Rob Smith's blog

VH1 Personality and freelance writer Rob Smith returns with Season 2 of The Mocha Lounge with Rob Smith on 7/16 right here on AfterElton.com and the LOGO Online network, and will soon after be syndicated on GBMNews.com, one of the largest gay black websites online. After a successful first season as the breakout show online covering “gay pop culture with a chocolate twist”, The Mocha Lounge with Rob Smith is back at AfterElton.com and Downelink.com on July 16th with more celebrity interviews, more drama, and more hot topics!

Rob and Bebe share a moment during filming

Whether or not Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno is an offensive gay minstrel show or tongue-in-cheek satire of homophobia will undoubtedly be a hot topic of discussion over the next few weeks, but some new information has definitely tipped the scales towards the former.

According to Movieline, the film’s original finale was to take place during a press conference announcing a wedding between Bruno and his partner, who is now drooling and brain-damaged in a wheelchair as a result of a gay-bashing. Insert hysterical laughter here.

I’m personally torn over the Bruno hysteria. On the one hand, Cohen is exposing darker aspects of human nature in a satirical way not unlike the method used in Borat (which honestly was hysterical, if not a little disturbing at points), but on the other hand it’s almost like he’s trying to have it both ways.

Cohen seems to be marketing his movie as “satire” to the brainier portion of the movie going public while emphasizing the baser stereotypical nature of the character for the type who thinks Transformers 2 is a thought-provoking character study about man’s relationship with technology.

In short, some will be laughing at how uncomfortable Cohen’s gay caricature makes his victims, and some will be laughing at how "much like those queers" he is.

Bruno and child

Whether the hand wringing and fears of the gay community over this film prove to be founded or not, there’s something disturbing about a gay bashing being played for laughs even if it was eventually edited out, especially when there are still very real bashing and murders of gays still happening off-screen.

What do you all think? Is the world ready for Bruno? Will you be seeing it?

Friday’s New York Times had a nifty little article about everyone’s favorite American Idol eyeliner aficionado and maybe-gay Adam Lambert called American Idol's Big Tease, in which they confront the is-he-or-isn’t-he question head-on, but with a twist.

The question from writer Guy Trebay wasn’t so much whether Lambert is gay, but rather how this (maybe) gayness is processed in a post-Clay Aiken world, in which the guy who is widely presumed to be the AI frontrunner and the first in recent memory to bring notoriously fickle judge Simon Cowell to his feet may be able to succeed on his own terms. 

The nature of those terms however, are up for debate.

While reading one of my favorite gay pop culture blogs, Living out Loud with Darian, I found out the surprising news that the here! TV network has “postponed” its popular series The DL Chronicles, with “postponed” being construed by many (and probably rightly so) as code for “canceled”, at least on that network.

The move has since inspired the ire of many in the black gay blogosphere who have taken the network to task, even going so far as to posting the name, phone number, and email address of the VP of the network so that disappointed fans can have their say. From the looks of things, the move is being taken as yet another example of a mainstream gay network ignoring the needs of its minority viewers (see: the reaction to the Noah’s Arc cancellation on Logo a few years back), but even as the news sinks in, I’m not too sure that this reaction is entirely justified...

Over the past 6 weeks, RuPaul’s Drag Race has taught us a lot of things. Yes, Virginia, LOGO can produce an insanely entertaining show (and I'm not just saying that because they own the site!), RuPaul is still as fierce and relevant as ever, and regional queens take note, because there is plenty of drag talent outside of New York and Los Angeles. However, we’re down to the final 3 and now I’m about to handicap them based on (what else?) their Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent!

Check out how the final three rate on the C.*.N.T. scale!

Dustin Lance Black and his Oscar for Milk's screenplay

By now we know that Sunday night was a very gay night at the Oscars, and I’m not just talking about the musical numbers. Sunday night was also a night when the entire community celebrated as Milk took home two wins, one for Best Original Screenplay for Dustin Lance Black, and of course Best Actor for Sean Penn.

Out producer/director Lee Daniels

Score one for openly gay directors in Hollywood! Out director/producer Lee Daniels' film Push: Based on the novel by Sapphire has been picked up by Lionsgate films for release sometime in 2009. Daniels is behind some of the most controversial films of the past few years, including Monster's Ball — best known for winning Halle Berry an Oscar, and Shadowboxer — best known for prominently featuring a full-frontal, sweaty Stephen Dorff.

Gabourey Sidibe, Mariah Carey, Lee Daniels, Mo'Nique, and Paula Patton

Push follows an obese, pregnant, and illiterate African-American teenager in 1980's Harlem as her mind is opened by a daring teacher in an alternative education program. The film had a smashing showing in Park City, where it won the Jury Prize for Dramatic Film, the Audience Award, and a special Acting Jury Prize for its star, Mo'Nique.

Yes, that Mo'Nique.

Straphangers for Obama

An Irish-American atheist, a French-Canadian photographer, and a black gay guy got in a car...

Surprisingly, this is not the start to a bad joke, it’s the makeup of the car that I rode in to go see the Inauguration of President Barack Obama on Tuesday. After watching the concert on Sunday and being filled with the overwhelming desire to be there, I hopped on Craigslist to find a rideshare, tried my best to ignore every horror film I’ve ever seen and every stern warning my mother has ever given me, and 9 hours later found myself in a car heading from New York to D.C. with people I’d never met before and will likely never see again.

I won’t go into some sappy diatribe about how our new prez is bringing people together, and while we weren‘t quite clasping hands and singing "We are the World" once our little journey was over (conversations between total strangers who share different political and religious beliefs can become heated … who knew?), I remember smiling to myself in the thought that this isn’t a crowd that would be rearing up to see, say, John McCain become the leader of the free world.

    
Gay rapper Tori Fixx

Trick Trick, the rapper who emerged from obscurity last week in a blaze of PR-oriented homophobia by noting that he didn't want gay people buying his album with their "faggot money", is getting some opposition from the gay hip-hop community.

Whether the homophobia is real or a stunt to get attention for a little-known artist remains to be seen (if that were true, would he be a fauxmophobe?), but it is unacceptable either way.  Trailblazing gay rappers Deadlee and Tori Fixx aren’t having any of Trick Trick’s homophobia, real or imagined, with Tori Fixx telling Allhiphop.com, "It’s most peculiar that a straight man has so much time to be focused on us other folks, yet alone a group of people he so-called hates. But I surely hope no same-gender loving person supports this record."

More on the controversy, after the jump. 

                
Lipstick Jungle's Matt Lauria

Just when the smoke is starting to clear on the whole Grey’s Anatomy fiasco, gay visibility on TV takes another hit as NBC pulls the plug on Lipstick Jungle.

Having successfully survived the faceoff with the similarly-themed Cashmere Mafia which was axed by ABC last season (and featured a lesbian storyline of its own), Lipstick failed to take off in its sophomore season ... which is too bad because this one had plenty in store for the gays this season. Even though the blink-and-you-may-miss-him gay assistant Roy (Matt Lauria) was somewhat of an afterthought on the show, his absence will still be missed as we lose yet another gay character on TV.

And of course, we also have out actor Cheyenne Jackson's appearance on the show to worry about. Let's hope the net doesn't pull the plug before that one airs.