Following appearances at multiple film festivals, the documentary Indigo Girls: It's Only Life After All is getting a theatrical release next spring, The Advocate noted. Directed by Alexandria Bombach, the film dives into the four decades the iconic folk-rock band has spent preaching "radical self-acceptance" to generations of fans. A press release stated that Indigo Girls: It's Only Life After All is composed of "intimate," unscripted conversations from the present-day, as well as home video footage from the band spanning across decades. It focuses on the "criminally overlooked" duo's career of activism in the face of misogyny, homophobia and a "harsh cultural climate chastising them for not fitting into a female pop star mold."
Out published its list of the 30 best songs of 2023 from LGBTQ+ artists. Topping the list was "Lipstick Lover," by Janelle Monae (who also made the list with "Float" (at #11). Victoria Monet's "On My Mama," Troye Sivan's "Rush," Miley Cyrus' "Flowers" and the Steve Aoki/Galantis/Hayley Kiyoko collaboration "Hungry Heart" completed the top five. A few of the other tunes on the list were 100 gets' "Dumbest Girl Alive," Sufjan Stevens' "Will Anybody Ever Love Me?," Omar Apollo's "Ice Slippin," Megan Thee Stallion's "Cobra," and Brandy Clark and Brandi Carlile's "Dear Insecurity."
A Las Cruces, New Mexico-based professional dance company's queer reimagining of ballet The Nutcracker is available to stream online, the Las Cruces' Sun News noted. Dark Circles Contemporary Dance (DCCDUSA) took on the film project, "Queering the Second Act," with original choreography by DCCDUSA Artistic Director Joshua L. Peugh. According to a news release, the project is part of the company's mission to "celebrate diversity and inclusivity in the arts" through a reimagining of the classic E.T.A. Hoffman fairy tale. "Queering the Second Act" features two male-identified dancers in the roles of the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier. "Queering the Second Act" will be available to screen through Jan. 3 at www.DarkCirclesContemporaryDance.com .
Openly gay actor Colman Domingo (Rustin; the new The Color Purple movie; TV's Euphoria) told The New York Times that he had a negative situation when he auditioned for the show Boardwalk Empire, per Deadline. According to the NYT article, "There was just one problem, his agent said. After the callback, a historical researcher on the show reminded producers that the ma˨tre d's in those nightclubs were typically light-skinned, and Domingo was not. Boardwalk Empire had passed." Domingo added that he almost quit acting then (a decade ago) but is now an "offer-only actor: "I decided I have a body of work. You can go and look at it, you can ask other directors about me, and you can make me the offer or not."
HBO announced that its Broadway star-studded series The Gilded Age has been renewed for a third season, per Playbill. Created by Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey), the series takes place in turn-of-the-century New York, following new-money socialite Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) as she navigates high society and its old-money families. Christine Baranski, Michael Cerveris, Taissa Farmiga and out actor Cynthia Nixon are among the others in the cast.
Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" is still breaking records, HipHopDX noted, citing TMZ. The song was streamed more than 23.7 million times on Dec. 24. This number smashes the previous record for the same song, which was streamed more than 21.2 million times on the same day the previous year. Before that, the record was held by Adele's "Easy on Me," which Spotify users played more than 19.7 million times on its release date, Oct. 15, 2021. Since the streaming platform launched in 2008, "All I Want For Christmas Is You" has been streamed more than 1.4 billion times.
Out musician Brandi Carlile and LGBTQ+ actor/songwriter Joshua Bassett were among the winners at the second annual Children's & Family Creative Arts Emmy Awards, which were recently held at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, according to Billboard. Carlile won outstanding original song for a preschool program for writing "One Sacred Thing," from Jam Van; the singer-songwriter has won nine Grammys in the last five years and is nominated for two more awards at the ceremony, set for Feb. 4. Bassett is best-known for his starring role as high school student Ricky Bowen in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (2019—23); "Finally Free," which he co-wrote with Tova Litvin and Doug Rockwell for that series, won outstanding original song for a children's or young teen program.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama listed his favorite movies of 2023, per Deadline. Obama included movies produced by Higher Ground—the production company he and his wife Michelle Obama founded. He acknowledged his favoritism to films like Rustin, Leave the World Behind and American Symphony. Other films on the list included Oppenheimer, Air, A Thousand and One, The Holdovers, Blackberry, American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Monster, Past Lives and Polite Society.
Also, Gay City News listed its best and worst films/performances of 2023. Some of the best items included Cassandra, a movie starring Gael Garcia Bernal as gay wrestler Saul Armendariz; the Pakistani movie Joyland, about a married man falling for a trans exotic dancer; trans actress Trace Lysette in Monica; Rotting in the Sun (best nudity) and the documentary Kokomo City. Only two items made the worst list—the films Queens of the Qing Dynasty, about a friendship between a suicidal woman and a genderqueer hospital volunteer; and Down Low, a black comedy about two gay men and a dead body.
Out comedian/actress Rebel Wilson revealed that there were some rough times while writing her memoir, Rebel Rising, per Entertainment Weekly. "You guys, I mean, I can't wait for you to read this," she said in an Instagram Story. "You're going to see a whole new side of me, and lots of funny stuff, and serious stuff, Yeah, hopefully [you] will love the book as much as I've liked writing it, although sometimes it's been gut-wrenching. Yeah, emotional." Rebel Rising is slated to be out April 2, 2024.
