• Rômulo Pires is featured in the May issue of Details photographed by Robbie Fimmano.
• Raquel Zimmermann plays screen siren for David Sims in the latest Vogue.
• Beyoncé has designed a capsule collection for C&A, and will be starring in the Valentine's Day campaign for the retailer in Brazil (where Valentine's Day happens to be celebrated on June 12). She taped the commercial in New York this week.
• Suzy Menkes on the revolution of digital prints.
• Felipe Tejeda in Santa Teresa by Jeremy Kost.
• The boys from Ipanema by Frank Waldecker.
• Out magazine ranks the 50 most influential gay men and women.
• Lady Gaga's Bad Romance is now the most watched clip of all time on YouTube.
• The Week's TOY party is celebrating its seventh anniversary tomorrow night at Moinho Eventos in São Paulo. Isaac Escalante will be spinning.
• The Week is also throwing a party at Palacio Alsina in Buenos Aires on May 14.

• Newcomer Alicia Kuczman walked Miu Miu in Paris yesterday.
• Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart will be landing in Rio in May to shoot Breaking Dawn.
• Fast Five a.k.a. Fast And Furious 5 is scouting locations and cars in Rio de Janeiro. Vin Diesel is rumored to land in the city later this month.
• Alessandra Ambrósio, Brooklyn Decker, and plus size model Crystal Renn posed for the June cover of Glamour magazine.
• According to a report recently published by Grupo Gay da Bahia, the oldest gay advocacy group in the country, Brazil is the country with the most homosexual victims of murders, followed by Mexico and the USA. In 2009, 198 gay murders were reported in the country, 25 of them in Bahia and 25 in Paraná, considered by the group to be the most homophobic states. Read the entire report here. Warning: very graphic violence.
• ABC News on Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill.
• The 100 most influential profiles on twitter in Brazil.
• Listen to and download Tracey Thorn's new single Oh, The Divorces!.
• Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal will be working together again on the thriller Triple Frontier, set in the border area between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil.
• A new exhibit on the work of Alair Gomes opens this Saturday in São Paulo. A Sentimental Journey will be on display at Galeria Bergamin in Jardins until April 10. Admission is free.

The episode aired this past Wednesday, and in case you are wondering the now out of the closet character is played by actor William Barbier. Cute, right?

As much as I would have liked to have seen Marcelo Dourado eliminated from Big Brother Brazil 10 last night, I also think that positive things can come from his behavior on the show and from the debate  on homophobia his possible elimination started.

Reading all the comments posted here over the past two days, I realized that this was the first time since Globo vetoed a gay kiss on a soap opera that we are actually discussing the perception of homosexuals on Brazilian television, and that is a good thing. At the time Globo refused to air a gay kiss, homosexual viewers were forced to acknowledge that the vast majority of television viewers in the country were offended by a romantic kiss between two men on a soap. It would be nice now if heterosexual viewers were able to respect and understand that some gay viewers may be offended in the  very same way by things Dourado has said on the show. Regardless if you consider Dourado's behavior homophobic or not, this would certainly be a good time to start questioning what is actually appropriate for television, and the social role television plays when it comes to advances in gay rights.

On another note, I wonder if Dourado's fans would be up for signing the online petition for the law that criminalizes homophobia, which still needs over 900,000 online signatures to become relevant. The passing of such law would certainly affect the lives of thousands of Brazilian citizens in a much broader scale than a television show.

Last night I thought: why should I waste my time on a contestant on a television show when I could spend the same amount of time and energy writing something positive that could perhaps have a bigger and more significant impact on gay rights? So instead of wasting time thinking about whether or not Dourado is spreading the right message on the show, focus on spreading the right message yourself. Don't write to Globo to have him kicked off the Big Brother house. Instead, write to Congress and ask why is it that the law criminalizing homophobia has not yet been approved, and why is it that gay marriage is still illegal. It is sad that we can get millions of people to vote on a television show in which they are not even up for any sort of prize, and yet we can't mobilize one million of them to give me and my boyfriend the right to legally marry each other if we ever want to.

If you voted for Dourado or Angelica in the past two days, my guess is you definitely have a free minute to sign the online petition to criminalize homophobia at Não Homofobia!.

• Raquel Zimmermann goes brunette in the March issue of Vogue, and finally makes a move to the Top Icons list on Models.com. Raquel's previous #1 slot on MDC's Top 50 is now occupied by Lara Stone.
• Rumor has it that Isabeli Fontana will open the Alexander McQueen show in Paris.
• Watch an extended unseen footage from the September Issue. The documentary is out on DVD today, including 90 minutes of extra footage.
• Thomaz de Oliveiral for John Richmond.
• Dress Me Up at the Contributing Editor.
• Miley Cyrus' ex Justin Gaston does Rio.
• A gratuitous picture of Federico Devito.
• Is Lady Gaga really playing São Paulo in June? We sure hope the rumors are true.
• Jesus Luz has signed with Record Entretenimento in Brazil to release his first album in April. The album will be called From The Light, and will be distributed by Warner Music.
• ABGLT, the Brazilian Association of Gays, Lesbians, and Transgenders, has issued a statement about Big Brother Brazil's contestant Marcelo Dourado and his homophobic remarks on the show. According to ABLGT, Dourado's behavior on national television does nothing but contribute to the prejudice and discrimination against homosexuals, and reinforces the fact that in Brazil there is no punishment for  the discrimination against gays, lesbians, and transgenders. Globo network has not yet addressed the issue, which makes me wonder: if a contestant in a show with an audience as massive as Big Brother were to get up from the dining table because he didn't want to hear about two black people kissing, what would the network do? And would it be okay for the same contestant to say that only black people get HIV? I don't think so. This should all serve as an incentive for the gay community in Brazil to get better organized and make sure the law that criminalizes homophobia is finally passed.

There are three openly gay contestants in the Big Brother Brazil house this season: a 20-year-old boy, a drag queen, and a lesbian. I did not necessarily expect any of them to be the favorites to win the R$ 1.5 million prize, but what I also did not expect is the fact that the only homophobe in the house is current favorite to win the big prize, perhaps a sign that the majority of viewers across the country are not ready for all the gay exposure on the show.

Over the course of the last 50 days, Marcelo Dourado, a castaway from season 3 of Big Brother Brazil who was brought back to the show this season, has made sure to let Brazilian viewers know that he is not only  homophobic, but also ignorant, and misogynistic. Earlier in the season he caught the media attention by saying that heterosexual men could not contract the HIV virus even by having sex with HIV positive women because AIDS only affected gay men. After that statement, which was obviously addressed by Globo network, Dourado refused to have conversations which involved any gay topics saying that it disgusted him. He also said he wanted to beat the lesbian contestant and send her to the hospital, but that he couldn't do it because if he were to  physically attack someone he would be automatically eliminated from the show.

Tomorrow Dourado is up for elimination against two homosexual contestants, and even though I know he is the current favorite I hope the gay community in Brazil will make a strong campaign to get him sent home. It is not that I want the gay contestants to stay, but I do want Dourado out of the show. Even if you are not Brazilian, I ask you to take the time and vote for him to be eliminated. It would be great to see the gay community get together in the next two days to prove that we stand against everything that Dourado has been saying on national television.

Click here to vote for Dourado to be eliminated from Big Brother Brazil. After the jump, a video with some of Dourado's homophobic moments on the show, and an update on the post.