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#always want films depicting trans women to cast women but
sebumis · 3 years
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You know? We were talking about adopting a kid... after he returned from Syria. We’d take them places... we even thought about names. Who’d have known... he’d come back in such a way...?
These people said... one of them said, “I’ve never seen the ashes of a homo” and ordered me to open the urn for him to take a look.
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irenedubrovna · 3 years
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A post regarding Euphoria for the benefit of myself and basically no one else
So, it really bothers me when people say Euphoria is groundbreaking, progressive media. Here’s a dissection of why I don’t think it is, because this is what I feel like doing at work:
The character of Rue is objectively great. She by far receives the least overt sexualization, and is treated neutrally in terms of active sexuality. She’s treated like a normal teenage girl with mental issues and an addiction to drugs. She falls in love with a girl who she pines for and places on a pedestal. The reason I think she is written this way is because she is a Sam Levinson proxy. She written with gender ambiguity and with little regard to the experiences she’d go through as a black gay female, probably because Sam Levinson has no insight to that aspect of life. Her performance is heightened of course by Zendaya, who breathes unique life to the Sam Levinson’s artistic extension, and without her performance this show would not get even half the acclaim it gets. Attribute that to Zendaya of course, because the director has done little to deserve this acclaim.
The rest of the females, sans Lexi, are pornified to a disgusting extent, not only due to the fact that they are supposed to be underage, but also because their existence as people is treated as being absolutely secondary to their sexual appeal. They are foremost presented in terms of their relation to sex. Cassie, Maddy, Jules, and Kat cannot be removed from their sexuality without disrupting the plot or their journeys in relation to the plot. Why are the females so intrinsically linked to uber fetishized versions of female sexuality, or uber fetishized versions of blossoming female sexual identity?
Maddy is presented not only scantily clad 90 percent of the time, but also dressed in a precariously unattainable sexual fashion. At any given time she is styled to look straight out of, simultaneously, a high fashion editorial, and a “barely legal” porno. She is airheaded and profane, and promiscuous, her mannerisms dictated by the adult films she’s “studied” in order to project an image of perfect hyper sexual femininity. She’s complacent in becoming a prototypical housewife because it will earn her a comfortable place as a trophy wife. She has no aspirations beyond that. So, let’s unpack all of that. Maddy’s role in the show is mostly passive. The most active thing she does in the plot is revenge fuck a man in the pool of a party. Nearly everything else she does in the show that is plot relevant is of someone else’s volition. Even less of what she in the show is related to anything other than a man. She is abused and then pressured into framing another man for said abuse. She has no agency as a character. The only notable difference to this rule is when she takes drugs at a carnival, knocks a pot of chili over, and calls her ex’s mom a cunt. Removed from her active sexual life and carefully cultivated aesthetic, she’s a trite stereotype of an unambitious girlfriend who gets treated poorly. I see people call Maddy iconic, but if she wasn’t gorgeous and well dressed, I doubt anyone would even think twice about her, let alone create fancams and Instagram pages dedicated to her. She exists as a plot device, and as pretty set dressing to build up the shows aesthetic. Her emotions are not well explored, her motivations are sexist, and she is often there to be demeaned, objectified, or to say a bad word. The most damning part of her involvement in this show is her episode where it is stated that she, as a fourteen year old girl, lost her virginity to an adult man, and it is stated she was in control of the situation. This is a dangerous thing to say about a character, to any audience, but especially a young one. To imply that a precocious young girl was in control during her first sexual encounter with a much much older man implies things that frankly border on rape apologist ideology. This show states this unflinchingly and with no further elaboration. If there’s one thing that tells you that Euphoria is a bad show, let it be that. Also, if there’s one thing that tells you about Sam Levinson as a person, and the way he views girls and women, let it fucking be that.
Jules is a young trans girl. She also likes to have sex with men as a means to “conquer femininity”. Scratch that, she likes to have degrading sex with older men in order to “conquer femininity”. This mindset is shown to be toxic, of course, but I think the problem with this idea in general is that there’s no deeper exploration for what this mindset means. It implies that she believes women are the sum of their intrigue and degradations. This mindset I can only assume would be a cultivation of dysphoria and internalized misogyny, which this series is absolutely not prepared to address in a tactful manner. Jules is a teenager with mental illness, trauma, and is undergoing an identity crisis. There’s something powerful in her character, something worth saying, however we only get trimmings of those meaningful things, and are ultimately left with a hurtful depiction of a trans girl because all of her musings on womanhood and identity are incomplete, and they fail to reach beyond the surface of their thesis statement. She wears colorful clothing, is overtly feminine and artistic in her presentation. Everything about her screams insecurity over her own womanhood. That is the crux of her character. Now, I think we should ask ourselves, is trans person who is insecure about their identity peak representation? Is this what trans people deserve? Is it “groundbreaking “? If this show was run by someone else, I might be inclined to say that there’s nothing insidious about this, but this is the guy that made Assassination Nation, so I think we know what he thinks of young women, the way they should be portrayed (that is, for the capitulation of a man) and realize his inclusion of a trans woman in his cast is no more meaningful than the inclusion of any other woman. Women to him are made to be categorized and should, at the end of the day, be easily palatable for the capitulation of a man. The device of having Jules being interested in older men and rough sex for identity reasons is transparent. Trans women are exploited and objectified with a similar fervor to cis women, the caveat being that they are “a forbidden fruit” of sorts to straight men. Jules is sissified, her presentation fetishistic. Her role in the plot is more involved. Her relationship with Rue is sweet, though toxic on both sides. She is ultimately betrayed, blackmailed, and snowballs into something of a manic episode, all well portrayed by Hunter Schafer, but I don’t think her inclusion in the show absolves it of any of its many sins.
Let’s talk about Cassie. Cassie is the Eurocentric beauty standard exemplified. She is the blonde haired blue eyed girl next store, and her boobs are of course always on display. She is notably promiscuous, something I say right off the bat because that’s how she’s introduced, as a so called slut through the words of the devil (Nate Jacobs). She is a girl with daddy issues, which we are all familiar with at this point. Her sexual boundaries begin and end at the whim of her partner. The terms of her consent are much like the terms of consent of many young girls brainwashed by society and the rising tide of degradation porn: everything is alright as long as you provide them comfort and affirmation afterward. You can touch them roughly without asking, you can use them as a tool to affirm your masculinity. This is the way men prefer their women now: just broken enough to say yes to anything they want. It’s become a joke at this point. Men like girls with issues, but only the ones that will feed their own desires. Cassie Howard is meek. Her inclusion in the plot I suppose ties to themes of drug addiction and how it divides and destroys the people you love. It doesn’t show what it does to her beyond shaping her sexual encounters, which is no surprise. Overall I’d say Cassie is in this roster of females as the most traditional categorically, in relation to how men view women and further how they sexualize them. She has a relationship with someone who doesn’t really love her. That mostly what she does here. Gets used. Doesn’t drive the plot or conflict much. More pretty set dressing. More aesthetics. How this show consists of so many women but is driven so much by men is unsurprising, and, again, very enlightening in the grand scheme of things.
Lastly we touch on Kat. I’d like to begin with the fact that self actualization through sexual exploration, in a show run by a man, is just a cloak for a woman to gratify the audience with her sexuality. Regardless of whether or not she is plus sized, this is overt objectification. She is on this show to be sexy. Beyond that, the fact that a minor using sex work as a form of liberation is disgusting. Whether or not she is portrayed as “owning” her sexuality is negligible, and speaks to the same mindset discussed with Maddy. Minors cannot fucking consent to sex, sexual acts, or anything within the confines of such. It’s crazy that this occurs with two different characters in such a similar way. It has echoes of “Well, she looked older..” and “Well, she wanted it..” or “She’s advanced for her age”. Never, not once in the events of the series is there meaningful introspection on what doing this kind of thing does to a minor. Moreover, these acts are explicit, and made clearly for sexual gratification. None of these things are absolved by the fact that she’s plus sized. If anything, her body type is fetishized in this context. It’s also another case of a “good girl to bad girl” transformation, which are archaic and, of course, sexist. With the rise of adult websites targeting minors for explicit content, this is even more reprehensible. Once again, in terms of representation, is this really what speaks to you as progressive? Groundbreaking? A girl gains control of her own narrative by having sex with lots of men. She gains control by being sexy. She gains control by dehumanizing and objectifying herself. No she doesn’t. Media controlled by men will tell this story to you thousands of times, don’t listen because she’s bigger than a size four.
ALL OF THESE CHARACTERS ARE UNDERAGE. ALL OF THEM HAVE EXPLICIT SEX SCENES, EVEN THE SEXUAL ASSAULT IS MADE CINEMATICALLY PORNIFIED. THESE SHOTS ARE MADE TO BE OBJECTIVELY SEXY. THIS IS NOT A CASE OF SOMEONE CREATING SOMETHING FOR THE SAKE OF REALISM. IT IS ABOUT MAKING SCENES THAT SPEAK TO A MALE AUDIENCE. THAT CATER TO THE MALE GAZE. ARGUE WITH THE WALL.
I won’t go further into the plot, other characters, or the structure or the episodes for sake of brevity, but I felt compelled to air my thoughts on this to the void. I can only hope I was critical enough that Sam Levinson will one day see this and cry because another bad feminist thinks something that he made sucks
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Do you have any headcanon on the cast’s sexuality ? ( I really like the demisexual Yusuf one )
I've been meaning to get around to this, so thanks for asking! Its important to keep in mind that Nile (and maybe Booker) is the only member who doesn't predate modern identity terms. Consider that the obligatory most-historians-frown-at-anachronistic-labeling plug, though my response is (as I point out here a little bit) that this just seems to serve to make queer history more difficult and it can be done respectfully.
TL;DR: Lykon as aro-spec bi/pan-romantic, Andy as chaotic bi/pan-sexual, Quynh as bi/pan with a slight femme-aligned preference, Yusuf as demi-sexual bi/pan-romantic, Nicolo as homosexual/gay, Booker as the token heterosexual, and Nile as queer. Scroll to the bottom for a free (trans)gender headcannon that no one asked for but that I’m handing out for free.
I personally headcannon that the oldest members are both too old for rigid social sexual norms and too old to give a damn otherwise. We know canonically in both the film and the comics that Andy is openly attracted to and having sex with multiple genders, so you can pry bi/pan Andy from my cold, dead hands. I put Lykon and Quynh in the same never-monosexual category as well. I have the totally unsupported concept of an aro-spec (bi/pan-sexual) Lykon mostly because I don't want his life traveling with two love-sick warrior women to be made worse by his #forever alone status he seems to get. It’s a choice and he’s not into romance. I also cannon Quynh to have a slight femme-aligned preference to Andy's true-chaotic-neutral bisexual energy. Yes, it's for angst purposes as most things in my life are. And it fits in with the Special Bonus Gender Headcannon at the bottom of this post. Oh, and I think that they all have poly-amorous inclinations because monogamy is overrated. Guilt and shame around sex and relationships are just not in their vocabularies.
Our Immortal Husbands are from a time where homophobic attitudes are starting to become a thing, so I don’t hand them the bi/pan-by-default card that I do for the older members’ attractions. I too like the idea of a demisexual bi/pan-romantic Yusuf, though I am totally open to him being homo-romantic as well. My issue is that I find it unlikely that a merchant in his 30s would not have already married a woman, especially if he is the first-born son or his family is particularly wealthy. There are definitely story lines where that doesn’t happen, though they require a bit more careful planning and Yusuf having nerves of steel. I’m all for the angst of a political marriage, but I worry about how the spouse might get depicted if people go for a totally homo-romantic Yusuf and she deserves more than his contempt. I assume that Yusuf values honor/righteousness (he ends up fighting in the siege of Jerusalem despite being from the Maghreb), so he would not be the kind of man to cheat on his wife even if he was not hetero-romantically inclined. They would build a relationship of mutual respect for certain.
