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      ‘Sex Education’ Gets More Inclusive in Its Intimacy

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      With its new nonbinary characters and its scenes depicting chest binding and disabled intimacy, the British teen comedy-drama continues to widen its lens.Layla (Robyn Holdaway) slides a bin in front of the bedroom door, takes a small wicker box from its hiding place in a drawer full of clothes and opens it to reveal a roll of Ace bandages and a tin of safety pins.The scene that ensues, from Season 3 of “Sex Education,” depicts a routine that is all too familiar for many nonbinary and transgender youth. Layla — who, like Holdaway, uses they/them pronouns — proceeds to wrap the bandages tightly around their chest, which is already bruised and bloodied from unsafe chest binding.Later in the episode, Cal — another new and nonbinary character this season, played by the Sudanese American actor Dua Saleh — shows Layla a safer alternative: a chest binder, which is a compression undergarment often made of spandex and nylon.“I did it for a while with Ace bandages,” Cal tells Layla, who tries on a borrowed chest binder. “Until I nearly broke a rib.”Layla looks into the mirror, laughs incredulously and says with joy, “It feels so much better.”Laurie Nunn, the creator of this British dramedy, said that presenting such interactions, matter-of-factly with plenty of detail, is part of the show’s effort “to progress these conversations forward.”“It felt important to me that we see two nonbinary characters communicating with each other onscreen,” she said in a recent video interview. “It’s not just representation; it’s having as much of it as possible within the scope of the show.”Over two seasons, “Sex Education” has been widely praised for its frank but sensitive depictions of teen sexuality. In Season 3, now out on Netflix, the series has widened its lens to include more stories about queer relationships, gender presentation, intimacy with a disability and other experiences that rarely are explored on mainstream television.To do so in an authentic but respectful fashion, the producers use intimacy coordinators and a healthy dose of communication. “The show goes to great lengths to make sure that our actors are as protected as possible,” Nunn saidAt the same time, stars like George Robinson, who, like his character Isaac, uses a wheelchair, found themselves serving as both performers and de facto consultants, ensuring that the details and dynamics of their scenes were accurate. “Obviously, he’s playing a character, but it’s making sure that it feels authentic and true to his experience as a disabled actor,” Nunn said.George Robinson’s love scene was a rarity for a disabled actor, but everyone involved “stayed away from thinking too much about the significance of that scene,” he wrote in an email.Sam Taylor/NetflixOne such scene unfolds in Episode 4, when a dinner date between Isaac and Maeve (Emma Mackey) turns toward the intimate. Isaac is paralyzed from the chest down, like Robinson. Maeve starts kissing him, then pulls away. “Can …” she whispers, trailing off.“You want to know what I can feel?” Isaac asks.“Yeah,” Maeve replies.“Well, I can’t feel anything below my level of injury,” Isaac says. “If you put your hand on my chest, I’ll show you.”Isaac was originally conceived as an amputee, but the show’s producers decided to rewrite the role around the disability of whoever landed the part. Isaac is a painter, a brother, a lover and crucially, in Season 2, a jealous deleter of voice mail messages. His sense of humor is laced with cynicism, like Maeve’s.When asked how it felt to film the dinner date scene, Robinson responded in an email, “The easy and instinctive answer would be to think that in the moment, it felt like a real privilege to be a part of a ‘cultural moment’ type scene like that.“However, I have realized that in actual fact we (myself, Emma and the creative team) purposefully stayed away from thinking too much about the significance of that scene within the landscape of TV, film and media. We came to the conclusion that in order to make the scene successful, we had to make sure that it worked within the story and for the characters at that time in their relationship.”Kelly Gordon, a trainer at Enhance the UK, a charity run by disabled people, and Chris Yeates, an outreach and support coordinator at Back Up Trust, a charity that supports people affected by spinal cord injury, consulted on Isaac’s story line. The scene works because it’s not about the fact that Isaac uses a wheelchair. It’s a story about two awkward teenagers, an expression of affection and a burned lasagna.David Thackeray, an intimacy coordinator, worked on all eight episodes of Season 3, including this scene with Isaac and Maeve. Thackeray choreographs each take as if it were a dance sequence or a fight scene, mapping out physical boundaries with each actor beforehand.“We’re all sitting together, discussing the scene; we mark out where we’re happy to be touched,” Thackeray said. “Even to sit on George’s lap was like, ‘Are you happy with that?’ You keep that communication going.”Coordinators and consultants checked in constantly on the cast’s comfort levels. Jodie Mitchell, a consultant who advises productions about how to depict nonbinary characters and themes (and who also uses they/them pronouns), was initially brought on only to work on the script with the writers. Then one of the show’s directors, Runyararo Mapfumo, called, wanting to double check the details of scenes featuring nonbinary characters.“And then she really wanted me to come on set, which I think is indicative of how much this program really wants to get things right,” Mitchell said in an interview. “It’s not just about posturing for them or ticking the box of like, ‘Oh, we’ve checked it’s OK with someone.’ They really want to follow through to the highest level they can.”Mitchell worked on set for three days, focusing on nonbinary story lines, mostly consulting on those chest binding scenes involving Layla and Cal. Holdaway, who plays Layla, had the option of having an intimacy coordinator present for every scene.