Vacation Vixen: Jodie Foster

How anyone can look at this woman and not see a red-blooded, card-carrying, toaster oven-loving, 100-percent lesbian is beyond me. Also – and more to the point – yum. Be back Monday, all.

Vacation Vixen: Sue Sylvester

God, Jane Lynch melted every inch of my heart last night on “Glee.” It was so unexpected and so lovely and so heartfelt – and that’s hard to do in a tracksuit. The entire episode was amazing. Touching. Hilarious. Beautiful. Just like Jane.

[Click to embiggen, image via betternovembers]

Vacation Vixen: Neve Campbell

Whatever happened to Neve Campbell? While most gay gals (and a considerable number of frat guys) probably remember her best camping it up with Denise Richards in “Wild Things,” my fondest memory is of tuning in special to “Party of Five” to catch her oh-so-brief kiss with Olivia d’Abo (who will always be Kevin Arnold’s older sister to me). Whatever happened to Olivia, too, while we’re at it?

Vacation Vixen: Gillian Anderson

My sentiments exactly.

Vacation Vixen: Parminder Nagra

In my head, Parminder and Keira ended up together in “Bend it Like Beckham.”

My Weekend Crush

Few women arch an eyebrow quite as well as Elizabeth Mitchell. It just sits there, cocked and ready. It waits for your next move. It knows things. No, I’m not kidding, it really knows things. It knows what it’s like to kiss Angelina Jolie. (For the record, it’s “pillowy and fabulous. Honestly, you got lost in her lips. It was almost overwhelming, like a peach.”) It knows what it’s like to kiss Laura Innes. It knows what it’s like to roll around naked with Angelina Jolie. Look, it just knows things that we will never know.

One of the many great things about Elizabeth is that for a beautiful woman she is awfully scrappy. You wouldn’t think it at first with her delicate features and willowy frame. But that girl can scrap. As Juliet on “Lost” and now as FBI agent and alien fighter Erica Evans on “V,” she brings a competent intensity to her portrayals. I think to truly play brainy and tough well, you have to be a little bit of both. And Elizabeth is a lot of both. But what she also has is the ability to convey incredible empathy. Like if she were to look at you with those blue, blue eyes she would know you instantly and completely. And if she were to cock that eyebrow at you, well, if you’re really, really lucky maybe you’d get to know her, too. Happy weekend, all.

Unbreak my heart

File this under: Oh, thank God. Emma Thompson might just unbreak my heart. Of all the names on the Free Polanski petition, her signature hurt the most. There are others who disappointed, of course, by signing onto the celebrity rape apologist parade: Tilda Swinton, Natalie Portman, Penelope Cruz and Kristin Scott Thomas, among them. But Emma, well, her late addition to the ranks was a shock to the system. No, not our Emma.

Our Emma, the fierce fighter of sex trafficking, the advocate against fiddling with your face, the unapologetic smartie, the bawdy wit and the champion of always eating dessert. No, not our Emma.

And now, it seems it really will be no, not our Emma after all. The prodigiously talented Oscar winner has said she will remove her name from the petition. And we have the courageous work of Shakesville reader Caitlin to thank for her change of heart. You see, Caitlin, a student at Exeter University, knew she was going to have the opportunity to meet Emma at a campus event. So she set up a petition online, gathered 400-plus signatures of her own, and then took them to Emma to ask her to reconsider her signature on Roman Polanski petition.

And wouldn’t you know it, but Emma listened. As Caitlin wrote to Shakesville:

Emma did not have much time between meetings, but she gave me all of the time that she had. I asked her why she had signed the petition, and she explained about how well she knows Polanski, how terrible his life has been, and how forgiving the survivor of the rape all those years ago now is. She said she thought the intentions of the judge were unclear, as were the intentions of those who arrested him recently. She told me that a lot of her friends had rung her up asking her to sign the petition, so there had been a certain amount of pressure. She said that she had already been thinking a lot about the petition, as others had expressed their dismay at her signing it.

I handed her our petition and the comments. She read them both through thoroughly, and came back to me. She said, while she supported Polanski as a friend, a crime is a crime. I don't know whether she had realised the extent of Polanski's crime, but she is now fully aware. She will remove her name from the petition – in fact, she said she would call today and sort it out. Even though, she stressed, Polanski has had some truly terrible experiences in his lifetime, experiences that we couldn't even imagine and which should not be taken out of the equation, she agreed that she could not put her name to a petition asking for his release....

She left me with this, to pass on to everyone who has signed the petition/raised awareness of this issue: “Know that I will remove my name because of you, and all of the good work that you have been doing. I have read your petition. I have heard you. And I will listen.”

Never underestimate the power of one person to effect change. We forget this sometimes, amid a crushing sea of injustices. But sometimes all it really takes is one voice to pierce the darkness. Thank you, Caitlin. And thank you, Emma, for listening.

UPDATE: Emma is officially OFF THE PETITION. Broken hearts really can be mended. Recommence loving every inch of her great big magnificent brain...and other bits.