Jacob Batalon won over many hearts this summer as Peter Parker’s best friend Ned in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Now, he’s doing it again. Recently, he echoed the thoughts of co-star Laura Harrier (Liz) in supporting a trans version of Peter Parker or another superhero. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Batalon was all aboard. ‘I think it’s a very important message that we understand that it’s OK. That [a trans superhero] shouldn’t be a problem,’ he commented at New York Comic-Con. By Anya Crittenton – Full Story at Gay Star News
For today’s topic, and my last post for 2017, I thought we could discuss some of our favourite LGBT writers from history. I know a huge number of my favourite writers from the past were LGBT. Many are the obvious, famous names such as Tennessee Williams, Oscar Wilde, Rimbaud, and Verlaine. Not to mention Marlowe and Shakespeare, if you go along with the suppositions about the two of them.
When you look back on your childhood, you might be surprised how many queer TV characters there were. Especially if your formative years were during the 90s, as LGBTI people were slowly gaining acceptance. Many writers of TV shows back then used codes and stereotypes to convey queerness in the most mainstream of settings: kids TV. Some dropped small hints through dress or character, and some went full rainbow, and some even did or eventually made those characters’ sexuality explicit. By Joe Morgan – Full Story at Gay Star News
GLAAD are finally able to count non-binary and asexual characters on television. The LGBTI organization have just released their yearly Where We Are on TV Report. The report analyzes the diversity of primetime scripted series regulars on broadcast networks. It also looks at the number of LGBTI characters on cable networks and streaming services for 2017-2018. 6.4 percent of regular characters in the upcoming year are expected to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans or queer. This is the highest percentage GLAAD has ever seen. There are going to be 17 regular and recurring trans characters across cable, broadcasting and streaming … Read more
Last Friday, Season 2 of the smash Netflix series Stranger Things hit the streaming site. Predictably, fans binged it over the weekend and shared their many thoughts on Twitter. A lot of speculation centered around new character Billy Hargrove, played by Dacre Montgomery. More specifically, is Billy racist for singling out Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin)? And is he gay with internalized homophobia, which he takes out on Steve (Joe Keery)? By Anya – Full Story at SOURCE
On 21 November, a brand new Marvel series debuts on Hulu and it’s different from all the rest. It’s not one of Netflix’s gritty takes, nor is it the broadcast adaptations of Agents of SHIELD or the ill-received Inhumans. And it’s entirely to do with the source material: Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona’s Runaways. The premise is relatively simple: a group of teenagers discover they have powers and their parents belong to a supervillain organization known as the Pride. It’s full of fun tropes and also plenty of diversity, which is clear from the new trailer. There are six … Read more
A species of asexual translucent worm has been discovered by scientists. Diploscapter pachys hasn’t had sex in roughly 18 million years, when it parted from its parent species, by exclusively practicing asexual reproduction. The species has survived for the entire time by copying itself, while still maintaining fairly high genetic diversity. The revelation has taken scientists by surprise – with asexual species usually dying out due to genetic mutations. Biologist David Fitch of New York University said: “It has been a longstanding mystery in biology how some asexual animals have survived for so many generations. By Benjamin Butterworth – Full … Read more
Google Google has created an artificial intelligence bot – and it’s homophobic. The $500 billion company’s new software, Cloud Natural Language API, analyses statements to find out whether they’re positive or negative. It then gives users a “Sentiment” score from -1 all the way up to +1 – and the higher up the scale, the more positive it thinks your sentence is. “You can use it to understand sentiment about your product on social media or parse intent from customer conversations,” Google explains. The only issue is: it doesn’t like gay people. Just contrast the positive rating for “I’m straight” … Read more
Two articles about the new Thor: Ragnarok film today. First, the director promises a little something something. From Towleroad.com: It’s a big promise, but now it’s out there. Chris Hemsworth and Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi gave an interview to Yahoo Entertainment’s Kevin Polowy in which they were asked if the hulking Australian actor had it in his contract to remove the shirt. Said Hemsworth: “In the very first Thor, I’d be training for months and months and months and Kenneth Branagh said ‘aww, what do you think about a shirt off scene?’ I said ‘mate I’ve been killing myself in the gym for eight months! … Read more
