As we write this we're watching a roundtable on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360." A group of white and Latina GOP women is explaining how all 17-year-old boys are rapists, it's a rite of passage, and it shouldn't prevent anyone from becoming a Supreme Court justice. That's a slight exaggeration, but only slight.
The plot twist in the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court has been shocking: Dr. Christine Blasey Ford accusing Kavanaugh, in grim and horrifying detail, of sexually assaulting her when she was 15 and he 17. Watching this latest drama play out over CNN and MSNBC has been a brutal reminder of just how misogynist America is, and how very little has changed since the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991.
Hardest to witness have been women dismissing Ford and/or claiming she's a liar. NBC's Megyn Kelly, who keeps letting her Fox News roots show, posited that Kavanaugh had rejected Ford as a teen and she's been waiting for 36 years to carry out some kind of bunny-boiler revenge scenario against a defenseless Kavanaugh.
We made the mistake of watching Fox News on Sept. 20 to see what they were saying about the scandal, and Tucker Carlson's take was that 2020 presidential hopeful Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) was the reincarnation of Joe McCarthy for suggesting Kavanaugh should welcome an FBI investigation if he were innocent of the allegations. Then Jeanine Pirro, who Donald Trump Jr. thinks should be Attorney General, said she thought Ford was hypnotized by her therapist into accusing Kavanaugh for political reasons.
The most disturbing comment we've seen came from a small press conference with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), president pro tem of the Senate. Hatch told reporters in a taped interview that even if Kavanaugh had actually raped Ford, it wouldn't count against him, because it's really about who he is now. Incredible.
Just to prove that it's not all seriousness, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) joked on live TV that there had been a new #MeToo revelation: "Did y'all hear the latest, late-breaking news from the Kavanaugh hearings?" Rep. Norman said, joking that was the reason he was running late for a candidates' debate. "Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out that she was groped by Abraham Lincoln." Real thigh-splitter, that one.
The ugliness of this past week has been stunning. Straight white male privilege really is protected above all else. At press time, the argument being advanced by the GOP for what happened is that Ford confused Kavanaugh with a different Georgetown Prep student. Yes, their best effort against a sexual assault accusation is "all rich white prep school guys look alike, but none are guilty."
We have no idea how this is going to play out, or whether Kavanaugh will do what is honorable and withdraw. But we did love Sen. Mazie Hirono's (D-HI) demand in a press conference that men need to "just shut up and step up. Do the right thing, for a change." Badassery.
Supreme women
Speaking of badassery, we have to take note of two supreme badass women who are making TV history this week as their shows return for the new fall season. Emmy winner Mariska Hargitay enters Season 20 of NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" as the longest-running actress on prime time. The series itself is now tied with "Gunsmoke" and the original "L&O" for longest-running prime-time series. The 434 episodes have all featured the Emmy-winning Hargitay as the tough but compassionate Detective Olivia Benson, in a series that has never been more relevant in these days of #MeToo.
For Hargitay, the series has touched her personally as well as professionally. In interviews, she has talked about how letters and public exchanges with fans have impacted her. So many rape victim-survivors have written to her or spoken to her at events, revealing their own sexual assaults. The show allowed them to speak their truth.
These exchanges and some of the show's storylines, like one which highlighted the national backlog on untested rape kits, prompted Hargitay to found her own charity for sexual abuse survivors, the Joyful Heart Foundation, and to produce a documentary about the backlog of rape kits, "I Am Evidence."
Olivia Benson is one of the most beloved female characters on TV, with her deep devotion to victims and desire for justice. Hargitay told the LA Times Sept. 21 that "SVU" had been a Zeitgeist moment for everyone involved.
"I realized that we hit the pulse of the country," she said. "These things that were taboo in our society — sexual assault, incest, domestic violence — all of a sudden it was like, 'Did you see 'SVU' last night?'"
Some episodes have been harder to watch than others, and there have been some hits and some misses with LGBT storylines, but the ones that have worked have been superb. The season premiere is Sept. 27.
On ABC, "Grey's Anatomy" enters Season 15 as the longest-running prime-time series on that network. There were some major changes at the end of last season, and some losses that were hard to accept, like Dr. Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw), the longest-running lesbian character on prime time. After a decade of real lesbianism, it was hard to see her go.
The series that had the longest-running lesbian couple in TV history, until Callie and Arizona broke up, has added its first gay male surgeon, Dr. Nico Kim (Alex Landi). The new doc checks all the boxes: he's brilliant and drop-dead, breathtakingly, Milan runway, half-Korean, half-Italian gorgeous.
"Grey's" has never shied away from showing real lesbian sex, and Callie and Arizona were a sexual couple, but what about gay male sex on prime-time network? We can only watch and hope for lots of shirtlessness and more, because Landi is ripped, waxed and oiled to perfection.
We've loved "Grey's" from its very first season, and the core characters, especially title character Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), feel like family. The two-hour season premiere on Sept. 27 augurs lots of surprises.
One badass we had hoped would return this fall won't. Plum Kettle (Joy Nash) and her compatriots Julie Smith (Tamara Tunie), Kitty Montgomery (Julianna Margulies) and Verena Baptist (Robin Weigert) comprised the core feminist bastion of AMC's "Dietland," one of the most critically acclaimed series of last season. But on Sept. 21 AMC announced it was cancelling the complex dramedy. What an error in judgment. The creation of Marti Noxon, the series should have been a ratings grab, particularly addressing the taboo topics of women's sexuality, body image and rage as it did. "Dietland" was also quirky, noir-ish and a little sci-fi. It was not easily nailed as a genre on a network that has an overwhelmingly male audience for fundamentally violent and male-driven programming. Joy Nash was the only fat woman on TV who was not a joke character but a young, pretty, sexually driven character whose body looked like a good half of the female population of America.
