Gender Fuck Thursday: Red Carpet Attire

So in the last week or so I’ve noticed a lot of ladies showing up on the red carpet in full men’s wear. I’m not talking just a petite blazer over a pencil skirt, but a real formal suit. Obviously, I’m all for this. And, being driven by the unwavering pursuit of scientific excellence, my next step was naturally to conduct my own thorough research into this phenomena. And because no scientific finding can be verified without a thorough peer review, I present my findings to you. If science was always like this in high school, I would have become a nuclear physicist.

Leighton MeesterThis is a full-on traditional men’s suit. I approve.

Olivia WildeThis is a full-on traditional 80s suit. I disapprove.

Winona RyderThis looks like she stole it from Marilyn Manson’s closet. But, it’s Noni and she does an amazing job with her small but crucial part in “Black Swan.” So, um, forgiven.

Jane LynchThis looks like she stole it from the set of “Night at the Roxbury.” But, it’s Jane fucking Lynch. So, forgiven forever.

Julianne MooreFifty is the new OMFGHOWHOTISTHAT?

Christina HendricksThat thump you just heard was the sound of lesbians everywhere hitting the floor after passing out.

Diane KeatonLadies look good in white suits, too. Usually, better than men.

Janelle MonaeSometimes a lot better than men.

Tilda SwintonSometimes there is no gender, only Tilda Swinton.

Ellen DeGeneresHell, Ellen doesn’t even need a suit jacket. She already has the most beautiful life-size boutonniere you could ever want.

I think all these lovely ladies may have blinded me a little with their science. While I try to regain sight, tell me which of these specimens you find the finest. Science, it’s irrefutable.

Never cross a dame

Helen, Helen. Even when you’re cross you’re hot. You’re right to be cross. In fact, I like it when a lady is a little cranky sometimes. It shows she cares enough to hate what’s wrong with the world. Or, you know, just people in general. I totally get that. So when you answered The Hollywood Reporter’s question about how it makes you feel to be a role model for having sex appeal in your 60s like this, I can’t help but swoon.

“A bit cross, actually. We have to let go of this crap. It creates even more pressure on women, and I certainly don’t want to be a part of that. I’m not beautiful; I clean up nice. Why don’t we talk about the fact, for example, that I just did Arthur, and the cinematographer was a woman, the film operator was a woman, the whole camera team were women? That’s where we should be putting our attention. The fact that I look good at the age I am is bloody irrelevant.”

True and hot. I agree, the never-ending focus on women’s appearance at every age adds to the pressure to be, look, conform to some kind of idealized, unattainable beauty standard. But I also think it’s great to celebrate beauty in all its forms: any size, any age, any race. And, sometimes you just can’t fight the hot.

At The Hollywood Reporter’s annual Women in Entertainment breakfast yesterday, Helen took home the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award. Coincidentally, this is the same award Jodie Foster won in 2007 and finally publicly thanked her then longtime partner Cydney Bernard as “my beautiful Cydney.” Helen accepted her speech with her normal saucy humor and take-no-bullshit attitude. But first, she had to hike up her Spanx.

Helen, Helen. What is hot is not just the fact that you clean up well but that your mind is so clear. OK, it’s also hot when you SGALGG a little with Halle Berry. But mostly the mind thing. Mostly.

Trust us, Helen, no one here will ever “worship at the altar of the 18 to 25-year-old male and his penis.” But we will happily worship at yours. Always.

Telly Time

What do tea, taxicabs, buses, bookstores, church spires, cobblestone streets and lavish lesbian period pieces have in common? If you said, “Things that are better when British,” then reward yourself with a lovely biscuit (the British cookie kind, naturally). So imagine my delight at the news from last week that the good old Beeb will be producing yet another Sarah Waters lesbian bodice ripper. The BBC will adapt “The Night Watch,” Sarah’s most contemporary novel to date, into a 90-minute film. For those unfamiliar, “The Night Watch” is set in 1940s London, during and after the Blitz of World War II. It opens in 1947 and is told largely backwards – sort of like “Memento,” but with lesbians and without tattoos.

