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      Disney Says It Hopes Florida Anti-LGBTQ Law Is ‘Struck Down’

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      Moments after Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed an anti-L.G.B.T.Q. bill into law on Monday, Disney released a statement condemning it and saying that its “goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down by the courts.” Disney employs roughly 80,000 people in the Orlando area.Labeled by opponents as “Don’t Say Gay,” the law restricts classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also gives parents an option to sue a school district if they think the policy has been violated.This month, Disney was criticized by many of its employees for refusing to take a public stand against the legislation, leading to a series of moves from the company’s chief executive, Bob Chapek. Mr. Chapek broke the company’s silence and stated Disney’s opposition; apologized repeatedly; paused political giving in Florida pending a review; and created a task force to develop an action plan for Disney to be a more positive force for the L.G.B.T.Q. community, including through its content for families. He is going on a listening tour at Disney workplaces, both domestically and overseas, this week.On March 9, Mr. Chapek told shareholders at Disney’s annual meeting that he had called Mr. DeSantis to “express our disappointment and concern” about the bill. “The governor heard our concerns, and agreed to meet with me and L.G.B.T.Q.+ members of our senior team in Florida as a way to address them,” he said.Mr. DeSantis responded with defiance, promptly deriding the company as “Woke Disney” in a fund-raising email to supporters. On Monday, as he signed the bill, Mr. DeSantis said: “I don’t care what Hollywood says. I don’t care what big corporations say. Here I stand. I’m not backing down.”The hosts of the Academy Awards on Sunday made fun of the legislation during their opening stand-up routine.In its statement on Monday, Disney added that it was committed to the national and state organizations working to overturn the law. “We are dedicated to standing up for the rights and safety of L.G.B.T.Q.+ members of the Disney family,” the company said, “as well as the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community in Florida and across the country.” More

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      ‘Patria y Vida’: How a Cuban Rap Song Became a Protest Anthem

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      MEXICO CITY — As thousands marched across Cuba last July in an astonishing protest against the Communist regime, many shouted and sang a common refrain: “Patria y vida!” or “Homeland and life!”The phrase comes from a rap song of the same name, which has become an anthem for a burgeoning movement of young people taking to the internet and to the streets, demanding an end to political oppression and economic misery.The song, written by Yotuel Romero, Descemer Bueno, Maykel Osorbo, Eliecer “el Funky” Márquez Duany and the reggaeton pair Gente de Zona, is nominated for two Latin Grammys, including song of the year, and will be performed on the show Thursday night.“These are the first Grammy Awards for the people of Cuba, the first Grammys for freedom,” Romero said in a phone interview from Miami. “These are the first Grammys where it’s not Yotuel nor Gente Zona that are nominated, it’s patria y vida, it’s Cuba.”The song is a rare instance of Cuban artists directly taking on the regime: The title is a twist on one of the most iconic slogans of the Cuban revolution, patria o muerte, (homeland or death), a phrase that Fidel Castro often used to end his speeches.“It was the antithesis of homeland or death — homeland and life,” Romero said. “I knew that phrase was going to bring a lot of controversy.”And generate controversy it did.After it was released in February, the song was heavily criticized by government figures like President Miguel Díaz-Canel and former culture minister Abel Prieto, who called the track a “musical pamphlet.” and wrote, “There’s nothing more sad than a chorus of annexationists attacking their homeland” on Twitter.But the official criticism did little to stem the song’s popularity. After decades of isolation, internet use became widespread in Cuba in 2018 — many young Cubans are now highly active on social media, where the anthem spread like wildfire. The accompanying video has been viewed more than 9 million times on YouTube.The song’s release came just a few months after hundreds of artists, intellectuals and others demonstrated outside the Ministry of Culture in Havana to protest a slew of recent arrests, including that of the rapper Denis Solís.“That protest transformed the narrative of the opposition in Cuba,” said Rafael Escalona, the director of the Cuban music magazine AM:PM. “There was fertile ground for someone to reap the fruits and create a protest anthem.”On July 11, “Patria y Vida” was transformed into a rallying cry, when Cuba witnessed its largest protests in decades, with Cubans protesting over power outages, food shortages and a lack of medicines.“This is my way of telling you, my people are crying out and I feel their voice,” the song says. “No more lies, my people ask for freedom. No more doctrines, let’s not sing of homeland or death but homeland and life.”Hundreds of people were jailed after the July demonstrations, and at least 40 more were detained on Monday as the regime moved to stifle another planned march.The risks extended to the songwriters too.While most of the artists who collaborated on the song were well known internationally before the track’s release and were also living outside of Cuba, Maykel Osorbo and El Funky still lived on the island: Both were arrested earlier this year, and Osorbo remains in jail. Romero, who lives in Miami, said that he cannot return to the island for fear of arrest.But despite the crackdown, Romero said he is confident that the emerging movement fomented by Cuba’s youth and given a soundtrack by “Patria y Vida” is only just getting started.“This is no longer a movement, it’s generation. It’s the generation patria y vida,” he said. “The generation patria y vida has come to bury the generation patria o muerte.”Carlos Melián Moreno contributed reporting from Santiago, Cuba. More