I know I just said that homophobia is starting to become a thing, but the medieval church and knighthood was hella gay. I have absolutely zero qualms about cannoning Nicolo “that feral gay priest” di Genova as 100% certified homosexual. It’s up to any fanfic writers whether they make him internalize homophobia, but I will just point out again that monks having gay sex was a problem that the Catholic Church purposefully overlooked back then. Mix and match your angst to your own delight. Maybe he’s a tortured soul who joins the priesthood once he figures out that he could never marry/love a woman and then realizes that he’s not alone. Maybe he’s a quiet pining mess in the priesthood. Whatever route you take, please make him gay.
This brings us to Booker who grew up with good old-fashioned religion-induced homophobia. We know canonically that he married a woman and had multiple children, so I’m down for Booker as the token heterosexual of the group. I also like that it gives him the chance to reach full himbo potential and not realize he’s surrounded by three queer icons. Just imagine him thinking for decades that Andy is sad because she lost her “gal pal” Quynh and then at some point as he’s amassed details he starts realizing that they were Our Immortal Wives... It makes the Western erasure of female homosexual behavior into comedic gold.
And finally, the new kid on the immortal block. I like to think that Nile would strongly identify with the label queer and be uninterested in more specifically labeling her sexuality. Am I projecting? Maybe so, but it has value as a shared bonding experience with Andy. Also, a queer Nile brings history full circle, so to speak, from a time where sexuality labeling was unimportant to a time when people are starting to realize that it’s not always important to them. The heart-warming poetics of it all!
The Super Special Gender Headcannon That Lives in My Head Rent-Free: Transgender Andy
In a previous post, I discussed the existence of a third-gender/transgender shaman role in Scythian cultures called Enaree or Enarei ( ἐναρής ) which allowed individuals assigned male at birth (AMAB) to undergo possibly the earliest hormone replacement therapy (HRT) process. We know that the name “Andromache the Scythian” is weird for Andy because her supposed ~6,000 year old age predates the Scythian culture for a while. Consider, however, that an AMAB Andy chose to take the name of the Scythian culture because they helped her medically transition! Obviously she can find acceptance and support long before then (and I’d be mad if anyone tortured her for literally three thousand years without love and support), but I think that it would be a way for Andy to honor a people who helped her achieve something that she didn’t think was possible while simultaneously cleaning up a glaring cannon issue. It also makes the whole femme-preference bi/pan-sexual Quynh that much sweeter because Quynh would 200% see Andy as a woman regardless of whether she has access to medical transition.
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aplusblogging · 3 years
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An Analysis on the History of Gender in the Horror Genre
This is one of my classmates’ final projects for Sociology. I loved it so much I asked for her permission to share it here. Hope you enjoy it too!
Transcript under the cut, since the auto-generated captions are mostly accurate but punctuation is good for comprehension.
TRANSCRIPT:
“My name is Davis Barelli, and in this video essay I'm going to look at the portrayal of gender through the lens of the horror genre.
Women in particular may have a reason to keep coming back to the genre, outside of a cheap thrill. In a study done by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and Google, using the Geena Davis Inclusion Quotient—or the GDIQ—it was determined that women are featured on screen and in speaking roles more than men only in the horror genre. With the advent of the MPAA rating system in the '30s, the kind of horror we know today didn't re-emerge until the '60s.
Making female characters who would later become known as "Final Girls" the vessel for traumatic experiences allowed viewers—especially men and boys coming home from war—to see someone reacting to trauma in the way that they wanted to, but wasn't socially acceptable. Instead, the model for men to see themselves in was the macho, womanizing jock who goes outside to find the big bad, typically resulting in him being the first to die. While there was a lot of good in the survivors of these horror movies very commonly being female, a specific archetype of the female survivor made it clear what kind of girl it took to be the hero.
The Final Girl being portrayed in '60s, '70s, and '80s slasher horror as an innocent virgin stereotype was no accident, what with America experiencing the breakdown of the nuclear family and Christian morals thanks to the free-love movement of the '60s. This led to frequent themes of occultism, homosexuality, and hypersexuality in horror at the time. Characters who gave in to these evils were given a death sentence, as opposed to the Final Girls, who were rewarded for their abstinence with survival.
When films did stray from the norm by casting male leads in sequels in place of the Final Girl, a double standard emerged. Male protagonists were branded as "homosexual" for acting like the Final Girls before them, and the actors who portrayed them had their careers effectively ruined. Where the '70s gave rise to exploitation horror centered on violence against women, '80s niche horror had different scapegoats.
Cannibal Holocaust, released at the beginning of the decade and directed by Ruggero Deodato, tells the story of a group going to the Amazon in search of a missing film crew. They discover footage detailing the gruesome things the crew did to the tribe they encountered before they were killed. Not only is the portrayal of hostile tribes in the Amazon harmful to the actual tribes in the Amazon, but framing the main character of the film as a kind of white savior for not wanting the footage of the tribe distributed is basically rewarding him for the absolute bare minimum.
The other standout film of the '80s notorious for its subject matter is that of Sleepaway Camp. Sleepaway Camp tells the story of a young girl who experiences the death of her family during a boating accident and is sent to live with her aunt and cousin. She and her cousin go to the summer camp and it quickly becomes a bloodbath. The reveal at the end is that the young girl was the culprit, because she wasn't a girl at all, but her twin brother who was forced by the aunt to live as a girl. The narrative of trans people as dangerous, deranged villains pretending to be a different gender due to mental illness or against their will is deeply harmful to the LGBTQ people who were battling misconceptions at the time similar to this, and still are.
This energy evolved with the '90s, which shifted its focus to supernatural teenage hormones, with the likes of The Craft and many others. Looking at the villains of these movies, though, is a clear pointer to the ostracization of the "weird kid" in the '90s. This is most prominently seen in The Craft, where a girl with supernatural powers befriends a group of girls pretending to be witches. She bestows them with real powers and hijinks ensue. The film culminates in the ringleader—who, out of the group, is the least conventionally attractive—being put in an insane asylum for her misdeeds, while the rest of the group gets off relatively scot-free. This served as an unfortunate continuation of the narrative that girls who were weird were to be punished, but if you were pretty, you could get away with it.
With the 2000s filled with American-made J-horror and classic horror remakes, I'd like to skip forward, save for one movie.
In the 2000s a movie came out that caused a huge ruckus over how bad it was, but I think deserves a spot here for its portrayal of teenage girls in horror. Jennifer's Body, directed by* Diablo Cody, starring Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried, tells the story of Jennifer getting possessed after a botched human sacrifice because she lies about being a virgin. It was almost universally panned by critics, who called it a "sexploitation film lacking the all-important ballast of sincerity." Both Cody and Fox—who were gaining fame for Juno and the Transformers franchise, respectively—were already written off by critics, most of whom were men, before the movie had even been released. In reality, Jennifer's character was unique for being the mean girl who gets killed off, the big bad, and a revenge film-esque survivor, all in one. And her best friend, "Needy," was the sarcastic, dorky, sexually active Final Girl we never would have seen in classic horror.
The last decade has given rise to a genre dubbed "intelligent horror," ushering in an age with less mindless bloodlust and more nuanced characters and themes. Directors Jordan Peele and Ari Aster are arguably at the forefront of the intelligent horror genre; Peele's Get Out and Us giving people of color representation in a severely whitewashed genre. Get Out, especially, has received praise not just for the representation of people of color, but the very real, very prevalent issues of race and police brutality. One of the most important aspects is the depiction of the white savior character in the form of the protagonist's girlfriend, who is revealed to actually be a villain, showcasing the dramatization of the danger of performative activism and how that affects people of color.
Ari Aster, on the other hand, deals with themes of mental illness and family trauma, something unfortunately somewhat universal. While mommy issues and cults are nothing new in horror, Ari Aster's work frames both subjects very differently, especially in regards to the women in his films. Midsommar heavily focuses on Dani, the protagonist's, mental health and manipulation by others throughout the film, as she navigates grief unapologetically and realistically. This portrayal of grief in Midsommar from a woman's point of view is so important, because Dani is clingy, she's anxious, she's emotional, and she's human. As opposed to the polished, over-dramatic depiction of women and their emotions that are so commonly seen in horror.
Over the decades, horror and its portrayals of the human experience have shifted to continue being a compelling mirror for the issues of the time. But something that will always be current is that we can be scared.”
End of transcript.
*Jennifer’s Body was written by Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama
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thoughts on things i genuinely appreciate about the 1978 film “sgt pepper’s lonely hearts club band” as a piece of media from the time period
1) so it’s um, actually way more diverse than i expected it to be going in. there are POC cast as dancers and guest stars, the lead girl group is all women of color, and while it is FAR FROM PERFECT, since almost all of the main roles are white performers, it’s a lot better than many contemporary projects. 
2) dr. maxwell edison does not sexually harass any of the nurses working for him during his scene.  he does not touch them sexually or physically harm them in any way. i was braced for him to be a pervert for laughs the entire time, but his scene does not include sexual violence. i was expecting it because most other movies WOULD have him abuse his staff.
3) not fatphobic for humor or really any reason. in a film where hollywood excess is deliberately positioned as a negative thing, fat people are not used as a symbol of greed or depravity. i can watch this movie without feeling bad about my own body. billy’s mother is a fat woman. there are people of lots of body shapes who live in heartland. size and appearance are not used as cudgels against the villains.
4) while the lyrics to “polythene pam” and “get back” are very dated, the film itself does not rely on any sort of homophobia or transphobia for laughs. trans and gay people are not the butt of any jokes, are not used as predators, are not depicted as stereotypes, etc. when looking to show “loose morals” and “depravity” the film shows punks and pinball. 
6) the real protagonist is the female lead. while strawberry is turned into a damsel in distress at one point in the film, she is the only character with brains, never loses her agency, and even manages to save her partner’s life while she herself is being held captive. she is briefly fridged, but only after being the true hero of the film, and only one with self-motivation to help her community.
7) nobody is phoning in their performance. this movie is populated almost exclusively by british singers with no acting experience, and everybody tries their best. the established actors are doing their best, the entire production is full of people who are trying. the 2011 muppet movie was full of people who looked like they didn’t want to be there, or were only there ironically. everyone here is here for real. they may have hated the movie when it was done, and not done the best possible job making the film, but nobody half-assed it.
8) the costuming, art direction, and set design is all spectacular. every scene of this film looks like candy. the over-sized props help create a cartoonlike atmosphere. the colors and lighting and cinematography in every scene are dreamlike. the villains all  have interesting aesthetics. every object in every room is deliberately there to show exactly who is inhabiting that space. father sun’s lunch, strawberry’s stuffed animals, mr. mustard’s mustard, the brute’s photos of mohammed ali--every piece of set decoration is intentional and feels good. the costuming creates specific looks for all of the characters that fit their settings. the film looks beautiful and interesting in every shot. 
9) the soundtrack is full of really wonderful performances. the songs are what they are. the beatles wrote what they wrote. but again, nobody is half-assing it. barry’s falsetto is only used once and is effective. robin’s leads all sound wonderful. mo gets the perfect mo lead for the film. every track sounds the best it can for what it is. the original beatles producer oversaw production of the entire soundtrack and did a great job, but didn’t just make carbon copies of the existing songs. the fresh faces, lucy and strawberry, have wonderful voices and really sell their songs, even when they are working with garbage lyrics. 
10) it brings me immense comfort. i love this film and i love spending two hours with the bee gees in a land where death isn’t the end, music saves the world, and home is the most wonderful place of all. heartland is my hogwarts, my narnia, my middle earth. it’s where time stands still and a group of brothers and their friends just sort of...have a good time, even when things aren’t going their way. they are forever 1978, forever young, with so much accomplished and so much yet ahead of them. a permanent window to the best years, where i can always go when things are hard. they might have thought the movie was awful, and it definitely is awful, if you’re expecting world class cinema, but it’s also full of joy and laughs and good vibes. 
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2019 – Year in Review
In addition to this set.