After “Tipping the Velvet” (for sentimental reasons), “The Night Watch” is my favorite Waters novel. In the film version mysterious, trouser-wearing Kay will be played by Anna Maxwell Martin from “Becoming Jane” and “Bleak House,” match-making agency runner Helen will be played by Claire Foy from “Little Dorrit” and her straight assistant Viv will be played by Jodie Whittaker from the TV series “Accused.”

[L-R: Anna, Claire, Jodie]

I have to say, the three women all look a bit like British doppelgangers for American actresses. Anna looks like Annette Bening’s younger sister, Helen looks like Alexis Bledel after four years at Oxford and Jodie has a Rooney Mara meets Elisha Cuthbert feel. I’m not super familiar with any of their work, since most of it is from across the pond. But the good old Beeb has an impeccable track record when it comes to sussing out fresh talent.

So, let’s raise a pint to those wily Brits for bringing more lesbian action to the telly. The country that gave us “Tipping the Velvet,” “Fingersmith” and “Lip Service” makes me seriously consider ex-pat status sometimes.

Black magic woman

Perfection is madness. It is a never-ending, all-consuming, ultimately unattainable quest. So then to single-mindedly strive for it is, in itself, a form of insanity. And it is that madness at the center of “Black Swan.”

The film is a thing of horrifying beauty, a gorgeous nightmare set in the world of elite ballet where grace is only achieved through years of punishment. That unforgiving world is Nina Sayers’ whole life. Played in a virtuoso performance by Natalie Portman, Nina is a technically brilliant but emotionally stilted dancer with the New York ballet company who dreams of leaving the corps and becoming the prima ballerina. She gets her shot when the arrogant artistic director decides to put on a reimagined production of “Swan Lake.”

And that is when things start to get freaky. The story is a story within a story. Everything, it seems, has a mirror image. The ballet company is performing “Swan Lake,” about a good swan and her evil twin. Nina looks remarkably like the new ballerina in the corps, Lily (played with irresistible smolder by Mila Kunis), who is also her understudy. And like in “Swan Lake” where the Swan Queen is rivaled by the Black Swan, uptight Nina feels threatened by seductive Lily.

Nina is sheltered in every way – she is a slip of a woman who still lives with her overbearing, stifling mother (played with creepy abandon by Barbara Hershey) and gets tucked in to bed every night in her pink childhood room surrounded by overstuffed teddy bears. Their relationship is the very definition of toxic, and not in the fun, dance-club Britney Spears way.

It’s hard to overstate how beautiful and how powerful Natalie is in this role. Some actors inhabit their parts, she shrinks into hers – both literally and figuratively. She does most of her own dancing and much has already been made of the months of rigorous training and strict diet she underwent to prepare to become this tiny dancer. Her Nina is brittle, driven, timid and obsessed. She is transcendent and terrifying and you can’t take your eyes off her magnificent face – nor can the camera. If Natalie isn’t a lock for the Oscar, she will certainly be in a caged death match with Annette Bening for the trophy come February.

In a way, “Black Swan” is the perfect female companion piece to director Darren Aronofsky’s last picture, “The Wrestler.” Both are about bone-crushing physicality and living solely for one’s art. But “Black Swan” takes the fetishism of ritual, discipline and pain to new heights. Nails split, toes crack – even a hangnail is not just a hangnail.

What is real, what isn’t real, what is a phantasmagorical paranoid lesbian fever dream? The experience is intense and trippy and gory and sexy and crazy and beautiful and painful, all at once. But mostly, just really fucking intense.

Things become unhinged in the best possible way. The movie is grandiose and overblown, preposterous and campy. Parts are even a little cliché. But it’s those very imperfections that make “Black Swan” so viscerally exciting. Like a dancer spinning precariously on point, the movie teeters on the edge of disaster.

But let’s get to why you’re really here. How was the sex between Natalie and Mila? Short version: Hot. Long version: Really hot. Seriously, even if the film wasn’t great – which is it – that scene alone is worth the ticket. Once this comes out on DVD I predict much rewinding, so much so that there might be a slight skip at one particular point on the disc. Have I mentioned that it’s hot?

Taut, claustrophobic, intimate, alive, the film crackles with manic energy. This is a movie that reminds me why I love the movies. To sit in the dark for two hours and become completely absorbed by a story is a sort of black magic. And when the spell is cast as bewitchingly as it is in “Black Swan,” you’re more than happy to fall under its exquisite madness.