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      Talking About ‘Attica,’ the Newest Documentary on the Prison Uprising

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      Fifty years after the fact, the filmmakers Stanley Nelson and Traci A. Curry reflect on the bloody standoff and what it accomplished.On Sept. 9, 1971, hundreds of inmates took over the Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo to demand better conditions. “Attica,” a new documentary directed by Stanley Nelson and co-directed by Traci A. Curry, recounts the occupation and the massacre that followed on Sept. 13 when armed law enforcement officers stormed the prison and 39 inmates and hostages were killed under sustained police gunfire and tear-gassing.Holding more than 40 prison staff members hostage, the inmates set up tents and latrines and allowed journalists to enter as crowds massed outside the walls. The prisoners’ grievances ranged from violence and overcrowding to political rights abuses and insufficient toilet paper (one roll a month, according to a report in The New York Times). In negotiations with the prisoners, Russell Oswald, the state’s commissioner of corrections, had reportedly agreed to nearly all their demands, but after the death of a hostage, Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, in consultation with President Richard M. Nixon, ordered state troopers to take over the prison. For the anniversary, Nelson and Curry dug deep, speaking to former prisoners and figures who had been on the scene, such as the TV journalist John Johnson and the negotiation intermediary Herman Schwartz, a law professor. (Former guards had initially agreed to participate, Curry said, but later declined.) Curry, Nelson and I spoke by phone about recapturing the lived reality of Attica and its enduring importance. These are edited excerpts from those conversations.What does your documentary show us about Attica?STANLEY NELSON Attica is the largest prison rebellion in the history of the United States. The big thing is that the prisoners held over 30 guards as hostages, and invited in TV cameras and reporters. And if you let camera-people loose, they just film! There’s a fantastic moment where the prisoners say that they’ve been watching [Russell] Oswald, the commissioner of prisons, say something different to reporters outside the gates from what they negotiated inside.In addition, the New York State Police were videotaping on very early video cameras, Portapaks. They were up on the prison towers shooting through the cross hairs of a rifle scope, using it as a Telephoto lens. They left the mic open, so you can hear them talking about the prisoners and what’s going on.What shocked you most about the events?NELSON The whole thing was shocking but it’s the overt racism that is so evident, from the guards and law enforcement yelling “White power!” to the state police, who are talking about the “ugliest, blackest Negro gentleman” they’ve ever seen, to Richard Nixon on the phone with Rockefeller, and his first question is “Is it the Blacks?”And one thing that’s never talked about is why the prisoners rebelled. It’s almost like we as nonprisoners feel, well, of course they’re mad — they’re in jail. But the prisoners had specific reasons. They went from small mistreatments to complete brutalization and beatings. The prisoners had 30 demands, and the prison system had agreed to 28 of them. They were close!TRACI A. CURRY I think the most shocking was what happened on the day of the retaking: the wanton violence and the brutality, and the fact that it continued long after the prison was secured and there was no legitimate reason to think that these people were a threat anymore.What was it like talking to former prisoners and family members of guards?NELSON Traci Curry did the interviews. The ex-prisoners were so vivid and their memories were so intact. And we always knew that we wanted to talk to the family members of guards, because so many of the families were also devastated by what happened. Their loved ones were killed or in some cases emotionally destroyed.CURRY Even 50 years later, the memories and the emotions were just beneath the surface, whether it was rage, sadness, or disbelief. I saw my job as creating the safest space possible for them to tell their story in their words. There’s no voice of God “Morgan Freeman” that comes in to fill in the blanks.How does the movie resonate with today’s issues of racial justice?NELSON It’s law and order carried to its extreme, and I think it’s the start of a whole different turn in American history. You can’t see the film without thinking about where we are today. There’s over 2 million people incarcerated. The headline in The New York Times today is about Rikers Island. And part of the unspoken truth in the film is that we want to put people in jail and forget about them.CURRY I’m sitting in my apartment where I made most of this film, and there were days where there were George Floyd protests moving outside my window and I saw police officers descend upon protesters. I think we all saw the way that people in prisons were treated at the peak of the pandemic. We all saw the former president attack protesters outside of the White House and then use that attack as a political opportunity. Those parallels were so resonant for me, and it crystallized for me that this is a story about what happens when people challenge the state’s abuse of its power.What was it like filming at Attica?CURRY There’s a lot of emotions around how people there want to frame this narrative. I spent weeks getting all of the necessary permissions from the Corrections Department of New York State to film. But once we got up there, it was a very different thing. We had a couple of encounters with law enforcement. We were stopped and told that we were reported as a suspicious vehicle. I had an angry resident screaming at me in my face calling me a liar. It was a very intense period. More

