Here’s one (1) mid-week Pop Culture Fix for you, my friends! And happy More Good Today Day to all who celebrate!
+ Well, Netflix has done it again! They’ve murdered another queer show! This time, LGBTQ fandom’s most beloved 2022 series, Warrior Nun. Showrunner Simon Barry posted the news on Twitter yesterday afternoon, saying: “I’ve just found out that Netflix will not be renewing #WarriorNun – my sincere appreciation to all the fans who worked so hard to bring awareness to this series, and for the love you showed me, the cast and the whole production team. It was a privilege to be a part of this.” I’ve honestly lost count of how many queer shows and POC-led shows Netflix has cancelled this year, but it has been a lot. If Amazon doesn’t renew A League Of Their Own soon, I’m going to riot! –
+ Party Down is coming back to Starz with the original cast, including Jane Lynch.
+ Why are Christmas movie miracles never miracles at all?
+ Well here’s some weird news. How I Met Your Father will be back for a second season??
+ Nicole Maines is coming back as Dreamer for the final season of The Flash.
+ Wondering what you’ll be doing between Christmas break and the New Year? I’ll go ahead and tell you: Watching the new season of The Circle.
+ Frameline has announced its 2023 Voices Short Program Selections, one of which is: “Grindr Baby, from helmer Gaby Dunn, follows a non-monogamous queer couple grappling with a pregnancy test after one of them has a one-night stand.”
+ HBO Max is pulling more things off the streaming service, including Westworld?? This is one of the most unhinged things I have ever seen. HBO Max has also cancelled Minx.
+ Drag Race season 15 lands on January 6th.
+ Ginny and Georgia season two trailer, yes yes!
+ Aubrey Plaza explored Italy while “tripping balls” with Meghann Fahy during White Lotus filming.
+ Good lord, Ryan Murphy is still fighting to get Netflix to put the LGBTQ tag back on Dahmer.
+ Karla made it to the Survivor finale!
At this point it’s clear that Netflix is just chasing massive hits (and maybe a few things that will win them awards) and dropping anything that’s more niche. Warrior Nun wasn’t an amazing performer like Stranger Things or Wednesday, but season two stayed in the global top 10 for three weeks (even bringing season one back into the top 10 for a week), trended on Twitter repeatedly (and trended for two+ weeks straight on Tumblr), got the highest-ever audience score for a Netflix series on Rotten Tomatoes (99% with almost 8,000 reviews), and was generally critically-acclaimed.
Even after yesterday’s cancellation, the show trended on Twitter for hours with hundreds of thousands of tweets and racked up almost 28,000 signatures on a petition. And that was after being dropped in a month full of insane competition with literally $0 spent on promotion, with the showrunner and a few stars doing their own promotion for free. So many people didn’t even know the show was back. Warrior Nun could have done so well with a little care, as even the coveted straight dude demographic loved it for its plot and excellent one-shot action sequences — it’s so rare to see a show with a main f/f romance not get review-bombed, but I barely saw any complaining about the fact that season two was centered around Ava and Bea’s relationship. This show was special and I’m so disappointed to lose it.
Is there something gay about ‘Ginny and Georgia’ ?
Yes! Valerie Anne wrote about it!
https://www.autostraddle.com/ginny-georgia-lesbian-characters/
I haven’t watched Warrior Nun because I remember reading that the first season was problematic and ableist, so I was surprised to see what seems to be unequivocal enthusiasm for s2. Did something change?
Nothing changed. It being “problematic and ableist” was the subjective opinion of one person. And looking back it was a way too harsh and unfair criticism. Maybe if you watch it you’ll make up your own mind about it.
I’ve seen the show, and it was, in fact, extremely ableist. Don’t think it’s harsh whatsoever to call a spade a spade.
I definitely stand by my criticism that the show was ableist. I thought it did a better job in season two, but season one was an ableist mess and that wasn’t just my opinion. Here’s a great piece at Nerdist and a four-part series on it at Fandomentals. I hoped it would get a third season, and I said as much in my season two review, which I think was incredibly fair, but that doesn’t mean the show didn’t play into some serious and established ableist tropes.
You compared it to Trumpism, that’s like comparing covid restriction to the holocaust.
If that’s what you got out of an essay I wrote about grappling with pervasive ableism after becoming disabled by Covid, I’m not sure we have much common ground from which we can discuss this.
