8. The Ladies of Sister Spit – Revival of the Year
Michelle Tea and Sini Anderson started Sister Spit in 1994 as an answer to San Francisco’s testosterone-heavy open mic nights. The Sister Spit Ramblin’ Road Show began in 1997 when most of Team Autostraddle was still in high school and therefore unable to attend any shows. Luckily for us and you and The World, Tea decided that Fall 2009 was the perfect time to bring spoken-word back to the masses with Sister Spit: The Next Generation.Exec. Editor Laneia caught up with the whole crew (Michelle Tea, Beth Lisick, Ariel Schrag, Kirya Traber, Sara Seinberg, Rhiannon Argo, Tania Katan, Ben McCoy) in Phoenix and it basically changed her entire life.
2010: The girls will get back to it with a new lineup starring Michelle Tea, Lynn Breedove, Nicole J.Georges, Lenelle Moise, Elisha Lim, Len Plass & Annie Danger (and other yet-unannounced guests), kicking off Thursday, April 8th in San Francisco.
7. Ellen Von Unwerth: Artist of the Year
Do you know who Ellen Von Unwerth is? You should, ’cause she’s responsible for 50% of your most favorite photos ever — especially the genderqueer & lesbionic ones, like the smokin’ hot Jenny Shimizu shoot immortalized in her book Couples. She’s also the favorite photographer of our photographer, Robin! 2009 brought a new book, gallery shows, and some of your favorite photoshoots of the year; Lady Gaga on the cover of OUT magazine, Lindsay Lohan’s “Car Crash Couture,” and of course the Whip It! cast’s Hot Skates for V Magazine featuring the best Autostraddle of all time.
Here’s a gallery of some of Unwerth’s homosexiest work of the year:
6. Ellen DeGeneres & Portia DeRossi – Cutest Couple
We couldn’t ask for a better representation of lesbian relationships — and on top of it these ladies are both super-smart, talented, and successful. We’ve thought Ellen was funny since like the 90s, and Portia was kickass since like Ally McBeal, and really every day waking up and seeing they’re actually girlfriends feels like a dream come true, it must be REALLY exciting for them! If they break up we will probably quit life. This year they let Americans inside their home & relationship via Ellen’s Show and put an ADORABLE face to the same-sex marriage fight.
2010: The Ellen Show will go on and Ellen will also be joining the American Idol judging panel, premiering on January 12th. In addition to her role in Better Off Ted, Portia De Rossi will be working on the Arrested Development movie.
5. Nicole Pacent & Rachael Hip-Flores: Critters* of the Year
Rachel (straight & engaged!) and Nicole (bisexual) are adorable, genuine, hopeful, and actual friends in the cutest geeky-ist way ever. On Anyone But Me, this ease translates into an on-screen lesbian relationship that really rings true, if often awkward. Their chemistry gives the show an emotional & hilarious kick that keeps viewers coming back for more.
But I know what you’re asking yourself — WHAT IS A CRITTER, AUTOSTRADDLE? What does it mean for these ladies to be referred to as the highest honor in the land, CRITTERS OF THE YEAR? Let us explain, as a Top 100 Critters of the Century list is surely around the corner.
* Critter: A critter is someone who does things that normal people do in a way cuter than the average person. It can be used as a noun, adjective, or a greeting. Examples of critter behavior are as follows: being super cute and fun all the time, not causing drama, wearing hoodies that make you want to cuddle no matter what your relationship is, a stranger being super nice for no reason for no personal benefit for themselves, making the best out of awful situations, always being up for anything.
Critter is totally not a sexual term at all, although obvs we’ve probs all had sex with critters, it is by no means a qualification for the term.
Examples of Critters: Ellen Page, Spencer Carlin, Charlyne Yi, Alice Piesecki, Rihanna, Brandon Walsh, Intern Emily Choo, Tegan & Sara, Jonathan Taylor Thomas in Home Improvement, Kate Moennig in a hoodie, Autostraddle Design Director Alex Vega. (definition by Cait, from here)
2010: The second season of Anyone But Me is currently airing on Blip TV!
