#lesbians rise up for the national anthem!!!

[taruolentow]

i'm wrapped around your finger 🦋

[wiihtigo]

CASEY NATION RISE 7, 9, 17, 20, 23, 25

ask game

7. What’s one way your OC has changed since you first came up with them?

i used to think that she didnt care much about the art of actually acting and cinema and stuff and for her it was more about just being famous and it didnt matter how. i think that was partially because although i knew i wanted her to lust for fame and money the acting dream was kind of just randomly decided on. i thought i could easily swap it out with modelling or singing or something and it wouldnt make much difference. but the more time ive spent with casey, the more i see her as a true lover of movies and art....which i think leads in well to her endgame job being a script editor rather than an actor. her true talents lie behind the screen even if she herself doesnt see it...

9. Do you have a specific lyric or quote which you associate with your OC?

whats a girl to do - cristina

a post canon (after nell dies) caseys life anthem:)

17. What is the worst thing you have put your OC through story-wise?

well i was going to blame it entirely on you that nell dies and i had no say in that but i suppose i did come up with her emotional reaction to that myself, which causes me a lot of slow damage pain. SO I GUESS THAT..the fact she pushes michelle away after it happens is really depressing to me because thats literally her only friend left and only possible pillar of support, but she pushes her away because she hates everything and shes mad shes not nell and shes mad at her family and wants to explode. I think she'd be marginally less suicidal if she stayed friends with her.....

I guess also pulling from alternate realities the one where she dies is pretty fucked up. and very painful. and nell doesnt even make it to her to cradle her in her arms. SAD

20. Does your OC have a tendency to get jealous? If so, how does this manifest?

yyessss. at least when he and nell start getting lowkey. no. highkey #serious. early in their setup he wouldnt gaf if nell was married to a businesswoman in russia.but when they start ummmm [redacted] then hes like waittt. lol waittttttt lol wait. lol. WAITTT. gets a little annoyed when theyre at the doom patrol warehouse party and jayna from the wonder twins tries to get ladybugs number. THATS MY BODYGUARD..GET YOUR OWN. it manifests in that he'll get clingy to nell and mean and passive aggressive (or just aggressive) towards the person pissing him off. will be petty and spiteful (sees some poor scared nervous young lesbian trying to say hi to nell so he slides in and nuzzles up to her shoulder in public to let that sstupid kid know to go away)

idk why he does this. if you asked him if he liked nell he would say And what has she done to MAKE me like her

23. What emotion is the hardest for your OC to process? How about express?

lol GRIEF. little casey has never experienced a death before nell! not even a pet death. she has no idea how to process those feelings or cope with them in the slightest. she goes like catatonic immediately after the fact bcuz shes so completely shocked and wasnt prepared for it at all (lowkey thought ladybug was too awesomeand strong to ever get got. stupidd)

on the complete flip side, also .....l-l-l-l-l-l-l--l-l-l-l-l-l...LOVE. or at least feeling a smidge of serious romantic attraction to someone. in canon end she never gets to deal with that bcuz she only realizes it after nell died and then promptly buried everything related to nell deep inside a hole. but in nyc nell simply has an epic near death experience where hes hospitalized and thats when casey is like fuuuuuuuuuck that scared me. DO I LIKE HER? she acts a bit pathetic and tsundere abt it which is endearing to me personally. maybe scares nell a bit. its cute to me though <3

25. What is your favorite thing about your OC?

shes not a good person </3 shes selfish and mean and doesnt care about other people </3 bent on revenge and hating </3 genuinely not a good guy </3 i love everything negative about casey the most

i also think secretary characters are sexy.

[lookninjas]

So this is just a quick little excuse to celebrate Pride, Indictment pt. 2, BoJo resigns pt. 2, and Pat Robertson Died Anyway. Only open for 24 hours, so please do vote and reblog so it’s not a 10-way tie. Song titles will be queued up for the end of the poll; I'll do the playlist whenever I'm out of Rocky rehearsal. Enjoy the weekend, enjoy whatever you're up to, and fingers crossed we get Kissinger sometime soon.

[montdargent]

10 Characters and 10 Fandoms

rules: name 10 of your favourite characters from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 people to do the same

tagged by @pinkasrenzo

In no particular order:

Dream (the Sandman) → grumpy old man crossed with moody teenager, tragic to the bone. goth king of my heart 🖤

Granny Weatherwax (Discworld series) → coolest witch in any world (disc, round, any one) and who I want to be when I grow up

Ronan Lynch (the Raven Cycle) → gay buzzcut-havers with daddy issues, rise for our national anthem (murder squash song blasting from car speakers)

Taissa Turner (Yellowjackets) → represantion for cringefail lesbians everywhere; brings a new meaning to "cutthroat politician"; so pretty I could cry, at any age

Miles Morales (Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse) → he is my son whom I have raised from birth. No further questions

Gideon Nav (the Locked Tomb series) → butch king, big sword energy, collects gfs like trauma (she's got lots), the son of Jod™️

Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Star Trek) → just so tired. all the time. everyday. done with everyone's shit

Lucretia (the Adventure Zone: Balance) → if she did something wrong, no she didn't. gatekeep gaslight girlboss, she did it all and looked good doing it

Alec Hardison (Leverage) → best hacker/criminal/friend/boyfriend/brother/boss/genius. period.

