Sir Ian McKellen may now be known as much for being a champion of the international LGBTQ equality movement as he is for being a thespian. Out and proud since 1988 and encouraging others in the public eye to follow his lead, he’s a living example of the fact that it’s not only possible for an out gay man to be successful as an actor, but to rise to the top of his profession while unapologetically bringing his own queerness into the spotlight with him all the way there. For that example alone, he would deserve his status as a hero of our community; his tireless advocacy – which he continues even today, at 86 – elevates him to the level of icon.

Those who know him mostly for that, however, may not have a full appreciation for his skills as an actor; it’s true that his performances in the “Lord of the Rings” and “X-Men” movies are familiar, however, this is a man who has spent more than six decades performing in everything from “Hamlet” to “Waiting for Godot” to “Cats,” and while his franchise-elevating talents certainly shine through in his blockbuster roles, the range and nuance he’s acquired through all that accumulated experience might be better showcased in some of the smaller, less bombastic films in which he has appeared – and the latest effort from prolific director Steven Soderbergh, a darkly comedic crime caper set in the dusty margins of the art world, is just the kind of film we mean.

Now in theaters for a limited release, “The Christophers” casts McKellen opposite Michaela Coel (“Chewing Gum,” “I May Destroy You”) for what is essentially a London-set two-character game of intellectual cat-and-mouse. He’s Julian Sklar, an elderly painter who was once an art-world superstar but hasn’t produced a new work in decades; she’s Lori Butler, an art critic and restoration expert who is working in a food truck by the Thames to make ends meet when she is approached by Sklar’s children (James Corden, Jessica Gunning) with a proposition. Hoping to cash in on their father’s fame, they want to set her up as his new assistant, allowing her access to an attic containing unfinished canvases he abandoned decades ago – so that she can use her skills to finish them herself, creating a forged series of completed paintings that can be “posthumously discovered” after his death and sold for a fortune.

She takes the job, unable to resist an opportunity to get close to Sklar – who, despite his renown, now lives as a bitter and unkempt recluse – for reasons of her own. Though his health is fading, his personality is as full-blown as ever; he’s also still sharp, wily, and experienced enough with his avaricious children to be suspicious of their motives for hiring her. Even so, she wins his trust (or something like it) and piques his interest, setting the stage for a relationship that’s part professional protocol, part confessional candor, and part battle-of-wits – and in which the “scamming” appears to be going in both directions.

That’s it, in a nutshell. A short synopsis really does describe the entire plot, save for the ending which, of course, we would never spoil. Even if it’s technically a “crime caper,” the most action it provides is of the psychological variety: there are no guns, no gangsters, no suspicious lawmen hovering around the edges; it’s just two minds, sparring against each other – and themselves – about things that have nothing to do with the perpetration of artistic forgery and fraud, but perhaps everything to do with their own relationships with art, fame, hope, disillusionment, and broken dreams. Yet it grips our attention from start to finish, thanks to Soderbergh’s taut directorial focus, Ed Solomon’s tersely efficient screenplay, and – most of all – the star duo of McKellen and Cole, who deliver a master class in duo acting that serves not just as the movie’s centerpiece but also its main attraction.

The former, cast in a larger-than-life role that lends itself perfectly to his own larger-than-life personality, embodies Sklar as the quintessential misanthropic artist, aged beyond “bad boy” notoriety but still a fierce iconoclast – so much so that even his own image is fair game for being deconstructed, something to be shredded and tossed into fire along with all those unfinished paintings in his attack; he’s a tempestuous, ferociously intelligent titan, diminished by time and circumstance but still retaining the intimidating power of his adversarial ego, and asserting it through every avenue that remains open to him. It’s the kind of film character that feels tailor-made for a stage performer of McKellen’s stature, allowing him to bring all the elements of his lifelong craft in front of the camera and deliver the complexity, subtlety, and perfectly-tuned emotional control necessary to transcend the cliché of the eccentric artist. His Sklar is comedically crotchety without being doddering or foolish, performatively flamboyant without seeming phony, and authentic enough in his breakthrough moments of vulnerability to avoid coming off as over-sentimental. Perhaps most important of all, he is utterly believable as a formidable and imperious figure, still capable of commanding respect and more than a match for anyone who dares to challenge him.

As for Coel’s Lori, it’s the daring that’s the key to her performance. Every bit Sklar’s equal in terms of wile, she also has power, and yes, ego too; we see it plainly when she is deploys it with tactical precision against his buffoonish offspring, but she holds it close to the chest in her dealings with him, like a secret weapon she wants to keep in reserve. When he inevitably sees through her ploy, she has the intelligence to change the game – her real motivation has little to do with the forgery plan, anyway – and get personal. Coel (herself a rising icon from a new generation of UK performers) plays it all with supreme confidence, yet somehow lets us see that she’s as wary of him as if she were facing a hungry tiger in its own cage.

It’s after the “masks” come off that things get really interesting, allowing these two characters become something like “shadow teachers” for each other, forming a shaky alliance to turn the forgery scheme to their own advantage while confronting their own lingering emotional wounds in the process; that’s when their battle of wits transforms into something closer to a “pas de deux” between two consummate artists, both equally able to find the human substance of Soderbergh’s deceptively cagey movie and mine it, as a perfectly-aligned team, from under the pretext of the trope-ish “art swindle” plot – and it’s glorious to watch.

That said, the art swindle is entertaining, too – which is another reason why “The Christophers” feels like a nearly perfect movie. Smart and substantial enough to be satisfying on multiple levels, it’s also audacious enough in its murky morality to carry a feeling of countercultural rebellion into the mix; and that, in our estimation, is always a plus.

Euphoria is back, but given some drastic changes in its 5-year time jump, it may want to change its name to Dysphoria. It has survived multiple strikes and production delays and the deaths of actors Angus Cloud and Eric Dane. It witnessed the meteoric rise of its cast. And yet, some of the queer sensibilities that drove the season’s storylines are notably lacking in its country-fried new season. 

