the nominations

The Society for LGBTQ+ Entertainment Journalists, previously known as GALECA, has announced their annual TV nominations ahead of Emmy balloting. A handful of us here at TFE are part of that organization so we had a chance to vote on this. The third season of FX's Pose and Disney+ & Marvel Studio's limited series WandaVision lead the nominations though curiously the latter is not up for the main award in its category. I May Destroy You, It's a Sin, and Mare of Easttown also secured plentiful nominations.

Without further ado the nominees...

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Streaming Review: "Changing the Game"

by Nathaniel R

Mack loves to wrestle but he's forced to do it on the girls team

It can take movies a long time to make it from regional cinephile parties (aka film festivals) to mass consumption via streaming services / movie theaters. Even longer if there's extenuating circumstances like, oh, a pandemic. Case in point, the trans youth sports documentary Changing the Game which just started streaming on Hulu. I first saw the film in the summer of 2019 at the Austin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival where I served on the jury (that's me waving at the end). We awarded it Best Documentary Feature. 

The conversations around trans youth, as well as trans men and women in sports, have only gotten louder in the intervening two years so in some ways it's right on time. Herewith from my original take...

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