Sandra Oh made history 3 times at the Golden Globes
Lucy Liu Pays Tribute to Anna May Wong During Touching Walk of Fame Ceremony
‘Always Be My Maybe’ Review: Netflix Whips up a Rom-Com Classic
The Box Office Success Of 'The Farewell' Shows What People Want From Movies
‘Warrior’ Review: A Bruce Lee Vision Brought to Vivid Life
The Terror: Infamy Is a Step Forward for Depictions of Japanese-American Internment
Ming-Na Wen Will Officially Be Named a ‘Disney Legend,’ Disney’s Highest Honor
Oscars 2019: Pixar's 'Bao' wins Oscar for best animated short film
Introducing Chella Man: The Deaf Trans Jewish Actor Cast In DC’s ‘Titans’
Marvel Finds Its Shang-Chi in Chinese-Canadian Actor Simu Liu
Other movies and TV shows of 2019 that had an E/SE Asian lead / an-all E/SE Asian cast:
The Sun Is Also a Star
Hustlers
Turkey Drop
Last Christmas
Plus One
Secret Obsession
Ms. Purple
Empty by Design
In a New York Minute
Stray
Made in China
Wu Asassins
Pen15
Why Women Kill
TV shows that ended in 2019:
The Family Law
Elementary
Into the Badland
Andi Mack
Fresh off the Boat (cancelled, not yet aired it’s last episode)
Rest In Peace:
 Godfrey Gao
WHAT TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2020:
Kim’s Convenience s4 that premiers Jan 7 on CBC
Fresh off the Boat’s season finale airs Feb 21 on ABC
Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens premiers Jan 22 on Comedy Central
To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You premiers Feb 12 on Netflix
Warrior season 2 premiers on Cinemax in 2020
Minari, starring Steven Yeun premiers on the Sundance Film Festival.
Two movies starring Harry Shum Jr. -  Broadcast Signal Intrusion and All My Life
Tigertail, a Netflix movie starring John Cho
Monsoon, starring Henry Golding.
Prediction for 2020:
There’s a chance that Minari may enter the Oscar race for 2021.
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fylauraharrier · 6 years
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What’s most striking about Laura Harrier when she stands to shake my hand in Soho House, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, is her delicacy. She’s slender as a tulip, in high-waisted baggy jeans and a black silk camisole. Her make-up and jewellery are barely-there — gossamer golden threads around her neck and fingers. What makes her gentle vibe all the more remarkable is that, just the night before, I was sitting in a dark screening room spellbound by her fierce, gripping performance in BlacKkKlansman. Directed by Spike Lee and co-starring Adam Driver and John David Washington (Denzel’s son), it’s based on the true story of two cops infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. Harrier, 28, plays Patrice, a student leader in the Black Power movement and a force for political awakening for the other characters. Patrice’s look is anything but demure, with her halo-like afro and leather jackets. In particular, Harrier says of the afro wig she wears throughout, it made her hold herself differently: “I felt royal.” She pauses a beat and laughs: “It hit doorways. Sometimes it got skewed.”
She was on holiday in Greece with friends last year, lying on a beach on a “random Tuesday”, glass of rosé in hand, when an unfamiliar number popped up on her phone. She answered. “‘Laura, this is Spike Lee. Vacation’s over. See you in New York on Thursday,’” she says, doing a not completely terrible impersonation of the director. She scrambled off the island and met Lee for an unorthodox audition that included sitting in on his film-making class at New York University, participating in the class discussion, and making a nearly hour-long video. “At one point I got really mad at him and I walked out of the room and slammed the door. I came back expecting him to be, like, ‘And, scene.’ But no. He was still going. I was, like, ‘We’re still acting. OK, cool. When will this end?’ ” She was offered the role the next day and, without reading a script or even knowing much about her character, Harrier jumped at the opportunity, thinking, “I’ll do whatever, it’s Spike!”
The film won the Grand Prix award at Cannes in May, and Harrier and her castmates were given a six-minute standing ovation after the screening. As if a meaty role in the latest Spike Lee film wasn’t a cool enough credential, Harrier has also scooped up contracts with Bulgari and Louis Vuitton, for which she is a brand ambassador. She met Vuitton’s creative director, Nicolas Ghesquière, after a catwalk show a year and a half ago and they “hit it off and clicked”. He featured her in his SS18 campaign, wearing a futuristic take on an 18th-century-style brocade jacket. For Cannes, Ghesquière made her a peach dream of a gown. “It was so beautiful,” she swoons. “I cried when I tried it on for the first time, like it was my wedding dress.”
Harrier spent her formative years in what is perhaps America’s quintessential picket-fence suburb: Evanston, Illinois, the area where John Hughes set Sixteen Candles and his other romcoms about middle-class (and mostly white) teenage angst. Harrier’s father works in insurance and her mother is a speech therapist. Her mother is white — a fact that she says people often find “weird” now, but was a non-issue growing up. “My parents never talked about it,” she says, as she tucks into a veggie burger and fries. “There were no big heart-to-hearts.”
To prepare for her role in BlacKkKlansman, Harrier met Kathleen Cleaver, one of the most famous female leaders of the Black Panther Party, and spent time talking to her own father, whose ancestors were slaves, about the racism he faced growing up on Chicago’s South Side and then going to a boarding school in Michigan where he was the only black student. The movement, he told her, taught him to celebrate and embrace his blackness — a message Harrier finds as relevant to her now as it was to her father back then.
“I’m not surprised that racism still exists in our country,” she sighs. “I think people were comfortable during the Obama years and these things were kind of suppressed, and now everyone who has hateful views has the encouragement to make them known. But also it’s [about] trying to be hopeful and not feel like we’re all in despair.”
Harrier is vocal about activism on her Instagram feed, regularly posting in support of trans rights, anti-gun rallies and gender equality. We are meeting during Donald Trump’s visit to London. “The blimp was hilarious,” she says of the inflatable balloon depicting the president in a nappy.
There is, also, the glamorous stream of fancy coiffures and modelling shots across her social media that she admits is part of her job. “My Instagram isn’t me, it’s a very curated version of things,” she says. “I don’t post myself with zits and cramps and rolling out of bed.” She applauds friends who are more open, but is wary herself. “I think people use it to stalk people,” she says. And she’s tired of the sexual harassment that all women face “across the board” online: “It makes me mad. It’s so gross. I’m, like, ‘I don’t want to see your dick pic.’ ” Though the It girls she poses with — Zendaya, Bella Hadid, Sophie Turner — are her real friends, social media can never convey her real life, she says, which mostly involves being “really f****** busy, honestly”.
She recently moved from New York to Los Angeles, “for work and to escape the winter and some life stuff”, but says she has barely been home. Life stuff? “Just personal bullshit,” she says, waving her hand. A boy? “Yeah,” she admits, with a rueful laugh. “I don’t want to talk about that. Sorry.”
Harrier had been living in Manhattan since leaving home to study art history at NYU. She dropped out to model and eventually enrolled in a two-year acting programme. Success came swiftly: before she had even graduated, she was cast by the 12 Years a Slave director, Steve McQueen, in a pilot for HBO (sadly, the show was never picked up). The career-making role of Peter Parker’s high-school sweetheart in Spider-man Homecoming quickly followed.
The fantasy aspect of fashion has always interested Harrier, even before she began, as she puts it, professionally “playing make-believe”. In fact, she was voted best dressed in high school — although she’s not willing to vouch for her teenage sense of style. “I remember wearing a lot of boots — like, high boots,” she says, pointing to a spot above her knee, “which is such a weird, awful trend.” Her style icons at the time were the women of 1990s black sitcoms: Hilary in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Denise, played by Lisa Bonet, on The Cosby Show. “Those were the people on TV that looked like me, so it was what I identified with. Also they were beautiful and looked really cool,” she says.
Back to BlacKkKlansman. She has no fear about what the reaction to the film might be among white supremacists and fans of Trump, for whom the movie has a pointed message in its coda. “I hope [there’s blowback],” she says, “because that means they saw it and are paying attention. It starts a dialogue. Spike is really taking on Trump.”
However, BlacKkKlansman isn’t just an American story, she says. She’s spent the past few years travelling around Europe and Asia and sees the issues of racism and xenophobia as universal. “How do people treat Muslims? How do people treat immigrants? It’s not just about black and white. We’re seeing the rise of right-wing movements around the world,” she says. “So I think and I hope that people all over the world will see it and identify with it. This is everywhere.”
BlacKkKlansman is out on August 24
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mander3-swish · 5 years
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The Importance of Losing ‘Virginity’
“[R]eplacing the phrase ‘losing virginity’ with ‘making the sexual debut,’ a shift of power occurs that does not look at something being lost, but a natural occurrence taking place. ‘Virginity’ shouldn’t affect a person’s perceived value, and intercourse shouldn’t be seen as some transformative experience that is more powerful than all other forms of sex. “I like to think that in reframing and taking the power away from that concept,” Green states, “we actually give power back to people.””
-Kayla Heisler — July 5, 2016
Posting this in relation to comments, tags, and posts across multiple fandoms I follow in regards to ‘losing their virginity’ is something I’m getting annoyed at. 
Below the cut is a full article speaking about the history of the term, basically that “‘virginity’ as a harmful myth created to oppress women.” 
From https://everydayfeminism.com/2013/08/losing-virginity-for-good/:
1. Virginity Is Sexist
2. Virginity Contributes to Slut-Shaming
3. Virginity Frames a Woman’s Worth as Inversely Proportional to How Much Sex She’s Had
4. Virginity Is Heteronormative
5. Virginity Erases Queer and Trans Folk
The fact that this even matters to so many people obviously says something about how much we as a culture value virginity (way, way too much) and how we view virgins and non-virgins differently.
Because of how non-inclusive and sexist virginity is, using it is extremely problematic, as it contributes to these social problems.
By applying the concepts and values of virginity to your own and other’s sex lives, you are reinforcing patriarchal norms about sexuality and women’s worth.
The patriarchy wants you to commodify sexuality and hold sexist attitudes about it because that is how they can keep the status quo in tact.
By forcing sexuality to exist in this small, heteronormative, cissexist, heterosexist box, they can effectively erase the experiences of all people that don’t fit inside of that.  August 23, 2013 by Erin McKelle  - “5 Reasons Why We Need to Ditch The Concept of Virginity For Good”
I first questioned the concept of virginity’s validity when I was eighteen. I had just watched a Laci Green video entitled ‘Let’s Lose Virginity,’ and it depicted ‘virginity’ as a harmful myth created to oppress women. Reading Simone De Beauvoir’s ‘The Second Sex,’ a text that demonstrates why the myth of virginity was established and is still believed, reminded me of this video.
The concept of virginity was introduced during the Neolithic Era, when proving paternity by refraining from intercourse gave women access to shelter, food, and goods. Birth control didn’t exist, and remaining celibate proved to a man that a woman was responsible. Non-virgins were typically seen as unmarriageable and often forced into prostitution. The construction of virginity is tied to the commodification of the female body and is still used as a weapon of shame and control. De Beauvoir states, “Man’s hesitation between fear and desire, between the terror of being possessed by uncontrollable forces and the will to overcome them, is grippingly reflected in the virginity myths. Dreaded or desired or even demanded by the male, virginity is the highest form of feminine mystery.”
The contradiction between women being looked down upon for being virgins and for not being virgins at different points in history in different places represents the struggle women face to both be chaste and not. De Beauvoir points out that thirteenth century Tibetans did not want to take a virgin woman for a wife because it indicated lack of desirability, while to this day certain French villages display a bloody sheet after a wedding night to prove that the bride was a virgin.
The sheet ceremony represents man attempting to dominate woman by using the construct of virginity as a weapon. De Beauvoir states, “What determines women’s present situation is the stubborn survival of the most ancient traditions… In the patriarchal regime, man became woman’s master; and the same characteristics that are frightening in animals or untamed elements become precious qualities for the owner who knows how to subdue them… Therefore, he wants to annex woman to him with all her riches intact.”
