BY FRANCESCA LEWIS
Lesbian.com

Though it was criticised for being too light, an intentional shift by creator Jenji Kohan after the dark reign of Vee in season two, the third season of Orange is The New Black still packs some political punches. Amid the genius silliness of Suzanne’s erotic masterpiece Time Hump Chronicles and Piper’s soiled panty business “Felonious Spunk”, there are some real issues being quietly raised this season.

1. Big Boo’s Family Tension Over Her Butch Presentation

Season three sees all of the characters, especially those usually on the sidelines, gaining much-needed depth, and one of the best examples of this is Big Boo. Her friendship with Pennsatucky brings out her nurturing mama butch side, which is as touching as it is badass, but it’s her flashbacks that finally provide her with the nuance afforded to many other characters from early on. A key feature of this season’s flashbacks has been how surprising they are, not just in playing against our assumptions about characters, but in challenging our ideas and raising issues not often discussed. Homophobia has been explored many times before and yet the story of Big Boo’s struggle to be her authentic self, in the face of overt rejection from her mother and manipulative coaxing from her father, feels fresh and important to see. This is because it reminds us that being queer is not just about sexuality and that gender roles are imposed not only by society at large but by our families. Big Boo’s is a seldom-told story of how harmful it is to stifle a person’s right to self-identify and be their authentic self.

2. MMR’s Soulless Corporate Takeover of Litchfield

The most obviously political real life issue this season is the prison’s new evil overlords, MMR, a profit-hungry company that cuts every corner and cares nothing for the well-being of inmates or staff. In real life, corporate giants like Corrections Corporation of America and The Geo Group, both of which manage 60+ US prisons, make billions of dollars while conditions deteriorate and inmates suffer. The inclusion of this issue in OITNB allows for the human impact of this growing problem to be explored. Unlike State-run prisons, that may or may not care about their inmates but are regardless often underfunded and overcrowded, private prisons have the means to make safe and enriching environments for prisoners, but as we see in the painful boardroom scene this season, all they care about is the bottom line. The MMR takeover of Litchfield is a perfect, hilarious and disturbing glimpse into what privatization really does to the prison system and the people within it.

3. Soso’s Botched Care

Soso’s story was the one I felt myself identifying with most. As a mixed race oddball, I sometimes struggle to know where I fit in with social groups and have had my fair share of run-ins with clueless semi-educated therapists. Throughout the season, Soso’s pot of rejection, depression and loneliness is stirred and stirred, threatening to boil over at any moment. When she seizes the chance to steal Benedryl from the doctor prescribing her depression meds, an important point is made: whatever you think about medicating depression and how well it works, if it is not accompanied by therapy with a person the patient can trust, she will feel unheard, alone and possibly suicidal, perhaps rendering the meds tragically redundant. The issue is not that Healy was so quick to recommend pharmaceuticals – though that in itself is an important issue – but that he, unlike Berdie, invalidated Soso’s feelings and made her feel powerless. Soso’s journey provides a powerful reminder that it is absolutely critical to listen to people in crisis, especially when that’s like your whole job, and not fob them off with platitudes and medication.

4. Pennsatucky’s Abuse 

The Pennsatucky of season three is almost unrecognisable from the cartoonish punchline of the first season. Like one of those “I need feminism because…” images come to life, Dogget’s flashbacks and her abuse at the hands of new, untrained, unvetted guard Coates are a depressing microcosm of the sexism women face throughout their lives. From her mother’s well-meant and terrible advice upon her first period that she is basically a walking vagina waiting to be used by men, to her stint bartering sex for Mountain Dew, to the horrific rapes she endures, her life highlights the consequences of the objectification of women and the prevalence of rape culture, which dictates that consent is not an issue and sluts are asking for it. The show’s sensitive handling of these events, particularly the depiction of sexual assault, honouring the complexity and never feeling voyeuristic, is admirable and an example shows like Game of Thrones would do well to follow. Dogget’s experiences show the lifelong struggle for women to claim their bodies and be safe in the company of men.

5. The Hate Crime Against Sophia & What Happens Next

Laverne Cox is a superstar, everyone wants to be her BFF, and the character she plays on OITNB is a fan favourite while providing much needed visibility for the transgender community. Sophia is universally loved by viewers and inmates alike, but this season the show chose to go deeper and explore what happens when a transgender person steps outside the role cis people have carved out for her. Up until now, Sophia has been a sideline character, never really caught up in the hijinks of the group, not really affiliated with any of the cliques, just the jolly diva in the salon. With her third season storyline, which sees her struggle to parent an increasingly misogynistic and homophobic son from behind bars and maintain the good will of fellow inmates following a fight with another woman, we learn that acceptance isn’t always permanent and that in our current society, a trans person can have her rights taken away in the blink of an eye. In this moment of shallow transgender acceptance Sophia’s story raises some tough questions about what a real ally is.