Those sensitive queer stories have been replaced by a gratuitous male gaze that seems more like the creator working out his fetishes rather than telling a story that uses sex responsibly. Rather than saying something about the state of sex in a post-OnlyFans, economically turbulent times, it seems to be an excuse to have actresses pose nude while shoehorning in a strip club as a major location.  

Zendaya still shines, providing an Emmy-caliber performance as lesbian drug addict and ne’er-do-well, Rue. The show exposes the on and offscreen MAGA-fication of Sydney Sweeney and her character, Cassie. Jacob Elordi, despite receiving an Oscar nomination, plays the shell of his intense and complex character, Nate Jacobs. Nate served as an antagonist whose stories were rife with moral quandaries. Instead, he’s played as yet another American who’s struggling financially and kind of a dick, yet clad in Bottega Veneta. 

Hunter Schafer became one of the most prominent trans members of the entertainment industry. But she’s been relegated to an F storyline and barely present in the first two episodes despite her being the narrator’s on-again, off-again love interest. 

Whether you like or dislike the new season, it can’t be ignored that much of its inclusive and queer sensibility that humanized the show seems to have been replaced by what could be the sexual fantasies of its creator, Sam Levinson.

The creator cast adult film actress Chloe Cherry as lovable foil, Faye Valentine. The casting was impactful, and her distinct make-under and dazed, strung-out vibe for comic relief and drama worked well for the show. However, the introduction of Katelyn (Anna Van Patten), a Cherry look-a-like as Maddy’s influencer client who becomes an OnlyFans model, the dramatic shift in Jule’s look and character to a sugar baby, and the degrading scenes of Sweeny dressed like a dog and a baby feel like a pre-#MeToo director working out his fetishes and thing for blondes. It makes you yearn for the days when Quentin Tarantino only slyly snuck in feet shots into his movies. 

Euphoria is a remake of a popular Israeli series Oforia. Levinson claims that much of the intense drug and mental illness storylines that shifted it from its source material stem from his real-life experiences. The latest season feels more like a Western than the visually arresting teen drama we watched for two seasons. Could this be because it was revealed that Canadian-Hungarian artist Petra Collins defined the look and feel of the show? 

When you look at Collins’s art, it’s clear.  She also worked with Schafer and Barbie Ferreira and brought them into the cast. She stated in an interview with Punkt magazine, in a quote that has conveniently been scrubbed from the internet but lives on in screenshots, that Levinson said he wrote the show with her art in mind and brought her in to direct the series. After defining the visuals for the show, she was unceremoniously let go. 

Whether she was or was not pegged to direct it’s clear that her art is what defined the series. The saturated color and the visual styling of the high school are what helped define the series. In the interview, she admits she had to shift her artistic style because Euphoria made her unique artistic sensibilities more common. 

All that aside, it feels like many of the queer stories that humanized the show and drove the drama are absent. The intense queer subplot with Nate and the late Eric Dane as his closeted bisexual father, Cal, with Schafer in the mix, was an interesting and loaded triangle. Last season even featured an episode of a younger version of Cal considering a same sex romance before finding out he was going to be a father. The episode captured some of the closeted pathos, innocence, and puppy love that launched Heated Rivalry into the stratosphere. And yet, in the second episode, Cal is sure to say he’s not gay. It’s unclear if we’ll get more or a resolution to that storyline. 

Luckily, Zendaya still delivers a Streep-like transformation as she dons baggy clothes and Chuck Taylors and instantly transforms into a queer woman. But if she wasn’t Zendaya or the lead, would she still be queer? Would she be relegated off-screen with Jules to do something that will be revealed later in the season? Is her lesbianism and problematic relationship to drugs just an excuse to insert a strip club into the series? 

Schafer, despite being the subject of the show’s special episode about her character, is notably absent. Also, it’s unclear if this sugar baby storyline will end in a dark or problematic way. It does feel a bit like straightwashing the series.  

Is this heteronormative shift for Euphoria a response to the times, or did the queerness serve its purpose in opening the door for a hypersexual series, and the priority shifted for this last hurrah? Is it just squeezing in as much T&A before the show gets cancelled? 

The show has always been sexually subversive. Jules and Dane were both prominently hooking up on apps. Ferreira was a cam girl who explored fetishes. But the love story of Jules and Rue really was the heart of the show. The queer characters and storylines seemed to temper the sexuality. The inclusivity seemed to mean that the sex was saying something. There was even a big camp factor that brought levity. 

With some of the rainbow wrung out of the show, it begs the questions: was queerness used to legitimize the sex and quickly abandoned? Was it removed to cater to rising homophobia? Either way, time will tell if the rest of the series will honor its previous seasons, but there’s a 100% chance there will be boobs. 

In 2000, director Greg Berlanti debuted his first feature, a queer cult classic that preserved a time capsule of an earlier West Hollywood. It follows a ragtag group of gay friends navigating romance, community, and friendship — a tender, sweet offering that provided comfort and laughter for many queer folks. 

On Saturday, April 25, Berlanti will reunite with cast members Billy Porter and Zach Braff at West Hollywood Park for a special 25th anniversary benefits screening. Pride House LA/West Hollywood and Team OutAF, who champion the rights and well-being of LGBTQ+ Olympians and professional athletes, are hosting the event; funds will go towards supporting their mission as well as their ambitious 2028 takeover of the park for the Summer Olympic Games. 

The event begins at 5:30 p.m. and also features food trucks, music, interactive activities, meet-and-greet opportunities, and a panel with Berlanti and the film’s creative team. Other special guests at Saturday’s screening include generations of queer and allied Olympians and professional athletes, including Robbie Rogers, Adam Rippon, Conor McDermott-Mostowy, Randy Gardner, Tai Babilonia, Kent Ferguston, Brittany Bowe, and Jake Adicoff. 

