Fabiola Santiago: Gov. DeSantis is no victim. His rhetoric enables hateful acts like Nazi rally
Miami Herald
No, Gov. Ron DeSantis, it's no coincidence that, only days apart, antisemitic flyers were hurled out of a passing car in Miami Beach while in Central Florida neo-Nazis staged rallies last weekend. At not one, but two gatherings in public spaces — an Orange County highway overpass and in an Orlando shopping center — groups of Nazis waved swastika flags and shouted antisemitic slogans for all to see and hear. The vile acts of hatred against Jewish people are taking place because a certain sector of the populations in Florida feels comfortable displaying the ugliest of human emotions. DeSantis en… Read More
Links: Lil Nas, South Beach Bashing, Rene Zellweger, Andy Cohen, Channing Tatum
‘Celebration of queerness': Drag queens keep South Africa's scene alive
TDPel Media
A leggy blonde sashays with the grace of a Hollywood star then drops into the splits, mesmerising an enthusiastic Johannesburg audience not used to watching major shows by international drag queens. ‘THE DRAG SCENE IN SOUTH AFRICA IS VERY NEW'Brooke Lynn Hytes, AKA Brock Hayhoe, two-time finalist on RuPaul's Drag Race, headlined the sold-out event on Saturday night. “The drag scene in South Africa is very new, when I lived here about 15 years ago there was no drag,” the Canadian told AFP, sitting elegantly in a leopard print dress and a perfectly-coiffed Marilyn Monroe wig. South Africa has so… Read More
What We're Reading: Edmund White is the godfather of queer lit
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — About a week after Edmund White turned 82, we spoke on the phone. There was too much to ask. To be honest, it's a little hard to know where to begin with Edmund White. Soon after he left Evanston, Illinois, not long after college, he became at editor at Saturday Review; soon after that, he cowrote “The Joy of Gay Sex.” At the time of the Stonewall uprising in 1969 (which he witnessed), he was a staff writer for Time-Life Books. He was friends with Toni Morrison, James Merrill, Robert Mapplethorpe, Foucault; he was frenemies with Susan Sontag. He cofounded the Gay Men's Health Crisis … Read More
James Baldwin, NFT, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Euphoria Satire, Pam, Tommy, Crazy Kid Rock and Queer Books.
Bride-To-Be Branded ‘Homophobic' After Telling Lesbian Sister to Bring Groomsman as Wedding Date
PopCrush
Bridezilla and intolerant? Big yikes! A woman is being dragged online for telling her sister she couldn't bring her girlfriend of three years to her wedding. Instead, the bride-to-be wanted her sister to bring one of the groomsmen as her “date.” A woman, who is openly gay, went on Reddit and shared how her sister — the bride — told her that her role as a bridesmaid on her big day would come with a few ground rules. “I would have to walk down the aisle beside one of the groomsmen, stand beside him in some pictures and sit at a table with him and the other bridesmaids and groomsmen,” user Anonym… Read More
Can Netflix make LGBT rights in MENA more mainstream?
Since the streaming giant Netflix released its Arabic version of the Italian movie “Perfect Strangers” on January 20, the Arab world has been overwhelmingly consumed by a socio-cultural debate. The movie, co-produced by UAE, Lebanese, and Egyptian entertainment companies, portrays storylines on marriage, women's sexuality, drinking and driving, mental health stigma, anti-patriarchal fatherhood, teenage and safer sex, and to top it all, homosexuality and the challenges facing queer Arabs. Starring Egyptian Mona Zaki (Maryam), Lebanese Nadie Labaki (May), Georges Khabbaz (Walid), Adel Karam (Zia… Read More
Why Israel is reviving its anti-BDS propaganda campaign (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions )
Talking points overwhelmingly “referring to Israel as the “only democracy in the Middle East” or by pointing to gay rights to imply Palestinians are “backward”.
Al-Araby
On 6 January, primetime Australian television gave a Palestinian activist a rare chance to address what was, at the time, one of the country's biggest news stories. “Anything we do [as Palestinians] is going to be met with backlash,” Jennine Khalik, a former journalist, told the panel on a popular current affairs talk show. “It doesn't matter what form of resistance it is.” It was the opening of Sydney Festival, a three-week series of art and music events that bring together some of Australia's best-known performers. The festival, which was sponsored and funded by the Israeli embassy, was faci… Read More
Science fiction epic ‘Dune' leads BAFTA nominations with 11 nods
Reuters UK
By Marie-Louise Gumuchian LONDON (Reuters) -Science fiction epic “Dune”, a mammoth adaptation of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel, led nominations for the British Academy Film Awards on Thursday, securing 11 nods, with dark Western “The Power of the Dog” following with eight. “Belfast”, Kenneth Brannagh's semi-autobiographical black and white comedy drama set at the onset of Northern Ireland's three decades of conflict, received six nominations at Britain's top movie honours. All three films will compete for best film at the awards, known as the BAFTAs (British Academy of Film and Television Arts), …
