I'm traveling today, so you're going to have to keep yourselves entertained on my behalf. In the meanwhile, I want you all to watch the Sweet Polly Oliver episode of Clone High, where Joan of Arc goes undercover as John D'ark to prove that women and animals can play basketball. Then, if you have never watched Clone High before, I want you to promise me you'll watch every episode this weekend so we can talk about…

Previously on Femslash Friday: Mean Girls' Lesbian Layers. A League Of Their Own is part of a cadre of movies that made up the definitely-feminist, almost-lesbian boom of the early '90s, alongside Thelma & Louise, Tank Girl, and Fried Green Tomatoes. A League Of Their Own is to a particular type of women what The Shawshank Redemption is to a particular type of man -- if it's on TV, we're going to drop whatever in order to watch…

Previously on Femslash Friday: The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Mean Girls is the film equivalent of the hyper-closeted girl who let you make out with her in between boyfriends but snubbed you in the hallways in high school. She's not gay, you're gay, and sometimes you happen to be gay inside of her mouth, which isn't really her fault, if that happens. You've got a big old lesbian crush on her, and if you tell anyone about what you…

Previously on Femslash Friday: Jane Eyre. On paper, there’s a lot that Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD does right. It’s attached to the Whedon name, overseen by Joss’ brother Jed and his sister-in-law Maurissa Tancharoen and branded with the Mutant Enemy production label. Its cast is led by the utterly capable Clark Gregg, whose Agent Phil Coulson was so beloved after his death in The Avengers that the Marvel franchise felt forced to bring him back, however hackneyed…

Jane Eyre is far and away my favorite creep in literature. She's a tiny monster who roams the countryside, flinging herself on people's doorsteps, demanding that they love her or she'll drown herself in some dark elfin sea. She threatens suicide at the drop of a hat. If I can't get a new job, I will kill myself, you bastard, she tells God. I wish you would just hit me. If you won't be my friend I…

Previously in Femslash Friday: The Facts of Life. Tomb Raider 2013 may very well be the Toastiest video game ever created. Truly, if the developers had set out to make a game specifically intended to appeal to regular readers of this website, they could have hardly been more successful. Newly made-under Lara Croft is a recently graduated archaeologist: studious, serious, and hungry to prove herself in her field. Throughout the game, she remains…

Previously in this series: The Women-Loving-Women of Hollywood's Golden Age.  "Wonderful girl! Either I'm gonna kill her, or I'm beginning to like her!" - Han Solo on Princess Leia Organa "Well, ex-cuse me, princess!" - Link on Zelda in 1989's The Legend of Zelda "I swear I have never met anyone who irritates me so much... other than you." - Blair Warner on roommate Jo Polniaczek "I watched The Facts of Life fairly often; I bet…

Previously in the Femslash Friday series: Frenchy and Rizzo, Grease's butch-femme pairing for the ages. I'm in Hollywood this week for the Turner Classic Film Festival, as is my yearly custom, and for reasons of both convenience and thematic what's-the-word-I-want-it-isn't-congruence-it's-something-else, I have decided to honor classic Hollywood with this week's entry. Let us step back to an era where every Friday was Femslash Friday, when having sex with Mercedes de Acosta and Alla…

It took me a long time before I was able to love Grease. It's so confusingly gay -- even for a musical -- that it was difficult for me to understand as a child why it was supposed to be a good thing that Danny and Sandy eventually started touching one another. It took reaching adulthood before I was finally able to appreciate it on its own merits. Grease is the movie you would get if…

I can't even tell you how long I spent counting down the days for the Veronica Mars movie. (Well, I could tell you, but I'm not going to because I have a tiny bit of dignity.) I had so many questions – so many things that have haunted me, in the years since the show was canceled – but few more pressing than the question we'll discuss today, which is: Would Veronica and Mac finally…

Previously on Femslash Friday, we've cut abusive tools loose and given fictional women the keys to direct their own lives. Today I want to talk about a board game character and a pretend lady from a game show for kids that prominently featured a capella music who stole stuff like "the history of medicine" and the leaning tower of Pisa, because it's important to me that Miss Scarlet from Clue and…

There are times I feel very sure that if I were to let a copy of Bring It On rest against a copy of But I'm A Cheerleader, some sort of lesbian osmosis will take place and I will be able to watch a version of this movie where Missy and Torrance make out in the last scene. That is how close Bring It On's subtext comes to text. (An aside: did you know that there are four…

Greetings, loved ones. My first foray into Femslash Friday was so much fun that I had to come back for more. Today, we’ll be covering a film more central to my babyqueer awakening than any other piece of media (besides the music video for Beyoncé’s “Naughty Girl”). That’s right, friends: we’re talking about Bend It Like Beckham.

Here is a Femslash Friday poll for you; please tell me what girl-on-girl pairing we have not yet included in this series that you are yearning to see. I do not yet know how to make quizzes in Wordpress. Maria has promised she will teach me but I didn't feel like waiting until I learned how, so you'll just have to sit still and not complain about it. Just, I guess, tell me in…

Almost every gay(ish) woman has a Kim Kelly in her past. You met in adolescence; probably in middle or high school, possibly in college but certainly no later. Your lives were deeply and intimately intertwined -- although you may or may not have had an overtly romantic relationship, everyone who knew the two of you knew that for good or for ill that you were one another's top priorities. Your Kim almost certainly smoked cigarettes…