As Pride moves seamlessly into the Independence Day holiday and a coup is quelled in Russia, we're looking for uplift as the days get hotter and the politics get more dicey.
While we were celebrating the last weekend of Pride, the right was celebrating taking bodily autonomy from anyone with a uterus on the first year anniversary of the calamitous Dobbs decision that overturned Roe. GOP presidential candidates gave speeches in which they tried to out-fascist each other with how much worse they would make things if they were elected.
And as we know, attacks on bodily autonomy always land heavily on lesbians, bi women, trans and nonbinary people and gay men, so we can't afford to ignore these folks—but we can also take a breath and relax with some queer TV. (www.epgn.com)
'Sex and the City' sequel's second
Season 2 of "And Just Like That..." the sequel to the HBO series "Sex and the City" is back, baby. If you needed the hot middle-aged women of summer to make you feel grounded, here they are, this time with a much hyped cameo appearance from Kim Cattrall's Samantha. People pronounced the new season "Sexy, daring and sizzling."
"You don't move on because you're ready to, you move on because you've outgrown who you used to be." So says Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and we are catapulted back to our '90s youth and our middle-aged present. It's not terrible to feel all those things at once. Life comes at you hard between one's 30s and one's 50s and this series addresses that to varying degrees.
You'll get to see Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) exploring her queer side we just knew she always had with Che (Sara Ramirez, whom we've loved since "Grey's Anatomy"), who this time is less cipher than in season 1. And Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is a deeply invested helicopter mom. Sarita Choudhury's Seema Patel is a terrific addition, making the case for menopausal sex. Nicole Ari Parker as Lisa Todd Wexley is fabulous.
And a lot more. It's not deep, it's not heavy. It's just as much as we can bear with 2024 bleating all around us. But if you don't expect too much, you will have a good time with some old friends you reconnected with at the Pride march.
"And Just Like That..." is about how we craft new beginnings, next chapters, finding joy when it feels like none exists. And all with these people we know so well they feel like old friends. It's streaming now on whatever we're calling HBO these days.
Make-up to break up
Did you want to see "The Devil Wears Prada" meets "Ugly Betty" meets "The Bold Type" as a queer series starring Kim Cattrall and a young gender non-conforming queer person? Yes you did, kids. You just didn't know it until you tuned in to Netflix's "Glamorous."
It's everything you imagined it could/would be: fun, arch, painful, catty, queer, delightful. Yes, "Glamorous" brings joy and we need as much of that as we can find this summer.
Marco Mejia (Ben J. Pierce, YouTube breakout star Miss Benny) is an aspiring influencer who has to get a real job. Rather than get stuck in cubicle world, Marco looks for a better life at the make-up counter and ends up landing a job working for legendary makeup mogul Madolyn Addison (Kim Cattrall). From there Marco tries to revolutionize the fashion industry. Hilarity, romance and more ensue.
And yes, it's as queer as that proverbial $3 bill we always heard about growing up, with Zane Phillips as Madolyn's hunky son Chad, and Michael Hsu Rosen as the nerdy-but-nice Ben for a love triangle. Add out queer actor Ayesha Harris ("The L Word: Generation Q"), and Jade Payton and some fun queer cameos from Joel Kim Booster and drag star Monét X Change.
There are a lot of intersecting queer and trans storylines, which makes the series feel very fresh and Gen Z. Miss Benny is a delight and Cattrall is just fabulous.
Not for nothing, Netflix dropped all 10 episodes of "Glamorous" as HBO/MAX dropped "And Just Like That..." so there's definitely some shade somewhere. Bask in it, delight in it, watch both shows with a really dirty martini or a luscious frozen margarita and be dazzled. And just like that, your stress level dropped, right?
A good morning
ABC's "Good Morning America" celebrated Pride Month with a live, surprise marriage proposal during the June 23 broadcast. "GMA" helped Gen Agosto propose to her partner, Ari Lopez, who thought she was on the show to participate in a quiz game for couples.
Agosto says she was "slightly" nervous, but guessed, "She's going to start crying, and then I'm going to start crying, and then we're all going to start crying..."
Lopez said, "I'm just surprised, honestly..." adding "This is fabulous!"
We love a love story! Watch at www.goodmorningamerica.com
Elliot Page is touring with his new memoir, "Pageboy," and stopped by "The View" to talk about the book, his coming out as trans in 2020, his transition from closeted lesbian performer to out trans actor and memoirist and activist and it was very compelling.
Whoopi Goldberg opened the interview asking, "Why now?" Page said it was impossible to talk about who he was and his life as an actor before now.
Page has been demonized on social media for a week since the interview aired, with the J.K. Rowling pseudo-feminist acolytes and the MAGA GOP claiming that Page is miserable and other cruelly anti-trans and homophobic things we won't print here. The assertions are that Page just needed mental health help to be a happy lesbian.
Folks, that's not how this works. Watch Page's interview. He's grounded, he's earnest and he's trying to live his best life. If you can't support that, you can always exercise your right to not be terrible.
The New York Times is still doing episodic TV/podcast things. In their latest, "The Retrievals," dozens of women seeking to become mothers came to a fertility clinic at Yale. A five-part narrative series explores the shocking events that unfolded there. Episode 1 arrives on Thursday, June 29. Hosted by Susan Burton and produced by Susan Burton and Laura Starecheski; on Apple and Amazon Prime. (
Of course there's nothing like one's own Pride parade, but our Twitter friend Rafael Shimunov made a short film of the Pride parade in Queens, New York which we shared with our followers. It's eight minutes of joy and representation and inclusivity. AOC makes an appearance, as do old folks, young folks, families, every ethnicity, queens, dykes, and trans folks, with a plethora of allies on the sidelines. We teared up at the sign held by one person seeking asylum "for a last chance at love."
We're here, we're all kinds of queer and trans and NB and our love will supercede their hate. (Twitter)
So, for the occasional coup as well as hot fun in the summertime, you know you really must stay tuned.
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