The notion that the woman is viewed in the same light as the animal is an appalling one, but the metaphor is unfortunately accurate. Just as men are praised for teaching a ferocious lion to perform circus tricks or commanding a pet dog to sit down on cue, so too are they congratulated for ‘mastering’ the body of the woman. Like the lions and dogs, the woman is rewarded for her obedience; she abstained from sex until her wedding night and is praised as being ‘good’ and ‘virtuous.’
One might question why women continue to buy into a concept that was created only to control them. De Beauvoir provides a solid explanation: “Men’s economic privilege, their social value, the prestige of marriage, the usefulness of masculine support–all these encourage women to ardently want to please men… She thus has to be described first as men dream of her since being-for-men is one of the essential factors of her concrete condition.”
As Green points out, women are still being killed around the world because of the value people place on the idea of virginity. Because a woman abstaining from sex until marriage is equated with purity, some families are considered dishonored unless they kill their ‘soiled’ daughter after she has premarital sex or is raped. De Beauvoir explores man’s obsession with controlling everything: “He finds the mysterious alchemies of life repugnant, while his own life is nourished and enchanted by the tasty fruits of the earth; he desires to appropriate them for himself; he covets Venus freshly emerging from the waters.” Here, De Beauvoir focuses both on man’s longing to dominate naturally occurring phenomena and on his fear of what is uncontrollable. Man sees the non-virginal woman as a wonder who has experience that does not rely on him—she does not need him for pleasure—she can find it elsewhere. This ties back to the fear men feel about a woman’s autonomy, so rather than acknowledging the sexually active woman as a person who can take charge of finding her own pleasure, she is cast off as something defiled, marking her broken instead of strong.
It is not enough for man to just love or to even make love to woman; he is driven to feel that he must have dominion over her body. The female is converted from human to object–easily quantified and stolen. This gives rise to man’s fascination with reducing woman to mere body parts and numbers. She is a set of breasts. She is a pair of legs. She is a seven or a nine or just a four, but a four with a really nice ass. Can they boast that they’ve slept with a dozen or two dozen or one hundred women–the quality of the women nothing, the quantity everything? How many ‘virginities’ can they crow about having ‘taken’? When men had control over all land, businesses, and property, women were seen as mere objects to be controlled. The idea that a construct that has been inherently oppressive is still in use demonstrates how much progress is left to be made in terms of gender equality. The subject of equality itself brings to light another issue: virginity is a construct built on a heteronormative model that excludes the queer community.
Still, what about the men (we must always ask this question)–the man ‘virgins’? Men and boys who haven’t had sex are derided for their abstinence and are made a mockery of in films such as ‘The Forty-Year-Old Virgin’ and ‘American Pie.’ Though the patriarchy harms them too, compelling them to mutate into the abominable bros crooning about their ‘number of conquests’–even if imagined–women are still made to suffer further in the presence of the label of virginity, as De Beauvoir asserts, “Undoubtable, there are stylized images of man as he is in his relations with woman…but men are the ones who have established them, and they have not attained the dignity of myth… while woman is exclusively defined in her relation to man.”
The man’s fear of being cast-out for not having sex causes women to suffer by being even more readily degraded. Because men feel their masculinity is validated by treating women like commodities, women are placed at an increased risk for being used and/or abused. Men feel they are placed in a situation where it’s ‘me or them:’ I can either treat this woman like an object, or I can be the object of humiliation of all of my friends.
“Perhaps the myth of woman will be phased out one day,” De Beauvoir writes, “the more women assert themselves as human beings, the more the marvelous quality of Other dies in them.” Green makes a point for the power of language. She posits that by replacing the phrase ‘losing virginity’ with ‘making the sexual debut,’ a shift of power occurs that does not look at something being lost, but a natural occurrence taking place. ‘Virginity’ shouldn’t affect a person’s perceived value, and intercourse shouldn’t be seen as some transformative experience that is more powerful than all other forms of sex. “I like to think that in reframing and taking the power away from that concept,” Green states, “we actually give power back to people.”
By allowing room for a shift in speech, we create room for a shift in thought. We have the power to challenge the way future generations think and feel about sex and their self-image. Women have been chastised for too long over an irrelevant status, and the only way for things to change is to examine why these ideas have continued to persist for so long.
-originally post on public www.seminar.org
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problemsofabooknerd · 6 years
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My Favorite Movies/Shows/Webseries with LGBTQIA+ Main Characters
Pride Day 13!
Check out the intro to my Pride project here.
I thought today we would take a break from books - and from personal stories - to talk a bit more about other queer media I enjoy. Sometimes I’m not in the mood to read, but I still want to get the chance to see stories about wonderful LGBTQIA+ humans. So, here we go, a personal recommendations list of movies/tv shows/webseries that I adore that feature LGBTQIA+ main characters. 
Movies
♡ Love, Simon
I mean, this is an obvious one. I adore the book, Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, but I have a little more love for the movie itself. I’m also currently on a high because I just rewatched it on my plane and I will never NOT be emotional. In case you don’t know, Love, Simon is a rom com about a high schooler named Simon who ends up being pen pals with another closeted gay kid at his school. It’s overwhelming, and Jennifer Garner never fails to bring me to sobs. 
♡ The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love
It’s super sad to me that this movie doesn’t get passed around as often on recommendations lists, but I think that is possibly due to the fact that it can be a little harder to find. However! If you are desperately searching for a f/f movie comparable to Love, Simon, this is about as close as I can get you. It’s full of antics (sometimes SUPER over the top), romance (between a super butch white girl and a super femme black girl), and a whole heap of other fabulousness. 
♡ Life Partners
A recently discovered one for me that I think deserves a bit more hype! This is a comedy about two best friends - one lesbian, one straight - as they fall in and out of love, struggle to figure out their careers, and generally navigate adulthood as BFFs. This is one of those movies where I’m honestly super pissed we don’t have more like it - it’s a movie about complex relationships between women that also features a shit ton of lesbian culture. Pride events! Gay bars! How many lesbians can you fit inside a Subaru! It’s all fabulous. 
♡ But I’m a Cheerleader
A true classic. I remember my girlfriend showing me this back when I still insisted I was straight, but lord oh lord did it make an impact. It’s always hard to recommend queer stories set in conversion camps (take one of my favorite books, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, for example), but I think this is one of the few that still manages to be engaging and really fun. Plus, Natasha Lyonne and Clea DuVall are honestly staples of queer media for me.
♡ Battle of the Sexes
‘Sup, super gay Emma Stone -  you truly make my dreams come true. To be honest, the fact that this is a based-on-a-true-story, gay, sports movie is just so perfectly me in terms of movie taste I will never be over it. Everyone does a remarkable job, but this is especially phenomenal in terms of how deeply gay it is and I love it to bits.
♡ The Runaways
Yet again, my deep and abiding love for movies based on true events appears. This is the movie that made me realize that a) Kristen Stewart is seriously a good actress and b) I’m super in love with her. This one is about The Runaways, the all-girl rock band Cherie Currie and Joan Jett were both a part of. It features scenes of KStew and Dakota Fanning making out so prepare your gay heart, lest ye be overwhelmed.
♡ Brokeback Mountain
Of course we end the list of movies here. I spent so much of my life believing the hype surrounding this movie - that it was just that sad cowboy movie and nothing more. And then I watched it and finally had to recognize just how poorly people had been talking about what an incredible film this is. I mean, yes. Sad cowboys! They are there! But the emotional depth and honest passion that is portrayed in this movie breaks my heart every single time. It’s just utterly beautiful. 
Obviously this list isn’t comprehensive and there are so many more on my to-watch list. For example, I somehow haven’t seen Moonlight yet, and that feels like a travesty. I also really need to get to Pariah and Tangerine. 
TV Shows
♡ Black Mirror - San Junipero
In case you don’t already know, Black Mirror is an science fiction anthology show, and every episode can be watched without the context of any of the other episodes. Which makes “San Junipero” just about perfect. It’s one of the only happy episodes of the whole show, and it gives me the most pure, joyful sapphic 80s vibes. I would kill for a full movie based on this episode. I would watch a million hours of sapphic ladies jamming to 80s music. Give it all to me.
♡ Sense8
I recently talked a bit about Sense8 in my post about what Pride means to me, because I think I always tie this show into my feelings on this month. In premise, it’s about 8 strangers around the world who form a psychic connection with one another. More than that, though, it’s about the things that make us different, and how those differences also emphasize our similarity and the power in solidarity. It’s a beautiful story about found family, and it just barely got its finale episode on Netflix that I’m dying to watch but haven’t yet because I’m honestly not feeling emotionally ready enough to handle it. 
♡ Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Wow, this show. Wowww, this show. This is a pretty standard sitcom, about a group of lovable misfits who all work together. It’s set in a police precinct in Brooklyn, and initially feels like it centers on detective Jake Peralta, but the show quickly figured out that it had stars in every member of the cast. Two of my faves are Captain Raymond Holt and Detective Rosa Diaz, both queer POC that blow me away constantly. Holt is a black, gay detective who spent years fighting prejudice to make it through the ranks and be the stern-yet-lovable Captain of the squad. Rosa is a badass, bike riding, keep-your-nose-out-of-my-business bisexual Latina who owns my whole heart. It’s a show that does queer rep right, and a show that constantly reminds me to be happy even when it seems a little impossible for me to do that.
♡ American Horror Story
It’s bizarre to me how a horror anthology show still has some of the most consistent queer rep of any television show I watch. Now, this show absolutely has its problems still. Because it is a horror show, many queer characters get killed off. And my favorite season, Hotel, features a trans woman character who is played by a cis male actor. So, my warning is always to go in knowing the faults in the show. BUT this is still a show that consistently represents a variety of sexualities played by a variety of characters and actors, and I just appreciate it so deeply for normalizing that kind of rep over and over again. And I think I also want to give Ryan Murphy some credit in growing, considering the incredible work he is doing with Pose, hiring so many trans actors, writers, and directors to accurately shape that show.
There are of course other shows doing a good job with LGBTQIA+ rep, even if they don’t feature characters in leading roles. Shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Schitt’s Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Magicians are all ones I adore that feature queer peeps who own my whole heart. And there are tons more out there I would love to watch like The Bold Type, Black Lightning, One Day at a Time, Wynonna Earp, and Killing Eve!
Webseries
♡ Carmilla
Lesbian vampire! Spooky school! Soft journalist lesbian! Nonbinary side character! Queer kids everywhere dealing with the end of the world and the absurdly bizarre reality of their university! If you haven’t watched Carmilla yet, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a shame, and you must come and join us all in the better timeline where you’ve seen the show and can also gush with us. 
♡ Her Story
This is a super short webseries, but one I would love to have more of. It is an honest, sweet depiction of the lives of two trans women living in Los Angeles, California. They deal with relationship issues, friendship, gatekeeping, loving women, loving men, and more. It’s an excellently done series, and Jen Richards is a remarkable actress and creative force, and I cannot wait to see what else she plans to do.
♡ Chosen Family
A webseries that is not fictional! Tyler Okaley is a name you probably know by now, if you’re part of the queer internet scene. He has been doing work for years in uplifting the LGBTQIA+ community, raising awareness, raising money, and a whole lot more. Chosen Family started last year, and I loved keeping up with it all through Pride, and this year we get even more episodes. Whether he is talking about queer people through history, queer immigrants, the beginnings of Pride, or even just talking to other queer creators, it is a series that celebrates this community in so many different ways and I love the work it does and how uplifted it makes me feel. 
Alright, that’s where I’m going to wrap up this list for now. I thought about also adding queer music videos to this list but it would double in size if I did that soooo perhaps another day. What are some of your favorite movies/shows/webseries that feature LGBTQIA+ main characters? Send me a message and let me know! 
