The Boob Tube and Beyond... by Traylor Trash, Out in America Columnist Ya’ll come on in! I’m Traylor Trash. Welcome to Trash Talk! Are you lookin’ for the latest queer gossip from around the worlds of entertainment and pop culture? Wanna know who’s doing who? Who’s got a boob job and who’s got a boob with no job? Girl, you came to the right place! Auntie Traylor is here for you, baby! We’re going to talk about what’s coming up and who’s going down! It’s all here, girl! So, pull up a chair and ya’ll get ready to talk trash! We’ve got a lot of material to cover this week cuz Auntie Traylor’s gaydar has been blipping non-stop ever since the new fall previews have been released. And believe me, there’s plenty to blip about! Reality Check If this is reality, then I’m gonna need the GOOD drugs! Okay, being forced to watch any mind-numbing reality show is liable to screw with your head a little. When it was just The Real World and Road Rules, I thought that it was just a trend that would go away. Then came Survivor and its bastard child Big Brother as well as every other possible “reality” show that the brainchildren in Hollywierd could come up with eventually prompting the horribly drab, predictable, and BORING movie On the Bus that followed a group of pretty gay boys and one ugly one on a road trip to California. Ack! But now things have taken a turn for the worse. The winner of this week’s "What In Gay Hell?!?" Award is the newly conceived Anna Nicole Smith Show. If I had any faith in God left at all it was shattered into a million tiny pieces after watching just one episode of the buxom bimbette’s television show. I swear that I felt brain cells committing suicide in order to escape the agony (she refers to her breasts as her ‘puppies’)! Wasn’t it enough that we had to see her on the news every night for like two years? Now they have to make us watch a series starring the gold digging harlot! And they wonder why people run through malls with rifles blowing away old ladies! Run away, children! It’s a trap! If you MUST watch reality television, turn on something more educational like The Osborne's. Material Mom Gets Swept Away This Fall Whether its pumping out hits or pumping out kids (rumor mill has it there may be a third on the way. I’ll keep ya’ll posted!), no one will argue with the notion that Madonna is certainly one of the hardest working entertainers in show business today. After a lengthy battle with a cyber-squatter for the rights to the Madonna.com web space (He was running it as a porn site. I thought that it was really hers anyway), Madonna.com is finally up and running featuring a slew of features including downloads, video and audio clips galore, television schedules, interactive timelines and much, much more. Meanwhile, Mrs. Ritchie is busy running about seemingly trying to be as visible as possible this fall. At the end of October, Madge will make a cameo appearance in the James Bond film Die Another Day for which she also will be releasing the title theme as a single. She will also grace the cover of Vanity Fair once again in October and her new movie Swept Away directed by hubby Guy (who also directed her video for "What It Feels Like For a Girl" and is probably best known for his recent success with Snatch) is scheduled for release on October 11. The movie stars Madge as a rich-bitch socialite that is forced to rough it stranded on a desert island with a handsome stranger who shows her the error of her ways. At least we don’t have to watch her and Rupert Everett shag again! Fall Television Preview There are lots of great things for good little queers on television this fall. From the makers of Smallville, the WB Network is launching a new series called Birds of Prey that teams up the daughter of Batman and Catwoman with the former Batgirl and a young psychic girl who is orphaned early in the series in order to save New Gotham in the future. Early previews of the show look really good and it helps that the story is spun off of the Tim Burton directed Batman Returns from 1993. BOP looks like it is set to be the next Xena, Warrior Princess in prime time with a hip, mostly female central cast, dark plotting and action that keeps the watcher on the edge of their seat, and costuming and set design that appeals to the aesthete in every good fag. Other new shows of interest include CBS’s The Party starring Nathan Lane as an openly gay former television star who gets elected to Congress. Also, look for WB’s Family Affair staring the fagulous Tim Curry as the sexually ambiguous butler Mr. French who looks after three orphaned children who are inherited by their rich uncle. Queer fan favs that are returning this year are UPN’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer where witchy woman Willow has to start life over without her girlfriend Tara who was killed in last season (This is reportedly the last season for Buffy as well), E.R. where lesbian Dr. Kerry Weaver may actually finally get a little between-the-sheets action onscreen with her new girlfriend, Dawson’s Creek featuring Jack McPhee who is starting his sophomore year in college, and of course Will & Grace which will be