In a world filled with truly so much going on, it’s hard to keep up. That’s why here at The Buzz we round up the biggest online chatter, pop culture news stories and important happenings in the queer and trans cultural sphere so you can be in the know.
There’s so much to catch up on this week I can barely contain it. So without further ado, here’s what you missed this week in queer and trans pop culture.
→ It’s still a few weeks before the long-anticipated premiere of My Policeman, a period drama featuring pop star Harry Styles as a closeted gay policeman, but the press cycle is already producing plenty of drama.
This week, Styles was profiled in a ranging story for Rolling Stone, where he spoke about accusations of queer baiting and how My Policeman compares to previous representations of gay sex in film.
“So much of gay sex in film is two guys going at it, and it kind of removes the tenderness from it,” Styles said. “There will be, I would imagine, some people who watch it who were very much alive during this time when it was illegal to be gay, and [the filmmakers] wanted to show that it’s tender and loving and sensitive.”
The comments are controversial, as Styles has a long history of being accused of queerbaiting, and has never publically identified as queer. He’s currently in a relationship with actor and director Olivia Wilde.
Naturally, his thoughts on what gay sex in film looks like now—and should look like—prompted plenty of queries from social media users about where Styles was finding all of these films just bursting with “guys going at it.”
And others pointed to several critically acclaimed examples of tender gay relationships in film, including Moonlight and Heartstopper.
But the official Grindr Twitter account may have had the best clapback of all to Styles’s misguided quote.
We’ll have to wait to see what balance of “guys going at it” and “tenderness” My Policeman features. The film will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.
→ Speaking of wide-ranging celebrity profiles, Lee Pace is really just a husband guy. The Bodies Bodies Bodies actor (and subject of plenty of internet thirst) publicly discussed his marriage to Thom Browne executive Matthew Foley for the first time in a new GQ profile.
“What I’ll say about being married, it was once described to me as an endless sleepover with your weirdest friend. In our experience, that is absolutely true,” he says. “If you’ve found one person you can be weird around, hold on tight.”
The actor has been very private about his personal life, and came out publicly as queer in 2018.
→ Rugby gold medalist Ellia Green has made history as the first Olympian to come out as a trans man. Green won gold with Australia’s women’s rugby team in 2016, and came out last week in a video shared at an international summit on ending transphobia and homophobia in sport.
→ Canadian actor Kelly McCormack is a standout in the new A League of Their Own series, and she spoke to the CBC about how the queer history of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, inspired her work on the show.
“Moose Jaw—and Canada at large—was a lot more progressive and accepting than I think history has blanketed it with,” she said. “There was a lesbian parade in the 1940s where all these women were dressing like men and just being driven around the streets of Moose Jaw. And in the brothels, any type of sex was allowed, as long as you’re willing to pay for it. So yeah, I was really happy to find this kind of vibrant queer scene that existed then in Moose Jaw.”
→ JoJo Siwa is back on the market. Her and on-again-off-again girlfriend Kylie Prew confirmed that she and the singer/dancer/TikToker/newly minted queer icon have broken up again.
“I’ve been single for almost two months and it’s okay,” Prew said. “It’s not deep, I promise. Everything’s fine. Not everything has to be messy and gross because it’s not, and I just want to clear the air.”
→ The first images of the Knives Out sequel Glass Onion are here and this Janelle Monáe murder mystery can’t come soon enough!
→ Schitt’s Creek star and creator Dan Levy is joining Sex Education for Season 4, where he’ll be playing a cult author and Oxford tutor.
→ What We Do in the Shadows actor Harvey Guillén penned an emotional essay in Esquire about coming out, tied to his on-screen character Guillermo’s own coming out in a recent episode.
“It was important to me that I handled Guillermo’s coming-out story authentically and with fragile hands. If you had put a mirror to my face while filming this episode, I feel as though I would have seen a younger version of myself anxiously waving back at me. We had lived this life before,” he wrote.
“To all those who may feel alone in their journey: I want you to know I see you, I stand beside you in full support and I love you as you are. The right people always will. Most importantly, I hope you know we need you here and that the world is a better place because you’re in it.”
→ What exactly is going on with Amandla Stenberg and that film critic who accused her of being “anti-gay”? It all started when the critic, Lena Wilson, wrote a scathing review of Stenberg’s film Bodies Bodies Bodies for the New York Times.
“The only thing that really sets Bodies Bodies Bodies apart is its place in the A24 hype machine, where it doubles as a 95-minute advertisement for cleavage and Charli XCX’s latest single,” Wilson wrote.
Stenberg slid into Wilson’s DMs, saying “Ur review was great, maybe if you had gotten your eyes off my tits you could’ve watched the movie.”
Wilson published that DM and her response: “Hey, Amandla! Generally a big fan of your work, but this sure is something. Really wishing you well in your career and life. Have a nice night.” The critic then proceeded to slam the comments of Stenberg (who is also queer) as “anti-gay” in a series of Tiktok videos and tweets.
Stenberg then responded in Instagram stories, saying she did feel unnecessarily sexualized by Wilson’s review, but ultimately meant the original message as a joke and thought it would be well-received since she and Wilson are both queer.
“I thought it was hilarious. I thought because Lena is gay, I am also gay, I thought as gay people we would both find this comment funny,” Stenberg said.
They continued, “Anyways, Lena, I thought your view was hilarious, I thought my DM was funny—I did not mean to harass you. I do not wish you any harm. You are allowed to have your criticism of my work and I’m allowed to have my criticisms of your work and that is A-okay with me. I wish you the best.”
So anyway, if you see people chattering about Amandla Stenberg’s DMs, now you know.
→ The talk of the New York theatre scene is an off-Broadway Céline Dion jukebox musical called Titanique, which imagines an alternate telling of the James Cameron’s feature film Titanic where Céline Dion is actually there and survives the shipwreck (also it features Ariana Grande’s brother Frankie as the Victor Garber character). It’s a lot, but apparently it’s very good and the gays are loving it.
→ R&B child star Tevin Campbell—whom you may know as the voice of Powerline in 1995’s A Goofy Movie—has came out as gay, and spoke about why it took him so long to publically identify as queer.
“I didn’t hide anything about me. I didn’t try to act a certain way or anything,” he said. “You just couldn’t be [gay] back then.”
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