'White Collar Comes Clean' at the Paley Centre, NY (7 June 2010) - Report
Hwæt. So.
I attended the White Collar panel at the Paley Centre in NYC on Monday, 7 June 2010. And it was wonderful!
(There are a small number of comprehensive event reports already posted in various locations, so I'm going to focus on my personal highlights.)
It's going to get prolix in here, guys.
Telling the Tale
The panel itself was at 7.30p, but I kept myself busy during the day leading up to it. I spent the morning in transit, then had lunch with G, a very dear friend who's currently interning at a big publishing house in SoHo. (Oh, to share her luck!) After we reluctantly parted ways, I took the subway uptown to the MoMA.
(I passed by the Paley Centre on the way to the MoMA, the former being on W 52nd St, and the latter on W 53rd St. The Paley Centre was closed at the time, as it always is on a Monday, but I asked the lobby guard when would be a good time to queue up for the panel, being that my ticket was will-call. He told me to come back at around 6.30-6.45p.)
As I only had a few hours at the MoMA, and as I'd gone through the permanent collection pretty thoroughly the last time that I visited, I focussed on the special exhibitions this time around. Modern/contemporary art generally isn't my thing (I much prefer pre-20th-century art, as I do with literature; the Pre-Raphaelites, Art Nouveau, and René Magritte are notable exceptions), but I was deeply and pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed the exhibit of Picasso prints ('Picasso: Themes and Variations', 28 March to 30 August 2010). I think that that was largely because the works on display were prints, a medium which I find that I enjoy regardless of period. (Printmaking = ♥!) This was the first time that I've seen a large-scale exhibition of Picasso's work, so it was really interesting to see how apparently his style evolved over the course of his career. My favourite pieces included the 'sculptor's studio' plates from the Vollard Suite; the early portraits of Françoise Gilot (she must have been so beautiful!); and the 'After the Masters' section of the exhibit, which hit my reinterpretation-of-previous-works button delightfully hard.
Next, I zipped through 'The Modern Myth: Drawing Mythologies in Modern Times', 10 March to 6 September 2010. I say that I zipped through because I didn't find nearly as many works that intrigued me in 'Modern Myth' as I had in 'Picasso: Themes'. Just not my thing. (A pity, though, as the 'modern myth' aspect of the exhibit had really piqued my interest going in.) I did like several of the works on display, but unfortunately the titles and names of the artists have by now slipped my mind. Points to the MoMA, though, for leading the exhibition with a bound edition of Goya's Los Caprichos open to El sueño de la razón produce monstruos. (Goya = ♥!)
The third and final special exhibition that I visited was 'Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century', 11 April to 28 June 2010. This took up most of the sixth floor of the MoMA; going in and out, I passed the space where the retrospective portion of Marina Abramovic's recent performance piece had been displayed. (And no, I hadn't been to see the Abramovic piece; conceptual art isn't my thing, plus I'd been abroad throughout. The reviews that I'd read whilst I was abroad did intrigue me, though.) The Cartier-Bresson photographs were displayed across a number of large rooms, and were loosely grouped by theme/subject. I'm not very well-versed in photography analysis, but I enjoyed the exhibition nevertheless. (Though it was very large--almost overwhelmingly so, for me--and I confess that I found myself skimming through the final few sections.) I got twitchy when going through the sections 'Old Worlds: East' and 'Photo-Essay: The Great Leap Forward, China. 1958', though, partly because of the captions for some of the photographs (and, to be honest, some of the photographs themselves), but mostly because of the comments which I overheard from various older white upper-(middle-)class New York women. Exoticising/essentialising the 'beautiful cultures' of the quasi-monolithic 'East', et cetera. After a little while of that, I was almost hoping for one of them to turn to me and ask me for my Chinese/'Asian' opinion--I would have happily snapped at them--but alas, no cigar. (It always seems to work that way: when I'm prepared to confront racist comments in real life, the opportunity to do so often doesn't come up; but when I'm not prepared to do so, such always come out of nowhere and blindside me. Bah.)
