Curve ball

I recently subscribed to Curve magazine. My first issue was the Jan/Feb issue that arrived in the mail last week. Honestly, I was plesantly suprised. I expected the magazine to be entirely focused on pretty, feminine white women and dominated by fawning articles on the L Word. That is the impression I had of Curve from when I subscribed a few years ago. I had opted for Girlfriends instead, which was a bit better. I was certainly saddened that they closed up shop. So I had sort of missed getting a lesbian glossy in the mail, even though I don't exactly feel comfortable with some of the conservative, consumerist ideas I had attributed to lesbian magazines and "mainstream" lesbian culture. Similarly, I stopped watching The L-Word after the first season (partially because I don't get Showtime and the DVDs are expensive) because I don't see myself or those I'm attracted to adequately or accurately represented*.

Part of the reason I subscribed was the fact that Curve put "Lesbian Theater Awards" into their December issue. Which I just happened to see and thus picked up on a newsstand. I was extremely happy to see that Curve was paying attention to lesbian theater, which I feel deserves as much attention as music and books in a lesbian culture magazine. There's certainly some lesbian theater going on somewhere in the US every month and plenty of lesbian actresses and writers to feature and interview. Why not make it a regular column? Or at least give good coverage to the notable shows at the major queer theater festivals such as the National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco, the Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival in Ohio, and the Fresh Fruit Festival in New York. Of course, all of these events are in the summer and I'm sure it's difficult to cover them within the normal span of magazine publication timelines and still have them be relevant when they reach the newsstand, but I feel as if it's important and worthwhile to attempt. And they could at least give better information on how to find out more about queer performers and their upcoming projects and events. For example, even though they listed Adelina Anthony's Mastering Sex and Tortillas as one of their "award" winners, they didn't mention at all that it played in LA in December, the same month the magazine came out. Only half of the performers had their own webpages listed, even though The Break Up Notebook, Annie Sprinkle, Amy Salloway, and Vanda all have websites with more information about the relevant performances. So, while I'm delighted that they are covering queer performance at all, there's certainly room for improvement.

What I was delighted to discover, however, was how many familiar names and faces I saw in the January/February issue when it arrived at my door. There were some beautiful images and a short profile on the fabulous artist and blogger jackadandy, a mention of the amazing lesbian feminist theater scholar Jill Dolan as one of "Ten Powerful Lesbians in the South" (though they embarassingly said she wrote about "Wendy Wallerstein" in reference to her complex, conflicted pieces on feminism and Wendy Wasserstein), and several short pieces by local writer and artist Tania Hammidi, who I frequently run into at queer performance events. Plus, the pieces on queer Burlesque and Penny Arcade could indeed be considered covering more performance, which makes me happy. So in general, I was pleasantly suprised by my experience with Curve and I hope they manage to continue in this vein.


*Full Disclosure: I was recently exposed to a few episodes of The L Word again and I'm very close to breaking down and watching Seasons 2 and 3, despite my reservations. While I like the self-righteousness of dismissing it out of hand, it does employ more queer folks than most mainstream television and perhaps I should support lesbian self-representation even if it doesn't represent me. I do want to see more images of lesbians in media, not fewer, and perhaps that can only be achieved by supporting the ones we've got while demanding more and better queer politics. But this is a long and muddled argument, and really my point is that The L Word gets too much attention already.