 Curve, January 2009 | |
| Former editors | Merryn Johns, Diane Anderson-Minshall, Gretchen Lee, Katie Sanborn |
|---|---|
| Categories | Lifestyle magazine |
| Founder | Frances "Franco" Stevens |
| Founded | 1990 (as Deneuve) |
| Company | The Curve Foundation |
| Based in | US |
| Language | English |
| Website | www.curvemag.com |
| ISSN | 1087-867X |
Curve is a global lesbian media project. It covers news, politics, social issues, and includes celebrity interviews and stories on entertainment, pop culture, style, and travel.
Founded by Frances "Franco" Stevens in San Francisco in 1990. While working at A Different Light Bookstore she noticed that bookstores and newsstands had few lesbian publications to offer, so she decided to do something about it. [1] Curve was first published as Deneuve magazine. To fund the publication, Stevens applied for numerous credit cards, then took the borrowed money to the race track, winning enough money to cover the first three issues. [2] The lifestyle magazine reported on the lesbian scene, fashion, fiction, music and film, and rumors from the lesbian community. The first issue of Deneuve hit the newsstands with Katie Sanborn as managing editor and sold out in six days. [3]
Stevens caused controversy by "putting the word lesbian on the front cover because that meant every time somebody wanted to buy it, they were essentially coming out to anyone standing around them, anyone who saw it in their house." Over time, the magazine secured mainstream advertising deals, and famous faces like tennis player Martina Navratilova and singer Melissa Etheridge posed for the cover. [4]
The magazine was rebranded as Curve in 1996 after a trademark dispute with French actress Catherine Deneuve. [5] DJ Page Hodel hosted the "Alive and Kicking" legal aid benefit to help the magazine overcome the financial impact of the lawsuit. [1] [3]
Curve has been considered a perennial leader in reporting on a range of cultural issues, often writing about topics that were then picked up by mainstream media. Before the marriage equality movement picked up steam, Curve published an article about negotiating partner benefits in the workplace, in the December 1993 issue. Curve wrote about cybersex in 1995. In 2003, Curve was early in reporting on pregnancies within the queer community. Curve had a feature on gender queer fashion in Brooklyn, titled "Tomboys Rule Brooklyn" in the September 1996 issue. [6] In 1999, Curve launched a website with online subscriptions, videos, books, and discussion boards. [3]
Diane Anderson-Minshall was editor-in-chief when the magazine was acquired in October 2010 by Australian media company, Avalon Media. [7] [8] [9] Under the ownership of Avalon Media, Curve was headquartered in Sydney with Merryn Johns as editor-in-chief and reported its circulation at 52,237, and a 182,831 readership with a median household income of $85,372. [10] [8] [9] [11] Founded by Silke Bader, Avalon Media also published Lesbians on the Loose (LOTL) and Bound magazines in Australia.
In 2021, Curve magazine was re-acquired by Founder Franco Stevens and donated to The Curve Foundation, with its mission to "empower lesbian, queer women, trans women, and non-binary people to share culture and stories, connect with each other, and raise visibility." [12] [13]
Curve was featured on the Showtime television series The L Word when a fictional writer for the magazine interviews Jenny Schecter, one of the characters, about her book.[ citation needed ]
Ahead of the Curve is a feature documentary film that tells the story of the founder of Curve magazine, the magazine's rise to fame and its aspirations for the future of lesbian and queer media. The film is co-produced and co-directed by Jen Rainin and Rivkah Beth Medow, with music composed by Meshell Ndegeocello. [14]
Ahead of the Curve premiered at Frameline, the San Francisco international LGBTQ+ film festival, in 2020 and received the Grand Prix du Jury at the Image+Nation Film Festival. The film also received Audience Awards for Best Documentary at aGLIFF, Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival, Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and the Connecticut LGBT Film Festival. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]
Ahead of the Curve was released in theaters, digital platforms and DVD on June 1, 2021. [21]
In a 2000 interview with Curve, Sinead O'Connor commented, "I'm a dyke… although I haven't been very open about that and throughout most of my life I've gone out with blokes because I haven't necessarily been terribly comfortable about being a big lesbian mule. But I actually am a dyke." However, soon after in an interview in The Independent, she stated, "I believe it was overcompensating of me to declare myself a lesbian. It was not a publicity stunt. I was trying to make someone else feel better. And have subsequently caused pain for myself. I am not in a box of any description." [22]
In May 2007, actress Michelle Rodriguez criticized Curve and accused its editors of attempting to "out" her. Rodriguez stated, "As far as rumors go of me coming out, I guess Curve magazine took it upon themselves to out me on the premise of their own suspicions.... to put words in someone's mouth and place people in categories affects them for sure, especially in this business." [23] Her comments ended up angering many in the gay community and some even accused her of being homophobic.[ citation needed ] Rodriguez has denied those claims as well.[ citation needed ]
In the July/August 2007 issue of Curve, editors responded to this criticism by stating: "If you read the article, you will see that the author did not, in fact, 'out' Rodriguez; rather, the article stated both that "Rodriguez has never publicly come out" and "Rodriguez has said she is not a lesbian."[ citation needed ]
Launched in 2021, The Curve Foundation amplifies the voices of LGBTQ+ women and non-binary people, creating a searchable archive from the 30 years of magazine issues, and supporting journalists in the tradition of Curve magazine. [24]
Franco Stevens's path to launching The Curve Foundation is documented in the 2021 film Ahead of the Curve. [25]
"New queer cinema" is a term first coined by the academic B. Ruby Rich in Sight & Sound magazine in 1992 to define and describe a movement in queer-themed independent filmmaking in the early 1990s.