“But for a few of the scenes around bindings specifically, they were like, ‘Oh, actually, I just want someone who is trans and has lived experience with being trans in the room with me,’” Mitchell said. “So I was there.”Saleh, who plays Cal and also uses they/them pronouns, was a poet and musician before moving more seriously into acting (their third EP comes out Oct. 22). While Saleh has performed in some transgender- and queer-centric plays (“WAAFRIKA 1-2-3”) and theater groups (20% Theatre Company in Minneapolis), “Sex Education” was their TV debut.In a past theater production, “we had a lot of intimacy scenes, but we didn’t have a coordinator there,” Saleh said in a video interview last month. “So coming to ‘Sex Ed,’ it felt surprising how thoughtful and careful they were about our bodies, and about the ways that they helped us set boundaries with each other, and say what we weren’t and what we were comfortable with.”Like others on “Sex Education,” Saleh is a fan of the show as well as a star, and occasionally got caught up in resonant moments this season. Saleh was particularly moved by scenes portraying Eric Effiong (Ncuti Gatwa), a gay Ghanaian-Nigerian character who attends a family wedding in Nigeria. Eric sneaks out of the reception to go instead to an underground club pulsing with color, queerness and gender nonconformity.“When I was a teenager, if I had seen this show, I wouldn’t have held onto all of the gross feelings about myself, just in me being me,” Saleh said. “I wouldn’t have been as shameful about just existing.” More

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      'Squid Game,' the Netflix Hit, Taps South Korean Fears

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      The dystopian Netflix hit taps South Korea’s worries about costly housing and scarce jobs, concerns familiar to its U.S. and international viewers.In “Squid Game,” the hit dystopian television show on Netflix, 456 people facing severe debt and financial despair play a series of deadly children’s games to win a $38 million cash prize in South Korea.Koo Yong-hyun, a 35-year-old office worker in Seoul, has never had to face down masked homicidal guards or competitors out to slit his throat, like the characters in the show do. But Mr. Koo, who binge-watched “Squid Game” in a single night, said he empathized with the characters and their struggle to survive in the country’s deeply unequal society.Mr. Koo, who got by on freelance gigs and government unemployment checks after he lost his steady job, said it is “almost impossible to live comfortably with a regular employee’s salary” in a city with runaway housing prices. Like many young people in South Korea and elsewhere, Mr. Koo sees a growing competition to grab a slice of a shrinking pie, just like the contestants in “Squid Game.”Those similarities have helped turn the nine-episode drama into an unlikely international sensation. “Squid Game” is now the top-ranked show in the United States on Netflix and is on its way to becoming one of the most-watched shows in the streaming service’s history. “There’s a very good chance it will be our biggest show ever,” Ted Sarandos, a co-chief executive at Netflix, said during a recent business conference.Culturally, the show has sparked an online embrace of its distinct visuals, especially the black masks decorated with simple squares and triangles worn by the anonymous guards, and a global curiosity for the Korean children’s games that underpin the deadly competitions. Recipes for dalgona, the sugary Korean treat at the center of one especially tense showdown, have gone viral.A shop in Seoul selling “Squid Game”-themed dalgona.Heo Ran/ReutersLike “The Hunger Games” books and movies, “Squid Game” holds its audience with its violent tone, cynical plot and — spoiler alert! — a willingness to kill off fan-favorite characters. But it has also tapped a sense familiar to people in the United States, Western Europe and other places, that prosperity in nominally rich countries has become increasingly difficult to achieve, as wealth disparities widen and home prices rise past affordable levels.“The stories and the problems of the characters are extremely personalized but also reflect the problems and realities of Korean society,” Hwang Dong-hyuk, the show’s creator, said in an email. He wrote the script in 2008 as a film, when many of these trends had become evident, but overhauled it to reflect new worries, including the impact of the coronavirus. (Minyoung Kim, the head of content for the Asia-Pacific region at Netflix, said the company was in talks with Mr. Hwang about producing a second season.)“Squid Game” is only the latest South Korean cultural export to win a global audience by tapping into the country’s deep feelings of inequality and ebbing opportunities. “Parasite,” the 2019 film that won best picture at the Oscars, paired a desperate family of grifters with the oblivious members of a rich Seoul household. “Burning,” a 2018 art-house hit, built tension by pitting a young deliveryman against a well-to-do rival for a woman’s attention.The masked guards in “Squid Game” mete out violence during the competitions.NetflixSouth Korea boomed in the postwar era, making it one of the richest countries in Asia and leading some economists to call its rise the “miracle on the Han River.” But wealth disparity has worsened as the economy has matured.“South Koreans used to have a collective community spirit,” says Yun Suk-jin, a drama critic and professor of modern literature at Chungnam National University. But the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s undermined the nation’s positive growth story and “made everyone fight for themselves.”The country now ranks No. 11 using the Gini coefficient, one measure of income inequality, among the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the research group for the world’s richest nations. (The United States is ranked No. 6.)As South Korean families have tried to keep up, household debt has mounted, prompting some economists to warn that the debt could hold back the economy. Home prices have surged to the point where housing affordability has become a hot-button political topic. Prices in Seoul have soared by over 50 percent during the tenure of the country’s president, Moon Jae-in, and led to a political scandal.“Squid Game” lays bare the irony between the social pressure to succeed in South Korea and the difficulty of doing just that, said Shin Yeeun, who graduated from college in January 2020, just before the pandemic hit. Now 27, she said she had spent over a year looking for steady work.“It’s really difficult for people in their 20s to find a full-time job these days,” she said.South Korea has also suffered a sharp drop in births, generated partly by a sense among young people that raising children is too expensive.