Lesbian Pop Culture Reviews

The Whole 9 Yards: Year in Review

We associate the number nine with extremes: highs (cloud nine), lows (the ninth Psalm, predicting the coming of the Antichrist), good luck and bad. Considering the spectrum of events we lived through in 2010-2011—from the greatest victories to the worst tragedies—the number nine seems a particularly apt symbol for the past twelve months’ happenings. On the plus side, DADT was repealed; on the minus side, a near-apocalyptic disaster devastated Japan. Last year, we opened our Annual Year in Review with the crisis in Haiti, which proves again that life is fragile.

9. LET THERE BE LIGHT (AND SILENCE)

Last October, the world watched anxiously as 33 Chilean miners were rescued after spending a mind-boggling 69 days trapped thousands of feet underground. After their mine collapsed in August, the men survived with the barest of supplies. Casual co-workers before the accident, they bonded during their trial. The men took an oath never to discuss their ordeal, and announced as much to the media upon their heroic rescue. But just days later, “Super Mario” Sepulveda broke his vow and talked to London‘s Daily Mail, in part to silence gay sex rumors.

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