Looking back on 2008: Lesbian entertainment

If you want a complete overview of what exactly happened in entertainment this year that involved lesbians and bisexual women, go over to After Ellen for overviews in television, movies and music.

I just wanted to highlight some of the stuff that mattered to me…either in a positive or in a negative way. Not surprisingly, most of the time it was both. A mixed bag if you like. A good example is one of my favourite shows. At least, that is what it used to be.

Grey’s anatomy



It was the best and the worst series for me this year. It all started so very promising with some speculation over whether or not Callie Torres and Erica Hahn were going to fall for each other or not, followed by a kiss. A very sweet and hot kiss I might ad.

However, six months later we finally have them hook up, only to have Callie turn around a jump in the sack with Sloane the first chance she gets. Apparently, this was so he could teach her how to please a woman. WTF?

Then two episodes later Dr. Hahn declared she is so very gay which resulted in Brooke Smith being fired and Dr. Hahn exiting the show in the next episode. I stopped watching after that.

Other TV shows that featured lesbian and bi characters with varying degrees of success included House MD, Bones and Cashmere Mafia. Even though more enjoyable than previous seasons, there was the usual WTF and raised eyebrows about the fifth season of the L word, as well as about spoilers for the upcoming sixth season.

It seems like the L word really is the show we all love to hate. Unfortunately, the upcoming season will be the last. Another gay show that has just ended is South of Nowhere. I was never a big fan, but it is a real shame to see another show with great queer characters come to an end.

In the non-drama TV world, by which I mean non-scripted just to be clear, we saw a few gay ladies make quite an impression. One of those was Ellen. Who this past year spoke up about LGBT related issues much more than she did previously, including shooting a PSA about Prop 8.

And of course, there was the very public marriage between Ellen and Portia that even landed them on the cover of People magazine. It was great to see Ellen be so out and proud, even though I heart Ellen anyways.

A few peeps came out, including one of my favourite comedians Wanda Sykes and oh yeah, Lindsay Lohan, sort of. A newcomer that everyone seemed to love this year was Rachel Maddow. I have to say, I haven’t really seen much of her but what I have seen I like. A lot. She is pretty awesome.

Rachel Maddow on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno



When I think of lesbian entertainment, 2008 for me was really the year of the internet. I spent way too much time on here checking out my favourite queer websites and web series. This awesome new European lesbian website launched called eurOut and they even let me blog for them.

Other awesome new queer websites of 2008, included Tellofilms and a few others I cannot think of right now. On top of that, there appeared a whole bunch of very cool lesbian web series like 3Way, BJ Fletcher and Ghostella’s haunted tomb.

For film and music I can keep it very brief. My fave queer movie this year was Affinity and my fave album Amanda Palmer’s Who killed Amanda Palmer?

Amanda Palmer-Runs in the family



Any cool queer stuff I forgot to mention?

Comments

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