Francesca Lewis is a queer feminist writer from Yorkshire, UK. She writes for Curve Magazine and The Human Experience as well as writing short fiction and working on a novel. Her ardent love of American pop culture is matched only by her passion for analyzing it completely to death.

The post Real Issues Raised in Orange Is The New Black’s Third Season first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Just when you thought you couldn’t love Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black” one bit more, we introduce you to this adorable kitten-filled parody. Welcome to “Tabby is the new Cat.” (Spoiler alert: Alex is even sexier in feline form.)

The post ‘Orange is the New Black’ is the cat’s meow first appeared on Lesbian.com.

On June 26, Logo TV will air its initial edition of “Trailblazers,” a one-hour special featuring the celebrities, politicians, activists and trendsetters who are actively working to effect cultural change for the betterment of the LGBT community.

Actor Daniel Radcliffe, a longtime supporter of The Trevor Project, will serve as presenter as DOMA activists Edie Windsor and Roberta Kaplan, the cast of the groundbreaking Netflix series “Orange is the New Black” and openly gay former NBA star Jason Collins are honored.

Scheduled to air during the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and the one-year anniversary of DOMA being overruled, “Trailblazers” will also feature performances by A Great Big World, Ariana Grande, Tegan and Sara, Iggy Azalea, Mary Lambert, Jared Leto, Kylie Minogue, Rita Ora and Tyler Glenn.

The event will be held in New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, one of the first churches to host gay marriages, and Logo is offering viewers an opportunity to share stories of their own “Hometown Trailblazers” with a chance to win a trip to the Big Apple to view the event live.

The post Logo TV ‘Trailblazers’ honors Windsor, ‘Orange is the New Black’ first appeared on Lesbian.com.

“Orange is the New Black” cast at the NYC GLAAD Media Awards. (L-R) Laura Prepon, Taryn Manning, Yael Stone, Natasha Lyonne, Samira Wiley, Sarah Kate Ellis, Selenis Leyva, Dascha Polanco, Laverne Cox, Emma Myles and Alysia Reiner.

BY CANDY PARKER
Lesbian.com

The New York celebration for the 25th annual GLAAD Media Awards was held Saturday night, with Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black” and actor and LGBT activist George Takei among the honorees.

Comedian Fortune Feimster hosted the event which featured performances by Kylie Minogue and Grammy-winning country artist Kasey Musgraves. Musgraves’ appearance marked the first time a country star performed at the ceremony.

George Takei received the Vito Russo award which is presented to an openly gay media professional for promoting equality for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. “Orange is the New Black,” a Netflix original series based loosely on the book of the same name by Piper Kerman and documenting life at a women’s prison, was named outstanding comedy series.

Honorees at the event included:

Vito Russo Award
George Takei

Outstanding Film – Limited Release
“Concussion” (RADiUS-The Weinstein Company)

Outstanding Comedy Series
“Orange Is the New Black” (Netflix)

Outstanding Individual Episode (in a series without a regular LGBT character)
“Snow Angels” Elementary(CBS)

Outstanding Film – Wide Release
“Philomena” (The Weinstein Company)

Outstanding Talk Show Episode
“First Openly Gay NBA Player Jason Collins and his Family” Oprah’s Next Chapter (OWN)

Outstanding TV Journalism – Newsmagazine
“Transgender at 11: Listening to Jazz” 20/20 (ABC)

Outstanding TV Journalism Segment
“Gay Rights at Work” MSNBC Live (MSNBC)

Outstanding Magazine Article
“The Hidden War Against Gay Teens” by Alex Morris (Rolling Stone)

Outstanding Magazine Overall Coverage
The New Yorker

Outstanding Digital Journalism Article
“Sex, Lies and HIV: When What You Don’t Tell Your Partner is a Crime” by Sergio Hernandez (Buzzfeed.com/ProPublica.org)

Outstanding Blog
The New Civil Rights Movement

Kasey Musgraves performs her hit song “Follow Your Arrow”

Boy George introduces gay icon Kylie Minogue

George Takei receives the Vito Russo Award

The post ‘Orange is the New Black,’ George Takei honored at GLAAD Media Awards first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY EMELINA MINERO

AfterEllen’s Managing Editor, Trish Bendix, first realized that she could get paid to write about queer culture when a journalist on an arts and entertainment reporting panel at her college shared how he got his start writing with gay magazines. It was that moment that sparked her journey into queer media with freelancing and starting her own endeavors.