UPDATE: To see when “Black Swan” is coming to a theater near you, check out the upcoming rollout dates. Then go see for yourself how everything is terrifyingly beautiful at the ballet.

My Weekend Crush

The best adjective I can think of to describe Julianne Moore is womanly. Now, I don’t mean this in any sort of outmoded domestic or pejoratively girlie way. I mean it in the way that her face, with its elegant concaves and sweeping curves, reminds me of everything that I love about women. That hair, those freckles – I could stare at them forever. Still, the most astounding thing about Ms. Moore is that she seems to be growing more beautiful with age. In fact, today is her 50th birthday and I have to say she has never looked more lovely. Her features seem to be both focusing and mellowing at the same time. It’s delicious.

Also delicious is Julianne’s obvious openness to playing gay. She has been not once, not twice, not even three times, but four times a lesbian lady for the big screen in “The Hours,” “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee,” “Chloe” and “The Kids Are All Right.” Throughout her career she has been drawn more to the complicated, messy character studies than neat, mainstream popcorn pulp. The results aren’t always perfect, but they are usually pretty interesting. And even if they’re not, well, we always have that glorious face to make everything seem better than all right. Happy weekend, all.

Oh, fudge it

My apologies. I had my hands full last night wrangling Padma Lakshmi & Co. for my “Top Chef All-Stars” recap for AfterEllen later today. And then my laptop came down with a nasty virus that delayed everything this morning. Oh, December, already with the illnesses. Now, I know I talk a lot about my mmm, Padma, Mmm. But she is, of course, not the only Kitchen Goddess I worship. I also like to lay sweet, chocolatey offerings at the feet (well, actually bosom) of the simply scrumptious Nigella Lawson. The thing that is so wonderful about Nigella (besides, clearly, that bosom) is her unfettered embrace of the concept of food porn. No one licks chocolate off a slotted spoon like Nigella. I mean, who else can make pouring condensed milk deliciously obscene? So, with that, please enjoy Nigella making chocolate pistachio fudge. If that doesn’t put you in the, um, holiday spirit, nothing will.

p.s. OK, for the hold outs, here is something else to lift those, um, spirits. You’re welcome.

Why don't you come on over

Now, the other day some of you seemed seriously perplexed at my lack of Brittana/Heya in the SGALGG co-workers post. But come on, kittens, you know I love me some Brittana. I mean I really, really love them. Like more than a person my age should. Like the breakdown of why I watch “Glee” is 50 percent Brittana, 40 percent Jane Fucking Lynch, 9 percent Kurt and 1 percent everyone else. Which, of course, is why this Brittany/Artie pairing (Bartie, or more accurately, Barfie) is starting to really piss me off. They make no sense – none. Brittany hit on Artie to make Santana jealous. Artie still likes Tina. Artie and Brittany have less than zero in common. Remember the no-no boobies finger? You only deny the ones you love. And how could we forget the intertwined pinky fingers? Never, that’s how. And then this episode gave us the all-powerful beckoning finger. Oh, Santana Lopez, what you can do with just one little finger.

[Hat tip, stace_ for finding The Beckoning gif!]

You know, I don’t expect a lot from “Glee.” I mean, I do I expect ridiculously elaborate musical numbers, out-of-nowhere character developments and the continued creepification of Mr. Shue. I watch it for fun and escapism and jazz hands, as I’ve said so many times before. But sometimes, just sometimes, I hope against hope that “Glee” can be more. It has done more, particularly with Kurt (though, come on guys, give that poor kid a boyfriend already). So why not let Brittana be that for the gals, too? Why force them into awkward and unnecessary straight pairings? I mean, Santana and Puck at least make a little sense. They’re both just hot and horny teenagers. But Brittany and Artie? That’s just a deliberate poke in the eye. Look, Ryan Murphy, I know you know that us gay ladies can be sustained on subtext alone for seemingly forever. We’re use to table scraps and sweeps month smooches. But that doesn’t mean that’s all you have to give us. We deserve more, so much more. Though, I am grateful for the ass slap.

Come on, Mr. Murphy, we’ve been very good this year. I think we deserve a big box of Brittana in our stocking this year.