Claire of the Moon is the butt of many a lesbian joke. Why? Well it’s crap for a start – awful clothes, stilted dialogue and dodgy acting by people who seem to think they’re in the lesbian equivalent of Citizen Kane. Also, it reminds those of us of a certain age, just how desperate we were for lesbian characters; so desperate that we paid out enough money for Claire of the Moon to be seen as a hit.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s a rite of passage. You get an extra lesbian star just for sitting through it. Honestly, it’ll be posted out to you with your next edition of the gay agenda. The only value Claire of the Moon has now is comedic.

What about the poor women who had to make the thing? Those ‘ actors’ who had to choke out lines drenched in academic nonsense about sexuality and why we love who we love and something about a “vampire theory” or something. Lord it’s all coming back to me.

Trisha Todd

Trisha originally tried out for the part of Dr Noel Benedict, as you can see in the DVD The Making of Claire of the Moon, which is only marginally worse than the actual film. However, she was given the task of playing the titular Claire a sexy, straight lady on a “journey into her sexual identity”. She’s awful, but no worse than anyone else so maybe she decided to keep her talent at the same level as everyone else’s, so as not to show anyone up. Very nice of her.

We made the film far too personal. I lost control of my performance. I was not shaping it, I was living it. I lost a piece of myself, and my performance clearly reflected this.

You lost a piece of us too Trisha, minutes of our lives we’ll never get back. Trisha never acted again after Claire of the Moon. No, there was no court order, she decided to teach (those who can’t do…) and has been teaching in Portland for a few years. She also wrote a book, The Drive, which is an autobiographical road novel about looking to find the love that she lost. Reviews say that it’s a bit wordy and takes itself a smidge too seriously. Sound familiar?

Karen Trumbo

Karen Trumbo is probably the best thing in Claire of the Moon, at least she looks comfortable in front of the camera and seems to know what she’s doing. We’re not asking for much are we? Karen plays Dr Noel Benedict who we know is a lesbian because she has a man’s name, wears a pinkie ring and has an awful haircut. She’s also spent her complete academic life studying female sexuality; to the detriment of her own. She meets Claire and fireworks ensure; ok maybe damp matches.

Trumbo has acted in many a film in such important roles as Opticians Assistant and Nurse Number 1. She also acted opposite the delectable Katie Sackoff in Fiftteen and Pregnant. Things are pretty bad when that’s a highlight. She hasn’t been on any sized screen since 1998, instead working as an actress in local theatre in Oregon.

Nicole Conn

If we’re throwing around blame here, Nicole Conn should be head of the queue. As writer, director and general boss of Claire of the Moon, the buck stops here. Now, I know you’re going to say “well she made a film, what have you done?” but have you seen the film? She’d have done us a favour by not making it.

The whole things smacks of narcissism too; Karen Trumbo as Noel Benedict is the spitting image if Conn and she is completely poe-faced about the film. She honestly believes it’s good! Well why wouldn’t she when she is the one responsible for the risible film, Cynara: Poetry in Motion? If you thought Claire of the Moon had too many long, lingering shots of scenery and broody women expressing their desire through Joey Tribbiani’s ‘fart acting’, all I can say is avoid this one like the plague.

The real tragedy here though is that Nicole Conn is still making films. In 2005, she made little man, a documentary about the birth of her son who was born very prematurely. She is releasing another film this year, Elena Undone, which, according to imdb:

Peyton and Elena are, on the surface, diametrically opposed – one, a well-known lesbian writer, the other a mother and wife of a pastor – but when their paths cross, several times over, they feel compelled to connect. What begins as friendship quickly blossoms into something deeper. Peyton tries to extricate herself before her heart wants what it can’t have. Elena can’t imagine not having Peyton in her life. And despite the fact that she has never even considered kissing a woman, Elena is overwhelmed with a desire to do just that. Despite Peyton’s reservations, Elena pushes the relationship into a full-blown affair. The two women fall deeply in love, both keenly aware a future together might be little more than a dream

Hmmmm…….sounds like Claire of the Moon. Here’s hoping she’s learnt a thing or two about how not to make a film.

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Judge Vaughn Walker

On Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the judge who will decide whether or not to uphold California’s Proposition 8 , which banned same-sex marriage, is gay. The article itself points out that the story is a little bit of a non-story and that everyone knew Judge Vaughn Walker is gay anyway.

The report paints it that he has never hidden his sexual orientation but has never broadcast it either. He was appointed to the bench by then President George H. W. Bush and is known for a conservative, libertarian stand on issues. He has even been accused of an anti-gay bias in the past because of a case he took when he was in private practice, against the Gay Olympics.

But will the supporters of Proposition 8 use his sexuality as a reason to dispute the ruling if it doesn’t go their way? My money’s on yes, even though they’re denying it now.

Why did the Chronicle out Judge Walker? Why do we out anyone?

Outing isn’t a new thing. It was often used as a rhetorical device, and a put-down by orators in ancient Greece. Modern outing is a different story.