RuPaul's Drag Race alum Farrah Moan has come out as a trans woman, Out noted. In an interview for Give It to Me Straight with Maddy Morphosis, Moan said, "In 2019, unbeknownst to my following, that's when I made the decision to live my life as a woman. It was [coming] forever. The times in my life where I tried to suppress my trans identity, it was because I felt if I ever did it, I would never be on Drag Race, I'd never be successful, I'd never be able to have a job." The rest of the interview featured other stories about Moan, including being homeless prior to filming season nine of "Drag Race" and getting robbed right after moving to Las Vegas.
RuPaul's Drag Race superstar Bianca del Rio is kicking off her latest tour, "Dead Inside," with 60 stops across the United States and Canada, according to Out. "I've had some time off," she said. "I thought I would be doing a lot more television and film, but there was a little thing called the Writers' Strike, so not much went on in that world. But I'm excited to get back on the road, and there's so much to discuss again, with the world as it is." Her last tour was 2022's "Unsanitized."
CBS Sports, the NFL and the New England Patriots joined forces for a very special celebration of the National Gay Flag Football League, per Outsports. On Christmas Eve, CBS Sports shared a short documentary-film projectšalso promoting it in the coming weeks leading up to CBS' broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII—that celebrates the LGBTQ+ community's involvement in flag football. The New England Patriots and owner Robert Kraft—who hosted the production team and the Boston LGBTQ Flag Football League at Gillette Stadium—have been longtime supporters of the LGBTQ+ community, supporting and appearing at the most-recent Boston-hosted Gay Bowl.
Out actor Neil Patrick Harris was a guest star on the British show Doctor, playing the villain The Toymaker—but he had never heard of the show before showrunner Russell T Davies approached him, according to Entertainment Weekly. "He'd never heard of it in his life, bless him," Davies said. "I was lucky enough to work with the great man on a show called It's a Sin—about the AIDS crisis in the 1980s—and working with him was such a joy. The Toymaker—he's kind of the god of games, so he shuffles cards, he does magic tricks and all of that fits Neil Patrick Harris." Harris played the role on the show's final 60th-anniversary special episode, "The Giggle."
Sara Sidner and Cari Champion will take over the Warner Bros. Discovery network's New Year's Eve broadcast on New Year's Eve, airing from Austin, Texas, during a slot that for years served as a showcase for raucous antics from Don Lemon, per Variety. Lemon and CNN parted ways earlier this year after management tried to move him from a prominent primetime show to the network's morning program. Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen will return as hosts of CNN's main coverage of the evening. The broadcast will feature performances by Enrique Iglesias, Maroon 5, Jonas Brothers, Flo Rida, Miranda Lambert, Darius Rucker and Rod Stewart as well as live interviews with Patti Labelle, Jeremy Renner, Neil Patrick Harris, Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers.
U.S. gymnast Simone Biles—who made a stellar comeback after withdrawing from various finals at the 2020 Olympics—was named the AP female athlete of the year for the third time, ESPN noted. Biles' triumphant return included her record eighth U.S. national championship and a sixth world all-around gold. The seven-time Olympic medalist was followed by University of Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark and Ballon d'Or winner Aitana Bonmatí of the World Cup champion Spanish soccer team.
Taylor Swift's album 1989 (Taylor's Version) returned to the top spot on the Billboard 200 as Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday 2 dropped to number two in its second week out, Variety noted. In doing so, Swift marked the 67th week she has had an album in the No. 1 position on the Billboard 200—tying her with Elvis Presley as the solo artist with the most weeks spent on top of that chart. The Beatles hold the all-time record, at 132 weeks.
Cher has filed for a conservatorship of son Elijah Blue Allman because of alleged "severe mental-health and substance-abuse issues," according to USA Today. The Grammy-winning legend claims that, due to those reasons, Allman is unable to manage his financial assets. A hearing for a temporary order is scheduled for Jan. 5, 2024, while a hearing regarding a permanent order is currently set for March 6, 2024.
Out actor Luke Macfarlane (Bros) recently appeared on the Tosh Show with Daniel Tosh—and the podcast host called out Macfarlane for his back-in-the-day crush, Out noted. Macfarlane admitted that he had a crush on Mark Wahlberg, which prompted Tosh to say, "Ugh, a racist? What is wrong with you? He had a hate crime under his belt." When he was 15, Wahlberg was charged in 1986 for chasing three Black children, pelting them with rocks and shouting, "Kill the n****s." Two years later, he physically attacked two Vietnamese men on separate occasions, leaving one unconscious.
Meghan McCain recently gave her thoughts on The View, on which she was a co-host, while speaking on the Your Welcome with Michael Malice podcast, Deadline noted. "I can't go like a week without something being said about me on the show," McCain said on the Dec. 27 episode. "The thing about The View is that I didn't know when I signed my contract with ABC that this is forever—that, for the rest of my life, I'm going to be bullied, and yelled at, and abused and brought up for years." McCain said that what eventually led to her departure from the show was when she realized producers allegedly only wanted "someone who will agree with them and say 'all Republicans are evil and conservatives are ruining the country.'"
Embattled gay actor Kevin Spacey reignited his Christmas Eve tradition of posting a strange video of himself as his House of Cards character, Frank Underwood, Variety noted. In 2023, Spacey sat down for an interview with Tucker Carlson, and the two discussed Netflix and the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Spacey remained in character as Underwood for the entire seven-minute interview with Carlson, even suggesting in character that he would run for president.
Now-former Scream 7 director Christopher Landon has left "a dream job that turned into a nightmare," per Deadline. On X, he also stated, "I have nothing more to add to the conversation other than I hope Wes' legacy thrives and lifts above the din of a divided world. What he and Kevin [Williamson] created is something amazing and I was honored to have even the briefest moment basking in their glow." Landon's exit happened after actress Melissa Barrera was fired from the film due to her social-media posts on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
