Zola, the wedding planner site that was running the ads, was not OK with the channel’s response to the anti-gay freakout from a notoriously homophobic group. “‘All kisses, couples and marriages are equal celebrations of love and we will no longer be advertising on Hallmark,’ Mike Chi, Zola’s chief marketing officer, said in a statement.” (And #BoycottHallmark has been trending on Twitter for hours.) – The Hollywood Reporter
Category: issues
Thousands March Against Hungarian Regime’s Plans To Tighten Control Of Performing Arts
“Actors and directors led Monday evening’s rally in Budapest against a bill that they say threatens artistic freedom and extends the nationalist government’s reach into areas that should be politically independent. The city’s liberal opposition mayor Gergely Karácsony also addressed the crowd. … [The legislation will] establish a national cultural council to determine ‘the unified strategic direction of various segments of culture’.” – The Irish Times
The Importance Of Stalin Jokes
“By the 1980s, Soviet political jokes had become so widely enjoyed that even the US president Ronald Reagan loved to collect and retell them. But, 50 years earlier, under Stalin’s paranoid and brutal reign, why would ordinary Soviet people share jokes ridiculing their leaders and the Soviet system if they ran the risk of the NKVD (state security) breaking down the door to their apartment and tearing them away from their families, perhaps never to return? … And yet, countless diaries, memoirs and even the state’s own archives reveal that people [did].” – Aeon
Should Arts Organizations Program For The Election?
Many think there’s a separation of politics and art. But simply ignoring elections seems an abdication of responsibility. There are ways to think about how to address elections if you’re an artist. – Clyde Fitch Report
Theme Park Workers File Suit Against Disney Over Low Wages: “We’re Living In Cars!”
A new class action lawsuit, filed Friday in California Superior Court and announced in a press advisory Monday, argues that the Walt Disney Company, worth approximately $130 billion as of this year, failed to pay hundreds of those workers a living wage. The complaint was filed by five Disney employees on behalf of more than 400 hospitality workers. – The Daily Beast
Staged Trial Of Asylum Seeker Shines Light On EU’s Growing Refugee Problem
“Dutch asylum court is not exactly a well-trodden topic within performance art, but last week in Amsterdam, a one-off staging of a refugee trial asked the public to determine the fate of an actual case. The piece” — Ehsan Fardjadniya’s Refugee on Trial: Afghan Journalist Ali J vs. Netherlands — “asked questions about the role of performance in analysing complex social and legal issues, and with it how visual artists are using performance to platform issues often left hidden.” – The Art Newspaper
A Protest Song-And-Dance About Violence Against Women, Launched In Chile, Is Spreading All Over The World
“This stirring performance, titled ‘Un violador en tu camino‘ (“A Rapist in Your Path), was first brought to life by the feminist art collective called Lastesis at a protest in the port city of Valparaíso, Chile, late last month, as a way of drawing attention to violence against women. Since then, this viral action has materialized in Colombia, Mexico, France, India, the U.S. and Turkey (where an attempt to stage it on Sunday was broken up by police).” – Los Angeles Times
How MBA Programs And Big Corporations Are Using The Arts To Train Executives
The business school at Oxford has students try to conduct a choir. Carnegie Mellon uses a book club and art installations. The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts offers courses to business types. And what lessons get learned in all this? – The Economist
Vijay Iyer: Artist As Ally Of Adjacent Cultures
“This can’t just be about me sounding cool or looking awesome. It has to be in service of something larger. You want to actually open a conversation and activate people’s imaginations, and allow them to imagine a different world than the one we’re in. And that’s the kind of work that an artist can do, because we’re not there to answer questions exactly. We’re there to stir something up, and also to offer an alternative to the reality that we’re inhabiting.” – Boston Review
The Impossible Body Standards Of The Modern Superhero
Superman was “too chubby” to play James Bond, Kevin Hart (The Rock’s “non-ripped” co-star) starts at the gym at 5 every morning, and movie men are partnering, i.e. getting sweet but addicting brand money from, a variety of “fitness” products, companies, and routines. “It is a worrying state of affairs when the measure of an actor is how hard they work on their bodies rather than how good they are at, you know, acting.” (Uh, yes, the women in these movies probably have a thing or two to say about that as well.) – The Guardian (UK)