“In South Korea, all parents want to send their kids to the best schools,” Ms. Shin said. “To do that you have to live in the best neighborhoods.” That would require saving enough money to buy a house, a goal so unrealistic “that I’ve never even bothered calculating how long it will take me,” Ms. Shin said.Characters in the show receive invitations to participate in the Squid Game.Netflix“Squid Game” revolves around Seong Gi-hun, a gambling addict in his 40s who doesn’t have the means to buy his daughter a proper birthday present or pay for his aging mother’s medical expenses. One day he is offered a chance to participate in the Squid Game, a private event run for the entertainment of wealthy individuals. To claim the $38 million prize, contestants must pass through six rounds of traditional Korean children’s games. Failure means death.The 456 contestants speak directly to many of the country’s anxieties. One is a graduate from Seoul National University, the nation’s top university, who is wanted for mishandling his clients’ funds. Another is a North Korean defector who needs to take care of her brother and help her mother escape from the North. Another character is an immigrant laborer whose boss refuses to pay his wages.The characters have resonated with South Korean youth who don’t see a chance to advance in society. Known locally as the “dirt spoon” generation, many are obsessed with ways to get rich quickly, like with cryptocurrencies and the lottery. South Korea has one of the largest markets for virtual currency in the world.Like the prize money in the show, cryptocurrencies give “people the chance to change their lives in a second,” said Mr. Koo, the office worker. Mr. Koo, whose previous employer went out of business during the pandemic, said the difficulty of earning money is one reason South Koreans are so obsessed with making a quick buck.“I wonder how many people would participate if ‘Squid Game’ was held in real life,” he said.Seong Gi-hun, the show’s protagonist, entering an arena for one of the games.Netflix More

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      Stephen Colbert Spoils Stephanie Grisham’s Tell-All Tidbits

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      Colbert joked that the former White House press secretary had titled her Trump tell-all “I Just Recently Grew a Spine.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Too Little Too LateStephen Colbert lamented having to drudge up Donald Trump again on Tuesday night.“No matter how hard I try not to, sometimes the news forces me to talk about our former president, Scrooge McSchmuck,” Colbert said.This week, the topic was Stephanie Grisham’s new tell-all about her time working in the Trump White House, and Colbert said he wanted to spoil all the juicy bits so as not to give her a sales boost.“Stephanie Grisham worked in the White House for four years, and as press secretary, she famously never gave a single press conference. But now she’s spilling all the tea in her new book, ‘I Just Recently Grew a Spine.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“In the book, Grisham uses a lot of colorful language to describe the administration, calling it ‘a clown car on fire running at full speed into a warehouse full of fireworks.’ Or as Fox News would put it, ‘a brave band of flaming harlequins rushing patriotically into the explosive jaws of danger.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yeah, just a reminder: She knew all about the fiery clown car and she still called shotgun for four years.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Grisham goes on to write, ‘I can give you endless metaphors: living in a house that was always on fire, or in an insane asylum where you couldn’t tell the difference between the patients and the attendants, or on a roller coaster that never stopped.’ Ooh, ooh, let me try: Being in his administration is like sliding blindfolded down a 50-foot razor blade into a tub of gin. It’s like walking through a minefield led by a baby trying to change his own diaper. Driving a manure truck over a cliff into a pit of other manure trucks. Deep-sea diving surrounded by sharks who won’t shut up about winning Wisconsin.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Facebook Fallout Edition)“Ladies and gentlemen, I come to you tonight from a room full of warriors. Heroes. Survivors. Forget World War II, this is the greatest generation, because yesterday, every single person in this room had to dig down deep within themselves and find the strength to make it through Facebook’s six-hour worldwide outage.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Facebook went offline yesterday for over six hours. Wow, they finally found something they couldn’t fix with horse paste.” — SETH MEYERS“Everyone’s parents came this close to joining TikTok.” — JIMMY FALLON“Besides Zuckerberg, it was also a rough time for conspiracy theorists because for conspiracy theorists, Facebook is basically their WebMD.” — JIMMY FALLON“Well, in a statement, Facebook said the cause of the problem was, quote, ‘configuration changes on the backbone routers.’ Then they continued, ‘which caused the frontbone flexbox to dislodge the tungle switch and toggle the pixel dock florpcord, which then jolted the compshank’s codedox’s popknob causing a triple spanx zip-donk.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Facebook said that no user data was compromised during the blackout. It was not a hack, all your information is safe with them: your age, your height, weight, eye color, blood type, your birth date, your hopes, your dreams, your kidneys — all totally secure in the Facebook vaults.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The blackout was followed by a devastating congressional panel investigation this morning. Democrats and Republicans in the Senate finally found something they can agree on: They both hate Facebook.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“That’s right, today, a Facebook whistle-blower testified for more than three hours in front of Congress and said some pretty damaging things. That’s right, the whistle-blower said Facebook has repeatedly misled the public and that is not OK. We already have an app for misleading the public — it’s called Tinder.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingJames Corden and his staff debated who among them would win in a fight.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightThe cast of the Netflix dystopian hit “Squid Game” will appear on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutWith “In These Silent Days,” Brandi Carlile reaffirms her ambitions and polishes them, too.Ricardo Nagaoka for The New York TimesBrandi Carlile’s seventh album, “In These Silent Days,” braves the extremes of her songwriting. More

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      Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Reinvigorates Dalgona Candy