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acsversace-news · 6 years
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Nina Jacobson is having a very successful 2018. As one of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s fellow executive producers on the project, she has been Emmy-nominated with the producing team for Outstanding Limited Series on FX Network’s THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY. Actors Darren Criss (as murderer Andrew Cunanan), Edgar Ramirez (as Gianni Versace), Penelope Cruz (as Donatella Versace), Ricky Martin (as Antonio D’Amico), Judith Light (as Marilyn Miglin), and Finn Wittrock (as Jeffrey Trail) are also nominated for their performances in the production; Murphy received a nomination for his direction of one episode and Tom Rob Smith is nominated for his writing of another. Jacobson and the producing group previously won an Outstanding Limited Series Emmy for the initial AMERICAN CRIME STORY season, THE PEOPLE V. O.J. SIMPSON
Meanwhile, FX’s POSE, the series about the transgender ballroom scene in New York in the ‘80s that Jacobson exec-produces with Murphy et al, currently airs Sunday nights and has been picked up for a second season.
In an interview conducted before this year’s Emmy nominations for THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE and POSE’s Season 2 pick-up were announced, Jacobson talks about both series.
ASSIGNMENT X: What kind of research do you do when it comes to still-living people who are depicted in AMERICAN CRIME STORY?
NINA JACOBSON: Generally speaking, we have only worked on recent material. We did it with O.J. and with this [VERSACE], which is that, a well-researched book, or in the case of O.J., where there were so many books, we obviously worked off of the [Jeffrey] Toobin book, in this case, we worked off of Maureen [Orth]’s book, getting the perspective of multiple voices, as opposed to trying to tell one or another person’s story, allows us to serve a more balanced telling. And so we don’t ask people, “Hey, do you want us to tell your story?” or, “How do you want us to tell your story?” We just try to get as much research as we can, whether it’s written, whether it’s anything that’s been reported, or whether it’s people who knew the individuals involved, and then put together sort of a mosaic of information, and then let the actors find their character as they go. And then if ultimately they want to talk to the person – for instance, Antonio was very generous to Ricky, but that was well into the process that they started to speak, and so we don’t usually have contact with the people, because, for one, it feels intrusive, and we just draw on well-researched sources and then try to put a mosaic together that doesn’t over-emphasize one person’s version over another, because everybody will tell their story in a different way.
AX: For you, and also for Ryan Murphy, how much of the appeal of telling the story of Versace’s death and the homophobia surrounding it, was the political aspect, and how much was the aspect of getting to visually go into Versace’s world?
JACOBSON: Certainly for me, and I think for Ryan, too, the homophobia that runs through the story brings up painful memories, it is a reminder of how much has changed in twenty years, but to even read in Maureen’s book about where guys were being outed as they were being murdered, and they [the FBI] would go to the parents and say, “Well, there are things you don’t know about your son.” You’re like, “It’s so wrong, and it’s so disturbing.” And then the fact that Versace did not have to be killed, that Andrew is there in South Beach, across the street, in plain sight, and nobody is looking for him. I mean, they are – badly – but they’re not going into the clubs. They wouldn’t put the flyers up. All that stuff that’s in the material, which is that they wouldn’t put the flyers up, they wouldn’t go to the gay community, walk into bars – “Have you seen this guy?” [Cunanan] was right there. So the politics of that to me were really devastating, and that inability to be authentic and the struggle for authenticity, and the courage of Versace’s heroism [for being openly gay]. I didn’t realize, when you put him in a timeline, all the other designers who were out were dead, and they were out because they died of AIDS, they were outed by being ill. He chose to come out at a time when Ellen [DeGeneres] wasn’t out yet. It was a very different time.
AX: Because POSE deals with high style, and Versace was designing in the ‘80s, is there any costume design crossover between VERSACE and POSE?
JACOBSON: Other than the fact that we have the wildly talented Lou Eyrich [also nominated for AMERICAN CRIME STORY] working on them both, not necessarily. Although it was funny, when we did [the upcoming feature film] CRAZY RICH ASIANS, for a lot of the characters demonstrating their success and wealth, they wore Versace. So while we were working on this, we were also working on CRAZY RICH ASIANS, and you could see how much the brand is still a signifier of wealth, and of a certain kind of expression of wealth.
AX: Have you and the production company ever met any resistance in doing LGBTQ-focused material?
JACOBSON: No. For me, it’s actually a real privilege, because these are actually the first stories in this space that I have told, between POSE and VERSACE. Representation is really important to me. I’ve tried to advance the representation of women, and certainly, for something like CRAZY RICH ASIANS, which has an all-Asian cast, and a romantic comedy, it’s a big, fun, mainstream movie for everybody, but these are actually the first times that I’ve really had the chance to tell stories about gay and trans people, so I just feel lucky to get to do it now. I mean, and to have the material, and then someone like Ryan, who has this access to so many people who want to see the stories that he tells.
AX: How many projects are you working on at once?
JACOBSON: Quite a few. We have a movie [set and shot] in New York called BEN IS BACK with Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges, we have POSE, we have GOLDFINCH, so we have all of that, and then a couple of things that are about to go here in L.A., and then CRAZY RICH ASIANS in post. It’s been kind of a crazy busy year. But it’s a good thing.
AX: And what would you most like people to know about THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE and POSE?
JACOBSON: [With POSE], I think one of the things we wanted to explore – the politics are certainly there, but for now, really the show lives and dies on these characters and this extraordinary cast. I think one of the things that we’re trying to explore is, there was enormous transphobia in the gay community. It wasn’t just what you still see now in terms of transphobia, [like] the purported trans ban in the military. There was a “divide and conquer” [mentality], and everybody always looking to have somebody who might be beneath them in the pecking order. I think the show tries to explore even that level of politics, the politics within the gay and trans community, before they had come together, which they’re still making an effort to do, but at a time when people turned on each other. And that’s something we explore in the show as well. It’s the point at which you’re either a “have” or a “have not,” and the rush to become a “have and the pressure to strike up a pose and live up to the materialism of the ‘80s, to be one of those guys. It’s something you see with Evan [Peters]’s character. And we’re certainly living with the results of that now. But we try tocome at it all not through an instructive or expository manner, but just these characters living their struggles in a way that I think illuminates and speaks to the politics of that time.
[With VERSACE], I hope people will pay attention to the pertinence of these themes and the politics of it. We’re still looking at so much – that attempted ban on trans people in the military, and when you look at the impact on somebody like Jeff Trail and how heartbreaking it was to see the personal toll of that, and that guy who had his true love taken from him, just because of who he was, and then to see the contrast of [what] one person who has acceptance and love and family can achieve, like a Versace, versus the terrible corrosive effect of self-hatred and the inability to live an authentic life, and how important it is that we keep advancing the ability for people to be able to live authentic lives.
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kuuderekun · 6 years
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Magical Girl Site, Transgender Representation and The Batman Question.
Magical Girl Site, Transgender Representation and The Batman Question. 
For the second week in a row Magical Girl Site is the only show I really want to comment on.  But I'm still enjoying all the shows I'm currently watching. I mentioned in my Astolfo post how I don't use the term "Trap" to describe characters who are actually Trasngender.  The only problem with making that hard distinction is Japanese media doesn't always use the same terminology we use in the west, so it's not always clear what the writers are going for.  For example I'm still not sure what we're supposed to think of Ruka in Steins;Gate, I like that in the new series they seem more comfortable with their gender identity, but I'm still unsure what it's supposed to be. Episode 7 of Magical Girl Site introduced the character of Kiyoharu Suirenji.  Going off what we see in this episode alone I would have to conclude she is a Transwoman and not merely a Crossdresser because of her using the girl's bathroom and that being an issue.  I don't think a CisMale Crossdresser would use the girl's bathroom.  However her seemingly not objecting to others calling her a boy complicates the matter, but it could be she's just someone who doesn't want to get confrontational about it.  But I also could have missed something there since I'm watching it Subbed because there is no Dub. In the episode's MAL forum one user who's read the Manga says the character is definitely a Transwoman.  That user is defending using the proper terminology to refer to her.  However there is at least one user there being very blatantly Transphobic. Most of what we see of the character in the episode I like.  However we are given a glimpse of the character having a dark side, with her saying she'll get revenge in the distant future.  Now this is a Dark Magical girl show where most characters have something dark about them.  But I'm still recovering from the disappointment of my favorite Western TV show of all time, Pretty Little Liars blowing it with it's handling of this issue. People sometimes ask whether bad representation is better then no representation.  It is interesting that if this show had never brought the issue up I would probably have never singled it out to criticize for lack of Trans representation.  But as soon as they provide some representation it doesn't take long for me to start being on edge about her being mishandled.  I'd been praising the show for it's unsanitized depiction of Bullying, I should then be thrilled to see that theme expand to showing the bullying Trans Women endure.  But instead I'm worried about the implications of this character either turning evil or dying. But I now realize that, yeah, I should be criticizing Magical Girl shows for failing to include trans representation (and even Sailor Moon fails to include any true Trans representation, the Starlights were simply a gender bending gimmick).  They frequently try to have very diverse casts allowing many different kinds of girls to be magical girls, representing many different forms of the adolescent female experience in Japan.  I think we're long overdue for a Trans Magical Girl and it's unfortunate that the Dark Magical Girl Genre people are back lashing against now was the first to do it. This subject happened to be on my mind already before I saw episode 7.   You may have noticed I posted about a Batman movie that features The Riddler yesterday.  Well Batman and The Riddler being on my mind reminded me that back when I spent a lot of time trying to imagine what kinds of Batman films I'd make I had came up with a concept that re-imagined The Riddler as a Trans Woman.  But then decided that I wasn't comfortable casting a Trans character as a villain in our current climate. Homosexual representation in media has reached the point where you can have Gay villains without it automatically reinforcing the same harmful stereotypes that used to keep Gays only as villains or victims in American fiction.  But Trans representation, especially for Trans Women, has not, as clearly shown by what happened with Pretty Little Liars.  I absolutely believe the writers of that show had the best of intentions, they wanted to say Transphobia is the ultimate cause of the tragedy, but regardless Charlotte being the only Trans representation the show had left the LGBT community who at one point loved the show deeply offended. Ironically this Trans Woman Riddler idea had developed in my mind before season 6 of PLL happened.  And yet my vision for The Riddler was influenced by PLL before the Trans Woman aspect was a part of it.  PLL started airing back when Batfans were still hoping The Riddler would be in the third Nolan Batfilm.  And I from day one immediately felt how -A operated on PLL was a good reference point for how to "Nolanize" The Riddler. So in hindsight Charlotte DiLaurentis kind of resembles the Trans Woman Riddler concept I'd been thinking of.  And how that whole controversy helped shape how I think about this issue is probably a factor in why I dropped the idea.  Still my envisioned backstory for her (which I don't entirely remember) was far from identical.  And of course I also regardless of the character's gender or ethnic identity prefer The Riddler to not be a murderer.  It would be admittedly hard to keep that in tact when making The Riddler the main antagonist of a big budget Hollywood blockbuster, but I do think it's workable. So in that sense my Riddler was closer to Mona then Charlotte. But now I can't help but wonder if outright abandoning it was simply the Cowards way out (Realistically I'll probably never get to make a Batman film anyway, but this is hypothetical).  For example if I have good guys in the movie who are also Trans that could certainly help make it salvageable. Part of what was so harmful about the Charlotte story-line was caused by the need for it to be a twist, that the character who turned out to be "Charles" had been posing as a Cis Woman.  And that's the main problem with my initial concept here.  The starting premise before any Gender issues factored into it was allowing a Batman movie that's actually a Mystery/Detective story by having us not know who The Riddler is.  But I now realize that the concept can be reworked so that whatever name She is using before the reveal she can still be openly Trans.  The thing is I'm kind of killing that mystery aspect for future use by giving it all away publicly now.  Only way it could work for someone who'd read this post is if multiple Trans Women are in it.  Oh wait, that happens to also help fix keep her from being the only representation. The YouTube Channel FilmJoy did a video last year called The Batman Question which I watched today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwzE2J7bo0c&t It was about the idea of allowing more then just CisHet White Men to play Batman and other major Batman characters.  Janelle Monae was a choice brought up a lot, and she responded that she'd rather play The Joker. And that reminded me how members of Batman's Rouges Gallery are Pop Culture Icons and that almost every Actor wants an opportunity to play one.  And I personally would cast an actual Trans Woman to play the role (The Pedantic Romantic could make a good Riddler).  So perhaps we shouldn't exclude the Trans Community from being able to play those roles out of fear of how it can go wrong. The Riddler is often viewed as Batman's smarted nemesis, his greatest intellectual threat. After all Eartha Kitt wasn't counterproductive for Black Women.   KyleKallgrenBHH in his recent video on The Watermelon Woman talks about how for a long time Black Women weren't allowed to be Sex Symbols in America.  So in that context one getting to play the greatest Sex Symbol of American Pop Culture was downright revolutionary.  And so in today's climate maybe Catwoman should be the first Bat Rouge to consider allowing to be a Transwoman? You may ask, why was it that my mind went there for The Riddler first? Another question you may ask is, how would I handle naming this Transwoman reinterpretation of Edward Nygma? Well the answers to those questions are kind of the same. When I starting of thinking about what I'd do for a Nolanesque Riddler story.  I first decided "The Riddler" should be a name given to them.   They would identify themselves in their messages as simply -?  Again influenced by -A on PLL. Then I first started thinking about the character's Gender as I was playing around with the inherent pun of E. Nygma, and the idea entered my head to use the name..... ....... Annie Nygma...................... And from there I thought first just of making The Riddler a woman, an idea which technically had done before at least by Cosplayers.  But I also thought about having her use multiple names and for the sake of Nolan style realism not having any Nygma name be her birth name.  Then I heard of this Edward Nashton name that had emerged as an alternate name for The Riddler, I don't know who used it first but I heard of it via The Riddler Blogs, a fan film project derivative of The Joker Blogs. And then I thought about how Transmen and Transwomen naturally tend to change their names from what they were given at birth.  And so the idea popped in there to have Edward Nashton be the name assigned at birth, and Annie Nygma the name she chose when she accepted her Gender Identity, because she was into Riddles and Puzzles. I'm not Trans, I can't actually relate to these issues.  So I simply don't know what the right answer is.  Perhaps it's a good idea for me to put this experience out there and let someone who is Trans use it for their own Fanwork if they see value in it. Part of the reason I was ashamed of this for awhile is it didn't originate much from a place of caring about representation.  I've always been a believer in Trans rights, but it was in recent years I've become much more sensitive to this and other Social Justice issues. The more recent ideas I've come up with for characters who are Trans have been making them heroes.  Like the idea of the Vordenberg who Carmilla had a romance with being a Transwoman.  Or my desire to tell a story about Lancelot as a Transwoman (using the name Lanzelet), as well as Perceval as a Transman.  And my idea for a fictionalized French Revolution shared cinematic universe innovated using Chevalier d'Éon in the Captain America/Wonder Woman/King Kong role as the one who's origin story film is set in a previous era.  And interpreting d'Eon as a Noble Honorable and Heroic Transwoman, not doing weirder ideas like the Anime about her and Fate Grand Order do.  The only Fantastical aspect will be keeping the character young in the 1790s.
