In Quentin Lee’s spirited feature film debut, Shopping for Fangs, viewers are shown shards of stories: pieces of narratives that are spliced and, sometimes, hastily shoved together in a way that inspires whiplash, excitement, and unnerving anticipation. We are thrown into a San Gabriel Valley of the late ‘90s and shown its darker underbelly: an image that betrays its tranquil real-life reputation. 

This is not the San Gabriel Valley I grew up in (but perhaps wish I did). It’s an uncanny, noir version of it that draws inspiration from reality and remixes it with style through Lee’s risque, imaginative lens. 

Shopping for Fangs starts at the scene of a crime, where a man has pinned a woman against a wall in the dark. Suddenly, another figure appears, dressed in a sparkly champagne dress, a curly blonde Marilyn Monroe-esque wig, and sunglasses that, we will soon discover, are permanently fixed onto her face. She draws a gun at the man, threatening to “blow his face off,” and her fragment of the film’s story begins. 

The 1997 feature weaves together the lives of several Asian American characters and explores their queerness, their yearning to belong, and the ways that these angsts transform into physical and mental affliction. Phil, a bored and indifferent office worker, begins to grow hair at a rapid rate and act out in all-consuming aggression. His storyline, written by the film’s co-director, Justin Lin of Fast & Furious fame, is a werewolf tale that digs into stereotypes around Asian American masculinity and rejects them with energetic rebellion.

Shopping for Fangs marks the beginning of a 30-year legacy for Lee: one in which he has continually explored what it means to be queer, Asian American, and to navigate stigma, racial identities, and sexual longing in an increasingly tech-centered world through the 90s and early 2000s. His films are beasts of their own: hybridizing person and monster, desire and animosity, reality and fantasy to create poignant stories where his untethered characters break from their molds, transform, and find their own forms of catharsis. 

Beginning on Friday, May 1, Lee’s films will be screened in a special retrospective at the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles. The opening night features a viewing of Shopping for Fangs and a Q&A with Lee and Lin.

To celebrate and understand Lee’s journey, the Blade sat down with him to discuss his early years making movies and how his art has helped him understand his own identity more. 

What films intrigued you when you were young, before you started making movies?

I grew up as a teenager watching a lot of horror films, and then I became really into Brian De Palma and Hitchcock genre thrillers. I remember I was maybe 15 in Hong Kong, and I picked up this Premiere magazine right before we were leaving for Canada. Brian De Palma had all the storyboards of Casualties of War laid out, and I said, ‘Oh my god, this is the kind of filmmaker I want to become.’ 

I graduated from UC Berkeley, and [there] I started dabbling in experimental filmmaking. So I’d say, as a filmmaker, I really started off with experimental video, video art, and things like that. [Then], I applied to UCLA Film School and didn’t get in. I thought: I’m not going to wait for UCLA before I start making movies. So I made my first short film called “To Ride a Cow.” I did it with my friend, my then-boyfriend, and also with my best girl friend. 

Then, I was traveling to film festivals with my little short film…I think it was ‘93. It was really a fun year that I got to learn a lot more about storytelling, literature, and literary theory at the same time. I remember I was really young. “To Ride a Cow” won the best student film award at the New England Film Festival. I drove from Yale to Boston for that screening. And the programmer was saying something like: ‘Well, all you need to do is just go to the film festivals and talk to some people, and you’ll be making your next film.’ And the next thing, [I’m here] like, 30 years later. [Laughs]

Your first feature, Shopping for Fangs, has been described as the cinematic lovechild of David Lynch and Wong Kar-wai. In the story, every character is fragmented, and the narrative explores their deep isolation, misbelonging, or unfulfilled desire. What was it like for you to create these characters, and did they reflect underlying themes that you wanted to explore as a young filmmaker? 

I realized further down the line, all my films are about someone trying to look for a connection to the world, but they’re not really sure how. And that very much is how, emotionally, I’ve felt most of my life, even till today. I was an immigrant from Hong Kong, moved to Canada, and then moved to America, came out as being queer, and then also found this new kind of Asian American identity. 

In the beginning, I wasn’t even sure I was going to stay in America, so I didn’t completely identify with being Asian American. And then eventually, after I graduated, I thought: You know what? That’s actually a really good identity. Shopping for Fangs is about that. It’s about all these really fragmented characters, whether it’s Phil or Katherine or the husband, and even Clarence, who is this queer Singaporean student trying to get a VISA. That’s kind of me. John Cho didn’t know he was playing me. It’s about them finding a place to belong. That became a throughline for most of my movies.

[Before making Shopping for Fangs], I had put a collection of my short films together, and I premiered them as a feature at the Vancouver International Film Festival. I was coming back in [the winter] of ‘95, and I was really good friends with Justin. I said: ‘Why don’t we make a feature together? You can write a story. I can write [one]. It’s like Chungking Express!’ We spent Christmas writing together. He wrote the story about the werewolf, the Asian American guy. 

