Category: media

It’s truly weird that Netflix can’t get it right in Nappily Ever After when shows like This Is Us and Grown-ish get it so right. Then there are the how-tos on YouTube for Issa Rae’s hair from Insecure, and the joys of Atlanta: “As they discussed child-care plans, Van took down her voluminous curls, which had been twisted into Bantu knots. It’s wasn’t the focus of the scene — and that’s precisely what made it so powerful.”

Listen, you might think the actor’s movie choices are random. Au contraire, mes frères: The luminous star of the new Colette is (sometimes literally) sticking it to The Man. “In all of Knightley’s historical films, she is at the center. She is not relegated to the role of love interest; men are. Romances, marriages, children, and dalliances are all secondary to her own development — as a woman, but also as the protagonist in her own life story, no matter how tragic it may become.”

Elayne Boosler performed in the most elite comic clubs on both coasts, but she could never get her own sitcom or even a network special – and she saw very limited time on the Tonight Show (Johnny wasn’t into assertive women). But she was a master of the stand-up hour. “Make no mistake: Ms. Boosler was its first female star, regularly putting out hours of jokes on cable in the 1980s and early ’90s that represented a break from the past. … Her act — hard-hitting, topical and dense with punch lines — anticipated the future of comedy better than most if not all of her peers.”

A Pay Equity Summit was billed as “the first step” in getting women pay equity with men. One of the craft guilds “published a study this year arguing that female-dominated crafts are often paid less than male-dominated jobs of similar responsibility level. The study equated women-dominated jobs like script supervisors to male-dominated jobs like assistant directors.”

‘Bongo Cat’ took off a month ago, and in a world of constant reporting on sexual assaults and climate change, the meme has won over just about everyone. (Yes, you need to watch “In the Hall of the Bongo Cat.”)

One critic says that TIFF did a pretty good job: “It’s one thing to say we need to be there. But we’ve been on the carpets and in these rooms and felt the disrespect. I didn’t feel like an outsider [at TIFF] and that is getting it right. It felt like a genuine change they were actually trying to be part of.” But now? Larger outlets need to diversify their rosters.

If you are liberal—and in this political climate, we’re calling readers of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN liberals—you went on the internet this morning and saw a flood of #BelieveWomen tweets and women talking about how Blasey Ford’s testimony moved them to tears.  But if you are conservative, you went on the internet today and saw a deluge of #BackBrett tweets, a great deal about flying, and a lot of lamenting.

Public radio fans may remember Scott Carrier from his segments (many involving long road trips) on This American Life. In 2015, he switched to podcasting, reporting and producing the series The Home of the Brave with funding provided solely by listeners. Barrett Golding, who co-founded with Carrier the Peabody Award-winning NPR project Hearing Voices, talks with him about the transition to solo work and everything that it takes (and takes out of you).

“Behind the scenes, executives are reviewing departments and evaluating staffers’ expertise to determine ‘the most efficient merger’ and to ‘match people to the right roles based on our priorities,’ said Kerri Hoffman, the former PRX CEO who holds the same position in the new entity. … The merger, announced last month, will also bring a combined board, free services for stations, and new experiments with PRI’s The World, the network’s flagship newsmagazine.”

In 1940, just after the Generalissimo and his fascist forces won the Spanish Civil War, he wrote the screenplay for a film titled Raza, a self-justifying combination of allegorical propaganda and autofiction. Ten years later, in the wake of World War II, Franco censored his own film and remade it.