Thirty Days of PRIDE

While pride is important every month, June is the month we single out for the biggest gay pride events to commemorate the world-changing Stonewall Riots on June 28th, 1969, which began the modern Gay Rights Movement as we know it. Similar to my 31 Days of Halloween, I wanted to put together some special TV programming for a great LGBT Pride Month.

Blue represents hour long dramas, green represents half-hour sitcoms and dramas, purple represents reality shows and red is used for special programming slots.


Weekday Lineup
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5am: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
6: Dawson's Creek
7: Dawson's Creek
8: Glee
9: Glee
10: Will & Grace
10.30: Ellen
11: Ellen
11.30: The Ellen Degeneres Show (talk show)

Noon: - Movie Slot C - "Related"
2pm: The L Word
3: The L Word
4: The L Word
5: Degrassi
5.30: Degrassi
6: - Documentary Slot -
8: - Movie Slot A - "Premium"
10: Queer As Folk (US)
11: Queer As Folk (US)

Midnight: Chozen
12.30am: Chozen
1: - Movie Slot B - "General"
3: - Music Slot -


Weekend Lineup
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2.30am: Exes & Ohs

3: Smash

4: Work Out in the Zone

5: Xena Warrior Princess

6: - Movie Slot B - "General"

8: - Documentary Slot - 

10: Lip Service

11: In The Flesh

Noon: Coming Out Stories

12.30: Vicious

1pm: - Movie Slot B - "General"

3: South of Nowhere

3.30: South of Nowhere

4: Sugar Rush

4.30: Sugar Rush

5: - Movie Slot C - "Related"

7: - TV Slot - "Special Episodes"

8: Hit & Miss (Sat) / Orange is the New Black (Sun)

9: Pretty Little Liars (Sat) / Tipping the Velvet (Sun)

10: - Movie Slot A - "Premium"

Saturday Only:

Midnight: Hot Gay Comics

1am: DTLA

1.30: Rick and Steve

2: Big Gay Sketch Show

Sunday Only:

Midnight: - Musical Theater Slot - (2 & 1/2 hrs) 

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Documentary Slot 

----------------------

- 2 hour slot -

-30 entries necessary -

Short-lengthed programs have been paired to better fill the slot, signified with an /+/

--

I Am Divine

Let's Get Frank

Fish Out of Water

Outrage

Live Free or Die

Small Town Gay Bar

For The Bible Tells Me So

Out Late

Blood on the Flat Trac

Celluloid Closet

Fabulous: The Story of Queer Cinema

I Can't Marry You /+/ Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement

Jihad For Love

Lavender Limelight Lesbians in Film /+/ Sole Journey

The Mormon Proposition

Out in the Open

Stonewall Uprising

Training Rules + Fatherhood Dreams

Inspired: Voices Against Prop 8

(A) Sexual

Brother Outsider: Life of Bayard Rustin

Saint of 9/11

Before Stonewall

After Stonewall

Call Me Kuchu

Family Values: An American Tragedy /+/ Mr. Angel

Bridegroom + Dangerous Living

Off and Running

Making Grace

We Were Here

Music Slot 

----------------------

- two hour slot -

- 21 entries necessary -

Entries accumulating less than 120 minutes are to be embellished with music videos from the wide world of LGBT performers.

Tegan & Sara: Get Along

Tegan & Sara: It's Not Fun, Don't Do It!

Wish Me Away: Chely Wright

Adam Lambert: Glam Nation Live

To Russia... With Elton

Elton John: Tantrums & Tiaras

K.D. Lang: Live in London with the BBC Orchestra

Queen Rock Montreal & Live Aid

Hungarian Rhapsody: Queen Live in Budapest

Queen: Live at Wembley Stadium

Backstreet Boys: Homecoming Live in Orlando

A Night Out with the Backstreet Boys

Hit So Hard

Rise Above: The Tribe 8 Documentary

Left Lane: On The Road with Folk Poet Alix Olson

Radical Harmonies

Glee: The Movie

Lady Gaga Presents The Monster Ball Tour at Madison Square Garden

Indigo Girls: Live at the Roxxy

Indigo Girls:: Live at te Fillmore

Indigo Girls: Live at the Uptown Lounge

Movie Slot A "Premium"

----------------------

- 2 hour slot -

-10 entries necessary -

These ten exemplary films are to be featured three times each of the course of the month, for this year.

