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blackkudos · 4 years

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Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American singer, dancer, actress, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned over 70 years, appearing in film, television, and theater. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of 16 and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood.

Returning to her roots as a nightclub performer, Horne took part in the March on Washington in August 1963 and continued to work as a performer, both in nightclubs and on television while releasing well-received record albums. She announced her retirement in March 1980, but the next year starred in a one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, which ran for more than 300 performances on Broadway. She then toured the country in the show, earning numerous awards and accolades. Horne continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s, disappearing from the public eye in 2000. Horne died of congestive heart failure on May 9, 2010, at the age of 92.

Early life

Lena Horne was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. She was reportedly descended from the John C. Calhoun family, and both sides of her family were through a mixture of African, Native American, and European descent and belonged to the upper stratum of middle-class, well-educated people. Her father, Edwin Fletcher "Teddy" Horne Jr. (1893–1970), a numbers kingpin in the gambling trade, left the family when she was three and moved to an upper-middle-class African American community in the Hill District community of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Edna Louise Scottron (1894–1976), was a granddaughter of inventor Samuel R. Scottron; she was an actress with a black theatre troupe and traveled extensively. Edna's maternal grandmother, Amelie Louise Ashton, was a Senegalese slave. Horne was raised mainly by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne.

When Horne was five, she was sent to live in Georgia. For several years, she traveled with her mother. From 1927 to 1929, she lived with her uncle, Frank S. Horne, dean of students at Fort Valley Junior Industrial Institute (now part of Fort Valley State University) in Fort Valley, Georgia, who later served as an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From Fort Valley, southwest of Macon, Horne briefly moved to Atlanta with her mother; they returned to New York when Horne was 12 years old. She then attended Girls High School, an all-girls public high school in Brooklyn that has since become Boys and Girls High School; she dropped out without earning a diploma. Aged 18, she moved to her father's home in Pittsburgh, staying in the city's Little Harlem for almost five years and learning from native Pittsburghers Billy Strayhorn and Billy Eckstine, among others.

Career

Road to Hollywood

In the fall of 1933, Horne joined the chorus line of the Cotton Club in New York City. In the spring of 1934, she had a featured role in the Cotton Club Parade starring Adelaide Hall, who took Lena under her wing. Horne made her first screen appearance as a dancer in the musical short Cab Calloway's Jitterbug Party (1935). A few years later, Horne joined Noble Sissle's Orchestra, with which she toured and with whom she made her first records, issued by Decca. After she separated from her first husband, Horne toured with bandleader Charlie Barnet in 1940–41, but disliked the travel and left the band to work at the Cafe Society in New York. She replaced Dinah Shore as the featured vocalist on NBC's popular jazz series The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. The show's resident maestros, Henry Levine and Paul Laval, recorded with Horne in June 1941 for RCA Victor. Horne left the show after only six months when she was hired by former Cafe Trocadero (Los Angeles) manager Felix Young to perform in a Cotton Club-style revue on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood.

Horne already had two low-budget movies to her credit: a 1938 musical feature called The Duke is Tops (later reissued with Horne's name above the title as The Bronze Venus); and a 1941 two-reel short subject, Boogie Woogie Dream, featuring pianists Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons. Horne's songs from Boogie Woogie Dream were later released individually as soundies. Horne made her Hollywood nightclub debut at Felix Young's Little Troc on the Sunset Strip in January 1942. A few weeks later, she was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In November 1944, she was featured in an episode of the popular radio series Suspense, as a fictional nightclub singer, with a large speaking role along with her singing. In 1945 and 1946, she sang with Billy Eckstine's Orchestra.

She made her debut at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Panama Hattie (1942) and performed the title song of Stormy Weather based loosely on the life of Adelaide Hall, (1943), at 20th Century Fox, while on loan from MGM. She appeared in a number of MGM musicals, most notably Cabin in the Sky (1943), but was never featured in a leading role because of her race and the fact that her films had to be re-edited for showing in cities where theaters would not show films with black performers. As a result, most of Horne's film appearances were stand-alone sequences that had no bearing on the rest of the film, so editing caused no disruption to the storyline. A notable exception was the all-black musical Cabin in the Sky, although one number from that film was cut before release because it was considered too suggestive by the censors: Horne singing "Ain't It the Truth" while taking a bubble bath. This scene and song are featured in the film That's Entertainment! III (1994) which also featured commentary from Horne on why the scene was deleted prior to the film's release. Lena Horne was the first African-American elected to serve on the Screen Actors Guild board of directors.

In Ziegfeld Follies (1946), she performed "Love" by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Horne lobbied for the role of Julie LaVerne in MGM's 1951 version of Show Boat (having already played the role when a segment of Show Boat was performed in Till the Clouds Roll By, 1946) but lost the part to Ava Gardner, a personal friend in real life. Horne claimed this was due to the Production Code's ban on interracial relationships in films, but MGM sources state she was never considered for the role in the first place. In the documentary That's Entertainment! III, Horne stated that MGM executives required Gardner to practice her singing using Horne's recordings, which offended both actresses. Ultimately, Gardner's voice was overdubbed by actress Annette Warren (Smith) for the theatrical release.