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      How Hong Kong Censors Films to Protect National Security

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      The Asian film capital has cracked down on documentaries and independent productions that it fears could glamorize the pro-democracy movement.HONG KONG — The director of “Far From Home,” a short, intimate film about a family caught in the tumult of the 2019 antigovernment protests in Hong Kong, had hoped to show off her work at a local film festival in June.Then the censors stepped in.They told the director, Mok Kwan-ling, that her film’s title — which in Cantonese could carry a suggestion of cleaning up after a crime — must go. Dialogue expressing sympathy for an arrested protester had to be excised. Scenes of removing items from a room also had to be cut, apparently because they might be construed as concealing evidence.In total, Ms. Mok was ordered to make 14 cuts from the 25-minute film. But she said that doing so would have destroyed the balance she had attempted to forge between the views of protesters and those who opposed them. So she refused, and her film has thus far gone unseen by the public.“It was quite contradictory to a good narrative and a good plot,” she said. “If a person is completely good or completely bad, it’s very boring.”Hong Kong’s world-famous film scene, which nurtured groundbreaking directors like John Woo and Wong Kar-wai, has become the latest form of expression to be censored since Beijing imposed a tough new national security law on the former British colony last year.Mok Kwan-ling, an independent film director, was ordered by the censors to make 14 cuts and to change the name of her film, “Far From Home.”Anthony Kwan for The New York TimesIn March, a local theater pulled the prizewinning protest documentary “Inside the Red Brick Wall,” after a state-run newspaper said it incited hatred of China. At least two Hong Kong directors have decided to not release new films locally. When an earlier film by one of those directors was shown to a private gathering last month, the gathering was raided by the police.Directors say they fear the government will force them to cut their films — and, potentially, put them in prison — if they dismiss demands and show their work.“Under the national security law, Hong Kong is no longer Hong Kong,” said Jevons Au, a director who moved to Canada shortly after the sweeping law was imposed. “Hong Kong is a part of China, and its film industry will finally turn into a part of China’s film industry.”Beyond the national security law, the government plans to toughen its censorship policies to allow it to ban or force cuts to films deemed “contrary to the interests of national security.” Such powers would also be retroactive, meaning the authorities could bar films that were previously approved. People that show such films could face up to three years in prison.“Part of the underlying goal of this law is to intimidate Hong Kong filmmakers, investors, producers, distributors and theaters into internalizing self-censorship,” said Shelly Kraicer, a film researcher specializing in Chinese-language cinema. “There will be a lot of ideas that just aren’t going to become projects and projects that aren’t going to be developed into films.”The new restrictions are unlikely to trouble bigger-budget Hong Kong films, which are increasingly made in collaboration with mainland companies and aimed at the Chinese market. Producers already work to ensure those films comply with mainland censorship. Likewise, distributors and streaming services like Netflix, which is available in Hong Kong but not mainland China, are wary of crossing red lines.“Netflix is a business first,” said Kenny Ng, an expert on film censorship at Hong Kong Baptist University’s Academy of Film. “They show unconventional films, including politically controversial films, but only from a safe distance. I think Netflix has bigger concerns about access to commercial markets, even in mainland China.”Netflix representatives did not reply to requests for comment.Golden Scene, a Hong Kong movie theater, pulled the protest documentary “Inside the Red Brick Wall” after it was attacked by a pro-Beijing newspaper.Anthony Kwan for The New York TimesThe most likely targets of the new rules, which are expected to be approved this fall by Hong Kong’s legislature, are independent documentaries and fictional films that touch on protests and opposition politics.“For those independent filmmakers who really want to do Hong Kong stories in Hong Kong, it will be very challenging,” said Mr. Au, the director who moved to Canada. “They will have a lot of obstacles. It might even be dangerous.”The documentary “Inside the Red Brick Wall” was shot by anonymous filmmakers who followed protesters at Hong Kong Polytechnic University when they were besieged by police for two weeks in 2019. In addition to the film being pulled from the local theater, the Arts Development Council of Hong Kong withdrew a $90,000 grant to Ying E Chi, the independent film collective that released it.The censorship office had initially approved the documentary for audiences over 18, but now some in the film industry believe it could face a retroactive ban.Creators of the fictional film “Ten Years,” which examined the fears of vanishing culture and freedoms that invigorated the resistance to China’s tightening grip on Hong Kong, say it could also be targeted under the new rules. The filmmakers had difficulties finding venues when the movie was released in 2015, but now it might be banned completely, said Mr. Au, who directed one vignette in the five-part film.Kiwi Chow, who also directed part of “Ten Years,” knew that his protest documentary “Revolution of Our Times” had no chance of being approved in Hong Kong. Even its overseas premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in July required special precautions. It was shown on short notice near the end of the festival so Beijing couldn’t pressure the organizers to block it.“I need to do what’s right and not let fear shake my beliefs,” said Kiwi Chow, who directed a documentary on the protests in Hong Kong.Anthony Kwan for The New York TimesMr. Chow sold the film rights to a European distributor and, before he returned to Hong Kong, deleted footage of the film from his own computers out of fear he might be arrested.Some of the subjects of the 152-minute film, including pro-democracy activists such as Benny Tai and Gwyneth Ho, are now in jail. Mr. Chow feared he, too, might be arrested. Friends and family warned him to leave the city, release the film anonymously or change its title. The title is drawn from the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times,” which the government has described as an illegal call for Hong Kong independence.But Mr. Chow said he ultimately went ahead with the film as he had envisioned it out of a sense of responsibility to the project, its subject and crew.“I need to do what’s right and not let fear shake my beliefs,” he said.While he has yet to face direct retaliation, he said there were signs it could be coming.When he attended a small, private showing of “Beyond the Dream,” a nonpolitical romance that he directed, the police raided the event. Mr. Chow and about 40 people who attended the screening at the office of a pro-democracy district representative were each fined about $645 for violating social distancing rules.“It seems like a warning sign from the regime,” he said. “It’s not very direct. It’s still a question whether the regime has begun its work: Has a case on me been opened?” More