The modern purposes of outing are:

• To increase lesbian and gay visibility
• To reveal hypocrisy
• Sensationalism (usually outside of the gay community, but not always)

One of the earliest modern outings was that of Ernst Röhm, one of Adolf Hitler’s prominent Nazi leaders. He was outed in 1930 by liberal journalists and ultimately killed on Hitler’s orders. Adolph Brand wrote about it:

when someone — as teacher, priest, representative, or statesman — would like to set in the most damaging way the intimate love contacts of others under degrading control — in that moment his own love-life also ceases to be a private matter and forfeits every claim to remain protected hence-forward from public scrutiny and suspicious oversight.

Wladziu Valentino Liberace

Pianist and entertainer, Liberace successfully sued a UK newspaper in 1957 for this description of him:

…the summit of sex—the pinnacle of masculine, feminine, and neuter. Everything that he, she, and it can ever want… a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love,

He was awarded £8,000 in damages on the basis that he sucessfully argued that he was not homosexual and that the expression “fruit-flavoured” was intended to imply that he was.

Chaz Bono was outed as a lesbian by Star magazine in 1990. He initially denied it, but came out publicly in an interview with The Advocate magazine five years later. He said that being outed:

Chaz Bono

… catapulted me into a political role that has transformed my life, providing me with affirmation as a lesbian, as a woman, and as an individual.

Here in Ireland, Stephen Gately came out in The Sun in 1999 when he learned that a security guard was going to out him to the press. He gave his story for free, not wanting anyone to benefit from what he believed should not have been an issue.

Proponents of outing believe in different acceptable circumstances, and some of the different schools of thought are that outing is:

• Always appropriate
• Only appropriate to out public figures
• Only appropriate to out public figures who use their influence in a way that hurts the gay community, or fails to use their influence to help.
• Only appropriate if the person in question is dead

Stephen Gately

There can be, of course, huge benefits to outing. The more people who are out, the easier it becomes to come out and be out. Studies show that people who know gay people are more likely to be in favour of gay rights legislation.

Outing also can serve as a deterrent. If closeted people who support measures that deny or limit the rights of gay people for their own political or material gain are being outed, theoretically fewer closeted people will go down that road for fear of having their sexual orientation revealed.

There have been movements to out political figures, celebrities and also religious figures.

Outing is queer self-defence. Lesbians and gay men have a right, and a duty, to expose hypocrites and homophobes. By not outing gay Bishops who support policies which harm homosexuals, we would be protecting those Bishops and thereby allowing them to continue to inflict suffering on members of our community. Collusion with hypocrisy and homophobia is not ethically defensible for Christians, or for anyone else.
- Peter Thatchell

Of course, there are certainly arguments against outing.

A lot of people would disagree with the most malicious kind of outing, like that which Chaz Bono and Stephen Gately faced. Chaz was outed to sell newspapers. He had never been an enemy to the gay community, nor had his mother Cher. He was not a politician or cleric, nor was he a public figure in his own right. The only reason the paper was interested in him is because he was from a famous family.

Stephen Gately had never said anything homophobic or invited that kind of scrutiny, but the lure of money from the tabloids had tempted one of his security staff to out him.

Others disagree with outing as they believe it makes homosexuality appear to be an insult and that the gay community can’t claim to want to be considered normal, while at the same time trying to bring down people on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Some, of course, simply believe that it is a privacy issue.

What do you think? Should we be outing people, and if so, who?

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When I was a student in UCD, and was the LGBT Right’s Officer for their students’ union in 06/07 and 08/09, the responsibility fell to me to organise the week. Most colleges have their weeks in the second semester, and ours was in February. Events normally run can range from talks on sexual health to workshops on queer theory, to talks on the history of the student LGBT movement, to guest speakers, to pride marches through campus, to coming out workshops and back again. Many colleges have a mock gay wedding, usually in conjunction with NOISE or MarriagEquality, to highlight the fact that, in this country, gay people cannot get married. Oftentimes the heterosexual students in colleges may not be aware of this fact, what with the civil partnership debate going on, so this is a valuable event to raise awareness of this.

For my second Rainbow Week, I was lucky enough to get Drs Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan (above) out to the college to give a talk. DIT this year have Ivana Bacik, UCC had their week launched by Anna Nolan and Trinity had Toni Walsh and Ivana Bacik to participate in a comedy debate, with motion being “Gay People Should Burn in Hell”. It was honestly the funniest hour of my life, with Tonie Walsh and two gay students speaking in favour, and Ivana and a Church of Ireland minister speaking against. David Norris makes an appearance at many of the weeks around the country too.

Coffee mornings and movie nights are also commonplace during these weeks, as this can be a great opportunity to meet other LGBT people in a quiet and safe space, and it is a fantastic chance to make new friends. Nights out also form an integral part of the weeks, as it can be some student’s first times to experience a social scene with other gay people.

For any students reading this, get in touch with your college’s LGBT Society or your Students Union and find out when this week or day is happening in your college. If you do not have one scheduled, email lgbt@usi.ie and the LGBT RO there should be able to help your college run one.