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13thgenfilm · 4 years
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Celebration of Transgender Stories In U.S. Cinema
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In January of this year, trans activists, allies, and artists from the entertainment industry gathered to discuss the current state of transgender representation and inclusion in television and film.
Hosted by the Provincetown Film Society and the Saint Joseph’s Arts Society, Changing the Cultural Narrative: Trans Stories in the U.S. Entertainment Media brought together actors, producers, casting directors, and intellectuals to participate in a day of panels and networking - it was nothing short of inspiring. 
Pushing Boundaries
A monumental shift in the depiction of transgender people on television and film has occured in large part because of the pioneering efforts of indie filmmakers who supported the LGBTQ community long before mainstream media ever did. 
In a panel moderated by Marc Smolowitz, award-winning filmmaker and founder of 13th Gen Films, trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming producers came together to share their voices and stories. 
“Filmmaking is not narrow, it has a social impact,” said filmmaker André Perez. 
The focus of Perez’s work is on documenting transgender history in America. One of his most recent projects is a transgender oral history that’s already captured the voices of over 100 trans elders throughout this community. 
“I want my work to go beyond just raising awareness and support the trans community in finding more resources,” says Perez during the panel discussion.
Perez says he’d like to see mainstream media organizations support the visions and voices of trans artists, a marginalized group who often struggle to find funding for their artistic endeavours.
Many of the producers speaking on the panel complete films with little or no funding, often working with what they refer to as micro-budgets, which is usually around $250,000. Xicanx trans filmaker Stormmiguel Florez completed his latest project, “The Whistle,” with only $50,000. 
The Politics of Casting
Prominent figureheads from throughout the film community spoke about the changing landscape of LGBTQ representation and the growing desire for the industry to hire trans creatives, especially on projects that don’t exploit or focus on their trans experience. 
It took decades for mainstream media networks and film production companies to acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ people on-screen.
In this regard, Ellen Degeneres was truly a revolutionary when she came out on her eponymous sitcom in 1997. This act of bravery helped pave the way for shows like “Will and Grace,” which depicted openly gay characters and their relationships.
It’s true that these representations weren’t perfect, less stereotypical character development would come later, but for that period of time it was progress. 
Now, the trans community is fighting the same battle, working to dodge clichéd character portrayals and trying to find (and create) those roles that simply show a human experience.
Ann Thomas is the founder of Transgender Talent, an agency that exclusively represents transgender actors. Her company represents more transgender actors than the entire industry as a whole.
Her position as talent agent goes far beyond securing roles for trans actors in television and film. She also reads through the scripts, reviewing potential parts for her clients, to make sure the role is artful and not damaging to the trans community.
Thomas says transgender women are often portrayed as sex workers in the media and when she comes across a sex worker role in a script, she will scrutinize the exact nature of the role. She says often times these roles feature violent on-screen sex acts.
“86 percent of transgender women aren’t sex workers,” says Thomas. “It’s time to change that narrative and show that trans people can play anything.”
Thomas always wants to see a trans person in a trans role, but she understands that sometimes important stories that need to be told might only be made with a well-known non-trans actor to draw in the funding to produce the film.
Such was the case with the 2017 film, “Anything.” Matt Bomer, a cisgender male actor, replaced a trans actress to save the film from losing financial backing.
“Sometimes it takes diplomacy, not just advocacy” says Thomas. “You can shut down streets with protests and marches, that works to a degree, but you need a lot of long-term diplomacy work too.”  
Thomas says when films stumble in their depictions of transgender folk, or perpetuate stereotypes, it should always be viewed as an opportunity to educate. 
Russell Boast, President of the Casting Society of America, has been an advocate for the LGBTQ community throughout his career. In this moment, when queer media is having a resurgence, he says it is important to strike while the iron is hot. 
“I need the kids of today, especially those in middle America, to see themselves represented and to see what the world looks like now, not tomorrow, right now,” says Boast. 
Boast wants to see more trans actors working in front of the camera, but says resources that would help them succeed at landing roles, like audition lessons, are often-times inaccessible to most of the trans community because of cost.
“I want everyone to get work and there is support out there to make it possible,” says Boast.
Earlier this year, Boast was able to organize free auditioning lessons for the trans community. Funded by the Screen Actors’ Guild, nearly 800 folks across 15 different countries received those lessons. 
The Future 
“I’ve never seen a trans teenage witch in a movie before,” says trans actress Zoey Luna.
Luna will change all that soon, as she has just been cast in Sony’s reboot of the ‘90s cult classic “The Craft.” 
Luna grew up idolizing both Miley Cyrus on “Hannah Montana,” and singer Ariana Grande. She says she always knew she would be a star, but that it has become so much more than that for her. 
“I’m doing this for other kids,” says Luna. “I want to show we are more than just our trans experience, I’m out here working hard for us.” 
Luna, and other trans actors, are truly making history.
In 2019, Zach Barack was the first openly transgender actor to be cast in a Marvel film, “Spiderman: Far From Home.” 
“It’s an honor and responsibility,” says Barack. He says what is truly impactful about his role in the film is that the character’s gender identity is never discussed. 
“Gender identity is just a part of life, it’s not the main part of it,” says Barack. 
We are lucky enough to live in a time when true democratization of cultural production is flourishing. With the advent of streaming services, the proliferation of platforms for personal expression such as YouTube, and greater access to technology in general, the gatekeepers don’t hold nearly as much power over visibility as they once did in the past.
The visionaries at this event are pioneers for the transgender community. Their work underscores the fact that the whole industry needs an overhaul when it comes to objectifying bodies. We are too focused on the physical characteristics and not on the portrayal of the universal human experience. No one should be defined by their genitalia or any other physical characteristic. An even greater diversity of depictions is necessary to topple old power structures.
The Gender Spectrum - Terms To Get To Know
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Written by Holden Aguirre --  Holden is a Journalism Major at San Francisco State University minoring in LGBT Studies. As someone who thrives in a diverse environment, Holden transferred from American River College in Sacramento to pursue interests in film, music, the arts, and education.
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callmehawkeye · 5 years
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Watched in 2019
Big Little Lies (Season 1): This is such a solid cast and story, albeit predictable. I loved it as a mini-series and do not understand why it needs a second season; but I’ll be watching regardless. 
Taylor Swift Reputation Stadium Tour (2018): IIIIIIIIIII don’t think this setting is the best for Taylor. I go back and forth on her as a person often, but dig over half her catalog. The big theatrical show doesn’t quite suit her particular stage presence. She is great when just talking to the crowd with her guitar or piano. Regardless, she was definitely having fun, it was entertaining enough, and it’s cool she put this up on Netflix so I don’t have to amputate a body part to afford a ticket.
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018): Without a doubt, this is perhaps the most genuine and fulfilling depiction of a (hetero) romantic love story put to film I’ve witnessed in recent memory. The actors and their chemistry were breathtaking. 
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018): Hands down the best Spider-Man movie to date. Soundtrack was perfection. Story was great. Characters were amazing. I want to protect Miles with my dying breath. Unique animation. Deservedly kicked Disney’s ass this award season.
Bumblebee (2018): Oddly endearing? Easily the best Transformers movie, and the only one I’ll recognize.
A Star is Born (2018): I’m sure I’d like this more if I weren’t a fan of the other 3. Lacked subtlety. Overhyped. It’s fine. The only best part was the rehab scene.
Fyre Fraud (2019): The Hulu documentary about the disastrous Fyre Festival. Superior of the two, in production and scope.
Abducted in Plain Sight (2017): WHAT. THE. FUCK. A must-see for true crime enthusiasts. 
Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019): This is more or less the same thing if you have already spent a little more time on this case than the average person. Good content for first-timers.
Girlfriends Day (2017): A nice, fast watch to pass the time.
Fyre Festival (2019): The other Fyre Festival documentary. To me, the lesser because it is produced from people who were on the inside. Which you’d think, “Oh so then they’d know.” But their bias and attempts to scrub themselves from the narrative are obvious.
The Favourite (2018): This made my little queer heart so happy. Great characters. 
Everybody Knows (2019): A little on the nose in the mystery itself (just watch the actors in the background). But the performances were great. Loved the setting. Appropriate ending. Good job.
Isn’t It Romantic (2019): I loved this. I feel like I’ve written something exactly like this before. Very endearing and satisfying to watch.
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019): It felt a little long, unsatisfying at some parts and rushed. But it’s a great bookend to a great series.
They Shall Not Grow Old (2019): Very impressive filmmaking and editing. I loved learning how they accomplished it in the featurette at the end of the screening.
Arctic (2019): Now THIS is how you make a survival movie. 90 minutes. No romance. Brutal reality without becoming melodramatic. Mads Mikkelsen cast in the lead...
Don’t Knock Twice (2016): Pleh. I hated the pacing and editing. Called out the “twist” immediately as a joke because I didn’t expect this movie to be that nuanced (magic done without permission, even with the intent to be good, is bad magic).