Juno Steel (the Penumbra podcast) → no exaggeration, my nonbinary awakening (?), a human disaster on legs, poster child for the "he's trying okay??" movement

tagging (if you feel like it) @orimarvales @theinfaethable @somecleverreference @evil-moonlight

[andhumanslovedstories]

Recent country songs that have made me literally gay gasp as a gay woman, in order of how much they make me want to write an essay on gender and queerness

HONORARY MENTION BUT JUST BECAUSE I THINK THIS IS TECHNICALLY AMERICANA NOT COUNTRY (but genre is fake) AND THIS SONG ISN’T RECENT (2014 and I’ve been listening to it faithfully since then) BUT I ONLY RECENTLY LEARNED IT’S A COVER AND THAT’S MADE ME RECONTEXTUALIZE IT: “Murder in the City” by Brandi Carlile, a cover of The Avett Brothers where she changed the words “make sure my sister knows I loved her/make sure my mother knows the same” to “make sure my wife knows that I love her/make sure my daughter knows the same” which fucking. fucking gets me. Especially since the first time that I heard this song, I assumed it was from a man’s point of view because of that line, and then I learned that Brandi Carlile is a lesbian and I was caught up in my foolish heteronormitivity, and then I learned it was a cover and thought oh okay I guess the song is originally from a man’s pov and it’s cool she covered, and then I learned she changed those lines to make a song that already feels deeply personal to her to explicitly include her love for a woman and the family they’ve made together. And that’s just. It’s all just a lot. 

3) “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” by Miranda Lambert featuring Maren Morris, Elle King, Ashley McBryde, Tenille Townes and Caylee Hammack, because the first time it came up on my spotify, I saw the title and was like “hey dope I like this song” and then I heard the first line was still “I must have been through about a million girls” and I realized none of the words or pronouns were getting changed and I was getting the song I’ve always wanted and deserved: a high production value, high energy, big girl group tribute to being a lesbian fuckboy who Fooled Around And, oops can you believe it, Fell in Love. 

2) “If She Ever Leaves Me” by The Highwomen, sung by Brandi Carlile who is, as mentioned, lesbian, but since I’m apparently still chugging my comp het juice, I was still trying to figure out if this song--a classic “hey buddy keep walking, she’s my girl and she’s not interested” song with an interesting element of the singer being aware the relationship might not last anyway--was gonna be explicitly queer. And then there’s the line, “That's too much cologne, she likes perfume,” and I was like OH HOHOHOHOHOHOHO!!! 

This is immediately followed by the lines “I’ve loved her in secret/I’ve loved her out loud” which is also deliciously queer in this context, with this singer and that juxtaposition, but the line that really fucking got me is my favorite of the song: “If she ever leaves, it's gonna be for a woman with more time.” This is two women in a complicated relationship. This isn’t just a “keep walking, cowboy” song, it’s a song that uses that framework to suggest a whole ass “Finishing the Hat”** relationship, and that’s so interesting to me. Like a song that isn’t just explicitly about two women in love but one that conveys very quickly a rich history between the two of them. And in a genre where the line “Kiss lots of boys, kiss lots of girls if that’s something you’re into” was revolutionary representation.

(Fun fact, “Follow Your Arrow” was partially written by Brandy Clarke, another country lesbian! Another fun fact, so is basically every other good country song. Brandy Clark, please write a big lesbian country anthem, I know it will immediately kill me on impact.) 

To quote one youtube comment, “”lesbians how we feeling??” and to answer by quoting some others, “As a closeted baby gay in the 90s, who was into country, this song would have changed my life”, “I just teared up.  So many happy tears, as a gay woman raised on country music,  this is something that's definitely been needed.  Thank you Brandi. Thank you highwomen”, “This song means more than I can say in a youtube comment”, and “Lesbians needed this song :)”

It’s me. I’m lesbians. 

**ANOTHER HONORARY MENTION EXCEPT IT ISN’T RECENT AND IT ISN’T COUNTRY SO I GUESS THIS IS JUST A MENTION, BUT I AM INTERESTED IN THIS SONG--“Finishing the Hat” by Kelli O’Hara. A very good Sondheim joint, that’s about making art, the costs of its obsessive and exclusive nature and the incomparable pleasure of putting something into the world that wasn’t there before. It’s such a traditionally male narrative that I’m thrilled to find a wonderful female cover of it. I’m not even fussed about her changing the gender from the lover who won’t wait for the artist (except that the shift from “woman” to “one man” sounds so clunky) because there’s value turning this song into a lament of the men who won’t love artistic women. But I do also wish she’d also recorded a version that kept the original gender so it would be gay. OKAY BROADWAY TANGENT OVER, BACK TO COUNTRY. 

1) “Highwomen” by The Highwomen, ft. Yola and Sheryl Crow. I can’t even express the full body chills the first time I heard this. Like repeated, multiple chills renewed at every verse of the song. This really closely parallels my experience with “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” up there, because when I started it I was like “oh dope I know what this cover will be” and then the lyrics started and I was like “OH MY GOD I DIDN’T.” In the case of “Fooled Around” it’s because I was amazed that they kept the original words. In the case of “Highwomen” I fucking transcended because they changed them. 

So I grew up on Johnny Cash, obsessed with a couple of his albums but largely with a CD I had of his greatest hits. (Ask me how many times I listened to the shoeshine boy song. Hundreds. Johnny Cash told me to get rhythm and I got it.) And my FAVORITE was “Highwayman” from the country supergroup he was in, The Highwaymen. The concept of the song is that each of the four men sing a verse about a man from the past and how he died. It’s very good. The line “They buried me in that grey tomb that knows no sound” used to scare the shit out of me. I didn’t expect to have a song that targets so specifically my fear of being buried alive in wet concrete. 

(If you haven’t heard the song, by the way, listen to this version to properly appreciate it as a piece of music. If you have, watch the fucking music video holy shit this is a work of art oh my GOD.) 

So I was predisposed to love this cover before I even heard it. But then I heard it. And they rewrote the song to be about historical women. And it’s like. There’s layers here okay. 

