Ingayder Zim

Hey girls!

So now that the "magical" persuasions of our first Bi-vy Leauge Intern got you up and running to see Mr. Felton melt the silver screen in Half-Blood Prince, its time for a quick jaunt down memory lane with the analytic stylings of our gayzor sharp, Bi-vy League Intern #2, Theophallus.
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You remember 2001, don’t you? The year that Invader Zim made it cool for 13-year-old lesbian mall-rats to watch Nickelodeon again. That is until the network pulled the show in its second season, leaving scores of devastated queers to vent in their LiveJournals, and ushered in the current fashionable phenomenon of twenty-somethings complaining about how there are no good childrens' cartoons on TV these days. If you somehow missed out on Zim in all of it 27 episode glory, the show's premise is simple - angry buglike alien from distant planet makes destroying a darker version of Earth his prerogative. Now dwelling inexplicably in the anime section of Blockbuster, Zim persists as cult classic and chic nostalgia, and its cast of bizarre characters with monosyllabic, Paleolithic names still holds a special place in the hearts of dykes everywhere.

I believe, however, that the show’s gayvorite factor is due not just to its close association with the heavily queer mall goth subculture but to its allegorization of lesbian fantasy and reality. Sound far-fetched? Hear me out. Zim’s lust for destruction and his hatred of the human race, along with Gir’s psychotic ADD, represent the young lesbian’s internal response to social ostracism. And the androgynous human protagonists are quickly recognizable viewer surrogates. Dib, whose obsession with the paranormal alienates him from his classmates, is an especially sympathetic figure to the lesbian, who has her own vivid fantasy-memories of being a misunderstood prepubescent boy—while Gaz, a baby dyke with a video game addiction, is another nod to the gender-bending nerd demographic. The show even tackles "tough topics" like the breakdown of heteronormative family structure, in which Zim’s “Mom” and “Dad” automatons malfunction horribly and wreak mayhem at a parent-teacher meeting.

Can Nickelodeon ever atone for its sins? Of course not, but to me it’s a small wonder that a series so important for the LGBT community was pulled off the air. After all, if gay is subversive, subversion comes to be… pretty gay.

Zim’s creator, underground comic artist, Jhonen Vasquez, now has a marked aversion toward his series and its fan base—a fan base that seems to be on unapproved first-name basis with him, if that explains anything. Both Zim and Vasquez’s other works have been appropriated as lifestyle emblems: fandom as an accessory one dons while hating the man, wearing shirts you grew out of in the third grade, and whining about parents who persecute you for following Wicca. Bizarre dark humor sometimes resonates with a set that cannot necessarily decode social satire, and so ends up mimicking the very behavior being caricatured. But hey, we were all a little confused at that age. Instead of whining about commercial-cultural orgies and Hot Topic hipsters, maybe we should be proud that one of our gayvorite shows continues to strike gold in the underground- mainstream seven years after big, corporate dickheads forced its cancellation. Clearly, the queers are still loving it. Here’s to Zim!

Forewarning Forearms: Nothing says "Don't fuck with." me like a Zim Tat.

Mood: Too lazy for armchair activism.

The Bottom Line: Aliens = lesbians?

Rating: Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels bake oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with the kids.

Second Summer of the Sistergoodietwoshoes

Dearest Reader,

We realize the hardship you've been going through lately. Gayvorites, too, shares this pain. No, it’s not the economic downturn or even the plight of the Florida sea manatees. It's the familiar feeling of Ann Brashares withdrawal. Now that the sisterhood has gone off to college and Blake Lively has gone off to Gossip Girl, we decided to fire up the old digital video disc player yet again (in case you were wondering, Obsessed was great other than the music editing, which was arbitrarily slapped together by Todd Bozung). The following is a minute-by-minute commentary of the cinematic triumph that is Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.

With the smart touch of a few excercise balls, Pants 2 Production Designer, Gae Buckley, instantly turns an empty room into a hip yoga studio!

The movie starts off with an update on the girls, now enjoying their first summer since starting college. Carmen is going to theater camp in Vermont and refusing to believe that the guy she likes likes her back, Bridget is doing an archaeological study abroad program in Turkey, Lena is taking figure drawing classes and dating the nude model at RISD, and Tibby is working at a video store in New York while her relationship with Brian heats up! For anyone worried that sequels simply recycle tired old themes from the original, fret no more. Pants 2 offers an entirely new spin, in which the girls not only are separated from each other for the summer, but they also get into bitchy, selfish fights! Sounds good to us. We were getting a bit bored with the nicey-niceness of the original. Also new to the storyline is Lena's sister Effie, fresh out of the womb at the tender age of 16.