The film continues to be a lighthouse of visibility, digging into the joys and conundrums of finding, breaking apart from, and reuniting with your queer chosen family. For younger audiences, it’s a gem of early queer cinema to explore; for people who navigated their own coming-of-age journeys at the time of the film’s release, it’s a callback to youth, yearning, and finding one’s own way forward. 

“It was very important to me personally, and for so many 25 years ago, and demonstrates the importance of visibility and families of choice in our community,” Pride House LA/West Hollywood CEO Michael Ferrera wrote to the Blade. “Out Athlete Fund provides both visibility and a family of choice for out athletes – safety, inclusion, support, celebration, and love. Don’t miss what promises to be a very special event at the site where we will produce the single largest LGBTQ+ event ever during the Olympic Games in 2028!

VIP guests will have the chance to meet featured athletes and cast members; tickets are $150. General admission is $50. Discounts are offered online; more information about the event and tickets can be found here.

Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.

It’s all about ascension, literal and metaphorical, for the Enchanted Collective: a small coalition of queer, femme, and nonbinary artists who are curating expansive party experiences that hold space for all. On April 26, the group will host “Femme Frequency”, a ten-hour event that will transform the Kama, a multi-level community space, into a portal for sober queer expression, dance, joy, and restoration. 

Like other events hosted by the collective, “Femme Frequency” prioritizes harm reduction, consent and sober fun without dulling out the sensuality and dynamism that flows freely from queer nightlife. 

Dance and performance remain centerpieces at this event, which runs from 12 to 10 pm on Sunday, but there will also be activations like a sauna and cold plunge space, a “squish burrow” for cuddles and tea, an open mic, panel, and the debut of a “Pussy Resource Center” for femmes and gender expansive people to engage in conversations about their health and identity.  

It’s a container that fosters empowerment and personal ecstasy, Enchanted Collective co-founder Sam Sharman told the Blade. “Be there for what feels good for your body,” Sharman continued. “The invitation is to stop worrying about what you look like, [to] dance your ass off and celebrate feminine energy and leadership, regardless of what gender or body you’re in.” 

Sharman, who performs R&B and burlesque under the project FEmpress, created the collective with melodic bass DJ Tori “The Friz” Brunet in December 2022, as a way to alchemize new and inclusive avenues for queer expression and creativity. The two saw a tangible lack in femme-led partyscapes that reflected and poured into their communities. With Enchanted Collective, they are offering people — particularly queer, femme, and nonbinary folks — a light-filled threshold and an exploratory gateway to step into the fantastical and make it a reality. 

“We really want people to come into their realization of themselves as the creator, whether that’s as an artist, a musician, or a creative director. Maybe you’re not doing something creative professionally, but you’re still a creator of your life,” Sharman said. “We want people to step into their purpose, their power, and their creative service.” 

The Blade sat with Sharman to talk more about the Enchanted Collective’s journey, her own personal evolution as a femme leader, and the possibility that events like “Femme Frequency” offer for queer people. 

What led to the formation of the Enchanted Collective, and what’s at the core of its mission?

It originated from me and my best friend Tori. We’re both musicians and performers. We wanted to come together to create a really diverse space — not just in terms of sound, but in terms of representation, accessibility [and] giving people an experience to drop in a little bit deeper than they typically do when they go to a “party.” 

Initially, we were actually called Enchanted Loft, because all of our events were at a loft downtown. And we quickly grew out of the space. We had an integrity misalignment with the person who was operating [it], and then we shifted and took it as a really positive sign from the universe that we weren’t going to be anchored down into one spot — that we were going to explore all over LA. 

We started as a monthly event, and then we were like, ‘Oh, we’re two people, and we’re gonna die if we keep doing this.’ So, we expanded the team, and we’re doing less events, but with more potency and power behind them. It’s definitely evolved, but the core reasons and even the core format have stayed the same since the very beginning. 

Our events are pretty long. We do alcohol-free spaces. We have some element of ritual or ceremony, but not to the extent where it feels overwhelming if you’re not from that kind of world or don’t have a spiritual framework. We like to joke that we’re conscious baddies.

Safety is one of our core values. [Our team is] run by femmes and thems. Our entire team is either women, nonbinary, or trans, and people who have direct experience with what it feels like to not feel safe in your body on a dance floor or in an environment while experimenting. Our events are about transformation, and people can’t transform if they can’t drop in and feel safe.

On a personal level, how has the Enchanted Collective allowed you to step deeper into your femininity, your own personal artistry, and your role as a leader?

As an artist and musician, I love that it’s the decade of the producer and the DJ. I can get behind it, don’t get me wrong. But I feel like live music has just been really stripped away from these spaces. And live music is really important because it’s so co-creative, and we’re using our instruments as our bodies and our bodies as our instruments. We’re creating this really special container together. 

I am in charge of our live music experience, and my business partner and co-owner, Tori, is in charge of all of our DJ bookings. We always make sure we’re really creating diverse sounds, because we really want people to get outside of their boxes and get exposed to something new and realize that these things can live together. They don’t have to be separate. 

As a leader, inclusivity is incredibly important to me. I remember, for so long as an artist, going into spaces and being like, ‘Wow, everyone is so talented. But, I’m talented too, and I want to be seen. How do I get myself seen?’ There were no resources out there for me, so I’m passionate about creating the open mic and creating our softer third spaces where people can share about themselves, get to know each other, and network in a genuine way. 

Can you tell me more about how queer and femme leadership alters how the collective operates? 

I think three of the four people on our core team are queer, and two of the four people on our team have varying gender identities outside of what they were assigned at birth. And all of us resonate with some spectrum of being a woman [and have felt] what it’s like to be repressed, oppressed, to be not safe — all of these different violences that take place on our bodies in a micro and macro way. We are just so attuned to this new world where we get to flip the script and make these people our leaders, because we know what it’s like to be in those experiences and navigate life from that very challenging perspective. 

We want to highlight that from the get go, from our first event: that our space is here for people to reclaim that identity as something that is special and powerful and should be in this next phase of the world. 

Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.

