[On The Set]: or Sometimes Life Mirrors Rather Than Imitates Art
In the Fencesitter Films Web TV Series "Rose By Any Other Name . . ." the actress Stephanie Riebel who plays Rose depicts a lesbian sure of her identity and living a comfortable life with her friends in the women's community, who suddenly finds her world and assumptions shaken up when she realizes she's begun to fall for a straight man she's become friends with.
In real life, as has been reported in breathless detail by Mike Szymanski and is spreading like wildfire across internet to "After Ellen", the Twittervers and beyond, Riebel had actually assumed she was as regulation Str8 Girl until as she explains, "I found myself attracted to a person, and I liked the fact that I can feel that way. It happens that I felt the love for a woman."
This has naturally set tongs wagging, fingers pointing, pundits blogging not to mention the PC Police of various denominations lining up on all sides of the issue. A dilemma that is not lost on either her character Rose, who in the story finds her friends upset and her family ecstatic when she dips her toes into the water of a different-sex relationship or on Riebel who tells reporter Szymanski that it's her friends who want to label her."In the lesbian world it's different reactions than the straight world to my situation," the actress says. "With women, it's more emotional."
She says, "My friends say it's OK if I'm gay, but I say, 'No, it's just this one person' and then they say, 'It's OK if you're bi,' and I say, 'Well, if that makes you feel better,' but really I don't want to be labeled and don't see the need for the label. I think it's about the person."
As usual like everything else about "Rose all of this has both thrilled and made nervous those who in someway identify with the "B" in LGBT and who have a, shall we say, sometimes problematic relationship with both Straight Society as well as with the mainstream Gay/Lesbian Community.
"Oh wonderful, let the hating begin" one pansexual woman wryly sighed upon seeing the dual "After Ellen" articles of "The battle wages on: Fake lesbians - liberated or lame?" and "Actress Stephanie Riebel says she's falling for a woman for the first time".
But on the other hand as 'North Bi Northwest' wisely counseled the "After Ellen" crowd, "we all have experience not fitting the 'normal' hetero standard set by 'society,' so why should we try to make her fit ours?"
In real life, as has been reported in breathless detail by Mike Szymanski and is spreading like wildfire across internet to "After Ellen", the Twittervers and beyond, Riebel had actually assumed she was as regulation Str8 Girl until as she explains, "I found myself attracted to a person, and I liked the fact that I can feel that way. It happens that I felt the love for a woman."
This has naturally set tongs wagging, fingers pointing, pundits blogging not to mention the PC Police of various denominations lining up on all sides of the issue. A dilemma that is not lost on either her character Rose, who in the story finds her friends upset and her family ecstatic when she dips her toes into the water of a different-sex relationship or on Riebel who tells reporter Szymanski that it's her friends who want to label her."In the lesbian world it's different reactions than the straight world to my situation," the actress says. "With women, it's more emotional."
She says, "My friends say it's OK if I'm gay, but I say, 'No, it's just this one person' and then they say, 'It's OK if you're bi,' and I say, 'Well, if that makes you feel better,' but really I don't want to be labeled and don't see the need for the label. I think it's about the person."
As usual like everything else about "Rose all of this has both thrilled and made nervous those who in someway identify with the "B" in LGBT and who have a, shall we say, sometimes problematic relationship with both Straight Society as well as with the mainstream Gay/Lesbian Community.
"Oh wonderful, let the hating begin" one pansexual woman wryly sighed upon seeing the dual "After Ellen" articles of "The battle wages on: Fake lesbians - liberated or lame?" and "Actress Stephanie Riebel says she's falling for a woman for the first time".
But on the other hand as 'North Bi Northwest' wisely counseled the "After Ellen" crowd, "we all have experience not fitting the 'normal' hetero standard set by 'society,' so why should we try to make her fit ours?"