Captain Marvel (2019): My god this was so much fun and rejuvenated my interest in the MCU. I’m absolutely dreading Endgame and not for the reasons you think.
Greta (2019): Great performances, absolutely tense, very creepy and fun.
1922 (2017): What a great fucking motif.
Climax (2019): This was quite the sit. A literal 90 minute bad LSD trip from an up-close perspective. God I hated it.
Michael Che Matters (2016): I’ve never seen a standup special start so strong and progressively get weaker like this before...
Us (2019): As I said on Twitter --  it seems to me primarily casual or non-horror fans think Us is the greatest horror film of all time and is going to rejuvenate or “save” the genre. Then primarily veteran fans think it’s weak and vague. I think both viewpoints are shortsighted and formed from either category being stuck in their perspectives. For me, the movie was neither. (I loved it).
The Beach Bum (2019): Another movie I can’t believe I sat all the way through.
Leaving Neverland (2019): I stand with Wade and James.
Queer Eye (Season 3): Who needs antidepressants? Not me!
Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé (2019): Beychella reigns once again!!
Dancing Queen (Season 1): This was very sweet. I never thought I could sit through anything with insufferable dance moms, but Justin/Alyssa makes it so engaging and watchable. Stupid to end on a cliffhanger, however.
Avengers: Endgame (2019): ..............B+ At least it was a million times better than Infinity War. And I had fun.
Booksmart (2019): This hit so close to home. Sure, the coming of age movie is nothing new. But there was something liberating about the characters in this one that were terribly stereotypical and much more relatable. To me, anyway.
Long Shot (2019): Great music, great relationship, great laughs. This was a fun, solid watch of a romcom.
Hail Satan? (2019): I want to inject this documentary directly into my veins.
Amazing Grace (2019): The live footage of Aretha Franklin recording her Amazing Grace album at the church in Watts.
Meeting Gorbachev (2019): I got to see this documentary at a theater where Wener Herzog himself was hosting a Q&A and introduced this film. Maybe it made me more biased to liking it. But I honestly felt like I learned a lot.
Missing Link (2019): First movie of the year I didn’t complete/walked out of. I let it have an hour. First time I’ve ever been disappointed in Laika. I can’t believe it. It was so dull and I kept waiting for something to happen.
Little (2019): This was sweet. Issa Rae is dipped in gold. BUT it felt like there was an outline, not a script. Lots of dropped threads. And a weirdly out of place, glaring, punching-down trans joke??!
Tolkien (2019): Wow. I really liked this. Great pacing, shifting between time frames. Even better performances and relationships. Made me think of my own fellowship a lot. This is how biopics should be done.
The Biggest Little Farm (2019): WONDERFUL documentary covering the years of building up a sustainable farm from less than scratch.
The Hustle (2019): God, this was a long, humorless sit. At least Anne looked stunning.
The Sun is Also a Star (2019): This isn’t more realistic than romantic comedies, or teen love films. But it’s more enjoyable than most. The leads are great and have electric chemistry. New York is framed beautifully.
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019): I am blessed by this Keanu Reevessance.
Fleabag (Season 1): This is probably going to be the best thing I watch this year.
Fleabag (Season 2): Yup. Confirmed. Something very special would need to come along from June to December to change this mindset. I highly recommend this. Watch it. Go in blind. Watch it!!
Pavarotti (2019): I enjoy documentaries where I feel I really learn about the subject. Beautiful music, beautiful memories, beautiful life.
Rocketman (2019): I wish more biopics were like this. It was wonderful and such a grand time.
Lorena (2019): A deep dive into the Bobbitt case, including the woman herself. I have such empathy and love for Lorena. You should watch it and learn about the incident yourself.
The Last Man in San Francisco (2019): Go in blind. Don’t look it up. Just go. it’s the most beautiful film I’ve seen so far this year. I wish there were more male protagonists like this.
Toy Story 4 (2019): I was so skeptical. It more than exceeded my expectations. Just go in prepared to have your heart ripped in two.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): They’re learning. Out of the newer films, this one has the less amount of people. Now make another film like this, only extend the monster fight scenes. Less. People.
Child’s Play (2019): This was fun. Not much more to say. More Aubrey in things!
Men in Black International (2019): Honestly, this was better than the second or third ones. I legitimately enjoyed myself. It was funny. The cast was charming. The otherworldly aliens were interesting. And I’m so proud of Les Twins.
Grace and Frankie (Season 5) :This is always a good time for me. I love watching this show when I want to take a break from more dedicated watches. I love these actresses with all my heart. June Diane Raphael is goals.
Midsommar (2019): This was such a fun aesthetic to watch. I was so uncomfortable throughout.
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (2019): Ugh, my hearrrrrtt.
Maiden (2019): Documentary about the first all-female crew who competed in the 1985-86 Whitbread Round the World Race. The woman next to me in the theater was the same age as the women featured in old footage and modern day talking head interviews -- and she was just sobbing by the end. Solidarity.
Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein (2019): 30 minutes well spent. Fucking hilarious.
Stranger Things (Season 3): God, what a fun season. I am still Steve.
Queer Eye (Season 4): I need 54 more seasons, kthx.
Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019): My absolute favorite battle sequence in a Marvel movie. Such a good time.
Hobbs & Shaw (2019): My first and last Fast movie. Goddamn I was so bored.
Bring the Soul: The Movie (2019): Wow, this was brutal. I get it wasn’t all of the footage, but they seemed to mostly focus on members being sick and injured and miserable. I didn’t understand the love for this movie when all it did was highlight how exhausted the boys are. I suppose it was meant to be inspiring, but I only felt bad for them. I just ranted about them needing a break and thank god they finally have one -- apt timing!
Burn the Stage: The Movie (2018): I went back to the earlier film with the hopes of... Higher hopes. And they were fulfilled. Such cute and uplifting footage.
Blinded by the Light (2019): God I love Springsteen. This movie is a great homage to his music. It’s not a straight-up musical, and that’s lovingly the point. Some things never change.
It: Chapter Two (2019): This was a slog compared to the first part. Much like the miniseries. Much like the book.
Parasite (2019): I, a college student with very little free time -- let alone free time to go to the movies -- saw this in theaters twice. I tried to go a third time but then finals happened. Go see it. Go see it blind. I'm not really doing end-year lists anymore but this is without a doubt my favorite film from 2019.
BTS World Tour: Love Yourself (2019): Most fun I've had in a theater in some time. I feel like I curled up into the tiniest ball at some point out of pure joy that couldn't be contained.
Frozen II (2019): This was quite plot-heavy for a sequel. I loved how many songs they were. It's an acceptable sequel. A lot of weak themes and choices, however, if you think about it for more than a few minutes. Overall delightful. 
Jojo Rabbit (2019): Speaking of delightful. Taika Waititi continues to be my favorite living writer-director. This is such a solid portrayal of Nazism without glorifying it. Always go the Mel Brooks route and make it a comedy; they can't turn it around and make the imagery propaganda. I have high hopes for Roman Griffin Davis and his future career.
Knives Out (2019): This was quite fun. I love a good mystery with a large ensemble cast like this. It didn't blow my mind of anything -- I saw every turn coming -- but that's just because I credit it to being such a lonely kid who read so many mystery novels.
2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014
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demitgibbs · 5 years
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Anna Paquin Talks ‘Tricky’ LGBTQ Representation, Understated Queer Roles
Enough with the labels: Anna Paquin just wants LGBTQ people to be people. As star and executive producer of Pop TV’s Flack, Paquin’s celeb-PR spin doctor, Robyn, fascinates because her hyper-controlling nature at work is in sharp contrast to her out-of-control family life. Robyn’s bisexuality is a mere footnote.
It’s 2019. This is the queer-is-human moment Anna Paquin has been waiting for. This explains why, though she plays a lesbian character, she appreciates that her love interest (Holliday Grainger) in her upcoming film Tell It to the Bees, out May 3, eludes any kind of fixed sexual identity.
Openly bisexual herself, Paquin came out in 2010 in a public service announcement for Cyndi Lauper’s Give a Damn campaign, dedicated to LGBTQ equality. At the time, she was portraying southern heroine Sookie Stackhouse on HBO’s vampire queerfest True Blood; she married her co-star, Stephen Moyer, that same year. (The couple has 6-year-old twins, Poppy and Charlie Moyer.)
But the 36-year-old actress’ precocious career in film and TV goes back decades to her childhood, when, at just 11 years old, she won the best-supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of Flora McGrath in 1993’s The Piano. Cross-genre roles abounded: Fly Away Home (1996), She’s All That (1999), Almost Famous (2000) and three X-Men films. In 2017, Paquin starred as a detective investigating the disappearance and murder of a trans woman (Sadie O’Neil) on the short-lived drama series Bellevue.
Nearly 10 years later, Paquin still gives a damn – about inclusivity in her work, entertainment as a way to open close-minded minds, and actors who are forced out of the closet in the name of representation.
youtube
In Flack, there’s a gay scandal, a trans scandal and a lesbian sex tape, and that’s all within the first three episodes. I mean, this show was made with the LGBTQ community in mind, right?
I mean, not intentionally. It was just made more with, you know, the human race in mind. And that includes all of us (laughs). There’s humor and drama to be found in all of our communities, but, yes, there is definitely something to be had for our LGBTQ community in the world of Flack. Although a lot of people ask me if that was me, because obviously it’s important to me, but that was just always part of the fiber of the show in those episodes, and that was our writers. I wish I could take more credit for that, but I really can’t.
As an actress, are you drawn to stories that tell our stories?
Yes, but I’m also just drawn to really amazing writing, and I think especially when there are stories that are our stories but are also written in a beautiful and eloquent way, that, to me, is a twofer. I mean, I love the fact that Robyn being bisexual just kind of casually drops in; it’s not a thing because it shouldn’t be a thing. And I feel like so many movies and shows, if they have characters who are leading anything other than heteronormative lives, it’s made into a big deal. It really shouldn’t be and isn’t. So I do love that part of the show.
It sounds like you don’t think we’re at a place where LGBTQ characters can simply live within the fabric of the world, and maybe that’s because LGBTQ people can’t just yet either.
Are we? (Laughs) I mean, I think everyone has different experiences. I really think it depends what part of the country you’re in and what kind of community you grow up in. Look, I’m a non-American-born Canadian-Kiwi living in liberal California, so my experience of the world as a bisexual woman is probably incredibly different from someone who lives in – not to single anyone out in particular, but let’s say a less progressive state. So I feel like we still have a ways to go, but we’re obviously going in the right direction.
Where do you stand on the debate that exclusively LGBTQ actors should be playing LGBTQ roles?
In casting all the characters in this show it would never have occurred to us to look at anyone other than trans actors for trans roles. I frankly did not ask the actress who plays Robyn’s ex-girlfriend because I also don’t really think it’s any of my business. What’s tricky around some of that stuff is that, while I think representation of people within our community is incredibly important, I think it’s also putting a lot of pressure on people to come out in a public way that they may or may not be ready to do yet. I don’t think it’s anyone’s place to force people out of the closet, to be like, “Hey, you shouldn’t be playing this role because you’re not gay.” Well, what if that person is but isn’t comfortable coming out? Where does that leave us as far as representation, but also respecting people’s own timeline for their own lives and what they’re comfortable with? I think it’s incredibly complicated.
Was there pressure on you when you came out?
If there was, I certainly didn’t experience any. Everyone in my private life knew. It wasn’t a big deal. But also, things aren’t a big deal if you don’t make a big deal of them.
I’d like to note that your show Bellevue represented the trans community in a very real way. I know you really bonded on the set with actress Sadie O’Neil, who played a trans character.
What an awesome, smart, talented actress and writer and poet. She was incredibly patient with all of us who know less about her community asking quite specific questions as far as how we’re representing the community on the show. Because the script, you can do a good approximation, but if that’s not the life that you have lived then, obviously, you’re not gonna get all of it right. And being patient with the fact that we had taken a good stab at it, but then wanting to actually get it right, was something we were really very grateful for, and we obviously very much deferred to her on a lot of it.