featuring singer Harry Connick, Jr. as the new romantic interest in Grace’s sad, sorry, co-dependant life. No word yet on whether or not Will ever lands a boyfriend. On that note, bisexual diva Megan Mullally who plays the shallow, bitchy, boozing, pill-popping, trash-talking, too-rich socialite Karen on Will & Grace will be putting out a CD with the Supreme Music Program in September called Big as a Berry which will collect the stage veteran belting out the tunes of Tom Waits, Randy Newman, and others. Poor Ellen Life has not been nice to Ellen DeGeneres. First her show gets cancelled after her coming out episode because she’s “too gay.” Then there’s the whole Anne Heche mess. Now, after it is fairly clear that CBS will probably not be picking up The Ellen Show for a second season, she is reduced to game show status. That’s right, starting September 16, 2002 Ellen will occupy the seat once held by Whoopi Goldberg in the center square of the re-vamped Hollywood Squares. Rumor has it that there may be a daytime talk show in the works, but now that she’s been consigned to Game Show Land, it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump to doing Taco Bell commercials. Somebody give Ellen a job! Gay Super-Heroes Get Action Action figures, that is. DC Direct, the toy line imprint of DC Comics has once more broken the mold when it comes to traditional Super-Hero toys. The Midnighter and Apollo, two of the characters from Wildstorm Comics (an imprint of DC Comics) who are the first openly gay super hero couple (they have already gotten married and adopted a child in the comic book) in the history of comics made history again when DC Direct released action figures based on the two characters who bear a striking resemblance to DC’s flagship characters Batman and Superman. The leather clad Midnighter and the angelic Apollo were released as half of the four figure set of The Authority figures that also included the characters Jenny Sparks and The Engineer. Midnighter and Apollo were originally created by scribe Warren Ellis during his run on the now-cancelled comic Stormwatch and were taken over by writer Mark Millar who is now writing the Stormwatch spin-off The Authority. In the comic, they are seen cuddling in bed watching Friends after saving the world as well as kissing and they are hailed as The World’s Finest Couple (a play on the old DC team-up title of the sixties and seventies called World’s Finest which featured Batman and Superman) by Hello! Magazine. The figures are very well made and feature several points of articulation, which makes it easy to do the first thing that every queer boy who ever played with action figures always did with their characters: pose them like they’re screwing. The only bad thing about them is their lack of... um... accessories. Care to take bets on which is the top? Queer Comics Although the creators of The Authority are groundbreaking in their portrayal of homo heroes, they are by no means the first or the last it seems. The first openly gay mainstream comic character was Marvel Comic’s Northstar who came out in Alpha Flight #106 in 1992. The issue also dealt with the then still touchy subject of AIDS. There now seems to be a growing trend to use gay characters in comics and if you really think about it, who would be more likely to want to dress up their buff bods in gaudily colored spandex and fly around saving the world than a queen? I mean, come on! The Human Torch was yelling “Flame On!” for years before Northstar ever came out! Part of that trend includes returning Northstar to the X-Men comic later this fall. X-Men is currently the largest grossing comic in the industry and the company is set to involve the character Northstar in that franchise. Other openly gay heroes in mainstream comics have included the Piper in Flash, Shrinking Violet and Lightening Lass from Legion of Super-Heroes and a character named Hector in the Hulk. Not only are there more gay heroes running around of late, there are also lots more gay non-hero characters in the comics. The gay and lesbian fan favorite comic Strangers in Paradise is about the life long friendship/love affair between the bisexual Katchoo and her supposedly straight friend Francine (all of this written entertainingly with sensitivity and delicacy by a middle-aged straight man, no doubt). Even Superman has gotten in on the act with the introduction of a lesbian detective named Maggie Sawyer. The most recent and notable gay mainstream comic book character is Terry Berg, the teenaged sidekick to the super-hero Green Lantern who has a magic ring that he uses to protect New York and the world. Berg first came out in Green Lantern #137, but he will really fall into the spotlight, as he becomes the victim of a hate crime by getting beaten nearly to death in Issue #154 which hits the stands on September 11, 2002. Green Lantern also sports two lesbian supporting characters named Lee & Li. Now more than ever, queer boys and girls growing up have points of reference in pop culture that never were there when my generation was coming of age. I don’t know whether to jump up and down in happiness or to pout in jealousy!