Sarah Warn's blog

See how long it takes you to put together this scene of one of the first lesbian relationships on American broadcast television — and if you can identify what these characters are experiencing.

(If you don't know the answers when you're finished, go here).

Actors Jeremy Piven and Charlize Theron (an outspoken advocate of gay rights who has played queer roles in Head in the Clouds, and Monster) were special guests at fundraiser last night for OneXOne, a charity that provides food, water, healthcare and education to children in Ethiopia and Rwanda. (Matt Damon is a prominent spokesperson for the charity, but he had to pull out of the fundraiser at the last minute.)

During the live auction, Theron offered a 2010 trip to South Africa, which included World Cup tickets, a safari and a meet-and-greet with Nelson Mandela.

When bidding stalled at $37,000 — much lower than the $280,00 Piven had raised in the auction — Charlize got creative. According to US Magazine:

As much as I like the premise of the new ABC drama FlashForward —  a mystery in which a team of FBI agents try to piece together what happened when everyone on earth blacks out for two minutes at the same time — I've been a little bored with the show.

Not a good sign when the show is only on its fourth episodes (it took me at least a season and a half to get tired of Lost).

**spoilers for this episode only**

As part of their new project to explore the legacy of LGBT men and women, Logo and Subaru invited several prominent men and women in media, entertainment and advertising to discuss their experiences and what "Legacy" means to them.

Comedian Sandra Valls talks about growing up knowing she wanted something different for her life, and why laughter is important.

Learn more at the Logo Legacy Campaign site.

See how long it takes you to put together this sexy new "lost" scene starring two of your favorite actresses in an online series, then see if you can name the characters and their 'shipper name. (If you don't know the answers when you're finished, go here).

The blue blazer lives!

Last night, out comedian and This Just Out host Liz Feldman made her debut on NBC's new Jay Leno Show, in a funny segment in which she taught a group of seniors how to tweet. Watch her segment here (apologies to our international readers, but NBC has geo-blocked this to U.S. readers only):

As part of their new project to explore the legacy of LGBT men and women, Logo and Subaru invited several prominent men and women in media, entertainment and advertising to discuss what "Legacy" means to them.

First up is Top Chef's Jamie Lauren talking about the experiences that helped her become a chef, what she's learned along the way, and what she hopes to pass on to others.

Learn more at the Logo Legacy Campaign site.

After a long summer of not much to watch on TV, there are several new shows starting this week and next on American TV. Add this to all the great returning shows, and you've got a DVR dilemma!

To aid you in your scheduling decisions, I've created this short rundown of seven new shows, with suggestions of why you might like the show, why you might not, and my opinion on whether it's worth watching. (Just keep in mind, some of the details may have changed from the pilot episode I saw, to the final version that airs.) The shows are listed in order of start date; click on the show's name to go to the official site and learn more about it.

If you've seen any of these pilots, feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments.

The Good Wife (CBS) — Sep. 22

What it is: A drama about the wife of a politician who has to go back to work as a lawyer when her husband is caught in a sex scandal.

Why you might like it: The premise of the series is very timely, the show is well-written and paced just right, and it stars Julianna Margulies (ER, What's Cooking), Archie Panjabi (Bend It Like Beckham), and Christine Baranski (Cybill), all in strong roles.

Although it's technically a legal drama, it's really more of a personal drama about Margulies's character Alicia as she attempts to re-enter the work force after years of being a full-time mother and politician's wife for years. When she's not competing against a much younger attorney (play by Gilmore Girl's Logan), Alicia has to figure out whether to leave her now-imprisoned husband (played by Chris Noth); and try to protect her kids from their father's actions and the resulting scandal (in one poignant scene, Alicia's young teenage daughter asks her whether it's true that Dad slept with a prostitute her age).

Why you might not: It's still partly a legal drama, and that may not be your thing.

Recommendation: Watch it.

Cougar Town (ABC) — Sep. 23

What it is: A comedy about an older woman who begins dating younger men.

Why you might like it: It stars Courteney Cox (Friends) and Busy Philips (Dawson's Creek).

Why you might not: Where do I start? It's an over-the-top comedy with uneven writing that includes every predictable stereotype about women and aging, and generally presents older women as desperate and neurotic. The conversations between Cox's character and her teenage son are more creepy than funny, and the humor is mostly of the stupid and predictable variety, with pratfalls and lines like "you are hot as balls!"

Recommendation: Skip it, unless you like to watch train wrecks.

