All-Black Steel Magnolias Announced

Lifetime has announced that they will remake Steel Magnolias with an all-black cast. Queen Latifah will take the lead role.

Queen Latifah has just been added to the star-studded cast of Lifetime’s all-black remake of “Steel Magnolias.” She’ll play M’Lynn, the character portrayed by Sally Field in the 1989 feature film of the same name. Condola Rashad will play her diabetes-stricken daughter, Shelby, played previously by Julia Roberts, and Rashad’s mother Phylicia will take on the role of Clairee, portrayed by Olympia Dukakis. Alfre Woodard will portray the irascible Ouiser, in Shirley MacLaine’s former role, Jill Scott will fill Dolly Parton’s shoes as understanding hairdresser Truvy, and “Pariah” breakout Adepero Oduye will play insecure newcomer Annelle, made famous by Daryl Hannah.

I suppose we shouldn't miss the opportunity to ask for your favorite lines from Steel Magnolias.

On The Death Of Camp

With the new Broadway-themed show Smash as a jumping off point, Daniel D'Addario writes in the New York Observer:

Sontag’s contention that “Camp is esoteric—something of a private code, a badge of identity even, among small urban cliques” suggests one culprit for the death of camp: The mainstream acceptance of gays—a welcome development, to say the least—seems to have come with an ancillary cost. If camp is by definition a sort of in-joke, a winking language of signs and semaphores understood by a discerning few, it melts away when a show about battling Broadway ingenues is targeted at the many. The aesthetic sensibility that converted TV’s Batman into a gay icon and “No wire hangers!” into a rallying cry has crossed irrevocably into mainstream culture. It’s available to all and therefore drained of its power. It’s an tasty irony, but not a campy one.

I'm afraid I must agree. What little "camp" I hear these days are lines lifted from Paris Is Burning and restated on RuPaul's Drag Race. Which is broadcast on a national network and therefore not much of an in-joke anymore.

Polari Listed As Endangered Language

Polari, the inventive and colorful slang language once used by some British homosexuals, has been listed among thousands of languages headed for extinction.

The slang, used as a code among some gay people when homosexuality was illegal, is on an online database created by University of Cambridge researchers. The free website has been developed by researchers at the World Oral Literature Project and includes records for 3,524 world languages, from those deemed “vulnerable”, to those that remain well understood but are effectively extinct, like Latin. [snip] Polari was originally used by market traders and sailors and some believe can be traced back as far as the 16th century. It has its roots in English, Italian, Yiddish, canal, theatre and Gypsy languages. Until the 1970s, it was used by a small number of gay people as a private communication method to avoid hostile attention and develop an identity. Some words, such as ‘naff’ and ‘camp’, are now in general usage.

Here's a couple of clips about the hit British radio show Round The Horne, in which two of the characters spoke mostly in Polari.

HomoQuotable - Kevin Troughton

"For many gay men 'straight-acting' is highly attractive, but 'straight' is even more so. So if you're looking for a description of yourself that will have the maximum appeal on your dating profile and can't use 'straight', for obvious reasons, maybe 'straight-acting' isn't so bad. It's clear and descriptive, and it's fit for purpose, providing that you can overlook the implication that '-acting' means you're just putting it on. [snip]

"And what if the pressure to be 'straight-acting' gradually squeezes out camp behaviour? Will we have lost something important? Perhaps we should be pleased to see it go, an unnecessary relic of a time when gay men risked prosecution and when a lisp and a limp wrist were a relatively safe way of communicating your sexuality to other men. Or maybe it would be a sell-out, allowing ourselves to be railroaded into behaving like straight men – and, what is more, the kind of straight men who are most likely to give us homophobic abuse or a beating.

"Perhaps gay men should view 'camp' in the same way as we view a minority language or regional accent, something to nurture and encourage, even if we don't speak that way ourselves." - Guardian UK columnist Keven Throughton, in a piece titled "The End Of Gay Men Being Camp."

Swag Tuesday

Courtesy of the Karpel Group, today's swag booty is the special Blu-Ray + DVD 15th anniversary reissue of the camp classic, Showgirls, which goes on sale today.

The show is about to begin. Sex, seduction and betrayal come together in the outrageous and unforgettable camp classic Showgirls: 15th Anniversary Sinsational Edition, hitting the strip on Blu-ray June 15 from MGM Home Entertainment. It’s Vegas, baby, and Nomi’s (Elizabeth Berkley) dreams and desires to make it big are as sharp as a stiletto heel. When she catches the eye of Cristal (Gina Gershon), the Stardust’s sexy headliner, Nomi is on the brink of living her dream. But she soon realizes that there is only room for one starlet on the marquee… and that either she or Cristal will have to take the fall! A sinfully lusty film no one should miss, Showgirls also stars Kyle MacLachlan and Robert Davi as the men in the middle of this Sin City cat fight. The Blu-ray edition is busting with special features including the “Pole Dancing: Finding Your Inner Stripper” featurette, a lap dance tutorial from the world-famous Girls of Scores, commentary from Showgirls connoisseur David Schmader, a full-length trivia track and more. Also, check out the Showgirls twitter account. We will be posting photos and video from this coming weekend’s Gay Pride Festivals as well as funny trivia throughout this week’s release date!

We have three copies of Showgirls: 15th Anniversary Sinsational Edition to give away. Enter to win by commenting on this post. Only enter once and please remember to leave your email address in the text of your comments. Entries close on Thursday at midnight, west coast time. Publicists: If you'd like to take part in Swag Tuesday on JMG, please email me.

The Beat Goes On

Next month MTV releases Turn The Beat Around, which from the trailer seems to be a fairly standard installment of the "dancer with a dream" flicks we've seen so many times. But this one has a retro disco theme, complete with a Xanadu-esque "Let's open a DISCO!" plot. The soundtrack includes a lot of disco covers and Donna Summer's daughter Brooklyn Sudano is one of the stars, so there's potential camp value here, at least.

(Tipped by JMG reader Adam)

The Key To Femininity

At Wednesday's blogging panel at the NYC LGBT Community Center, gay blogging pioneer Bradford Shellhammer happened to have a copy of 1965's Always Ask A Man: Arlene Dahl's Key To Femininity, a book he says he frequently seeks on Ebay to give to friends. You may remember the five-times married Dahl (who is Lorenza Lamas' mother) from such bad '50s classics as Women's World and Journey To The Center Of The Earth, and an early 80's run on One Life To Live. I flipped through the book while we were waiting to speak and thought you might enjoy Arlene's "Guide To Chic."