It was nearly closing time by the time that I finished looking through the Cartier-Bresson exhibition, but I made sure to scoot downstairs to the permanent collection to visit the MoMA's Magrittes (my MoMA-going tradition). I spent my last fifteen minutes in the MoMA looking at my favourite work in the musem's entire collection. So, so lovely! *happy sigh*
And then it was time to go.
Tightening Up
At around 6.00p or so, I made my way over to the Paley Centre. (Following a brief perusal of the MoMA Design Store; some rather attractive things there, but far too rich for my budget!)
I wasn't sure what to expect of the queue, given what the lobby guard had told me earlier in the day, but there were only about twenty-odd (ish?) people standing on the pavement when I arrived. I queued up behind a small group of women which I later discovered included cerublu02, lifefiction (in a wheelchair), and elrhiarhodan. As I was there by myself and didn't know anyone else attending the panel, I didn't want to barge into anyone else's conversation without previously being invited to do so. Which meant that I was rereading a chapter of David Maurer's The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man (SO MUCH LOVE, OH MY GOODNESS) when Tim DeKay arrived.
I repeat, Tim DeKay arrived.
(People on my flist from before I took my very long break from LJ, be aware. Fandom squee--and possibly TMI?--will now abound.)
I've admired DeKay ever since I saw him as Jonesy in Carnivàle. (Ye gods, Jonesy. Probably one of my favourite fictional characters. Also? Whenever he's on screen, I am basically incapacitated with lust. So. Damn. Toppy. As with Peter Burke on White Collar, Jonesy makes me want to roll over and show my throat. It's godsdamned delicious.) The thing is, I'd never before gone to a media event like this, where one meets actors; previous to the Paley panel, I'd focussed on going to author events, which usually have a completely different feel to them. Because of my long-held personal and professional interests in writing, storytelling, and publishing, meeting authors whom I admire has always been much more nerve-wracking for me than (hypothetically) meeting actors whom I admire. (I nearly shook apart when I asked Junot Díaz a question at a post-reading Q&A last winter.) So I wasn't sure how I would react in the moment to DeKay.
I hadn't needed to worry. He was fantastic. Very friendly, warm, and kind to everyone who approached him (despite appearing somewhat bemused by all of the attention). I went over from the queue with cerublu02 (I think that I said, 'I'll go if you go', or something horribly shy like that), and my goodness, but DeKay is stunning in person. And tall! (Then again, I'm fairly wee.) And so lovely, lovely, lovely to look at.
I floated around the edges of the group for a bit, unsure of how to proceed. Luckily, cerublu02 kindly urged me forward, and I brought out my copy of The Big Con for DeKay to sign (what? it was relevant to the topic at hand!). As I did so, I (possibly too quietly?) thanked DeKay for his portrayal of Peter Burke, and told him that I also loved his work on Carnivàle. It got a little blurry from there--I remember that he looked a little surprised, but pleased, at my choice of object to sign (he did a moderate double-take when he read the title/subtitle of the book), that he asked my name, and that he thanked me for coming to attend the panel. Then he handed the book back to me, I thanked him again, and then I slid back into the crowd.
He wrote:
[Red]-- Catch the bad guy! XO Tim DeKay
Adorable.
At around this point, DeKay noticed that lifefiction was in a wheelchair. I didn't catch his exact words, but he asked cerublu02 what had happened to her--and then promptly went straight over to her to greet her and speak to her. Such a class act. Seriously.
After DeKay had returned to the hovering group, cerublu02 (again very kindly) nudged me forward so that she could take my photo with him. I was already quite content with having thanked him and asking him to sign The Big Con, so the two photos that resulted were a pleasantly surprising bonus. Alas, I am not very photogenic (though perhaps slightly more so now with my newly short hair? I still need to figure out how to be photographed with it, though. At any rate, totally not cerublu02's fault), but that was all right. DeKay was lovely as ever--and warm! (The tiny happy shock that I felt when he put his arm around my shoulders tells me that I probably need a partner or partners, stat. Ahaha. Oh, dear.)
Then I drifted back to the queue, and eventually DeKay went inside the Paley Centre to prep for the panel--but not before he spoke to and signed for everyone who'd gone up to greet him. That is a classy, classy man.
