ME AND ZOOEY D

Gospel According to Janis, one of the movies in the works about legendary bisexual singer Janis Joplin, has a new lead: Zooey Deschanel, who replaces Pink. Since the film will reportedly focus on the former Rolling Stone writer David Dalton, who accompanied the singer on a long tour and is now a co-writer on the script, I wouldn’t be surprised if Janis’s bisexuality is barely mentioned, or represented poorly. But maybe I’m just jaded after sitting through The Black Dahlia’s two-hour parade of negative bisexual stereotypes (Prostitution! Death! Dismemberment!).

I haven’t followed Zooey’s career much, but her big sister Emily plays one of the best female characters on TV—a super-smart, no-bullsh*t scientist on Bones. Best friend Angela (Michaela Conlin) is also one of the coolest Asian American female characters on TV. Alas, neither character is gay (Emily actually has great chemistry with co-star David Boreanaz). But lesbian hope springs eternal!

LESBIAN STEREOTYPES ON FOX? I’M SHOCKED!

The new Fox legal drama Justice featured a lesbian-themed episode this week, and also co-starred The L Word’s Erin Daniels as an aggressive private detective (she wasn’t one of the lesbians). The episode was another parade of negative lesbian/bisexual stereotypes (Betrayal! Drugs! Murder!) in which two closeted female addicts in an illicit lesbian relationship were accused of murdering a man who threatened to out them (one of them turned out to be guilty).

The only good thing about the episode was that the 18-year-old girl’s father didn’t care about the affair when it was revealed, he just wanted his daughter to be happy, and it ended with the girl’s friend/attorney telling her that she needed to accept herself.

Daniels also delivered a stellar performance. Perhaps she was inspired by the lack of cheesy waterfall shots.

AMERICA’S NEXT TOP DISTRACTION Out contestant Megan did just fine on the premiere of the new season of America’s Next Top Model this week—which pulled in the show’s best ratings ever—but interestingly, her sexual orientation wasn’t mentioned on the show. In other words, if you didn’t read this column, you wouldn’t know she’s gay. This is either because the show’s producers: A) are planning to release this information on-air at a later date; B) don’t want to draw any more attention to the fact that Megan seems eerily similar to last season’s out lesbian contestant Kim; or C) don’t think Americans with their short attention spans can handle knowing two different defining characteristics of a contestant—i.e. since they’ve already positioned Megan as the contestant who was in a tragic plane crash, they don’t want to distract us with the information that’s she’s a lesbian, too.

Personally, I’m offended at this assumption. I can absolutely focus on two...hey, why is Anne Heche chasing a racoon with a wedding dress in its mouth? And why didn’t Cristina and Burke lock the door if they were going to have sex at work? I wish Sandra Oh’s character would come out as bi already...Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah: how cute is Lauren on The Amazing Race?!