In the years since “Schitt’s Creek” wrapped up its six season Emmy-winning run, nostalgia for it has grown deep – especially since the still painfully recent loss of its iconic leading lady, Catherine O’Hara, whose sudden passing prompted a social media wave of clips and tributes featuring her fan-favorite performance as the deliciously daft Moira Rose. Revisiting so many favorite scenes and funny moments from the show naturally reminded us of just how much we loved it, even needed it during the time it was on the air; it also reminded us of how much we miss it, and how much it feels now like something we need more than ever.

That, perhaps more than anything else, is why the arrival of “Big Mistakes” – the new Netflix series starring, co-created and co-written by Dan Levy – felt so welcome. We knew it wouldn’t be the Roses, but it seemed cut from the same cloth, and it had David Rose (or at least someone who seemed a lot like him) in the middle of a comically dysfunctional family dynamic, complete with a mother who gets involved in town politics and a catty sibling rivalry with his sister, and still nebbish-ly uncomfortable in his own gay shoes. Only this time, instead of running a pastor of the local church, and instead of a collection of kooky small town neighbors to contend with, there are gangsters.

As it turns out, it really does feel cut from the same cloth, but the design is distinctly different. Set in a fictional New Jersey suburb, it centers on Nicky (Levy) and his sister Morgan (Taylor Ortega) – he openly gay with an adoring boyfriend (Jacob Gutierrez), yet still obsessive about keeping it all invisible to his congregation, and she drudging aimlessly through life as an underpaid schoolteacher after failing to achieve her New York dreams of show biz success – who inadvertently become enmeshed in a shady underworld when a gesture for their dead grandmother’s funeral goes horribly awry.

They’re surrounded by a crew of equally compromised characters. There’s their mother Linda (Laurie Metcalf), whose campaign to become the town’s mayor only intensifies her tendency to micromanage her children’s lives; Yusuf (Boran Kuzum), the Turkish-American mini-mart operator who pulls them into the criminal conspiracy yet is himself a victim of it; Max (Jack Innanen), Morgan’s live-in boyfriend, who pushes her for a deeper commitment and is willing to go to couples’ therapy to prove it; Annette, his mother (Elizabeth Perkins), who lends her society standing toward helping Linda’s campaign against a misogynistic opponent (Darren Goldstein); and Ivan (Mark Ivanir), the seemingly ruthless crime boss who enslaves the siblings into his network but may really be just another slave in it himself. It’s a well-fleshed out assortment of characters that helps our own loyalties shift and adapt, generating at least a degree of empathy – if not always sympathy – that keeps everyone from coming off as a merely “black-and-white” caricature of expectations and typecasting.

To be sure, it’s an entertaining binge-watch, full of distinctive characters – all inhabiting familiar, even stereotypical roles in the narrative – who are each given a degree of validation, both in writing and performance, as the show unspools its narrative. At the same time, it makes for a fairly bleak overall view of humanity, in which it’s difficult to place our loyalties with anyone without also embracing a kind of “dog eat dog” morality in which nobody is truly innocent – but nobody is completely to blame for their sins, anyway.

In this way, it’s a show that lets us off the hook in the sense that it places the idea of ethical guilt within a framework of relative evils as it permits us to forgive our own trespasses through our acceptance of its lovably amoral – when it comes right down to it – characters, each of whom has their own reasons and justifications for what they do. We relate, but we can’t quite shake the notion that, if all these people hadn’t been so caught up in their own personal dramas, none of them would have ended up in the compromised morality that they do, and that they are all therefore, at some level, to blame for whatever consequences they endure.

However, it’s not some bleak morality play that Levy and crew undertake; rather, it’s more an egalitarian fantasy in which even “bad” choices feel justified by inevitability. Everybody has their reasons for doing what they do, and most of those reasons make enough sense to us that it’s hard to judge any of the characters for making the choices – however unwise – that they do. In a system where everyone is forced to compromise themselves in order to achieve whatever dream of self-fulfillment they may have, how can anybody really blame themselves for doing what they have to do to survive?

Of course, all things considered, this is more a relatable comedy than it is a morality play, and it is, perhaps, taking things a bit too seriously to go that “deep.” As a comedy of errors, it all works well enough on its own without imposing an ideology on it, no matter how much we may be tempted to do so. Indeed, what is ultimately more to the point is how well this pseudo-cynical exercise in the normalization of corruption – for that is what it really about, in the end – succeeds in letting us all off the hook for our compromises. In a reality in which we can only respond to corruption by finding the ethical validation for making the choice to survive, how can we judge ourselves – or anyone else – for doing whatever is necessary?

In the end, of course, maybe all that analysis is too deep a dive for a show that feels, in the end, so clearly to be focused merely on reminding us of how much necessity dictates our choices –for truly, the fate of all its characters hinges on how well they respond to the compromised decisions that must make along the way. The more important observation, perhaps, has to do with the necessity to make such moral choices along our way – and it comes not from a moralistic urge toward making the “right” choice as much as it does from a candid recognition that all of us are compromised from the outset, and that’s a refreshing enough bit of honesty that we can easily get on board.

It helps that the performances are on point, especially the loony and wide-eyed fanaticism of Metcalf – surely the MVP of any project in which she is involved – and the directly focused moral malleability of Ortega, Levy, of course, is Levy – a now-familiar persona that can exist within any milieu without further justification than its own queer relatability – and, in this case, at least, that’s both the icing on the cake and substance that defines it. That’s enough to make it an essential view for fans, queer or otherwise, of his distinctive “brand,” even if he – or the show itself – doesn’t quite satisfy in the way that “Schitt’s Creek” was able to do.

Seriously, though, how could it?

If you’re queer and have used social media in recent years, odds are you’ve seen (and cackled at) a clip of the LA-based performer, Catherine McCafferty. 