And then we all stood in the queue and chatted for a while, until the Paley Centre staff opened the doors and let us in. We collected our tickets, found some quite good seats, and chatted some more until around 7.30p--the panel itself.
The Con
So, the panel. Other reports have given good summaries of what was discussed, so I won't do so again here. I do want to note, however, that the cast are all even more ridiculously good-looking in real life than on the show. Seriously. It's pretty much ludicrous, guys. In particular: Tim DeKay was as stunningly stealth-hot as always, Matt Bomer was beautiful (and he wore his delightfully dorky eyeglasses! and his wedding ring! more on that second item shortly!), and Marsha Thomason was luminous. And they're all adorable together, too!
(I'm almost-maybe-kinda-sorta glad that Tiffani Thiessen was still in LA waiting to have her baby, because if she'd been at the panel? In company with DeKay, Bomer, and Thomason? I would probably have fallen over on the spot. Would still love to meet Thiessen and thank her for playing El, though. But maybe when she's not with the other three? It's a practical decision, I swear. Nothing to do with the fact that I have a massive dumbface crush on her, and on El. Nothing at all. Ahahaha. Whoops.)
The panel didn't really reveal much new information, but that didn't much matter, as the real draw was being able to witness the cast's interactions live. (Again, so adorable. I want to hug them all.) The moderator opened the panel to Q&A rather early, I thought, but that was okay, as I was already twitching slightly from nerves: I had a question that I really wanted to ask. And, in a convenient opening, I did. I can't remember my exact words, but.
I opened by thanking the whole cast for such a wonderful first series. My question, however, was specifically for Marsha Thomason ('Ms Thomason', at which she made a kind of hilarious 'oho!' face). I told her that I'd loved the pilot, for a variety of reasons, but the one of the parts that struck me the most was the character of Diana. Because she was both a.) a woman of colour and b.) an out lesbian. Who was happy with herself, who was accepted by the other characters, and whose queerness was undeniably but smoothly integrated into her character. I thanked her for playing Diana, and told her that it was really meaningful to me to see that character on television--
and then hocrap spontaneous totally unexpected applause happened. Bzuh.
I was kind of shell-shocked with the effort to get the question out both sanely and succinctly (interior monologue: oh god shut up shut up [Red] shut up stop rambling oh god I just accidentally outed myself as not straight to an entire auditorium of strangers oh god shut up), but I somehow was able to spare a single thought. And that thought was: Wait a second. Did Matt Bomer start the applause? Because he's gay, but he's not out outside the industry, but he's wearing his wedding ring to this event, and if he was the one who started the applause, then that would mean--
And according to this thread in tzikeh's journal (scroll down to the second comment by no_detective), it was Bomer.
I cannot tell a lie: I read that late last night whilst looking for other audience reports, and MY QUEER LITTLE HEART PROMPTLY EXPLODED WITH GLEE.
Seriously. GAY JOYSPLOSIONS. GAYSPLOSIONS. OH MY GOD.
Whew, okay. Breathing now. Breathe.
(SPLOSIONS.)
Quoting myself (I sound so much more rational there; yeesh), for the record:
That was me! I was so, so pleased to hear her response. As someone who is both a woman of colour and LGBTQI-identified, it really meant a lot to me to hear that we'll learn more about Diana and her personal life in S2.
I'd wondered if Bomer had been the one to start the (completely unexpected!) applause, but as I was slightly distracted by trying not to make an idiot out of myself, I hadn't been sure. I'd known that he was gay (with a partner! and kids! hooray!), and had been mindful of that in making the comment/asking the question, but hadn't expected him to respond--let alone so positively!
♥!
Matt Bomer, you are made of sunshine and beauty and magic, and I love you. I honestly don't care a whit about having been the object of applause; I do care, however, that you felt comfortable enough to applaud. Matt Bomer, you're fantastic, and I wish you--and your lovely family--all the best in the world.
Damn the atavistic Hollywood/American social standards that blindly reject out actors. Damn them to hell.