In 2006, discontent with the national print media for queer women, Bendix co-founded now defunct Chill Magazine, a queer print publication focused on the female community in Chicago. In 2007, realizing that the majority of their audience was outside of Chicago and that managing a blog would make their content more accessible, she co-founded Girlfriendisahomo.com, a nationwide news and pop culture site for queer women. Frustrated with the lack of organization in a queer music festival she helped organize with her then girlfriend in 2007, they created their own, Queer Fest Midwest. In 2010, when Bendix realized that SXSW didn’t have an organized space for the queer community, she created their first queer panel. Bendix has an eye for seeing what’s missing in queer representation, and a passion for filling those voids.

Bendix infuses her passion into her work, and she has been outpouring her energy for the queer community into AfterEllen since 2008. We got to chat with Bendix about her take on queer media, its evolution in the past seven years and her upcoming novel.

In a 2007 “Feministing” interview, you talked about how you were looking for yourself reflected in the music you listen to, the films you watch, the art you view and the books you read because like everyone else, you deserve to have a presence in American culture. Seven years later, from the point of view of a consumer and creator of queer media, what changes have you noticed in queer representation?

When I started at AfterEllen, we didn’t have enough lesbian, bisexual or queer portrayals in media or pop culture to write about on the site, so we’d have one big weekly column called Best Lesbian Week Ever, and that’s where most of the tidbits would go. The rest of the site was more open to writing about women we liked or admired, many of whom have played a gay role or are fierce allies, so part of the greater community.

It’s incredible how much that has changed in seven years time. Now there is so much representation for us to comment on or cover that it’s almost impossible to do it all. AfterEllen used to post one big feature a day (an interview, a movie review, an “L Word” recap) and then a few blog posts. Now we are averaging around 12 stories a day with explicitly lesbian or bi themes.

I think what has changed is the amount of truth-telling that we as the LGBT community have done. We have demanded and pushed to be seen and heard, and we are becoming a big enough mouthpiece collectively that our stories are being told, and being told right. It used to be that lesbian characters were small roles and frequently villainous or punished in some way for their deviance — or used for titillation during sweeps week. I think the more queer women are out in the real world, the more we will see ourselves accurately represented as whole human beings in characters on the small and big screens. And with that kind of representation comes the responsibility of educating Americans who might not know a lesbian in real life. One thing I’ve learned during my time at AfterEllen is to never underestimate the power fictional characters can have on real people.

How do you believe the queer community is positioned by the media and pop culture, and how has that evolved over time?

The way we are positioned now is much better than it has been in the past. It’s constantly evolving, but I think the balance that exists now between how much positive news and information is shared about the community vs. negative is so much better. In fact, I would venture to say that the mainstream media and culture (American, specifically) has been much more pro-LGBT. (The “B” and “T” still need more improvement.)

I think a great way of comparing how much things have changed is looking at the number of out people on television daily: Rachel Maddow, Ellen DeGeneres, Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, Robin Roberts, Sam Champion. It’s only a handful, but these people have power, the kind that we could only dream of back when Ellen first came out and had her show subsequently cancelled.

How does increased mainstream coverage of the LGBT community impact queer media, as well as your role as a queer journalist?

We’re at a really interesting time with queer media because we are no longer the only ones telling our stories. The fact that major internet outlets have their own separate LGBT sections or that “Orange is the New Black” is prominently featured on “EW” or “The Daily Beast” means that some might argue we are not as necessary in 2014 and beyond.

I think what really separates us, though (us being the LGBT media), is that we are speaking to a very specific kind of reader, one who comes to us with an understanding of queer culture and ideas. One who is hoping for an involved discussion on sexuality or facets of it as portrayed in the media or pop culture. Our recaps of a lesbian relationship on a TV show will surely be different from that on a major television site. Our recaps on AfterEllen are one of the biggest draws to readers for that very reason, and the powers that be behind television shows are aware of that.

Every year I go to the Television Critics Association conference in Los Angeles — once in the winter, once in the summer — and I feel half journalist, half lobbyist. While other reporters are there to find out scoops on castings or plot twists, I’m often asking producers, writers or network heads about LGBT visibility, pressing them on what they are doing to make it better. It’s a unique situation to be in there, but I like to think that part of my job is keeping people in tune with what we want, too, and that is fair representation.

Social media has made that kind of connection to writers, producers [and] networks so much easier, and now fans can rally and reach out on their own, but sometimes a face-to-face interaction with someone about their lack of queer characters can be fruitful.

You’re working on a book right now. What is it about and what inspired the story?

I’m working on a novel about two women that end up on a road trip across the country together based on their two different journeys back to where they came from. It’s set in 1993, which was a very scary time for women in the United States, as there were several tragic high profile murders, specifically in the Pacific Northwest where it is partly based.

Much of my inspiration came from my nostalgia for the time period, in which in real life I was a few years too young to participate in the riot grrrl/Lesbian Avengers era, and so I chose to live in it through fiction. Also there aren’t a lot of road trip stories about women, and that was exciting to me, too.

The largest theme I can call out from the book is rebuilding yourself after you feel like your life has been burned down, and how that can happen in the wake of devastation.

What has surprised you the most in the process of working on your book?

I started thinking I was going to write the book from only one woman’s perspective but ended up going back after an early draft and adding a second perspective, so the chapters alternate between the two main characters. And through that I actually found that my second character was much stronger and people that have read pieces of the book thus far actually like her better!

When can we expect your book to release?

I’m still at work on it but hoping to have it completed in the next few months. So I’d venture to say 2015.

What advice do you have for people who want to get involved in creating queer media?

Don’t read the comments. (Seriously though.) Okay but really, make yourself an expert. What I mean by that is, start writing, reporting, doing the things you want to do and prove that you are a valuable voice of the community. Make yourself knowledgeable — read, watch, learn all about our history and representation in the past — and be indispensable. But really, know that you will never, ever, ever please everyone.

The post Trish Bendix discusses queer media, pop culture first appeared on Lesbian.com.

The cast of the award-winning series “Orange is the New Black” describes Season 2 in just three words.

Season 2 will be available on Netflix on June 6.

The post ‘OITNB’ cast: Season 2 in just three words first appeared on Lesbian.com.

(Photo courtesy of Jill Greenberg)

BY CANDY PARKER
Lesbian.com

Netflix ramped up anticipation for Season 2 of “Orange is the New Black” today with the release of the sophomore year trailer.

The critically acclaimed series is a favorite among lesbians with many clamoring for the Season 2 debut on June 6. Expectation for the Peabody award-winning series has been building since release of the teaser for the upcoming season two months ago.

Fans of the series will recognize many familiar faces in the two-minute clip with Taylor Schilling, Laura Prepon, Jason Biggs, Kate Mugrew, Danielle Brooks, Uzo Aduba, Natasha Lyonne, Taryn Manning, Laverne Cox, Michael Harney, Samira Wiley and Yael Stone all returning for a second stint behind bars (or at least within the prison’s barbwire fence).

The riveting trailer also introduces viewers to an intriguing new character, Yvonne “Vee” Parker, played by Lorraine Toussaint.

The post ‘Orange is the New Black’ Season 2 trailer unveiled first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Netflix announced that season 2 of our favorite jailhouse dramedy will be available for streaming on June 6. Here’s a little teaser to amp up the anticipation.

The post ‘Orange is the New Black’: Season 2 teaser first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Some snapshots from the party (Via Pop Up Photobooth Instagram)

Last weekend, the cast and crew of “Orange is the New Black” had a roller skating wrap party for the end of production on Season 2 … And you missed it.

Never fear, some of the lucky partygoers (including actress Laura Prepon) snapped some silly pics in the PhotoBoothPopUp and shot some video of other cast members, include Lavern Cox, reliving their roller disco glory days.

Watch the videos and read more at Huffington Post Gay Voices

The post Rolling with the ‘OITNB’ wrap party first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Cast of “The L Word”

Ten years ago this Sunday, Showtime premiered the first ever television series focused on lesbian life and relationships. “The L Word“ boasted star power from lead Jennifer Beals, legendary actress Pam Grier and the Murmurs‘ frontwoman Leisha Hailey. Creator Ilene Chaiken has been the subject of much contempt for the way some storylines played out over the years, as well as some of the very white casting choices. But it is undeniable that “The L Word” has been a major influence on how queer women are written on television (and film, too).

From “The Fosters” to “Orange is the New Black“, “The Good Wife”, “South of Nowhere”, “Exes & Ohs”, “Lip Service” and, of course, “The Real L Word“, here’s how lesbian TV has played out in the last decade.

Read more at AfterEllen.com

The post 10 years later: ‘The L Word’ and lesbian television first appeared on Lesbian.com.