My Weekend Crush

If you’ve been here even a little while you know I have a thing for great dames. Not necessarily the Dame Judi Dench kinds of dame, though she is rather great as well. But the kind of dame who suffers fools with snark while remaining smart, capable and just the right kind of sexy. So then it should come as no surprise to you that I already have my first new crush of the fledgling fall season. And that new crush is Julie White.

Yesterday I blathered on about my appreciation for the new sitcom “Go On” over at AfterEllen yesterday. In particular, I’ve been impressed by the way the show has portrayed its lesbian character, Ann, played by Julie. Ann is a widowed mother whose wife died of a massive heart attack from forgetting to take her medication. She started out as a bit of your standard-issue angry lesbian in a blazer. But in four short episodes she has become one of the most empathetic and hilarious characters. She is also multi-dimensional and fully gay, not just gay in name only. But her gayness is never the problem. The fact that she’s grieving the loss of someone she loved, like everyone in the support group, is the problem. It’s refreshing and well done and I simply can’t wait to see more of her on my screen.

Much of the credit goes to the writing, of course. But another big chunk of that goes to Julie, a veteran TV and stage actress who turned what could just have been The Angry Lesbian into an entirely enjoyable and incredibly real person. Not that we should have been surprised. Julie has appeared on a number of TV shows from “Grace Under Fire” to “Six Feet Under” to “Law & Order: SVU.” But her stage work is even more impressive because she has a shiny Tony sitting on her mantel for best lead actress in a play in 2007.

So should it come as any surprise that Julie has made Ann one of the most interesting, most watchable, more fleshed out new lesbian characters in TV? No, it really shouldn’t. Because that right there is one hell of a dame. And, well, you know how I feel about them. Happy weekend, all.