Gods and Monsters

The Normal Heart

We Are The Best

Fucking Amal 

Brokeback Mountain

Cloudburst

Hannah Free

Boys Don't Cry

If These Walls Could Talk 2

Whip It

Movie Slot B "General"

----------------------

- 2 hour slot -

-39 entries necessary -

Reaching For the Moon

A Marine Story

Circumstance

Personal Best

All Over Me

Geography Club

My Summer Of Love

The Truth About Jane

Kissing Jessica Stein

All Over Me

But I'm a Cheerleader

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Fabulous Stains

Weekend

Pariah

The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love

A Perfect Family

Longhorns

North Sea Texas

Jack & Diane

Imagine Me & You

Blue is the Warmest Color

The Kids are Alright

Concussion

Keep The Lights On

Kiss Me

Mosquito y Mari

Water Lilies

Heavenly Creatures

Lost & Delirious

The Guest House

Bloomington

Cracks

The World Unseen

Molly's Girl

The Gymnast

She-Monkeys

Jamie and Jesse Are Not Together

Flowers for Bobby

Girls' View

Movie Slot C "Related"

----------------------

- 2 hour slot -

-30 entries necessary -

These films feature one or more of the following: gay directors, gay actors, gay supporting characters, or subtle LGBT themes.

American Beauty

The Night Listener

Pitch Perfect

The Runaways

Nell

The Accused

The Brave One

V for Vendetta
X-Men

X2: X-Men United

X-Men: The Last Stand

X-Men: First Class

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Emile

Asylum

Neverwas

Apt Pupil

Juno

Mouth to Mouth

Hard Candy

An American Crime

Ghost Cat

Mean Girls

Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed

Scream

Kinsey

Poison Ivy

Frozen

Divergent

ParaNorman

TV Slot "Special Episodes"

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- 1 hour slot -

- 9 entries necessary -

These are episodes of classic TV shows which feature LGBT characters or themes. Half-hour programs have been paired up to fill the slot.

- The Simpsons s8e15 "Homer's Phobia" /// All in the Family s1e5 "Judging Books by Covers" 

- Married With Children s7e15 "Heels on Wheels" /// Two and a Half Men s11e1 "Nangnagnangnang"

- Roseanne s9e10 "Home is Where the Afghan Is" /// Roseanne s9e11 "Mothers and Other Strangers"

- Shake It Up s2e7 "Double Pegasus It Up" /// Good Luck Charlie s4e19 "Down a Tree"

- Fraiser s11e3 "The Doctor is Out" /// Frasier s2e3 "The Matchmaker"

- South Park s11e2 "Cartman Sucks" /// The Boondocks s2e13 "The Story of Gangstalicious Part 2"

- American Dad s3e4 "Lincoln Lover" /// American Dad s4e7 "Surro-Gate"

- House of Cards s1e8 "Chapter Eight"

- Seinfeld s4e17 "The Outing" /// Seinfeld s6e16 "The Beard"

Musical Theater Slot

----------------------

- 2 & 1/2 hour slot -

- 4 entries necessary -

Avenue Q

Les Miserables: The 25th Anniversary Concert

Rent: Live on Broadway

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

A Long-Belated Review: Sleeps With Angels

After a period of bizarre experiments in the 1980s, Neil Young had a veritable renaissance in the 1990s. He found himself on the very cutting edge of the grunge explosion, and became the honorary guru of the alternative rock era. He achieved this, largely, by getting back to his roots and courting the styles he had become famous for in the 70s: lucid hard rock albums like Ragged Glory (1990), and sentimental folk such as Harvest Moon (1992). For his next disc, Neil attempted to channel a different style: the grim mentality of his "ditch trilogy," which ruminated on the heroin overdose of original Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten in 1970. With the untimely death of Kurt Cobain halfway through the creation of Sleeps With Angels, the project became imbued with unfortunate new resonance.