Changes of direction

By the mid-1950s, Horne was disenchanted with Hollywood and increasingly focused on her nightclub career. She made only two major appearances for MGM during the 1950s: Duchess of Idaho (which was also Eleanor Powell's final film); and the 1956 musical Meet Me in Las Vegas. She was blacklisted during the 1950s for her affiliations in the 1940s with communist-backed groups. She would subsequently disavow communism. She returned to the screen three more times, playing chanteuse Claire Quintana in the 1969 film Death of a Gunfighter, Glinda in The Wiz (1978), which was directed by her then son-in-law Sidney Lumet, and co-hosting the MGM retrospective That's Entertainment! III (1994), in which she was candid about her unkind treatment by the studio.

After leaving Hollywood, Horne established herself as one of the premier nightclub performers of the post-war era. She headlined at clubs and hotels throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. In 1957, a live album entitled, Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria, became the biggest-selling record by a female artist in the history of the RCA Victor label at that time. In 1958, Horne became the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Tony Award for "Best Actress in a Musical" (for her part in the "Calypso" musical Jamaica) which, at Lena's request featured her longtime friend Adelaide Hall.

From the late 1950s through to the 1960s, Horne was a staple of TV variety shows, appearing multiple times on Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dean Martin Show, and The Bell Telephone Hour. Other programs she appeared on included The Judy Garland Show, The Hollywood Palace, and The Andy Williams Show. Besides two television specials for the BBC (later syndicated in the U.S.), Horne starred in her own U.S. television special in 1969, Monsanto Night Presents Lena Horne. During this decade, the artist Pete Hawley painted her portrait for RCA Victor, capturing the mood of her performance style.

In 1970, she co-starred with Harry Belafonte in the hour-long Harry & Lena special for ABC; in 1973, she co-starred with Tony Bennett in Tony and Lena. Horne and Bennett subsequently toured the U.S. and U.K. in a show together. In the 1976 program America Salutes Richard Rodgers, she sang a lengthy medley of Rodgers songs with Peggy Lee and Vic Damone. Horne also made several appearances on The Flip Wilson Show. Additionally, Horne played herself on television programs such as The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and Sanford and Son in the 1970s, as well as a 1985 performance on The Cosby Show and a 1993 appearance on A Different World. In the summer of 1980, Horne, 63 years old and intent on retiring from show business, embarked on a two-month series of benefit concerts sponsored by the sorority Delta Sigma Theta. These concerts were represented as Horne's farewell tour, yet her retirement lasted less than a year.

On April 13, 1980, Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, and host Gene Kelly were all scheduled to appear at a Gala performance at the Metropolitan Opera House to salute the NY City Center's Joffrey Ballet Company. However, Pavarotti's plane was diverted over the Atlantic and he was unable to appear. James Nederlander was an invited Honored Guest and noted that only three people at the sold-out Metropolitan Opera House asked for their money back. He asked to be introduced to Lena following her performance. In May 1981, The Nederlander Organization, Michael Frazier, and Fred Walker went on to book Horne for a four-week engagement at the newly named Nederlander Theatre on West 41st Street in New York City. The show was an instant success and was extended to a full year run, garnering Horne a special Tony award, and two Grammy Awards for the cast recording of her show Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music. The 333-performance Broadway run closed on Horne's 65th birthday, June 30, 1982. Later that same week, she performed the entire show again to record it for television broadcast and home video release. Horne began a tour a few days later at Tanglewood (Massachusetts) during the weekend of July 4, 1982. The Lady and Her Music toured 41 cities in the U.S. and Canada until June 17, 1984. It played in London for a month in August and ended its run in Stockholm, Sweden, September 14, 1984. In 1981, she received a Special Tony Award for the show, which also played to acclaim at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1984. Despite the show's considerable success (Horne still holds the record for the longest-running solo performance in Broadway history), she did not capitalize on the renewed interest in her career by undertaking many new musical projects. A proposed 1983 joint recording project between Horne and Frank Sinatra (to be produced by Quincy Jones) was ultimately abandoned, and her sole studio recording of the decade was 1988's The Men in My Life, featuring duets with Sammy Davis Jr. and Joe Williams. In 1989, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 1995, a "live" album capturing Horne's Supper Club performance was released (subsequently winning a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album). In 1998, Horne released another studio album, entitled Being Myself. Thereafter, Horne retired from performing and largely retreated from public view, though she did return to the recording studio in 2000 to contribute vocal tracks on Simon Rattle's Classic Ellington album.

Civil rights activism

Horne was long involved with the Civil Rights Movement. In 1941, she sang at Cafe Society and worked with Paul Robeson. During World War II, when entertaining the troops for the USO, she refused to perform "for segregated audiences or for groups in which German POWs were seated in front of black servicemen", according to her Kennedy Center biography. Because the U.S. Army refused to allow integrated audiences, she staged her show for a mixed audience of black U.S. soldiers and white German POWs. Seeing the black soldiers had been forced to sit in the back seats, she walked off the stage to the first row where the black troops were seated and performed with the Germans behind her. After quitting the USO in 1945 because of the organization's policy of segregating audiences, Horne financed tours of military camps herself.

