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      Angel Blue Withdraws From Opera, Citing ‘Blackface’ in Netrebko’s ‘Aida’

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      The American soprano Angel Blue said she would not appear at the Arena di Verona after the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko and other performers wore dark makeup in its production of “Aida.”A leading American soprano, Angel Blue, announced this week that she was withdrawing from her planned debut at the Arena di Verona in Italy to protest its use of “blackface makeup” in a production of Verdi’s “Aida” that starred the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko.“The use of blackface under any circumstances, artistic or otherwise, is a deeply misguided practice based on archaic theatrical traditions which have no place in modern society,” Blue, a Black soprano with a growing international career, said in a statement on social media, adding that she would withdraw from her upcoming performances in “La Traviata,” another Verdi opera. “It is offensive, humiliating and outright racist. Full stop.”Many leading opera companies, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, have only recently stopped the practice of having white singers darken their skin with stage makeup to perform the title roles in “Aida” and “Otello,” long after minstrel shows, blackface roles and other types of performances that rely on makeup that echoes racist caricatures disappeared from many stages. But the practice is still common in parts of Europe and Russia, and Netrebko has been a vocal proponent of wearing dark makeup.In an interview on Friday, Blue said she was disturbed when she saw photos of the production, including some that showed dancers and singers in dark makeup, circulating on social media on Monday evening while she was in Paris for another performance.“I was shocked; I just felt really weird in my spirit,” she said. “I just felt like I couldn’t go and sing and associate myself with this tradition.”Netrebko, who is trying to rebuild her career after losing a number of engagements following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because of her history of support for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, posted photos on her Instagram this week showing her in extremely dark makeup and braids as she sang the role of Aida, an Ethiopian princess, in Verona.One of the photos the soprano Anna Netrebko shared on Instagram of the makeup she wore in a production of “Aida” at the Arena di Verona in Italy.Soon, Netrebko’s Instagram page was flooded with more than 1,000 comments, with many people denouncing her for using makeup that they said was racist and recalled blackface. She was not the only one in “Aida” who had darkened her skin: Some of her co-stars performed in the dark makeup, as did a different cast that appeared in the opera when it opened last month.A spokesman for Netrebko did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. Netrebko has been a vocal defender of the practice, arguing that it helps maintain the authenticity of centuries-old works. When the Met tried to stop her from using makeup to darken her skin during a production of “Aida” in 2018, she went to a tanning salon instead. In 2019, appearing with dark makeup in a production of “Aida” at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, she wrote on Instagram, “Black Face and Black Body for Ethiopian princess, for Verdi greatest opera! YES!”The Arena di Verona noted in a statement that it had been performing this production of “Aida” for two decades, and that it was well known when Blue agreed to appear this summer.“Every country has different roots, and their cultural and social structures developed along different historical and cultural paths,” it said in a statement. “Sensibilities and approaches on the same subject might widely vary in different parts of the world.”It added: “We have no reason nor intent whatsoever to offend and disturb anyone’s sensibility.”While Netrebko has not addressed the recent controversy, her husband, the tenor Yusif Eyvazov, who also appeared in the production of “Aida” in Verona, lashed out at Blue. In a social media post, he called Blue’s decision “disgusting,” and questioned why she had not withdrawn last month when “Aida” opened, with a different cast that also used dark makeup. (That cast included the Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska as “Aida.”)Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Met, where Eyvazov is a regular performer, sent a letter to Eyvazov on Friday calling his remarks “hateful,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by The New York Times.“There is no room at the Met for artists who are so meanspirited in their thinking,” Gelb wrote in the letter.Gelb, who cut ties with Netrebko this year because of her previous support for Putin, said in an interview that he had not yet decided whether he would penalize Eyvazov. “We’re considering what steps we might take,” he said.Blue said her decision was not personal, and that she was not targeting Netrebko or her husband.“My decision doesn’t have anything to do with them,” she said in the interview. “My decision has to do with my convictions,” she added, saying that she had felt moved to take a stand against “something that is hurtful to people who look like me.”Blue said she hoped that more opera houses would eliminate blackface as they work to bring diversity to the stage.“In order to keep opera relevant in today’s society, there’s no place for blackface,” she said. “I felt hurt by what I saw because I feel like that’s a tradition that they’re trying to hold onto that hurts people.”Eyvazov’s manager said he was unavailable for comment on Friday.The decision by Blue, who has become a favorite at the Met Opera in recent seasons and who appeared this summer at the Paris Opera in Gounod’s “Faust,” was praised by many fellow singers and American opera executives.The revival of “Aida” in Verona is among Netrebko’s first staged opera engagements since her return to performing in late April as she tried to repair her career after being shunned in the United States and parts of Europe for her ties to Putin. 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      Lizzo Changes “Grrrls” Lyric After Outcry

