Welcome back to Queer Beats, your weekly one-stop shop for queer television news! This week, we are celebrating our new Batwoman but also keeping Naya Rivera and her family in our thoughts.
Earlier this week, Naya Rivera went missing from a boat on Lake Piru in California, where she was swimming with her son. This news is so tragic and heartbreaking. Naya means so much to the queer community because of her role as Santana on Glee. She still hasn’t been found so let’s keep hoping for some kind of miracle. For details and updates on the story, you can follow this thread:
At Lake Piru for the press conference update on the search for Naya Rivera. Will try and tweet updates below. pic.twitter.com/glu4QxvXq6
I also wanted to include this tweet from Matthew Cherry, who touches on an issue that still permeates the industry:
One of these days we’re gonna have a conversation about how a lot of these progressive TV casting choices aren’t also being reflected behind the scenes in the Hair, Make up and Styling departments as well. One day tho.
— Matthew A. Cherry (@MatthewACherry) July 8, 2020
My hope from last week was answered and both sides of the Vita/Virginia letter reading (involving Jodie Comer and Nicola Coughlan) were posted online and, let me tell you, it did not disappoint:
For #PrideInside: Award-winning actress and LGBTI+ ally Jodie Comer reads the beautiful first letter from Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf. A touching and passionate exchange and part of a two part reply with the wonderful @nicolacoughlan, which we'll play tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/WkdQhxlNmf
For #PrideInside: LGBTI+ ally @nicolacoughlan reads the impassioned reply from Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West, read yesterday by the enchanting Jodie Comer. Letters made possible by The Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of Virginia Woolf. pic.twitter.com/VY8qcUWoDK
Nikki has always known two contradictory things to be true: queer TV can save lives and queer female cop/agent characters will be the death of all of us (looking at you Officer Haught, Director Danvers, Detective Sawyer, and Sameen Shaw). Her first dive into fan content was when she ran a secret Xanga blog dedicated to pictures of Lorelai Gilmore in the 7th grade. She has never looked back.