She was at an NAACP rally with Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, the weekend before Evers was assassinated. She also met President John F. Kennedy at the White House two days before he was assassinated. She was at the March on Washington and spoke and performed on behalf of the NAACP, SNCC, and the National Council of Negro Women. She also worked with Eleanor Roosevelt to pass anti-lynching laws. Tom Lehrer mentions her in his song "National Brotherhood Week" in the line "Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek to cheek" referring (wryly) to her and to Sheriff Jim Clark, of Selma, Alabama, who was responsible for a violent attack on civil rights marchers in 1965. In 1983, the NAACP awarded her the Spingarn Medal.

Horne was a registered Democrat and on November 20, 1963, she, along with Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman John Bailey, Carol Lawrence, Richard Adler, Sidney Salomon, Vice-Chairwoman of the DNC Margaret B. Price, and Secretary of the DNC Dorothy Vredenburgh Bush, visited John F. Kennedy at The White House, two days prior to his assassination.

Personal life

Horne married Louis Jordan Jones, a political operative, in January 1937 in Pittsburgh. On December 21, 1937, their daughter, Gail (later known as Gail Lumet Buckley, a writer) was born. They had a son, Edwin Jones (February 7, 1940 – September 12, 1970) who died of kidney disease. Horne and Jones separated in 1940 and divorced in 1944. Horne's second marriage was to Lennie Hayton, who was music director and one of the premier musical conductors and arrangers at MGM, in December 1947 in Paris. They separated in the early 1960s, but never divorced; he died in 1971. In her as-told-to autobiography Lena by Richard Schickel, Horne recounts the enormous pressures she and her husband faced as an interracial couple. She later admitted in an interview in Ebony (May 1980) that she had married Hayton to advance her career and cross the "color-line" in show business.

Horne had affairs with Artie Shaw, Orson Welles, Vincente Minnelli, and the boxer Joe Louis.

Horne also had a long and close relationship with Billy Strayhorn, whom she said she would have married if he had been heterosexual. He was also an important professional mentor to her. Screenwriter Jenny Lumet, known for her award-winning screenplay Rachel Getting Married, is Horne's granddaughter, the daughter of filmmaker Sidney Lumet and Horne's daughter Gail. Her other grandchildren include Gail's other daughter, Amy Lumet, and her son's four children, Thomas, William, Samadhi, and Lena. Her great-grandchildren include Jake Cannavale.

From 1946 to 1962, Horne resided in a St. Albans, Queens, New York, enclave of prosperous African Americans, where she counted among her neighbors Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and other jazz luminaries.

Death

Horne died of congestive heart failure on May 9, 2010. Her funeral took place at St. Ignatius Loyola Church on Park Avenue in New York. Thousands gathered and attendees included Leontyne Price, Dionne Warwick, Liza Minnelli, Jessye Norman, Chita Rivera, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Leslie Uggams, Lauren Bacall, Robert Osborne, Audra McDonald, and Vanessa Williams. Her remains were cremated.

Legacy

In 2003, ABC announced that Janet Jackson would star as Horne in a television biographical film. In the weeks following Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" debacle during the 2004 Super Bowl, however, Variety reported that Horne had demanded Jackson be dropped from the project. "ABC executives resisted Horne's demand", according to the Associated Press report, "but Jackson representatives told the trade newspaper that she left willingly after Horne and her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, asked that she not take part." Oprah Winfrey stated to Alicia Keys during a 2005 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show that she might possibly consider producing the biopic herself, casting Keys as Horne.

In January 2005, Blue Note Records, her label for more than a decade, announced that "the finishing touches have been put on a collection of rare and unreleased recordings by the legendary Horne made during her time on Blue Note." Remixed by her longtime producer Rodney Jones, the recordings featured Horne with a remarkably secure voice for a woman of her years, and include versions of such signature songs as "Something to Live For", "Chelsea Bridge", and "Stormy Weather". The album, originally titled Soul but renamed Seasons of a Life, was released on January 24, 2006. In 2007, Horne was portrayed by Leslie Uggams as the older Lena and Nikki Crawford as the younger Lena in the stage musical Stormy Weather staged at the Pasadena Playhouse in California (January to March 2009). In 2011, Horne was also portrayed by actress Ryan Jillian in a one-woman show titled Notes from A Horne staged at the Susan Batson studio in New York City, from November 2011 to February 2012. The 83rd Academy Awards presented a tribute to Horne by actress Halle Berry at the ceremony held February 27, 2011.

In 2018, a forever stamp depicting Horne began to be issued; this made Horne the 41st honoree in the Black Heritage stamp series.

#06/30 #05/09

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slythrnwrtes · 6 years

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Hey there!! I finally have the time to write again, so I’m currently looking for new plots + partners. I’ve put a list below the cut of some stuff I’m interested in doing, so if you’d be down with doing any of these with me please either shoot me a DM or like this post and I’ll come to you. I am currently mainly looking for f/f and m/f plots !!

Disclaimer: Some of these are recycled plots I never got the chance to do in the past but I still wanna do !!