There has never been a more archetypal late-night record made, than Neil Young & Crazy Horse's 1994 album: the dark, ponderous Sleeps With Angels. It's the epitome of cool, the very essence of a midnight drive or a glass of wine on the porch at 4am. A full moon beach seance. A huddled mass of close friends waxing philosophic as dawn breaks. It's such a relentlessly shadowy album that it actually seems pretty ridiculous to listen to it during the day -- unless, of course, you're obsessively lost in yearning for those late nights long past.

The Crazy Horse format of rancorous guitars is subdued here into an almost neo-jazz sloppy precision. Vocals are given strictly in hushed tones and ominous background chants. The guitars become fuzz-ridden laments, as if slowly disseminating from a small amp in the far corner of an after-hours dive bar while the architect of said sound, a man in a trenchcoat and a top hot, is bent over his instrument with his face obscured, coming down off some long-stale high -- and he's the only person in the bar but you. It's an album seeping with shards of reality, but still firmly ensconced in the dewey gleam of preternatural warmth. Like an LSD hangover.

Like Neil's other 90s records, the lyrics present the worldview of a contented, happily wisened middle-aged man. But Sleeps With Angels is additionally haunted by the spectres of those who could not be saved. Neil's seen his share of destruction in his time, and on this record his ascension to maturity is made bittersweet by what could have been, had his fallen friends been able to achieve the same peace of mind.

It's not a wholly flawless record. There's some major filler. And a small studio performance called The Complex Sessions which Neil and the Horse did shortly after releasing the album, captures all the same hushed aesthetics while actually improving upon some of the initial arrangements.

But where it autonomously excels, is in sheer atmosphere. There's a lot of atmospheric music out there, and a lot of music that invokes the feeling of nighttime adventure. But there's no album that transports me so decisively into that world than Sleeps With Angels. It's a genuine marvel and, to me, an invaluable resource. It's one of Neil Young's greatest accomplishments, even if it's not one of his top 5 greatest records, when judged song for song.

Switched at Birth

As a kid I enjoyed the golden age of The WB, with the incomparable Dawson's Creek, the eternally endearing Gilmore Girls, and occasionally, when it wasn't too imposing, a little 7th Heaven. You could call it 'family entertainment' but it was aimed primarily at moody teenagers, and to a pre-teen like me, it seemed astoundingly mature. The height of adulthood. I was enthralled.

Today, The WB is gone. Its formal successor is The CW, but the programming on that network errs almost exclusively towards the supernatural end of the WB/UPN spectrum. Shows such as The Vampire Diaries and The Originals are quite good, but you don't see the same down to Earth, daily life sensibilities that informed the WB's best work.

Another channel has stepped in to pick up where the WB left off, a channel that for years subsisted on syndicating programs including Dawson's Creek and Gilmore Girls. It's almost strange to imagine a TV network operating with such a clear logical, linear progression (since market turmoil tends to necessitate more haphazard evolutions), but all those years spent accentuating the WB's best must have given them a rather keen understanding of the classic WB mentality.

ABC Family has become the true, irrevocable heir to the WB aesthetic. They're hit and miss like every network is, but if you're looking for the quirky homeliness and the warm-hearted sentimentality of old WB, ABC Family is your destination. And so far their best show is Switched at Birth, the story of two girls and their two families, who didn't discover that a baby switch had occurred until 16 years after the fact. It is an astoundingly well done show, that never ceases to yield at a very high quality. It has to be the best family drama since Gilmore Girls.

Genuinely Unique

I'm about to go on a minor rant, but the best way to explain Switched at Birth's strengths is to contrast it with one of ABC Family's lesser shows. You have no idea how much I was looking forward to the debut of The Fosters. Adoption AND LGBT themes? These are specifically my two most sought-after story aspects for family dramas.