I wrote this thing about…I was really obsessed with going to Monterey Park and the Alhambra, San Gabriel Valley area. And I thought: Okay, I want to write something about that. I was also into Hitchcock influences, so, in the end, I came up with the story of Katherine, and we mashed them together. Then, I applied for a Canada Council for the Arts grant, and they wrote: ‘Here’s $50,000. Go make the movie.’ Then, we made it. We started in the summer of ‘96, and I knew that I had to start a company. I started Margin Films to be the entity that produced it. 

I didn’t have a status. I wasn’t American, wasn’t even a resident, so I thought: Well, I guess the only entity I could start is a C-corporation — because I needed to make Shopping for Fangs. 

It was such a moment to watch Shopping for Fangs and be like: Oh, I grew up going to this plaza in the San Gabriel Valley, and now I see it as a centerpiece of a film. You imbue it with mystery, and it, in turn, imbues your film with more mystery as well. About finding connection, how did that ethos evolve in the making of your later films like Ethan Mao and The People I’ve Slept With? Visually, they’re more stripped down. Was that intentional?

Ethan Mao was about this kid who just came out, and he’s trying to figure out where he really belongs. He runs away from home. In “The People I’ve Slept With,” the main character is semi-inspired by the actress in it. At some point, I was listening to David Lynch, [and he said]: ‘Every story has a different way to do it.’ So, there really is no one way to make a movie. Every movie, what I actually do is try to find out: ‘What is this? How should I approach the aesthetics,’ and with Ethan Mao, I’m playing a lot. 

Because of my experimental background, I wanted everything in the house to be like a Greek drama, shot in 35 millimeter film. Everything outside the house, I wanted to be digital video. And the digital video was transferred to film. That became the aesthetics for Ethan Mao and his world. And then with The People I’ve Slept With, it was the beginning of digital film technology, and it was the first time I made a decent-budgeted film with a digital camera. It was very exciting and, at the same time, I was nervous. It’s interesting and reminds me of how technology changes as our culture also changes.

With this upcoming screening series, what do you hope to impart on queer Asian American people who might be seeing your films for the first time?

I hope to have a new generation of audiences take a look at Shopping for Fangs. When it came out, people were like: ‘What is this? It’s not even Asian American. The characters are Asian, but there’s nothing about Asian American identity.’ It was very annoying to hear that, because obviously me and Justin were thinking: ‘We have all this ideology, all these things in it.’ Eventually, years later, more writing on it [has come out], so people started to understand: It actually is about identity.  

A message that I want to [tell] new generations of diverse, queer, and all combinations of different audiences, is that they should go out and experiment. Each of my films is very different,  and I think people should just go out and make things, and not have to worry so much about what they should be making. They should be making what they want to make. I started my journey doing exactly that, so I guess I’m pretty happy about it. 

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.

If there’s a group that really needs a party right now, it’s queer journalists. And, luckily for all of the ones currently chasing stories in LA, they’re getting just that with the 2026 Press Pride Prom. 

Many journalists have been waiting 12 months to attend this event again; the Press Pride Prom was created in 2025 by the Los Angeles chapter of the National Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists (NLGJA). It offered a respite during a time when the rise of AI and nationwide discrimination — issues that have only gotten worse in the past year — left many journalists worried about their ability to document queer narratives. By reclaiming the concept of a prom that too many LGBTQ+ people never got to experience and creating an evening focused on nothing but celebration, NLGJA offered this group of professionals a moment of joy. An evening to recharge and rejuvenate, with the event not only featuring many fun activities, but also awards for the trailblazers helping uplift queer voices today. 

The Press Pride Prom serves as a reminder to every journalist why it’s more important than ever to fight for our communities’ stories. It’s an honorable mission, and it is embodied by the Co-Founder of This Way Out Radio and one of the recipients of this year’s Troy Masters Legacy Award for Visionaries in Media, Lucia Chappelle.

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Speaking to Lucia Chappelle is an experience that can only be defined as extraordinary. And that’s not just because of how she commands a room; a lifelong journalist and pastor, Chappelle knows how to intrigue others with just one word. But beyond her delivery, a conversation with Lucia quickly reveals that she bore witness to the rise of queer journalism as we know it now — in fact, she was one of the people who pioneered it.

“You know, I didn’t notice that I was a big mouth…I just was!” Lucia laughed, remembering her time as a young girl in Catholic school, arguing with the other students. As she sat down with the Los Angeles Blade to discuss her award, Chappelle charted her lifelong career as a storyteller, from these early childhood arguments to when she began volunteering with an LA-based radio station after college. 

