“That’s So Gay” Public Service Announcement
Posted on October 9, 2008
Filed Under Advertising, Gay/Lesbian | Leave a Comment
The Advertising Council and the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) have teamed up to fight the phrase “That’s so gay”? The groups enlisted lesbian comedienne Wanda Sykes and heterosexual actress/singer Hilary Duff to headline their first two television commercials. Watch them below.
Catherine Opie: American Photographer
Posted on October 8, 2008
Filed Under Arts/Culture, Gay/Lesbian, New York, Photography, Women | Leave a Comment
“American Photographer,” the subtitle of Catherine Opie’s midcareer survey at the Guggenheim, is both a statement of fact and a critical provocation. From her now-iconic queer portraits like Self-Portrait/Cutting, 1993, to the restrainedly elegant series “Freeway,” 1994–95, the quietly polemic “Domestic,” 1998, and, more recently, her lustrous photographs of surfers, Opie’s work has focused on subjects ranging from the far periphery to the dead center of Americana, often expanding and modifying conventional understandings of both. Presenting more than 180 photographs, this vast exhibition should further complicate our take on these images and the social groups they portray, asking how Opie’s subjectivity—as it is declared or presumed—shapes interpretation, and how meaning is made and remade through consecutive bodies of work. A catalogue, which includes and essay by author and lesbian activist Dorothy Allison, accompanies the show. [Artforum]
Visit the exhibition at:
Through January 7 2009
Linda Reigns Supreme
Posted on October 7, 2008
Filed Under Advertising, Fashion, Women | Leave a Comment
The recent revival of the supermodel shows no sign of waning and these raunchy pictures of Linda Evangelista are proof.
Photographed for a fashion spread in W magazine the Canadian beauty strikes a number of dominatrix-style poses in the 11 pictures entitled ‘Love/Hate’.
The photo layout by fashion photographer Steven Klein is one of many new projects the supermodel (who famously said: ‘I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day’) has embarked on recently.
With big name brands turning to familiar faces in the wake of the economic downturn, the 5 ft 9.5″ model is currently fronting Prada’s Autmun/Winter lace look campaign and was appointed L’Oreal’s international spokesperson last November. The beauty company announced a profit boost of 20 per cent since she appeared in their TV advertisements.
Buy Sony-Support Breast Cancer Research
Posted on October 7, 2008
Filed Under Advertising, Gadgets, Health, Shopping, Technology, Women | Leave a Comment
To support breast cancer research, Sony is selling pink bundles - for example the pink VAIO notebook, the Handycam Camcorder and the Walkman –during National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Two offers in support of BCRF:
$10 from the sale of each Walkman NWZ-E436FPNK, $50 from the sale of each Sony HDR-TG1 Handycam Camcorder, and $75 from the sale of each VAIO Pink SR Series Notebook bundle, sold at Sony Style in the month of October will be donated to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, for a minimum donation of $25,000 and up to a maximum of $50,000.
Sony Electronics will donate $100,000 from the sales of pink VAIO CR Series Notebook bundles and pink VAIO CS Series Notebook PCs during the month of October at participating authorized retailers.
There’s no better time, or reason, to buy yourself something. At Sony Style.
Did Palin Flip-Flop or Mislead On Gay Rights?
Posted on October 7, 2008
Filed Under Elections 2008, Gay/Lesbian, Politics, Women | Leave a Comment
Watching the vice presidential debate, you might have gotten the impression that Sarah Palin supports civil rights for same-sex couples. During an exchange on the topic, both she and Joe Biden said they oppose gay marriage. But Biden added that he and Barack Obama favor granting gay couples many of the same benefits—hospital visitation rights, health benefits—that married couples enjoy. Palin was tougher to pin down. She clearly didn’t want to appear intolerant, but neither did she want to seem to embrace gay rights. “[N]o one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed …” she said.
The folks in Alaska might have been surprised to hear that. In the past, Palin has described her opposition to granting gay couples the benefits married couples receive.
She also thinks homosexuality is a choice. Watch as she responds to Katie Couric.
Madeline Albright Corrects Palin
Posted on October 6, 2008
Filed Under Elections 2008, Politics, Women | Leave a Comment
At a rally on Saturday in California, Sarah Palin offered up a rather jarring argument for supporting the Republican ticket. “There’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t support other women,” the Alaska Governor said, claiming she was quoting former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Actually, Albright didn’t say that. The accurate quote is, “There’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t help other women.”
Albright responded to Palin’s remarks in a statement to the Huffington Post on Sunday. “Though I am flattered that Governor Palin has chosen to cite me as a source of wisdom, what I said had nothing to do with politics. This is yet another example of McCain and Palin distorting the truth, and all the more reason to remember that this campaign is not about gender, it is about which candidate has an agenda that will improve the lives of all Americans, including women. The truth is, if you care about the status of women in our society and in our troubled economy, the best choice by far is Obama-Biden.”
Women To Watch
Posted on October 6, 2008
Filed Under Arts/Culture, Entertainment, Film/Video, Gay/Lesbian, International, New York, Women | Leave a Comment
Two new films to see. Written by Shamim Sarif and produced by Hanan Kattan and Enlightenment Productions.
The World Unseen
In 1950’s South Africa, apartheid is just becoming institutionalized. Free-spirited Amina has broken all the rules of her own conventional Indian community, and the new apartheid-led government, by running a café with Jacob her “colored” business partner. When she meets Miriam, a young traditional wife and mother, their unexpected attraction pushes Miriam to question the rules that bind her. When Amina helps Miriam’s sister-in-law to hide from the police, a chain of events is set in motion that changes both women forever. The World Unseen is a captivating human drama, based on the highly acclaimed, multi award-winning novel by Shamim Sarif. Opens November 7th at the Quad Theatre in NYC
I Can’t Think Straight
In the upper echelons of traditional Jordanian society, Reema and Omar, wealthy Christian Palestinians, prepare for the marriage of their eldest daughter Tala.