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      Times Analyzed 3,000 Videos of Capitol Riot for Documentary

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      Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.On Jan 6., as rioters were attacking the U.S. Capitol, Times journalists on the Visual Investigations team were downloading as many recordings of the violence as they could find.Over the next six months, the team, which combines traditional reporting techniques with forensic visual analysis, gathered over 3,000 videos, equaling hundreds of hours. The journalists analyzed, verified and pinpointed the location of each one, then distilled the footage into a 40-minute documentary that captured the fury and destruction moment by moment. The video, the longest the team has ever produced, provides a comprehensive picture of “a violent assault encouraged by the president on a seat of democracy that he vowed to protect,” as a reporter says in the piece.The visual investigation, “Day of Rage,” which was published digitally on June 30 and which is part of a print special section in Sunday’s paper, comes as conservative lawmakers continue to minimize or deny the violence, even going as far as recasting the riot as a “normal tourist visit.” The video, in contrast, shows up-close a mob breaking through windows, the gruesome deaths of two women and a police officer crushed between doors.“In providing the definitive account of what happened that day, the piece serves to combat efforts to downplay it or to rewrite that history,” said Malachy Browne, a senior producer on the Visual Investigations team who worked on the documentary.“It serves the core mission of The Times, which is to find the truth and show it.”Haley Willis, a producer on the team who helped gather the footage, said that some of the searches required special techniques but that much of the content was easily accessible. Many of the videos came from social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Parler, a platform that was popular with conservatives and later shut down. The team also collected recordings from journalists on the scene and police radio traffic, and went to court to unseal body camera footage.“Most of where we found this information was on platforms and places that the average person who has grown up on the internet would understand,” Ms. Willis said.In analyzing the videos, the team members verified the images, looked for specific individuals or groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, and identified when and where each one was filmed. Then they put the videos on a timeline, which allowed them to reconstruct the scenes by the minute and track the key instigators.David Botti, a senior producer, said the team wanted to use this footage to explain how the riot happened, to underscore just how close the mob came to the lawmakers and to explore how much worse it could have gotten. For example, the investigation tracked the proximity of the rioters to former Vice President Mike Pence and an aide who was carrying the United States nuclear codes.“It’s rare to get an event of this magnitude that’s covered by so many cameras in so many places by so many different types of people filming with different agendas,” Mr. Botti said. “There was just so much video that someone needed to make sense of it.”Dmitriy Khavin, a video editor on the team, said he wanted viewers to feel like they were on the scene. But he also recognized the images were graphic, so he tried to modulate the pace with slower moments and other visual elements like maps and diagrams.“This event was overwhelming,” Mr. Khavin said. “So we worked a lot on trying to make it easier to process, so it’s not like you’re being bombarded and then tuning out.”Carrie Mifsud, an art director who designed the print special section, said her goal was similar, adding that she wanted to stay true to the video’s foundation. “For this project, it was the sequence and the full picture of events,” she said. Working with the graphics editors Bill Marsh and Guilbert Gates, she anchored the design in a timeline and included as many visuals and text from the documentary as possible to offer readers a bird’s-eye view of what happened.“My hope is that the special section can serve as a printed guide to what happened that day, where it started, and the aftermath, Ms. Mifsud said.For the journalists on the Visual Investigations team, it was challenging to shake off the work at the end of the day. Mr. Khavin said images of the riot would often appear in his dreams long after he stepped away from the computer.“You watch it so many times and look at these people and notice every detail and digest the anger,” he said. “It is difficult.” More

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      ‘Not Going Quietly’ Review: Into the Long Fight

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      This documentary follows the activist Ady Barkan, who toured the U.S. to help demonstrators draw attention to public health policies after his diagnosis with a fatal neurological disease.In 2016, Ady Barkan was working as an advocate for economic justice when he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S., a neurological disease that deteriorates motor function. Doctors told him he had only three or four years to live. The documentary “Not Going Quietly” begins shortly after this grim diagnosis, as Ady embarks on a new political campaign, this time focused on public health policy.In the film, Ady leaves the comfort of home and family to travel across the United States on a speaking tour as part of his “Be a Hero” campaign. He leads rallies in Congressional districts where politicians support what Ady deems inhumane health policies. In Washington, his push for health care access leads Ady to protest Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court appointment. Through this fight, his illness progresses, limiting his ability to move and speak.The most intriguing scenes in the documentary are focused on the mechanics of Ady’s activism. The director Nicholas Bruckman captures Ady and a team of organizers as they host a training for demonstrators who intend to film themselves disrupting politicians during routine campaign stops with questions about health care. This training represents one of the few occasions that Bruckman treats Ady’s success as a result of organizing, rather than a feat achieved through sheer force of personality.Ady’s vitality has been central to his accomplishments. But Bruckman elides the significant amount of planning that it has taken for Ady and his team to build a national movement. This lack of practical detail means this documentary plays as a human-interest story, built from predictable beats of adversity and triumph. It is a warm and generous portrait, but the film lacks its central organizer’s propulsive shrewdness.Not Going QuietlyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Mirror, a Hong Kong Boy Band, Cheers the Gloomy Chinese City

