“Where are Heather’s Two
Mommies? The numbers of kids living with gay parents has
increased dramatically, but the amount of media catering
to them has not”
The Advocate, 07.15.08
When Leslea Newman wrote the landmark Heather
Has Two Mommies more than 18 years ago, not a single publisher would touch
it. Not a gay press, not an independent children’s book
publisher and certainly not a major publishing house like Simon & Schuster,
HarperCollins or G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
Eventually, she published it via a friend’s small press,
raising the money for the first run through $10 donations from
readers. Then gay publisher Alyson Books picked it up.
Newman’s upcoming children’s books—the first
board books for infants featuring two moms and two dads—will
be released by the independent children’s publisher Tricycle
Press in 2009. Tricycle publisher Nicole Geiger sought Newman
out for the job.
“I think of these books as Heather’s little brothers
and sisters,” says Newman. “But again, these are
still the first of their kind. About once a year one will squeak
through from the major publisher. But in general, for picture
books aimed at kids up to age 8, I haven’t seen much
change in the market over the past 18 years.”
Children’s media—DVDs, books, television programming,
even songs—lag woefully behind the baby boom now underway
in the gay community. Since the publication of Heather, gay
parents have raised more than 400,000 children, according to
statistics compiled by the Charles R. Williams Project on Sexual
Orientation Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Despite this, only about two dozen picture books aimed at those
children have been published in the same time. And product
is similarly scarce among other children’s media.
Download a PDF of this article here.
Movie Review: “Dan in Real Life”
Common Sense Media, 10.26.07
DAN IN REAL LIFE is kind of like 8 Simple Rules ... for Dating
My Teenage Daughter on vacation. There's the same father-daughter
dynamic and the same hapless-but-loving dad. And, overall, the
film is just as family-friendly and cute as the John Ritter TV
show -- with a few notable exceptions.
Download a PDF of this review here.
Movie Review: “The Final Season”
Common Sense Media, 10.11.07
The makers of THE FINAL
SEASON were smart when they decided to release it during Major
League Baseball playoffs. It's almost like they're extending
the season, providing fast cuts, lots of field action, and a
heartwarming underdog tale (which is even based on a true story).
Download a PDF of this review here.
Movie Review: “The Game Plan”
Common Sense Media, 09.27.07
THE GAME PLAN isn't Baby
Boom, but it's close. For years, Hollywood has been making movies
in which anti-maternal women are saddled with kids and become
better people. Well, switch the driven career woman for a football
player, throw him in some ballet tights, and you've got THE GAME
PLAN -- an adorable, if predictable, family movie from Disney.
Download a PDF of this review here.
Movie Review: “Hot Rod”
Common Sense Media, 09.03.07
If Jackass, Napoleon Dynamite,
and the Saturday Night Live viral video "Lazy Sunday" had
a love child, HOT ROD would be it, in all its dumb, dirty glory.
And like any completely gratifying summer comedy, Hot Rod is
far better than the sum of its parts.
Somehow Andy Samberg, the
co-writer and SNL castmember, manages to soften up the extreme
violence of Jackass, capture the doofus anti-hero of Napoleon
Dynamite, and liberally apply the nerdy awesomeness of "Lazy Sunday." There's a reason he's
an "Interweb" superstar.
Download a PDF of this review here.
Movie Review: “Gracie”
Common Sense Media, 05.31.07.07
Before girls could bend it like Beckham on their own soccer
teams, there was no place for them to play or be taken seriously.
GRACIE is a story about how all that changed, and it's a fast-paced
sports movie to boot.
Download a PDF of this review here.
Movie Review: “Lucky You”
Common Sense Media, 05.04.07
You know televised poker
showdowns have truly saturated pop culture when one is the central
theme of a Hollywood movie starring America's sweetheart Drew
Barrymore and great actors like Robert Duvall and Robert Downey
Jr. Unfortunately, LUCKY YOU is a bad bet, full of saccharine
platitudes, endless poker scenes, and almost no chemistry between
any of the characters.
Download a PDF of this review here.
Classic video review: “The Adventures of Robin
Hood”
Common Sense Media, 05.11.07
What's fascinating about
this Robin Hood is that it's less a sweet and cartoonish fairy
tale than it is a thinly veiled attack on American capitalism
and an absentee leader.
Politics aside, it's a rare action movie
that doesn't take itself too seriously, and that definitely adds
to the fun here. Even during fight scenes, the music is light
and upbeat. Compared to other man-against-his-government films
like the dour Shooter, Robin Hood is refreshing. And don't forget
to enjoy the costumes. It's delightful that in Medieval England,
Marion still manages to float through Sherwood Forest in a collection
of silk, lame, satin, and chiffon ball gowns. You have to admire
that in a girl.
Download a PDF of this review here.