But the show didn't turn out so great. The Fosters tries *so damn hard* to be diverse and innovative. But unfortunately what you get with The Fosters is most of the same characters and plots you've already watched on other TV shows. Trust me, there's absolutely nothing I am more desperate for than a great LGBT show on ABC Family. But The Fosters panders more so than emotes, and the barriers it purports to break have largely been breached before. If it opens even one set of eyes to the validity of gay adoption then that's a service rendered to the whole human race. But is it a good, well-written drama show, on an entertainment level? No, it's merely decent.

Switched at Birth, on the other hand, makes being unique in a sea of TV copycats appear virtually effortless. Sure we've dealt with certain themes before, like class warfare and student protest. But we're treated to these themes in new ways thanks to this nuanced premise. The titular switched at birth angle gives us a far more innately introspective and intimately conflicted look at the discrepancy between social classes than similar family drama treatments.

Allow me to elaborate. Our two girls from opposite socioeconomic backgrounds struggle not just with their understanding of conflicting social ideologies and the revelation of class warfare, as many coming of age stories address; they also struggle with how these two opposed ideologies are simultaneously inherent to who they are, due to the girls' dual nature between their birth parents and the parents who raised them. This issue is usually dealt with as a simple arc, from ignorance to understanding. But for Switched at Birth, our protagonists are adamant about retaining both aspects of their self.

Furthermore, the recurring emphasis on deaf culture and deaf issues gives a voice to a group that has almost no representation in mainstream media. And the framing of the classic 'student sit-in' plotline through the lens of deaf students trying to save their one haven from the world of the hearing majority, allows the show to raise awareness about a defining moment in deaf history which most viewers are not going to be familiar with (the Deaf President Now protests at Gallaudet University), as well as bringing in a bit of new depth to the old formula.

Keeps Me Guessing

Yes, I'd certainly be lying if I said Switch at Birth doesn't tread on *any* ground we haven't seen plenty of times before. Like nearly all works in television and film, it rests on some old standards when need be. But the special thing about Switched at Birth is that even when they're redoing a classic standard, they still keep me on my toes.

For example in one storyline, one daughter befriends a political activist who is opposed to her father's work as a state Senator. And of course, she accidentally reveals sensitive information the senator hiding from the public. We know how this goes, right? The boyfriend is going to release the information, after a fight or a breakup, or because the political stakes are too high. But, no, Switched at Birth doesn't go that route. They actually don't make that into a plot thread at all, the Senator himself makes the information public later in that same episode, under no duress or conflict.

Not every trope is subverted here, but there are just enough subversions to make sure the audience can't confidently predict the plotlines, because you don't know when they're going to go the traditional route, and when they're not.

Switched at Birth has impressed me virtually with every new episode. I'd say it's definitively proven itself as the third best family-drama, behind Dawson's Creek and Gilmore Girls. But Switched at Birth isn't over yet, could it get even better? I wouldn't be surprised.

Best episode so far? The alternate reality episode where they had found out about the switch much sooner. Daphne the altruist became a spoiled socialite growing up rich instead of seeing poverty up close, while wild child Bay became a shy bookworm, internalizing her artistic side after having to live in Daphne's shadow. It was heartbreaking, it was illuminating, it was clever as hell and it was fucking awesome. What's next?

The Avengers and The Marvel Cinematic Universe

As a teen in the 00s, I thought I was growing up in the era of superhero films. But this trend has no apparent ceiling, and in 2014 we're still at the era's utter peak. It hasn't plateaued yet, it may even have a little higher to climb. Me, I'm perfectly thrilled about that; I like superhero films and I have no problem picking and choosing one or two out of the ten that come out each year now.

But to be honest, by the time the Marvel Cinematic Universe began in the summer of 2008, my eagerness to gobble up new superhero films had already begun to waver. They came too late to cause a stir. I enjoyed Iron Man well enough, but I had no interest in Thor or The Incredible Hulk. Not only was my interest in the trend waning, but The Avengers are a B-grade superhero outfit to me.