The first episode of the second season of Fringe starts tonight on Fox — and it's a good one! But then, more Anna Torv is always a good thing.

TheTorchOnline.com recently published an interesting interview with Torv, and I like her answer to this question:

TTO: I think your character was a very brave choice. I mean, you are a very beautiful woman, but they’re not dwelling on that, emphasizing that.
AT: But not only that, I know that I’m regularly described as being very cold and very detached. But I go, “I don’t care you think that, because if I was a guy, you just wouldn’t say that.” Men can be solitary, be on their own, or just not speak.

TTO: Right!
AT: I think it’d be great for her to get a lover in every port!

I don't want to give away any spoilers about the new episode (you can get those on FringeTelevision.com), but I will give you a few teasers: the show picks up exactly where it left off, and somewhere in the episode, Agent Olivia Dunham (Torv) wakes up and suddenly starts speaking Greek.

Intriguing, yes? Just don't expect the episode to answer many of your burning questions (the Fringe writers are good at putting that off).

Olivia, Peter (Joshua Jackson), Walter Bishop (John Noble), Astrid (Jasika Nicole), Agent Broyles (Lance Reddick), Agent Francis (Kirk Acevedo), and the lab's resident cow are all back, and there's also a new female FBI Agent, played by Meghan Markle. I have to admit I wasn't thrilled with either her acting or her character, but I'm hoping both will improve over time.

The cast did a photoshoot to promote the second season, and Fox made a cute video of it:

Now on to the new photos!

First, we have the snazzy new posters, which quite appropriately focus on Olivia.

There are 14 "easter eggs" in this first poster — can you find them all? (Go here for the list.)

See how long it takes you to put together this pivotal scene from a popular teen drama, and then finish this heartbreaking line of dialogue from the scene: "I do want you, so be brave, and ____ __ ____."

(I know the name of the show will be obvious right away to many of you, so the real test is how long it takes you to put the puzzle together, and whether you know the line.)

Last week, many AfterEllen.com readers expressed concern about the edited sex scene between Naomi (Lily Loveless) and Emily (Kathryn Prescott) in the latest episode of the third season of Skins, which recently began airing on BBC America.

In the original version that aired on British TV, the girls are shown kissing for several seconds by the lake, stopping to take off their sweatshirts (leaving them in t-shirts and underwear), and then making out again as they begin to have sex on the blanket. Next we see Naomi trying to sneak away the next morning, before Emily wakes up.

In the version shown in the U.S. last week, the girls are shown kissing and removing their sweatshirts, kissing again as they lie down, and then the scene cuts to Naomi's departure the next morning.

I contacted BBC America on Friday about their decision to edit that scene, and a spokesperson for the show gave me this explanation:

A few months ago I wrote about Jasmine Guy directing a stage version of Ntozake Shange's famous 1976 play For Girls Who Have Committed Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf in Atlanta this summer.

Now Lionsgate has announced a feature film version of the play to be adapted, directed and produced by Tyler Perry.

Summer vacation arrives, and Kyoko starts inviting everyone to a summer trip — except Akira and Fumi, who are busy with other plans for the summer holiday.

On Kyoko's camping trip during a "test of courage" activity, Ko debates whether or not to reveal a huge secret.

Solve the puzzle and identify the name of the hit new TV show starring this popular real-life lesbian.

AE reader drummerdeeds tipped us off to the new Bollywood movie Dil Bole Hadippa!, about a woman who pretends to be a Sikh man in order to play cricket for the big leagues.

Here's actress Rani Mukherjee as Veera Kaur:

And here's Veera dressed a man, "Veer":

Wikipedia lays out the premise of the movie, which opens in theaters in India next month:

The film tells the story of Veera (Rani Mukerji), a fire-cracker of a girl who lives in a small village but dreams of playing cricket in the big league. Rohan (Shahid Kapoor) is an accomplished captain of a county cricket team in England. Rohan returns to India to captain his father's cricket team which has been losing consecutively for the last 8 years.

In a village where girls don't play cricket, Veera has to put on a turban and beard and become a man to fulfill her dreams. Her brilliance on the field earns her a place in Rohan's team.

IMDb explains the romantic twist: "A feisty cricket-expert Punjabi girl enters the men's cricket team to play in the Cricket World Cup [but] she is in a predicament when she falls for her handsome cricket coach."

So basically, it's Bend it Like Beckham (2002) meets Just One of the Guys (1985)/She's the Man (2006)...

The day after Fujigaya's theatrical festival, Akira and Fumi head off to Yokohama for a day to play.