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Image via Wikipedia

The first time you looked at the cover of one of Ann Bannon‘s books, you probably laughed, or groaned, or just put it back. On the cover of Ann Bannon’s book, Odd Girl Out, the blurb reads,

Suddenly they were alone on an island of forbidden desires.

Right. Next?

But wait, just read the first page. It begins:

“Mmmm…” Beth murmured as Laura’s hands began to trace the curves of her back. “Oh, that’s just marvelous.” She shivered a little and Laura trembled with her. “Under my pajamas, Laur.”

Wait. This was published when? 1957.  And it was followed by four more books in the series, following the gay lives of Laura, Beth, Beebo and Jack.

According to the author, she began writing the novel when she was a 22 year old housewife,

utterly unschooled in the ways of the world. There were millions living the same life; I was to be indistinguishable from them for many years, except for the fact, known very few outside my immediate family, that I was the one who wrote a series of lesbian pulp paperback novels under the pen name of Ann Bannon.

Ann Weldy, as Ann Bannon, wrote her first book about a university sorority house. The relationship between the two women was a subplot. After the publisher read it, she was told to rewrite it and focus on the relationship between the two women. Not a word was changed from the second version.

Lesbian novels such as Ann Bannon’s were marketed primarily to heterosexual men. However, lesbians — especially those isolated from the burgeoning gay scenes in the larger cities — found them and read them too. Reading these books, women struggling with their sexuality, identity and isolation could take refuge in characters with similar confusions and imagine themselves in New York City’s Greenwich Village where there was already a large gay scene.

Bannon wasn’t alone in her genre. There were plenty of other writers who wrote (almost universally using pen names)  lesbian pulp fiction. The reason for the enduring quality of Bannon’s work is in their difference. Written by a woman struggling with her own sexuality, who, like her readers, dreamed of freedom and community, her characters didn’t all end up married, crazy or dead, as lesbian characters so often seemed to in other books.

The first character we meet is Laura Landon. She’s a freshman in university and develops a disasterous infatuation with an older, popular student named Beth. Very feminine, coming from privilege, Laura spends the duration of an entire book dating men and wanting Beth. The books follow Laura’s story primarily, from her desire for Beth, to finding herself in New York City and her complicated relationship with Jack, an older gay man who recognises Laura’s struggle before she is ready to.

Perhaps the most unusual and memorable character makes her first appearance in the second book in the series, I am a Woman. (You want to know what the cover of this book says?)

The sudden realization made her gasp — she could fool herself no longer. She wanted a woman… she wanted a woman terribly…

From the stage adaptation of Beebo Brinker

Back to Beebo. Everyone who knows me knows I have a Beebo Brinker crush. She enters the story when Laura notices her in a gay bar.

There was a girl at the bar, standing at one end, in black pants and a white shirt open at the collar. Her hair was short and dark… There were some other people with her and they were all talking, but the short-haired girl seemed somehow apart from them.

It’s the final book in the series, a prequel titled Beebo Brinker, before we learn Beebo’s story. Her character is a real butch archetype from a time when femininity and masculinity were possibly as strictly regulated as they have ever been. In Beebo, we see not simply a struggle with sexual desire, but with gender identity. Beebo, whose name is Betty Jean, is too tall, too broad, handsome rather than pretty, and strong. She takes jobs well below her abilities because they afford her the freedom to wear trousers. Beebo is by times charismatic, confident and headstrong, then all at once desperate and uncertain. Even in the Village, Beebo is one of a kind. Her identity and her inability to live any other way condemns her to the fringes of society, while the other characters mix in and out of mainstream life, passing as straight.

You’ve probably read them. Barbara Grier once wrote that Ann Bannon’s books “rest on the bookshelf of nearly every even faintly literate Lesbian”. So if you haven’t read them, do. Fun and easy to read, Bannon’s writing pokes at truths in a way that makes it so surprising that they were so widely read in the late 1950s, but not so surprising that they are enduring classics.

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It is free into Spy before 10pm, €5 before midnight and €10 after that. And it’s totally worth it. For your admission fee, you have access to both WAR and WAX, as well as the three other bar areas that make up Spybar. Wax is the bar/dance area in the basement, and plays a fantastic set of 80’s music. This leads out to the smoking area, where you will need to retreat to every now and then if you intend to stay most of the night in WAR.

WAR is like dancing in a sauna. I kid you not. As you walk through the door, the heat hits you like a wall. It’s just body heat from everyone dancing, but I guarantee that your clothes will be sticking to you after half an hour or so. As such, my first tip for the night is to wear a tank/string top under whatever else you are wearing. You’ll need to remove layers. Due to the water shortage, they can’t give out free water anymore, so my second tip is get glasses of ice. Ice is a beautiful, beautiful thing. The third tip is dance on the back of the couches. Go on, you know you want to! Finally, watch out for stilettos and bring glo-sticks!!