It was this early role that showed her just how powerful being a journalist was, with Lucia’s career taking her all over the country to document some of history’s biggest events — like both marches on Washington. 

“We went out to Washington to be part of the team of queer journalists from all over the country who were covering the first march,” she explained. “We gathered a whole bunch of people from stations all across the country to feed into reports — we [even] had somebody take reels of tape every hour by bicycle to the NPR office to upload it, hour by hour!” It was through this work that Chappelle met the now-late Greg Gordon, a fellow journalist who revealed to her a very important fact: there were other LGBTQ+ journalists out there. “[That] gave us the idea that there were radio people — queer radio people, doing this kind of work all over the country. And we should be able to do something together.”

And so, This Way Out Radio was born. 

This Way Out Radio is the only internationally distributed LGBTQ+ radio program, with its spotlights on queer culture offering thousands of global listeners the stories that many have been kept from. “We got a grant — just a little tiny one, just enough to pay for the satellite time and a handful of stations to carry us,” Chappelle explained, as she discussed founding the program with Gordon. “We were kids just trying to figure it out! We didn’t know how to be queer journalists. What the heck was that? You know, we would go on the radio and have an open phone show and spend the next couple of hours talking to people on the telephone because there was no gay community services center yet — there were no places for people to go and talk!” This phone-in format evolved into featuring various stories from all over the world, eventually becoming the magazine-style program that countless people love today.

“I’ve had people who are grown come up to me and say, ‘I listened to you when I was a teenager, when I was hiding in my bedroom,” said Lucia, reflecting on the program’s impact. “Even when you didn’t specifically hear it from people, [we] knew that [queer] energy was seeping through…you could feel it in the whole of the movement growing.”

While remembering the joy of making this show, Chappelle also recalled the difficulties. The bigotry she and her colleagues faced, and how a lack of institutional support meant they had to build their own model for what this type of reporting could be. But, rather than being bitter at these injustices, all Lucia seemed to feel when describing them was pride. Pride at the way she and her team overcame — and pride knowing that modern journalists will too. 

Lucia doesn’t see current issues as a potential end to queer journalism, but rather an opportunity to grow it in a way nobody has before. She is someone who has faced almost every roadblock imaginable yet always pushed forward, not only building a career for herself but helping to establish a more inclusive journalism for all. It’s with this knowledge that she urges her fellow journalists to never give up, saying, “Just keep going. We never thought we’d be where we are now, not at all. And we might have to lose a lot of what we have, in order to gain even more [and] move forward again.”

Spoken like a true trailblazer, and making it completely understandable why she’s receiving the Troy Masters Legacy Award for Visionaries in Media award at this year’s Press Pride Prom. 

Come join the LA Blade at Pride Press Prom: May 9, 2026, from 6-9 p.m. at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Click here for more info.

During a time when we’re seeing so many attacks against the LGBTQ+ community, modern advocates are looking back on the early days of our movement and the many folks who fought for the rights we’re defending today. This retrospective offers us tips, tools, and astounding models for advocacy — but also an entire history of prideful, unabashed queer joy. 

This is clearly evident in Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo, a new documentary from Barbara Malaran and Desireena Almoradie chronicling the rise of the titular Filipinx advocacy group in 90s’ New York. The documentary is a deeply personal project; as members of Kilawin Kolektibo, these filmmakers utilized handheld recordings from their time within the group to showcase a side of early queer rights that too few people know about. And with the film’s upcoming screening at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival before it hits streaming services in June, Because of You hopes to introduce a whole new generation of viewers to the fun-filled, deeply impactful movement that was Kilawin Kolektibo. 

The Los Angeles Blade got to sit down with Malaran and Almoradie to speak about Because of You and their excitement at its upcoming release. The longtime friends spoke candidly about their experience, reminiscing on the happy times they had in this group and how the advocacy of its early years still manifests today. Above all else, in making Because of You, this duo realized the valuable lesson they hope to impart on viewers with this documentary: the discrimination we’re seeing now has happened before, and our community has always overcome. With Because of You, the filmmakers want to remind audiences that there are always ways to fight against oppression — and that if you’re doing it with found family, you can always have some fun along the way. 

“No one else was documenting our history. We had to do it ourselves. But then, once you finish documenting, what are you going to do with that stuff?” Said Malaran, when discussing what drove the pair to begin filming Kilawin Kolektibo in the early 1990s. “Because of You is that story: a queer group in New York City that started because these women were looking for a place to call home…who were looking for a community.”

It’s something that many modern queer people take for granted; while mainstream portrayals of queer identity still struggle to feature the diversity of this community, LA, especially, is lucky to have numerous spaces focused on uplifting people of intersectional identities. For many queer people of color, it’s no longer difficult to find events where they can be understood by others like them — something that was virtually nonexistent for queer, Filipinx people like Malaran and Almoradie in 90s New York City. 

