Out In The Media

Out In The Media

The True Team review some of their favorites!

Cher on stage.

Photo by Jeff Skinner.

Cher: The Here We Go Again Tour

By Jeff Skinner

On February 10th, we had a diva in the city! Cher came to columbus for her Here We Go Again Tour. The opening act, Chic, had such high energy! The group performed songs that they had written for other artists or groups, which I thought was awesome and fitting. When the show started, this huge curtain fell and Cher was in a cage that raised up. Her hair and makeup throughout the whole concert was amazing. For being 72 yearsold, she moves and looks incredible. The concert took place on Sonny’s birthday, so Cher did a couple songs from her days in Sonny and Cher. I thought that was a beautiful and touching way to remember sonny. She performed a lot of her biggest hits in addition to songs from her new album Here We Go Again (which features covers of ABBA songs in honor of her role in the Mamma Mia sequel, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again). Did you know that Cher has had a number 1 hit for 6 decades?! Cher is a queen, and this concert was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Cover design by Jet Purdie.

Photo by Emily Hirzel.

This Book Is Gay, Juno Dawson

272 pp. Sourcebooks Fire. $10.99.

By Kaylee Duff

This Book Is Gay is a great non-fiction resource for gay teenagers. It’s basically the gay version of “The Talk” that we never got. The book covers a wide variety of topics, from coming out and terms in the LGBTQ+ umbrella to gay history and dating. It also has a great section about “the ins and outs of gay sex,” which is a resource that many LGBTQ+ identified teens don’t have. This is a wonderful place to start if you’re learning more about the queer community, or know someone in your family who is queer, or if you’re questioning your identity yourself. It’s funny when it needs to be, making tough situations a little bit easier for younger readers to understand. The illustrations are amazing, and are a great addition to already solid prose. Keep in mind that although the book is targeted towards young adults, it’s still a good resource for queer folks of all ages. (I learned a bunch of new things while reading it!) It’s also important to remember that This Book Is Gay was published in 2015. Because of that, a lot of the facts and language used in here are a bit outdated. At times the book feels like it could be more inclusive. During the first draft of the book, the author then identified as a white gay male; since publication, she now identifies as a white trans woman. However, Juno Dawson was very clear about not writing outside her identity(ies). For this reason, a lot of the information and topics discussed are more pertinent to gay men or lesbians (although there are many sections where being trans is discussed). If a 2019 version of this book were to be written, we need it to be written by a multitude of authors with different identities — in order to make it as inclusive and intersectional as possible. But all that aside, This Book Is Gay is still something that a teenage version of myself would have really, really benefited from reading.

Pageant

By Jeff Skinner

The movie Pageant was released on January 19, 2008. It’s a documentary that follows the lives of five different drag queens as they compete against 47 other female impersonators to be the next Miss Gay America. As I watched the film, I chuckled thinking about the queens that came to these competition and won in recent years. One of the queens followed throughout the documentary is Alyssa Edwards, from RuPaul’s Drag Race. It was awesome to see Alyssa at the beginning of her drag career and see how much she has grown, both as a person and a female impersonator. For me, the most intriguing parts about Pageant are all the stories of acceptance from the families and friends of the queens. It’s definitely heart-warming to see so much support from those the queens care about most. If you like drag queens and documentaries, I highly recommend that you watch Pageant!