And then after that happened, Marsha Thomason very kindly, very sweetly said thank you (in her gorgeous Manchester accent; aaa!), and went on to talk about how she loves playing Diana, that it was great to have a character like her on the show, and that there will be a good deal more about
START S2 CHARACTER SPOILER
DIANA AND HER PERSONAL LIFE AND HER CHILDHOOD AND HER BACKGROUND. AAA I CANNOT WAIT.
END S2 CHARACTER SPOILER
And then I finally managed to get out the question part of my comment--are we going to see any more LGBTQI characters on the show? or, at the very least, are we going to see Diana's girlfriend?--and Marsha Thomason answered, and she obviously couldn't say so outright, but homg
START S2 CHARACTER SPOILER
YES, WE ARE GOING TO SEE CHRISTIE. HOMG. HOMG.
END S2 CHARACTER SPOILER
So, yeah, that was my night made.
And then the rest of the Q&A happened, and then the panel ended. And it was good. But seriously? My night? Already made. *heart* Marsha Thomason. *heart* Matt Bomer. *heart* everyone!
And then my comment/question and Marsha Thomason's response showed up on Twitter and in a couple of audience reports. Without my name attached, obviously (and understandably). But whoa. That was a bit of cognitive dissonance. Hi, guys? *waves*
The Blow-Off
After the panel broke up, the cast (minus Bomer, who'd left earlier because of work) moved towards a side door to exit the auditorium. It was slow going for them, though, as a number of the audience flocked straight to them. I thought oh, why not?, said my goodbyes to cerublu02 and company, and nipped on down the stairs. I caught Marsha Thomason's eye, thanked her again for her response to my question, and asked if she wouldn't mind signing The Big Con. And then she signed it, and I told her that I was looking forward to S2, and it was good.
All the best [Red] Love Marsha Thomason XX
And then I went to Grand Central and took the train up to Chappaqua where I stayed with B, another friend whom I haven't seen for some time. And then I introduced him to the show, recapped the evening, and we squeed.
Ye gods, that was a ridiculously gigantor post. I just hope that I didn't sound self-aggrandising. Erk.
(Such a lovely evening.)
I attended the White Collar panel at the Paley Centre in NYC on Monday, 7 June 2010. And it was wonderful!
(There are a small number of comprehensive event reports already posted in various locations, so I'm going to focus on my personal highlights.)
It's going to get prolix in here, guys.
Telling the Tale
The panel itself was at 7.30p, but I kept myself busy during the day leading up to it. I spent the morning in transit, then had lunch with G, a very dear friend who's currently interning at a big publishing house in SoHo. (Oh, to share her luck!) After we reluctantly parted ways, I took the subway uptown to the MoMA.
(I passed by the Paley Centre on the way to the MoMA, the former being on W 52nd St, and the latter on W 53rd St. The Paley Centre was closed at the time, as it always is on a Monday, but I asked the lobby guard when would be a good time to queue up for the panel, being that my ticket was will-call. He told me to come back at around 6.30-6.45p.)
As I only had a few hours at the MoMA, and as I'd gone through the permanent collection pretty thoroughly the last time that I visited, I focussed on the special exhibitions this time around. Modern/contemporary art generally isn't my thing (I much prefer pre-20th-century art, as I do with literature; the Pre-Raphaelites, Art Nouveau, and René Magritte are notable exceptions), but I was deeply and pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed the exhibit of Picasso prints ('Picasso: Themes and Variations', 28 March to 30 August 2010). I think that that was largely because the works on display were prints, a medium which I find that I enjoy regardless of period. (Printmaking = ♥!) This was the first time that I've seen a large-scale exhibition of Picasso's work, so it was really interesting to see how apparently his style evolved over the course of his career. My favourite pieces included the 'sculptor's studio' plates from the Vollard Suite; the early portraits of Françoise Gilot (she must have been so beautiful!); and the 'After the Masters' section of the exhibit, which hit my reinterpretation-of-previous-works button delightfully hard.