The best thing about WAR is the eclectic crowd that goes there. It’s pretty even between a gay and straight crowd, because pretty much anything goes, so it’s just a really cool atmosphere in there. It can be a bit too “scene-y” for some people though (not the gay scene, but the dance club scene.) You will be met at the door by a boy with a cup of neon paint, and he will paint war stripes on your cheeks.

The music is brilliant too, a mixture of chart, favourite oldies and alternative music. Prepare to get your rave on, and remember, all’s fair in love and WAR!

For more info, check out:

SpyBar on Facebook

Official Site

01 677 0104
info@spydublin.ie

Spybar: Powerscourt Townhouse, South William Street, Dublin 2

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Billion dollar investments in African fossil fuels are not the kind of news that we normally cover here at Gaelick, but bear with me. Remember back in October, when Gooner reported on the new Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill?

Well sadly, it hasn’t gone away. And while it’s been covered in the press, and a handful of politicans around the world have spoken out against it, opposition to the bill that would execute homosexuals, incarcerate those who speak up for homosexuals and those who fail to report homosexuals they know, hasn’t picked up much speed in Uganda.

Tullow Oil’s founder and CEO is Aidan Heavey, originally from just outside Clane, County Kildare. He brags that he is the “longest serving CEO of a FTSE 100 company” and has “shaken hands with 15 African presidents.” He started Tullow Engineering from nothing, after working as an accountant and financial controller at Aer Lingus.

By all accounts, his company has been incredibly successful from its founding in 1985, a real Irish success story.

Over the past year, oil and gas explorer and producer Tullow has more than doubled its stock market value to £8.7bn, tripled its global workforce to 850, including 400 in the UK and climbed to 32nd in the FTSE 100 index.
From the Telegraph.co.uk

An article on Zibb.com says that Mr Heavey has already met with the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, last Friday.

As John McGuirk says in his blog,

But companies, like nations and individuals, should also be held accountable for their decisions. It’s disappointing that an Irish business would choose to put so much money into a country that is going down this path.

I’d like to see the Irish LGBTQ community call on Mr Heavey to use the influence he obviously has in Uganda. We need to call on him to show that his investment is not only oil, but also in Uganda’s most precious natural resources, the people of Uganda, all the people of Uganda, even those who are gay.

OK I looked it up. The motto under the crest of his home county of Kildare is “Meanma agus Misneach”, which, according to Google Translate, means Morale and Courage.

What do you guys think? Can we make a difference to Uganda’s gays?

You can contact the Irish offices of Tullow Oil here.

Related posts:

1. Today (and tomorrow) in Uganda
2. Uganda: World’s Worst Place to be Gay
3. Irish support same-sex marriage

January 27th, 2010 marks the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau by Soviet troops. Since 2006, the day has been designated by the United Nations General Assembly as “International Holocaust Remembrance Day“.

Commemorative events will be held around Europe and around Ireland tomorrow. In Israel, the blueprints from Aushwitz-Birkenau were available for viewing as of yesterday at Yad Vashem.

In Cork, a talk will be held in UCC’s Boole Lecture Theatre 3 at 7pm, featuring Holocaust survivor Mrs Suzi Diamond and the screening of the film “The Sonderkommando”. More from Indymedia:

Mrs.Suzi Diamond is a survivor of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.She and her brother Terry Samuels were born in Hungary and brought to Ireland from Bergen-Belsen by Dr Bob Collis. They were eventually adopted by an Irish Jewish family.
…
The Sondercommando was a special group of prisoners that operated cremmatoria in Auschwitz as well as in other Nazi death camps.Someone selected for the sonderkommando had a choice: die then or die in four months time since the prisoners employed in it were murdered every several months and replaced with new workers.However,a few members of the sonderkommando managed to survive and told their stories…

In Dublin, The Office of the Minister for Integration is hosting an event on Sunday, January 31st. Applications for invitations closed in December, but for the curious, the event will be held at the Mansion House on Dawson St, and will include the lighting of six candles to commemorate the six million Jews who died in concentration camps as well as candles for the other victims, choral and musical interludes, and talks by survivors.

In Derry, The Tower Museum is hosting the screening of a Holocaust-themed film tomorrow.

The Holocaust Educational Trust Crocus Project distributes crocus bulbs to school children who plant the bulbs to commemorate the children who died in the Holocaust. When the yellow flowers bloom in late January, it coincides with International Holocaust Memorial Day.

What is still only quietly discussed is the presence of homosexuals in the concentration camps. Germany’s government first apologised to the gay community in 2002. While known lesbians may have been few due to the general invisibility of lesbian identity (they were as likely to be imprisoned for feminism), gay men were treated especially badly in concentration camps and were more likely to be killed than other non-Jewish groups. They were also likely to be experimented upon, assaulted by other men and were given some of the worst jobs.

The reason the gay survivors of the Holocaust have only more recently been recognised is partially because the idea of imprisoning people for being gay wasn’t all that unusual when the Holocaust ended, in many of the countries that made up the Allied forces. While the camps were definitely more cruel and lethal than a regular prison, a lot of people would have felt that gay people were legitimately incarcerated.

