Check Out This LEGO Recreation of the Star Wars: Episode VII Teaser Trailer: VIDEO
You’ve seen the nerdgasmic teaser trailer released yesterday, now check out the LEGO recreation from one dedicated fan who had wayyy too much free time on his hand.
Watch, AFTER THE JUMP…
Kyler Geoffroy
Greg Louganis Has Some Advice For You
Olympian Greg Louganis’s life has been full of achievements, and he thinks more of us can be like him if we live our truth.
Annie Hollenbeck
www.advocate.com/sports/2014/11/29/greg-louganis-has-some-advice-you
Thankful, But I Need More
I am a gay Harvard senior. I am thankful for every piece of that sentence: for my sexuality that often brightens my world, for my school that has changed me, and for my education that I take with me as I aspire to change—to make brighter—the world I am about to enter.
When I arrived home to Arizona for Thanksgiving, I arrived home for the first time with the right to marry a man. I want to say that I couldn’t be happier, but I know that I could.
Marriage equality has dominated the national conversation about justice for the LGBTQ community. The recent rulings on marriage are worthy of our attention, as a Supreme Court decision now seems more likely than ever. I wanted to spend Thanksgiving feeling thankful for marriage equality in 35 states, and for a nationwide ruling to come, but I can’t help myself from needing more.
At my university, many students agree that marriage, at best, is an intermediate goal in the path towards justice for the LGBTQ community. We are in agreement despite coming to Harvard with diverse stories. We are from countries all over the world, from every socioeconomic status and racial background, and from various points along the spectrums of gender and sexuality.
And we come with voices—voices to share these stories at a volume that might reach ears that hear only about marriage, marriage, and marriage. And we are using theses voices. Together with Kyle McFadden, a photographer and fellow student, I created a photo project that contains portraits of Harvard students who share their stories and opinions about the ways in which the LGBTQ Movement is a work in progress, even as nationwide marriage equality is on the horizon. Our movement is In the Making.
I can be fired for my “lifestyle choice.” No girl is too pretty to be lesbian. My identity is not a sin. Brown and gay, but no less a person. These are only four of the dozens of statements written by my peers on the red-framed chalkboard in the photographs. Together, the photographs paint a portrait of a movement still unfinished, touching upon themes such as legal rights, harmful stereotypes, religious intolerance, and the intersection of race and ethnicity with gender and sexuality.
Although these portraits feature Harvard students, this project is not about Harvard. Our stories and opinions are not unique, but rather shared by members of the LGBTQ community across the United States and world. This project is about the girl whose friends and family ruthlessly doubt that she is attracted to both men and women. It is about the boy whose small, homophobic town makes him want to get out.
This project is about those transgender individuals whose genders have cost them their jobs, friends, and families—their livelihoods, their lives. It is about the child whose parents and church collectively pray that he will one day wake up “normal.”
This project is about the youth who can’t express themselves at school without fearing ridicule and violence. It is about the queer and trans people of color whose lives are lost behind bars or by the shots of guns.
But more than anything, this project is about you. On our Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram, we are sharing not only these portraits, but also photographs taken by LGBTQ people and our allies around the world. LGBTQ student groups, community centers, and individuals on their own, both LGBTQ people and allies, are beginning to accept the #inthemaking challenge by sharing their own photos to highlight additional issues or declare their support.
Whether LGBTQ or ally, accept our challenge by sharing your own photo on social media, and please take a look at our fundraising webpage, where we are working to support three LGBTQ nonprofits. Actively addressing some of the issues highlighted in our series of photographs, these organizations are Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, National LGBTQ Task Force, and Sylvia Rivera Law Project.
We’re not done here—it’s the line I wrote on the chalkboard in my portrait, and I think it captures the moment in which we find ourselves in the LGBTQ Movement. We have accomplished so much—so many reasons to be thankful—but there is still so much we need.
Visit our social media pages: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram
PHOTOS: Naughty Pups Get Down And Dirty At The Eagle
Woof woof oink! Pups and gear pigs clustered at the Seattle Eagle last Friday for Arf!, a night of kink, fetish, bath house disco and sleazy dance tunes. Zak the Barber and Pup Kai hosted a frisky puppy pile, and DJs Tony Radovich and Nark kept the animals dancing all night.
These days, it seems like gay bars are an endangered species, with all the good old gritty hole-in-the-wall dives closing up shop. Nice to see the gays can still break out their harnesses and work up some musk when the occasion calls for it.
matt baume
Gay Iconography: Lots to Love About Lucy
When it comes to comedy, there is one icon, one legend whose star will always burn brighter than the rest: Lucille Ball.
