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Sundance Channel Blog

Chris Willman

Nashville: Where God and gay collide

Article: Nashville: Where God and gay collide

Posted November 29th, 2011, 11:11 AM by

Perhaps you’re not expecting a show called GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS to be a hotbed of religious talk, let alone evangelical fervor. But the second season of the Sundance Channel original series is set in Nashville; and with its 700-some churches the city is said to have the highest number of per-capita places of worship of any major U.S. city. So, if you think that the church and gay communities don’t have much effect on one another in a place like this…well, you probably live on a coast.

Will Country Music come out of the closet?

Article: Will Country Music come out of the closet?

Posted November 17th, 2011, 10:11 AM by

A few years ago, Willie Nelson released an iTunes single called “Cowboys are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other.” As a novelty tune prompted by the popularity of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, it hardly represented a serious attempt to introduce gay subject matter into country music. But, in its own jocular way, it did break through a verboten barrier for the genre and cause some folks in Nashville to look around at each other and think: Just how many music-industry “cowboys” are we talking about here? And just how necessary is the secrecy?