Why is anyone, much less seemingly everyone, watching Netflix’s deeply mediocre (if even that) Bird Box? Some critics try to explain. For one thing: “It’s like a taunt: The negative reviews pour in, so the streaming site ― which otherwise doesn’t publicize viewership data ― deflects with a not-so-humble brag that can’t be fact-checked. How convenient.” – HuffPost
Author: ArtsJournal2
We Can Only Watch The Ocasio-Cortez Dance Video Meta-Meme Because Of A Vital Copyright Case
The video, and its many predecessors, and the many dancing videos it’s spawned since a right-wing Twitter user tried to use it to shame the Congressional representative, is only available because the Electronic Frontier Foundation pushed back (pushed back hard) against takedown notices from a record label … and won. – Wired
Hastings Pier Won The Prestigious Stirling Prize In 2017, But Now It’s Closed For ‘Improvements’ That Are Sparking A Social Media War
So this is going well: “Hastings residents accuse [owner Sheikh Abid] Gulzar of cheapening the listed Victorian structure with plans for an amusement arcade and the installation of gold-painted fibreglass animals, including an elk, a bison and a baby hippopotamus.” – The Guardian (UK)
Keeping Track Of What You See Can Lead To Eye-Opening Statistics
Howard Sherman kept track of statistics about his theatregoing in 2017, and didn’t like the numbers he came up with. Did he see more plays by women and nonbinary folks and more plays by people of color in 2018 – and what will change in 2019? – The Stage (UK)
Propwatch: the beer in ‘Sweat’
“Propwatch always keeps an eye on the drinks cabinet, because liquor is character.” – David Jays
Vinyl Sales Grew By Leaps And Bounds In 2018 – And So Did Cassettes
Wait, cassette tapes? Yes (driven, as movie fans could guess, by Guardians of the Galaxy compilations). “Vinyl sales grew by just shy of 12 percent from 8.6 to 9.7 million sales, while cassette sales grew by almost 19 percent from 99,400 to 118,200 copies sold in the US.” But CD sales were in freefall, making physical media take another dip. – The Verge
This Weekend, A Play Challenging ‘Hamilton’ Is Having Its Day
Ishmael Reed’s The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda is one of several strands of recent work critiquing the narrative of one of the defining musicals of our age. For one thing, Hamilton wasn’t an abolitionist – and the musical utterly fails Native Americans, Reed and many academics have said. The play is about “‘a playwright who is misled by a historian of white history into believing that Alexander Hamilton was an abolitionist,’ and his path to learning Hamilton’s true story.” – The New York Times
The Architecture Research That Is Changing, And Charging Up, Human Rights
Research architecture is the name for an organized movement of investigative journalists, AI experts, archaeologists, lawyers, and others who are engaged in “the politics of space, especially how it is manipulated by states and corporations against civilians and the environment – from drone strikes in Pakistan to mining in the Amazon.” – The Guardian (UK)
Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Historian Of Black Suffragists, Has Died At 77
Terborg-Penn didn’t let history departments get away without telling a fuller story than the one they had, for decades, been telling. Her work successfully “challenged the existing narrative that was dominated, and framed, by white activists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.” – The New York Times
Ellen DeGeneres’ ‘Conversation’ With Kevin Hart Shows The Worst Of Talk-Show Culture
The talk-show host, who is “the most influential openly gay person alive, gave Hart a massive platform and let the homophobic tweets that led to him stepping down from the gig go unquestioned.” But hey, we’re all buddies here, right? Er. “At the exact moment when popular culture is finally reckoning with its bigoted history, the country’s most famous daytime host, whose own career was almost destroyed by homophobia, is prioritizing an agenda that does not serve the viewers who look to her for wisdom.” – HuffPost