The day of the Fujigaya's performance in the school play has arrived, but Fumi is taken aback when she cries after the performance...

After reading my comments in this week's BLWE about Stargate Universe's body-swapping episode that results in Ming-Na's lesbian character Camile having sex with a man, a spokesperson for the show contacted me to clarify a few things.

But first, here's the statement Stargate Universe creators Brad Wright and Robert Cooper posted on the Gateworld forum this morning, after being barraged with complaints via email and Twitter from LGBT and disability rights groups responding to criticism of the episode on a handful of blogs and websites (including AfterEllen.com):

Recently, a casting breakdown was released to agents for a upcoming character in our television show, Stargate Universe. The character, Doctor Eleanor Perry, is a brilliant scientist at the top of her field, who also happens to be a quadriplegic. As part of a science fiction conceit that is core to our series, Perry's consciousness is temporarily exchanged with one our series main characters, Camile Wray, who is a lesbian. In the course of the story, Perry has the experience of being able bodied for the first time since she was a child. At the same time, Wray, temporarily encumbered by Perry's physical disability, experiences the unconditional love of her life partner.

Fumi comes out to Akira, and tells her about her relationship with Yasuko.

Solve the puzzle and see if you can identify the names of the lesbian characters who have each other's back (literally) in this scene.

Nancylee Myatt, Maeve Quinlan, and the rest of 3Way folks recently released a full episode of the fake show-within-a-show Ladycops, starring Liz Vassey (CSI) and Christina Cox (Blood Ties, Defying Gravity), that they first introduced in episode six of 3Way.

Cox and Vassey play straight actresses (Lara Lancaster and Mikki Majors) who hate each other, playing lesbian detectives (Sienna and Jo) secretly in love with each other on the crime show Ladycops — which is itself a reference to the lesbian detectives Cox and Vassey played in the pilot for a real show called Nikki & Nora, which was almost picked up for broadcast TV in 2004.

Confused yet? But in a good way, right?

Basically, Ladycops: Brotherly Love is a send-up of police procedurals — complete with cheesy music, forensics banter laced with sexual tension, and the requisite chasing-a-suspect sequence — with a lesbian twist. It also makes fun of how some actors who play lovers on-screen can't stand each other off-screen, and it mocks lesbian subculture (because there's just so much to mock!).

Throw in a cameo by Gabrielle Christian (South of Nowhere), and appearances by Maeve, Maile Flanagan and Bridget McManus in their 3Way roles, and it's a very entertaining 15 minutes!

Let us know your favorite line/scene in the comments, and check out 3WayTV.tv for more new 3Way extras.

To help promote their upcoming pride event — and to raise awareness about the words we use when we communicate our thoughts to the world — Stockholm Pride has created an online tool that analyzes your tweets to determine how much you conform to the "hetero norm."

In other words: it tells you how gay you are, based on how many "gay cliché" words you use in your tweets — the more you use, the less hetero you are.

So it's not at all scientific. And apparently bisexuality doesn't exist. But it's fun!

In the spirit of wasting time on a Friday doing the tough research so you don't have to, I analyzed the twitterstreams of several different women (and some websites) to determine how hetero they are.

The results are provided below, but I must warn you, some of it is downright shocking:

Rachel Maddow is more hetero than Meghan McCain!

Fox News is gayer than Bridget McManus!

Lindsay Lohan is mostly straight and Dara Nai is really, really gay (well, we know this last one's true, at least).

Read on for more revelations of who landed where on the hetero scale — along with Stockholm Pride's description of each person's sexual orientation, and a list of which words got them there.

AfterEllen.com: @afterellen
gay, butch, bisexual, lgbt, pride

You got nothing of it in you. Really? Nothing at all? Well, welcome to Pride.

Also having "nothing of it in you"? @DaraNai (ass, sugar, gay, truck, prop 8) and @StaceyannChin at 1% (new york, san francisco, gay, pride, prop 8), and @KarmanKregloe at 4% (stonewall, stonewall inn, milk, pride, dolly parton).

Fox News: @foxnews
politics, oil, military, new york, key west

You're barely hetero at all. Don't you wish you've just got a few more points? To spice things up a bit? No? Alright.

Bridget McManus: @bridgetmcmanus
trevor, ass, lgbt, body, water drops

You're a wonder of non-heteroism. Calling you hetero is like streaking in the parliament. Tempting but plain wrong.