From the International Association of Lesbian & Gay Children of Holocaust Survivors:

The Nazis forced concentration camp inmates to wear various symbols on their uniforms. The Jews wore a yellow “Jewish Star” (made of two inverted yellow triangles). The homosexual inmates wore an inverted “Pink Triangle”. {In some camps, such as Schirmeck, homosexuals wore blue bars on their uniforms.} This chart from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s archives depicts the various other groups and their respective colors; such as black for “A-socials” (including lesbians and feminists), purple for Jehovah’s Witnesses, red for political prisoners, green for criminal prisoners, brown (maroon) for gypsies.

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I didn’t understand that. I come from a place in the world where there were no revolutionaries of any kind. I certainly didn’t understand that marriage could be considered anti-woman. In my mind, marriage was the logical ask. In my culture, I thought, when you fall in love you marry… why shouldn’t this remain true for gay people?

Several times I was blasted by better educated and more mature women who had different experiences, who had thought it all through and determined that they didn’t want to prop up an institution that historically was so ethically suspect. They didn’t understand where I was coming from, and I didn’t understand their experiences and opinions either.

If only this had aired 8 -10 years ago, I would have understood the divide in less time than it took to google the word “heteronormative”.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

These days, we view countries like Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, South Africa, Sweden and Spain as incredibly liberal countries, because they allow full gay marriage, as opposed to any kind of civil or domestic partnerships.

Civil Partnerships and Same-Sex Marriage both fall short of what the more radical activists envisioned. Often combined with anti-racism, anti-militarism, pro-socialist, pro-choice, pro-feminism ideologies, their vision of the future was one where old institutions were not gutted and remade in a fairer way, but in which those institutions no longer existed, and a new, more rational, compassionate and open system was in place.

There are still plenty of people who are disappointed with the push for civil unions and same sex marriage. They see it as buying into a middle-class, religious, heterosexual ideal that really has nothing to do with gay people and how we live our lives.

In a way, I agree. My relationship is so different from what most of my heterosexual friends and colleagues have, that it’s hard to believe we’re talking about the same social construct. When two partners are of the same sex, the balance in a relationship is radically different compared to most opposite-sex relationships. For instance, division of labour in the home is divided on preference and ability, not historically favoured gender roles.

On the other hand, I know gay people who have married each other. They are married, and the only issue is that the state is failing to recognise it. While I got married in Canada, my marriage isn’t recognised in the country I call home. That has not in any way decreased its meaning for me, nor does it decrease the meaning of the marriages of my friends who have had ceremonies in Dublin, Kildare and Belfast.

The way I see it, marriage has nothing to do with gay people only as long as we are excluded from it. The institution of marriage is shaped by those who make themselves a part of marriage. As time goes on, we will see more and more countries where gay people are able to have state-recognised marriages, but until then, we can start to make it our own.

If you believe in gay marriage and you have found that person, get gay married. Nobody needs to fight for the right to marry. We need to fight for recognition of our perfectly valid marriages.

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I’m in a bit of a quandary here. Where do I start? Can I write this without having a geekgasm? I’ll give it a go, wish me luck.

Lucille Frances Ryan was born back in 1968 in Auckland, New Zealand, the fifth of seven children. With five brothers, she was always going to be a bot of a tomboy and Lucy was always up to her neck in it with them; riding horses, climbing trees and enjoying the Kiwi outdoors.

She started acting in school, but discovered that she was a great singer and ended up studying opera for three years in university. As a teen, Lucy suffered with an eating disorder (bulimia) but credits her family and college life with helping her heal.

As well as opera, while in college  she studied foreign languages for a year, including German, Italian and French. After giving up on singing arias, she studied violin and jazz.

While still in college, at just 19, Lucy married Garth Lawless and they had a baby, Daisy. During this period, Lucy was appearing in bit-parts such as Nurse 1 and Undercover Policewoman but has recurring roles in New Zealand’s The Ray Bradbury Theatre and The Black Stallion. Then, in 1994, she landed the part of Lysia in Hercules and the Amazon Women. When the tester-movie was received well, a series was created and Kevin Sorbo’s silly hair was with us for years.

The actress made an impression on the producer and he brought her back to Hercules: The Legendary Journeys in a recurring role as Xena, a warrior woman on her own journey, to save her soul. The character, and Lucy’s portrayal, peaked the interest of Hercules’ producer, Robert Tapert, and he started working on a spin-off involving Xena.

In 1995, Xena: Warrior Princess aired and was an instant hit, overtaking Hercules in the ratings and creating a character who would be adored by millions all over the world.

I won’t go on about Xena too much as that’s a post in itself, but it catapulted Lucy into the big time. Just as her professional life was taking over, however, her personal life was going through a rough patch as she divorced her husband. Three years later, in 1998, she married Xena producer Tapert and they have two sons.

Since then, she’s become the Midas of geek TV, appearing in Battlestar Gallactica and The L Word among others. Her husband is hoping this success will continue with Spartacus: Blood and Sand, a new show which starts on the US TV channel STARZ, on the 22nd of January.

Lucy has also continued with her singing, she appeared in  Celebrity Duets and made her onstage debut at the Roxy in Hollywood on the 13th January, 2007, selling out every concert.

There have been rumours that Daisy, Lucy’s eldest child, is gay but either way, Lawless has always been a friend of the friends of Dorothy.

She told AfterElton

So if people of any ethnicity want to think it’s nothing to do with them, I want to tell you, gay is here, and it’s always been here. Do you want your children hiding, to feel they can’t live out in the open? You want them to be afraid and disenfranchised? That’s just a tragedy. Who wants to bring up your babies like that?

Spartacus: Blood and Sand looks pretty cool in a six-pack and gore kind of way, and gas been getting some excellent previews, plus apparently our Lucy gets it on with some females. What’s not to like?

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Warning: Contains Spoilers!

Here it is: The final season of The L Word has begun airing in the US. And if past seasons have taught us anything, we sure as hell don’t know what to expect. Particularly as the timeline for this season begins three months after the end of season 5, when one of the main characters has been found dead in Bette’s swimming pool. The L Word has formerly been slapstick, tearjerky, dramatic, but has it now jumped into the murder-mystery genre? Well, this first episode would suggest that it’s not quite swapping its copy of Curve for a detective’s notebook just yet. Although, either way, someone’s going to wearing a trilby.

Front of Shane and Bette’s houses, awash with the blue and red lights of police cars: So the scene is set – there’s been a moydah! Enter Lucy Lawless (Battlestar Galactica, Xena: Warrior Princess) as the investigating sergeant. She walks into Bette’s house, while a uniformed officer fills her (and the viewer) in on what has taken place: a woman was found dead in the pool, seven women were having a low-key party in the house. The remaining women are waiting in the living room. Inside Bette’s living room, Bette, Tina, Alice, Shane, Helena, and Kit sit looking sombre and stunned. But where’s Jenny? Oh wait there she is… rolling by on a stretcher. Jenny has been found dead in Bette’s pool. That explains why Bette and Shane are sitting soaked and wearing only towels… I thought that may have been merely my over-active imagination.

Here come the Titles, have your mute button trigger-finger ready because the Betty theme tune is still with us for season 6.

Flashback to the end of last season: Now we go back three months to the showdown at the ‘Lez Girls’ wrap party, where Tina is steaming with fury because she has just discovered that the movie she was producing, now has a “Oops! I was straight after all. So long ladies!” ending. Meanwhile, Jenny has stumbled upon Shane dining at Niki’s downstairs restaurant. In the resulting car chase (Yes, a car chase! Although Vin Diesel clearly didn’t choreograph this sequence), Jenny’s convertible Porsche Boxter careers across LA while Shane tails closely behind in her SUVlet and then there’s Niki’s big black chauffeur ride taking up the rear. Red lights are broken and so few are the instances of rear-view mirror checking and indicating that these ladies could pass for a Dublin city taxi driver anytime.

Tasha and Alice, Alice’s apartment, the Tasha temper is about to flare:

Alice: Wanna talk about it?
Tasha: Talk about what?!
Alice: Well, you’re kicking my shoes. You’re kinda shit-faced.

The rocky rapport of late between Alice and Tasha is coming to a head. Alice tries to prise details of Tasha’s frustration but the unceremoniously discharged and disgruntled former-marine is having none of it. Cue interruption #1: Helena calls for an update on the night’s events. At this point, Tasha starts throwing clothes in a rucksack muttering something about saving Alice the trouble of breaking up with her.

Back to the Jenny-Shane-Niki triangle: Jenny is trying to force the front door shut while Shane perseveres with apologising profusely. Careful, Shane, maybe Jenny’s not trying to close the door but catch your head and it’s scraggly coiffure in it!

Next door in Bette and Tina’s: Angelica’s babysitter informs Bette and Tina that Angie has been congested and feverish. In a surprise role-reversal, Tina is still lashing out and furious over the hijacking of her film while Bette calmly tries to offer reasoned advice to her. Some emotionally evolved dialogue between Mommas B and T about professional respect occurs. Could this signal progress in Team Porter-Kennard? Meanwhile Shane is now rapping the window next-door and shrieking at Jenny á la Stanley Kowalski. Bette and Tina briefly debate the measure of how wrong Shane’s misadventure was and how forgivable it may or may not be before very wisely realising that they should cease the discussion before it opens old wounds and gets unnecessarily divisive. Yup, we’re definitely being told these two are growing.

Inside Jenny’s parlour of bilious rage: That vacuous bag of teeth and curls, Niki, lets herself into Jenny and Shane’s house with a spare set of keys (obviously bestowed unto her in happier, less cheating times) while Shane is still jackhammering the front door down. Niki’s presence purely serves to undermine Shane’s apology to Jenny.

Shane: Tell me what I need to do. I will eat dirt. I will crawl on glass. I will [interrupted by Niki]
Niki: Me too, Jenny! I will even drink that Spirulina disgusting stuff for an entire week!