Next, I zipped through 'The Modern Myth: Drawing Mythologies in Modern Times', 10 March to 6 September 2010. I say that I zipped through because I didn't find nearly as many works that intrigued me in 'Modern Myth' as I had in 'Picasso: Themes'. Just not my thing. (A pity, though, as the 'modern myth' aspect of the exhibit had really piqued my interest going in.) I did like several of the works on display, but unfortunately the titles and names of the artists have by now slipped my mind. Points to the MoMA, though, for leading the exhibition with a bound edition of Goya's Los Caprichos open to El sueño de la razón produce monstruos. (Goya = ♥!)
The third and final special exhibition that I visited was 'Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century', 11 April to 28 June 2010. This took up most of the sixth floor of the MoMA; going in and out, I passed the space where the retrospective portion of Marina Abramovic's recent performance piece had been displayed. (And no, I hadn't been to see the Abramovic piece; conceptual art isn't my thing, plus I'd been abroad throughout. The reviews that I'd read whilst I was abroad did intrigue me, though.) The Cartier-Bresson photographs were displayed across a number of large rooms, and were loosely grouped by theme/subject. I'm not very well-versed in photography analysis, but I enjoyed the exhibition nevertheless. (Though it was very large--almost overwhelmingly so, for me--and I confess that I found myself skimming through the final few sections.) I got twitchy when going through the sections 'Old Worlds: East' and 'Photo-Essay: The Great Leap Forward, China. 1958', though, partly because of the captions for some of the photographs (and, to be honest, some of the photographs themselves), but mostly because of the comments which I overheard from various older white upper-(middle-)class New York women. Exoticising/essentialising the 'beautiful cultures' of the quasi-monolithic 'East', et cetera. After a little while of that, I was almost hoping for one of them to turn to me and ask me for my Chinese/'Asian' opinion--I would have happily snapped at them--but alas, no cigar. (It always seems to work that way: when I'm prepared to confront racist comments in real life, the opportunity to do so often doesn't come up; but when I'm not prepared to do so, such always come out of nowhere and blindside me. Bah.)
It was nearly closing time by the time that I finished looking through the Cartier-Bresson exhibition, but I made sure to scoot downstairs to the permanent collection to visit the MoMA's Magrittes (my MoMA-going tradition). I spent my last fifteen minutes in the MoMA looking at my favourite work in the musem's entire collection. So, so lovely! *happy sigh*
And then it was time to go.
Tightening Up
At around 6.00p or so, I made my way over to the Paley Centre. (Following a brief perusal of the MoMA Design Store; some rather attractive things there, but far too rich for my budget!)
I wasn't sure what to expect of the queue, given what the lobby guard had told me earlier in the day, but there were only about twenty-odd (ish?) people standing on the pavement when I arrived. I queued up behind a small group of women which I later discovered included cerublu02, lifefiction (in a wheelchair), and elrhiarhodan. As I was there by myself and didn't know anyone else attending the panel, I didn't want to barge into anyone else's conversation without previously being invited to do so. Which meant that I was rereading a chapter of David Maurer's The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man (SO MUCH LOVE, OH MY GOODNESS) when Tim DeKay arrived.
I repeat, Tim DeKay arrived.
(People on my flist from before I took my very long break from LJ, be aware. Fandom squee--and possibly TMI?--will now abound.)
I've admired DeKay ever since I saw him as Jonesy in Carnivàle. (Ye gods, Jonesy. Probably one of my favourite fictional characters. Also? Whenever he's on screen, I am basically incapacitated with lust. So. Damn. Toppy. As with Peter Burke on White Collar, Jonesy makes me want to roll over and show my throat. It's godsdamned delicious.) The thing is, I'd never before gone to a media event like this, where one meets actors; previous to the Paley panel, I'd focussed on going to author events, which usually have a completely different feel to them. Because of my long-held personal and professional interests in writing, storytelling, and publishing, meeting authors whom I admire has always been much more nerve-wracking for me than (hypothetically) meeting actors whom I admire. (I nearly shook apart when I asked Junot Díaz a question at a post-reading Q&A last winter.) So I wasn't sure how I would react in the moment to DeKay.
