Movie Monday: Femme film

Dykesploitation? It might sound like a sapphic sweat shop in Stoke Newington, but the much maligned movie genre is about to get a reprisal thanks to lesbian/feminist film festival Club des Femmes.

The inaugral festival is tied in with Pride Art's two week festival and its organisers want to shake up the film industry, one lesbian at a time.
They're starting with the spotlight on 1970s teen idol Kristy McNichol, and other female pioneers of the silverscreen (Vivienne Dick, Sadie Benning, Lizzie Borden) are thrown in for your viewing pleasure.

Foto Friday: Kiss crisis

After the whole furore over the Madge/Britters lip lock shenanigans, you'd think celebs would be avoiding girl-on-girl action at award ceremonies like the career puncturing publicity stunts they are. But a quick peep at this pic and it's obvious Mariah Carey has thrown caution to the wind and gone in for the kill. The songstress who could shatter glass at 50 paces looks like she's about to take a bite out of author and designer, Kimora Lee Simmons. Or is that just wishful thinking?

picture via Mariah Daily

Flirty Thursday: Language of love

Seduction. The French are famous for it, the Germans have got a reputation for doing it rather efficiently and in the US it’s apparently ok to do it openly to several different people at the same time. But is there really a difference between the nationalities when it comes to lesbionic dating techniques?

I only ask because, as someone who’s had her fair share of multi-cultural and multi-lingual love matches, I’ve often wondered whether some of the dates I’ve been on were the result of distinct cultural differences or simply down to me being fly-paper for freaks.

But I’m a sucker for a foreign accent, so I might as well get adjusted, which is where this website might come in handy. I mean, how many times have you found yourself in a sticky situation in Finland and needed to say : 'Im awfully sorry - was that your ferret?' And how about asking for a kiss in Gaelic? There's even Tibetan for 'I'll call you'. Some dating etiquette is universal, it seems

WWWeird Wednesday: singin' in the pain

Ever had a crush you just wanted to sing to the world about? Lesbian comedian Maxine Ladipuss dedicates a song to Condoleezza Rice in ‘Secretary of my Tortured State’ in this sublimely bizarre little ditty of unrequited love with the most powerful women on Earth. Anyone who manages to use the line 'forget Osama and come to mamma' in a song about the US Secretary of State should not be messed with.

News Tuesday: Name and Shame?

An American gay magazine has decided to name Hollywood stars it claims are gay or lesbian in an attempt to crowbar them out of the closet.

The annual Out magazine's May edition features two models holding masks of actress Jodie Foster and American TV news anchor Anderson Cooper in front of their faces, with the headline "The Glass Closet: Why Stars Won’t Come Out And Play."

Village Voice columnist Michael Musto's 'outing' article comments: "Even at their most controlling, straight stars never seem to leave out the fact that they're straight in interviews. Whenever a subject tells me, 'I won't discuss who I'm dating' or 'I resent labels,' I generally know not so much that they're passionate about privacy but that they're gay gay, gay."

With a number of sites dedicated to outing stars popping up – and one particularly juvenile and venomous US-based website has garnered a considerable following – any closeted stars over here in the UK must be getting decidedly edgy. Though the resulting list might not be as glamorous as anything Hollywood throws up, the sad reality is that it could bring careers crashing.

But does forcing stars in ‘name and shame’ style exposés do much to raise the profile of gay and lesbian actors. Wouldn’t it be more useful to target the homophobia within the industry that keeps stars from coming out, even when, as with Foster, it’s an open secret already?

Movie Monday: Chicken Police

In honour of the easter bank holiday, we bring you bunnies and chickens, and a bizarre version of the police state.

Do you think the chickens were specially trained, or just bred from a long line of military poultry?

Wwweird Wednesday: Cats or Babies?

Here at the sharp end of lesbian life and culture, we on the DIVA team can't help noticing an important social shift taking place. Once upon a time, being a lesbian was almost synonymous with owning a cat, but increasingly we note that lesbians are identifiable not for our fur-strewn cardigans and faint whiff of tuna, but by our state-of-the-art strollers and faint whiff of baby-sick. Never mind kittens - everyone's having babies.

This month DIVA invites you to cast your vote in the Battle of the Century in an Online Poll.

So what's it to be, ladies? Cats or kiddies?

Vote at www.divamag.co.uk

The (scientifically analysed) data will be published in the Family Issue - on sale, 10 May.