"'Dietland' is bold, original and brave," AMC said in a statement. "We are beyond proud of our partnership with Marti Noxon, Joy Nash, Juliana Margulies, Skydance and everyone else involved in bringing Sarai Walker's story to the screen. 'Dietland' garnered critical acclaim and passionate fans, but unfortunately we will not be able to continue with a second season."
The ratings were there for the first couple episodes, but then they tanked. We think this was because "Dietland" was an intensely feminist series with two major characters who were lesbian revolutionaries on a network that simply wasn't the right place to showcase it. While we watched religiously, it was easy to forget it was on AMC and find it there each week. Hopefully Hulu, Amazon or Netflix will pick it up for another season.
Also returning is "9-1-1," for a second season. This drama has a plethora of gay and lesbian characters and also Angela Bassett, who makes everything better. Jennifer Love Hewitt joins the cast this season in the are-we-sure-this-is-Ryan-Murphy? Fox series.
"The Resident" is also back, and we hate-watched this through half of last season, yet couldn't stop watching.
"The Purge" is essential viewing and so much gayer than we expected, but also massively bloody, so be aware. Yet still not as bloody as "American Horror Story: Apocalypse," which may be the season that is just too frightening to watch, we're not sure. Sarah Paulson is so menacing and the concept of a cannibalistic Joan Collins really took us aback.
"Jack Ryan?" We have Amazon Prime, but we haven't got to it yet. We'll let you know. Sometimes one needs a thriller.
Some things that made our eyebrows arch this week were Anderson Cooper getting trolled by Donald Trump Jr., who claimed Cooper had misrepresented the intensity of Hurricane Florence. Never before in history have we witnessed anything like the mishegoss of this administration as it oozes out over everything. It was a hurricane. To quote Trump Sr., "It was wet." That bizarre exchange, which took place over Instagram, Twitter and Cooper's TV show, drew homophobic backlash against the out gay anchor, fueled by Junior's trolling. We've said it repeatedly over the past 21 months: When she referenced "deplorables," Hillary Clinton was understating.
Meanwhile, "Sesame Street" felt compelled to announce that Bert and Ernie are not gay. Vociferous insistence that the gay Muppet couple who have been an item for years were, well, just not gay. That's all you need to know. Stop saying they are gay.
"I created Bert. I know what and who he is," Frank Oz wrote on Twitter in response to a tweet asking why the characters couldn't be gay. Former "Sesame Street" writer Mark Saltzman said he had written the two characters as a couple based on his own relationship with film editor Arnold Glassman.
"It seems Mr. Mark Saltzman was asked if Bert & Ernie are gay. It's fine that he feels they are. They're not, of course," Oz wrote in a bizarre, unnecessary and homophobic tweet. "Why that question? Does it really matter? Why the need to define people as only gay? There's much more to a human being than just straightness or gayness."
Only gay? Really? Well, that is what straight people always say, yes. But for those of us who are gay, having representation is always going to matter. We watched the drama go down in real time and trend on Twitter, and we admit to being surprised at how insistent Oz was. He said, "When a character is created to be queer it is indeed important that the character be known as such. It is also important when a character who was not created queer, be accepted as such." We tweeted to Oz that it was often difficult for parents to accept when their kids were gay.
The conflict continued when Sesame Workshop issued a statement (yes, let's issue statements about the sexual orientation of puppets) asserting that Bert and Ernie were just good friends, which angered people more. Sesame Workshop had issued a similar rebuttal (we wrote about it here seven years ago) when there was a petition requesting that the couple get married on the show.
After seeing the outrage over their first statement, Sesame Workshop issued a second statement Sept. 20: "Sesame Street has always stood for inclusion and acceptance. It's a place where people of all cultures and backgrounds are welcome. Bert and Ernie were created to be best friends, and to teach young children that people can get along with those very different from themselves."
For his part, Oz continued to fight with people on Twitter (a losing proposition, as we know too well). Some wanted to know why Oz felt compelled to assert that Bert and Ernie were not gay. Oz said, "The same need I would feel if Bert were identified as a linebacker for the Colts. It's not honest." Right. Because people are always confusing puppets with linebackers. And the Colts?
Something we weren't expecting to be gay is the PBS Masterpiece series "The Miniaturist." The three-part drama is set in Amsterdam in 1686, a period of religious fervor and strict social mores. We want to avoid spoilers, but it's very gay, beautiful visually, with each scene like a Vermeer, and the acting is subtle and nuanced. The story revolves around 18-year-old Nella Oortman (Anya Taylor-Joy), who arrives in Amsterdam to meet her wealthy merchant husband Johannes Brandt (Alex Hassell), but is instead met by his sister Marin (Romola Garai). There are two servants, surly Cornelia (Hayley Squires) and loyal Otto (Paapa Essiedu). Otto is the only black man in Amsterdam, a slave Johannes bought and freed. What transpires among them is shocking and will make you oh-so-grateful to be living in this century, not that one. Available via local PBS stations. A compelling, introspective and darkly questioning piece about the nature of family, the price of freedom and what it meant to be gay several centuries ago.
Finally, as we predicted, Darren Criss ("Glee") won the Emmy Award for Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his portrayal of serial killer Andrew Cunanan in "The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story," directed by Ryan Murphy. The series also won for Limited Series and for Outstanding Casting for a Limited Series. Criss was thrilled, made his girlfriend cry with his sweet acknowledgment of her (we keep forgetting he's not really gay, he's so convincing), and we were so pleased he won.
When we're right, we're right. So for the ghastly non-Marvel DC series, old faves folding us into their comfy if often bloody arms, and for that puppet couple we know is one of us, you really must stay tuned.