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      The popularity of the group, called Mirror, has offered the city a rare burst of unity and pleasure after years of political upheaval.HONG KONG — They swarm public squares, crowd shopping malls and form lines that stretch several city blocks. They lean over barricades that strain to hold them and ignore police officers who try to corral them.The crowds filling Hong Kong in recent weeks aren’t protesters fighting for democracy. They are devotees of the city’s hottest boy band.For more than two years, Hong Kong has badly needed a source of uplift. First there were the mass protests of 2019, then the coronavirus pandemic, then a sweeping national security law. The city has been politically polarized and economically battered.Enter Mirror, a group of 12 singing and dancing young men who seemingly overnight have taken over the city — and, in doing so, infused it with a burst of joy.Their faces are plastered on billboards, buses and subway ads for everything from granola to air-conditioners to probiotic supplements. They have sold out concert halls, accounting for some of the city’s only large-scale events during the pandemic. Hardly a weekend goes by without one of the band’s (many) fan clubs devising a flashy new form of tribute: renting an enormous LED screen to celebrate one member, decking out a cruise ship for another.The whole city has been swept up in the craze — if not participating in the infatuation, then lamenting its ubiquity, as on a 300,000-member Facebook group called “My Wife Married Mirror and Left My Marriage In Ruins.”The group has sold out concert halls, accounting for some of the city’s only large-scale events during the pandemic.VCG, via Getty ImagesAs far as pop idols go, the band is familiar fare. Its lyrics hew to declarations of love and I-can-do-anything affirmations. K-pop’s influence is apparent in its tightly choreographed music videos and highly stylized coifs. Think BTS singing in Cantonese.Little about the group reflects the political upheaval in its hometown. But Mirror, perhaps precisely because it offers an escape with a catchy beat, has provided a musical balm to an anxious city at an uncertain time.“In the past two years, Hong Kong’s social environment has made many people, especially young people, feel very discouraged,” said Lim Wong, a 30-something finance worker as she lined up to take photographs by a fan-sponsored pink truck with the face of Anson Lo, a band member.“They work for their dreams, and that kind of energy really fits Hong Kong at this moment.”Though the group formed in 2018, through a reality show designed to manufacture a hit boy band, its popularity exploded this year. Fans cite a number of reasons: a strong showing at an awards show in January; the release of the group’s first full-length album; the pandemic, which left many Hong Kongers starved for entertainment.Mirror’s ascent has also coincided with a new, more intense stage of the Chinese government’s pressure on the city. For people of all political persuasions, the band has become a sort of ideological canvas.Some have claimed the band’s rousing beats for the battered pro-democracy movement. Gwyneth Ho, a 30-year-old opposition politician who was arrested after running in an informal primary election, has made her love for Mirror a motif in letters from jail. She said the first time she cried after her arrest was upon hearing “Warrior,” an anthem about perseverance.“The worst that could happen is death, and I won’t avoid it,” Ms. Ho quoted from the lyrics.Some also see Mirror as an emblem of Hong Kong identity, at a time when many fear that identity will be erased by Beijing.Cantopop — pop sung in Cantonese, the local Chinese language — was once a major cultural export. Unabashedly commercial but also distinctly local in character, it ranged from sappy power ballads to pulsing dance tunes, folding in covers of Western hits and nods to social issues.But interest flagged over the past two decades as the entertainment industries in South Korea, Taiwan and mainland China boomed. Many Hong Kong stars shifted their attention to the mainland.Now Mirror is driving a resurgence of enthusiasm for Cantopop — and, with it, a broader hometown pride.Gwyneth Ho, a pro-democracy politician, in her office a year ago. She has found comfort from the group’s songs in jail after her arrest earlier this year.Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“It’s because of Anson Lo and Mirror that I’ve become totally newly acquainted with Hong Kong local songs and artists,” said Henry Tong, a banker in his 20s visiting the pink truck. “It’s not just songs — there are also Hong Kong television shows and other productions.”The band has also become entangled in attacks by government supporters. On social media, some mainland users have, without evidence, accused members of supporting Hong Kong independence. A pro-Beijing lawmaker recently suggested that a television drama starring two band members might run afoul of the national security law because it depicted homosexuality. (The group’s representatives did not respond to requests for comment.)Other performers have become political targets. This month, officials arrested Anthony Wong Yiu-ming, a Cantopop star, for singing at a rally for a pro-democracy legislative candidate.Some fans have parsed the band’s statements for signs of political leanings, pointing to an interview one member gave saying he was glad “Warrior” could cheer up Ms. Ho, the politician.But Mirror has avoided explicit declarations. It has partnered with the Hong Kong government to promote the local economy.Even those who invoked politics in explaining Mirror’s popularity emphasized a fierce desire to insulate it from those forces.Fans of Mirror member Keung To at an event in Hong Kong last month. The most striking effect of the band’s takeover of Hong Kong has been its ability to unify a divided city. Anthony Kwan for The New York TimesAnnie Yuen, who leads the fan club that organized the Anson Lo truck — as well as the cruise ship, several billboards and the sale of thousands of “Little Anson” dolls — said Mirror was a rebuttal to those who had cast Hong Kong’s protesting youth as rioters or malcontents.“They were saying that Hong Kong youngsters have no contribution,” Ms. Yuen, who is in her 30s, said. Mirror showed that “Hong Kong young people could bring success.”Still, Ms. Yuen emphasized that was not her main draw to Mirror.“We want to just temporarily forget about the politics,” she said, “and just enjoy what they bring to us.”Enjoy is an understatement. Spend five minutes talking to a Mirror fan, and the takeaway is not about Hong Kong’s social situation. It’s of pure, wholesome delight.Mr. Lo, 26, is the heartthrob — but fans also moon over his work ethic and manners. Ian Chan, 28, is lovingly teased as a bookworm. Another member, Keung To, 22, won over many by discussing his experiences with childhood obesity and bullying.The band has leaned into its hometown hero image, promoting a food drive and cheering on Hong Kong’s Olympic athletes. In interviews, members exude family-friendly goofiness, talking over themselves and ruffling one another’s hair.Fans posing for photographs with cut-outs of Mr. Keung at an event for the anniversary of his fan club in Hong Kong last month.Anthony Kwan for The New York TimesChristy Siu said she was enthralled by their singing, dancing and acting. She was especially proud of their performance at the January awards show, when the band, in sleek suits draped with silver chains, slinked and popped across the stage.Ms. Siu, who is in her 20s, said she spends around $250 each month on products advertised by band members. She recently bought dozens of Mirror-endorsed toothbrushes.In a way, the band is allowing young people to reclaim an innocence, said Anthony Fung, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who studies pop culture.“Suddenly, they’ve realized that they could put down all these so-called big social things,” he said. “There is something more joyful, playful, that draws them away from the political impasse of their youth.”The most striking effect of Mirror’s takeover of Hong Kong has been its ability to unify a divided city. Many fans said they wanted the band to reach as many listeners as possible, regardless of gender, age or political background.The band seems aware of those hopes. At the end of a sold-out concert series in May, the members lined up onstage to thank their parents and fans. A few offered advice.“This world is really complicated,” Mr. Chan said. “I hope that everyone here can remain simple and pure.”The crowd erupted. More

