Originally published by The Huffington Post, 10 July 2012. From the moment "GOD HATES FANGS" flashed across the screen in the title card of the first episode, True Blood has been accused of being riddled with gay metaphors and analogies. Academics eagerly pounced on the narrative in the first season, claiming, for example, that it is an epic fable meant to illustrate the struggle gays and lesbians face in their pursuit toward "normality." The supposed allegory (vamps = gays) hasn't been lost on many of the show's gay fans, who celebrate its campy melodramatics and fang-in-cheek humor. Sunday night Jessica even consoled Tara, a newly-minted woeful vampire, by assuring her that "it gets better" -- reminiscent of Dan Savage's now-famous campaign. Some of its straight viewers have been less forgiving, like Todd Herremans, who last year tweeted complaints about the show's "barrage of homosexuality"...

Originally published in FlowTV (16.01): 2 July 2012. Before she was Miss Ida Blankenship on AMC's Mad Men, actor Randee Heller was Alice on ABC's hit '70s sitcom, Soap, American television's first recurring lesbian character. Most of Flow’s quality-concerned readers will probably remember actor Randee Heller from her role as Miss Ida Blankenship, Don Draper’s illustrious elderly secretary in the AMC series Mad Men. But long before she was incensing Draper by calling his daughter chubby and announcing his toilet visits, Heller created controversy with a nine-episode arc (( Heller acts in only eight episodes, but her character is referenced twice in a ninth. )) of the half-hour hit ‘70s sitcom, Soap, as American broadcast’s first recurring lesbian character, Alice. I had the opportunity to speak with Heller about the show and her part in it. Soap originally aired weekly on ABC...

Originally published in Antenna from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, 5 July 2012. Anderson Cooper's "outing" this week beautifully illustrates something I have been writing about for a while: the imperative of coming out. The paradox of homosexuality is and has been that one must at once not be gay while at the same time publicly (confessing/admitting/declaring) that (s)he is. But what does that mean, exactly? If the presumption is that we are straight until we say otherwise, then why are the most common reactions to Anderson's outing, "We already knew!" or "It’s about time!" Hollywood legend might describe the alleged homosexuality of figures like Agnes Moorehead or James Dean as an "open secret"--something about which to argue at pretentious dinner parties. But I bracket "outing" with quotations marks because if everybody already knew Anderson was gay, why was he constantly...