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      Interest in the South Korean treat has spiked since the debut of the Netflix drama “Squid Game.”One of Maddy Park’s earliest memories of street food was when vendors set up a portable stove outside her elementary school in Seoul, South Korea, to sell a candy for about a dime. It was part sweet treat, part game.Candy makers melted sugar and frothed it up with a pinch of baking soda to make this dalgona candy, Ms. Park recalled. They then pressed the mixture flat and pushed shapes like a circle, triangle, square, star or umbrella into the center. Ms. Park’s classmates determinedly tried to pick out the stamped shape using a needle without breaking it — a game called ppopgi. If the children successfully removed the shape from the brittle candy, they won another treat for free.“Dalgona was one of the cheapest, unhealthiest, yet the most addictive gamble for 7-year-old me,” said Ms. Park, now 28 and living in Downtown Brooklyn, N.Y.Ms. Park is one of many Koreans whose memories of dalgona candy, also called ppopgi, have surfaced thanks to the release last month of “Squid Game” on Netflix. The fictional series follows a group of cash-strapped people willing to die playing childhood games for a chance to win a jackpot. Episode 3 is all about ppopgi.Read more about “Squid Game” on Netflix.“There’s a gambling sort of element to it, kind of like in the ‘Squid Game’ but without life or death,” JinJoo Lee, 55, the Korean food blogger behind Kimchimari, said about ppopgi. Her recipe for dalgona candy, which she posted online in 2018, has had a 30 percent increase in traffic in the past few days. Similar candies are popular around the world, she said, but they go by different names.Dalgona candy filled a sweet void in postwar South Korea for children who had grown accustomed to the free chocolates given away by American soldiers, said Albert Park, an associate professor with expertise in Korean history at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif. Dalgona was inexpensive and accessible, he said.At first, glucose was used because raw sugar was expensive, Mr. Park said. But vendors likely began using sugar after the Korean War, when companies began to process it from its raw form, he said. The toffee-colored honeycomb candy became common in the 1960s, and was sold outside elementary schools and toy stores.Dalgona vendors started to disappear in the early 2000s as online shopping became more popular and toy stores began to close, Mr. Park said. It’s also likely that South Korea’s booming candy industry, and its proliferation of other types of inexpensive candies, put many of the mom-and-pop dalgona candy makers out of business.Contestants on the “Squid Game” pick out shapes from their dalgona candy, also known as ppopgi, in a life-or-death contest that featured challenges with childhood games.NetflixBut because of the popularity of “Squid Game,” the candy has made a comeback as a retro, nostalgic snack, Mr. Park said. “For some of these young Koreans, I don’t think they consciously think it’s Korean candy, but it’s a way to connect to their history that they don’t want to necessarily do in a history book,” he said.Social media has shepherded its leap to worldwide fame, introducing the candy to people outside South Korea.The name dalgona became more familiar to Americans in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic because of the popularity of the whipped coffee also known as dalgona. The beverage gained fame in January 2020 after the actor Jung Il-woo tried it in Macau on “Stars’ Top Recipe at Fun-Staurant,” a South Korean television show. He said it reminded him of the dalgona candy, unofficially naming the drink in the process. It then feverishly spread to South Korea’s coffee shops and eventually made its way to the United States.Some people, though, say dalgona candy’s spread through social media can divorce it from its cultural significance. “Dalgona candy is representative of fetishizing K-pop and K-dramas, and seeing one thing and saying, ‘Wow I’ve discovered Korean culture,’” said Nancy Wang Yuen, a sociologist and expert on race and racism in Hollywood, “when in fact the candy, the cinema, the television series, all of these things, have been in existence.”Fans love the candy’s blend of bitter, nutty and sweet tastes. “The flavor, for some reason, stays with you,” said Annie Yoo, 46, of Düsseldorf, Germany.Ms. Yoo’s most vivid memories of South Korea are those of foods like dalgona candy, as she was only 6 years old when she immigrated to the United States. She remembers the dirt roads she took to get to the dalgona street vendors under their tarps.“I really miss that candy,” she added. “In the midst of all the stuff we were going through, you barely get any treats. It was really magical.”In a YouTube video in which the “Squid Game” cast reacts to some of the scenes, Chae Kyung-sun, the show’s art director, reveals that dalgona candy was the trickiest prop to work with. Behind the scenes, she said, there was a professional who kept making the candy as they were filming.Those who have played the candy game approach it with different strategies. Hwang Dong-hyuk, the show’s writer and director, incorporated his own into the series: The show’s main character, Seong Gi-hun, repeatedly licks the candy to loosen the umbrella shape from the middle. It’s a trick the director said he used to win prizes when he was younger.But Ms. Park, who ate the candy outside her elementary school in Seoul, never did manage to win a free candy.Follow NYT Food on Twitter and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest. Get regular updates from NYT Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice. More

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      Alan Kalter, Longtime Voice of Letterman’s ‘Late Show,’ Dies at 78