Neither the Highwaymen nor the Highwomen are signing about famous people. This isn’t a Great Man tour of history, it’s about dam builders and sailors and preachers and mothers and Freedom Riders and also Johnny Cash who flies a starship across the universe, as you do. 

In the 1986 version, it’s a song about the continuity of life--the repeated idea is “I am still alive, I’m still here, I come back again and again in different forms.” The highwayman is all the men in the song. He reincarnates. The song is past, present, future. The title is singular, masculine. The same soul, expressed through multiple voices, multiple lives. 

In the 2019 version, the title is plural, feminine. Highwomen. This song is about women. Each verse asserts the same motif as the 1986 version--“I may not have survived but I am still alive”--but there is no implication of reincarnation. Each woman is her own woman. This version has a final verse that the previous versions lacks. The singers harmonize. It’s not a song where one voice replaces  another, the story of this One Man progressing through time. It ends in a chorus of women saying “We are still alive.” 

We are The Highwomen Singing stories still untold We carry the sons you can only hold We are the daughters of the silent generations You sent our hearts to die alone in foreign nations They may return to us as tiny drops of rain But we will still remain

And we'll come back again and again and again And again and again We'll come back again and again and again And again and again 

Another fun fact! The first time I heard them sing “We are the daughters of the silent generations” I died! But luckily I came back again and again and again.  

This is a song about the continuity of history. It asserts that women’s historical lives matter and that they continue to matter, long after they died. This is a song about legacy as well, the legacy of nameless women who worked to protect the ones they loved and make the world better. They don’t die by chance. They are all hunted down by political violence, by racism, by misogyny, for stepping outside their prescribed roles. But, as Yola (who btw fucking CRUSHES THE VOCALS ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????? HOLY SHIT MA’AM) sings as a murdered Freedom Rider, she’d take that ride again. And at the end of the song, she joins the chorus but does not disappear into it. Her voice rises up out of crowd. And the crowd calls itself “we”. These women are united but not subsumed into being One Woman. This is about Women. 

And then, outside the song itself, there’s the history of this song about history. It’s originally by Jimmy Webb and was covered by Glenn Campbell. This cover inspired the name of the supergroup that covered it, the group with Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, and my man Johnny Cash. And it’s like holy shit! What an amazing group to collaborate! Hot damn! 

Then, it’s 2019 and here’s The Highwomen with Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires. The name is obviously riffing on The Highwaymen. Shires set out to form the group in direct response to the lack of female country artists on the radio and at festivals. And they name themselves after a country supergroup, and they put out this song, a song connected to massive names in country music, and they center all of this on women and womanhood and the right of women to be counted in history and to make history and to talk about the ways we have mistreated and marginalized women, in a group that started because one woman was like hey! we’re mistreating and marginalizing women! 

I just think this is neat! I think there’s a lot here we could unpack! But this post is 100 times longer than I was planning and work starts in a bit so uh I’m gonna go get dressed and listen to The Highwomen on repeat for the next hour, “Heaven is a Honky Tonk” is another fucking bop that improves on the original, it would be dope if they’d collab with Rhiannon Giddens, okay byyyyyyyye 

[transmasc-malleus]

lesbians rise up for our national anthem

[sportsintersections]

13 Podcasts about Sports & Intersectionality Every Athlete and Sports Fan Should Listen To

These podcast episodes range from short, ten-minute segments to hour-long deep dives, but what they have in common is that all of them explore an issue and how it intersects with sports in an interesting and thought-provoking way.

Trigger warnings listed at the end of episode descriptions (but please let me know if I missed anything).

That’s What She Said with Sarah Spain, “Sexism in Sports”

Sarah Spain talks to all kinds of guests on her show, many of them athletes, but I particularly recommend her episode “Sexism in Sports”, where she talks to women about sexism they’ve faced in sports. TW: discussion of sexual harassment.

TED Radio Hour, “Pat Ferrucci: How Does the Language of Sports Journalism Reveal Racial Biases?”

In his TED talk, journalism professor Pat Ferrucci talks about how, even though sports is supposed to be “the great equalizer,” the language used by sports journalists reveals their prejudice and makes it harder for athletes of color to succeed.

Radiolab, “Gonads, Dutee”

This fascinating episode features an interview with Dutee Chand, a world-class runner from India who was disqualified for failing a “gender test,” and also delves into the history of female athletes at the Olympics and the problems with various tests for “gender.” TW: description of invasive tests by doctors, discussion of misgendering of women athletes, and discussions that assume that “biological” (assigned at birth) sex and gender are the same thing.

The Outside Podcast, “XX Factor: How the Sports Bra Changed History”

The Outside Podcast has many interesting episodes, but a personal (surprising) favorite is one about “how the sports bra changed history.” You may have not given much thought to the sports bra, but its invention was actually a huge deal, completely revolutionizing women’s participation in sports!

The Takeaway, on Trans High School Athletes

This segment for WNYC’s “The Takeaway” explores the obstacles that trans teens face in high school sports. Although it’s only about 10 minutes long, it does a great job examining the issues involved, and the ESPN reporter who the host talks to, Katie Barnes, is non-binary, and has written about trans athletes for ESPN. TW: discussions of transphobia.

The Edge of Sports with Dave Zirin, “Maya Moore Talks Mass Incarceration”

This podcast, by The Nation magazine, focuses on “where sports and politics collide.” Almost any episode from this podcast would be applicable to this blog, but I especially recommend “Maya Moore Talks Mass Incarceration,” in which the WNBA star talks about her inspiring work to raise awareness about prosecutorial misconduct and other issues in the justice system. 