Founded in 1952, One Institute, is the oldest active LGBTQ+ organization in the United States, dedicated to telling LGBTQ+ history and stories through education, arts, and social justice programs. Since its inception, the organization has been headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
COLAGE is an organization created in 1990 by the children of several lesbian and gay parents and guardians who felt a need for support.
Angela Robinson is an American film and television director, screenwriter and producer. Outfest Fusion LGBTQ People of Color Film Festival awarded Robinson with the Fusion Achievement Award in 2013 for her contribution to LGBTQ+ media visibility.
Jenni Olson is a writer, archivist, historian, consultant, and non-fiction filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. She co-founded the pioneering LGBT website PlanetOut.com. Her two feature-length essay films — The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) — premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Her work as an experimental filmmaker and her expansive personal collection of LGBTQ film prints and memorabilia were acquired in April 2020 by the Harvard Film Archive, and her reflection on the last 30 years of LGBT film history was published as a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema from Oxford University Press in 2021. In 2020, she was named to the Out Magazine Out 100 list. In 2021, she was recognized with the prestigious Special TEDDY Award at the Berlin Film Festival. She also campaigned to have a barrier erected on the Golden Gate Bridge to prevent suicides.
The Inside Out Film and Video Festival, also known as the Inside Out LGBT or LGBTQ Film Festival, is an annual Canadian film festival, which presents a program of LGBT-related film. The festival is staged in both Toronto and Ottawa. Founded in 1991, the festival is now the largest of its kind in Canada. Deadline dubbed it "Canada’s foremost LGBTQ film festival."
Aren X. Tulchinsky, formerly known as Karen X. Tulchinsky, is a Canadian novelist, short story writer, anthologist and screenwriter from Vancouver, British Columbia.
Outfest is an LGBTQ-oriented nonprofit that produces two film festivals, operates a movie streaming platform, and runs educational services for filmmakers in Los Angeles. Outfest is one of the key partners, alongside the Frameline Film Festival, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, and the Inside Out Film and Video Festival, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.
Diane Anderson-Minshall is an American journalist and author best known for writing about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender subjects. She is the first female CEO of Pride Media. She is also the editorial director of The Advocate and Chill magazines, the editor-in-chief of HIV Plus magazine, while still contributing editor to OutTraveler. Diane co-authored the 2014 memoir Queerly Beloved about her relationship with her husband Jacob Anderson-Minshall throughout his gender transition.
The Iris Prize, established in 2007 by Berwyn Rowlands of The Festivals Company, is an international LGBTQ film prize and festival which is open to any film which is by, for, about or of interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex audiences and which must have been completed within two years of the prize deadline.
The Queer Palm is an independently sponsored prize for selected LGBT-relevant films entered into the Cannes Film Festival. The award was founded in 2010 by journalist Franck Finance-Madureira. It is sponsored by Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau, filmmakers of Jeanne and the Perfect Guy, The Adventures of Felix, Crustacés et Coquillages, and L'Arbre et la forêt.
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Dyke TV was founded and created by Ana María Simo, playwright and cofounder of Lesbian Avengers; Linda Chapman, theater director and producer; and Mary Patierno, independent film and video maker.
Frances "Franco" Stevens is the founding publisher of Curve Magazine, a leading international lesbian lifestyle magazine, and the subject of the 2021 documentary film Ahead of the Curve.
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Ahead of the Curve is a 2020 American biographical documentary film co-produced and co-directed by Jen Rainin and Rivkah Beth Medow, with music composed by Meshell Ndegeocello. The film is based on the true story of Franco Stevens, one of the most influential women in lesbian history, and the founding publisher of Curve Magazine, a leading international lesbian lifestyle magazine. Portraying themselves in the film are, Franco Stevens, Kim Katrin, Denice Frohman, Amber Hikes, Andrea Pino-Silva, Melissa Etheridge and Jewelle Gomez. The documentary premiered in June 2020 at the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival.
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