We were also tickled by the inclusion of Kyle Mac-Fucking-Lachlan in the role of Carmen's drama coach. We've missed him since we stopped watching Desperate Housewives three seasons ago. Speaking of the arts, it is probable that the same person does art for all movies, because the same ham-handed heavy outline and shaky proportions apply to all drawings of human forms for the screen. We're sure you will be as shocked as we were to learn that Alexis Bledel didn't do her own drawing for the movie. We figured she had to have some other "special skills" to balance out her haunted baby voice. But Pants 2's shameless support for the arts doesn't end there! Generic "ethnic music" is played during Bridget's stay in Turkey, using just the right amount of unidentifiable woodwind instruments and drums.

Which brings us to the costuming for the film, sponsored in part by Anthropologie. Bridget wears an item of clothing that first caught our eye due to the context: she wears a floaty white blouse (paired with white pants) to an archaeological dig. WTF. Then Lena wears a similar getup while drawing with charcoal. WTF 2. In fact, these floaty white blouses (or FWBs) showed up so often that we began to keep count. Keeping with the film's endorsement of underage drinking, you could, if so inclined, drink a plastic cup of red wine every time you spot a FWB, though this might lead to poor decision-making surrounding sexual activity. (Good going, Tibby and Brian) Lord Almighty, the producers might as well have titled the movie Sisterhood of the Floaty White Blouses, especially considering the fact that they show up a hell of a lot more often than the pants themselves.

There eventually comes a time when Bridget must stop playing soccer next to important historical sites and sending her friends packages that spill sand upon arrival. Once she learns a lesson or two from her wise foreign teacher, as well as creepily watches someone else's happy family, it is time for her to return home. (You can practically hear the other actresses wailing, "No fair, she gets to go to Turkey, Greece and Alabama?!") She packs up her FWBs and decides to confront those dark family secrets that were hiding all along under her camping gear in her garage (where most family secrets tend to be). After the special treat of a Kyle MacLachlan sighting, we scarcely suspected we would be equally delighted again. We were proven wrong when we giddily heard the disembodied voice of Bridget's grandma Greta, played by an uncredited Paula Deen. We were disappointed when we discovered that the voice had the body of Blythe Danner.

Blake Lively wonders "Whatever could be in this FedEx box!?"

You probably already know that Blythe Danner is Gwenyth Paltrow's mother. But on the subject of mothers, you probably didn't know that Pants 2 takes place in an alternate universe where there is no morning after pill. However, Brian has a newly formed 'stache, so we don't forget that he is older and more mature than he was in the last movie, when he played that dragon video game. Still, it’s impossible to take seriously his claims to willingly father a child and "move up to New York and get a job" when he insists on wearing those damn hats and sleep-acting through the whole movie. It's OK though, because then Tibby and Lena get to have a classic "friend with a pregnancy scare" bonding moment, complete with the obligatory crumpled white paper pharmacy bag. It also gives us a chance to catch up on Lena's storyline, which we haven't cared about since before the trailers started.

Tibby - "I'M PREGNANT!!!"

Only Alexis Bledel could make eye-fucking your nude drawing model boyfriend look so boring. It's possibly the lamest summer romance since your math teacher took his wife out to Chili’s last August. Luckily, the producers were just as tired as we were with the lack of sparks flying in this reckless summer fling, so they started playing up the sister drama. We learn what to do when your younger sister starts dating your best friend's ex…apparently you talk neutrally about it while she yells at you. Effie accuses Lena of "always choosing [the sisterhood] over me!" Note to Lucy Hale: so do the producers, who left you completely out of the first fucking movie. Later, when Brian breaks up with Effie so he and Tibby can get back together (during which he lovingly strokes Tibby's Forever 21 earrings) Lena realizes what a mistake she has made in always shoving her sister aside. She also realizes that she probably shoved her aside in the first place because Effie is a crazy ho. She and her mysterious disposable income hop a plane to Greece, with magical pants in tow.