The comedian first gained attention through clips from her web series, Pretty Gay. A hybrid interview and dating show, it features our host chatting with LGBTQ+ celebrities while running them through the chaotic activities she has planned for their faux-date. It’s the embodiment of the cringe-humor McCafferty has perfected over the years, a humor she recently took international through her comedy special, (Not) That Bad, and that she continues to share online as Pretty Gay enters its fourth season on Patreon. 

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McCafferty perfectly maneuvers the chaos of cringe-comedy while still facilitating intriguing conversations of what queerness looks like for her ‘dates’ today. She sat down with the LA Blade to talk not only about Pretty Gay but how she developed this unique sense of humor, with the host beginning the conversation by explaining, “I was a little bit of a haunted child.”

“I had a deep sadness since I was born, and I still have that. But I do think that goes hand-in-hand with being a silly goose and being a comedian!” Catherine exclaimed, as the jovial host candidly described her lifelong struggles with mental health. She detailed her past with the lightness that fans know her for, speaking about growing up in Chicago and the compulsory heterosexuality that held her back from coming out until adulthood. It’s an issue that many face today; mainstream society dictates that heterosexuality is the only ‘right’ way to live, with girls especially being told that the only path to true happiness is one that ends with marrying a man. “I used to say that I was going to marry a man and watch him die, and then I would have a second life where I dated women!” Said McCafferty, discussing how she struggled to unlearn these toxic beliefs before coming out in her 20s. “When you’re holding on to something [like that] for so long, and then the dam breaks, it’s like… that [freedom] is just so abundant.”

It was through this self-discovery that McCafferty finally gained the confidence to begin her career as a standup in Chicago’s historic comedy scene. This was when she started considering what she wanted her comedy to be, content that would not only carry her trademark sardonic wit, but would have the LGBTQ+ community laughing right along with her.

Finally, she settled on making a series that would address a glaring issue millions of LGBTQ+ people struggle with today: being terrible at dating.

“I didn’t know how to go on gay dates, so [Pretty Gay] is kind of selfish,” joked Catherine as she described the early days of her web series. “We started like two years ago, and it’s really blown up. I feel so grateful!” Each episode follows Catherine as she goes on a date with an LGBTQ+ guest — usually a sapphic, non-male performer — with the subject trying to keep up with the host’s many segments. These range from trying out cheesy pick-up lines, to defending Catherine from imaginary spiders, to even calling the host’s real mother and asking for her blessing on their nonexistent relationship! This has proven to be an endlessly entertaining format, with Pretty Gay releasing on Patreon to a huge community of over 16,000 online fans. 

“I feel so grateful for my Patreon community,” said the host as she raved about how much she loved her many supporters. “We’ve built a community where people are talking [with each other]…[having] a community of people who feel safe with me, it just feels so wild. It’s so cool.”

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But it’s not just the format the has led to Pretty Gay’s widespread popularity. While the series is stacked with impressive guests and comical moments, what really makes it such a stand-out is how it spotlights the parts of our queer community that most programs (including LGBTQ+ ones) won’t. 

“Whenever you are part of a marginalized group, people are going to look at you as a monolith,” McCafferty explained. “It hurts young people who are just watching Heated Rivalry and Hunting Wives — I love that representation, but it’s very specific.” It’s a glaring issue that too many people ignore today; most mainstream queer characters are either cisgender, white, or conventionally attractive, with a majority being a mixture of all three. While these ‘digestible’ instances of queerness may have been vital when the media refused to acknowledge this community existed, modern viewers are long past these early days of inclusion. Yet it’s still rare to see queer people from marginalized backgrounds get the spotlight, meaning members of those intersections still suffer rampant ignorance despite an increased awareness of the LGBTQ+ community. 

It’s an issue that McCafferty and her team are committed to fighting against, with the host explaining, “When we are casting a season, we cast a wide net, because there are really funny people who live in all different kinds of bodies, and they should have a platform!” It’s a representation that has led to stars like Cameron Esposito, Yazmin Monet Watkins, Vivian Wilson, and countless others featuring on Pretty Gay to discuss their experiences of being a queer person today. These are impactful discussions, but also immensely funny ones, with McCafferty emphasizing, “We want to have real conversations, but we also want to laugh! Like, [queer people] get to be dumb too — it’s not all just like crying, coming out, and not being accepted. Some of it is just running around a table, chasing each other, and just being silly.”

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Through humor, Catherine makes her guests and viewers relax, offering a welcoming, all-inclusive respite to everyone watching the shenanigans on display. It’s this happiness-centric approach that allows for both important knowledge and joyful escapism, with McCafferty stressing, “My primary goal with Pretty Gay [is] to really just platform queer joy…that’s the space that I inhabit in my community and also in my comedy.”

And this platform is only growing, with each episode of Pretty Gay bringing more fans into McCafferty’s strange yet heartwarming world of bad first dates. As the show enters its fourth season, the host remains focused on offering the vital representation our community needs while still showing queer people as the full — and often very goofy — humans that we are. 

Through Pretty Gay, Catherine McCafferty creates an online community of acceptance and unabashed joy that viewers can’t help but fall in love with. And if you ever want to join that community, Catherine is ready to welcome you in today — as long as you go on a date with her first, of course. 

Check out Pretty Gay

As Season 2 of The Pitt comes to a close this Thursday, stars Noah Wyle and Taylor Dearden are looking back on what this season got right about queer representation.

“There is some intentionality behind it, but it’s not necessarily for the representation to be anything other than human or ubiquitous to anyone that would come into an emergency room,” Noah Wyle, who plays Dr. Robby, told The Blade at Sunday night’s PaleyFest event in Los Angeles. “I know that we’ve done some storylines with some gay couples, and we did a storyline in season 1 where a woman comes in who’s cut her arm, who’s trans. But in both of those storylines, that wasn’t the point.”

Wyle continues, “In doing it that way, and not making a point of orientation being part of the problem that brings you to the emergency room, we have been told in feedback that that has been extremely revolutionary, almost, and extremely appreciated. But that’s true whether we do storylines with any kind of minority or a person with a disability. We try to have a cosmology of cast and representation on the show that’s indicative of what you find in Pittsburgh.”