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      The song “Grrrls” was released Friday and updated Monday to remove a derogatory term for people with disabilities, which she said she did not use with an intent to offend.Lizzo, a Grammy-winning singer and rapper seen by many fans as a champion of inclusivity, changed a lyric on a new song within days of its release after it was criticized for containing a word considered derogatory toward people with disabilities.In the original version of the song “Grrrls” released on Friday, Lizzo used the word “spaz” to indicate that she was going to lose control. The word is based on spastic diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy, a condition that causes motor impairments in the legs or arms.Fans and disability advocates called on Lizzo to change what they called an ableist slur, a word seen as particularly harmful in some countries where it has a history of being used as a schoolhouse taunt.By Monday, the major music streaming services had substituted the original version of the song with one that replaces the line with “Hold me back.” In a statement posted to Instagram on Monday, Lizzo said she understood the effects of harmful language, whether intentional or unintentional, because “As a fat black woman in America, I’ve had many hurtful words used against me.”“Let me make one thing clear: I never want to promote derogatory language,” she said, later adding: “This is the result of me listening and taking action.”For Lizzo, who enjoys a warm public persona and produces upbeat, feel-good music that promotes self-acceptance, the lyric struck fans as particularly off-brand. The criticism began almost immediately after the song, the latest single from her upcoming album, “Special,” was released on Friday.Inside Lizzo’s WorldThe Grammy-winning singer is known for her fierce lyrics, fashion and personality.‘Big Grrrls’: The singer wanted a new kind of backup dancer. In her pursuit of proper representation, she created a TV show.‘Feel-Good Music’: Lizzo says her music is as much about building yourself up as it is about accepting where you are.Why ‘Truth Hurts’ Matters: In 2020, The New York Times Magazine put her No. 1 hit on its list of songs that define the moment.Diary of a Song: Watch how Lizzo made “Juice,” a party song that packs all of her joy and charm into three danceable minutes.But the swift removal satisfied many of the fans and activists who had criticized her, believing it to be an example of someone listening, learning and acting on new information.Hannah Diviney, a disability advocate in Australia and self-proclaimed Lizzo fan, said in an interview that hearing the word in the original version “made me feel really uncomfortable.” For her, spasticity refers to an “unending, constant, painful tightness in my legs and other parts of my body,” making her life “very difficult and is not something I can control.”But she was “blown away” by Lizzo’s rapid reversal, she said. Instead of being defensive, the rapper took action once she heard the criticism, making her “a real genuine ally because she’s willing to learn.”“I’m really glad that Lizzo changing it has led to lots of people learning that it’s a slur,” Ms. Diviney said. “And while I obviously would have preferred she didn’t use it in the first place, I’m glad it became something of a teachable moment. That’s probably the best outcome.”After one of her tweets was reshared more than a thousand times, Ms. Diviney learned that it may not be as clear to some Americans as to people in other countries why the word is considered ableist, she said.Warren Kirwan, a spokesman for Scope, a group in Britain that campaigns for equality for people with disabilities, said the term has been “quite a common term of abuse for disabled people for the better part of 30 years in the U.K.” In 1994, the organization changed its name from The Spastic Society to Scope to avoid association with the slur.The differing cultural contexts may help explain why Lizzo, an American, used the term, even if it doesn’t excuse it, he said. But Lizzo handled the situation well once she learned more about the word, he said.“It was in her power to own that mistake and change it, and well done for doing that,” Mr. Kirwan said.Other musicians have made the same mistake. Kanye West was criticized for using the word in a 2015 song “FourFiveSeconds,” a collaboration with Paul McCartney and Rihanna. And in 2014, Weird Al Yankovic said he was “deeply sorry” for including a related word in his song “Word Crimes,” saying he didn’t know it was considered offensive. More

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      New 42 Worker Files Bias Lawsuit Over Diversity Training

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      A white teaching artist at the theater organization says it discriminated against white people. The nonprofit declined to comment.A contract worker at a nonprofit New York theater organization has filed a lawsuit saying that the institution’s diversity trainings were themselves discriminatory.Kevin Ray, a part-time teaching artist at New 42, an organization that runs rehearsal studios, youth programs and a children’s theater in Times Square, filed the lawsuit late Wednesday in Federal District Court, accusing the organization of discriminating against white employees. He is asking the court to determine that New 42 violated the federal civil rights act as well as local human rights laws, and to award him an unspecified amount of damages.In the lawsuit, Ray, who is white, alleged that the diversity programs implemented by New 42 included “racially-discriminatory propaganda and lectures promoting discriminatory ideology on the basis of race.” Ray said he was asked to join a conversation about a “white affinity group” at New 42, and said the organization had designated a “white-identifying breakout room” at an online town hall.“In reality, ‘diversity training sessions’ were race-based indoctrination sessions that promoted the division of employees on the basis of race,” the lawsuit says.Ray’s job involves visiting schools for educational programs, usually related to a show the students are about to see. He claims that he has been assigned less work and has been subjected to retaliation after raising concerns about the organization’s diversity training programs.The lawsuit comes at a time when the use of antiracism training programs and the creation or expansion of diversity initiatives has grown significantly in the theater industry, as in many other sectors of society, following the unrest over racism in the United States in the summer of 2020.The lawsuit is being backed by an organization called the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, which says it is concerned about a “cynical and intolerant orthodoxy” that “pits us against one another, and diminishes what it means to be human.” The organization, founded by Bion Bartning, has filed other lawsuits challenging what it says are forms of discriminatory overreach by organizations trying to implement diversity programs; the Ray suit is the organization’s first in the arts arena, but it has begun an arts program as it considers other action.A lawyer for New 42, David Lichtenberg, said via a spokeswoman that the nonprofit had “no comment at this time.” More

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      Hitting the Right Notes When Setting History to Song