Let the smackdown begin! The girls have all already been pretty crappy towards each other (concealing pregnancies and major familial revelations from each other, yelling at a friend who just drove several hours to see them, etc.) so there's a lot of shit flying around. Unfortunately, just when it's getting really, really juicy, you remember that it's a movie about friendship and the girls have to make up at some point. And they do. But wait, one last moment of drama! Little Miss Fuck Up, aka Effie Kaligaris, calls Lena from Greece to inform her that she has managed to lose the threadbare manifestation of her sister’s sisterhood. Somehow Alexis Bledel musters up enough acting skill to appear upset, and follows Effie to Greece to track the pants down. Apparently these international flights from Maryland to Greece run every few hours, because the rest of the Sisterhood shows up soon after, eager to get in on the pant-hunting action. Cue the montage of "fun times" in Greece, although we think it might be difficult to see poorly patched pants from a speeding moped.

Update on the terrible artwork in the movie: Lena supposedly goes to the best damn art school in the country, and yet she struggles over an outline drawing of jeans. They look like they belong in a coloring book you would get at the dentist's office. They’d appear on the page following a shaky sketch of a summer picnic in which only the torsos of the guests appear above the checkered blanket to eliminate the need for accurate drawing of human facial features.

This movie just wouldn't be complete without Lena "collagen lips and fogged contacts glued onto a wooden spoon face" Bledel reuniting with her true love (in a nightgown in the dead of night, no less). We didn't think it was possible to care less about a romantic interest of Lena's, but Kostos has proven us wrong. Luckily this movie is rated PG-13, so we are spared from viewing the midnight tryst. The poor fishing village of Santorini, however, is not so fortunate. The happy lovers are seen on a god damned illuminated boat on full fucking display like a couple pieces of baklava in the window of Mama Kanaras’s Pastry Shop.

Visions in White: The Midnight Tryst

The movie comes to a close with the girls jumping from a cliff into the water, which IMDB informs us was not scripted, but was a gloriously spontaneous event! Apparently the girls are just as free-spirited, adventurous and friendly in real life as they are in the movie! Legend has it that America Ferrera, Blake Lively and Amber Tamblyn saw some boys cliff jumping and decided it would be fun. Notice which “wet blanket” sister opted out. The story arc is as predicable as we hoped—blah blah blah, some life lessons are learned, the friendship is renewed and the credits roll—and just when we were expecting a nostalgic photo montage of the post-summer fun, Pants 2 pulls yet another switcheroo and does the credits in PowerPoint format with a denim background. They foolishly let a 7-year-old fan design the credits because they needed to cut costs after all those floaty white blouse expenditures!

Least Gayvorite Moment: Kyle MacLachlan's smug "we've got a winner” face and accompanying arm pump. You're in a theatre, not at a hockey game, and nobody got body slammed into the glass. Carmen simply didn't forget her lines, so there's no need to see your stupid mug over-reacting.

P.S. We haven't seen you in a role this good since The Flintstones.

Good to Know: Using your last name in a joke (we're looking at you, Blake) is super cute!

The Bottom Line: We can't wait for the pants to inevitably reemerge from the Mediterranean Sea for another five-minute-yawn summer of sisterhood, but we're not holding our breath. Same goes for the Twilight hype dying down so Pants 2 can get back in the Top 10 Netflix rentals list.

Rating: Rediscovering your old Lisa Frank binders (right under the camping gear).

Slytherin To My Bed...

Due to recent economic hardship, the Gayvorites Team has decided to follow the trend set by many other corporate headquarters, with the philosophy - cut jobs, hire interns. Being a recent startup, our Corporate Office decided to let go staff members that hadn’t even thought of applying yet. (Gayvorites strives to follow major business models in every way possible. Just because we're a small operation that turns no actual profit, doesn't mean we can't play with the big kids! We've already purchased John Thain-style $131,000 area rugs and a $1,400 wastebasket, squandering countless taxpayer dollars, and we're on our way to getting bought out by afterellen.com.) That said, we weren't hiring any old schmuck or bored housewife who wandered in off the streets.

We were willing to settle for nothing less than the best and brightest of the gay community, namely, Ivy Leaguers. Of the eight prestigious institutions, the gayest in our book, of course, is Brown University (Harvard being a total closet case). Notable for it's lack of structured course requirements and nonexistent majors, Brown ensures that its students have room for one or two Queer Studies course at some point during their matriculation, making it the ideal feeder school. We selected two bright-eyed hopefuls with impressive resumes and even better looks. And with that, we sent the new recruits hoofing to find relevant and timely topics on which to blog. Without further ado, we present the findings of Bi-vy League Intern Number 1, Cherry Dactyl.

