What we'll be listening to, watching, and reading to sate our pop culture needs.
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We were planning on celebrating pride all weekend, but now, thanks to SCOTUS’s historic marriage equality ruling, our huzzahs will be even more heartfelt. In addition to our suggestions for the best LGBTQ movie marathon ever, we’ve got a jazz album from our favorite OITNB butch, Sarah Hepola’s brilliant memoir, Comedy Central’s latest lady-fueled series, and more. It’s a celebration indeed.
We’ve picked our favorite female-driven, lesbian-directed movies for your viewing pleasure, including two films crucial to the LGBTQ pop culture canon that are celebrating anniversaries this year: Jennie Livingston’s documentary Paris Is Burning turns 25, and Desert Hearts, the first lesbian-made major motion picture starring Patricia Charbonneau and Helen Shaver has been giving gay women hope for three decades. Also excellent and important viewing: Lisa Cholodenko’s High Art; Pariah, Dee Rees’s heartfelt movie about a Black teen’s coming out; and the movie that launched a million lesbian indies, 1994’s Go Fish, written by Rose Troche and Guinevere Turner.
Salon editor Sarah Hepola’s brutally honest memoir delves into her tumultuous relationship with alcohol and getting out from under its thumb. After decades of liquid courage became less about being the life of the party, and more about succumbing to incredibly destructive behavior that landed her in questionable situations, Hepola quit drinking, and takes us along for the exploration into why she abused alcohol in the first place.
As if we didn’t love her enough as Boo on Orange Is the New Black, actor and comedian Lea DeLaria also happens to be a kickass jazz singer. On this album, DeLaria covers 12 David Bowie songs—including “Golden Years,” “Young Americans,” and a version of “Modern Love” that will give you chills—giving us a new taste of our old favorites.
This new Comedy Central show from one half of Garfunkel & Oates (Riki Lindhome, who also stars) is the historical satire we didn’t know we needed. Framed like a Keeping Up With–reality show, Another Period (which premiered on Tuesday but deserves a weekend viewing) follows Lindhome and Natasha Legerro as Lillian and Beatrice Bellacourt, aristocrats in turn-of-the-century Rhode Island, trying to make their big high-society splash. The guest stars are gravy, including Michael Ian Black and Christina Hendricks.
“My life if a fucking nightmare,” are the first words spoken by Felt’s star, an artist named Amy (inspired and played by real life artist Amy Everson) in this intense indie movie that hones uncomfortably in on our present-day rape culture. Recovering from an undisclosed (but likely sexual) trauma, Amy uses her art to cope in stranger and stranger ways, and Felt is a weird and visceral look at how she attempts to co-opts misogyny.