As perhaps the most beloved television star of all time, Lucille Ball is permanently etched into the memories of generations of Americans. She was nominated for 13 Emmy Awards, winning four, and earned two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one for her film work and one for television). She graced the cover of TV Guide 45 times. She paved the way for today’s funny ladies like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Melissa McCarthy.
Her impact on television was enormous, but her work (especially as the titular Lucy Ricardo on I Love Lucy) inspired generations of gay men.
In a 2001 feature in OUT Magazine, writer Bob Smith put it thusly:
“Lucy Ricardo was the perfect gay icon for the post-Stonewall generation. She wasn’t a tragic victim like Judy Garland; the only time Lucy Ricardo got plastered was when she swallowed too much Vitameatavegamin. Lucy Ricardo wasn’t sharp-tongued like Bette Davis or a monster like Joan Crawford: she was beautiful and funny, and she was a comic victim of her red hair-brained schemes. Many gay men can identify with kooky ideas that always seem to backfire, like when a gay man in his 40s dyes his hair platinum blond.”
Even in the 1980s, Ball voiced her support of gay rights, telling People Magazine,”It’s perfectly all right with me. Some of the most gifted people I’ve ever met or read about are homosexual. How can you knock it?”
Heat up a plate of Thanksgiving leftovers and remember all the reasons you love Lucy, AFTER THE JUMP …
Before she became the most famous comedienne in television history, she was known as “Queen of the B’s,” working as a contract player for RKO Pictures. One of her early films, Dance, Girl, Dance was initially a box office bomb, but the story of two female dancers competing for jobs (and the affections of a divorced man) received renewed interest in the 1970s, thanks to the feminist movement. The film, directed by ground-breaking lesbian director Dorothy Arzner, is heralded for its portrayal of empowered women, and was listed as one of the top 100 “Essential Films” by the National Society of Film Critics in 2002. See Ball tussle with her co-star Maureen O’Hara in the clip above.
There are so many classic Lucy moments to choose from, but the most famous is undoubtedly the scene in the chocolate factory when Lucy and Ethel (Vivian Vance) fight against the quickening conveyor belt.
Another favorite clip is, of course, Lucy’s grape-stomping romp in Italy. However, our favorite Lucy moment of all time has got to be “Vitameatavegamin,” above.
Following I Love Lucy, Ball starred on The Lucy Show alongside her former castmate Vivian Vance. The show aired from 1962-1968, including the episode featuring Joan Crawford, above. Ball would go on to buy out her ex-husband Desi Arnaz’s shares in their Desilu Productions in 1962, making her the first woman to run a major studio.
Ball’s final film role was a critically-panned film adaptation of the musical Mame. Although her performance wasn’t a hit with critics, it’s sort of hard to hate the sight of her trading barbs with Bea Arthur, is it not?
What is your favorite Lucy moment?
Bobby Hankinson
www.towleroad.com/2014/11/gay-iconography-lots-to-love-about-lucy.html
The 15 Best Gay Video Game Sex Scenes (and Worst Straight One)
Sex scenes have always had a place in video games, but lately we’re seeing some fantastic gay content that never existed before. Exhibit A is Dragon Age: Inquisition, newly released and already setting our loins afire with some steamy gay sex scenes.
We have Canadian developer Bioware to thank for this. They’ve always been swell about having queer content in their games, and this is possibly their most inclusive title yet.
Dorian is the first exclusively gay party member in a Dragon Age game. Here’s a video that culminates in romance. There’s also sex scene that has more butts than we can show you on this family-friendly site, but you can find it here.
You can also sex the burly Bull. Here’s how that looks.
And here’s what happens when your party walks in on you.
A slightly modded Dragon Age 2 allowed a hairier version of Hawke to romance Anders:
Here’s a scene from the first Dragon Age, and possibly the most explicit of the trilogy. (Again, a little too much side-butt to display next to Queerty’s advertisers, but you can see it on YouTube. Go figure.)
Origins also has a variety of scenes involving male companions and barely-covered butt cheeks.
Bioware’s Mass Effect 3 had some steamy scenes with Shepard and Kaidan. Here’s a compilation of both the gay romances and the lesbian ones.
On the less realistic end of the spectrum, The Sims has always been a haven for gay sex.
Fable 3 even has a gay wedding:
The earliest gay game sex scene we could find was 1995’s Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within, which isn’t quite a sex scene but certainly has some sexual overtones. Skip to 5:58:50 for some unsettling bedroom time.
