Tag: 02.08.19

Film Critic Carrie Rickey Talks About Weinstein, #MeToo And Movies

“Naturally, as a woman and a mother, I am not for sexual predation of women in any industry. That kind of goes without saying. Before Nora Ephron died, she made a list of the things she wouldn’t miss. I think number one or two on that list of things I won’t miss are more panels about why there aren’t enough women in film. That’s kind of how I’m feeling now. We talk about it, and we talk about it, and nothing fucking changes. You can quote me on that.” – The Smart Set

Blackface Minstrelsy, America’s First Cultural Export

While other nations have had traditions of blackening the face to portray a particular character (e.g., Holland’s Zwarte Piet), “a man named Thomas Dartmouth Rice first brought American minstrel shows to Europe in 1836 in which white performers portrayed African American slaves in tattered clothes, dancing and singing songs such as ‘Jump Jim Crow.’ … [Subsequently,] blackface minstrels toured Australia, India, South America, South Africa and other places in the world. They were seen as American and therefore exotic” — and their imagery was absorbed into other cultures.” – Public Radio International

Jan Wahl, Children’s Book Author Who Worked With Greatest Illustrators, Dead At 87

“[He] was an extraordinarily prolific author who published more than 100 books, many of which found favor with children and parents alike. His collaborating with leading book artists” — among them Maurice Sendak, Edward Gorey, and Norman Rockwell — “was one measure of the esteem with which his work was held; they can be notably selective about what children’s book authors they’ll work with.” – The New York Times

Professional-Level Arts Are Thoroughly Subsidized By (If Not Addicted To) Unpaid Labor

Citing practices that “wouldn’t be tolerated in any other industry,” the ArtsPay 2018 survey “reveals that salaries in the sector, which are already low in comparison with other industries, are even less favourable than they appear because they take no account of the unpaid overtime that workers are routinely expected to do. It raises serious questions about the sustainability of careers in the arts.” – Arts Professional

How Neuroscience Is Going to Change The Business Of Finding An Audience

Neuroscience, it turns out, can help change how companies think about new opportunities, and specifically, within the emerging field of applied neuroscience. Applied neuroscience is best described as the use of neuroscience tools and insights to measure and understand human behavior. Using applied neuroscience, leaders are able to generate data about critical moments of decision making, and then use this data to make confident choices that help to navigate the future of an initiative. – Harvard Business Review

A Prescient Warning From 1994 About Dangers Of A Distraction Culture

Writing in 1994, Sven Birkerts worried that distractedness and surficiality would win out. The “duration state” we enter through a turned page would be lost in a world of increasing speed and relentless connectivity, and with it our ability to make meaning out of narratives, both fictional and lived. The diminishment of literature—of sustained reading, of writing as the product of a single focused mind—would diminish the self in turn, rendering us less and less able to grasp both the breadth of our world and the depth of our own consciousness. – Paris Review

Play Under Attack For Using Puppet To Play Autistic Child

In All In A Row by Alex Oates, “a puppet portrays the character of Laurence, who is described as ‘autistic, non-verbal and occasionally violent’. … The play has faced a backlash online since a production video previewing it was released.” Critics say that the casting “fed into ‘a negative narrative of dehumanising’. A spokesman for the play said it was ‘untenable’ to get autistic performers to play the part.” – London Evening Standard