Enter, Kilawin Kolektibo. 

This group was founded in the face of adversity, not only granting its members community but also refuting the queer folks who refused to acknowledge any cultures beyond their own. “Sometimes, 20 Filipinx women would converge at a club, and you just see these [people] be like, ‘What’s going on here?’” Laughed Almoradie as they thought back on the memory. “They never experienced all these brown people before in their club [before], and we were speaking our language…[they had] a feeling of, ‘Why are we being invaded!?’”

The documentary shows how these individuals came together and turned found family into a resource hub for queer Filipinx New Yorkers. It’s the footage of this community building that makes Because of You so heartwarming; the documentary is filled with moments of the members joking with one another, hosting parties, and even lamenting the age-old queer issue of finding out everyone in the room has the same ex-girlfriend. That’s not to say that Because of You skimps on the real issues this group faced — the narrative spends ample time discussing the rampant homophobia of the time and how it hurt so many of the group’s members. 

But too often, oppression makes us define certain identities only by the hardship they experience. It discounts the utter happiness that these communities can experience when together, a joy that is essential in powering them to fight against their oppressors and create real change. This is the true message of Because of You, as, in the words of Almoradie themself, “If [activism is] not fun, if it’s just a slog — why would anyone do it?”

“You make meaning out of your struggle, and you make it fun,” they continued. “If you have like-minded people around you who are going through the same thing, [who are] fighting for something important…everything is easier. It’s not work — it’s life. It’s what keeps you going, and it’s what makes the world a better place.”

Because of You serves as not only a beautiful exploration of Kilawin Kolektibo, an organization that helped pave the way for all intersectional activism, but a mirror to the many queer activists defending our rights today. The documentary emphasizes that our struggles are not unique — and that’s a good thing. Because not only does it mean others have faced similar issues and overcome them, but they did that while finding their found family and creating happy memories to energize their activism. 

Through Because of You, Malaran and Almoradie remind everyone watching that when you’re LGBTQ+, your happiness is radical. And that is we who fight these battles, standing with each other in community, we have to remember to save some time for queer joy along the way. 

‘Because of You’ screens at AMC Atlantic Times Square 14 on May 3, 2026 at 3:00 pm. Click here for more info.

A line of celebrities, Drag Race queens, influencers, media, and West Hollywood socialites lined the block around West Hollywood’s The Abbey, all clamoring to get into the invite-only celebration of owner Tristan Schukraft’s birthday. The rumor, which became verified gossip, was that Madonna, the Queen of Pop herself, would be taking the stage. Of course, the Blade had to be there.

With disco balls and Abbey statues covered in pink chiffon, it was clear. This party was a direct tie-in to Madonna’s much-anticipated Confessions on A Dance Floor album sequel, Confessions II. That night, the Abbey also unveiled its remodeled dancefloor, a fitting collaboration.

The club was filled to capacity with a completely open bar, keeping the crowd liquored up. Go-go dancers in black leather collars and thongs lined the room, and celebrities that included Lilly Allen, Bebe Rexha, Tori Spelling, Julia Fox, Sam Asghari, Daniel Frenzese, Cynthia Bailey, Meredith Marks, Tom Daley, and more filled the VIP booths alongside World of Wonder personalities. It was a veritable who’s who of queer folk and allies.

The lights began to dim, the dancefloor began to rumble, and Madonna graphics hit the screens. At around 1 am, it was time. Introduced by Addison Rae, Madonna grabbed the mic and started chanting, welcoming her “gays.” The venue resounded in thunderous chants of “freedom,” “mother,” and “bitch.”

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Madonna was not there to perform. She was there to dance. She took the stage for about 15 minutes, keeping the crowd going with her naughty and fun commentary. There is no list that needs to be provided on how Madonna’s career has become part of queer culture. Going back to her dance music roots and going back to her gay fans is smart.

Released in 2005 (yes, it has been that long), Confessions on a Dance Floor was an instant hit, with four singles from the album being released. The album’s lead single, “Hung Up,” topped the charts in 41 countries with Billboard calling it the most successful dance song of the decade. The album had hints of 60s and 70s flair, mixed in with dance music prevalent at that time. The music still dominates at queer clubs across the globe.

Madonna knows we need a little queer joy; she also knows that fans miss the Madonna we all knew and loved. With the nation in such turbulence, we all need some comfort, and going back to a time when we felt safer and had more to celebrate just feels good. For the new album release, she has even partnered with Grindr for a limited edition vinyl release and exclusive behind-the-scenes content.

Her night at The Abbey presented snippets of her new music mixed in with some of her classics. The new material sounded good, sounded familiar in an exciting way, and shows that this diva has still got it.

Confessions II releases on July 3rd.

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