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      In the wake of “Hamilton”-mania, critics, creators and historians debate how stage musicals since balance the complexities of the past and the politics of the present. A lot of history is happening in American musical theater right now. (Sorry, last “Hamilton” joke, we promise.) On Broadway, “Paradise Square,” which was just nominated for 10 Tony Awards, tells the story of a mixed Irish and Black community in Lower Manhattan in the 1860s that’s torn apart by the Civil War draft riots. Downtown, at the Public Theater, the sold-out “Suffs” depicts the women’s suffrage movement in the years leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment.And coming to Broadway in September (now in previews in Cambridge, Mass.), Diane Paulus and Jeffrey L. Page’s revival of “1776” revisits the debate over the Declaration of Independence, with a cast of women, nonbinary and trans actors as the founding “fathers.”This is American history with a capital H — shows that aim to illuminate who we are, who we were, who we want to be. Those questions have only gotten more complicated in the years since 2015, when “Hamilton” took the culture by storm. We’ve been through two elections (and an insurrection), a pandemic, and a broad reckoning on race and racism, including in American theater. All this has changed how we see — and stage — the past.We asked The New York Times critics Jesse Green and Maya Phillips to discuss the phenomenon alongside Paulus, a 2013 Tony winner; Claire Bond Potter, a professor of history at the New School and co-editor of the essay collection “Historians on Hamilton”; and Erica Armstrong Dunbar, a professor of history at Rutgers University and a co-executive producer of HBO’s “The Gilded Age.” Jennifer Schuessler, who covers intellectual life for the Times (and wrote about the creation of “Suffs”), led the conversation. Edited excerpts follow.During its development, “Suffs” came to explore how Black women were marginalized in the movement for women’s suffrage.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJENNIFER SCHUESSLER What strikes you all about the ways American history is being depicted and invoked onstage right now? Is something new happening?JESSE GREEN Theater, particularly musical theater, has often abetted the distortion and flat-out erasure of inconvenient histories. Now it’s trying to do a better job. That’s a good thing. But you can’t fix the past with broken shows. History may be dramatic but it isn’t necessarily theatrical — and that’s the pitfall. How do you make facts sing?MAYA PHILLIPS There is built-in tension: does one prioritize the narrative of the past or the politics of the present? I’m not saying these necessarily have to be in opposition, but it’s a delicate balance. You don’t want a show with a story that feels squeezed into the frame of our present in a way that’s too obvious or didactic, which was a problem with both “Suffs” and “Paradise Square.”DIANE PAULUS Artists, especially right now, are interested in shifting the gaze — looking to tell stories that need to be told, stories that have not had their due. I also think producers, and we can’t forget that it is the producers who determine what gets on stage, are looking to play their role in how to expand the stories that audiences are exposed to.SCHUESSLER OK, historians: Do you see this as an exciting moment? A frustrating one?CLARE BOND POTTER I think Americans are hungrier for historical explanations, in part because so many historically unprecedented things have occurred in the past 15 years. The first Black president, and the failure to elect the first woman president — twice! Then the Trump presidency, which exploded the idea of what politics is. Americans are digging into the past to find answers for questions about why politics seems to be both producing radically new dynamics — and reproducing old ones.ERICA ARMSTRONG DUNBAR It’s more than political — it’s creative and it responds to the feelings and needs of the public. It reminds me of the moment that [the television mini-series] “Roots” first aired, in 1977. The history wasn’t perfect, and it was overdramatized, but it was new and important and people, Black people in particular, were immediately invested in this new kind of storytelling. The same thing is happening with musical theater.GREEN The opportunities are huge and the stakes are high; popular history has a way of replacing the real kind. (Check out “The King and I,” a gorgeously crafted and hugely influential show that’s almost completely untrue.) Which is why representation is so important. Erica, you work on “The Gilded Age,” which I feel sure is providing, for white people anyway, the first we’ve really heard about the Black middle class of that era, a story somehow omitted from our education and consciousness. But I think you’re saying that it’s not just about “fixing” history but also about artists finding stories that compel them.DUNBAR Exactly! I don’t think any of us go to the theater for a history lesson. We want to be entertained, we want to fall in love, be angry, and learn a bit if we can.SCHUESSLER Wow, a historian saying we don’t go to the theater for a history lesson — you’re really playing against type, Erica!Diane, what you would say from the perspective of an artist? What appealed to you about reviving “1776” — a very familiar history with a very familiar set of (white, male) characters. And how do you see the show as speaking to the present?Crystal Lucas-Perry, center, as John Adams with castmates in a new revival of the musical “1776” that features women, trans and nonbinary actors.Evan Zimmerman for Murphy MadePAULUS I really agree that audiences are interested in looking back to our history to understand the present moment. The theater is uniquely positioned to do this in a way that taps into our imaginations, into empathy, and what I love about the theater is that it can only happen in the presence of an audience. In “1776,” I have been excited to build this production with my co-director and choreographer, Jeffrey L. Page, in a way that actively poses questions to the audience: How can we hold history as a predicament, versus an affirming myth?SCHUESSLER Can you say a little bit about your and Jeffrey’s broader intentions in doing this show with a diverse cast of women, nonbinary and trans actors? Why is that gender-flip interesting to you?PAULUS When taking on a revival, I am always interested in how to make the production speak to a contemporary audience, while respecting the authors’ original intentions. “1776” was written in the late ’60s, during the civil rights movement and at the height of the Vietnam War. There is a critique of our country built into the bones of this musical. Our casting bridges the realities of the past and the present, from who was excluded from Independence Hall to an aspirational vision of an inclusive society.The “1776” revival is co-directed by Diane Paulus, right, and Jeffrey L. Page, who is also the show’s choreographer.Matthew MurphySCHUESSLER This brings up the question of how to balance the historical record with the needs of the present. It’s different with a show like “1776,” where everyone already knows the basic story, versus shows like “Suffs” and “Paradise Square,” where many people will not know the history at all. How should shows confront the ugliest, messiest realities of the past, versus giving us a more uplifting version?POTTER It’s important to emphasize that theater — go back to Shakespeare — has never been historically accurate. It always speaks to questions of the moment. But when we say stories are not well known, I would say the story of the Draft Riots is well known to Black Americans. And the depiction in “Paradise Square” — which ends with a multiracial community coming back together — is emphatically not what occurred. True, “Paradise Square” also presents this moment as a “future yet to be realized” — a turning point where people have choices, and that is an important story to tell about racial division in this country. But Kaitlyn Greenidge’s recent novel “Libertie” frames this event differently, as a 19th century 9/11, where Black New Yorkers flee to Brooklyn, traumatized and covered with ash, and are taken in by the Black residents of Weeksville. Greenidge’s account is also fiction, but better history, in that it conveys what a catastrophe this was for African Americans in New York City.SCHUESSLER Erica, your scholarship has been about free Black women in the urban North before the Civil War. What do you think about the history in “Paradise Square”?Joaquina Kalukango, center, plays a bar owner with a key role in “Paradise Square,” a storytelling choice one historian praises as “powerful.