I'm in trouble then. Especially with my Twilight Hangover. Which is a totally real thing. It's what happens when you go to the midnight screening of New Moon at Lincoln Center, the guy in front of you keeps turning around to throw flirty glances and you think, "If I get picked up at The Twilight Saga I will have to recreationally throw myself off a cliff," they close the subway on 66th Street, and by the time you're home, at 3:30 AM, you start realizing that Taylor Lautner is actually pretty adorable with his shirt on. Or maybe I just need a nice guy in my life. But now I'm at work. Twilight Hangover.
But the movie did remind me of one relevant fact. Boys with expertly styled hair and powered-down skin? Boys who spent 18 hours at the gym each week and then say they're just growing? They have secrets. Monsters inside of them, and when you have to start keeping their secrets things get messy. Just ask Peter Stone. Tonight on Degrassi we see if Peter can help his friend Riley safely out of the closet without anyone else getting a broken nose or a clocked jaw. Riley's a wild guy, and he's not going gay without a fight.
Degrassi: The Next Generation "Beat It Part 2" airs tonight on Teen Nick at 8/7 central. You can catch up with this season by watching episodes online at The Click at TeenNick.com or downloading past seasons from iTunes or Amazon.com.
You'll want to check back in on Monday for the full recap, where we'll be talking about what's really going on with the kids today, what they've inherited from you, the dirty truth behind student LGBT groups, and how a weekly dose of Glee factors in to all of this.
Man, some recaps just write themselves, so let's dive into this, shall we?
Previously: Riley’s gay and the quarterback of the football team and his big life dreams include being the most popular guy in high school. Like Teen Witch! When we last caught up with him he was making YouTube videos about his best friend Peter (spot on) and publicly dating Fiona, though girl has some sexual issues of her own.
This week Degrassi was all about things both terrifying and desperately exciting -- like high school swimming pools.
So Riley is training to be a lifeguard because I guess all those steroids he bought got to be expensive, and now he needs some extra cash this summer when he and Peter sneak into that one-screen theater in the bad part of town where’s it’s important to bring a blanket or a big sweatshirt. Jokes. Obviously Riley would internally combust if he ever saw gay porn. He pretty much combusts when their student instructor, whose birth name I believe is Cute Lifeguard, performs CPR on a dummy, not even another student, and those flushed pink lips breathing heavy on a piece of plastic sculpted like human parts sends one of Riley’s human parts straight into the air. This does not go unnoticed and Riley immediately and obviously dives into the pool to save face. Whaw whaw trombone. Riiiiiiley, what’re we going to do with you?
Where can you find the most nuanced LGBT characters this side of Showtime? It's not any major network or adult drama, but actually a little station called TeenNick (formerly, or more commonly known as The-N). Surprising to most adults, but not to kids in the know, TeenNick has little to nothing in common with it's Disney Channel equivalent, and between shows like Degrassi: The Next Generation and South of Nowhere, the station regularly features the kind of gay and lesbian characters not seen on any major network's high school shows, including Gossip Girl or The OC.
So tonight, one of the network's flagship shows, Degrassi: The Next Generation, will host the first of a two part, two week episode event as Riley, played by Agiris Karras, the latest of the show's regular gay high school students, struggles to come out.
To get you caught up I've broken down Riley's story on the show episode by episode, so you'll have all the facts before Riley has to tell his football team he's already part of another different kind of team. So let's take a journey, shall we, to painful high school experiences you'll be GLAAD you never had...
"The Man With Two Hearts" (Season 8, Episode 5): Oh Peter. The foppish, flaxen-haired child of divorce who now inexplicably lives in his own apartment at age: Tom Sawyer, grade: infinitely in high school. He had already lost his rape-victim girlfriend to that foreign looming force called the CW, and soon vampires would take away his new, teenage mother girlfriend. Yes, Peter had a way of picking up the scraps just before they were turned shiny and new. But Peter had had it with his "kiss-of-fame," it was time to go where there was no kissing. It was time to go where the boys were! Enter Riley. A hardy male with the build of a moose and a smile like pancakes. Or however Canadians like to describe themselves. So Peter and his friend-for-life Riley played that game where they knew how to throw a punch like Ponyboy and Sodapop, and in a moment of pure testosterone Peter's balls finally dropped and Riley got brave and OH DAMN HE KISSED HIM. And oh. But Peter was so sweet, and so lonely, that he said it was "OK, man." He and Riley were still bffs, forever and ever until Riley got his own CW show called The Beautiful Life Take 2. Readers still in high school -- this does not happen in real life. Boys you kiss who don't kiss back? They do not stay friends with you. Especially straight boys. Peter, I'm quite sure, is just a miracle of TV.
