Gender Fuck Thursday: Awards Edition

While it hasn’t been a particularly surprising award season so far (yes, we get it, you liked Beef, Bears and the movie about The Bomb), it has been a pretty season to behold. Many of the best and brightest or at very least most photogenic among us have decided to go the Gender Fuck route and wear snappy suits to the various red carpet outings. And, as always, I am here for it. In fact, if we don’t get at least a few major suits at the Oscars I will riot. (Kidding, I won’t riot. There’s too much real shit happening that deserves rioting - sadly.) Anyway, keep up the good suits, you gorgeous actor types.

Natasha Lyonne and Clea DuVall

Truly, exactly what I’d expect Megan and Graham to look like together 25 years later. (Yes, I’m sorry to inform you, it’s been 25 years since “But I’m a Cheerleader.)

Bella Ramsey

Bella’s suit game has been STRONG all season, and they have only just begun their red carpet career. So many more suits to come.

Ayo Edebiri

It’s hard to call someone so cool the “darling” of the award season, but she is definitely my darling and I’ve only seen her in “Bottoms.” Speaking of which, did anyone clock the little suit she’s wearing - in white. Ahem!

America Ferrera

Suddenly I have the strongest wish to see America as Ken. Because in that tux she’s more than Kenough. Much more.

Meryl Streep & Greta Gerwig

Little Women, but they wear suits through the whole thing. What? I can’t have innovative IP ideas as well?

Amanda Seyfried & Meryl Streep

Or, hear me out, The Devil Wear Prada but Miranda only wear Prada suits and sunglasses. Amanda approves, clearly.

BONUS Someone on Twitter called them boygenius and honestly, yeah. I’d definitely buy a ticket.

What a Doll

Fine, OK. I had a Barbie. One. I had ONE Barbie. And one Ken – the kind eternally in the swim trunks. But I was always more of an action figure girlie and/or “tomboy” as they called us back then or future gay as I call my past self now. So, I didn’t really know what to expect from the Barbie movie. I knew I liked Greta Gerwig’s work. And I knew the cast was ridiculously stacked. And I knew it would be some kind of send-up.

But “Closer to Fine,” Crazy Seer Lesbian Barbie Kate McKinnon, and Birkenstocks? Yeah, more like, “Portrait of Plastic Lady on Fire” – >amirite? But, seriously, this looks all sorts of fun and funny and feminist (I mean, the bad guys are literally trying to keep a woman in a box! They’re practically Republican congressmen!) Come on, Barbie, let’s go to the movies.

Oscars So Oscars

So, that happened? In a year with ample great films directed by women (Greta’s “Little Women,” Lulu’s “The Farewell,” Céline’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” Marielle’s “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” Lorene’s “Hustlers,” Olivia’s “Booksmart”) and truly great performances by women of color (Lupita in “Us,” Awkwafina in “The Farewell,” J-Lo in “Hustlers”) how is it even mathematically possible that only one person of color was nominated in the acting categories and a big, ugly zero women were nominated for best directing in for this year’s Oscars?

Oh, yeah, because the Academy is 84% white and 69% male. That’s how. It’s always fun to hear folks complain about “identity politics” when straight white men have been supporting/promoting/celebrating/voting for other straight white men for, I dunno, fucking centuries.

I mean, apparently “Little Women” directed itself. How else can you explain its multiple best acting nominations, its best adapted screenplay nomination and its best picture nomination – but it’s lack of best director nods? Women, we’re amazing – we can make movies without ever needing to direct a single soul. What can’t we do?

Also, ScarJo getting two, yes two, nominations and Lupita, J-Lo, Awkwafina getting none? And the one black acting nomination coming for yet another role about slavery because those appear to be the only black narratives the Academy consistently recognizes? Because we really, really should.

Gender Fuck Thursday: Timeless Edition

I forgot to post this photo of Greta Gerwig and Tilda Swington holding hands on the red carpet during award season. I rediscovered it in my “To Do” cache of saved photos the other day. And I felt it wrong, on a cellular level, to keep it from you now – even though it is terribly belated. Because a dapped Victoria lady and her swell Victorian lady companion are a treat to see anytime.

Out of the Woods

At long last, is it finally Woody Allen’s moment in The Reckoning? A tiny trickle has become a steady stream of actors who have worked with the filmmaker in the past and are now denouncing, and apologizing, for their involvement with him.

They include Ellen Page, wonderful and brave Ellen Page, who posted in November about her own experiences with sexual harassment and called working with Allen “the biggest regret of my career.” Then this week alone there was Greta Gerwig, Mira Sorvino and Rebecca Hall. Lest you think it’s only ladies, two men have also stepped up – actors Griffin Newman, David Krumholtz, and Timothée Chalamet.

This matters, this really does, and I truly hope more actors and actresses who I admire and respect greatly, but have worked with Allen in the past step up. (Please, Cate, please please please, Cate.) We need them. Plus we need a lot more dudes to start stepping up, too.

If you want to familiarize yourself with why we need all their voices please refer to the two open letters Allen’s daughter, Dylan Farrow, has written about her father’s sexual abuse of her as a child. The first was in 2014, which brought the long-simmering allegations of abuse back to the vivid and horrifying forefront. Then she wrote an op-ed just last month wondering aloud why The Reckoning had not touched her abuser yet.

Her accounts of what he did to her have not changed. Not for decades. What has appeared to have changed is the public acceptance of the industry’s lame excuse that this was a purely “family dispute” not to be waded into out of a false sense of decorum.

I hope the full force of The Reckoning finally sweeps Allen, and all of his ilk, into the murky depths where they belong – never to heard from or lauded again. And if, by chance, you don’t think speakingout after the fact means much, please refer to Dylan’s own heartfelt response. It matters. We need them, we need more of them. It matters.

There have been some brave and bold women who have taken a stand with and for me in the past few days. I want to acknowledge their integrity, their courage, and their exemplification of a new way forward. Thank you, it means the world. #TIMESUP

— Dylan Farrow (@realdylanfarrow) January 13, 2018