But back at work in London, Tala encounters Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating Tala’s best friend Ali. The women have an instant effect on each other.
Tala sees something unique in the artless, clumsy, sensitive Leyla who secretly works to become a fiction writer. And Tala’s forthright challenges to Leyla’s cultural foundations begins a journey of self-awareness for Leyla.
As the women fall in love, Tala’s own sense of duty cause her to pull away from Leyla and fly back to Jordan where the preparations for an ostentatious wedding are well under way. As family members descend and the wedding day approaches, the pressure mounts.
When Ali and Leyla’s feisty sister Zara help throw Tala and Leyla together again, Tala finds that her own preconceptions of what love can be is the final hurdle she must jump to win Leyla back.
Screening November 7th @ 9:00 pm at the Museum of Arts and Design and November 9th @ 12:00 noon at the Tribeca Theater, NYC.
Immigrant Women Working As Dancers Say Job Is Dangerous
Posted on October 5, 2008
Filed Under Entertainment, New York, Women | Leave a Comment
As neon lights bathe the dance floor of the darkened nightclub, a group of young women from Latin America sit at tables, sipping water or soft drinks and waiting.For $2, the women will dance one song. For $10, they will dance a set. Forty dollars buys an hour of their time.
The scene plays out in immigrant neighborhoods across New York, providing a key source of employment for immigrant women and a haven for men seeking to stave off the loneliness of being far from home. It is a perfectly legal form of entertainment — there is no stripping, but plenty of hand-holding.
But some of the women say the clubs have a darker side. They complain about exploitative management, sexual advances from clients and even violence. A dancer was recently shot and killed in Queens, and one of the city’s largest dollar-dance venues is now the target of a federal lawsuit.
For many dancers, the stigma of working at the clubs is the most trying problem.
“Sometimes people or clients say we’re prostitutes, but we’re not. We dance,” said Tania Zarate, a dancer at one club in Queens. Full Story
Gay Elders’ Distinctive Challenges Up Close
Posted on October 5, 2008
Filed Under Gay/Lesbian, Health, New York, Women | Leave a Comment
photo: Mary Altaffer
Frank Carter was once a globe-trotting professional dancer; his world is smaller now. He battles multiple health problems, walks with a cane and rarely leaves his compact Manhattan apartment.
As an 86-year-old gay man, with no family nearby and many acquaintances long since dead, he’d seem a likely prospect for isolation.
Instead, he has kindled a deep, five-year friendship with Gigi Stoll, a fashion model-turned-photographer half his age. Stoll helps Carter with medical arrangements, writes to him when she travels overseas, and sat with him for six hours during his most recent hospitalization.
“The other guys in the hospital, no one was coming in to see them,” Carter said. “To get that gift, you have to be lucky.”
It’s not just luck. Stoll came into his life though a program that matches infirm gays and lesbians with volunteers who commit to making weekly visits.
Long overlooked by society at large, and even by younger gays, elderly gays and lesbians are emerging as distinct community, getting more help and attention as they confront challenges that differ in many ways from their heterosexual counterparts.
Advocacy groups say the estimated 2.5 million gay seniors in America are twice as likely to live alone, four times less likely to have adult children to help them, and far more fearful of discrimination from health care workers.
Many fear anti-gay animosity or bias at senior centers, in nursing homes and from health care providers. Some gay elders even keep their sexual orientation secret from the home health aides who may provide their only sustained company.
A watershed moment comes this month, when the AARP — the largest advocacy group for Americans over 50 — for the first time sponsors a major national conference focused on gay and lesbian aging. It’s being organized by SAGE (Service and Advocacy for GLBT Elders), the New York-based organization which counts Carter and Stoll among its thousands of clients and volunteers. Full Story
Heart Condemns Use Of Song On Campaign Trail
Posted on September 18, 2008
Filed Under Elections 2008, Entertainment, Politics, Women | Leave a Comment
What’s in a song? Apparently a lot, if the song happens to be Heart’s 1977 hit “Barracuda” and the people playing it happen to work for Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
Following Governor Palin’s address to the Republican National Convention, strains of Heart’s classic “Barracuda” filtered through the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., in deference to the first female GOP vice presidential nominee.
After Palin made such a forceful and at times biting debut on the national political stage, the song seemed a dead-on choice to symbolize the GOP’s brash new political star.
Heart front women Nancy and Ann Wilson were so aghast by the GOP ticket’s use of their music to promote Palin that they publicly issued a cease-and-desist order asking the McCain campaign to stop using their song, posthaste.
In a statement to Entertainment Weekly , the Wilson sisters even went so far as to say that ”Sarah Palin’s views and values in no way [their emphasis] represent us as American women.”
Heart’s website states: Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart have informed the McCain/Palin Campaign that Universal Music Publishing and Sony BMG have sent a cease-and-desist notice to not use one of Heart’s classic songs “Barracuda,” as the congratulatory theme for Sarah Palin. The Republican campaign did not ask for permission to use the song, nor would they have been granted that permission. “We have asked the Republican campaign not to use our music. We hope our wishes will be honored.”
According to CNN.com, the campaign has said that it had paid for and obtained all necessary licenses before using “Barracuda.” [Advocate]
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