I hadn't needed to worry. He was fantastic. Very friendly, warm, and kind to everyone who approached him (despite appearing somewhat bemused by all of the attention). I went over from the queue with cerublu02 (I think that I said, 'I'll go if you go', or something horribly shy like that), and my goodness, but DeKay is stunning in person. And tall! (Then again, I'm fairly wee.) And so lovely, lovely, lovely to look at.
I floated around the edges of the group for a bit, unsure of how to proceed. Luckily, cerublu02 kindly urged me forward, and I brought out my copy of The Big Con for DeKay to sign (what? it was relevant to the topic at hand!). As I did so, I (possibly too quietly?) thanked DeKay for his portrayal of Peter Burke, and told him that I also loved his work on Carnivàle. It got a little blurry from there--I remember that he looked a little surprised, but pleased, at my choice of object to sign (he did a moderate double-take when he read the title/subtitle of the book), that he asked my name, and that he thanked me for coming to attend the panel. Then he handed the book back to me, I thanked him again, and then I slid back into the crowd.
He wrote:
[Red]-- Catch the bad guy! XO Tim DeKay
Adorable.
At around this point, DeKay noticed that lifefiction was in a wheelchair. I didn't catch his exact words, but he asked cerublu02 what had happened to her--and then promptly went straight over to her to greet her and speak to her. Such a class act. Seriously.
After DeKay had returned to the hovering group, cerublu02 (again very kindly) nudged me forward so that she could take my photo with him. I was already quite content with having thanked him and asking him to sign The Big Con, so the two photos that resulted were a pleasantly surprising bonus. Alas, I am not very photogenic (though perhaps slightly more so now with my newly short hair? I still need to figure out how to be photographed with it, though. At any rate, totally not cerublu02's fault), but that was all right. DeKay was lovely as ever--and warm! (The tiny happy shock that I felt when he put his arm around my shoulders tells me that I probably need a partner or partners, stat. Ahaha. Oh, dear.)
Then I drifted back to the queue, and eventually DeKay went inside the Paley Centre to prep for the panel--but not before he spoke to and signed for everyone who'd gone up to greet him. That is a classy, classy man.
And then we all stood in the queue and chatted for a while, until the Paley Centre staff opened the doors and let us in. We collected our tickets, found some quite good seats, and chatted some more until around 7.30p--the panel itself.
The Con
So, the panel. Other reports have given good summaries of what was discussed, so I won't do so again here. I do want to note, however, that the cast are all even more ridiculously good-looking in real life than on the show. Seriously. It's pretty much ludicrous, guys. In particular: Tim DeKay was as stunningly stealth-hot as always, Matt Bomer was beautiful (and he wore his delightfully dorky eyeglasses! and his wedding ring! more on that second item shortly!), and Marsha Thomason was luminous. And they're all adorable together, too!
(I'm almost-maybe-kinda-sorta glad that Tiffani Thiessen was still in LA waiting to have her baby, because if she'd been at the panel? In company with DeKay, Bomer, and Thomason? I would probably have fallen over on the spot. Would still love to meet Thiessen and thank her for playing El, though. But maybe when she's not with the other three? It's a practical decision, I swear. Nothing to do with the fact that I have a massive dumbface crush on her, and on El. Nothing at all. Ahahaha. Whoops.)
The panel didn't really reveal much new information, but that didn't much matter, as the real draw was being able to witness the cast's interactions live. (Again, so adorable. I want to hug them all.) The moderator opened the panel to Q&A rather early, I thought, but that was okay, as I was already twitching slightly from nerves: I had a question that I really wanted to ask. And, in a convenient opening, I did. I can't remember my exact words, but.
I opened by thanking the whole cast for such a wonderful first series. My question, however, was specifically for Marsha Thomason ('Ms Thomason', at which she made a kind of hilarious 'oho!' face). I told her that I'd loved the pilot, for a variety of reasons, but the one of the parts that struck me the most was the character of Diana. Because she was both a.) a woman of colour and b.) an out lesbian. Who was happy with herself, who was accepted by the other characters, and whose queerness was undeniably but smoothly integrated into her character. I thanked her for playing Diana, and told her that it was really meaningful to me to see that character on television--
and then hocrap spontaneous totally unexpected applause happened. Bzuh.