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      Far more than just an announcer, he contributed all sorts of outlandish, incongruous comic bits to “Late Show With David Letterman.”Alan Kalter, the announcer for the “Late Show With David Letterman” for some 20 years and a participant in a ridiculous array of comic bits during that run, died on Monday at a hospital in Stamford, Conn., where he lived. He was 78.The death was announced by Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of Temple Beth El in Stamford, the synagogue Mr. Kalter attended. No cause was given.Mr. Kalter would welcome viewers with an opening quip (“From New York, home of mad cab disease … ”) and a recitation of the guest list. He would introduce the nonsensical “secret word” of the day and tell Mr. Letterman what was to be put to the “Will It Float?” test, a recurring comic bit. He would work himself into a lather over this or that and run off down the street shirtless.But, just as incongruously, he once sang a heartfelt version of “Send In the Clowns” for no particular reason, bolting offstage afterward overcome with emotion as the audience stood and applauded. Another time, he turned what at first seemed like some fatherly advice about attending the prom into a painful confessional about going to the prom with his own mother, “her middle-age body squeezed like a sausage into a sequined gown, her makeup and perfume a cruel mockery of the womanhood your hormones crave.”His transformation from announcer to all-purpose comic started early. On his first day, he said, Mr. Letterman, who had an Olympic diver as a guest, had Mr. Kalter jump into a pool while wearing his best suit.“I’m floating on my back, looking up at the cameraman, going, ‘This is what it’s like to announce on Letterman,’” he recalled in an interview on CBS New York in 2015, when Mr. Letterman ended the show.“If you’re going to have a talk show,” Mr. Letterman said on Tuesday in a telephone interview, “you’ve got to have a strong announcer, and he filled that way beyond what is required.”Mr. Kalter replaced Bill Wendell in September 1995, after Mr. Wendell retired. Mr. Letterman said that Mr. Kalter’s audition tape had left no doubt when he and his producer at the time, Robert Morton, heard it.“It was like, ‘Oh, my God, here we go,’” Mr. Letterman said.Mr. Kalter’s voice was already familiar to television viewers by then; he had announced on game shows like “To Tell the Truth” and “The $25,000 Pyramid” and provided voice-overs for numerous commercials. Mr. Letterman’s “Late Show,” though, brought him an entirely different kind of fame. His red hair and rumpled good looks made him instantly recognizable, and Mr. Letterman gave him ample opportunities to display his aptitude for both deadpan and over-the-top comedy.Mr. Kalter in 2015. “I don’t recall the guy ever saying no to anything,” David Letterman said in an interview.John Palmer/MediaPunch /IPX via Associated PressBarbara Gaines, the longtime “Late Show” producer, said Mr. Kalter had fit right into the show’s zaniness.“Alan would good-naturedly do almost anything we asked of him,” she said by email, “which is how we like our people.”Mr. Kalter said that he had always been given the option of declining to do a particularly nutty stunt or asking that it be modified, but Mr. Letterman remembered him as being perpetually game.“I don’t recall the guy ever saying no to anything,” he said, “and I guess that tells us something about his judgment.”And, he added, “it wasn’t begrudgingly — it was, ‘I’m all in.’”But Mr. Letterman also noted that, for him, Mr. Kalter and his music director, Paul Shaffer, were steadying influences.“He and Paul, to me, they were fixtures every night,” he said. “You’d look over and see Alan and see Paul and know that it’s going to be OK just like last night.”Guests, too, found Mr. Kalter to be a calming force.“Appearing with Dave triggered its own unique set of nerves,” Brian Williams, a frequent “Late Show” guest, said on Monday night on his MSNBC news program. “But seeing the smiling face of a nice man like Alan Kalter backstage was always the tonic needed in that moment.”The show may have made Mr. Kalter a celebrity, but he kept a low profile when off the set and at home in Stamford, where he had lived since the 1970s.“I played cards in a poker group for a year and a half,” he told The Stamford Advocate in 2003, “before somebody said, ‘Somebody told me you were in broadcasting.’”As for his “Letterman” job, Mr. Kalter was grateful for the opportunity and the long run.“I loved what they let me be,” he told The Pulteney Street Survey, the magazine of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where he was once a student, “a 10-year-old, paid for doing stuff my mom would never have let me get away with.”Alan Robert Kalter was born on March 21, 1943, in Brooklyn. He started announcing on WGVA radio in Geneva, N.Y., while at Hobart. The radio job had a fringe benefit.“In my off hours,” he said, “I would create the music tapes for all our fraternity parties from the 45’s that came in to the radio station.”After graduating in 1964 he studied law at New York University, then taught high school English for three years, at the same time recording educational tapes and working weekends in radio in the New York suburbs. The pull of radio eventually proved irresistible.“I left teaching for an afternoon radio show at WTFM,” he told the college magazine, “and was hired to be a newsman at WHN Radio in New York, which quickly became a four-year gig interviewing celebs who came into town for movie and Broadway openings, as well as covering nightclub openings three or four nights a week.”When WHN went to a country format in 1973, he turned to making commercials, and then got into game shows.He is survived by his wife, Peggy; a brother, Gary; two daughters, Lauren Hass and Diana Binger; and five grandchildren.Mr. Kalter’s do-almost-anything commitment to “Late Show,” Mr. Letterman said, was a nice counterpoint to Mr. Letterman’s more laid-back style.“I never liked to put on funny hats,” he said. “Alan would dress like a Martian and make it work.”“He filled in so many blanks on that show,” Mr. Letterman added, joking, “he probably deserved more money.” More

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      Stephen Colbert Kicks Facebook While It’s Down

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      “As the panic grew, Facebook did not say what might be causing the outage. Now, I’m no computer expert, but my theory is a just god?” Colbert joked.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Face(book) DownFacebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were down for several hours on Monday.“So if you wanted to share photos, you had to go door-to-door with Polaroids of your brunch,” Stephen Colbert joked.Colbert mocked audience members who admitted to trying to reload their accounts throughout the day, telling them to “seek help.”“For hours, users were left in suspense about whether their second cousin thinks the vaccine gives your pancreas Wi-Fi.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“People started noticing something was wrong this morning when they felt happy for more than 30 minutes.” — JAMES CORDEN“As the panic grew, Facebook did not say what might be causing the outage. Now, I’m no computer expert, but my theory is a just god?