Has the U.S. learned nothing since Driving Miss Daisy? Well … the Academy likes Spike Lee a tad bit more now, 30 years later. – The New York Times
Author: ArtsJournal2
Ice Dancing Is Heavily Reliant On Heterosexual Narratives
Can an ice dance couple – both of whom are out, with one in a same-sex relationship – help break that trope? (See also the sibling Shibutanis, whom some commentators find uncomfortable for that very reason.) “When you have a team that doesn’t portray a romantic relationship for any reason, they’re forced to consider new ways to tell their story. That opens up new doors, new pathways.” – ESPN
The Self-Worship Of Directors Who Make Themselves Their Own Stars
This will come as a real shocker, but a lot of these people are men such as Clint Eastwood. Eastwood wrote and directed The Mule, and … well: “All those closeups of himself looking incorrigible, or lapping up the adoration of others, or getting down to business with women young enough to be his great-granddaughters – these were staged and approved by him. Perhaps he even asked for extra takes. Better safe than sorry.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Drama, And Money, In A Man Pretending To Be A Woman, Playing A Real Game
Online gaming has a terrible history of bad behavior toward women players, or those who appear to be women. And that’s wild: “e-sports pose no physical barriers to mixed-gender competition. It is a realm in which quick thinking, creative problem-solving and hand-eye coordination, not size or strength, are needed to succeed.” – The New York Times
What Was Virginia Woolf Like As A Child?
Young Virginia Stephen’s quick and fierce tongue, her nickname of Goat, and her ability to pierce her siblings’ consciousness with deeper thoughts and questions than they had – all seem to presage Virginia Woolf the Writer. And then there was the depression. – LitHub
The Last Manhattan Arcade
Chinatown Fair Family Fun Center is a video arcade – and not a new, hip, bar-focused pinball arcade, but an old-school video arcade, which has survived Manhattan’s rising rents and the rise of personal gaming by constant reinvention. – The New York Times
The Truth About The So-Called Gig Economy
We’re all going to be driving an Uber before long, and everyone who’s not will be freelancing at something else, right? Or maybe the gig economy isn’t growing so fast – or isn’t really growing at all. Economists can’t agree. – The Atlantic
The U.S. Poet Laureate Has A Podcast, And It’s Coming To Public Radio
Tracy K. Smith, author of Life on Mars and Wade in the Water, started a podcast in November. Now it’s moving up the podcast chain to the motherlode of podcasting success, public radio. – The New York Times
An Oscar Contender Stirs Guilt – And Soul-Searching – In Mexico’s Middle Class
Roma depicts the relationship of a woman doing housekeeping and nanny work to the family for which she’s working. They like her a lot, but they treat her with an off-handed sense of ownership that may seem appalling to viewers. The film “has also prompted serious soul-searching about the plight of poorly paid and often-unprotected domestic workers in Mexico, where, nearly five decades after the period depicted in the film, inequality remains rife, racism stubbornly persists and social mobility seems to have stagnated.” – The Observer (UK)
When Contemporary Lit Professors Decided To Agree That The Author Is Dead
Whether or not most lit professors agree with that (Roland Barthes) statement now, “authors certainly had it coming.” – Los Angeles Review of Books