> Pasty Robert Pattinson reveals that he felt a little star-struck
when he came face to face with the golden vision that is Zac Efron,
"just because his face is so specific, it’s kind of surreal."
> The first and only Playboy bunny to come out (Stephanie Adams, Miss November 1992) is marrying ... a man.
Our featured honoree of the day from the "School Days"–themed 2009 Out 100 -- this year's look at the 100 gay, lesbian, and trans people who made an impact in both gay and mainstream culture -- is Kelly McGillis.
McGillis’s coming out last April created an outsize media storm. The 52-year-old star of Top Gun and The Accusedrevealed she was a lesbian to SheWired.com, unleashing a torrent of support from around the globe. McGillis, who also starred on The L Word as a closeted army colonel trying a “don’t ask, don’t tell” case, emphatically said she is “done with the man thing.” A sexual icon for millions of straight boys who grew up in the 1980s, McGillis became another iconic example of the significance of sexual honesty later in life. This winter she will star in a U.K. tour of Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.
During the coming days we'll continue to roll out more honorees from the 2009 Out 100 -- shot by renowned photographer Jason Bell -- until the full portfolio is revealed in stores and online in mid-November. Keep checking back for a new honorees and in the meantime check out the 2008 Out 100 here.
Here is an exclusive first look at the 2009 Out 100: our collection of the 100 gay men, women, and trans people who have made 2009 a year to remember. In the coming days we'll reveal the rest of the honorees, including the directors, writers, Broadway producers, musicians and stars who have shaped popular art and culture; the bravest young voices, the dedicated campaigners, the openly gay politicians and lobbyists who've brought us this far; and the ordinary LGBT people who have inspired us with their extraordinary actions.
This year's theme is a gentle nod to the days that shaped, delighted, and terrified us all and made us who we are today -- school days. We've dubbed Chaz Bono (above, shot by Jason Bell) "Most Likely To Reinvent." The only child of Cher and Sonny Bono, Chaz has a long history in queer activism. After coming out in the April 1995 issue of The Advocate, he went on to write for the magazine, serve as a high-profile spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, became entertainment media director for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and penned two books centered on LGBT issues. After several years under the radar, Bono broke news in June that he had begun FTM gender reassignment surgery.
Thursday evening, October 29, Entertainment Tonight will begin airing Bono's first interview since he revealed he is transitioning. After you've watched the preview here, check your local listings for channels and times to catch Mary Hart's full chat with Chaz.
Thursday night Charlize Theron let a female fan put her money where the actress's mouth is -- literally. During a live auction for charity OnexOne in San Francisco, Theron took to the stage to offer a 2010 trip to South Africa, including World Cup tickets, a safari, and a chance to meet Nelson Mandela. When the bidding lost its momentum at $37,000, Theron jokingly berated the crowd saying, "For fucks
sake! You can do better. There is no way I am
leaving here with Jeremy Piven getting a higher bid [he had just raised $280,000]. I've got tits for
God's sake."
To lessen the gap, she offered a 7-second kiss for $130,000 to a male bidder. "Swine flu is going around. This is high risk kissing!"
she told him. After another man bid $135,000, a woman offered $140,000 and won a 20-second kiss from Theron, who laughed, "My boyfriend is not here tonight." Not that he would have minded even if he were there -- straight men love watching this sort of thing, don't they?
It’s
hard for us to imagine -- especially when reflecting on a year that saw the
legalization of gay marriage in Iowa and the release of both Brüno and Milk -- that the word “homosexual” was
banned from Hollywood as recently as 50 years ago. So it was with incredulity
and the stonewashed thrill of watching something that had once been illegal in
the U.S., that I rented Victim, a lesser-known British film from 1961, directed by Basil
Dearden. Victim
is notable in the timeline of gay cinema because it’s the first English
language motion picture to -- gasp! -- include the word “homosexual.”
But
what was gay film like before “homosexuality”? To find out, I watched another
1961 classic, The Children’s Hour, starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine. The film
focuses on two schoolteachers whose careers, and livelihoods, are threatened
when a particularly vindictive schoolgirl spreads a rumor that the two women
are involved, or “different,” as the film poster’s tagline reads. While
lesbianism, or accused lesbianism, is essentially the main source of stress for
the two heroines, the words “lesbian” and “homosexual” never actually make an
appearance in the film’s script. It would’ve been illegal at the time, as the
Hays Code hadn’t yet begun to shed its embargos on sexual portrayal. (That
code, which regulated films with a laundry list of moral restrictions, would
become obsolete by 1968 when the MPAA adopted the film rating system that is
used today.)
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