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDUNBAR I think “Paradise Square” attempted to tell the story of trauma and resistance, and strength within the context of 19th century history. Was it completely accurate? Probably not, and I’m not sure that any show always gets the history right. But once again, it’s about more than facts and figures. It’s about moving people into the center of narratives who have never been there for the public to see. To center a story about the draft riots around a Black woman is fresh, and powerful.PAULUS I completely agree, Erica. In “1776,” some of the most moving parts of the musical are the scenes with the courier — not a founding father. Franklin, Jefferson and Adams are the famous historical characters. The courier, who delivers the dispatches from the battlefield to the Continental Congress, is literally nameless. But this character, who has the least power in the room, gets one of the most powerful songs — “Momma, Look Sharp.”SCHUESSLER Jesse, you were less than enthusiastic about “Paradise Square.” And Maya, I gather you felt similarly. How well do you think that recentering worked?GREEN As an approach, I’m all for what we’re calling recentering. The problem with “Paradise Square” isn’t the perspective from which it is told, but that in attempting to pile the whole history of a community (even the made-up parts) onto a few fictional figures who represent elements of the conflict, the authors created stick people who couldn’t bear the burden. This leaves you with the false impression, as musicals by nature tend to, that there’s one hero and one villain. Only because Joaquina Kalukango was so phenomenal in the leading role was anything richer conveyed. There’s history, and then there’s craft.PHILLIPS Well-put, Jesse. The question of scope is always a tricky one to navigate in these history shows — how large is our lens? In my review of “Suffs,” I argued that a show can’t be everything to everyone; an attempt to do that will end up sacrificing story and character.SCHUESSLER “Suffs” drew a lot of comparisons with “Hamilton,” but there was something fundamentally different about it, starting with its title. It was about a movement, not an individual — which may be truer to history, but also a lot harder to dramatize. Claire, what did you think of how “Suffs” handled the history?POTTER Much like “Hamilton,” “Suffs” tended to reduce both the successes and the flaws of the campaign for the 19th amendment to the personality of one person, Alice Paul. And while I appreciated the elevation of Paul, Ida B. Wells, and others to the status of male “founders,” the risk is simply refocusing on personalities rather than some of the movement’s broader themes: for example, its racist dynamics, tactical differences and generational divides.I also want to speak to Jesse’s point about the reductionism of “Paradise Square.” He’s right, but then the musical also, in a way, addresses the question of contemporary populism: are poor white people entirely to blame when they lash out at women, people of color and the state? How are anti-democratic dynamics promoted and provoked by others — in the case of “Paradise Square,” a Copperhead politician [as those northern Democrats who opposed the Civil War and supported a negotiated peace with the South were called]?SCHUESSLER Suggesting the draft riots (or the Civil War itself!) were driven mainly by the machinations of elite capital is … a strange interpretation. But I think it also connects with the show’s efforts to resonate with today’s politics (and the way people view America’s recent wars). More broadly, do these shows fall into a trap of trying to provide a comfortable, “relatable” place for the audience (especially the white audience)? That was one of the criticisms of “Hamilton” from historians, including some who were huge fans: that by exaggerating (some might say inventing) his credentials as an abolitionist, the show gave us a founding father it was “safe” to like.GREEN The audience can handle the dissonance! It’s white authors’ comfort that seems to be at stake. They come off as terrified of failing to check off every box on the sensitivity list. That’s no way to make a musical.SCHUESSLER When I interviewed the creators of “Suffs,” they talked about how the events of 2020 — the George Floyd protests, and the roiling conversation around the We See You White American Theater letter — prompted a big conversation among the company. They ended up expanding the role of Ida B. Wells, along with other changes. Diane, was there a similar conversation among the “1776” team?PAULUS The process of making theater feels very different to me now. We are centering antiracism as a core value, we make community agreements as a collective across the entire company for how we want to exist together. All of this is a process we are learning from every day.SCHUESSLER Erica, you started working on “The Gilded Age” back in 2019. How has the summer of 2020 affected things?Louisa Jacobson and Denee Benton, right, in the HBO series “The Gilded Age,” which includes a storyline about the Black middle class.Alison Cohen Rosa/HBODUNBAR I’d like to circle back quickly to Jesse’s comment. Jesse mentioned “terrified white authors” or something like that — and how fear has pushed creatives to think more about sensitivity. Well, fear can be a great motivator! And sometimes, it’s for the best. When I began consulting with “The Gilded Age” I was working with an entirely white creative team. A great team, but entirely white and male. There must be diversity in the creative process to produce authentic and powerful entertainment. While there were conversations before the summer of 2020, I believe that moment moved the needle. While I am infuriated that it takes the murder of Black people to move the needle, well, that’s what happened. Because of the changes and additions, we produced a better show.POTTER I’d like to return to the topic of flattering the audience: It is something theater producers must do, to some extent, and it’s something good historians can’t do — and look at the outcomes when we don’t! The massive attack on the 1619 Project is in part a massive refusal of a past that challenges both progressive and patriotic narratives held dear by many white Americans.What even flawed shows like “Suffs” and “Paradise Square” can do, much like historical fiction, is get people interested enough to do their own research and reading. History is a series of choices. People are self-interested, stubborn, brilliant, irritating — they don’t always make the right ones. And that is an important historical dynamic to understand.GREEN True sensitivity comes from deep knowledge and empathy. It welcomes the audience to accept complexity so that characters aren’t just saints or signposts. I’m thinking especially of Arthur Scott, the hard-to-like father of the Black heroine in “The Gilded Age.” What I find unhelpful is signaling one’s sensitivity so vividly that it’s the only thing the audience can see. In a way it defeats the purpose of recentering the narrative.DUNBAR Ultimately, this is about authentic storytelling (which if it’s a period piece must rely on accurate history). When done correctly, it doesn’t feel two-dimensional and we are able to see the complexity of characters.SCHUESSLER I wonder if this isn’t easier in long-form television, or even in straight plays, than in musicals. Maya, you mentioned the other day that you thought “Wedding Band,” the new (old!) play by Alice Childress that recently ended a run in New York, may be a better depiction of history than some of these capital-H History shows. Can you say more?PHILLIPS Writing in the early 1960s, Childress uses a few fictional relationships to tell the story of race in America at the time. It’s an interracial love story that takes place in 1918 South Carolina, and we find Black people — especially Black women — of different means and situations. It’s not just about the rift between whites and Blacks but also the class divides among Blacks. The play isn’t trying to be a history lesson; history is simply happening in and around the story and the characters. And the play doesn’t need to prove to us that it’s relevant. We can read our present racial politics into it.SCHUESSLER “History is happening around the story”: I love that. We talk about “living through history” when something big happens, but we’re always living through history.Maya’s recommendation of “Wedding Band” leads me to ask all of you to speak to a moment of dramatized history — either a show/movie/whatever — that you really loved?POTTER I am practically the only person I know who is digging Showtime’s “The First Lady.”SCHUESSLER OMG! You are canceled.DUNBAR Ha!POTTER I know! But I think it demonstrates the limits and possibilities of gender at different moments in time, but also the ways that First Ladies stretched the limits of what it meant to be a woman in politics at each moment.DUNBAR I’m going to be very liberal with the term dramatized history — meaning history is something that happened yesterday. Sooo …. I think one of the most incredible shows on television right now is “Atlanta.” While it is a show that takes place today (or for this answer, yesterday) it is fresh, brave, and really creative in the ways that it engages everyday life for Black people.PAULUS I recently rewatched [the 2018 film] “The Favourite,” which I think did a brilliant job of taking Queen Anne’s reign and making that history feel raw and immediate. For more recent “history,” I thought [the Hulu mini-series] “Dopesick” was devastating in its examination of the opioid crisis.GREEN The musical that best reframed history for modern audiences this season was “Six” — the “Tudors Got Talent” competition about the women who were married to Henry VIII. The facts were right enough, the characters were hilariously contemporized and, perhaps most important, the tunes were catchy. A song always cuts deeper than a sermon. More

