Boy Culture Links: 'Blue Film' Coming, Trump Knew About Epstein but Is Cool with Island-Visiting Cabinet Member, Trump Admin Orders Pride Flag Removed from Stonewall + MORE
FEBRUARY 10, 2026
INDIEWIRE: The very intriguing queer flick Blue Film by Elliot Tuttle has been picked up for U.S. release by Obscured Pictures after it was rejected by many mainstream film fests. Find out why it is so controversial here.
KENNETH IN THE (212): Tennis round-up with Juan Curiel.
PINK NEWS: F1 icon Ralf Schumacher, who recently came out as gay, is set to marry his boyfriend in May.
HUFFINGTON POST: Trump is standing by his Cabinet member Howard Lutnick, who absolutely visited Epstein Island.
JOE.MY.GOD.: Trump allegedly told a cop in 2006 he was glad Epstein was being investigated because “everyone” knew what he was up to. (He has for the past 20 years said he had no knowledge of Epstein’s predilection for underage girls, and even wished Ghislaine well on her defense. Plus, he recently moved her to a cushy prison.)
INSTAGRAM: Jay W. Walker sums up why we have to resist the latest anti-queer insult from Trumpland: the removal of the Pride flag from, of all places, the site of Stonewall. This is a part of the Trump Administration’s anti-queer initiatives, and makes no sense.
The Gilbert Baker Foundation says, in a statement:
“The aggressive removal of the eight-color Rainbow Flag from Stonewall National Park is yet another tactic in the Trump administration's ongoing efforts to erase the LGBTQ+ community.
“The Rainbow Flag was created in 1978 by artist and activist Gilbert Baker to inspire and liberate all sexual and gender minorities. It has since become a global symbol of freedom and welcome. That is why Trump and his henchmen have so avidly attacked it."
“We condemn this gesture of brazen homophobia and will work to reverse the policy.”
Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary Brandon Wolf told me today in a statement:
“Bad news for the Trump administration: these colors don’t run. The Stonewall Inn & Visitors Centers are still privately owned, their flags are still flying high, and that community is still just as queer today as it was yesterday. While their policy agenda throws the country into chaos, the Trump administration is obsessed with trying to suffocate the joy and pride that Americans have for their communities. For over a year, they’ve been on a witch hunt, targeting rainbow crosswalks, pride flags, Black Lives Matter murals, and throwing a tantrum about a Super Bowl performance they couldn’t control. But they will fail. We will keep showing up at Stonewall, for "each other, and being out and proud. There’s nothing the White House can do about that.”
By the way, the trans and Progress flags had already been removed, a case of “when they came for …” playing out for real.
PEOPLE: The Guthries aren’t even in touch with any kidnappers, so probably their posts are just in case those ransom notes are real.
EXTRATV: It’s insane how similar a previous Savannah Guthrie message was to one issued in Silence of the Lambs, but at least people might remember 87-year-old Diane Baker is still with us and an underrated actor.
INSTAGRAM: Jaclyn Smith is 80 and can do this in heels.
TIKTOK: Not to be outdone, Rob Rausch (The Traitors) has good leg game, too, Jaclyn.
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS: Michael Lowenthal’s new book Place Envy: Essays in Search of Orientation is out today. The pitch:
“Growing up in places where his family had no past, and met mostly by silence from his Holocaust-refugee grandparents, Michael Lowenthal longed to be from somewhere. Then he realized he was gay and felt displaced from his own displaced family. Place Envy — his first book of essays after five acclaimed books of fiction — chronicles his quest for orientation in the world: as an agnostic Jew, as a queer traveler and lover, and as a writer who can tell or twist the truth. Yearning for a queer lineage, he obsesses about an uncle who perished at Bergen-Belsen but then finds, in his grandmother’s German hometown, a more surprising legacy. He lives with a Pennsylvania Amish family; accompanies blind gay men on a Mexican cruise; plays jazz with Sun Ra, the Afrofuturist who claimed to hail from Saturn; and pursues a clarifying love affair in Brazil. Collectively, these essays recount Lowenthal’s many journeys of dislocation and relocation: to foreign countries and subcultures and to the riskiest shores of family and self.”
YOUTUBE: Check out the lushly romantic trailer for Girls Like Girls from director Hayley Kiyoko, based on her song and novel of the same name. I covered her when I was in the teen-mag biz (she was in the Disney Channel Original Movie Lemonade Mouth in 2011) — a big talent! The pitch:
“Based on writer/director Hayley Kiyoko's hit single and best-selling novel of the same name and featuring all-new music from Kiyoko, Girls Like Girls is a heartfelt coming-of-age story set over the course of one sun-drenched summer, where new-girl-in-town Coley falls in love for the first time while learning to accept herself along the way.”
Here is the brand-new trailer:
EXTRATV: Catherine O’Hara’s cause of death was a pulmonary embolism with the underlying condition of rectal cancer.
FACEBOOK: The red Speedo even matched a prop Corvette.
TODAY TIX: If you’re into daddies — or are one — and you’re in NYC, try Gay Daddy Speed Dating. But be forewarned that 35 and under is boy and 36 and up is daddy, so the age gap might not be big enough to fall into. Also, the daddies are described as “successful.” I think we need a speed dating event for old losers, too.
NEW YORK TIMES: This piece, a Q&A with Sean Hayes, asks if a solo show can be frightening. What frightens me is reading he has to play 11 characters! I have nightmares 35 years after my one and only (triumphant) experience onstage — I played Alan in a University of Chicago production of Torch Song Trilogy and still fear forgetting my lines. (I’d do anything if someone unearthed video of me in this play.)
This reminds me of a time 15+ years ago when I saw Lee Meriwether in a one-woman show as part of the Fringe Festival. She was playing something like 20 different women, a daunting task. Before the show, a woman next to me saw I had a notebook (I was reviewing it) and she seethed, “You’re not going to write during the show are you?” I said, “I might, yes.” She said this was going to distract her, to which I said, “Too bad. It’s why I’m here.” (I don’t take notes anymore. I just go by memory. I didn’t take notes that night, either.) Anyway, like 15 minutes before the show ended, this woman’s partner’s phone went off in the incredibly tiny space … and he never was able to silence it. Lee babbled and lost her place and barely made it through the end. Years later, I went to lunch with Lee and told her about this. She remembered it vividly and admitted she’d cut like 10 minutes of the show. End of horror story!