I was kind of shell-shocked with the effort to get the question out both sanely and succinctly (interior monologue: oh god shut up shut up [Red] shut up stop rambling oh god I just accidentally outed myself as not straight to an entire auditorium of strangers oh god shut up), but I somehow was able to spare a single thought. And that thought was: Wait a second. Did Matt Bomer start the applause? Because he's gay, but he's not out outside the industry, but he's wearing his wedding ring to this event, and if he was the one who started the applause, then that would mean--
And according to this thread in tzikeh's journal (scroll down to the second comment by no_detective), it was Bomer.
I cannot tell a lie: I read that late last night whilst looking for other audience reports, and MY QUEER LITTLE HEART PROMPTLY EXPLODED WITH GLEE.
Seriously. GAY JOYSPLOSIONS. GAYSPLOSIONS. OH MY GOD.
Whew, okay. Breathing now. Breathe.
(SPLOSIONS.)
Quoting myself (I sound so much more rational there; yeesh), for the record:
That was me! I was so, so pleased to hear her response. As someone who is both a woman of colour and LGBTQI-identified, it really meant a lot to me to hear that we'll learn more about Diana and her personal life in S2.
I'd wondered if Bomer had been the one to start the (completely unexpected!) applause, but as I was slightly distracted by trying not to make an idiot out of myself, I hadn't been sure. I'd known that he was gay (with a partner! and kids! hooray!), and had been mindful of that in making the comment/asking the question, but hadn't expected him to respond--let alone so positively!
♥!
Matt Bomer, you are made of sunshine and beauty and magic, and I love you. I honestly don't care a whit about having been the object of applause; I do care, however, that you felt comfortable enough to applaud. Matt Bomer, you're fantastic, and I wish you--and your lovely family--all the best in the world.
Damn the atavistic Hollywood/American social standards that blindly reject out actors. Damn them to hell.
And then after that happened, Marsha Thomason very kindly, very sweetly said thank you (in her gorgeous Manchester accent; aaa!), and went on to talk about how she loves playing Diana, that it was great to have a character like her on the show, and that there will be a good deal more about
START S2 CHARACTER SPOILER
DIANA AND HER PERSONAL LIFE AND HER CHILDHOOD AND HER BACKGROUND. AAA I CANNOT WAIT.
END S2 CHARACTER SPOILER
And then I finally managed to get out the question part of my comment--are we going to see any more LGBTQI characters on the show? or, at the very least, are we going to see Diana's girlfriend?--and Marsha Thomason answered, and she obviously couldn't say so outright, but homg
START S2 CHARACTER SPOILER
YES, WE ARE GOING TO SEE CHRISTIE. HOMG. HOMG.
END S2 CHARACTER SPOILER
So, yeah, that was my night made.
And then the rest of the Q&A happened, and then the panel ended. And it was good. But seriously? My night? Already made. *heart* Marsha Thomason. *heart* Matt Bomer. *heart* everyone!
And then my comment/question and Marsha Thomason's response showed up on Twitter and in a couple of audience reports. Without my name attached, obviously (and understandably). But whoa. That was a bit of cognitive dissonance. Hi, guys? *waves*
The Blow-Off
After the panel broke up, the cast (minus Bomer, who'd left earlier because of work) moved towards a side door to exit the auditorium. It was slow going for them, though, as a number of the audience flocked straight to them. I thought oh, why not?, said my goodbyes to cerublu02 and company, and nipped on down the stairs. I caught Marsha Thomason's eye, thanked her again for her response to my question, and asked if she wouldn't mind signing The Big Con. And then she signed it, and I told her that I was looking forward to S2, and it was good.
All the best [Red] Love Marsha Thomason XX
And then I went to Grand Central and took the train up to Chappaqua where I stayed with B, another friend whom I haven't seen for some time. And then I introduced him to the show, recapped the evening, and we squeed.
Ye gods, that was a ridiculously gigantor post. I just hope that I didn't sound self-aggrandising. Erk.
(Such a lovely evening.)