Out In The Media

Out In The Media

The True Team review some of their favorites!

Photo by Kaylee Duff.

Check, Please!: #Hockey, Ngozi Ukazu

288 pp. First Second. $16.99.

By Kaylee Duff

#Hockey, the first book in the Check, Please! series, is as addictive as one of Eric Bittle’s pies — and twice as sweet. #Hockey contains Years 1 and 2, and will be followed by Book 2, Sticks and Scones, with Years 3 and 4. Created by Ngozi Ukazu, Check, Please! started as a web comic series and became wildly popular across the Internet. And for a great reason! Check, Please! follows Samwell Men’s Hockey player Eric “Bitty” Bittle as he traverses through life away from home. But Bitty isn’t just any hockey-playing jock; he’s a pie-baking, boy-loving, Southern-charm-having hockey-playing jock. Check, Please! is absolutely a win for the LGBTQ+ community. It’s more than a love story, but the final “episode” might be the most romantic queer love confession I have ever witnessed. Ukazu touches on coming out, the heightened homophobic environment in traditionally “masculine” sports, college stress, the importance of friendship, economic class differences, racism and so, so much more. Check, Please! is literally laugh-out-loud funny, with relatable and truly outrageous humor. As the story unfolds in this beautifully illustrated comic, it’s punctuated with hilarious dialogue, one-liners and commentary from the peanut gallery. But the real magic of Check, Please! is how Bitty — a boy so out of his element at first — begins to find his place in the world. He finds a family in the Samwell Men’s Hockey team. Even the least sports-inclined reader can find a family wrapped up in silly antics, wild parties and the heartbreaking, authentic truth found in the pages of this graphic novel. So follow Bitty and his friends through the first two years of his college experience. #Hockey also comes with featured extras, where readers can learn more about hockey rules and culture, and Bitty’s Tweets, which offer an insider’s look at Bitty’s day-to-day life. (Then after you finish reading #Hockey, head over to checkpleasecomic.com to catch up on Years 3 and 4 in real time!)

Dancing Queen, season 1

By Chris Leaming

Released on Netflix this October, this eight episode docuseries follows Justin Johnson (a.k.a. Alyssa Edwards) and his dance company Beyond Belief Dance Studio, in Mesquite, Texas. If you liked the shows Dance Moms and RuPauls’s Drag Race, you are going to love Dancing Queen. For those of you that don’t follow RuPaul’s Drag Race, Alyssa Edwards was on season five and season two of All-Stars. The show has two different sides to it. You get to see Justin run his dance studio and the dynamics between him, the students and the moms. You then also get to see Alyssa Edwards and her very successful drag career. On the dance studio side of the show, you get a feeling the producers wanted it to have a Dance Moms-esque tone. But luckily, Justin is nothing like Abby Lee Miller. Throughout the series, Alyssa does produced drag numbers in various locations where they are filming, and those are a lot of fun to watch! One final aspect of the show I want to touch on is Justin and his complicated relationship with his family. You get to see him and his sisters reconnect and mend friendships that were lost. Hopefully there will be a second season because the last episode leaves a lot of unanswered questions. This docuseries did not disappoint and I definitely recommend it to all interested in performance, drag and good times.

A Star Is Born

By Jeff Skinner

The film A Star Is Born, which was released last month, was produced and directed by Bradley Cooper. In my eyes, Lady Gaga was the main star as Ally, but some might say Bradley Cooper was right behind her as Jackson! His character is a country music star and one night after his gig, he grabs a drink at a bar. But it wasn’t just any bar — the bar featured drag performers and a singer, Ally! When Jackson saw Ally, he saw something in her that she didn’t see in herself. She eventually shares a song with him, “Shallow,” and at the next gig Jackson has her come up and sing the tune with him. He wasn’t ready for the star he was creating! There is so much in this movie that makes it an instant classic. It’s a tearjerker, but the story and the music make it well worth the tears. The soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal (“Heal Me” by Lady Gaga is my new favorite song), and the actors pull you right into the world of the movie. The drag queens and Ally’s absolutely gorgeous copper red hair were just the cherries on top! A Star Is Born is definitely a must-see film.