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Now, clearly, this is the day the machines have risen up and are taking over, but don’t panic: They only know our thoughts, feelings, family, friends, location, facial patterns and banking data.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Meanwhile, people who couldn’t use Instagram spent the day posting their weekend pumpkin-patch selfies on LinkedIn.” — JIMMY FALLON“It was so bad that the only way Facebook could let the world know what was going on — and this is true — was by posting a message on Twitter. ” — STEPHEN COLBERT“That must hurt. Facebook communicating problems on Twitter? That’s like Burger King running out of fries and having to announce it on a Big Mac.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Social Outing Edition)“Yes, Facebook’s entire site crashed. They were like, ‘Oh, my god, this is the best press we’ve had in months!’” — JIMMY FALLON“Facebook was only down for a day and in that short time, everyone got the vaccine.” — JIMMY FALLON“Before Facebook, I had no problems with any of my aunts or uncles. It was all — all birthday checks in the mail.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I gotta check out Facebook one of these days. I hear bad things.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“With no social media, I ended up spending most of the day talking to my son. He’s really nice!” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingThe “Daily Show” correspondent Dulcé Sloan argued with New Yorkers over trivial things like pizza, golf and reality television in her new segment “Prove Me Wrong.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightQueen Latifah will pop by Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This Out“If you can’t eat and enjoy food,” Stanley Tucci said, “how are you going to enjoy everything else?”Charlotte Hadden for The New York TimesThe actor Stanley Tucci has a new career as a foodie. More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix, Amazon and Stan in Australia in October

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      Our picks for October, including ‘Colin in Black & White,’ ‘Poltergeist’ and ‘Diana: The Musical’Every month, streaming services in Australia add a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for October.New to NetflixOCT. 1‘Diana: The Musical’The writing and composing team of David Bryan and Joe DiPietro — who won four Tonys, including Best Musical, for their show “Memphis” — reunite for this high-energy, rock ’n’ roll fueled version of the Princess Diana saga. Jeanna de Waal plays the popular, scandal-plagued royal, in a story about her seemingly storybook romance with Prince Charles (Roe Hartrampf) and its unhappy ending. “Diana: The Musical” officially opens on Broadway later this year, but the cast and crew taped a performance over the summer, giving theater fans who can’t make it to New York a chance to see the show.‘The Guilty’In this taut mystery-thriller, Jake Gyllenhaal plays a dedicated but overzealous police officer, who is stuck working at a dispatch desk when he gets a call from a woman (Riley Keough) who claims to be in fear for her life. The director Antoine Fuqua and the screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto follow the lead of the intense 2018 Danish film on which “The Guilty” is based, telling the story mostly from inside the police station. The hero scrambles to use all the investigative resources available to him from his computer and his phone, to try to figure out how to stop what may or may not be a crime in progress.‘Maid’Netflix‘Maid’Based on Stephanie Land’s memoir, the mini-series “Maid” stars Margaret Qualley as a broke single mother named Alex, with very few viable options for work, child-care or safe housing. When she takes a job working for a cleaning service catering to wealthy families in the Pacific Northwest, Alex becomes acutely aware of how much her survival depends on a steady paycheck and a lot of good luck. Qualley gives an outstanding performance in this riveting drama, which turns something as simple as having gas money (or a functioning car) into a source of nail-biting tension.OCT. 6‘There’s Someone Inside Your House’The director Patrick Brice (best-known for the offbeat genre films “Creep” and “Corporate Animals”) and the screenwriter Henry Gayden (who co-wrote the lively superhero movie “Shazam!”) have adapted Stephanie Perkins’s young adult novel “There’s Someone Inside Your House” into a different kind of teen horror movie. Sydney Park plays Makani, the new girl at a Nebraska high school where students with dark secrets are being stalked by a serial killer who wears a mask that resembles the victims’ faces. While these kids try to dodge murder, they also hustle to avoid having their deepest regrets made public.‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ Season 2One of 2020s most delightful surprises returns for a second season of family-friendly television. Based on Ann M. Martin’s beloved book series, “The Baby-Sitters Club” is about a circle of industrious teenage friends who run a child-care business while also helping each other with their problems. The show uses the plots of the novels as a starting point for modern stories about school, parents, relationships and responsibility.‘Colin in Black & White’NetflixOCT. 29‘Colin in Black & White’The Colin in the title of “Colin in Black & White” is Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback and social activist who sparked controversy across the United States when he started kneeling before football games during the singing of the national anthem. Here, Kaepernick and the producer-director Ava DuVernay tell the athlete’s story by looking back at his childhood, revisiting moments when the biracial Colin (Jaden Michael) came into conflict with his coaches, his classmates and his adoptive white parents (played by Nick Offerman and Mary-Louise Parker) as he tried to embrace his cultural roots.Also arriving: “On My Block” (Oct. 4), “Backing Impossible” Season 1 (Oct. 6), “Pretty Smart” (Oct. 8), “Bright: Samurai Soul” (Oct. 12), “Convergence: Courage in a Crisis” (Oct. 12), “The Movies That Made Us” Season 3 (Oct. 12), “The Four of Us” (Oct. 15), “Karma’s World” (Oct. 15), “You” Season 3 (Oct. 15), “Found” (Oct. 20), “Night Teeth” (Oct. 20), “Stuck Together” (Oct. 20), “Sex, Love & goop” (Oct. 21), “Inside Job” (Oct. 22), “Locke & Key” Season 2 (Oct. 22), “Maya and the Three” (Oct. 22), “Hypnotic” (Oct. 27), “Army of Thieves” (Oct. 29).New to Stan‘Sort Of’StanOCT. 