A city witches plot where two witches are roommates in New York and they use little spells in their everyday life to make things easier, but they have to hide it from the world. While Muse A is really strict with their magic and makes sure to always be as careful as they can be, Muse B could care less and is very free spirited and risks exposing magic to humans on a daily basis. It creates a lot of tension but they’re best friends (or lovers) so they try to work through it. Inspired by this.

Some modern mythology plots based off literally any of these would be lovely!! I am weak for modern mythology plots in general (some of my absolute favorite pairings are Dionysus x Ariadne, Ares x Aphrodite and Hades x Persephone).

A modern Disney princess / slightly OUAT inspired plot ( or mumu ) where all the Disney princesses live in modern day New York but are still highly influenced by their Disney counterparts.

I am currently in love with the Marauders era of Harry Potter and I’m willing to do almost anything related to that (my favorite characters to write are James Potter, Rita Skeeter and Bellatrix Black, but I’m open to writing anyone + any ship).

With that said, Harry Potter plots are my kryptonite and I am always down to do any hp plot !!

A plot where Ares and Aphrodite walk the Earth and they’re both women and in love (dibs on Ares).

[drug/alcohol cw] An f/f plot slightly inspired by Elementary where Muse A is a rich and successful businesswoman that struggles with drug/alcohol abuse. Muse B is hired by Muse A’s company to be her sober companion and basically keep her on track, although her job is soon made difficult by Muse A’s moodiness and high demands. I think this could be a classic “thundercloud x ray of sunshine” sort of thing.

A con artist plot where Muse A and B are roommates and rivals, always trying to upstage the other’s most recent heist. It does not occur to them that they could work together and achieve even greater success, because they’ve always been at each other’s throats.

A fallen angels plot inspired by this. Muse A and Muse B were kicked out of heaven and are now living in the big city, both doing their best to move on ( but never quite knowing how ).

A city witches plot but with gangs. Muse A and B belong to rival witch gangs, and should definitively not be friends. Yet, they feel drawn to each other, and eventually end up hooking up.

A bad girl x bad boy plot !! Or a bad girl x bad girl plot.

A plot based in the Harry Potter universe where Muse A and B both work in Hogsmeade. Muse A owns a small bakery, while Muse B works as a bartender / barmaid in one of the pubs. They form a habit of meeting after work and discussing their days and lives, and eventually start falling in love.

A gold digger / age gap plot where Muse A is this young and bright-eyed college student who marries Muse B for their money. Muse B is older, experienced and can kinda guess what Muse A is after, but marries Muse A anyways because they’ve been looking for love for years and never finding it so what the hell, right? People will finally stop asking questions at the very least. A few months into their marriage, Muse A starts falling for Muse B but Muse B is kinda hesitant because they have been hurt before.

A similar plot where Muse A needs to marry someone to stay in the country, and Muse B agrees, despite barely knowing Muse A. In order to pass all the inspections and to stop the authorities from exposing their marriage as a fraud, they are forced to move in together and pretend to be happily married.

Another marriage plot where Muse A and B are acquaintances that go to Vegas together, and end up getting wasted and accidentally married. Both are dirt poor and can’t afford an annulment or a divorce, so they stay married.

A plot where Muse A is a news anchor / reporter and Muse B is a police detective. Muse A is always hounding Muse B for the latest story and Muse B is lowkey annoyed ( but Muse A is also really cute, so sometimes Muse B will let something slip ). They kinda always butt heads because of their jobs but deep down they really like each other.

A plot where Muse A and B broke up months ago, but they are both pretty poor and can’t afford a new apartment right now, so they continue living together. They also haven’t told their parents and friends that they broke up, so they have to pretend to still be together a lot.

A plot where Muse A and Muse B are actors working on the same tv show, where they play the main and most popular couple. On the screen they have insane chemistry, but behind the scenes, they hate each other and can barely stand being in the same room.

A medieval plot where Muse A is a prince/princess of Country A and Muse B is a prince/princess of Country B. It has been a hard couple of years for both countries, but a union between the families would benefit the economy for them both. Thus, although Muse A and Muse B have never actually met before, they agree to get married.

Another medieval plot where Muse A comes from nothing, but has managed to work their way up the social ranks using only their charm and their looks. Meanwhile, Muse B is the bachelor king/queen who hasn’t settled down yet (rumor has it that they sleep around a lot). Muse A’s plan is to get Muse B to fall in love with them, but Muse B - although enticed by Muse A, is easily distracted. After a while, they become friends, but both want different things from their relationship.

A Gilded Ashes inspired plot where Muse A is the crown prince/princess of the land, and Muse B is a disgraced heiress. Muse A does not believe in love since they found out that the supposed love of their life was only using them for their title. Muse B does not believe in love either, because they are haunted by demons who threaten to punish anyone that hurts Muse B. On the night that Muse A is supposed to choose their husband/wife on their father’s orders, they run into Muse B and feel an instant connection. Still, neither Muse A or B believe in love... But they continue to see each other.

A witch plot where Muse A and Muse B are childhood best friends. Once they reach puberty and pick their paths, Muse A chooses light magic, while Muse B chooses dark magic. They drift apart due to their differences, but 10-something years later, they both show up for the same job interview and get the same job.

