Queer Artists of Color Dominate 2021's LGBTQ Art Shows
From emerging talents like Naima Green to more established artists like Zanele Muholi, Black and brown voices are headlining a bold lineup of global exhibits. More.
Jenn Shapland Takes A Queer Lens To Carson McCullers
While archiving authors’ personal effects and papers during grad school, Jenn Shapland retrieved a batch of letters written to a long-dead woman. Filled with passionate, covert intimacies, they were from another woman. She was intrigued. The messages were mailed to mid-century American Gothic fiction author Carson McCullers by smoldering silk heiress and morphine addict Annemarie Clarac-Schwartzbach, a fellow writer. The last lesbian love letters Shapland had seen were the ones she wrote to her college “roommate.” Then her conservative mother found the letters and read them aloud to the undercover couple when they visited on a break. More.
New Webzine Spotlights Queer Asian Canadians
The second volume of the Sticky Rice Magazine project is alive and this time, it’s all about queer Asian Canadians. (BE)LONGING: The Queer Edition, the second volume of Sticky Rice Magazine, a webzine with the mandate of increasing the visibility of Canadian creators of Asian descent, is “dedicated to bringing awareness to the stories of queer Asian Canadians. This volume aims to continue subverting stereotypical narratives, taking experiences that culture and social context have deemed alien and celebrating them as aspirational.” More.
Ray Moon's Ten Favorite Songs by Black Queer Artists
For the past four years, Ray Moon has been handling her career on her own terms. The artist (born: Rachel Marie Johnson) is an R&B-leaning rap artist of the smoothest kind. On "Glowin," her most recent release, she finds her heart-melting pocket of melodies over a trap beat that would be impossible for anyone else to wrangle, but she does so with ease. A song about relieving herself from a toxic lover, Moon's "Glowin" music video features her girlfriend, Jadah Blue. She hasn't released much since she broke onto the scene in 2016 with "Everything Good," but each song drips with her own signature — one that's made her music impossible to resist. More.
Importance of LGBTQ Representation in TV & Film
The heteronormativity of popular culture, and wider society, has, until recently, largely prevented gay and trans people from identifying with the characters they see on screen. Even when queer characters have made appearances, they have often been put there as the butt of a joke, or simply misrepresented, often as the ‘gay best friend’ or the repulsive trans woman. This demonstrates the importance of accurate representation in providing LGBTQ people with community and recognition, as well as to normalize queerness. More.
Why Trailblazing Documentary Still Shines In 2021
Jenny Livingstone’s 1990 documentary "Paris is Burning" is hailed as a seminal piece of LGBTQ+ cinema, shining a spotlight on the ballroom culture that flourished in the eighties in New York’s underground drag scene. The Grandfather of Voguing and Mother of the House of Ninja, Willi Ninja, introduces the unique dance form he created, stating that ‘vogueing’ evolved as a facet of throwing shade, a battle-like tactic. ‘Voguing’ was the most mainstreamed of terms, having made its stamp on pop culture after Ninja himself choreographed Madonna’s 1990 video of ‘Vogue’, amplifying the riches and ahead-of-its-time creativity that could be found in the art of drag, an art that was commonly looked down on due to outsider’s perceptions of performances being overly sexualised and therefore too inappropriate for the mainstream. More.
Claud Sings Of Queer Love and Self-Discovery
Claud, the first artist signed to Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records, has shared their debut album Super Monster. The stunning 13-track collection is all about self-discovery, as Claud sings of queer love and growing up. The clever, insightful tunes are a true-to-life exploration of the messy process of finding yourself. Most of the tracks look at different stages of relationships, from early crushes to devastating heartbreak, but as Claud looks at these themes, they take the listener on their own journey of self-discovery. More.
Researcher Explores History of Queer Lives in Canada
At bars and house parties, in movie theatres and hotels, in our largest cities and smallest hamlets, LGBTQ people have mapped out a rich history in Saskatchewan over the generations. Valerie Korinek is bringing that history into the spotlight. Korinek, a professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan, gave a talk at the University of Regina Wednesday night entitled Pride of Place: The Power of Queer Urban Spaces. She discussed histories of queer lives in Western Canada from the 1960s through 1985. "They didn't just endure. They carved out lives, they made space, they were engaged in activism. They tried to change these cities for the better, for other queer people. And they have largely been forgotten from history. So it's really important to put them back in." More.
Showcasing The Bodies And Voices Of Gay Lisbon
Elska Magazine, the queer publication dedicated to sharing the bodies and voices of everyday men from LGBTQ communities around the world, today introduces its latest release, Elska Lisbon, where it puts the spotlight on the local boys of Portugal’s biggest and most exciting city. More.
The Forgotten Figures In History Who Challenged Gender Expression and Identity
People who belong to groups that fear being ostracized and persecuted often only reveal their true selves to a few people. As a result, the visibility of LGBTQ people, even during moments in history when they have faced hostility, is often limited. Coupled with that is a dearth of historical records because authors of these historical accounts were often prejudiced and did not want to record the experiences of those considered shameful under the values of their time. More.
Polyamorous Shipping In The Marvel Cinematic Universe
Of all the fandoms out there, especially for big franchises, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the most suited to polyamorous shipping. There are so many different characters in the universe that interact and have varying kinds of relationships with one another, and there are also many couples that would have made sense but never got together. Here are some of its most amazing poly ships. More.
Behind Every Fetishist There Is A Person
In a sexual context, a fetish is an object associated with desire. Fetishism shifts interest from the human subject to a part of the body, an attribute, a piece of clothing or an object. Fetishism is not a fad, although the fashion world likes to quote it figuratively. In history we repeatedly find epochs in which the natural body was not given too much importance, rather clothing was a playground for the erotic gaze. More.
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