4. Tegan & Sara – Musicians of the Year
We want to give them this award every year, but it’s so much easier to do it when they’ve put out such an awesome album. Sainthood dropped in 2009, and we said so much about it then (the review! the interviews! the track breakdowns!) that we’re not sure we can say anything else about them now besides that our love for them grows deeper every day.
2010: Tour! From January 5th-27th, they’ll be touring Canada. Feb 12th ’til April 8th they’ll be stopping all over the USA.
3. Adam Lambert – Man of the Year
We fell in love with Adam at first sight; and though his American Idol loss was depressing, we suspected he’d do just fine on his own and now he has. He’s been open about his sexuality in a way that few (if any?) male pop stars have before him, and he’s ruffled many feathers while doing so. And for that, we can do nothing but salute him! Furthermore, he’s making you like a queer sensibility and surrender to its power during a media-saturated era of oft-dashed hopes, and so is Lady Gaga, so maybe this is the year the public started to love the rowdy inverted stereotype they’ve always had of the queers. Rock ‘n roll is about deviance, and Deviance is the new Friday Night. His video for For Your Entertainment makes us feel how straight girls feel about Slave 4 U.
2010: Adam has announced plans for “a tour that pulls out all the stops with “costumes, fire, dancers” and “the whole nine yards.” ADAM WE WILL BE THERE.
2. Rachel Maddow – Nerd of the Year
Would Rachel maintain the momentum her show earned during the 2008 Election Season? As she reminded us last month with her 30-minute interview with ex-gay leader Rich Cohen — YES. Smart, dorky, sassy, and completely unaffected by whatever people say about her, she might be the most reasonable human being on television. Bonus — she’s so geek-hot-adorable.
2010: Rachel will be mixing drinks and eliminating right-wing extremism every night at 9pm on MSNBC!
1. Lady Gaga – The Freak
We actually don’t even care if she’s had sex with a woman before — her allegiance to the GLBT community has never really even been about that. It’s about waving her freak flag high, being candid, and breaking boundaries by bringing performance art into the pop cultural stage.
Gaga’s songs are merely the soundtrack to Lady Gaga: The Performance, as saucily suggested by the Gossip Girl Lady Gaga-scored Snow White musical episode a few weeks back — what pop star at the height of their career subjects themselves to a prime-time teen drama or to reality shows (she’ll guest on Launch my Line this week)? Lady Gaga! Because she’s an equal opportunity performer, finding value in every stage on every set. She goes through incredible effort to assure universal access to Lady Gaga: The Performance, which is unique for an artist of her style. She’s appeared on just about every award or talk show and performed just about everywhere in the world. She has made herself impossible to forget and despite overexposure, is consistently memorable.
Her second album is, like the first, f*cking amazing. Even if you don’t like Lady Gaga: The Performance, the work itself is undeniably good stuff. It’s solid, quality pop music.
We love her especially because in interview after interview, regardless of who she is talking to, she is relentlessly loyal to the gay community. No other pop star at her level has so vocally supported gay rights, or done anything like citing her opportunity to speak at the National Equality March as the highlight of her career. She wore red latex to visit the Queen of England but dressed demurely & respectfully for the gays… it’s always inspiring when someone who has a voice uses it as best they can.
2010: She’ll be touring the US until the end of January, the UK in February and the beginning of March, Australia in March to April, two Asia dates, and yet-to-be determined European tour dates in May. All updates can be gotten straight away on Lady-Gaga-net.
Hey Jane Lynch & you other rockstars –
wanna show off your Icon-status?
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awesome, awesome choices as always, autostraddle.
Nice choices….especially the celesbians of the year, though I would also consider them the cutest couple in my own mind.
holla!
I love everything about this post
testing
From all the photos of Adam you could have chosen, you picked out that one? I mean, if you’re lacking better pictures, I can give you a folder.
Love this list.
And ignore this, commented in the wrong tab.