Video Review: “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”
Common Sense Media, 05.15.07
Complete with bad fashions
(neon fingerless gloves, anyone?), bad hair, and even worse dancing,
Girls Just Want to Have Fun features some of today's most popular
actors doing some of the cheesiest things you've ever seen. See
a pre-Sex and the City Sarah Jessica Parker as Janey, the Catholic
school girl Army brat who dreams of dancing on Dance TV. Watch
her doing back flips and practicing dance lifts a la Dirty Dancing.
Witness the august and Oscar-winning actress Helen Hunt hamming
it up as Lynn, the wild-child best friend in some of the most
absurd -- but actually worn -- '80s ensembles and big, ratted-out
hair. It's Totally Awesome without the irony. And if you love
the '80s, it is totally awesome.
Download a PDF of this review here.
Video Review: “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem
in Four Acts”
Common Sense Media, 03.01.07
When a tragedy like the
attacks on the World Trade Center or Hurricane Katrina happens,
what story gets told? Is it the official story, passed down
in history books, full of the numbers killed and the cost?
Director Spike Lee's exhaustive and brilliant WHEN THE LEVEES
BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS answers with a resounding "no."
Download a PDF of this review here.
Movie Review: "Music and Lyrics”
Common Sense Media, 02.14.07
Good date movies are like
good first dates: They're charming, reasonably interesting, inoffensive,
and smart, and you get a little smooching at the end. MUSIC AND
LYRICS is all of those things at different points -- but unlike
a lot of dates, there are no surprises. If it were a first date,
you might agree to a second outing, but you probably wouldn't
go much further than that.
Download a PDF of this
review here.
Video Review: "Sherrybaby”
Common Sense Media, 01.07
If anyone needed a reason to
stay away from drugs and alcohol, SHERRYBABY is a great example
of what substance abuse, combined with self-loathing, sexism,
and sexual abuse, can do to a woman's life.
Download a PDF of this review
here.
Video Review: “Totally Awesome"
Common Sense Media, 12.06
Wanna have an '80s teen movie
marathon, but crappier? Condense them all into an hour and a
half, sprinkle in some really horrible dance moves, and enjoy
TOTALLY AWESOME, the '80s movie spoof by the channel that brought
you I Love the '80s.
If the plot sounds insane, it is.
But it's not meant to be sane. It's meant to cram in as many
references to '80s movies as possible. There's the Dirty
Dancing dance practice scenes, with Kattan's perfect Patrick
Swayze mullet. There's the fabulously snarky dance number
a la Staying Alive (headbands and all). There's the
best-friend-as-lover moments a la Some
Kind of Wonderful, complete with fingerless knit gloves.
And of course there's the big hair and pink leather skirt ensembles
with shoulder pads.
Download a PDF of this article here.
Video Review: “Save the Last Dance 2”
Common Sense Media, 12.06
If SAVE THE LAST DANCE 2 had
been called something else, and not associated with the fabulous original,
it would have been released in theaters and inspired a throng
of dance-movie devotees. Instead, you'll have to get the DVD
to appreciate the fun of this hip hop-meets-ballet movie.
Download a PDF of this article here.
“It Takes a Femme”
Curve Magazine, 09.06
For Elizabeth Stark and
many other femmes, they come to their skirts and heels and
makeup (or books and closefitting jeans and tattoos—or some combination thereof) after careful
thought about their gender. Femme isn’t just a great
way to catch a girl’s eye at the bar. It’s a
gender, and, for Stark, becoming femme is just as thoughtful
and complicated a process as coming out as butch or trans.
Download a PDF of this article here.
“Honey, We’re Shaming the Kids”
Bitch Magazine: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, 09.06
Makeover
shows aren’t known for being kind. Part of
the appeal of tough-love shows like What Not to Wear and Queer
Eye for the Straight Guy is their humorous evisceration of
the participants’ pre-makeover clothes, hair, or body.
But
what if you didn’t choose your makeover fate? What
if, without your consent, humiliating images of you were broadcast
across the country as a mass warning? If you’re a chubby
kid, that’s just the threat TLC’s new show Honey,
We’re Killing the Kids! Poses. Here, kids are the
symbol of the obesity epidemic, and their humiliation is perpetrated
under the guise of good intentions and medical science.
Download a PDF of this article here.
Video Review: “All Aboard! Rosie’s Family
Cruise”
Common Sense Media, 09.06
Before she became the crass
one on The View, Rosie
O'Donnell was a talk show host who flung squishy balls into
the audience, crushed on now-certifiable Tom Cruise and supported
Broadway musicals. After coming out of the closet, O'Donnell
became famous for advocating gay adoption rights. In All
Aboard! O'Donnell charters a cruise liner and invites
gay families and their straight parents and children for a
vacation. Along the way, there are two gay weddings, lots of
singing, and lots of loving shots of families at play.
Download a PDF of this article here.
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