In what ways was the show and being with Sadie on set a teaching moment for you?
It’s one thing to conceptually support all members of our rainbow community, it’s another thing to pretend that you know what somebody else’s life experience is like, and I don’t pretend to know things I don’t know. So, to me, getting more information is something that I just think you can’t have enough of. And the more you know, the more helpful you can be. It literally had never even occurred to me that feminism could exclude trans women. That, to me, just doesn’t make any sense, and that’s a huge deal and kind of blew my mind. You know, these kinds of conversations that end up casually happening because you’re working with them and getting to know them, it’s like, “Wow, I feel a bit embarrassed that I didn’t know that and I’m glad I know that now.”
Does it mean something to you that a role such as Robyn or your role as Dr. Jean in Tell It to the Bees is creating greater visibility for the LGBTQ community?
Absolutely … absolutely! Yes. I think that people learn about people they don’t understand through entertainment. That’s one of our most powerful tools for bringing people out of their own bubble and their own world, because if you see somebody depicted on screen you sort of are emotionally connected to that person and their story and their life, and maybe it can change people’s minds about how they sort of snap-judge other people and their sexual orientation or gender identity or whatever it may be. I think entertainment is a very powerful tool for that, so yeah, it’s very meaningful to me.
youtube
When were you first aware that entertainment had that kind of power?
Honestly, not really until I was a grown up because when I was a teenager just, you know, doing my thing and going to school, I wasn’t massively conscious of it. Becoming a parent I think also makes you more aware of that, the cause and effect when your kid watches something and repeats something back that you’re like, “We don’t speak like that.” You get to see a very tiny microcosm of what its effect is, just even on little humans, because they don’t know. But it’s all around us. That’s not to say that all entertainment that I do (laughs) can be watched by all people of all ages, because I do some stuff that is, obviously, very adult-oriented, but it has made me think about what kind of things I put out there into the world.
In Tell It to the Bees, you play your first explicitly queer character in film.
In a film, yes. But my character in (2017’s sci-fi anthology TV series) Electric Dreams was also a lesbian.
Why did it take so long?
It wasn’t really a conscious thing. A lot of times with choices it kind of depends on what material comes your way and when. I hadn’t happened to have a proper lesbian love story of any sort really come my way prior to that. I think I was probably somewhat obvious casting for that (laughs). But it’s a beautiful love story, it’s set in the 1950s in Scotland, my character is adopted, basically got outed as a teenager and left her community under quite traumatic circumstances. (She) falls in love with another outsider, a young mother in the community who is – we don’t ever really put a label on her sexuality, but it’s probably more on the bisexual-to-straight-but-falls-in-love-with-the-human. It’s about what they bring out in each other.
I’m surprised to hear that you haven’t been offered more queer film roles.
I was on a TV show for, like, the entire time surrounding (coming out), so I wasn’t really available to do anything else (laughs). And also, True Blood reps hard on the Pride front.
youtube
How aware were you of what True Blood was doing for the LGBTQ community at the time it aired?
Vampires coming out of the coffin: the metaphor was pretty specific! (Laughs) And also just the sexual fluidity of all the vampires. Obviously, we would have to have been living under a rock not to have felt the support and love from the community.
Do you hear from gay fans about Flack on Twitter?
In general, yes. Whenever I’ve done work that has any representation of our community, yes, I always end up hearing really cool, nice feedback from people who are appreciative of conversations being easier to have because they’re happening in the public eye.
from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2019/04/11/anna-paquin-talks-tricky-lgbtq-representation-understated-queer-roles/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/184109329145
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hotspotsmagazine · 5 years
Text
Anna Paquin Talks ‘Tricky’ LGBTQ Representation, Understated Queer Roles
Enough with the labels: Anna Paquin just wants LGBTQ people to be people. As star and executive producer of Pop TV’s Flack, Paquin’s celeb-PR spin doctor, Robyn, fascinates because her hyper-controlling nature at work is in sharp contrast to her out-of-control family life. Robyn’s bisexuality is a mere footnote.
It’s 2019. This is the queer-is-human moment Anna Paquin has been waiting for. This explains why, though she plays a lesbian character, she appreciates that her love interest (Holliday Grainger) in her upcoming film Tell It to the Bees, out May 3, eludes any kind of fixed sexual identity.
Openly bisexual herself, Paquin came out in 2010 in a public service announcement for Cyndi Lauper’s Give a Damn campaign, dedicated to LGBTQ equality. At the time, she was portraying southern heroine Sookie Stackhouse on HBO’s vampire queerfest True Blood; she married her co-star, Stephen Moyer, that same year. (The couple has 6-year-old twins, Poppy and Charlie Moyer.)
But the 36-year-old actress’ precocious career in film and TV goes back decades to her childhood, when, at just 11 years old, she won the best-supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of Flora McGrath in 1993’s The Piano. Cross-genre roles abounded: Fly Away Home (1996), She’s All That (1999), Almost Famous (2000) and three X-Men films. In 2017, Paquin starred as a detective investigating the disappearance and murder of a trans woman (Sadie O’Neil) on the short-lived drama series Bellevue.
Nearly 10 years later, Paquin still gives a damn – about inclusivity in her work, entertainment as a way to open close-minded minds, and actors who are forced out of the closet in the name of representation.
youtube
In Flack, there’s a gay scandal, a trans scandal and a lesbian sex tape, and that’s all within the first three episodes. I mean, this show was made with the LGBTQ community in mind, right?
I mean, not intentionally. It was just made more with, you know, the human race in mind. And that includes all of us (laughs). There’s humor and drama to be found in all of our communities, but, yes, there is definitely something to be had for our LGBTQ community in the world of Flack. Although a lot of people ask me if that was me, because obviously it’s important to me, but that was just always part of the fiber of the show in those episodes, and that was our writers. I wish I could take more credit for that, but I really can’t.
As an actress, are you drawn to stories that tell our stories?
Yes, but I’m also just drawn to really amazing writing, and I think especially when there are stories that are our stories but are also written in a beautiful and eloquent way, that, to me, is a twofer. I mean, I love the fact that Robyn being bisexual just kind of casually drops in; it’s not a thing because it shouldn’t be a thing. And I feel like so many movies and shows, if they have characters who are leading anything other than heteronormative lives, it’s made into a big deal. It really shouldn’t be and isn’t. So I do love that part of the show.
It sounds like you don’t think we’re at a place where LGBTQ characters can simply live within the fabric of the world, and maybe that’s because LGBTQ people can’t just yet either.
Are we? (Laughs) I mean, I think everyone has different experiences. I really think it depends what part of the country you’re in and what kind of community you grow up in. Look, I’m a non-American-born Canadian-Kiwi living in liberal California, so my experience of the world as a bisexual woman is probably incredibly different from someone who lives in – not to single anyone out in particular, but let’s say a less progressive state. So I feel like we still have a ways to go, but we’re obviously going in the right direction.
Where do you stand on the debate that exclusively LGBTQ actors should be playing LGBTQ roles?
In casting all the characters in this show it would never have occurred to us to look at anyone other than trans actors for trans roles. I frankly did not ask the actress who plays Robyn’s ex-girlfriend because I also don’t really think it’s any of my business. What’s tricky around some of that stuff is that, while I think representation of people within our community is incredibly important, I think it’s also putting a lot of pressure on people to come out in a public way that they may or may not be ready to do yet. I don’t think it’s anyone’s place to force people out of the closet, to be like, “Hey, you shouldn’t be playing this role because you’re not gay.” Well, what if that person is but isn’t comfortable coming out? Where does that leave us as far as representation, but also respecting people’s own timeline for their own lives and what they’re comfortable with? I think it’s incredibly complicated.
Was there pressure on you when you came out?
If there was, I certainly didn’t experience any. Everyone in my private life knew. It wasn’t a big deal. But also, things aren’t a big deal if you don’t make a big deal of them.
I’d like to note that your show Bellevue represented the trans community in a very real way. I know you really bonded on the set with actress Sadie O’Neil, who played a trans character.
What an awesome, smart, talented actress and writer and poet. She was incredibly patient with all of us who know less about her community asking quite specific questions as far as how we’re representing the community on the show. Because the script, you can do a good approximation, but if that’s not the life that you have lived then, obviously, you’re not gonna get all of it right. And being patient with the fact that we had taken a good stab at it, but then wanting to actually get it right, was something we were really very grateful for, and we obviously very much deferred to her on a lot of it.
In what ways was the show and being with Sadie on set a teaching moment for you?
It’s one thing to conceptually support all members of our rainbow community, it’s another thing to pretend that you know what somebody else’s life experience is like, and I don’t pretend to know things I don’t know. So, to me, getting more information is something that I just think you can’t have enough of. And the more you know, the more helpful you can be. It literally had never even occurred to me that feminism could exclude trans women. That, to me, just doesn’t make any sense, and that’s a huge deal and kind of blew my mind. You know, these kinds of conversations that end up casually happening because you’re working with them and getting to know them, it’s like, “Wow, I feel a bit embarrassed that I didn’t know that and I’m glad I know that now.”
Does it mean something to you that a role such as Robyn or your role as Dr. Jean in Tell It to the Bees is creating greater visibility for the LGBTQ community?
Absolutely … absolutely! Yes. I think that people learn about people they don’t understand through entertainment. That’s one of our most powerful tools for bringing people out of their own bubble and their own world, because if you see somebody depicted on screen you sort of are emotionally connected to that person and their story and their life, and maybe it can change people’s minds about how they sort of snap-judge other people and their sexual orientation or gender identity or whatever it may be. I think entertainment is a very powerful tool for that, so yeah, it’s very meaningful to me.
youtube
When were you first aware that entertainment had that kind of power?
Honestly, not really until I was a grown up because when I was a teenager just, you know, doing my thing and going to school, I wasn’t massively conscious of it. Becoming a parent I think also makes you more aware of that, the cause and effect when your kid watches something and repeats something back that you’re like, “We don’t speak like that.” You get to see a very tiny microcosm of what its effect is, just even on little humans, because they don’t know. But it’s all around us. That’s not to say that all entertainment that I do (laughs) can be watched by all people of all ages, because I do some stuff that is, obviously, very adult-oriented, but it has made me think about what kind of things I put out there into the world.
In Tell It to the Bees, you play your first explicitly queer character in film.
In a film, yes. But my character in (2017’s sci-fi anthology TV series) Electric Dreams was also a lesbian.
Why did it take so long?
It wasn’t really a conscious thing. A lot of times with choices it kind of depends on what material comes your way and when. I hadn’t happened to have a proper lesbian love story of any sort really come my way prior to that. I think I was probably somewhat obvious casting for that (laughs). But it’s a beautiful love story, it’s set in the 1950s in Scotland, my character is adopted, basically got outed as a teenager and left her community under quite traumatic circumstances. (She) falls in love with another outsider, a young mother in the community who is – we don’t ever really put a label on her sexuality, but it’s probably more on the bisexual-to-straight-but-falls-in-love-with-the-human. It’s about what they bring out in each other.
I’m surprised to hear that you haven’t been offered more queer film roles.
I was on a TV show for, like, the entire time surrounding (coming out), so I wasn’t really available to do anything else (laughs). And also, True Blood reps hard on the Pride front.
youtube
How aware were you of what True Blood was doing for the LGBTQ community at the time it aired?
Vampires coming out of the coffin: the metaphor was pretty specific! (Laughs) And also just the sexual fluidity of all the vampires. Obviously, we would have to have been living under a rock not to have felt the support and love from the community.
Do you hear from gay fans about Flack on Twitter?
In general, yes. Whenever I’ve done work that has any representation of our community, yes, I always end up hearing really cool, nice feedback from people who are appreciative of conversations being easier to have because they’re happening in the public eye.
from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2019/04/11/anna-paquin-talks-tricky-lgbtq-representation-understated-queer-roles/
0 notes