Was there or wasn’t there Donald Trump named even in the title of the article? Was that just for click bait and creating rightous outrage? To rally the sapphic troops against the show? I’ll admit it’s been a while since I’ve read your article and I can’t bring myself to read it again because it already made me sick and furious reading it the first time. I read the things you wrote about your personal situation too, so I can only assume that your then new occuring disability colored your judgment. I’ve been struggling with chronic pain for over ten years and my opinion on WN is not the same as yours. You’re not speaking for all disabled people. So yeah, in my opinion your judgement was unfair. And seeing that you’re kind of a celesbian, many queer women believed your judgment and didn’t watch the show because of it. If I hadn’t seen it before, I wouldn’t have watched it either after reading your article. Your influence is huge in our community and you used it to condemn a female-fronted show with great characters and a back then potential wlw romance. Ava’s biggest fear was not to become paeaplegic again, it was being left alone again – a fear that Bea took from her by saying the sisterhood will be by her side no matter what. How is that ableist?
I’m sorry Warrior Nun’s cancellation has caused you so much pain and anger, truly. I know what it’s like to lose stories you love; it’s a uniquely heartbreaking experience. 🧡
Thanks for this, Heather! That’s good to know. I’ll add it to my (334-show-long 😥) to-watch spreadsheet to hopefully get to one day!
FWIW, although I think I did read your s1 article at the time, I do remember there being a broad consensus that the show was ableist. That’s why I was surprised to see love for s2 on so many fronts!
In cycling news, UCI held their first non-binary Cyclocross championship race. In the women’s category trans racer Austin Killups finished 3rd & Jenna Lingwood finished 5th. Thankfully, there were no protesters at the event like some of the previous ones had. In fact there was nothing but support & the announcers wore trans & pride pins in support.
Related articles.
https://www.bicycling.com/racing/a42206058/usa-cyclocross-championships-2022-nonbinary-results/
https://www.outsports.com/trans/2022/12/12/23504595/usa-cycling-uci-cyclocross-killips-trans-athlete-podium
let me try that again
Oh wow this is so cool! Thank you! I’ll share with Carmen for tomorrow’s Also.Also.Also!
That article on Christmas movies was really interesting! And yes, has HBOMax forgotten how….business works?
Queer (POC) women made Netflix big with Orange is the new Black. Now it’s clear they do not care for us anymore.
Amazon, this your chance to take over a loyal fanbase. Pick up A League of their own already. And maybe take over WN while you’re at it.
ALOTO is going to be next, can’t wait for all the think pieces of this site then.
Although not a surprise, WN’s cancellation is devastating. Adding on to the problematic returned/ended shows (Euphoria & Killing Eve) and all of the cancellations this year. ALOTO is literally the last straw. If it does not get renew… 😩
I’m anxious about ALoTO, too.
I’ve been watching and enjoying Willow, which is giving me a couple of dumbass sword-wielding WLW who everyone knows are into each other but who won’t admit it out loud themselves yet, but I’m sure that show won’t last past one season either (partly because it made the grievous error of having its girls kiss in the first half hour, resulting in review-bombing on Rotten Tomatoes and elsewhere*). It really is rough out here.
*And partly because the show has some pacing issues, although I enjoyed today’s episode (1×04) more than the first few. It’s certainly not as good as Warrior Nun, though. I’ll be grieving that cancellation for a long time.
I feel ya, Amy.
As someone who enjoyed martial arts films and always having to read into the queerness of women who kick ass, Warrior Nun–especially Beatrice–has been a TREAT! The loss of that character will take some time to recuperate. I’ll miss watching a sappho single-handedly fight 10+ men with her spear. That’s the tiny piece of WN that truly feels like a rare gem to me.
I’ve been hearing a lot about Willow, so I’ll check it out. But Mother Earth help me, if it gets axed too.
Oh, hey. Nicole Maines sticking in the DCU! I’m here for it. Maybe she can get a spot in one of the movies next.
Netlfix has to make room on the shelf for 20gazillion more mediocre white hetero christmas movies, after all.
I’m humbly requesting if you guys would be able to cover the fight that’s ongoing to renew Warrior Nun? The coverage would be really helpful AND encourage people to actually watch the show.
So far it’s been a week since the announcement of the cancellation and we’re already at 2 million tweets with the #SaveWarriorNun hashtag + on the way to 150k signatures for the petition. The actors and even Simon Barry himself are still campaigning hard and he’s hinted that they’re trying to shop the series around to other streaming services that might be interested to pick it up.
The fans are rallying hard and have been writing open letters to nearly every service under the sun. Not to mention all the beautiful artwork that’s been flying around. KTY (Beatrice’s actress) has also been very involved with the fans, entering twitter spaces to talk to them and even doing videos for Buzzfeed in order to keep the hype alive for the fandom. It’s nuts.
(Also the whole Avatrice ‘flip flopping’ thing is hilarious. It’s worth looking into.)
Seriously, it’s a show about ‘sexy nuns with guns’. And it’s one of the best slow burns I’ve ever seen in queer tv history, on top of handling the religion-related material with much sensitivity and openness. I think a little coverage would go a long way to help with how tired people are of wlw shows being axed unceremoniously.