The other week, I had an interesting conversation with one of our contributing writers about possible content for the entertainment section of eurOut. Since we are a European website, we’ve decided to focus on European content. European, as in “not American”. When I explained this concept to our writer, she seemed a bit shocked at first. She didn’t say it, but between the lines there was this unsaid question: ”What the hell am I supposed to write about then?”

I have to admit that I had a very similar thought when I joined this project. When Sandra asked me to become an editor of entertainment news for eurOut, I immediately said yes, because I thought that I was completely right for this job. Movies, TV shows, books, music, I love everything entertainment. Show me an actor or an actress on a Red Carpet, and I can tell you who it is and what they are playing in. My brain is filled with these little pieces of information some might call useless – unless you’re an editor of entertainment news, of course.

But very soon, I started to panic, because I slowly realized that the job description not only said “entertainment” but “lesbian or bisexual women” and “European” as well. While I was confident about the first part – after all, I had been following coming out stories of celebrities or lesbian story lines on soap operas since the late 1990s – I seriously doubted that the “European” part would be as easy for someone like me, who loves to watch American movies and American TV shows and read books by American authors. I started to ask myself whether I was not only not right, but in fact completely wrong for this job.

Here’s a piece of advice: Whenever you have doubts about something, make a list. That’s exactly what I did, and the outcome surprised me. I went through every movie with lesbian content I had or knew about and found that – contrary to my first impression – there are quite a lot that are not from the U.S. For example, “8 femmes” (“8 Women”) was produced in France, “Nina’s Heavenly Delights” in the UK and one of my favourites, “Goldfish Memory”, in Ireland. Among the first “lesbian” movies that I watched after falling in love with another woman for the first time was a French movie called “Charlotte dite ‘Charlie’” (“Charlotte called Charlie”) about a teenage girl who struggles with the realization that she’s gay, and the German movie “Die Konkurrentin” (“The rival”) about a successful management consultant and her ambitious younger assistant who, after being rivals at first, ultimately fall in love with each other. On TV, most soap operas that I know of have or once had a storyline about a lesbian couple, at least here in Germany, but I have heard from lesbian storylines in other European countries, like the Netherlands and Spain, as well.

Picture from Goldfish Memory (Foto: © PRO-FUN MEDIA Filmverleih)

Or let’s take a look at musicians. Europe might not have a Melissa Etheridge, but we have a Sarah Bettens who’s from Belgium. We have Alex Parks, winner of the UK talent show “Fame Academy”, Elli, who won the German “Idol” in 2004, and when I first saw Marija Serifovic from Serbia, who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2007, my gaydar started to hyperventilate. (She has never come out, though.) Speaking of the ESC, one of the members of the group “No Angels”, who took part for Germany this year, is openly gay, too, and she even saved the day – if it wouldn’t have been for Lucy Diakovska’s Bulgarian fan base, the result would have been even more embarrassing. (They came in last, by the way, but got 12 points from Bulgaria).

German Idol winner Elli – (c) Thomas Rabsch

I could continue this for quite a while, listing every lesbian storyline, every out lesbian singer, songwriter, actress, director, journalist or author I could come up with during my research. But that’s not the point. My point – and I do have one – is that most of us, myself included, are so focused on what’s going on across the pond that we don’t notice the things right in front of us, and that’s a pity, and it’s why we need a project like eurOut. In the end, it doesn’t matter whether I feel that I am completely right or completely wrong for this job – it’s eurOut that’s completely right for me, because it opened my eyes.

By the way, our contributing writer quickly overcame her first shock when she decided to take a look at her bookshelf and her DVDs. Guess what? Europeans everywhere.

Now that I have firmly established that eurOut focuses on European content, it’s time to break the rules. Next week, I’m going to be in Los Angeles to see a taping of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and will hopefully have some interesting reports and insights from the entertainment capital of the world for you. Check back next week for a special L.A. edition of MeL’s Point…and She Does Have One.

(Posted on eurOut on September 27th, 2008)