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      Susan Nussbaum, 68, Who Pressed for Disability Rights in Her Plays, Dies

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      In a wheelchair after being hit by a car in her 20s, she became an advocate for people with disabilities in her writing for the stage and as a novelist.Susan Nussbaum, a playwright and novelist whose work reflected her concern for the rights of people with disabilities, died on April 28 at her home in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. She was 68.Her sister, Karen Nussbaum, said the cause was complications of pneumonia.Ms. Nussbaum began using a wheelchair after being hit by a car at age 24 and soon became an integral part of Chicago’s burgeoning disability-rights scene.Incensed by a lack of accessibility in the city for theater people with disabilities, she wrote her own plays, starring herself and other disabled actors.“If the dominant culture was saturated with backward concepts of who we were, I would answer back with my own collection of disabled characters,” she wrote in a 2012 essay published in The Huffington Post.Ms. Nussbaum began her playwriting career with “Staring Back,” which was performed on the Second City’s E.T.C. stage in 1983. She then collaborated with Mike Ervin, a disability activist who writes a column for Progressive.org, on a series of satirical sketches about disability. Titled “The Plucky and Spunky Show,” it was presented at the Remains Theater.The first reading of her acerbic comic play “Mishuganismo” was in 1992 in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune, in an article about that reading, called it “a mad-sad-glad whirl of politics, activism, love, need, sex and other items.”Directed by her father, Mike Nussbaum, an actor, and based on her own letters, the play took its title from a term that one of Ms. Nussbaum’s friends coined, meaning “a syndrome when a Jewish woman goes crazy for a Latin guy.” The play was later published in the 1997 anthology “Staring Back: The Disability Experience From the Inside Out.”Her last major play, “No One as Nasty,” which documented the relationship between a disabled woman and her paid caretaker, was performed in 2000 at the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago.As a member of the Chicago-based disability rights organization Access Living, Ms. Nussbaum campaigned to make theaters more accessible to wheelchair users and participated in other protests, including efforts to make public transit in the city accessible.After decades of work in theater, she turned to fiction. Her novel “Good Kings Bad Kings,” which follows workers and residents in a Chicago care institution for people with disabilities, earned acclaim for its candor and sensitivity and won the 2012 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.The book’s title came from reporting in The New York Times about Jonathan Carey, an autistic boy who was killed by an employee of the Oswald D. Heck Developmental Center, near Albany, where Jonathan was living. “I could be a good king or a bad king,” the man told the boy as he asphyxiated him, according to court documents.That line stuck with Ms. Nussbaum, she said in a 2013 interview with the website Bitch Media. “It became the title because it reminded me how, when it comes to kids, the adults have all the power. And when the adult in question has no emotional connection to the child, and the child’s welfare is turned over to that adult — as is the case in institutions — terrible things can happen.”She continued: “The disabled characters we’re presented with usually fit one or more of the following stereotypes: victim, villain, saint, monster. The fate of the disabled character is usually miraculous cure, death or institutionalization.”In writing the novel, as in her other work, Ms. Nussbaum said, “It was really important to me to give disabled characters — more than one — their own voices, and the agency to represent themselves and their own perspective on what happens.”Susan Ruth Nussbaum was born on Dec. 2, 1953, in Chicago to Mike and Annette (Brenner) Nussbaum. Her mother worked in public relations. She grew up in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago, and attended Highland Park High School, graduating in 1972.Interested in theater from a young age after running lines with her father, she began writing plays in high school. After graduating, she took drama classes at the Goodman School of Drama (now The Theatre School at DePaul University) in Chicago.She was on her way to an acting class when she was struck by a car. She spent seven months in the hospital.She then navigated through life as a wheelchair user, becoming angry at the lack of accessibility. At one job, as she recounted in a 2013 Psychology Today article, the workplace did not have accessible bathrooms. Finding no ramps on public transportation, she and other wheelchair users began taking an ambulance to and from work. These experiences galvanized her to join Access Living and begin writing plays.Her activism extended outside Chicago as well. A longtime leftist, Ms. Nussbaum visited Nicaragua and Cuba as a member of coalitions on disability rights. Later in life she founded Empowered Fe Fes, a Chicago organization for disabled young women seeking to explore their sexuality.In addition to her sister, she is survived by her father; a brother, Jacob Nussbaum; and a daughter, Taina Rodriguez. More