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Dearden, who plays Dr. Mel King, echoed Wyle’s sentiment: “I think constantly battling tropes is always important. It’s not a show about romance; it’s a show about real life and a shift in the ER. The more we represent everyday people going through everyday life, they just happen to be queer, they just happen to be trans, and making it not the plot, is putting everyone on equal playing [field]. You don’t have to have a big coming out scene.”

Queer representation on The Pitt is also notable through the actual actors themselves, including openly queer actor Supriya Ganesh, who plays Dr. Samira Mohan (who didn’t attend PaleyFest after the news that she is not returning for Season 3), and Amielynn Abellera, who plays Perlah Alawi.

“Doctors don’t put value judgments on who they treat,” Wyle concludes. “That’s not a luxury extended to them, and so that’s not part of our storytelling.”

The Season 2 finale will air Thursday, April 16 on HBO Max, while Season 3 has already been confirmed and is currently being written.

Few editors have reimagined contemporary queer Arab storytelling quite like Elias Jahshan. From the sweeping success of This Arab is Queer to his latest anthology This Queer Arab Family, Jahshan has created the much-needed space for stories that are as politically urgent as they are deeply personal while holding nuance, joy, and community in narratives so often disregarded and disenfranchised by mainstream discourse. Drawing on his background in journalism and his own lived experience across Sydney and London, his work challenges stereotypes while amplifying the voices that are far too often left unheard.

As he celebrates the release of This Queer Arab Family, Jahshan will appear at a special book launch event in WeHo tomorrow, the 15th, at the West Hollywood City Council Chamber, bringing these conversations directly to readers and community members. In this interview, he reflects on identity, home, representation, and the evolving politics of queer Arab life, all while offering insight into both his creative process and the urgent realities shaping his work today.

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Elias, your work beautifully blends your Arab and queer identities. When did the idea of expressing these together through storytelling and sharing them with the world first come to you?

In 2019 and the lead-up to the UK’s first lockdown in 2020, I immersed myself in anthologies and contributed to one, Arab, Australian, Other. That experience, combined with my background in journalism, made me wonder if I could publish my own.

I began reflecting on how queer Arabs are represented in the media. Coverage often focused on sensational stories: ISIS atrocities, state crackdowns, or misjudged displays of Western solidarity while overlooking context, local activism, and nuance. Too often, queer Arabs were reduced to stereotypes: victims or “model migrants.”

These reflections led to my first anthology, This Arab is Queer, published in 2022. The response was overwhelming, and I was frequently asked if I’d edit another. I knew it couldn’t be a sequel; it needed a new focus.

Through the connections I built, and my own experiences of isolation during sudden deafness in 2023, I began thinking about how queer Arabs find family and community.

This Queer Arab Family explores those bonds, centering stories of kinship, resilience, and joy. It reclaims the idea of family in Arab cultures and asserts our existence in spaces that often try to erase us; we are family, too.

How has your understanding of “home” evolved across your life and how is this reflected in your work?

On a surface level, home for me is split between Sydney and London. Sydney is where I was born, raised, and began my career, where my family and lifelong friends are, and where much of my coming out took place. London is where I built a new life, where my career grew, my identity as a queer, deaf Arab fully took shape, and where I found community, friendship, and love.

On a deeper level, “home” is more complicated. Australia is shaped by unceded Aboriginal land, while my ancestral homes, Lebanon and Palestine, remain largely out of reach due to legal and political barriers. Visiting them brought a profound, bittersweet sense of belonging.

Living in London, as the child of immigrants, turned immigrant myself, I’m always aware of its colonial history. Yet its diversity and openness have made it feel like home.

These experiences shape my work. They’ve deepened my empathy for other queer immigrants of color and reinforced that we are more than labels, that our histories, identities, and communities all intersect in meaningful ways.

What is one of the more surprising things you’ve learned from one of your contributors when compiling and editing anthologies like This Arab is Queer?

Each of the contributors taught me so many things, I wouldn’t know where to start with this question. The fact that they entrusted me to read and edit their stories – stories which were often deeply personal and vulnerable, mind you – is something I do not take for granted. It made me conscious of ensuring the editing process was done sensitively, to ensure their stories were told on their own terms, yet still legible for a wider audience.

With my more recent book, This Queer Arab Family, I was constantly reminded of how queer Arab joy could be played out through family, kinship, comradeship, or community. It reminded me that despite the hardships many of us face on multiple fronts as queer Arabs, we are still resilient and powerful. No one can ever take that away from us.

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How do you navigate or balance the expectations that come along with being a visible queer Arab voice in today’s political climate?

I don’t. LOL. As in, I don’t actively try to “navigate” or “balance” these expectations. I just am. I don’t actively hide anything about myself because I have nothing to be ashamed of whatsoever. 

With regards to my visibility, though, this is something that evolved organically. It started when I was thrust into the national media spotlight in Australia as editor of Star Observer. From there, it grew via my social media platforms, the articles I wrote for various publications, and then the two books I now have under my belt that have been put in the hands of readers around the world. 

However, I’m very aware that my visibility is only possible because of my privilege. Not just because of the fact I’m a cisgender male who’s had access to university-level education and freedom of movement – and lifestyle – that comes with having an Australian passport, but also because of the love and support I have from my family. 

Many queer Arabs do not have the same level of unconditional family support I have, so it’s not something I take for granted, even if it wasn’t an easy path to get to that point for me. But this support and love I am privileged to enjoy – it’s like a superpower. It makes all the racists, homophobes, and online trolls who try to come after me look like utter fools. Let them keep frothing at the mouth with all their useless hate and anger. I have something they don’t have: empathy and love.

Can you share with us one assumption that people have had of you that you’d like to take this moment to correct?