Disabled Sports USA’s Challenge Extended, “Paralympian Tricia Downing”

Challenge Extended is another podcast where every episode is great and relevant to this list! One that I especially enjoyed is this interview with Tricia Downing, who was the first female paraplegic competitor in an Ironman triathlon, has completed over 100 races, and is also a disability rights advocate.

NPR Weekend Edition, “Olympic Runner Who Once Competed Against Caster Semenya Weighs In On Testosterone Ruling”

In this short segment, Madeleine Pape, a former Olympic runner who once competed against Caster Semenya, talks about why the exclusion of female athletes with high levels of testosterone is unfair, and how homophobia, racism, sexism, and other issues play into these discussions.

Code Switch, “A Thousand Ways to Kneel and Kiss the Ground”

This episode of Code Switch, a podcast hosted by journalists of color that features all kinds of conversations about race, reports on the 2018 NFL policy to punish players who kneel during the national anthem, looking back on how this fits into the history of sports and black political protest.

Let’s Talk About It, “Sport”

The very first episode of Irwin Mitchell’s podcast Let’s Talk About It, which discusses what it’s really like living with a disability, is all about sports. The host talks to wheelchair tennis star Alfie Hewett, Paralympic gold medalist Hannah Cockroft, and “amateur action man” Ed Buckley, who recovered from a serious brain injury. Note that Irwin Mitchell is a for-profit business, and this is part of their “campaign to get more people into disability sport,” some aspects of which tend towards what disability activists sometimes call “inspiration porn.” However, I think this particular podcast episode is great, and it focuses on #ownvoices representation.

Only A Game from NPR, “[…] U.S. Gymnast Speaks Out […]”

Only A Game is a sports news and issues podcast that tackles multiple topics each episode, so it’s hard to point to a specific one that’s most relevant, but check out this recent episode and skip to minute 20:32 to hear a heartbreaking and essential conversation with gymnastics star Jennifer Sey about abuses in the sport. She also has a book, Chalked Up, about her experiences. TW: discussion of emotional/verbal abuse (including body shaming & restrictive diets and resulting in injury & suicidal ideation) & sexual abuse.

Laughter Permitted with Julie Foudy, “Inside the US Soccer Equal Pay Fight”

Soccer-star-turned-commentator Julie Foudy hosts Laughter Permitted, an interview podcast where she has intimate and funny conversations with other female athletes. This fantastic episode breaks that mold and has Foudy speak candidly about the US Women’s National Team’s fight for equal pay and how the US Soccer Federation’s defense against the suit relies on sexism.

Champions of Change: The RISE podcast, “Celebrating PRIDE Month: Track & Field athlete Nika Ouellette”

Pretty much any episode of this podcast, which discusses issues of race, social justice, and community-building in sports, would be relevant here, but a personal favorite of mine is one from June 2019 with out lesbian javelin thrower Nika Ouellette, who’s an ambassador for Athlete Ally, an organization that champions LGBTQ+ equality in sports. She talks about diversity and intersectionality in sports and the role that the athletic community should play in encouraging inclusivity for LGBTQ+ athletes.

[The rights for all the logos in this post are reserved by their respective podcasts.]

[weareone2020]

Otherwise known as the “LESBIAN JESUS,” Hayley Kiyoko’s Girl Like Girls had an impact towards many. The music video follows two girls who tend to like each other but one is already in a relationship with a boy. She is unsure of herself and many who are a part of the LGBT+ community could be facing these kinds of problems too. With her song Kiyoko pointed out, "I loved the idea of how all these guys always are stealing other guys’ girls and I was like, ‘There’s no female anthem for a girl stealing another guy's girl,' and that is the coolest thing ever.” For many different individuals this song could mean a lot. She really embraces that there is nothing wrong with liking the same sex and while you’re at it, show them your stuff! Because YOU as a person is absolutely beautiful. 

AUDIENCE REACTIONS:

1.) Echec & Mat3 weeks ago

Me at 12 years: Why I have butterfly effects when they kissed? Me at 15 years: Kissing girlsMe at 17 years: Watchings this music again Oh I understand now

2.) Carina Treviño1 month ago (edited)

To this day I still cry every damn time that I hear this song. That proves that this is an amazing masterpiece and should be treated as such. You made a 12 year old gender fluid bisexual cry over a song. God I love this music video and song.

3.) undertaker enthusiast9 months ago

lesbians, rise up for our national anthem

[mrmichaelchadler]

Whitney

At not quite the halfway point of “Whitney,” a well-done but all-too-woeful wallow of a documentary that recounts Whitney Houston’s swift rise to unparalleled stardom and tragic decline that ended in 2012 after she drowned in a hotel bathtub at age 48, there arrives a segment devoted to perhaps her brightest moment as an entertainer. That would be her uniquely stirring rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Super Bowl XXV in 1991, shortly after the start of the Gulf War.

Director Kevin Macdonald (“The Last King of Scotland,” “Touching the Void”) recruits the song’s producer, Rickey Minor—one-time bandleader for “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”—to explain how he changed the song’s usual waltz tempo from 3/4 time to 4/4. That provided the then-27-year-old star enough room to breathe and pour her soul into her glorious performance. Yes, what you hear was pre-recorded but there is still a spark of spontaneity to it, given that it was Houston’s one and only take.

I was surprised how moved I was, even years later, after hearing her treatment of the national anthem again. Word to the wise: Appreciate that goose-pimply triumph when it arrives, because matters quickly begin to grow ever darker from there on. Unlike “Amy”—the 2015 Oscar-winning doc about Amy Winehouse, another bedeviled singer gone too soon—there are no personal lyrics to pay homage to her talent and capture her state of mind. Here, Houston’s music takes a back seat to digging for the reason why she never really felt comfortable in her own skin. 