The encounter ends with Jenny sending a lamp soaring through the air and crashing on the wall beside Shane’s head and a soda can hurtling towards Niki but narrowly missing. Damn. Jenny needs to work on her aim with those cans.

Tasha and Alice, sitting face-to-face on Alice’s bed:

Tasha: I think you’re right. I think we probably should break up.
[Interruption #2: Max is pinging on Alice's laptop.]

Tasha appears to have sobered up and agreed to talk. And now they are breaking up. It’s all very lesbian and civilised. Tasha hits the nail on the head – they have nothing in common. But my, my, they do look oh so good together.

Outside on the porch and unscathed, Shane and Niki:

Niki: Fuck it, right? We tried.
Shane: Shut up, Niki.

Oh, how I’ve longed to hear someone say those words, Shane.

Back to Bette, Tina and the sickly sprog: The wee one’s fever is higher and her cold hasn’t cleared so the mothers are naturally beginning to worry. Shane knocks on the door while they’re nursing the baby. Bette settles Shane on the couch and lends a listening ear while Shane brings her up-to-speed on the 100-mile radius warning issued to Shane by Phyllis—Bette’s boss and the mother of Shane’s most recent love, Molly. Shane also reveals that she does love Molly and that she was even faithful to Molly. Bette somewhat incredulously and while chuckling responds with “Really?!” Realising the pathetic plight, she has invented for herself, Shane laughs the self-deprecated laugh of the hopeless too. Bette feels sympathetic towards Shane (something along the lines of “been there, done that”) while Tina is nothing less than ice-cold towards her. Shane asks to sleep on the couch since Jenny booted her “skanky ass” to the kerb. With Tina on the warpath due to the heterosexist movie ending debacle, the prospect of crashing on the couch is about as appealing as another romp with Niki.

The club formerly known as She-bar, in full-swing and under new management: Helena and Kit are trying to coin a new name for their new joint-venture and arrive at Helena + Kit = The “Hit” Club. Well done, ladies. It only took two of you and half the night to come up with that one.

Tina, Bette and Shane: Raking over the calamitous consequences of Shane’s actions results in Tina and Bette having a domestic feud. And it’s the passive-aggressive kind. Awkwaaaaard! Poor Shane, she’s caught in the middle feeling like the night’s lightening rod for misery. And just when things can’t seem to get any worse, the baby awakes, screaming. Feeling more inappropriately situated than an advertisement for jockstraps in Diva, Shane shuffles out the door to seek a bunk for the night elsewhere.

Alice’s bedroom: Tasha is now on her feet and it seems like the conversation about whether or not to break up has been going in circles. Particularly, Alice is trying to convince Tasha that while her mind may have wandered with thoughts of another gal recently, she did not act on the feelings. Tasha isn’t looking particularly convinced and is less than comforted when Alice says:

Alice: I didn’t even really kiss her!

This little revelation for Tasha combined with the arrival of interruption #3—a homeless Shane—sends her storming out the door. Alice flails after her while simultaneously booting out an inopportunely arrived Shane.

More sick baby: Bette battling a digital ear thermometer. 104 degrees. Time to take baby to hospital.

Molly calls to Jenny and Shane’s house: Molly is looking for Shane. Jenny tells her that whatever her mother said about Shane was completely justified. To which Molly replies:

Molly: My mother’s a raging bitch. And she destroys anyone who gets in her way. And I’m not going to watch her do that to the woman that I love.

So Shane loves Molly! And Molly loves Shane!? Well that’s just the kind of happy-ever-after that’s not going to happen for Shane. Jenny proceeds to fill Molly’s head with some rubbish about Shane and Niki having had a prolonged affair while they were together—going as far back as the Pink Ride (that seminal event in the Shane/Molly story, when Molly made a grand gesture as proof of sincerity of her affection for Shane. Gutted and crushed, Molly leaves a letter and Shane’s jacket for Jenny to pass on, which of course Jenny promptly hides in the attic never to be seen again. But not before reading the letter of course. Classy.

Bette, Tina and Angie, in the hospital Emergency Room: Bette has a showdown with the registrar, whose causing undue consternation over the fact that the child being admitted has two mothers:

Nurse: I can’t process your paperwork.
Bette: This is Los Angeles. There are same-sex families on every fucking street corner. She was born in this fucking hospital and both of our names are on the fucking birth certificate! So why don’t you just give us a fucking break, you bureaucratic maggot and get our daughter in to see a goddamn doctor!

Midnight munchies: Shane appears to have got the hobo look down pat in a mere couple of hours. And just when her night can’t get any worse, Niki arrives with her entourage of pill-popped party people. She’s about as upset about losing Jenny as finding out she doesn’t have to eat sprouts for Christmas dinner. While hitting on Shane in a massively overt way, Niki receives a text message from Niki, inviting her over. While Niki’s wondering whether to bother going to see Jenny, Shane sends her on her merry way to face whatever Jenny has in store for her. Niki leaves with her crew for Jenny’s. Are they all going to arrive on Jenny’s doorstep?

