We Are Everywhere (Sept. 25th, 2008)
In this column, my fellow editor of entertainment news Charly and me are going to sum up what else is going on with lesbian and bisexual women in entertainment and the media in Europe.
Sweden:
- Out lesbian writer and journalist Mian Lodalen was interviewed on a Swedish morning show about her new book Dårens Dotter (“The fool’s daughter”) that was reviewed by BlackBox earlier this month. You can watch the video (in Swedish, obviously) here.
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Out bisexual contestant Yaiya made it to the final auditions of this year’s edition of the Swedish Idol show. The final auditions start this week, let’s see whether there’s a chance of getting another openly gay or bisexual Idol in Europe after out singer Elli won the German idol in 2004. You can watch a video of Yaiya’s audition here. She also has a myspace site and a blog in English, and there was a short interview with her in the September issue of QX, a Swedish gay magazine which you can download from the official website.
Germany:
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German TV personality Ramona Leiß, who hosted some well-known TV shows like ZDF Fernsehgarten and Knoff-Hoff-Show in the 1980s and 1990s and who’s currently a guest star in the German soap opera “Sturm der Liebe”, has announced that she plans to marry her girlfriend next year. For those of you who might have missed it, Leiß came out in an interview with the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag last May, outing not only herself but also the late songwriter Hanne Haller who she said she was in a relationship with for 4 years in the 1980s.
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If you’re a fan of Better Than Chocolate’s Christina Cox and also happen to like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (or vice versa), you might be interested in watching the show Blood Ties that starts on RTL II on October 28th. The show is based on books by out lesbian writer Tanya Huff and stars Cox as a female, supposedly bisexual (although there are no hints to that in the first episode) detective. A German review of the show can be found here, and there’s also a review on AfterEllen.
Go here to read our Chief Editor Sandra’s take on Ramona Leiß, Blood Ties and the visibility of Lesbians in the German media.
France:
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French TV viewers were able to witness some lesbian drama this summer on the show Secret Story, which is a reality TV show a little like Big Brother, about people who are locked up in a house and who are all trying to hide a secret from their housemates. Two of them, Nathalie and Samantha from Belgium, hid the fact that they were a couple, but they were soon outed. When Nathalie had to leave the house for health reasons, Samantha got a little too interested in her housemate Marilyn and the lesbian drama unfolded. There were catfights, a breakup and a reconciliation live on TV. You can read a more in-depth and also very funny description of what happened in AfterEllen’s September 12th issue of Best.Lesbian.Week.Ever.
UK:
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Lesbian rapper MZ Fontaine won the “Black LGBT community award” as Woman of the Year. The awards ceremony was held on September 20th in London.