Or not! My wireless is fcuking with my eyes.
aww i think that photo’s awesome!
me too. he looks super cute
this list reminds me of Avatar. you already know the ending but the journey is totally worth it, full of eye candy, and probs looks better in 3D.
i heart this comment
without the pesky annoyance of awkward avatar sex under a mystical tree! we’re working on the mystical tree part though.
i like to think of the mystical trees as metaphors for the internet. so if we all stick the ends of hair in our USB slots at the same time…who knows. it could be magical.
Love the whole list, but the top six just made my day. If they were all in a room together I think the world might explode.
Also, for the record, that’s one of my absolute favorite pictures of the dashing Mr. Lambert. (And almost all of the other favorites involve him sticking his tongue down boys’ throats, so, really, this one was probably a better journalistic choice.)
I love that photo too ’cause it looks like he’s laughing, like he doesn’t know his photo is being taken. I thought it was cute as can be.
*cuter, more flattering
Amelle unfortunately those links don’t work! Too bad, I was looking forward to more Adam.
The photo of Adam used in this post was taken by our lovely photographer Robin Roemer at MTV studios. Here’s another you might like (?) from the same shoot: http://www.autostraddle.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/adam_lambert_6.jpg
I like mostly any picture of Adam though… totally objective opinion here obvs.
Man, if I ever get jumped in a dark alley, I want Autostraddle to be with me cause you ladies have my back.
That photo was taken during a green screened interview, so its not exactly a glamour (glamberous?) shot… its just a still from an interview minus fancy lighting, etc. I like this expression though.
one row away from Adam Lambert + Lady Gaga concert = <3 possibly the cutest/most amazing thing ever.
Tegan and Sara are coming to Montreal in a week and a half and I’m so excited I can hardly bear it. I love that you included critters. I’m a critter?! Also my heart swells every time someone talks about Ellen and Portia. PS I love this post from head to toe.
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I hate it when sites don’t accept direct links…
i hate multiple comments with no point or purpose but, you know, we get ’em anyway!
BOOM roasted
Bahaha!
And Autostraddle for most amazing queerculturalupdatesource ever. Thank you TEAM!
thank YOU bolgabomkailoveyourusername!!
is ellen von unwerth gay? i’ve always wondered this but i love her work nevertheless.
Why no sam ronson? She played her part in the lindsay drama and she is the cutest little tomboy around.
So much fierce.
i just googled the lynch can do no wrong for fun
wait i just did because you just did and OTHER PEOPLE ARE USING THE PHRASE. this is going to be like really papi, where no-one remembers that we started it. this is the kind of comment that if haviland wrote it, i would make fun of her. but i wrote it, so i guess i am going to go make fun of myself.
i just googled really papi for fun and it automatically added another really — “really papi really” in the google search bar
in mostly-unrelated news: autostraddle is the third result when you google “barbies scissoring.”
autostraddle is the first result if you search intern hot laura because that probably happens to be a popular search
okay I’ll stop now
I love this site SO much.
The barbies scissoring comment made me spit out my coffee while reading hilarious.
I’d just like to note, every time I see Rose Rollins I literally start to hyperventilate. I’m so blatantly in love it scares me. I know it’s late, Santa, but please if I could have her for just an hour, even 10 minutes, I won’t ask for anything ever again and you could give me huge lumps of coals every Christmas from now on, I promise. I’ll kneel with bare legs on a pile of uncooked grits if you like.
There’s gonna be a GIRLTRASH! movie? Score.
So totally thinking Ellen and Drew are cute together.
I have some links to Kirya (of Sister Spit) within my spoken word circle.
I am ENTIRELY too obsessed with Tegan and Sara, and when I say it’s unhealthy, I MEAN it. *sigh*
And the number one slot on this has made me feel stupid for waiting to see who got the top spot. Ugh. I just can not deal with her.
I LOVE ROSE ROLLINS SO MUCH. Srsly. I feel like most of the time in my recaps I would be like “the plot sucks, but damn look at Rose Rollins’ perfect jaw! it’s fucking PERFECT!” And her real life personality is even more awesome, when she’s in interviews and stuff.
You have know ideaaaa! Ugh! I have drooled over her, literally.