Some people might think I’m being combative or divisive through my choice of words when I critique Western queer communities. But I’m genuinely not. If anything, I care about the community so much that I want it to improve and better itself – and we can only do that if we have an honest conversation about some of the pitfalls that still plague our community. And it’s not just racism, there’s also transphobia, and a complacency from many that we’ve achieved equal rights now that we have same-sex marriage. We might be “equal” on paper, but that doesn’t mean we’re equal in reality. Not to mention our queer brethren in countries where regimes or laws brutally suppress them. The fight is far from over, and we all have to look beyond our borders, or even beyond our bubbles in the cities.

As someone who finds themself at the intersection of queer and Arab identities, how do you view the current global state of human rights, and what is still painfully overlooked?

I don’t think there’s a single answer to this. It makes more sense to look at queer issues through a local lens; what the community faces in Lebanon is vastly different from Saudi Arabia, just as Beirut differs from rural areas, or from diasporic communities in places like Sydney or Dearborn. Social, political, and geographic contexts matter.

Take Palestine, for example. Queer Palestinians are often met with the cliché that Israel is a “safe haven” for LGBTQ+ people. While this may reflect legal differences, it’s reductive. Queer Palestinians are still primarily targeted for being Palestinian, living under occupation and systemic discrimination. For many, liberation from that reality takes precedence.

In contrast, queer communities in places like Egypt may be more focused on immediate safety, minimizing visibility to avoid state surveillance and crackdowns.

These examples only scratch the surface, but they point to a broader need for a decolonial perspective: holding Western powers accountable for colonial laws and ongoing interventions, while also challenging patriarchal norms and homophobia within our own communities.

At the same time, queer activists across the region are already doing vital work. They understand their contexts best and don’t need Western “saviors” imposing solutions. Queer liberation in SWANA cannot simply mirror Western models; assuming so is both naïve and, ultimately, another form of imperialism.

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From your perspective, what role can storytelling and literature play in the progress of human rights, particularly for those whose voices are often overlooked?

Storytelling and literature can show readers that we have our own agencies, that we can tell our stories on our own terms. In addition, Arab writers and artists have played a huge role and facilitated change. They help ensure progressive perspectives are heard in an increasingly conservative context, and I don’t just mean religion; one can still be “secular” or non-religious and still be conservative, ergo a bigot. It’s through their work, alongside the work of so many tireless activists and organizers, that we have been able to become more visible, to have our voices and experiences documented and heard. It’s a long process, but these wins should always be celebrated, given the circumstances we are up against.

We also have a growing number of straight Arab allies coming forward to speak for our community, to stand in solidarity with us through their platforms in the media or their artistry and writing. Often it’s subtle, for safety reasons, but we see them and love them for it.

What does it mean to share your work in a city like West Hollywood, with its own deep-rooted queer cultural history and landscape?

It truly is an honor. I am a major history nerd, and to know that my work will be contributing to West Hollywood’s deep-rooted cultural history and landscape in a small way is something that blows my mind. I am so well aware of West Hollywood’s role not just in the USA’s queer liberation movement and history, but also in a global context. It can’t be underestimated, and the younger version of myself growing up in the working-class suburbs of Sydney could never have imagined making it this far.

Do you foresee this event as more of a celebration, a conversation, a call to action, D: all of the above, or something else entirely?

All the above! I am not there to simply preach to the choir; I am also there to start a meaningful, engaging conversation, even if it means some audience members may be confronted with uncomfortable questions or perspectives. As I said earlier, change is never meant to be easy. But this also doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate. We can, and should!

Why do spaces like this upcoming event matter right now, particularly for queer Arab voices as well as other marginalized communities? 

To have this platform at West Hollywood cannot be understated. It’s an incredibly unique and powerful way to shed light on and uplift voices from marginalized communities – and to do it in a way that’s engaging and accessible to anyone and everyone. I really hope this moment of cultural and ideas exchange will be a stepping stone that leads to more nuanced discussions and understandings of all marginalized communities – not just queer Arabs.

Looking into the near future, what stories and whose voices do you hope will become more culturally mainstream?

We’re already seeing a shift in that queer people of color are taking center stage in the mainstream – not just in queer circles but also the wider, mainstream society and media. I really do welcome this, and I know it will only keep getting better.

I just hope that as this trend continues, we also don’t lose sight of what’s important – complete and genuine liberation for everyone. Not just equality, but also justice and equity too. And crucially, not just for one group of people at the expense of another. We’re all in this together, and applying basic critical thinking, along with a strong desire to hold elected officials and media outlets accountable, will be key in achieving this. This is essentially a long-winded way of saying sure, representation is great – but it’s not what will save us. Liberation requires complete reforms, or a complete dismantling of the status quo in many aspects of society.

Join us tomorrow to celebrate the launch of This Queer Arab Family with Elias Jahshan and the Los Angeles Blade

Queer audiences are lucky that, during a time when LGBTQ+ artistry is being attacked all over the airwaves, we’re still being graced with an abundance of drag-centric reality shows. 

RuPaul’s Drag Race alone has created a gloriously saturated genre; not only is the flagship series offering yearly installments of great performers, but its many spin-offs and international versions have introduced audiences worldwide to the beauty of drag. And with other programs like Dragula and King of Drag offering sides of this art form that fans don’t usually see, it’s been amazing to watch drag become a larger part of mainstream culture. Now more than ever, it’s important to have series that focus on this kind of artistry, which is why Pageant Queens is such a welcome addition to this pantheon of stellar drag shows. 

While it’s another drag-centric program, Pageant Queens immediately sets itself apart with its primary rule: there are no eliminations. And, instead of episodic challenges, it will follow ten queens as they spend weeks rehearsing and preparing for the ‘Queen of Drag’ pageant, where one of them will achieve the titular title (and a $50,000 cash prize). In conversation with the Los Angeles Blade, director Travis Stancil clarified what drove him to create this program: “It’s important to pay homage to our heritage and to our history.”

