Let’s follow the story:
A. First, the Royal Court Theatre cancelled a production of Rita, Sue, and Bob Too after the co-director stepped down in a flurry of “misconduct” allegations. (Here’s that story.)
B. Then a lot of people are upset that a play by a woman was cancelled because of the bad behavior of a man (Here’s that story) and/or because of the idea of censorship (here’s one of those opinion pieces).
C. Now the play has been restored after artistic director Vicky Featherstone said she had “been rocked to the core by accusations of censorship and the banning of a working-class female voice.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
This Year May Go Down As Revealing How Terrible The Film Industry Is For Women – And Also The Year Of The Complex Mother Onscreen
Things might be a fire dump of terrible for women in Hollywood, as revealed by all too many #metoo stories (and oh yes, there are many more to come), but at least a few roles weren’t too bad this year: “Movie mothers tend to be monsters (Mommie Dearest, Carrie, Precious, Animal Kingdom), angels (Bambi, The Grapes of Wrath) or just a bit nothing-y (pretty much everything else). That, however, could be changing. While 2017 has been an awful year for women in film in most respects, it has thrown up a riot – or whatever the collective noun for mums ought to be – of complex on-screen mothers.”
Anita Hill Will Lead A Commission On Sexual Assault In Hollywood
Whoa: “Called the Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, the initiative was spearheaded by Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm; Maria Eitel, the co-chair of the Nike Foundation; the powerhouse attorney Nina Shaw; and Freada Kapor Klein, the venture capitalist who helped pioneer surveys on sexual harassment decades ago.”
What’s Going On With The Royal New Zealand Ballet?
Well, for one thing, some investigations – and a call for the government to dissolve and recreate the board. Here’s a tidbit: “On Friday, the RNZB announced former deputy State Services Commissioner Doug Craig would lead an independent inquiry into allegations of workplace bullying and reports that the Ballet favours overseas dancers over New Zealanders.”
The German Artist Who Uses Her Power To Change Things
Hito Steyerl, this year’s number one in the Art Review Power 100 list, is a filmmaker who also delivers hypnotic lectures and whose ideas influence many other artists and culture creators. “Her previous texts don’t become dated; her ideas keep circulating. …People take her work and build upon it. And she’s not afraid of the truth of her time. That’s important for generations that come after her.”
The 100-Year-Old Writer’s First Live Webchat
Diana Athill is just a few days from her centenary, but – despite some hand injuries that mean she can’t type into a computer – she’s going strong. “Seasoned Athill watchers won’t be surprised to hear that she is at work on a new book – a tale of upward mobility in England as demonstrated through her own family’s rise from country doctors in early 19th-century Yorkshire to wealthy Norfolk landowners. At the centre of the story is her great-grandfather, who was left £44,000 by a grateful patient at a time when doctors were not considered to be gentlemen and such a sum could buy a handsome Queen Anne mansion in a landscaped park.”
What’s The Deal With All Of These New, And Deeply Popular, History Podcasts?
The genre, which exploded after Malcolm Gladwell started his “Revisionist History” podcast, is riddled with sweeping pronouncements, some of which ignore recent scholarship or popular knowledge. They can definitely be informative and useful, but beware: “Sometimes the counterintuitive take is just wrong.”
The Internet-Era Way To Track Down A Missing Monet: Google
As the curator for a new Monet exhibition noted, after he found a painting he’d only seen in tiny reproductions in a couple of catalogues, “I’ve done my time buried away in archives and libraries. Every now and then one has to use other options.”
With The Purchase Of 21st Century Fox, A Leader Defines His Legacy At Disney
And wow, is this deal going to affect everything in Hollywood. “The film business has not seen significant consolidation in generations — perhaps not since 1935, when 20th Century Pictures and Fox Film merged to form 20th Century Fox, going on to deliver classics like ‘How Green Was My Valley,’ ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘Wall Street.’ Now that Disney is a content colossus, analysts expect a wave of Hollywood mergers, as companies like Viacom, CBS, Sony, Lionsgate and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer look to gain scale.”
What If Everything About How We’re Trying To Understand Prejudice Is Wrong?
Well, at least everything about the “implicit” or “unconscious” bias tests that people are taking online, not to mention the “overcoming implicit bias” trainings that almost everyone in the corporate world has to take. “The forgiving notion of unconscious prejudice has become the go-to explanation for all manner of discrimination, but the shaky science behind the IAT suggests this theory isn’t simply easy, but false. And if implicit bias is a weak scapegoat, we must confront the troubling reality that society is still, disturbingly, all too consciously racist and sexist.”