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One recent night at the local multiplex, as I pondered the delicate balance between how many boxes of “Buncha Crunch” I could eat versus how big I was comfortable with my ass growing, I noticed from afar a glossy aura of gay emanating from a movie poster. Faster than a Seeker in the Quidditch World Cup, I pushed moviegoers out of my way and moved in for a closer look. My strutting was brought to a screeching halt when I accurately identified the image, and all four boxes of “Buncha Crunch” tumbled from my hands.

Standing in font of me was Tom Felton, sporting eye shadow and a turtleneck, his hand firmly grasping a wand. I’m as straight as a segment in Euler’s approximation—and that being said, clearly enjoy spending my time solving differential equations more than competing in drag shows—but I must admit I had to gird my loins a bit after my eyes met his penetrating gaze. It seems that Tom Felton's success is rising much like the shorts of all the male theater-goers upon seeing his performance, earning him an instant nom for hottest gay-crush of the year.

Now I know some of you will feel that I am misreading the issue and that Tom Svelton has a case of Legolas Syndrome, a condition identified in 2001 when Orlando Bloom captured the gushing hearts of horny middle school girls worldwide. However, WebMD states, “Legolas Syndrome can only be confirmed if an actor’s fan base is over 80% of the little buggers,” and as the survey on uppityschoolgirls.net proves, Felton’s fan base in only 30% schoolgirl as of 2008. It could be a lot worse.

Thankfully, he isn’t some sparkling vampire that’ll give you weird shaped hickeys and educate you on all the latest emo fashion trends available at Hot Topic. Pattinson’s unfortunate accident with a truck full of facial glitter may initially catch the eyes of some naive rainbow wavers, but his hollow personality and shallow character can only be desired by his true fan base—teenage girls who mistake mood swings for depth. I mean, when you have more appearances on Entertainment Tonight than you have film credits, we definitely have a problem. TomTom, on the other hand, has more layers than the labyrinth in the Triwizard Tournament, although the riddle his sphinx presents is a bedazzling hex, designed to protect his ambiguous sexual tendencies. In my opinion, it’s only a matter of time before Tomboy comes hurdling out of the closet, ready to serve some lucky lad’s every whim in the role of loyal house-elf.

The reasons for my prognosis are numerous. As the porn industry has deftly taught us, it’s what’s on the inside that really matters. Draco Malfoy, Tom Felton’s character, has all of the closeted qualities that make men yearn to teach him how a man taps his wand on another man’s caldron. For starters, he dates Pansy Parkinson, but she simply represents the beard that he is unable to grow. For Christ's sake, his wand is made with fucking unicorn hair!

Furthermore, he expresses his true feelings towards men by turning Crabbe and Goyle into women with the help of some polyjuice potion and doing who-knows-what with them in the bathroom while Moaning Myrtle catches an eyeful over the top of the stall. I don’t know about you, but I always have to take a cold shower after ruminating over that steamy scene.

Need more proof that Tommy F. is the next gay messiah? Look no further than the single lock of hair woven and placed in front of the rest of his mane, hands-down the most closeted haircut this correspondent has ever laid eyes on. His eyes may scream evil, but his hair whispers that he wants a friend. I’m sure even Queer Eye’s grooming guru, Kyan Douglas, would approve of the subtle way in which those platinum tresses flow with mind-blowing perfection.

As a result of viewing Felton’s incendiary performance in the next Potter installment this summer, I’m predicting we’ll see more than one pair of moviegoer britches ignite into flames quicker than you can cast an “engorgio” or “erectus” spell.

If you want more titillating writings on the subject to tide you over until our favorite squeeze hits the big screen this week, read some online fan fiction, and make sure you employ the “Hary Potterr Ficton Selecshun” search method: there must be at least one grammatical error and misspelling in the first sentence and the title.

So eventually when Rowling, riding off the success of Felton’s queer following, needs more publicity and off-handedly reveals that Malfoy is the second gay Hogwarts-goer, remember – you heard it here first!

Rating: Rollerblading on a Sunday in neon pink spanky pants.

Good to Know: Just in case you were wondering - his wand is a whopping 10" boys, which Ollivander notes is "reasonably springy".

The Bottom Line: Straight as I may be, Tom Felton can take a ride on my broomstick any time he likes.