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      in Music

      Mahmood and Blanco’s Eurovision Song Shows Italy’s L.G.B.T.Q. Progress

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      The love song, and its video showing the artist Mahmood embracing another man, has been well received in a nation with a spotty history on L.G.B.T.Q. rights.MILAN — In February, the artists Mahmood and Blanco turned to each other onstage at Italy’s national song competition and sang, “I’d like to love you, but I’m always wrong.” It was the refrain of “Brividi” (translated as “Chills”), a song about the vulnerability of love, as experienced by all people — regardless of gender, identity or sexuality.When the song won at that competition, the Sanremo contest, and became Italy’s entry for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, the unexpected happened: There wasn’t much pushback.The two after winning the Sanremo music contest in Italy in February.Ettore Ferrari/EPA, via ShutterstockThere was some grumbling from a socially conservative politician about what he called L.G.B.T. “domination” at the contest, and disdain that Mahmood performed one evening wearing a garter, but Alessandro Mahmoud, known as Mahmood, had been expecting a bigger response, he said in a recent interview.When the musician — who was born in Italy to an Italian mother and an Egyptian father — won the national song contest in 2019, anti-immigration comments followed. But this year, even those polemics normally trumpeted by conservative politicians did not flare up. The 29-year-old artist saw the muted criticism for “Brividi” as a sign that “something has happened in Italian society.”Italy has long been influenced by the Roman Catholic Church, which for generations considered homosexuality as a taboo topic to be either ignored or shunned. In a 2005 text approved by Benedict XVI, who was pope at the time, homosexuality was described as “not a sin” but essentially “an intrinsic moral evil.”L.G.B.T.Q. rights in Italy have advanced after decades of campaigning, but some legal challenges remain. Same-sex civil unions were legalized in 2016, years after other European countries, but same-sex marriage is not legal, nor can someone in a same-sex civil union legally adopt his or her partner’s biological child.On Being Transgender in AmericaPhalloplasty: The surgery, used to construct a penis, has grown more popular among transgender men. But with a steep rate of complications, it remains a controversial procedure.Elite Sports: The case of the transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has stirred a debate about the nature of athleticism in women’s sports.Transgender Youth: A photographer documented the lives of transgender youth. She shared some thoughts on what she saw.Corporate World: What is it like to transition while working for Wall Street? A Goldman Sachs’ employee shares her experience.So when two men sang a love song, clearly engaging with each other, as part of a cherished national competition, it was a first. The track “normalizes what should have always been normal,” Mahmood said.The song’s video more explicitly shows Mahmood tenderly embracing a man, while Blanco sings to a woman. A video of the song on Mahmood’s official YouTube page has been viewed more than 55 million times.Italian society’s approach to sexuality is changing. “Sexual orientation no longer has any importance, nor is it important to label oneself anymore,” said Aldo Cazzullo, a columnist in the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera. In the 1950s and 1960s, many gay people in Italy were not open about their sexuality, Cazzullo said. This was followed by an era of coming out and empowerment, and “now there’s no longer the need to say anything,” he said. He pointed out that two of Italy’s southern regions had voted to elect gay men as regional presidents.Mahmood said that although his songs speak volumes about who he is, he doesn’t define his sexuality: “It makes no sense to make distinctions anymore.”Blanco, the stage name of Riccardo Fabbriconi, 19, said that his “generation is much more open” and that people his age no longer thought in terms of gender identity. In just two years, he has gone from posting videos “singing in my underwear in my bedroom,” he said, to a multicity Italian summer tour that sold out in 72 hours.And Blanco said he also saw Italy as being “more open in general — I hope.”A recent headline in the newspaper La Stampa in Turin captured this sentiment: “Blanco, son of the fluid century, his generation will save us.”“My generation is much more open,” said Blanco, 19, left. Mahmood, 29, says he doesn’t define his sexuality.Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York TimesOn Tuesday evening, the Italian hosts for the Eurovision Song Contest semifinal broadcast included Cristiano Malgioglio, a songwriter and popular television personality also known for his outlandish couture, who riffed on his love life. Speaking of the five countries that automatically get into the final — Italy, France, Germany, Spain and Britain — he quipped, “I have a boyfriend in every nation.” He was a host last year, too.Eurovision has always “had a large L.G.B.T.Q. element in its fandom,” said Catherine Baker, a historian at the University of Hull who has written about the competition. After significant rulings by the European Court of Human Rights in the late 1990s and the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam, which banned discrimination against people on the grounds of sexual orientation, “Europe became associated with the idea of L.G.B.T.Q. rights, and symbolically that had an impact on Eurovision, even if it wasn’t organized by the European Union,” Baker said.The competition has also long been a trailblazer when it comes to L.G.B.T.Q. representation onstage, featuring artists like Iceland’s Paul Oscar, Israel’s Dana International and Finland’s Saara Aalto over the years.L.G.B.T.Q. people face openly hostile environments in several European countries, including Poland, Hungary and Russia. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the powerful head of the Russian Orthodox Church, recently justified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by claiming that it was part of a struggle against ideals imposed by liberal foreigners that included gay pride parades.Franco Grillini, a prominent Italian L.G.B.T.Q. rights activist, said a song like “Brividi” would once have been “unimaginable” at a festival that normally has Italians glued to their television screens.In the past, homosexuality could also hurt a musical career in Italy, he said, citing the case of Umberto Bindi, a talented, gay singer-songwriter who caused a scandal in Sanremo in 1961 by wearing a pinkie ring (then a presumed sign of homosexuality). He never got the recognition he deserved because “he was brutally discriminated” against, Grillini said.But democracies have a way of righting wrongs, according to Angelo Pezzana, another L.G.B.T.Q. rights activist. “It’s always been like this. Remember that not a century ago, women went to jail for the right to vote,” he said. In Italy, women only got the right to vote in 1945. The Mahmood-Blanco duet “was a sign that things had changed in a positive way,” he said.The track “normalizes what should have always been normal,” Mahmood said of the Eurovision song.Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York TimesThat said, Italy’s record on equal rights for L.G.B.T.Q. people remains spotty. Apart from not having fair representation when it comes to marriage and adoption, in October, the Senate rejected a bill meant to make violence against L.G.B.T.Q. people a hate crime, a label that would have meant harsher penalties. Critics blamed the lack of consensus both on political bickering as well as on Vatican interference, given that a few months earlier the Vatican had openly opposed the bill, saying it infringed upon guaranteed religious liberties.“Italy is still profoundly linked to the Vatican, which conditions Parliament,” said Grillini, who was a lawmaker for seven years.Even under Pope Francis, the message has been mixed. Shortly after his election in 2013, Francis said, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” and he has continued to encourage the church to be more welcoming toward the L.G.B.T.Q. faithful. But since then, the Vatican has rejected the notion that gender identity can be fluid, and it has reaffirmed its opposition to same-sex marriage.But at least at the Sanremo contest, old prejudices didn’t seem to apply.“All my songs speak of my way of experiencing love and sex,” Mahmood said. “The least an artist can do is give an example.” More