“[These competitors] have all won major national titles — and there was nothing else for them [to win]!” He explained, when discussing the program’s all-star cast. While most reality shows feature an audition process, this ensemble was selected because each competitor is the proud holder of some illustrious Drag Pageant title. Focusing on them as they all live together and prepare for the pageant, Pageant Queens spotlights these trailblazing performers who’ve each had a hand in shaping the culture so many queer people love today.

“Our concept [was] basically legends that have been in the business for 30-something years, or that have won a national title,” explained California’s own Shae Shae LaReese, a contestant on the show. She went on to describe how each performer featured was a star of the community in their own right and how happy she was to be seen alongside such talents. 

With many younger generations’ first exposure to drag being RuPaul’s Drag Race, it’s easy for them to think the series reflects this entire industry. And while this show and the many like it do reflect certain aspects of this complex culture, an over-emphasis on relatively younger artists and mainstream styles means your average viewer is only getting a glimpse of the nuanced entity that is ‘Drag Culture.’ This series, which premieres on Prime Video on Monday, April 20th, introduces audiences to a group of drag queens who aren’t trying to make it as a performer — they already have! And by refusing to nudge them into dramatic conflict, it becomes an intriguing documentary into what it means to be a queer performer today. 

“The level of community, the level of sisterhood and respect that we have for one another [was most important],” said Alexis Gabrielle Sherrington, a Pageant Queens contestant and one of the most decorated titleholders in drag history. “I think that’s what [we] needed for the world to see.” 

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It’s a sentiment that every contestant on the series seemed to share, including the ‘Texas Powerhouse’ herself, Layla Larue. “The reality of drag isn’t always pleasant,” she stated, when describing how intimate the documentary becomes at certain points. “I think we always show the glam and the fun side…but it’s our actual lives behind those faces. Behind the crowns and competition, [there are] personal struggles. And so I think it’s healthy to show that part, especially to the younger generation coming up, to let them know that, you know, this is a very serious thing, and it’s not always just about having fun.”

Of course, that’s not to say Pageant Queens won’t feature some of the juicy dramatics that fans love — each queen paired their admiration of their fellow contestants with some comical anecdotes about their ‘quirky’ living habits. And with the entire series leading up to a jaw-dropping pageant, each episode promises stunning feats of the drag performances that each queen has built a career on. Pageant Queens thrives as the reality show many people will come assuming it to be, but it quickly proves itself to be something else. 

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Looking deeper beneath its glossy veneer reveals a troupe of artists who’ve spent decades fighting to showcase their most authentic, beautiful selves through drag. A group that recognizes that now more than ever, their entire career is being used as a scapegoat for hateful political rhetoric. What sets Pageant Queens apart is not only logistical, although the program should be commanded for shirking your usual reality show conventions and focusing on a lineup of a certain age who are already famous in their communities. Beyond this, what singles Pageant Queens out as such an impactful docuseries is its ability to balance the glitz and glam of drag with the real narrative of trying to showcase your art when it’s being attacked at a governmental scale. Just like the members of its cast, this show combines gorgeous artistry with the real lived experience of what it means to be LGBTQ+ today.

Through their drag, the cast of Pageant Queens reclaim their stories, not only introducing their prowess to a whole new audience but displaying a kind of radical authenticity that modern watchers need to see. And through this show, they’re ready to not only fight for the ultimate ‘Queen of Drag’ title, but for the art form they’ve dedicated their lives to — all while looking utterly fabulous, of course. 

Pageant Queens premieres on Prime on April 20th

‘La Lucci’
By Susan Lucci with Laura Morton
c.2026, Blackstone Publishing
$29.99/196 pages

They’re among the world’s greatest love stories.

You know them well: Marc Antony and Cleopatra. Abelard and Heloise. Phoebe and Langley. Cliff and Nina. Jesse and Angie, Opal and Palmer, Palmer and Daisy, Tad and Dixie. Now read “La Lucci” by Susan Lucci, with Laura Morton, and you might also think of Susan and Helmut.

When she was a very small girl, Susan Lucci loved to perform. Also when she was young, she learned that words have power. She vowed to use them for good for the rest of her life.

Her parents, she says, were supportive and her family, loving. Because of her Italian heritage, she was “ethnic looking” but Lucci’s mother was careful to point out dark-haired beauties on TV and elsewhere, giving Lucci a foundation of confidence.

That’s just one of the things for which Lucci says she’s grateful. In fact, she says, “Prayers of gratitude are how I begin and end each day.”

She is particularly grateful for becoming a mother to her two adult children, and to the doctors who saved her son’s life when he was a newborn.

Lucci writes about gratitude for her long career. She was a keystone character on TV’s “All My Children,” and she learned a lot from older actors on the show, and from Agnes Nixon, the creator of it. She says she still keeps in touch with many of her former costars.

She is thankful for her mother’s caretakers, who stepped in when dementia struck. Grateful for more doctors, who did heart-saving work when Lucci had a clogged artery. Grateful for friends, opportunities, life, grandchildren, and a career that continues.

And she’s grateful for the love she shared with her husband, Helmut Huber, who died nearly four years ago. Grateful for the chance to grieve, to heal, and to continue.

And yet, she says of her husband: “He was never timid, but I know he was afraid at the end, and that kills me down to my soul.”

“It’s been 15 years since Erica Kane and I parted ways,” says author Susan Lucci (with Laura Morton), and she says that people still approach her to confirm or deny rumors of the show’s resurrection. There’s still no answer to that here (sorry, fans), but what you’ll find inside “La Lucci” is still exceptionally generous.

If this book were just filled with stories, you’d like it just fine. If it was only about Lucci’s faith and her gratitude – words that happen to appear very frequently here – you’d still like reading it. But Lucci tells her stories of family, children and “All My Children,” while also offering help to couples who’ve endured miscarriage, women who’ve had heart problems, and widow(ers) who are spinning and need the kindness of someone who’s lived loss, too.

These are the other things you’ll find in “La Lucci,” in a voice you’ll hear in your head, if you spent your lunch hours glued to the TV back in the day. It’s a comfortable, fun read for fans. It’s a story you’ll love.

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