6‘Sort of’ Season 1This Canadian dramedy stars Bilal Baig as Sabi, a gender-fluid child of Pakistani immigrants. While working as a nanny by day and a bartender by night, Sabi tries to maintain meaningful relationships with both their traditionalist family and their L.G.B.T.Q. friends — two very different factions who are sometimes equally confounded by what it means to be nonbinary. This is a show about a person making a space for themselves, outside of the conventional categories.Oct. 8‘One of Us Is Lying’ Season 1Like the Karen M. McManus young adult mystery novel on which it’s based, the teen drama series “One of Us Is Lying” is part “The Breakfast Club,” part “Gossip Girl” and part Agatha Christie whodunit. When five students are framed by a troublemaking peer and stuck in after-school detention, four of them become murder suspects after one of their group — an incorrigible gossip named Simon (Mark McKenna) — drops dead under strange circumstances. To clear their names, the other kids work together, forming an “us against the world” bond as their secrets become public.OCT. 16‘Boogie Nights’The cinephile favorite writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has a new movie coming out later this year: “Licorice Pizza,” a teen dramedy set in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley in the 1970s. So now is the perfect time to revisit Anderson’s breakthrough film, 1997’s “Boogie Nights,” also set in the Valley in the ’70s (and ’80s). Ostensibly the story of a fast-living, sweet-natured porn star named Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), “Boogie Nights” is really about L.A. misfits forming a makeshift family and then fighting to hold it together as drugs, money, fame and changing cultural attitudes start pulling everything apart.OCT. 21‘Poltergeist’Looking for some classic horror this October? You can’t go wrong with 1982’s “Poltergeist,” a witty and frightful tale about ancient spirits terrorizing a pristine new suburban subdivision. Directed by Tobe Hooper (best-known for “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”) and produced and co-written by Steven Spielberg (riding high at the time from the success of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “E.T.”), “Poltergeist” starts out as a dryly funny portrait of a pleasant middle-class family. Then all hell breaks loose, turning an ordinary American neighborhood into a village of the damned.OCT. 28‘Love Life’ Season 2The romantic comedy anthology series “Love Life” returns for a second season with a new story, featuring a few of the first season’s characters in smaller roles (including last year’s protagonist Darby, played by the show’s co-producer Anna Kendrick). This time out, William Jackson Harper takes the lead as Marcus, a New Yorker still reeling from a recent divorce from the woman he thought would be his partner for life. As he re-enters the dating world, which has changed drastically since the last time tried to find a mate, Marcus takes the opportunity to re-evaluate what he really wants from a relationship.Also arriving: “A Good Man” Season 1 (Oct. 13), “Canada’s Drag Race” Season 2 (Oct. 15), “Hightown” Season 2 (Oct. 17), “All American” Season 4 (Oct. 26), “The Last O.G.” Season 4 (Oct. 27), “Sisterhood” Season 1 (Oct. 29), “Walker” Season 2 (Oct. 29).New to Amazon‘Welcome to the Blumhouse’ Season 2AmazonOCT. 1‘Welcome to the Blumhouse’ Season 2The second round of original feature-length horror films for Blumhouse Productions’ anthology series “Welcome to the Blumhouse” follows a slightly different formula from last year’s batch. The movies “Bingo Hell” (about senior citizens protecting their gentrifying neighborhood from a demonic villain), “Black as Night” (about a New Orleans teen hunting vampires who prey on the homeless), “Madres” (about Mexican American migrant workers plagued by terrifying premonitions), and “The Manor” (about a nursing home under siege from supernatural forces) put unique twists on conventional genre fare, telling stories about people on society’s margins who battle insidious evils.OCT. 15‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ Season 1Based on a 1973 Lois Duncan horror novel (and its hit 1997 movie adaptation) the teen slasher series “I Know What You Did Last Summer” follows a group of high school friends and acquaintances whose lives change after a terrible accident. As a serial killer targets the kids involved in a fatal car wreck, they realize they have to abandon their carefully crafted public personas so they can solve the mystery of who knows their terrible secret.OCT. 29‘Fairfax’ Season 1In this edgy animated satire, the voice actors Skyler Gisondo, Kiersey Clemons, Peter Kim and Jaboukie Young-White play a group of Los Angeles teens who dedicate most of their energy and talent to becoming social media influencers. “Fairfax” is partly a knowing look at plugged-in American youth in the 2020s, and partly an absurdist comedy in which the pursuit of clout frequently turns into surreal adventures.Also arriving: “All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs” (Oct. 1), “My Name Is Pauli Murray” (Oct. 1), “Justin Bieber: Our World” (Oct. 8). More

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      Jillian Mercado on ‘Generation Q’ and the Importance of Joyful Stories

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      This interview contains minor spoilers for Episode 9 of Season 2 of “The L Word: Generation Q.”In its five years on air, “The L Word” brought lesbian romances, drama and many, many sex scenes to the small screen. (One hundred eleven, to be exact, but who’s counting?)But Jillian Mercado — the 34-year-old actress and model who plays Maribel in the show’s reboot, “Generation Q” — never thought she would be in one of those sex scenes. Growing up with muscular dystrophy, she rarely saw physically disabled actors on TV at all.A Dominican American Bronx native who attended New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, Mercado began making her name as a model back in 2014, when she landed her first ad campaign with Diesel. Since then, she has signed with Creative Artists Agency; founded an initiative called Black Disabled Creatives; and joined the cast of “Generation Q,” her first acting role.Although the original “L Word” notably lacked major characters who weren’t cisgender lesbians (or really anyone who fell outside of the narrow scope of straight, white beauty standards), the reboot, which debuted in late 2019, welcomed Mercado into a notably more diverse cast. And this season, as a romance blossomed between Maribel and Micah (Leo Sheng), Mercado got to become the kind of character she wanted to see when she was