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      in Television

      Brownface in Hong Kong TV Show Draws Outrage and Shrugs

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      The TV show “Barrack O’Karma 1968” fueled debate online. To many Filipinos, it was about racism and classism. Other viewers jumped to the actress’s defense.HONG KONG — The Hong Kong supernatural anthology TV series has an eye-catching name, “Barrack O’Karma 1968,” and an eyebrow-raising plot.A Filipino domestic worker, navigating deceit, discrimination and accusations of voodoo, is transformed by her seemingly well-intentioned employers into a Cantonese-speaking surrogate daughter.The TVB series not only chose a Chinese Canadian actress, Franchesca Wong, as the main character for a two-episode subplot. It also cast her in brownface. On the show, her skin grows lighter and she gains a new fluency in the dominant language of the city.After the first episode aired on April 12 and backstage footage emerged of Ms. Wong affecting a singsong accent — presumably meant to be Filipino — as she brushed dark makeup onto her legs, some viewers said they could not believe their 21st-century eyes.“I was really shocked,” said Izzy Jose, 27, a Filipino performer and educator in Hong Kong. “That morphed into feeling really angry and morphed further into feeling disappointed.”The footage quickly became a flash point of debate. To many Filipinos in Hong Kong, it was a twinned mockery — racism and classism. To some actors, it was an all-too-familiar dehumanizing and undignified representation, a reminder that minority performers are often locked out of roles that purport to portray people like them. To others, the brownface portrayal was another example of colorism rearing its ugly head.But another strain of reaction began bubbling up. Many viewers of the show — which first aired in 2019 and which also has elements of romance and drama — jumped to its defense. Chinese-language news media lauded Ms. Wong’s performance and her efforts at a Filipino accent. Others declared it a matter of creative autonomy. Some accused critics of crying racism without understanding the full context of the plot, which, they argued, portrays Ms. Wong’s character as a victim.It all boiled down to a clapback that asked: What’s the big deal?TVB defended Ms. Wong in a statement saying she had “successfully portrayed her character” with “professional performing techniques and sophisticated handling of role-playing.” Franchesca Wong, who wore brownface in the TVB show, apologized on social media last week.TVBEric Tsang, an actor and general manager of TVB, further denied that racism played any part in the show and insisted that brownface was crucial to the plot.“Actually the main character is Filipino, and then she turns pale,” Mr. Tsang told reporters at a TVB event last week. “That’s the tricky part,” he added. “You can’t find a Filipino to paint white, so you can only paint an artist black first, so that she can turn pale again. If we’re making movies about aliens, and we can’t find an alien to the play the part, are we discriminating against aliens? This is what the plot calls for.” TVB’s publicists said that Mr. Tsang was unavailable for comment.Using brownface in this way for a plotline and assuming that all Filipinos are a certain color perpetuate odious stereotypes, critics say.“It essentially is an exercise of privilege,” Christine Vicera, a Filipino filmmaker and researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said in an interview. “Franchesca, at the end of the filming, is able to remove the brown skin. Whereas, Filipinos or Southeast Asians or South Asians in Hong Kong, we don’t have that privilege of removing our skin color.”Jan Gube, an assistant professor at the Education University of Hong Kong who studies multicultural education and diversity, said that many local viewers lacked the historical context to understand why brownface is offensive. Professor Gube said that most students in Hong Kong’s public schools do not grow up interacting with peers who look different from them. Local schools did not teach cultural respect — let alone the context for brownface — in an in-depth way, he said.“You’ll see a lot of comments from social media and local media saying that the actress is being faithful to her role,” he said. “Not a lot of people are looking at it from a cultural point of view, which means they may not necessarily be aware that donning that kind of makeup means something else to other people,” he added.Brownface (and yellowface — imitations of brown and Asian people by light-skinned performers) evolved from the racist vaudeville tradition of blackface, a staple of American minstrel shows in the early 1800s. Mostly white actors applied dark makeup to play mocking caricatures of Black people. With few other representations of Black people onstage — and later onscreen — blackface performances helped reinforce dehumanizing tropes.Asian countries have had a history of perpetuating colorism, in which the preference for lighter skin is imbued in cultural and social mores. Cosmetic companies have been criticized for selling skin-lightening creams. In Pakistan, the TV series “Parizaad,” about the struggles of a dark-skinned laborer, the lead actor appeared to have darkened his face to play the role, drawing criticism from some social media users. But the show was a big hit when it debuted last year.“Brownface is always wrong because it constructs a racist stereotype. The underlying racist premise of brownface is that the essence of a person is embedded in their physical features, not in their character or actions,” said Jason Petrulis, an assistant professor of global history at the Education University of Hong Kong who studies race and politics in U.S.-Asia relations.“An actor who performs in brownface is suggesting that she can portray the inner character of a Filipina domestic worker by embodying her, by mimicking her skin color or speech patterns or hair texture,” he added.About 203,000 Filipinos live in Hong Kong, forming the largest non-Chinese ethnic group in the city, according to a 2021 census. About 190,000 are domestic workers. In the past two years, as Hong Kong has doubled down on Covid restrictions, the domestic workers have been singled out for mass testing and have been slapped with fines for violating social distancing rules that often exceed their entire monthly salary.For Filipinos who find work as actors in the city, the roles are often limited to clumsy maids, gangsters or bit players in ads for cleaning products.“I’ve always felt that our ethnicity and skin color is used as props to add creative value on set,” said Ray Yumul, a 29-year-old Filipino actor and headhunter. “It’s something that needs to stop and change.”Mr. Yumul said he once responded to calls seeking a Filipino actor in a commercial, only to learn that he would be playing a germ.Ricky Chu, who leads Hong Kong’s anti-discrimination watchdog, the Equal Opportunities Commission, said brownface cannot be the sole measure in determining discriminatory behavior. The watchdog would also have to consider whether the makeup is “very exaggerated” with accompanying “speech and gestures,” he said in an interview.As for whether Ms. Wong’s affected accent in the behind-the-scenes footage constitutes offensive behavior, he said a formal complaint would have to be filed before the commission could judge. (The commission, citing confidentiality, declined to say whether it had received complaints.)Mr. Chu did say that as a viewer of the TVB show, he was more concerned by dialogue that used phrases like “all you domestic helpers” that reinforced “negative stereotypes.”TVB, a 55-year-old broadcaster known for variety shows and serial dramas, has faced boycotts from pro-democracy protesters who accuse it of a pro-China bias. It has also drawn complaints for using racial epithets in a historical drama.The latest controversy intensified after the two episodes in which Ms. Wong appeared in brownface. The broadcaster has since removed those episodes from its streaming site, saying it would review their content.Ms. Wong, who did not respond to a request for comment, apologized on social media last week, saying that she had learned that trying to “analyze, interpret and act” was only part of the job.Many of her supporters responded that she had nothing to be sorry for. More