This is the second recent plunge into Houston’s life after last year’s “Whitney: Can I Be Me.” That more sensational effort made hay from the singer’s romantic relationship with Robyn Crawford, her supportive lesbian lover who was part of her life from age 18. Macdonald’s super-sized approach to the usual rise-and-fall tale earned the support of Houston’s estate, making it packed with insights from friends, associates, hired hands and family as well as never-seen footage. While their anecdotes initially are congenial and caring, it becomes horrifyingly apparent just how complicit her own loved ones were in indulging and capitalizing upon her more destructive tendencies while warping her sense of self.

We first hear Houston’s voice in between jarring flashes of her MTV video featuring her early hit, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” as she describes a recurring dream, “I am always running from the giant.” She was born to Cissy Houston, an in-demand backup singer for everyone from Aretha Franklin and Elvis who struggled to be a solo act, and theatrical manager John Russell Houston Jr., who bestowed the nickname of “Nippy” on his daughter when she was a fussy baby. Whitney grew up in Newark, N.J., and was often bullied over the lightness of her skin, which partially explains her persistent images of that giant in pursuit. When Houston got famous, she was bullied by those critics thought she was too pop and not enough R&B, even getting booed in 1988 when she won a Soul Train Award for her second album, “Whitney.”

Tabloids over the years placed much blame on her Norman Maine-ish husband of 15 years, singer Bobby Brown, whose flash of a career was on the verge of fading when the pair wed in 1992. (He briefly speaks on camera, refusing to discuss the effect that drugs had on her and how they led to her death.) But it turns out, her brother Michael and half-brother Gary Garland, a disgraced NBA player, admit that they, not Brown, first introduced their little teen sister to drugs long before he came along. As for Cissy, she was a dictatorial stage mother, guiding her angelic church choir standout of a daughter’s ascent into the spotlight, first as a teen backup singer, then as a fashion model and eventually as a recording artist. It turns out many relatives were riding the Whitney gravy train, getting paid just for hanging around backstage while the star did all the work. This globe-spanning sensation would end up losing most of the money she earned from her never-topped record of seven consecutive No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart as well as the soundtrack album for her 1992 movie debut, “The Bodyguard,” whose version of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” remains the best-selling single by a female artist in music history. 

But according to her aunt, Mary Jones—who found a dead Houston face down in the bathtub—one of the contributing factors to the singer’s inability to mesh her sweetheart public image as Whitney and her more “ghetto” wild side as Nippy was a long-held secret. When her mother was on the road and her father was busy, she and her brother Michael were looked after by others. Unfortunately, one of their caretakers was their cousin, Dee Dee Warwick, Dionne Warwick’s sister, who would sexually abuse the siblings. Not helping were the infidelities, especially her mother’s affair with their church minister, which led her parents to divorce

Houston’s greatest failure might have been the damage she and Brown did to their only child, Bobbi Kristina, with their physically abusive fights, their hard-partying lifestyle, their ugly public peccadilloes and a lack of parenting skills. It’s overwhelmingly sad that their 22-year-old daughter would be gone three years after her mom passed away. She, too, was found face down in a bathtub before dying months later after being put into an induced coma. 

The dirt is definitely covered in Macdonald's film. There are villains in every corner. And Houston spent most of her final years looking and acting like one of the walking dead, despite stints in rehab. She was a wraith-like image of once-luminous self during in a 2002 TV interview with Diane Sawyer when she croakily admitted to using drugs before declaring that “crack was whack.” I wish Macdonald had included footage from Bravo’s 2005 train wreck of a reality show “Being Bobby Brown,” when Houston famously declared, “Hell to the no.” She did pull herself together for one last hurrah to play the church-going matriarch of a sisterly singing trio in the 2012 remake of the showbiz saga “Sparkle,” one of her favorite movies from her youth. But once the filming stopped, she brought the curtain down on herself.

from All Content https://ift.tt/2zgbfPN

[newyorktheater]

Jelani Alladin as Kristoff and Andrew Pirozzi as Sven

Six shows are opening on Broadway this month, including the much anticipated  “Frozen,” and starry revivals of both “Angels in America” and “Three Tall Women,” which marks Glenda Jackson’s return to Broadway after 30 years.

Below is a selective list of Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway in March, organized chronologically by opening date, with each title linked to a relevant website.

Color key of theaters: Broadway: Red. Off Broadway: Black or Blue.. Off Off Broadway: Green. Theater festival: Orange

To look at the Spring season as a whole, check out my Broadway Spring 2018 Preview Guide and my Off Broadway Spring 2018 Preview Guide

March 1

  Amy and the Orphans (Roundabout)

Written by Lindsey Ferrentino (Ugly Lies The Bone). Directed by Scott Ellis (She Loves Me.) After their father’s death, two unhinged siblings reunite with Amy, their movie-loving sister who has Down syndrome. An unexpected turn reveals the moment that changed their lives…and the fact that Amy may be the only one who knows her own mind.

March 5

Queens (Lincoln Center Theater)

Written by Martyna Majok (Ironbound, Cost of Living.) The lives of two generations of immigrant women collide in a basement apartment. When the choices they’ve made about their security, dignity, and desires come back to haunt them, they must ask:  what cannot – and should not – be left behind?

March 6

A Letter to Harvey Milk (Theatre Row)

When Harry, a retired butcher, fulfills a writing assignment to compose a letter to someone from his past who’s dead, he writes not to his late wife Frannie, but to Harvey Milk, the first openly gay political leader in California. His writing teacher Barbara, a lesbian, is stunned.