And her cheekbones! PERFECT.
Yes! The Jaw, the cheekbones, the smile!
Droolfest ’10.
Rose rollins is so gorgeous omg…question is she straight?
Yeah, she is straight. She said she was “open to it” to the idea of women, but I think was saying that mostly ’cause Liz Feldman really wanted her to. BUT I LOVE HER SO MUCH
Am I the only one that thought maybe she and Mia were having a fling after I read that they shared a room at The L Word convention and were together A LOT and are described as VERY close? Another fantasy? Alright, fine.
That Drew/Ellen photo was my desktop background until I realized how much it cut my productivity- I would start up the computer and just fail to open anything for a while without even realizing it.
Jill and Cathy are great, but am I the only one who can’t stand the layout of SheWired? I try every now and again, but something about it just overwhelms me and I have to close the tab. But maybe it’s just me and my own weird set of color and texture issues…
The SheWired site layout drives me insane! The links are confusing and disorganized, and my obsession with lists and order and continuity makes it impossible for me to enjoy that site even though I’m sure they have a bunch o’ good stuff there.
ATTENTION MY GIRLFRIEND: My birthday conveniently falls between September 4-11, just sayin’.
Mia Kirshner is going to be on The Vampire Diaries? Craze-town. I have to start watching it, I guess *sigh*
Love the list, have to say the Drew/Ellen one makes me a little weak in the knees. Both of them are just adorable.
Ellen Page is a tease. Her whole am i/aren’t i is ENDLESS SPECULATIVE FOREPLAY for us. The hoodies,SNL sketch, suspect itunes playlist, the sapphic rollerskating photoshoot and red carpet handholding. I want confirmation, even if I have to hook her up to the lie detector machine myself.
Whoa, hold up. Lady Gaga’s crystal-encrusted heels (the ones from Bad Romance) are twelve inches high, not ten. I’m very clever, you see. *applause*
Vogue Evolution are so fierce. So, so fierce.
Ellen Page is such a tease. The hoodies, SNL sketch, gay as anything itunes playlist, sapphic rollerblading shoot and redcarpet handholding are SPECULATIVE FOREPLAY FOR US. I can’t stand it, I need confirmation, even if i have to hook her up to the lie-detector machine myself.
i’m sorry but WHO started “the lynch can do no wrong?”
mm hmm. ;)
Carly
sometimes i feel so lonely and alienated in a world where i do not understand the appeal of adam lambert. but then i go to technostraddle and talk about weird nerd shit and feel better! so it works out!
my personal perplexity aside, this list is great! and alex the buttons are soooo cute! i want one…
…please. i’m begging here.
this list is basically everything i love about the world.
Alex, as always any graphics you do are a WIN!
This list is genius!
That’s all.
Thank you Robin!! eeeee!
You make the world look bright and shiny even when the world doesn’t want to. Thank you.
_
(I’ll still watch Lady Gaga with the sound turned off, but would this really be a celebration of the freaks if we had copy-and-paste brains? Obvs not. Unicorns wouldn’t be as awesome if they were smoking on every street corner… or something. Sorry, analogy fail, but you get the point.)
i wanted to give my computer a high five for the last 6… but i couldn’t. i’m going to attach a hand to my computer specifically so i can high five it whilssst reading autostraddle. autohighfives!
this
Autostraddle = Critter.
WICKED. Thanks for this article! I enjoyed every word. I especially love your top 3.
Adam Lambert is my favorite singer. He blows me the fuck away, and I love that lesbians dig him, too. So many detractors think Adam’s fans are all horny cougars who don’t care as much about his talent as they do the Glambulge. Well, you guys shine a spotlight on the reality, and I thank you for that.
I’m straight, but I have a crush, an actual crush, on Rachel Maddow. I think she’s awesome and sexy in a smart way. I know another straight woman (another Adam Lambert fan, incidentally) who’s also crushing on Rachel.
And Lady GaGa… what can you say? Like everyone on this list, she makes different cool. But she does it to the nines and dares you to love it or hate it the way no one else can.
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