100 WOMEN WE LOVE 2008
Lily Tomlin’s extraordinary career as a funny lady bloomed on the TV show Laugh-In in 1969, the year of the Stonewall rebellion. Fittingly, she has woven feminism and LGBT life into her characters—the not-so-hardworking phone operator Ernestine, Violet Newstead in 9 to 5 and the numerous personas populating The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, the one-woman play written by Tomlin’s partner Jane Wagner, for which Tomlin won a Tony Award. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for her turn as Linnea Reese in Robert Altman’s Nashville, played recurring roles on TV shows from Murphy Brown to The West Wing, and has won six Emmys, a Grammy, and a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 1977. Tomlin, who has called Wagner the most influential person in her life and career, narrated 1995’s landmark LGBT documentary The Celluloid Closet. –KL
In no particular order…
Hats off to the 100 Women We Love, class of 2008 (in no particular order, ’cause we love ’em all!).
The Chosen FEW
The 20 members of The Chosen FEW South African Women’s Soccer team range in age from 14 to 34 and hail from townships around Johannesburg. They are also all lesbians. The team is part of the larger Lesbian Feminist Leadership Program, and was founded to offer lesbians respite from the strain of unemployment and lack of educational opportunities. In addition to their athletic endeavors, “The Chosen FEW Soccer Team members are activists and human rights defenders,” says coach Leigh-Ann Naidoo. “They do this in so many ways, the most glaring of which is being brave enough to be out lesbian women in South African townships, where we have had three out lesbians raped and killed in the last year.” The FEW speak publicly, run camps and workshops, and provide a voice for the South African lesbians of color. –MF
In no particular order…