March 7

The Low Road  (Public Theater)

Written by Bruce Norris (Clybourne Park), directed by Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen.) Set in the 18th century, this wild new work imagines America’s first laissez-faire capitalist, a young man inspired by a chance encounter with Adam Smith to put his faith in the free market. But his path to riches becomes inextricably entangled with that of an educated slave, a man who knows from experience that one person’s profit is another’s loss, in this parable about the true cost of inequality.

Hello, From The Children of Planet Earth (Playwrights Realm at The Duke)

Betsy texts her old high school friend William out of the blue and asks him to be her sperm donor

Locked Up Bitches (The Flea)

When Pipsy, a pedigree cocker spaniel, lands at the Bitchfield Animal Shelter, she becomes the center of a turf war between the dogs and the cats. A musical mashup of West Side Story and Orange is the New Black.

March 8

Good for Otto (The New Group at Signature)

Through the microcosm of a rural Connecticut mental health center, David Rabe conjures a whole American community on the edge.The cast includes Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Rhea Perlman. F. Murray Abraham

Halcyon Days (Oberon at A.R.T./New York)

The satire by Steven Dietz explores what it to​ok​ to get America behind the 1983 invasion of the western hemisphere’s smallest country​, Grenada.

March 11

The Fall (St Ann’s Warehouse)

Devised collaboratively by a cast of seven actors, the play recounts their experiences as student leaders of the #RhodesMustFall protest movement, which called for the teardown of a colonialist monument on their University of Cape Town campus.

Three Small Irish Masterpieces (Irish Rep)

A simple policeman looks into his heart and turns himself into a wide-eyed folk hero. A hungry trickster makes a hearty meal of a stone and a song. A poignant tale is told of a solitary man washed up by the sea on the faraway coast of Donegal. These are the subjects of:

The Pot of Broth, by William Butler Yeats, in collaboration with Lady Gregory (1903) The Rising of the Moon, by Lady Gregory (1907) Riders to the Sea, by John Millington Synge (1904)

March 12

Admissions (Lincoln Center Theater)

By Joshua Harmon (Significant Other). Directed by Daniel Aukin. The admissions officer and her husband the headmaster of The Hillcrest School are proud of their efforts to diversify the student body. But when their only son sets his sights on an Ivy League university, personal ambition collides with progressive values. Harmon has a second play, Skintight, at Roundabout.

Dogs of Rwanda (Urban Stages)

Twenty years after David as a 16-year-old church missionary got caught up in the Rwandan genocide, he can’t escape it.

  March 15

Escape to Margaritaville (Marquis Theater)

Featuring the songs of Jimmy Buffett. Welcome to Margaritaville, where people come to get away from it all—and stay to find something they never expected.

  March 21

Angels in America  (Neil Simon Theater)

A revival of Tony Kushner’s two-part Pulitzer Prize winning epic play about the age of AIDS, it stars Andrew Garfield, Nathan Lane et al. The production is a transfer from London’s National Theatre.

  March 22

Frozen (St. James)

A musical based on the Disney animated film Caissie Levy (Elsa), Patti Murin (Anna), Jelani Alladin (Kristoff), Greg Hildreth (Olaf),with music (as in the film) by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez

  March 26

Lobby Hero (Helen Hayes)

An apartment lobby serves as a waiting area for four New Yorkers involved in a murder investigation.  “A young security guard with big ambitions clashes with his stern boss, an intense rookie cop and her unpredictable partner in a play from the 2017 Oscar-winning writer of Manchester by the Sea.” This is the first production by Second Stage Theater at its new Broadway venue.

  March 27

Pygmalion (Bedlam at Sheen Center)

George Bernard Shaw’s play was the inspiration for My Fair Lady

Rocktopia (Broadway)

Five vocalists and a choir fuse rock anthems with classical music

  March 29

Three Tall Women (John Golden)

Albee’s Pulitzer-winning play about a woman in life’s final act. Glenda Jackson returns to Broadway after an absence of 30 years, also starring Laurie Metcalf and Alison Pill

March 31

The Lucky Ones (Ars Nova at Connelly)

Indie-music duo The Bengsons spin a memory-tale of teenaged passion, ideals lived to the limits

March 2018 New York Theater Openings Six shows are opening on Broadway this month, including the much anticipated  "Frozen," and starry revivals of both "Angels in America" and "Three Tall Women," which marks Glenda Jackson's return to Broadway after 30 years.

[caveartfair]

A Performance in Queens Got Right What That Pepsi Ad Got Wrong

Performance by Àṣẹ Dance Theatre Collective. Courtesy of the Queens Museum. Photo by Stephanie Berger.

The past week has been a busy one for the art world. In Athens, Adam Szymczyk opened the first half of his documenta 14, the first edition in which such a large portion of the quinquennial show takes place outside of Kassel, Germany. In Venice, collectors ogled and Instagrammed their way through Damien Hirst’s splash back into the center of art-world attention—a massive, for-sale museum show spanning François Pinault’s Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana, where a single, barnacled sculpture can reportedly run you north of $5 million. A performance in Queens, however, drew a very different audience—the parents, friends, and children of some 350 members of the community that took the stage—and packed a punch to the gut, rather than the wallet.

Protest Forms: Memory and Celebration: Part II (2017) is the work of Berlin and London-based, Italian artist Marinella Senatore and couples with her first American museum show “Piazza Universale / Social Stages” at the Queens Museum. It lasted for a little over two hours on Sunday afternoon and involved members of the Black Panthers, Black Lives Matter NYC, Middle Eastern folk music ensemble the Brooklyn Nomads, Indigenous Aztec dance group Danza Azteca Chichimeca, world champion jumping team FloydLittle Double Dutch, the Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps Symphonic Band, members of the Martha Graham School, rapper and activist Mysonne, and many, many others.

Participants were recruited to take part via the Queens Museum’s numerous community outreach programs, via referrals, and via Senatore’s own network. Each group was given a few minutes (which many, in their excitement, took the liberty to extend) to dance, drum, speak about their community’s current struggles as well as their histories of protest, sing, and then recede back into the audience as the next leaders of this great, circuitous, stop-and-go processional moved into the fore.

Performance by Batala New York. Courtesy of the Queens Museum. Photo by Stephanie Berger.

The performance is a follow-up to one Senatore staged for the Quadriennale di Roma last year, curated by Matteo Lucchetti, who also organized the Queens Museum show. It continues a core tenet of her practice, which takes a given community as its inspiration. In the past, that’s seen her create Rosas (2012), a roaming, multifaceted opera using 20,000 majority-amateur performers hailing from Spain, Germany, and the U.K.; and Speak Easy, a 2009 initiative that brought together over a thousand students and retirees from the periphery of Madrid to collaboratively create a film.

I watched a processional of Rosas in 2012, down Berlin’s Auguststraße to her former gallery Peres Projects’s former Mitte location (she’s now represented in the city by KOW and by Laveronica in Modica), and have seen films and other documentation for a number of Senatore’s past initiatives. I’ve enjoyed the work and thought her artistic approach to be genuinely interesting—if at times more so for the participants than the viewer. But on Sunday, artist, artistic approach, location, and present moment combined to create not only what I’d argue is Senatore’s magnum opus to date but also the most impactful work of art that went on view in the past week.

Senatore spent nearly three months working with members of the community to create Protest Forms. She choreographed the order and placement (though not the content) of each group’s performance both inside and outside of the museum. She also initiated an open call to Queens residents, asking them to submit local protest songs and the sounds that remind them of their neighborhood, which she then gave to Italian composer Emiliano Branda to create an original score titled Queens Anthem.

Performance by Bangladesh Institute of Performing Arts. Courtesy of the Queens Museum. Photo by Stephanie Berger.

In the span of a month that has seen the art world embroiled in fierce debate about Dana Schutz’s painting of murdered African-American teenager Emmett Till, Open Casket (2016), and the nation relatively more united in condemnation of Pepsi’s appropriation of protest and racial stereotyping in its now-infamous Kendall Jenner-starring ad, “Live for Now Moments Anthem,” Senatore’s work stands out for at least two reasons.

First, as Antwaun Sargent wrote for Artsy, the controversy around Schutz’s work “is, at its core, about the failure of the art world to truly represent black humanity, despite its recent insistence on “diversity,” and Schutz’s own attempt to empathize with the struggles of black Americans through her empathy with Till’s mother, Mamie Till, as a mother herself. Senatore is a white artist, and the Queens Museum, despite being located in the most diverse neighborhood in the world and having one of the more diverse staffs in New York City, is a white-run institution. But the artist’s and the museum’s role in Protest Forms was to provide a space, a time slot, and to move the audience into position to watch—in essence, to present whatever those who chose to participate wanted to put forward as their experience.

When Mahogany Browne, Shanelle Gabriel, Jive Poetic, and The Peace Poets each stood on the corners of the rectangular recess that makes up the museum’s Skylight Gallery just off its atrium and Black Creative Brilliance (BCB), Black Lives Matter NYC’s Arts & Culture Crew, at its center, there was little direct attempt on Senatore’s part to contextualize or represent their lived experience. Rather, she listened—and subsequently provided a venue for others to listen too.

Performance by Graham 2 from the Martha Graham School. Courtesy of the Queens Museum. Photo by Stephanie Berger.

It was one of two instances in the course of the performance in which music and spoken word poetry paired with actual physical resistance. In this case, words about police brutality, racial discrimination, and gentrification were rapped and recited into microphones and megaphones over the shuffling of feet and clashing of shoulders of young men from the Queens chapter of the youth wrestling program Beat the Streets.

In the other, two girls from the Women’s Initiative for Self-Empowerment—a self-defense, social entrepreneurship and leadership development movement for young Muslim women—practiced moves used to ward off a rising tide of racially motivated attacks that often begin with hijabs being snatched from atop Muslim women’s heads. They performed in front of the Unisphere globe created for the 1964 world’s fair, while folk musician Joshua Garcia played Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” and Pete Seeger’s “Which Side Are You On?” in the background.

In both cases, the combination was Senatore’s suggestion initially but one immediately taken on by both sets of participants.

Second, as Senatore’s performance’s title suggests, it is not simply a recording of past and current struggles and means of resistance but also a celebration of the many-layered community in which it takes place. Particularly exuberant were the parents of youth from the mariachi school Academia De Mariachi Nuevo Amanecer, who played under Anna K.E.’s installation in the Queens Museum atrium—one of 3 other exhibitions that opened on Sunday afternoon. But throughout Protest Forms’s two-plus hours, whether in the tap dance of Marshall Davis Jr., the step dance of the Lady Dragons from Brooklyn Technical High School, the bullerengue music of Bulla en el Barrio, the dance of the Bangladesh Institute of Performing Arts, or the singing of Jamaican vocalist Abby Dobson, a sense of creativity-induced unity was palpable.

Performance by Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps Symphonic Band. Courtesy of the Queens Museum. Photo by Stephanie Berger.

It’s the kind Pepsi ad director Bjorn Charpentier misguidedly tried to fabricate and package to sell cola. But it’s also a vision of America—one in which we celebrate our differences and listen to the struggles of our neighbors—that many of us hoped would be currently being furthered by a very different executive branch. Mounting that vision in the Queens Museum building, which initially served as the home of the General Assembly of the United Nations, and under the Unisphere globe isn’t just a brilliant example of the power of art, and particularly social practice, to tell our collective story. It is also an important reminder that if we listen and we collaborate, that vision is not at all lost.

—Alexander Forbes

from Artsy News

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: A Film Mixes Fact and Fiction to Illuminate the Lives of Queer Teens in Bangkok

Movie poster for #BKKY, from the last scene of the movie (all images courtesy of the director, Nontawat Numbenchapol)

#BKKY’s opening scene is a brilliant five-minute-long single-shot piece of cinematography, taken from underneath a desk. We see only the legs of two young high school girls and hear them talk flirtatiously with one another. One offers a gift, and then — in fantastically awkward teenage dialogue — asks the other out.

I’m excited. It’s going to be an adorable lesbian love story set in Bangkok.

Then the fourth wall abruptly breaks when a third voice enters: the director gently prodding the actresses to play footsy. Is this an outtake? The clapperboard enters the frame, clacks, withdraws — taking with it any assumption about what this story will be and how it will be told.     

Jojo and Q, from the desk scene, but shot from above the desk

I won’t spoil the movie too much. It’s a coming-of-age love story following the character Jojo, who embodies an amalgamation of interviews the director conducted with 100 Thai teenagers, representing a smattering of gender orientations. Jojo is a 17-year-old senior in high school, and we follow her from when she is first asked out in the opening scene by Q, her new, slightly butch girlfriend, to when she applies for college, and beyond.

This is the third film by young Thai director Nontawat Numbenchapol (born in Bangkok in 1983). It weaves a handful of the interviews in with Jojo’s fictional story, with heavy direction from a diary one interviewee gave the director. Nontawat did not have a story in mind for the film prior to the interviews.

Some of the time, the studio interviews appear like context for a documentary, complementing the fictional storyline. At other times, they become background audio. At really magical moments, the two seem to converge and blend, leaving us guessing as to the true parameters of this story: what is fact and what is fiction.

Jojo and Q on vacation

Nontawat manages to make a well-worn plot feel very fresh. #BKKY includes elements of both a melodrama documentary and a queer reality TV show, with all the stories, breakups, and after-scene interviews, but remains distinctly neither. Over the course of the film, the nagging questions of categorization — what is true here? where do documentary and story start and end? — fade as we give in to the film.

A notable example of Nontawat’s prowess as a director is an incredible four-minute shot following Jojo’s meeting with Jasper, an American skater who speaks poor Thai. The single shot follows Jojo jogging with a friend, takes us around a skatepark, then to Jasper spotting her and the two exchanging contact information, and culminates by suddenly flying straight up, giving us a look at the whole scene from about 100 meters. In an abrupt twist in plot and assumed sexual orientation, the scene captures the magical feeling of hope and excitement at the prospect of a new crush, via a drone. I hope this director gets a big budget one day.

Jasper and Jeff in bed

#BKKY recalls Mysterious Object at Noon (2000), an early work by Thailand’s most famous director, Apichatpong Weerasethaku. For that film, Apichatpong traveled around Thailand doing an “exquisite corpse” exercise in filmmaking, allowing locals to direct his plot. Stories grow and then collapse; an overarching plot is hinted at and then takes an absurd turn. Passersby turn into actors, then back into citizens. Somewhere along the way, Mysterious Object at Noon becomes a poetic window into the Thai people, blending fiction and personal stories. 

As Mysterious Object at Noon searches for narrative through the public, #BKKY‘s personal interviews and overarching story hint at powerful sociopolitical forces dominating Thailand, namely the patriarchy. While context and facts vary widely, the dominance and relevance of the patriarchy — in the form of the divine king as well as the father as the head of the household — is a source of much tension throughout the movie. This is most clearly embodied in Jojo’s strict father, who becomes a stand-in for all of the interviewees’ fathers. 

Like Thailand’s strict “lèse majesté” laws, which make criticism of the king highly illegal, Jojo’s father will not tolerate disobedience. His patriarchal demeanor, and its metaphor for the state, is embodied in his job: selling military and police uniforms. Jojo meets all of her father’s attempts at control with various measures of disinterest, disregard, and outright contempt. This makes the film both a classic coming-of-age story, as well as a unique view of the specifics of life in Bangkok.

Jasper at the airport

There is a beautiful moment when Jojo and Q are in a fight that, to me, embodies the tension between the desired affect and the lived reality of political life. The two teens sit silently in a park, close but clearly feeling quite distant from one another. A loudspeaker broadcast of the Thai national anthem begins to play — as it does daily at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. — and many people in the park stand in loyalty and allegiance. Our subjects do not rise. In fact, they, along with several other teenagers in the background, do not seem to notice at all. It’s a clear indication that the state imagines its power to reach much further than it ever truly does. 

The movie ends with Jojo’s interview beginning again. This time, however, we see the lights, the microphones, and the darkened stage, and Jojo’s face is blocked by the interviewer preparing the shot. We are looking at the hardware, the material construction behind the story that has just enraptured us. Jojo brazenly bends out from behind the camera and gives the viewers a knowing grin. She, the actress Ploiyukhon Rojanakatanyoo, knows exactly who she is in this film — and we do too. The story collapses in on its own telling, but the ride, filled with small windows into the realities and stories of being a queer teenager in Bangkok, was delightful.

#BKKY will be screened on March 26 during the GLITCH Film Festival at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, and on April 8 at Wicked Queer Festival in Boston.

The post A Film Mixes Fact and Fiction to Illuminate the Lives of Queer Teens in Bangkok appeared first on Hyperallergic.

from Hyperallergic http://ift.tt/2niUcok via IFTTT