Category: media

The Wizard of Oz‘s Glinda the Good Witch of the North was the first sorceress figure not to wear black, cackle, have a cartoonishly ugly face, or do evil — and so became the grandmother of Samantha Stevens (Bewitched), Sabrina, and Hermione Granger. Writer Pam Grossman makes the case that Glinda was much more than a “silly pain in the neck” (as Salman Rushdie had it) — and locates Glinda’s likely origin in L. Frank Baum’s mother-in-law. – The Atlantic

KSUT in Ignacio, Colorado was given the Folk N’ Bluegrass festival, which brings in about 2,000 attendees per day and the Four Corners Folk Festival, which draws nearly double that. – Current

“Netflix may have been the first to crack the key European market, with locally produced hit Money Heist, but the streamer is now facing heated competition from the likes of Amazon, HBO, Viacom and local player Movistar, which are all vying for Spanish talent and content.” – The Hollywood Reporter

“Ramping up the drive into censorship in Brazil, its Minister of Citizenship, Omar Terra, has suspended a call for applications for governmental TV funding … Terra’s announcement comes just days after Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro lashed out at funding for LGBTQI series in an outburst during a scheduled state of the union-style address.” – Variety

This year more than ever, we are seeing a transatlantic schism between film festivals over how to handle these acclaimed directors, each of whom have very different backstories. – Deadline

Emily Nussbaum, TV critic for The New Yorker, is over the “false hierarchy” of TV shows, especially when they center men behaving badly. “It’s not about creating a new hierarchy. It’s about exploding the false status anxiety and, to a certain extent, the gender bias that’s basically kept all of those [female-centered] shows categorized as ‘optional’ shows that girls and teenagers watch. It’s like: topple the top 10 list, the anxious hierarchy. Look across the universe at different kinds of creativity.” – The Millions

Not to mention the demands on the set dresser. No, really, this is how Succession works: “They decided it would be impractical to haul equipment and a crew to shoot in a hunting lodge near [Lake Placid], reversed course, and settled on shooting in the Otto Kahn mansion, nicknamed Oheka Castle, in Long Island. Carter drove out to take a look at Oheka in the dead of winter, and inspiration struck: ‘We’re like, This feels like Hungary, why don’t we pitch that it’s in Hungary?‘” – Vulture

López, a Mexican director and writer, defied convention and expectations to create a new horror film that addresses the real-life horrors of drug cartels (with a side dose of fantasy along with the horror). Why unexpected? Well: “Penning rom-coms for sale, or ‘wrong-coms’ as López humorously dubs them, gained her access to the big screen just as major U.S. studios started producing movies in Mexico.” – Los Angeles Times

School newspapers usually aren’t independent from the schools they’re trying to cover. And that’s a big, big problem. “When professional pundits talk about dangers to free expression on campus, they typically refer to a handful of incidents in which colleges have revoked invitations for controversial speakers. This, however, is a fringe issue, confined to a small number of universities. The real crisis of campus speech lies elsewhere—in the erosion of student newspapers.” – The Atlantic