A ‘The Little Mermaid’ inspired plot where Muse A is a marine biologist who’s studying the coral reefs. Muse B is a mermaid who lives very close to the reefs, and is a little too curious for their own good and often observes Muse A while they are working. One day, Muse A is in trouble and Muse B decides to save Muse A, even though it reveals who and what they are.

FCs I currently want to play / play against ( in no particular order & I’ll play both males and females ):

Joe Keery • Katheryn Winnick • Jenna Coleman • Alberto Rosende • Gal Gadot • Melissa Fumero • Candice Patton • Melissa Benoist • Matt Daddario • Lily Collins • Rosamund Pike • Charlie Hunman • John Boyega • Amanda Seyfried • Leighton Meester • Phoebe Tonkin • Katie Stevens • John Krasiniski • Alycia Debnam Carey • Emeraude Toubia • Taron Egerton • Kat McNamara • Virginia Gardner • Lily James • Lucy Liu • Keiynan Lonsdale • Gregg Sulkin • Deborah Ann Woll • Margot Robbie • Madchen Amick • Amy Adams • Sarah Shahi • Daniel Radcliffe • Franz Drameh • Sophie Turner • Dominic Sherwood • Troian Bellisario • Dave Franco • Diego Luna • Rachel McAdams • Tessa Thompson • Jeffrey Dean Morgan • Ryan Gosling • Cody Christian • Natalia Dyer • Violett Beane.

#1x1 rp #1x1 #plot bunny #lizzie.txt

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avaduvernayfans · 7 years

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Critic’s Notebook: Why Female-Driven TV Matters More Than Ever

Like the earliest women film directors, today’s female TV creators, from Jane Campion to Ava DuVernay, are using their platform to tackle the biggest of big issues — and making some of the best shows in the process.

Top of the Lake: China Girl, the second season of Jane Campion’s fierce, dazzling detective series for SundanceTV, begins with a dead body in a suitcase. But as Detective Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss) searches for the killer, she finds clues in a brothel, and also meets the 17-year-old daughter — the product of rape — she gave up for adoption. As no ordinary police procedural does, China Girl spirals out to explore sex trafficking, abuse and motherhood in many forms, including by adoption and surrogacy.

Campion is one of several high-profile women, including Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Ava DuVernay, behind some of the best television series of the moment. When DuVernay created Queen Sugar and declared that the production would hire only women directors, she kickstarted a mini-trend that the industry and press noticed. But that headline has overshadowed the other noteworthy element that unites these women-driven projects and sets them apart from the crowd: their urgent social and political relevance.

These shows are more than just examples of progress in gender equality among small-screen creators (which would be plenty good in itself). They address hot-button issues, exploding typical television narratives with stories that ripple beyond the screen, into the real world.

Queen Sugar deals with class, race and the prison system through the lens of one African-American family. Big Little Lies, produced by and starring Witherspoon and Kidman, takes on domestic abuse and rape in upscale suburbia. Margaret Atwood’s novels have been turned into two resonant series: Hulu’s Handmaid’s Tale, for which four of the five directors were women, is frighteningly timely in its dystopian portrait of a fascist regime that treats women as reproductive property; the forthcoming Netflix series Alias Grace, entirely written by Sarah Polley and directed by Mary Harron, mines the story of a 19th-century murder for themes including abortion and abuse.

It’s not as if men never tackle such subjects, but the pattern among shows dominated by women producers and directors is unmistakable. There is a full-circle aspect to this trend that goes back to the earliest days of movies. The first woman director, Alice-Guy Blache, made films about abuse and poverty. Lois Weber made silent films about alcoholism and prostitution. For a time, until men figured out that Hollywood was a playing field for big business, Weber was the most successful director in the country. In the 1940s and ‘50s, Ida Lupino became one of the lone women directors, creating first-rate movies about unwed mothers and rape.

Those filmmakers took on tough subjects not because they were specialized “women’s issues,” but because they were both significant and largely ignored by men. There was no secret agenda, just eyes wide open, and a fearless will to forge ahead. The same is happening in television now.

The best part of the current trend is that these dramas are spectacular as art and entertainment — complex and sophisticated but relatable for men as well as women. China Girl (premiering Sept. 10) displays Campion’s signature artistic flair, with poetic images that convey at least as much as the dialogue does: a bridal gown is held aloft and set on fire after a wedding is called off; the green suitcase holding the corpse is tossed into the ocean, strands of long black hair floating out of a hole in its side. But there is also gritty realism. The casual sexism Robin faces in the Sydney police department is so routine that she brushes it off. Meanwhile, being a mother and a victim of rape are entrenched and entwined in Robin’s richly developed character. There’s no need for Campion to be didactic; the social commentary springs organically from the drama.

Queen Sugar, executive produced by Oprah Winfrey and now in its second season on OWN, offers a character for every class to identify with. Charlie (Dawn-Lyen Gardner) is a rich businesswoman and single mother, whose basketball-star husband was accused of rape. Her story deals with matters from family to celebrity culture. Charlie’s sister (Rutina Wesley) is a journalist crusading for prison reform and against racial profiling. Their brother (Kofi Siriboe) is an ex-convict trying to reclaim his life. Viewers who come for the domestic saga may have their social consciousness awakened along the way. What could be more Oprah?