Meghan McCain: @McCainBlogette
trevor, ass, lgbt, body, water drops

You seem to be holiday hetero. Anything can happen when the relaxation kicks in and you have a couple of glasses from that bottle of wine you got as a birthday present from work.

On yesterday's season finale, the Spanish TV show Los Hombres de Paco (Paco's Men) killed off one-half of its very popular lesbian couple Silvia, played by Marián Aguilera, only a few hours after she was married to Pepa (Laura Sanchez).

I mentioned last week in an article that the wedding would turn violent, but I admit I didn't think Pepa or Silvia would be among the final body count. Four characters including Silvia were shot at the wedding, however, and Silvia died a sad, slow death in Pepa's arms. (Read a full recap of the finale here.)

There are rumors that Aguilera requested to leave the show (she has been with the cop drama for most of its eight seasons), but this hasn't been confirmed by the actress. UPDATE: Aguilera confirmed it.

Theories abound as to why the writers chose to write her character off by killing her — from laziness, to maximizing ratings, to freeing Pepa up to love again eventually (the most optimistic interpretation by far). Regardless, Silvia has now become the latest in a long line of dead lesbians on TV and film, a fate that befalls lesbian/bi characters disproportionately more often than their heterosexual counterparts.

There will be more written about this in the future, but for now, leave your thoughts on Silvia's death in the comments below, and read other readers' reactions in our Los Hombres de Paco forum thread starting here.

In a new blog post for Variety, writer Anne Thompson asserts that "angry women make potent box office."

The success of a film at the box office is usually based on a combination of factors that only partially has to do with the actual content of the movie. These include the star power of the names attached, what kind of reviews and awards the film gets, and — most importantly — how much money and effort the studio/distributor puts into promoting the movie.

Drew Barrymore's Whip It is getting made, according to Thompson, "because of its potential appeal to several niches. It's an action movie with babes attached (think Charlie's Angels, Blue Crush). Some men might even show up."

But mainly, "it's an angry woman movie ... and Hollywood is often taken aback by how well angry women movies can do" and she lists Thelma & Louise, Nine to Five, Waiting to Exhale and the upcoming Megan Fox vehicle Jennifer's Body as examples. Another recent "angry woman movie" that comes to my mind is The Brave One (2007) — although it only did OK at the box office, grossing $36 million domestically.

But Thompson's statements got me wondering: do angry lesbians and bi women do better at the box office, too?

So I did a quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation of the domestic box-office gross of most of the high-profile theatrical releases starring "angry" leading lesbian/bi characters in the last decade or so, and compared them to theatrical releases starring "happy" lesbian characters in lead roles. They're listed below in order of their U.S. box office gross. And I added photos, just for fun.

With its October premiere date approaching, new info is starting to emerge about Stargate Universe, the Syfy channel's latest Stargate spinoff. Here's the official description of the show:

SGU follows a band of soldiers, scientists and civilians, who must fend for themselves as they are forced through a Stargate when their hidden base comes under attack. The desperate survivors emerge aboard an ancient ship, which is locked on an unknown course and unable to return to Earth. 

Faced with meeting the most basic needs of food, water and air, the group must unlock the secrets of the ship's Stargate to survive.  The danger, adventure and hope they find on board the Destiny will reveal the heroes and villains among them.

Yes, it sounds a lot like Star Trek Voyager, but since I liked that series, I'm not complaining (yet).

In April we reported that the series would include a leading lesbian character named Camille, played by Ming-Na (Vanished, ER, The Joy Luck Club), who has a long-term partner back on Earth.

Last week, consulting producer Joseph Mallozzi revealed on his blog that Camille's long-term, life partner, Sharon, will be played by Reiko Aylesworth in episode 7 ("Life").

Aylesworth as Michelle on 24 (left); at the 2008 JCPenney Asian Excellence Awards

Most people know Aylesworth — an Evanston, IL native of Dutch, Welsh, and Japanese ancestry, who studied neuroscience at the University of Washington before acting became her full-time profession — from her long-running role as Michelle on 24, but she has guest-starred on several series since then (including Lost and CSI, and is currently doing theater in New York.

Aylesworth's SGU character Sharon was described in the casting call as a lead guest character, possibly recurring, who is "Sensitive, soulful" and will be asked to do "strong emotional scenes."

In the casting sides we've seen, Camille and Sharon share dinner, kisses, and a tearful conversation when they briefly re-unite via a long-range communications device that allows the stranded crew members to make a short visit home.

We finally know more about Ming-Na's character. Here's Camille's bio on the show's new official site: