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THREAD: As 2020 draws to a close, I’d like to take this opportunity to direct your attention to some of the best WOC out there covering TV and film. All are worth following
Why WOC specifically? Because the vast majority of critics are white (82%) and male (78%). I talk about the problem in more depth here and why we should champion WOC who are doing the work. So here are some highlights from the past year. Let’s go! http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/ct-ent-most-movie-critics-are-white-men-0615-story.html
Via @ReelTalker: “Girls and women have to spend so much time trying to succeed in the larger world that sometimes they don’t even consider putting some of that energy into their equally critical friendships.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/insecure-dead-to-me-female-friendships_n_5eb18412c5b62b850f928b5c
Via @iWatchiAm: “Perhaps what’s most strange about the new ‘Mulan’ is that every decision made to differentiate it from the animated version, like the addition of qi, lowers the stakes.” https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/mulan-disney-plus-china-focused-beautiful-little-underwhelming-ncna1239334
Host of “The Spectrum Lounge” podcast @FilmFatale_NYC interviews creatives of color who are disrupting the game in TV, film and pop culture. Here she talks with “Walking Dead”/"Euphoria"/"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" star Colman Domingo
Via @angelicabastien: Cate Blanchett’s Phyllis Schlafly in “Mrs. America” and Bette Davis in “In This Our Life” illuminate “something about what it takes to create a compelling female villain whose whiteness is fundamental to how she uses her power.” https://www.vulture.com/2020/09/mrs-america-cate-blanchett-white-women-villains.html
Via @HannaFlint: “Five years of being blacklisted will certainly put things into perspective and it’s given him the time to come to terms with that experience, learn from it and recognise just how lucky, how ridiculously privileged he is.” https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/josh-trank-capone-movie-interview
Via @ValerieComplex on "Antebellum": “an aimless movie with no purpose other than shock value. What’s the purpose of displaying such overt brutality without reprieve?” https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/antebellum-review-janelle-monae-deserves-better/
Via @SorayaMcDonald: “Compared with the battery of American war films, relatively few feature films exist that explore the intersections of race, patriotism, war and betrayal from the perspective of black soldiers.” https://theundefeated.com/features/from-apocalypse-now-to-da-5-bloods-a-war-that-never-really-ended/
Li Lai is the founder and editor-in-chief of @MediaversityRev, which looks at TV and film thru the lens of gender, race and LGBTQ diversity. Here she is weighing in on “Evil,” which is a CB show but I think a lot of people discovered it on Netflix https://www.mediaversityreviews.com/tv-reviews/2020/11/5/evil-season-1
Via @CarrieCnh12: In “Birds of Prey” we were “finally able to see that Harley is a woman who has fears and vulnerabilities and secretly longs to connect with others.” https://observer.com/2020/08/jokes-on-you-watching-women-break-their-chains-in-film/
Via @kathia_woods on “Miss Juneteenth” and the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters: “I love how [writer-director Channing Godfrey Peoples] allows the viewer to see the complete story without judgment.” https://www.cupofsoulshow.com/missjuneteenth
Via @SassyMamainLA: “For Latinx women in particular, Selena was an example of what a strong woman who believed in herself could achieve. But that Selena is non-existent in 'Selena: The Series,' her voice muted and buried.” https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a34876523/selena-the-series-review/
Via @Kelleent: "Annalise reminds us that respectability politics won’t save us in the fight for representation. The solution is to show the good, bad and ugly of who we are — the same as our white counterparts." https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/opinion/viola-davis-how-to-get-away-with-murder.html?smid=em-share
Via @battymamzelle: Director Clea Duvall and and co-writer Mary Holland “have crafted a Christmas movie that speaks to the unique challenges queer people face in their daily lives and how they might manifest during the holidays.” https://jezebel.com/happiest-season-is-almost-the-queer-christmas-romcom-1845737383
Via @Journeys_Film: “In a world where disability is often presented in the simplest ways possible, 'Loop' takes the idea of miscommunication and lets the audience confront everything from ableism to the need for human connection, in a nine-minute short.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristenlopez/2020/01/10/why-pixars-first-non-verbal-character-in-the-short-loop-was-a-game-changer/?sh=7878e643284c
