Reflecting on his year as an out trans man in the public eye, Survivor contestant Zeke Smith has written an essay for The Hollywood Reporter. Though he was outed without consent by his fellow castaway Jeff Varner (I’d argue CBS had culpability there, too, since the network aired it), Smith says his post-show…
Survivor: Game Changers contestant Jeff Varner told Greensboro, North Carolina paper News & Record on Thursday that he’d been fired from his regular job as a real estate agent after an episode of the show aired Wednesday in which he outed fellow contestant Zeke Smith as transgender. Varner’s former employer reportedly…
The big question regarding last night’s Survivor scandal, in which contestant Zeke Smith was outed as trans by his fellow contestant Jeff Varner, was how much culpability could be placed on CBS for airing the outing of a man who started his lengthy Hollywood Reporter essay on the matter with, “I’m not wild about you…
If you care about LGBT issues, trans rights and media representation, or reality TV, you probably have heard by now that on Wednesday night’s Survivor, a trans man was outed. During the show’s weekly elimination segment (aka Tribal Council), Jeff Varner, who was on the chopping block, asked his fellow contestant, Zeke…
Apprentice creator—and arguably, by extension, Donald Trump creator—Mark Burnett, who denounced Trump’s presidential campaign in October but claimed he was legally bound against releasing potentially damaging footage from the set of The Apprentice, has reportedly turned quite a corner.
In a thoughtful piece at the New York Times Magazine, Parul Sehgal considers the word “survivor,” and particularly its relatively recent use to describe those who have experienced sexual assault. Sehgal persuasively argues that the term “survivor” was once a powerful reclamation of the narrative, and that now, it’s…
Only days after her appearance at the Oscars, part-time vampire, part-time monster, and full-time artiste Lady Gaga uploaded a photo to Instagram in which she revealed an anecdote that blueprints how every friend and family member of a survivor of sexual assault should support their loved one.
Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refuses to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, was released from jail Tuesday morning. To celebrate her release after six hard days in prison, Davis did what any casual bigot would do: she held a press conference with Mike Huckabee. At that press conference Davis cried and waved…
Survivor just finished up its 27th season. When a TV show's been on the air for that long, you've gotta get creative to keep the viewers tuning in. Which perhaps explains the concept for Survivor: Cagayan, which'll debut in February 2014: Entertainment Weekly reports that contestants will be divided up into competing…
If someone told you there was a "Miss Holocaust Survivor" beauty pageant, you would probably think they were making a not particularly hilarious joke. After all, the Holocaust doesn't seem like a tasteful basis for an evening of fun, but more importantly people who survived a systematic campaign that killed six…
Occasionally you stumble across something so great and inspiring that you struggle to find the words to aptly describe its awesomeness. Somewhat paradoxically, words happen to be at the centre of an inspired campaign that helps survivors of sexual abuse take back the power of phrases that were once used against them.
Linda is a survivor of breast cancer and she wants you and the Susan G. Komen foundation to know exactly what that does and doesn't mean. It means fear, a double masectomy, radiation therapy that causes your skin to crack and bleed, and much more. What it doesn't mean is politics and religion. What a woman!
In this week's compilation of pop culture crap, Whoopi Goldberg demonstrates how not to poop-and-text, Josh Groban appears on The Office as Andy's brother, Survivor has a nasty meat challenge, and Tamera Mowry enjoys her sister breast milk. Tasty!
It's almost impossible to imagine now, but when the decade began, reality stars were still a novelty of sorts. Over the next ten years, however, the line between "real" and "reality" stardom became increasingly blurred.
The last survivor of the Titanic is selling off mementos of the disaster to pay nursing home fees. Millvina Dean, 96, was 2 months old when she arrived in New York with her mother and brother after surviving the sinking of the ship. Dean sold a wicker suitcase full of donated clothes the family was given when they…
