TVSquad

The GLAAD Media Award nominations were announced over the weekend. The Awards honor films, movies, music, news outlets, advertisements, plays and even comic books that offer "fair, accurate and inclusive" representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. There are no real surprises among the nominees, which include The L Word, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty ("jazz hands") and The Office. The individual episode nominations are reserved for those shows without regular gay characters and include Grey's Anatomy, a show making headlines right now not for its storylines but for actor Isaiah Washington's reported homophobic remarks. Amazingly, South Park was not nominated for its brave portrayal of a post-op Mrs. Garrison.

The Awards will be broadcast on Logo on April 21st. A list of the television nominees follows the jump. A full list of nominees in all categories can be seen on the GLAAD website.

When you do a new show five days a week, all year long, it's got to be tough to keep coming up with original stories. That's just the problem they were facing over at ABC's All My Children. In an effort to keep things original they are adding their first transgender character. According to Executive Producer Julie Hanan Carruthers, "After 36 years, you start rehashing. It's inevitable. We didn't want to fall back on the baby-switch story again." The character, Zarf, will be played by Jeffrey Carlson (pictured).

I'm not familiar enough with the demographics of the daytime soap audience to have any idea how this is going to play out. Given the subject matter, it's reasonable to expect that there could be some backlash from fans who are turned off by the idea. On the other hand, there has been some absolutely bizarre stuff on soap operas over the last few years (vampires, witches, a superhero), so who knows? It could be just the rating boost All My Children is looking for. Whichever way it goes, I applaud them for taking a chance and doing something different.

[ via Yahoo! News ]

Rosie O'Donnell is returning to television, but this time she'll be behind the camera. She partnered up with MTV to launch a sketch comedy show on MTV's new network, Logo. The channel targets gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender viewers. O'Donnell's sketch show is going to be a lot like Saturday Night Live, featuring up-and-coming comedians, political and pop culture satire, and even some musical numbers. The show will also include celebrity guests who are "friends of the LGBT community." Rosie is serving as the show's executive producer, and she will pair with writers from The Rosie O'Donnell Show, which aired from 1996-2002. When Logo launches launched on June 30, it was in an estimated 19 million homes.