Via @BiatchPack on “Clemency” director Chinonye Chukwu: “ She's not precious about everything that's shot; what Chukwu did fight for is the lack of music in the film — what gives it its ‘sterility, its starkness and its lack of sentimentality.’” https://blog.finaldraft.com/being-seen-is-a-radical-act-chinonye-chukwu-on-clemency
Via @angelique814 nabbing a cover story:
Man of Action: Tyler Perry on Producing During the Pandemic and Why He’s Weighing in on Politics https://variety.com/2020/film/news/tyler-perry-producing-pandemic-politics-1234811061/
Man of Action: Tyler Perry on Producing During the Pandemic and Why He’s Weighing in on Politics https://variety.com/2020/film/news/tyler-perry-producing-pandemic-politics-1234811061/
Via @_ShamGod: "Love, after all, is easier to sell than watercooler conversations about imperialism, xenophobia, and exploitative power imbalances." https://zora.medium.com/90-day-fiancé-is-everyones-guilty-pleasure-but-is-it-exploiting-immigrants-3123346b0144
Podcaster @IAMSadeSellers goes deep on the 1997 film “Eve’s Bayou” — featuring a 10-year-old Jurnee Smollett long before her turn on “Lovecraft Country” — along with co-host @DaRealChrisCo https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/afro-horror/id1472713970?i=1000489891054
Via @roslyntalusan: “Emotions are a natural human instinct that help us engage with our environment. Yet for women, especially those who hold multiple marginalized identities, our emotions are often weaponized against us. https://www.flare.com/tv-movies/harley-quinn-birds-of-prey-and-womens-anger/
Via @jourdayen: In director Josephine Decker’s films “time is measured by feelings: We enter into the minds of the characters, letting the setting fall away as we settle into an ethereal space, out of focus and difficult to parse.” https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/shirley-screen-review-relationship-control
Via @TonjaStidhum: “Black Lives Matter doesn’t (nor shouldn’t) come with an asterisk. It does not come with a scheduled agenda that prioritizes cis-hetero black men above black women and/or members of the LGBTQ community.” https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/the-breakfast-club-is-food-poisoning-1843979344
On their podcast Latinx Lens @rosasreviews & @thingscatloves discuss the career of Raúl Juliá, (an actor who died far too soon … man, I miss him) with a focus on 3 of his films: “The Addams Family,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman” and “The Burning Season” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/latinx-lens/id1518650275?i=1000499841561
Via @beandreadotcom on the Catch-22 of systemic racism in Hollywood: “Moviemakers assume that white people won’t see Black films, so either those movies don’t get made or they don’t get the kind of budgets and marketing they need to break through.” https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/07/if-white-people-support-black-lives-why-dont-they-watch-black-movies-and-tv-shows
Via @inkookang: “Often described as South Korea’s Steven Spielberg ... Bong is an artist remarkably at ease in an array of tones and registers, and is boyishly gleeful in mixing them to unnerving ends.” https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7158-parasite-notes-from-the-underground
Via @naima on the Verzuz effect: Why iconic artists — and Apple — are betting on big battles https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/cover-story/9430242/verzuz-effect-swizz-beatz-timbaland-instagram
An important note to end on: @darkskylady lays bare the reality that most WOC are freelancers who are navigating a terrible ecosystem of financial instability and gatekeeping from studios, pr pros and publications themselves https://medium.com/breakthrough/freelance-writing-aint-easy-especially-when-you-re-not-white-d3637f3e1b5d
WOC mutuals: If I missed you, a) apologies! And b) reach out!
And if we’re not already mutuals, reach out so we can fix that and become Twitter friends.
And if we’re not already mutuals, reach out so we can fix that and become Twitter friends.
Via @mcastimovies (who notes that a lot of those shows have been cancelled/ended in 2020 ... network and streaming executives would be smart to read this right now as a reminder):
TV has a new kind of heroine: The Latina genius. Here’s why it matters https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-02-26/netflix-expanding-universe-ashley-garcia-disney-diary-future-president
TV has a new kind of heroine: The Latina genius. Here’s why it matters https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-02-26/netflix-expanding-universe-ashley-garcia-disney-diary-future-president
Via @moniqueblognet a look at K-pop and the BLM movement: BTS, ARMY And Black Lives Matter: The Value Of Fandom Meshing With Activism https://colorwebmag.com/2020/06/22/bts-army-and-black-lives-matter-the-value-of-fandom-meshing-with-activism/