So I was highly skeptical of The Avengers film, even after hearing from pretty much everybody on Earth that it was amazing. In fact, the first time I tried to watch The Avengers, I turned it off after one scene. Could that first scene have been any more generic? Ooh there's this super-powerful object and a bunch of pseudo-science. Uh oh, the evil guy steals the super-powerful object. I was just like "Ugh, seen it before," and turned it off.

Avengers Reassemble

But people keep gushing about the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) films. And after X-Men: Days of Future Past, I'm in the mood for some superheroes right about now. So I gave The Avengers another try.

And to my surprise, this movie actually fucking rocks. Despite frequent misgivings, it really won me over. The action was sick, the CGI looked good, it even had me genuinely invested in these characters. It pulled on my heartstrings a couple times. The story kept my interest and lacked any especially jarring foibles. They fit all these different characters into the film without ever feeling overburdened with content or leaving any characters noticeably underused. And most surprising of all, Loki waxes philosophic a couple times and it was actually pretty clever stuff. It didn't come off as cheesy.

Best of all was ScarJo. Black Widow, a SHIELD Agency assassin played by Scarlet Johansson, completely stole the film. In a movie featuring several of history's most beloved superheroes, Black Widow was more interesting than any of them. Here's a character with wit and strength, who doesn't have superpowers, and leaves me grappling for who she is, what her backstory is. Where's her stand alone movie? Now that's an MCU film that I'd actually go see. Maybe even in theaters.

So, I'm officially won over. The Avengers make a great ensemble and this film definitely ranks among the top 10 best superhero movies. But I can't say I'm completely sold on the MCU just yet. The MCU is much more of a comic-styled film series, with aliens and gratuitous action. I am and always will be more a disciple of the superhero approach that is grounded closer to reality (even if it's merely relative), with darker, more adult content, like what has been done with the Batman and X-Men films.

Marvel Takeover

A lot of people want Disney-Marvel to regain the rights to X-Men and The Fantastic Four, currently held by Fox. To that I say no no no no no no, no no no no no. We already have continuing franchises for Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers, quite possibly The Hulk as well, plus new films for Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and any number of other additions. Do you really want to see X-Men and the Fantastic Four placed on the MCU assembly line as well? The MCU has roundly proven their style to be stagnant and consistent between all their products. All we would be getting from MCU-made X-Men and Fantastic Four movies is exactly what we've already gotten from the dozen other MCU movies. To people who have an insatiable appetite for the MCU, this would be a good thing. For those of us who want variety and nuance, this would be an unbearable Marvelopoly.

The problem with the MCU is that it's the assembly line of superhero movies, they keep coming out, but they're too similar to each other. It's a lighter, more kid-friendly approach to superhero films, exactly what you'd expect from Disney. And I frickin' love Disney, but there's no reason that all great comic characters should be bowdlerized to fit this mold. What we have now is pretty much perfect, Fox doing more serious movies with the best Marvel franchise, and Disney doing lighter, but still high quality, films with a lesser set of characters.

The biggest problem with The Avengers film is this: Too many one-liners. And don't get me wrong, this is Joss Whedon, a lot of these one-liners are really frickin' funny. But when you have enough one-liners to end every fucking scene, you have to really start to wonder whether this movie is action/adventure, or a comedy. This tactic seems designed primarily to diminish the tension as often as possible, and makes it patently impossible to deny that the Marvel Cinematic Universe takes itself less seriously than the X-Men, Batman, or even Spider-Man franchises.

What we really need isn't to Disney-ify all the great comic-film franchises. What we need is for studios to wake the fuck up to the money train and start cooperating on flicks that can include characters from more than one franchise. We don't need a Marvelopoly in order to see The Hulk, Spider-Man and Wolverine in the same film, all we need is for these studios to be a little less antisocial and a little more ambitious. As the superhero trend continues to soar uninhibited, these collaborations may inch closer to fruition.