April 20, 2001
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 15
on the airoff the press
Miss Manners has good advice for a bridesmaid
by John Graves
Confused about what you, your beloved and the wedding party should wear at your upcoming same-sex wedding? Syndicated etiquette columnist Miss Manners, a.k.a. Judith Martin, has some good ideas.
A woman wrote to Miss Manners recently, saying she "had accepted the honor of being a bridesmaid at a same sex (female) wedding."
"We need advice on the appropriate dress for everyone involved," she wrote, speaking for the bridal party. “Both women are young professionals who usually dress in what is now called dress casual. Neither of them likes the idea of getting married with both of them in wedding gowns, both in tuxedos or one in each. No one else in the wedding party has come up with a good idea, and, of course, our dress will depend upon theirs."
Miss Manners responded, "You didn't ask Miss Manners to consult tradition here, but that is what she is going to do. And not recent tradition, either. They should dress up. This is not a casual event. But neither is it a costume party, and much of today's bridal regalia is dangerously close to resembling that."
"Traditionally," she continued, "people simply wore their best clothes for the occasion and did not concern themselves with dressing for roles. Suits are always suitable, and Miss Manners leaves it to them whether either or both suits should have trousers or skirts."
Kudos to you, Miss Manners, for your most accepting and respectful response. Bailey, Reuben join 'Ally McBeal'
Gender illusionist Jim Bailey will join Paul Reuben (Pee Wee Herman) and a host of celebrities on a special guest-star-loaded episode of Fox's Ally McBeal set to air April 30.
On the show, Bailey will play a man who is suing his plastic surgeon for a botched nose job.
Currently, Reuben is playing Derek Foreal, a gay hairdresser-turned-coke-dealer in the recently released film Blow.
A 'storm' over gay characters
The supermarket tabloid Star has run their latest version of what has become an annual, if not semi-annual, item: a special three-page report on the many gay roles on television this season, and a supposed “storm of protest" over them.
"Hollywood is defying a storm of protest and turning out more and more gay TV shows," writes Bob Michaels in the story. "Networks execs insist they're only reflecting the real world—and that gays are good for ratings."
Will & Grace creator David Kohan told Michaels, "Networks used to ask whether shows had too many episodes with gay plot lines in them. Today they ask whether they have too many gay shows."
Scott Seomin, of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, added, "TV is helping the rest of America to come to terms with this. The entertainment media is here to entertain, but there's another function to enlighten."
Michaels says Will's friend Jack will share a "passionate” kiss with his new boyfriend Toby on a Will & Grace episode to air sometime in May. (Us Weekly reports Jack will find out he has a 13-year-old son in another upcoming episode.)
In one of the profiles in the Star report, actor Kerr Smith talked about the mail he receives because of his portrayal of openly gay high school student Jack McFee on Dawson's Creek.
Smith told Michaels, "I get a lot of mail from people going through similar situations. I can't imagine going through a sexual identity crisis at age 16."
Hanks to play gay again
Actor Tom Hanks, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of a gay lawyer living with AIDS in the film Philadelphia, will play a gay cop in an upcoming film written by screenwriter Alan Ball, who won an Oscar for the film American Beauty.
In the as yet untitled film, set in Pittsburgh, Hanks' character is shocked when he discovers the victim in a homicide he is called to investigate is his own lover.
Delightfully obnoxious
Openly bisexual comic Andy Dick, whose new comedy sketch show airs several times a week on MTV, is writing a new cable movie for VH-1.
Dick's as-yet unnamed film will feature Andrew Taylor, one of his Andy Dick Show creations whom Entertainment Weekly describes as a "flamboyant, megalomaniacal style guru."
"He's just so delightfully obnoxious," Dick told the magazine. "I'm doing a pretty straightforward parody of a documentary about a fashion designer, much likeTM Unzipped with [openly gay] Isaac Mizrahi." Mizrahi in ABC show
Speaking of Mizrahi, Us Weekly reports he will star as a publicist and gay best friend of a New York publisher in Born in Brooklyn, an ABC pilot scheduled to be aired this upcoming fall season.
Let them think that
Us Weekly's Brantley Bardon recently asked Kate Brasher star Mary Stuart Masterson if she was aware her role as Idgie Threadgoode in Fried Green Tomatoes had made her "somewhat of an icon" in the gay community.
"Yeah," Masterson replied. “I've experienced it a bit when people have been, um, very complimentary, and I think it's awesome-there aren't enough gay icons. For a while, though, I thought, ‘Does everybody think I'm gay?' One time [Tomatoes co-star] Mary Louise Parker and I went to a club, and we were dancing together, and we were like, "Well, let them think that—that'd be funny." Star-struck in bed
West Wing's Allison Janney told TV Guide that when she was just getting into acting, a manager told her she was too tall, and was "only fit to play aliens or lesbians."
Janney, born in Dayton, is Press Secretary C.J. Cregg on the NBC series. She will play a lesbian in the upcoming film The Hour, co-starring Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore.
She still hasn't gotten over her love scenes with Streep.
"I had to pinch myself." Janney told TI Guide. "All I could think was, I'm in bed with Meryl Streep! Oh, my God!“ 'Queer Duck' headed for TV?
Three company founders and two former employees have bought up the assets of the failed Icebox.com web site and are planning to convert some of the site's edgy animated programs, such as Mr. Wong, Zombie College and Queer Duck into TV and movie properties.
USA Today's Jefferson Graham reports that web site syndicator Mondo Media has agreed to put 25% of Icebox's old shows. including Zombie College and Meet the Millers, into its network of sites. including Lycos and Netscape.
Mondo CEO John Evershed says that if the original Icebox had received additional funding, it would have made it.
"They had a great idea, using the Internet to develop programming for movies and television. Now they're operating at the right scale and have time to get it right."
Tal Vigolerson, one of the five partners who bought the Icebox remains for an undisclosed sum at a bankruptcy hearing, told Graham the partners are talking with various web companies about hosting an Icebox page or channel. Mondo also will serve as a link when it begins distributing the programs, probably within a month or so.
Graham says that although the new Icebox will have access to all the old programs. plus many new ones, Queer Duck, a show about a gay Jewish duck and the first Icebox show to receive paid sponsorship. will de-
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but this spring on Sho.com. That is the web site of Showtime. Queer Duck's original
sponsor.
Third 'Tales' debuts
Further Tales of the City, the TV adaptation of the third book in Armistead Maupin's six-book series of gay and straight life in 1970s and '80s San Francisco, is set to debut on Showtime May 6.
The new four-part show picks up where the PBS original and a previous Showtime special (based on books one and two) left off.
Once again. Olympia Dukakis will portray Anna Madrigal. the mystical transgendered landlady, while Laura Linney will reprise her role as the ambitious Mary Ann Singleton.
Los Angeles Times correspondent Ann O'Neill says indie film actor Henry Czerny "does a creepy turn as Luke, a hobo who lives in a shack in Golden Gate Park, takes up with a ditzy society writer, and may or may not be the Rev. Jim Jones."
Maupin recently turned down an offer by the San Francisco Chronicle, where Tales began as a serial. to write more installations. He is now focusing on other novels and screenplays.
The Night Listener, Maupin's most recent novel, made the Los Angeles Times bestseller list last year.
John Graves is the producer and host of Gaywaves, a lesbian-gay public affairs show on Cleveland's WRUW 91.1 FM Fridays at 7 pm, and at http://radio.cwru.edu. Dave Haskell, Jim McGrattan and Kim Jones also contributed to this column.
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Human Rights Campaign Cleveland
Dinner & Dance May 5, 2001
At the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel Grand Ballroom
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Over 1,000 Expected to Attend Black-Tie Gala
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Local Sponsors
Ulmer & Berne, LLP; The Club Cleveland; Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff, LLP; Smythe, Cramer Co.; IBM Corporation; Process Creative Studios; Triad Communications; Gay People's Chronicle; Outlook News; OutInCleveland.com; and Ernie Cahoon, Tracy Carnes, Tim Downing & David Posteraro (as of 3/28/01)
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