Bette and Tina, in their car outside the hospital:

Bette: “I am so mortified.”

Apparently the home thermometer gave a false reading and Angie is fine after all. The whole experience has brought Bette and Tina closer together though.

Tasha rocks up at her friend’s house, where she’ll be staying tonight: Turns out the friend is a blast from the past—Papi! Where did she get to anyway? Which is exactly what Alice asks her. Alice isn’t finished the earlier conversation with Tasha and follows her into Papi’s. Papi retires to her bedroom to get some “work done”. Alice catches a glimpse of historic nemesis, Gaby Deveaux, strewn across Papi’s bed. Oh, the humanity!

Niki arrives at Jenny’s house: They get right down to bidnis! In between heavy breathing and locking lips, Niki is making feeble apologies, e.g.:

Niki: “I only let Shane go down on me because I was devastated about you.”

Cue some uncomfortable, “Jenny ain’t playin’ nice no mo’” foreplay.

And the contrast of the punitive sanctions for Niki and Shane is drawn when the camera cuts away from bed-bound reconciliatory romancing to Shane, who is sitting alone and friendless in a restaurant.

In Papi’s kitchen: Alice is having a sardonic giggle at some tacky Latin American paraphernalia and Tasha is in the middle of taking her up on her snobbery when Papi and Gaby enter for post-coital snacks. Their hair has evidently been styled by the turbine engine of a Boeing 737. Gaby seizes the minor altercation between Tasha and Alice to have a few acerbic pops at Alice’s expense. Tasha threatens Gaby if she doesn’t cut it out. Oh, Tasha, might there still be something worth fighting for? Let’s hope so.

Helena’s jail-time hardening proves useful in club fracas: In Hit, Helena flexes some muscle and wields a headlock on a few unruly dyke dramatists:

Helena: Everybody keeps their hands off everybody else in my nightclub. Unless they’re loving hands.

Shane arrives at the recently-rebranded club and downs a few medicating shots of Patrón at the bar with Helena and Helena’s less-than-chipper but succinct advice, “Women are poison”.

Bette and Tina pull up outside their house: Bette apologises for defending Shane earlier in the evening because of the message it sent to Tina. Bette seizes the moment to swear a vow to Tina that she shares her values and will never cheat on her again. Here comes Bette’s waterworks. Seriously, the woman must have a had a tear duct reservoir implanted behind her eyes. She must get paid by the tear!

Tasha and Alice, giggling in Papi’s kitchen:

Tasha: Who the hell makes noises like that?

An uncomfortable silence after hours of fruitless conversation eventually erupts into laughter due to the slaying-a-baboon sex sounds coming from Papi’s room.

From sexy to sexier times: Niki and Jenny are romping through the night doing irreparable damage to Jenny’s furniture. Good work, ladies.

Hit Club, Shane is trollied and the party’s over: Kit carries her home.

Having escaped Apes Gone Wild over at Papi’s, Tasha and Alice have sought refuge back in Alice’s: Both are setting up the pull-out bed in Alice’s apartment for Tasha to sleep on. Tasha insists that she won’t sleep in the same bed as Alice until they’ve worked everything out—if they work anything out. However, Alice playfully maneuvers  insists onto the bed with Tasha. Tasha doesn’t seem at all put out and inspite of Alice’s advances, Tasha manages to restrain her. One more thing they don’t have in common emerges: Tasha is serious and Alice is not.

Helena sitting in Hit club: Surveying her new kingdom.

Shane feeling copious amounts of self-pity and drunk on Kit’s couch: Kit is lending a listening ear and some of her trademark “Go get ‘er” advice. She urges Shane to “fight for Jenny”. For the first time in her life, Shane must fight for a woman she cares about instead of running away or letting her go.

Next morning, Niki and Jenny waking up: Niki awakes from cheerful slumber and is looking for round two of her “punishment” from Jenny. She is reveling in their reunion and the ease with which it was achieved. Jenny lies motionless—like a lioness observing her prey, waiting for the apt moment to pounce—while Niki babbles incessantly and characteristically inanely with such prized gems of remorse as:

Niki: It was so romantic when you said I broke your heart, “you’ve broken my heart”.

But what of all of Jenny’s anguish and rage form the night before? BAM! There it is:

Jenny: You’re nothing but a self-indulgent, self-absorbed, little brat. And our affair on set was nothing but a show-mance. And when I said “you’ve broken my heart”, I wasn’t talking about you, darling. [Arises from bed, dresses, leaving Niki reeling from her resonating words.] “It’s time for you to go.” [Exit Jenny.]

Showdown at The Planet: Shane arrives to find all of the others seated. Shane approaches Jenny to talk to her. Jenny blanks Shane and leaves the table, with Tasha and Tina marching behind in demonstrative support. The group is split. Even a Kit “C’mon y’all!” can’t reunite them. Tense times ahead!

If you can’t wait for the first episode of season six of The L Word to hit TV screens here, you can watch it online over at Fancast by clicking here.

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