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Gay Lives

 It's been a major year for Lisa Kron, a writer on the series "Somebody Somewhere." The Washington Post put this show toward the top of its list of the year's best TV options; I think it should be number one.


My great admiration for Kron is tied up with "Fun Home," the first time a lesbian protagonist appeared in a Broadway musical. Kron has a way of writing about gay lives that resists cliche, uses humor, and tells the truth. For example, she notices a little girl who doesn't want to wear a barrette; this seems like a small thing, but the pink plastic makes the girl want to vomit. It stirs up a kind of wordless fury. Unmoored, the girl retreats to a fantasy world; she drafts a love letter to a butch lesbian far off in a crowd. "I thought it was s'posed to be wrong....but you seem okay with being strong...I feel...You're so...."

Kron's characters are lost, searching, doing their best. Her girl-protagonist imagines asking the butch lesbian: "Do you feel my heart saying hi? In this luncheonette...why am I the only one who sees you're beautiful? No, I mean....handsome!"

I'm happy that Kron is continuing to earn recognition at this stage in her career--and I hope that her HBO series might have a long life (beyond season three).


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