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      ‘The Boys in Red Hats’ Review: Cool Story, Bro

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      This documentary explores the incident on Jan. 18, 2019, when a high school student grinned and stared at a Native American demonstrator at a raucous Lincoln Memorial gathering.Jonathan Schroder’s “The Boys in Red Hats” is a maddening instance of a movie at war with itself. That’s appropriate enough since its subject is the encounter on Jan. 18, 2019, between white high school students and a Native American demonstrator at the Lincoln Memorial. The incident became a viral flash point over one teenager’s grinning in the face of the Native American elder.As an alumnus of the students’ school, Covington Catholic in Kentucky, Schroder presents this film as his journey toward understanding. He hears out pooh-poohing parent chaperones, agitated former students, one student’s attorney and a current pupil whose identity is concealed. Black activists on the day and Covington’s penchant for pep rallies are both advanced as explanations for the teens’ behavior.Between a bro-friendly voice-over and “TMZ Live”-style bull sessions with his producer, Schroder’s exploratory pose comes to feel exasperatingly clueless. Yet the film also assembles soothingly sharp commentators who lay bare the power and race dynamics and aggression at play in the Lincoln Memorial encounter. These include Mohawk journalist Vincent Schilling; Anne Branigin, a writer for The Root; and Allissa Richardson, a journalism professor who sees a “textbook example of white privilege.”Schroder’s request to interview the Covington Catholic student who attracted so much ire is turned down, and the same happens (in person) with Nathan Phillips, the Native American drummer. (I don’t even know where to begin with his weirdly nostalgic story of being punched in the head by a Covington teacher while a student.)A fizzled ending points fingers at media bias and our “bubbles.” Some viewers of the Lincoln Memorial events might instead invoke the pioneering media theorists The Marx Brothers: “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”The Boys in Red HatsNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In virtual cinemas. More