Of course, men have been deeply involved in these series, too. David E. Kelley wrote and Jean-Marc Valee directed Lies, for example. Campion wrote China Girl with Gerard Lee, and directed two of the six episodes while Ariel Kleiman (a man) directed the others. But all of these series have women as their primary movers.

Not every female-driven project is so topical. Women have made smaller inroads in traditionally male-dominated genres. Lisa Joy is the co-creator of HBO’s sci-fi Western Westworld. Moira Walley-Beckett became an important producer and writer on Breaking Bad (and went on to create the Netflix series Anne With an E, based on the girls’ classic Anne of Green Gables). But women in genre niches are, unfortunately, still the exceptions.

Social themes haven’t entered female-driven blockbusters in the same way, perhaps because of the higher economic stakes and studio oversight. But the fact that Patty Jenkins directed the summer’s biggest hit, Wonder Woman, may be more relevant than the movie’s content (even though the film sends an empowering message to girls). And DuVernay made a strong unspoken statement with A Wrinkle in Time simply by using a multiracial cast, including Winfrey, Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling. That both women have made films with $100-million budgets is progress.

But television continues to offer greater opportunities. As their ancestors did in early Hollywood, women are using their power dynamically, connecting television to the ever-more-urgent realities of the world today.

#queen sugar

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childfc · 7 years

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OH MY GOSH I DIDN'T KNOW YOU LIKE GIRLS MEET WORLD. Tell me everything. All your opinions.

Honestly, Girl Meets World is one of my favorite TV shows, and I have so many thoughts on it and conspiracies and everything! I’m so sad to see it end. I have been seeing everywhere that fans are really trying to get Netflix to pick it up, and I think that’s a great idea, and I really hope something comes out of it. I’ll share a few of my thoughts and opinions about the show and what I ship and everything, but feel free to come talk off anon about it with me!

SHIPS

I’m not in the Girl Meets World fandom, so I don’t know a lot of the proper ship names, but I definitely ship Riley and Farkle and well as Maya and Lucas and also Zay and Smackle. Zay and Smackle especially after Sweet Sixteen! I think they have a nice friendship. But I would also love to see Lucas and Smackle together because I thought that moment they had in Topanga’s was really cute, even if it was to prove to Farkle that Smackle has feelings for him.

I also think that Riley is bisexual because there is undeniable chemistry between Maya and Riley even though I don’t ship them. And I don’t ship Riley and Lucas anymore. I did in the first season, but Lucas has matured a lot since the seventh grade, and I feel like it’s taking Riley a lot longer to grow into the person she’s supposed to be while it feels like Lucas is pretty set in stone. I just feel like Riley’s gotten more ditzy as the seasons have gone on while Lucas has only gotten stronger. I don’t see or feel any chemistry from them anymore, and I haven’t since Ski Lodge pt. 2.

Honestly, everything about the Texas episodes was great. Especially with Maya. And I don’t care, but I know that Maya only gave away Lucas to Riley because Riley gave him away to her. I believe Maya might’ve gotten lost a little bit with her friendship with Riley, but I don’t think that Maya wanted to be Riley. I think she wanted what Riley had, but I don’t think she wanted to be Riley. I also think that Maya’s feelings for Lucas weren’t because she absorbed part of Riley.

And of course, my OTP is Cory and Topanga. They were my OTP before I even knew what an OTP was. And I love Maya’s mom with Shawn! I wish we could’ve seen them together more since I Do, but it’s whatevvvvs. I love Shawn Hunter with my whole heart. He’s my babe and always has been. I mean look at him.

CONSPIRACIES

I think Farkle suffers from depression. It was in season two when he stopped wearing bright colors and being his crazy, cute little Farkle self. And I really noticed these changes in Zay’s first episode, The Secret Life, when Zay doesn’t understand Farkle the way the rest of the group does. I think part of his depression is triggered by the fact that Lucas, who is apparent to us to be his only male friend, is preoccupied by his friend from back home. From that episode, Farkle starts to loose his sparkle, looses his turtle necks, and begins to wear black. I think Farkle’s extremely jealous of Zay because of his friendship with Lucas, and I think it explains his reasoning behind the gift he gave to Zay during Secret Santa in season three.

I think they knew all along that this was going to be the last season. Disney Channel shows have a trend of changing their intro during the last season. Like in Austin and Ally, Hannah Montana, and Wizards of Waverly Place, both shows have different intros during their last seasons! Liv and Maddie also has a different intro this season, I believe.

Maya is the only person in the group who is an only child. It makes sense that she’s an only child. Her and her mother struggled a lot in her growing up, and there would be no reason for her to climb in Riley’s window if she had a friend at home. I think Zay has older sisters, Farkle has a younger brother or sister, Lucas definitely has brothers and sisters. I think his family is pretty big. And Smackle most definitely has an older brother. A brother who is MUCH older, though. Zay’s siblings also go to Abigail Adams High School.

OTHER OPINIONS

I DON’T THINK CHARLIE GARDNER IS CREEPY. I don’t. I loved Charlie Gardner and I wished he was in Season Three at least once. I didn’t want him to just be a “love interest” for Riley. I would’ve liked to see him every now and again for other reasons. I also think Charlie Gardner was great with Auggie. I would like to see him as a human in the show. With thoughts and opinions.