There’s also this troubling encounter from Final Fantasy VII. Is Milo getting raped here? It’s kind of hard to tell.
Also troubling: in Leisure Suit Larry 6, flirting with a character named “Gary Fairy” results in a death state. Ughhhh.
And then there’s Saints Row IV. Nothing much to write home about — as thought you’d write home about this anyway — aside from some exposed ass and unsexy offscreen naughtiness.
So, not all of these are great. But they could be worse — just look at what straight people consider the height of erotic gaming.
matt baume
Gay Texas Couple Was First To Obtain Marriage License 42 Years Ago, But Did They Help Or Hurt The Movement?
Forty-two years ago, two men obtained a marriage license in Wharton County, Texas — in what was one of the nation’s first government-recognized same-sex marriages.
The Houston Chronicle reported Friday on the marriage of Antonio Molina and William “Billie” Ert (above), which took place on Oct. 5, 1972.
Ert, who performed as a drag queen named Mr. Vicki Carr, wore a wig, make-up and a dress to the clerk’s office — tricking officials into issuing the couple a license.
Two days later, Molina and Ert held a ceremony in Houston, with the minister who founded Dallas’ Metropolitan Community Church officiating. But by then their same-sex marriage made national headlines, and the clerk declined to record the couple’s license.
Molina and Ert obtained their marriage license just months before the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a federal lawsuit challenging Minnesota’s same-sex marriage ban, Baker v. Nelson. The high court wouldn’t take up the issue again until it struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act in Windsor v. United States last year.
Based on the Baker decision, Molina and Ert ultimately lost a legal fight to have the license recorded, and the next year the Texas Legislature passed the state’s first ban on same-sex marriage.
The Houston Chronicle reports that Molina and Ert’s case “set back the Texas gay marriage movement 40 years while also helping to inspire a generation of civil rights advocates”:
Much of the general public’s discomfort with the idea was directly attributable to the movement’s early characters, said State University of New York-Buffalo Law Professor Michael Boucai.
“In the Texas case, you have a drag queen. That’s not how gay marriage advocates like to represent their current constituency,” said Boucai. In Kentucky, one half of a lesbian couple who sued for marriage operated a questionable massage service. Two men in Washington State did not actually believe in the institution of marriage, but still thought they should be able to partake. “They’re just not convenient.”
Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, told the Chronicle:
“These early marriage cases really were reflective of the fact that gay people have always wanted it. But they also remind us it’s not just about filing the case in court. You also have to make the case in the court of public opinion.”
But Melissa Murray, a law professor at UC-Berkeley, said:
“What these cases did was to bring gay couples, loving couples to the forefront, out of the closet and out of the shadows. I don’t think you could have a contemporary marriage movement without them.”
After losing their legal fight, Molina and Ert eventually split up. Ert attempted suicide but survived. However, the Chronicle was unable to determine whether he’s still alive. Molina died in 1991.
Forty-two years after Ert and Molina obtained a marriage license, Texas same-sex couples eagerly await a federal district judge’s decision on a motion that could allow it to happen again.
Read the Houston Chronicle story about Ert and Molina here.
John Wright
Ipaglaban ang LGBT
This was our Exam, we have to do an Oratorical Speech, and I came up with the idea of choosing a perfect topic that is close to my Heart the "LGBT". Although i have some minor slumps out there…
Was It Good For The Gays: ‘Philadelphia'
If you’re going to make a movie about queer people, you’re likely going to get a divisive response. Does it reinforce negative stereotypes? Does it provide an accurate cross-section of the diverse LGBT community? How many think pieces will it incite? In this regular column, we’ll look at depictions of queers in cinema and ask, Was It Good For The Gays? Today, in honor of Hanksgiving Week, we look at Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia.
First Look: Jake Gyllenhaal Gets Physical as Boxing Champ in 'Southpaw'
While you can still catch Jake Gyllenhaal in theaters as the wiry, nocturnal adrenaline junkie in Nightcrawler, if beefcake is more your taste you’ll have to wait till next year to see Gyllenhaal flex his goods for his lead role in Southpaw.
The first photo over at Deadline shows Gyllenhaal as Junior Middleweight Champion Billy “The Great” Hope, a “lefty champ who loses everything in a personal tragedy and is forced to fight his way to redemption.”
Southpaw also stars Rachel McAdams, Naomie Harris, Forest Whitaker, Victor Ortiz, 50 Cent, Tyrese Gibson, and Rita Ora.
[deadline]
Kyler Geoffroy
www.towleroad.com/2014/11/first-look-jake-gyllenhaal-gets-physical-as-boxing-champ-in-southpaw.html
