Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Reminder: 'VITO' Airs on HBO check listings until Tues.
http://www.frontiersla.com/Blog/FrontierBlog/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10406781
Vito Russo
By Karen Ocamb
As you know, HBO was a presenting sponsor for this year’s Outfest film festival, and the documentary Vito was the opening night film for the festival's 30th anniversary. The highly regarded film airs tonight on HBO. As a preview, check out the interview Renee Sotile and Mary Jo Godges of Traipsing Thru Films conducted with director Jeffery Schwarz, composer Miriam Cutler and Russo's friend Bruce Vilanch, who says that Russo left him the only film of Bette Midler with Barry Manilow on piano performing at the gay Continental Baths.
Gay and AIDS activist Vito Russo thought it was critical that LGBT people understand the history of how we have been represented on film—which contributed to how society saw and treated us in real life. In that vein, I’ve been working on an overview piece on Outfest and some of the films I saw. I am writing two “stand alone” pieces on How to Survive a Plague and Love Free or Die about Bishop Gene Robinson in order to go more in depth. Please see the list of Outfest award winners at FrontiersLA.com.
Vito Russo and Bette Midler
Vito Russo As you know, HBO was a presenting sponsor for this year’s Outfest film festival, and the documentary Vito was the opening night film for the festival's 30th anniversary. The highly regarded film airs tonight on HBO. As a preview, check out the interview Renee Sotile and Mary Jo Godges of Traipsing Thru Films conducted with director Jeffery Schwarz, composer Miriam Cutler and Russo's friend Bruce Vilanch, who says that Russo left him the only film of Bette Midler with Barry Manilow on piano performing at the gay Continental Baths.
Gay and AIDS activist Vito Russo thought it was critical that LGBT people understand the history of how we have been represented on film—which contributed to how society saw and treated us in real life. In that vein, I’ve been working on an overview piece on Outfest and some of the films I saw. I am writing two “stand alone” pieces on How to Survive a Plague and Love Free or Die about Bishop Gene Robinson in order to go more in depth. Please see the list of Outfest award winners at FrontiersLA.com.
Vito Russo and Bette Midler
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Marilyn Monroe A Lesbian?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/26/marilyn-monroe-lesbian-book_n_1706190.html
Marilyn Monroe A Lesbian? Hollywood Icon Had Affairs With Women, New Book Alleges ...
She might have been one of the world's premier sex symbols, but Marilyn Monroe was plagued with well-documented personal insecurities -- among them the possibility she might be a lesbian, a new book alleges.
Author Lois Banner describes Monroe's doubts about her sexuality in her new book, "Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox," an extract of which has been published in The Guardian.
"She had affairs with many eminent men –- baseball great Joe DiMaggio, playwright Arthur Miller, director Elia Kazan, actor Marlon Brando, singer Frank Sinatra, the Kennedy brothers –- and she married DiMaggio and Miller," Banner writes. "Yet she desired women, had affairs with them, and worried that she might be lesbian by nature."
She continues, "How could she be the world's heterosexual sex goddess and desire women? How could she have the world's most perfect body on the outside and have such internal imperfections? Why was she unable to bear a child? The adult Marilyn was haunted by these questions."
Still, Banner's profile of Monroe, who died in 1962 at the age of 36, is more flattering in other respects. The author even argues that the icon, frequently brushed aside as a "dumb blonde" or simply as a sex object, had the makings of an early feminist.
"She certainly took actions that could be called feminist," she writes. "Her entire life was a process of self-formation. She was a genius at self-creation and made herself into an actress and a star. She formed her own production company, she fought the moguls to a standstill, and she publicly named the sexual abuse visited on her as a child: a major –- and unacknowledged –- feminist act."
Of course, Banner is by no means the first to argue that the "Some Like It Hot" star might have swung both ways. Monroe is believed to have admitted to sexual encounters with Joan Crawford and Marlene Dietrich, as well as acting coach Paula Strasberg.
She might have been one of the world's premier sex symbols, but Marilyn Monroe was plagued with well-documented personal insecurities -- among them the possibility she might be a lesbian, a new book alleges.
Author Lois Banner describes Monroe's doubts about her sexuality in her new book, "Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox," an extract of which has been published in The Guardian.
"She had affairs with many eminent men –- baseball great Joe DiMaggio, playwright Arthur Miller, director Elia Kazan, actor Marlon Brando, singer Frank Sinatra, the Kennedy brothers –- and she married DiMaggio and Miller," Banner writes. "Yet she desired women, had affairs with them, and worried that she might be lesbian by nature."
She continues, "How could she be the world's heterosexual sex goddess and desire women? How could she have the world's most perfect body on the outside and have such internal imperfections? Why was she unable to bear a child? The adult Marilyn was haunted by these questions."
Still, Banner's profile of Monroe, who died in 1962 at the age of 36, is more flattering in other respects. The author even argues that the icon, frequently brushed aside as a "dumb blonde" or simply as a sex object, had the makings of an early feminist.
"She certainly took actions that could be called feminist," she writes. "Her entire life was a process of self-formation. She was a genius at self-creation and made herself into an actress and a star. She formed her own production company, she fought the moguls to a standstill, and she publicly named the sexual abuse visited on her as a child: a major –- and unacknowledged –- feminist act."
Of course, Banner is by no means the first to argue that the "Some Like It Hot" star might have swung both ways. Monroe is believed to have admitted to sexual encounters with Joan Crawford and Marlene Dietrich, as well as acting coach Paula Strasberg.
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