younger.Mercado began making her name as a model in 2014, when she landed her first ad campaign with Diesel. Her character on “Generation Q” is her first major acting role.Bethany Mollenkof for The New York Times“Intimacy and sex for the disability community was never something I literally ever saw on TV until now,” Mercado, who uses a wheelchair, wrote last month on Instagram after her first sex scene aired in Episode 5. “My heart is so FULL of gratitude that I am able to say that I am one of the first people to show you how that looks like on national television, for millions of people to see.”In the show, Mercado plays a sharp-witted lawyer who often acts as the voice of reason, doling out advice to her younger sister, Sophie, along with their mutual friends. But a more vulnerable side of her character is revealed when Maribel’s friendship with Micah, a transgender man, grows into something more complicated. As Maribel and Micah sleep together and ultimately fall in love, it gives viewers an opportunity to celebrate the two characters’ joy rather than highlight their past traumas.“Honestly, the only thing that we want is for people to understand that we’re human,” Mercado said.In a video interview from Los Angeles, where “Generation Q” is filmed, Mercado discussed queer dating and the importance of telling joyful stories about disabled people. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Were you a fan of the original series?I actually used to watch it under my covers when I was younger because my parents thought it was a little too risqué for me to watch, which got me even more curious.Did you identify with any of the characters?I don’t think there was a specific person that I identified with. I picked parts of every character. I mean, Shane was always such a badass; she was a troublemaker. Her plots were always so chaotic and interesting.I come from a Dominican household, and we love drama. We love mixing things up. So I always leaned more toward her character. But I think that everyone just had a different aspect of what life is about. Each character highlighted the best and the worst qualities of the human experience in the dating world, and specifically the queer world.Do you think the show has done a good job deepening its representation of characters who aren’t white cisgender lesbians?I mean, I’m on the show, so that says a lot! There’s not one specific way to be queer, and that’s why “Generation Q” has been making sure that everyone is seen and heard.How did you incorporate your experiences as a queer, Hispanic person with muscular dystrophy into Maribel’s character while also being sensitive to your own boundaries and privacy?My character — and my work in general — always feeds into my real life and my personal life. But what I’ve learned, as I enter the adult world, is to really make sure that you do take time for yourself and make sure you’re aligned with what you believe in. But I also love being an advocate for my community, and I’ve been privileged to talk in my work about different things that have been lacking in my community.You’ve mentioned before that seeing Aimee Mullins open Alexander McQueen’s spring 1999 show in custom wooden prosthetic legs was formative for you as an aspiring model; were there any actors on the big or small screen who gave you a similar moment of inspiration?I think the only representation where there was with someone who had a physical disability was always in a hospital. It was always very medical, like, “Save this person from whatever their disability is.” But we’re not just all about medical devices or medical situations. We’re so much more than that. And on television, if there was representation, it was always played by somebody who didn’t have a disability. And their narration of what I was watching was not even remotely close to my lived experience or to what most disabled people live.Episode 5 of Season 2, which aired in September, contained an intimate scene between Mercado’s character, Maribel, and Micah, a transgender man played by Leo Sheng.Liz Morris/ShowtimeMaribel’s sex scene with Micah is one of few TV sex scenes involving a physically disabled person; what felt important to keep in mind as that scene was developed?The writers of the show were amazing and so communicative about what would make me feel comfortable and what was most important for me. But I know that I have never seen a sex scene with someone who is actually disabled, onscreen. And I was excited because I was like, ‘Oh, I get to do this for millions of people who’ve never seen it.’ But it also kind of hurt me that that was a reality.Yeah, it’s hot, and of course it’s “The L Word,” so everything looks amazing and beautiful, but for me, it was so much more than that. It was having the conversation that is such a taboo for people who have disabilities, where people think that we don’t go out; we don’t have relationships; we don’t have intimacy with anybody, because they think that nobody will ever love us because we look different or we live life differently. We all have different ways of being intimate with each other, and just because ours is more visibly different, it doesn’t make it less-than.“I think the only representation where there was with someone who had a physical disability was always in a hospital,” Mercado said of onscreen depictions growing up. “We’re so much more than that.”Bethany Mollenkof for The New York TimesMaribel’s relationship doesn’t blossom without friction, but her romantic plotline is notably healthy and positive this season. Why do you think the writers went in that direction with Maribel, as opposed to the complicated (and sometimes very messy) relationships that the show usually creates?It’s really special to have a story line where it’s not messy and not chaotic — because trust me, I love a good chaotic moment, but I’m a sucker for a love story. I’m such a hopeless romantic. I also think that because Leo is trans and I’m disabled, that’s already a story line in itself. People can just feel like these are just two people who really love themselves, and it doesn’t have to be messy because maybe society views them as messy.What would you like to see next for your character?Maribel is such a strong, boss character, so I’m curious to see where she goes because this is the first time that she’s really let her guard down. She’s been hurt so many times. But she’s such a stubborn, determined person that I’m curious to see if she’s going to be the one to mess it up. I know Micah is the sweetest character on this show, so there’s no way that he’s going to do anything like mess that up. But I feel like Maribel might. More