I think Riley is childish and in the real world, I don’t think she’d have a lot of friends and I also don’t blame Riley for creating Jexica in that episode. I think whatever happens in the next episode, if Girl Meets World is to be picked up by Netflix or later picked up somewhere else, will harden her. I don’t think one person can be so optimistic all the time, either, but I get that it’s a kids show, so I’m not too butthurt over it.

I see everyone always calling Lucas and Peyton Meyer in general a piece of bread. And they always show everything great that the rest of the cast is doing and then just says that Peyton’s being like a normal kid, which is okay too. I think Lucas and Peyton get an unnecessary amount of hate for no reason. I know he’s said some controversial things, and though I’m not sure the entire story of it, I don’t think it’s fair to judge him or hate him for something. Especially because he’s still a child. I don’t think any child should be hated or judged for making mistakes. Making mistakes is a part of life, and I think mistakes are first and foremost a learning experience. Your brain isn’t done developing until your well into your adulthood. I don’t think it’s fair to Peyton or any other child in the spotlight to be hated for being human and making mistakes.

IF IT GETS PICKED BACK UP...

If Girl Meets World is to ever get picked back up for whatever reason, these things are things that I want to happen:

Lucas Friar development. All I know about him is that he wears a lot of blue, he’s from Texas, he wants to be a veterinarian, he has a Pappy Joe, he held the record for riding a sheep, he’s a year older than everyone in his grade, and he got kicked out of his school for anger issues. WHICH DOESN’T JUST GO AWAY OVER NIGHT. THAT WOULD’VE BEEN PRESENT IN ALL THREE SEASONS AND WE ONLY SAW IT TWICE???? I don’t get it. I want to see more. I want more for him.

Siblings. I want to meet the siblings of the gang besides just Auggie. The writer’s room on twitter confirmed that they aren’t all only children, and I’d really like to meet them. I talked about siblings up there ^^^.

More Katy and Shawn. I love them. Even if they’re just sitting there.

More Josh. I know people don’t like Uriah and don’t think Maya and Josh are a good thing, but I don’t mind them. I don’t think that they’re bad for each other at all. Especially because they aren’t in a relationship. I think Josh would be a good person for Maya to spend her time with and vent to when things with her friends get rough or when things at school are too hard.

More fights between Maya and Riley. Best friends aren’t always friends. I would like to see more drama between the group just in general. The first couple of episodes of High School were great. Also, I would like to see more episodes about bullying too.

More mother/daughter moments. I don’t have a mom, so I love seeing Riley and Topanga moments as well as Maya and Katy moments. I even die a little when Minkus and Jennifer have moments with Farkle.

I would love to see more of Mr. Feeny as well.

I also want more episodes that aren’t in the school. Like a vacation episode or more dances! Or another party episode where they deal with the pressures of drugs and alcohol. Of course, that would be a stretch.

So those are all of my opinions and thoughts I have for now! I honestly could talk about this show for days. It’s one of my favorites, and I’m super upset that it’s getting cancelled. We definitely deserve at least one more season.

#girl meets world #a #Anonymous

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socialattractionuk · 4 years

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I want to tell you why Netflix’s Love on the Spectrum isn’t inspirational

Like the young people in the show, I don’t have a long history of dating and relationships (Picture: ABC)

As an autistic 19-year-old with minimal dating experience, my guard immediately went up when I heard about Love on the Spectrum – a new Netflix dating show featuring autistic teens and 20-somethings.

There aren’t many decent examples of autism on TV – you won’t find many autistic people who think The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper represents us well – and I was nervous it would be yet another documentary positioned to gain ill-advised sympathy from viewers.

I was right to be hesitant. This show treats autistic people like me as separate from the rest of society, and as inspiration porn for people to feel better about their own dating lives.

Like the young people in the show, I don’t have a long history of dating and relationships. I’ve always had little interest in it and I experience severe anxiety, which tends to override anything else – like any drive to form a romantic connection.

Communication can also be difficult and awkward because I don’t understand all social cues, and I struggle with eye contact and tone.

In this sense, I was easily able to relate to the autistic people in the series. And to the show’s credit, it is liberating to see a group of young people so openly autistic on mainstream television.

We see them stimming – short-hand for self-stimulating, which is repetitive movements, actions or use of fidget toys to regulate ourselves – and expressing their feelings about different aspects of being autistic.

We hear that you can’t ‘look’ autistic, that girls and women often receive late diagnosis and that it isn’t true that autistic people can’t be empathetic or sarcastic. We have personalities that shine through just like the rest of the population.

The overarching theme, to me, is of othering (Picture: Charli Clement)

But this wasn’t enough to feel like the show was accurately representing autistic people or how we experience relationships.

My first bugbear was the show’s use of the terms ‘person on the spectrum’ or ‘person with autism’. People often think we prefer ‘person-first language’ so we aren’t defined by our conditions, but many of us want the opposite – for our conditions to be recognised, as they can be a big part of our identities.

You’re allowed to say ‘autistic people’.

