Will & Grace: Tease

US magazine.

Oh please no!

Maybe if it was Jack & Karen it might be just about bearable.

Update: It gets worse, apparently they're doing it to get people to vote for Hillary.

TV & Film: Positive Prejudice

Psychologists at Anglia Ruskin University are exploring the issues around “positive prejudice” towards gay men in the UK.
Due to popular TV shows Sex and the City and Will & Grace, and movies such as My Best Friend’s Wedding, the common stereotype of gay men is that they are stylish, witty, and emotionally available.
Academics believe even seemingly positive stereotypes have the potential to be damaging as they paint gay men as one dimensional figures and prevent people from seeing someone’s true personality. 
The study is being led by Ashley Brooks, a PhD student at Anglia Ruskin University under the supervision of Dr Daragh McDermott, Principal Lecturer in Social Psychology.

Brooks said:

“We commonly see the ‘gay best friend’ being played out in popular media, and this is also becoming increasingly prevalent in real life interactions between heterosexuals and gay men.
“Because these attitudes appear positive on the face of it, they gain widespread acceptance and remain unchallenged despite their potential to cause long-term damage.”

The research team are aiming to survey 1,000 people in order to measure the extent of these attitudes, which may be expressed in a positive way but may transmit stereotypical or negative messages.

Dr McDermott said:

“On the face of it, stereotypes associated with gay men, such as being fashionable or witty, appear positive and may even hold some truth to them.  
“However, by their very nature these stereotypes pigeonhole what it means to be gay and lead to unrealistic expectations of how gay men are expected to behave."...

Anglia Ruskin University. 

Who knew??! etc etc.

PS Slightly smug 'My fantastic life!' virtue signalling Independent Voices piece.

PPS And a quite good Guardian piece by Andrew McMillan (that's actually about the report). Also see Joe Stone on TV's changing representation of gay men, from Will & Grace to Empire.

Every Girl Needs A Gay: App Alling (See What I Did There?)

Now that science has finally proven what we’ve known all along about the special connection between straight women and gay men, this pairing has never been more – dare we say – en Vogue. Gay men and straight women balance each other out while simultaneously turning up each other’s FABULOUS. “Without sexual tension and social norms, the love between a gay man and a straight woman is not clouded by expectations. Something deeper, something magical, something liberating happens, and the rest is history.” – Justin Huang, Huffington Post

C’mon let’s face it…We seriously need each other! Don’t we? To find our best selves?

Everygirlneedsagay.net

Just in time for the holiday season, I came across an actual tongue-not-in-cheek website called Every Girl Needs A Gay. It claims to match basic straight girls with a Gay Best Friend. Taking the guesswork out of finding a GBF, users can fill in information about themselves – like whether they’re a Carrie or a Samantha, top or sloppy bottom – and be paired via an arbitrary algorithm to the gay man of their dreams!

The site doesn’t officially open until January of next year. But all of the thirsty women with broken gaydars can stay up to date with… CHER. “We’re calling our eNewsletter ‘CHER!’” the website shrieks. “Timeless, original, and FABULOUS. Her essence is an adjective that says it ALL!”

Every Girl Needs A Gay is the forlorn brain fart of Boston-based web designer Gini Garbick, whose entire gay friend circle is surely just holograms of stereotyped gays from early 2000s sitcoms like Will & Grace...

Dazed.

Fagburn secretly quite admires people who try to rip off complete idiots.

Tom Daley: Madness

This is in the ever-reliable Daily Star, so Fagburn sees no reason to doubt it.

But for the love of Chomsky... NO!

Even our Tom can't be that much of a tart.

PS This is deffo happening, though.

Woop!

Tom & Sophie could be reality TV's Will & Grace - or Jack & Karen....

Tom Daley Goes Global.

Update: GRRR!

TV: Whatever Happened To The Likely Queens?

A couple of years ago I sat in the audience for a panel discussion on queer representation in entertainment; the presentation included a breezy tour through the gay history of the media, complete with Powerpoint slides of Rosie, Ellen and old People magazines from when you needed to be on the cover of something to come out. The overview was greeted warmly, until we got to Will and Grace, where one of the show's characters, Jack McFarland, proved a sticking point. Jack, a sassy sidekick whose flamboyance towed the line between camp and parody, has long been a lightning rod of discussion in the community. You could feel that discomfort in the room.

Our tour guide diffused the tension by reminding the mostly-male audience that Jack might be a stereotype, but many of us know a Jack in real life. The audience laughed with delight and recognition. They nodded to friends as if to say, "Oh, yes. That's true." What he didn't say is that many of us are Jacks, but I wondered how many people would laugh at that statement...

Whatever Happened To TV's Flamboyant Gay Men? - an excellent article by Nico Lang for PolicyMic.

Arguing; "The recent television movement has been a push toward post-gay representation, creating male characters who just happen to be gay."

And that's called sad.

I'm wondering how true this is of British TV.

Seems to be a split between the real queens (eg anyone with their own chat show), and the straight-acting acted gay men (eg the distinct lack of gay nelliness in EastEnders).

Can I get back to you on this?

Twilight: Bloodsucker Blues

"It's amazing that they're already talking about another [Twilight sequel] before this one has even come out. I was also thinking another way to do it would be to make it look like Will and Grace, where Edward turns gay, but they still stay together, and they raise the kid and everything."

Robert Pattinson talking to Ellen.

Don't think I'm alone in wishing Taylor Lautner would go gay - his character in Twilight, I mean.

Word Of The Month: Codaddies

Hey! I just read this word in an American syndicated column by Cindy Adams, A Nation Of Tolerant Fatties.
"America is becoming more tolerant. Accommodating gay marriage. Fine with codaddies raising babies. Adjusting to two nonbiological mommies having children. Getting used to pregnant high school teens who flunk math but get A+ in biology..."
I thought what a great word for the gay (media) mania of the year, but despite all the babble about Gay Dads I couldn't recall having heard it before.
After a quick look on Google exhaustive research it looks like its a neologism.
A brand spanking new word!
Straight from the fridge, codaddy!
I think.
Sean Hayes - you remember, Jack from off of Will & Grace - is rumoured to be close to signing up to a new US TV comedy about codaddies, incidentally.
We live in strange and mysterious times.
Pass it on...