However, it wasn’t until the first date between Chloe and Marcus – who are both autistic – that my main issue came to light.

When that date didn’t work out, Chloe went on to date Lotus… who is autistic as well. I held out hope during every episode that just one of the young people would go out with a neurotypical or non-disabled person. But it never happened.

Intentional or not, this portrays that disabled people can only date disabled people. But this isn’t true. Many disabled people like me meet people in regular places, and there are great examples of disabled and non-disabled couples on social media like YouTubers Jessica Kellgren-Fozard and her partner Claud.

A couple of the show’s participants said they wanted to be with another autistic person because they were more likely to be understood. But to only show this dynamic across all five episodes just isn’t reflective of society.

The overarching theme, to me, is of othering – treating us as intrinsically different from neurotypical people.

This show feels like autistic people being used as inspiration for neurotypical people to reflect on themselves (Picture: Netflix)

In one scene, we see Maddi attend a dance specifically for disabled people. It’s clear the participants are happier in these spaces, which is good to see, until they’re pushed – quite literally in Maddi’s case by her parents – to use the opportunity to find dates. The painful conversation between her and the boy she’s paired up with felt forced and made me cringe for them.

There’s also a ‘relationship specialist’ named Jodi Rodgers who teaches the young people how to act on dates. This is code, to me, for encouraging masking.

Masking is when autistic people try to seem neurotypical for self-preservation, which takes significant amounts of energy. You can see the effort the people on the show put into this, and the awkwardness they feel.

I worry for their mental health because we need to be allowed to be ourselves. It also doesn’t seem necessary – if they’re dating other autistic people, why would they need to mask?

At times, we see the young people struggling significantly, like when Amanda can’t cope on an overly formal date and has to leave, upsetting both her and Michael in the process. Throughout, I felt uncomfortable watching their embarrassment and anxiety, because it is so similar to my experiences.

Almost daily, I end up anxious that I’ve done or said something wrong, even if no-one else will notice or remember.

Simply put, this show feels like autistic people being used as inspiration for neurotypical people to reflect on themselves. It’s for them to think, ‘at least my dating life isn’t like this’, or ‘if they can do it, I can’. Unfortunately, this is extremely common.

I think we see very similar issues in the Netflix show, Atypical. The way the autistic character (Sam Gardner, played by Keir Gilchrist) is portrayed, makes it look like he’s brave and deserving of praise, just for going on dates.

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I’m frustrated, because Love on the Spectrum could have been valuable representation for autistic people. These young people have great personalities, and I wish they could have told their own stories more and not been pushed into dates in uncomfortable surroundings.

The fact we never see even one date with an abled person, and that the adults are treated with little autonomy and encouraged to act in ways that don’t look natural, doesn’t sit right with me.

The message seems to be that we aren’t welcome in spaces not specifically for us, and that we need to change to be loved.

Above all else, I was left unsettled – a feeling I’m unfortunately used to.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing [email protected].

Share your views in the comments below.

MORE: France eases lockdown for autistic people so they can go to ‘reassuring’ places

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MORE: World Autism Day 2020: Quotes and the theme for this year

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njawaidofficial · 7 years

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Critic's Notebook: Why Female-Driven TV Matters More Than Ever

http://styleveryday.com/2017/08/24/critics-notebook-why-female-driven-tv-matters-more-than-ever/

Critic's Notebook: Why Female-Driven TV Matters More Than Ever

It’s not as if men never tackle such subjects, but the pattern among shows dominated by women producers and directors is unmistakable. There is a full-circle aspect to this trend that goes back to the earliest days of movies. The first woman director, Alice-Guy Blache, made films about abuse and poverty. Lois Weber made silent films about alcoholism and prostitution. For a time, until men figured out that Hollywood was a playing field for big business, Weber was the most successful director in the country. In the 1940s and ’50s, Ida Lupino became one of the lone women directors, creating first-rate movies about unwed mothers and rape.

In Big Little Lies, Kidman’s character is abused by her husband and Shailene Woodley plays a young mother haunted by memories of having been raped. As the addictive HBO show took off among viewers, those issues became part of the conversation in recaps and among writers and fans. A headline on an episode review from The A.V. Club website put it bluntly: “Big Little Lies is telling a vital story about abuse.” A Vulture piece argued that the show, despite its soapy trappings, was “about very big things,” notably “the natural human instinct to pass judgment on others, especially when those others are female.”

The Handmaid’s Tale has penetrated reality even more visibly, as women’s-rights advocates have shown up at marches and protests wearing the red cloaks and white winged caps worn by the enslaved women in the show’s fictional country, Gilead. No one could have predicted how much currency the series would gain simply by landing in the Trump era.

Those feminist issues have always run through Atwood’s work. Alias Grace (premiering Nov. 3) is based on a true story about a servant named Grace (Sarah Gadon) imprisoned for the murder of the housekeeper and her master. Suspense is built on the question of whether she is innocent, as she claims, or a great liar. Either way, the series reveals how women then and now are often victims — of domestic abuse, of assumptions about class, or of men who see what they choose to see in a woman’s character. Grace doesn’t have to be a saint for those themes to be powerful today.

#Critics #FemaleDriven #Matters #Notebook #TV

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