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      in Movies

      One Last Takeaway From ‘The Slap’: Leave Black Women’s Hair Alone

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      Lost in the Oscars fray is the hurt inflicted when a group is denigrated for a laugh. Chris Rock, who has examined this issue in a documentary, should have known better.While the Slap Heard Round the World has been vigorously debated and dissected since Will Smith confronted Chris Rock at the Oscars, there was more to the incident than its abrupt physicality.Rock’s joke, and Jada Pinkett Smith’s resulting eyeroll, echoed even more thunderously for Black women. Her glare encapsulated the fatigue and frustration that so many of us deal with in the complex daily feat of simply wearing our hair as we like. That Chris Rock would point to a Black woman’s hair for a joke left me breathless, and I wasn’t alone.“When Black women’s hair is mocked by comedians like Rock, he ushers in the everyday forms of microaggressive hatred against Black women that normalized blatant discrimination,” Ralina Joseph, a professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, and the director of the Center for Communication, Difference and Equity, said in an email interview.Black women’s hair has been the object of scrutiny, derision and ridicule in American society since it’s been growing out of our heads. Thanks to standards of beauty that for too long excluded us, we are arguably the largest demographic in the country whose hair is continually policed. Court cases document fights against school districts and corporations trying to govern how we can wear our hair. A segment of people who don’t live with it, in all its iterations of textures and lengths, somehow wants to dictate how and when it’s pretty, professional or unkempt.Distaste for Black hair seeps into our everyday lives: Just last month, the House of Representatives passed the CROWN Act, banning discrimination against natural hair in hiring, public housing placement and public access accommodations. Let that sink in: Exclusionary actions stemming from disdain toward our hairstyles are so pervasive, they require legislation.Nowadays, visibility and a touch of glamorization in mainstream media (I’m lookin’ at you, Beyoncé), have fostered a growing fascination with our manes — a double-edged sword. Bosses scrutinize or give it a shout-out, strangers try to paw or photograph it, friends and frenemies praise or judge it — even Tinder prospects weigh in on it.Academic studies have outlined how strongly the identity of many Black women is tied to their hair. Not having the type of hair that’s affirmed and considered “womanly” in the culture at large can dent one’s sense of self. And feeling that what’s considered a key part of womanhood needs altering to be accepted, especially from childhood, makes it hard to see one’s image as positive.The Altercation Between Will Smith and Chris RockThe Incident: The Oscars were derailed when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, who made a joke about Mr. Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.His Speech: Moments after the onstage altercation, Mr. Smith won the Oscar for best actor. Here’s what he said in his acceptance speech.The Aftermath: Mr. Smith, who the academy said refused to leave following the incident, apologized to Mr. Rock the next day after the academy denounced his actions.A Triumph Tempered: Mr. Smith owned Serena and Venus Williams’s story in “King Richard.” Then he stole their moment at the Oscars.What Is Alopecia?: Ms. Smith’s hair loss condition played a major role in the incident.Since it’s hard to separate our image from our hair, poking fun at a Black hair style is an easy way to get a laugh while devaluing Black women. Witness Jamie Foxx lampooning us as Wanda on “In Living Color” and Martin Lawrence as Sheneneh. It’s incomprehensible that a Black comic would reach for it in such a high-profile setting as the Oscars — especially a man so closely associated with a film about Black women’s hair struggles.Not only did Rock produce and narrate the 2009 documentary “Good Hair,” which brought Black hair culture to the big screen, but he created it with his own daughters in mind. In the opening, he recounts how one of his girls asked him, “Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?” Onscreen, he speaks to a range of women, including celebrities like Raven-Symoné, who explain that when they relaxed their hair, the goal was also about making society comfortable with them.Chris Rock in “Good Hair,” a documentary he narrated and produced.Roadside AttractionsWhile the film could have delved further into how Black women have thrived in a beauty culture (including a hair-care industry) that has rarely included them, it illuminated our struggle to audiences that may not have known one existed. It’s hard to understand how he could help bring that gem of a film to life and yet take a swipe at a Black woman’s hair. Did he so quickly forget the lessons of that film, which seemed to recognize how American society “otherizes” us and our tresses?Or, worse still, did the lessons never matter? Rock has a history of dogging not just Black women, but the entire Black community, or as Joseph calls it, “in-group punching down.”“Despite a brief ‘Good Hair’ moment. where he celebrated (and mocked) Black women, his punching down has also been broadly anti-Black woman,” she noted.Through his career, Rock has demonstrated a penchant for belittling and mischaracterizing Black women, from his ex-wife to female romantic partners in general. In a 1997 episode of “The Chris Rock Show,” he skewered Black women’s need to join the Million Woman March to his guest — Jada Pinkett Smith, a march participant.There’s another sensitive aspect to Rock’s dig at Pinkett Smith. In interviews and on her Facebook series “Red Table Talk,” she has chronicled her painful ordeal with alopecia, a condition that disproportionately affects Black women. She initially concealed her hair loss under wigs. That she decided to shave her head and reveal the reason was to be commended, not jabbed at. To be clear: Whether Rock knew of her condition or not, the joke wasn’t hurtful only because Pinkett Smith deals with alopecia (an affliction to which “Good Hair” even devotes special attention). The insult added an extra layer of hurt, especially because Black women can be harsh on ourselves about hair, amid social pressures and Eurocentric beauty standards that we’ve internalized, often to an extreme degree.Generations of Black American women recall weekend afternoons spent watching an iron comb glow like molten lava on the stove burner. We waited for our mothers to wield the hot comb like a weapon, ready to press our thicket of coils into submission to make us more culturally palatable. Even at a young age, I wondered who I was supposed to be impressing.When I was deemed old enough, I “leveled up” to chemical straighteners that would frequently blister my scalp — all for a flouncy bob I detested. “Beauty is pain,” my hairdresser would chirp as she kneaded the chemical cream into my roots and I winced. In my mid-20s, I decided beauty wasn’t worth that pain, so I chopped off most of my hair and have since maintained a very short, natural style.“When Black women’s hair features as the butt of jokes, the very real and myriad forms of multiple marginalization against Black women is erased and even justified,” Joseph noted. “It hurts.”Even though the jokes at the expense of us and our hair predate Rock, we don’t need him to lead the way in turning up the savagery of the practice, let alone on Hollywood’s biggest evening.Like the director Jane Campion’s misstep a couple weeks ago at another awards show (which, sadly, also involved the Williams sisters, one of the focuses of the Will Smith film “King Richard”), this takedown of a Black woman stings even more for having been unleashed by someone who should know better — in Rock’s case, as a Black father of daughters; in Campion’s, as a woman who’s also probably dealt with sexist professional slights. But the result each time was the same: Black women were expected to smile and take the stab.In one sense, the entire Oscars to-do, and its flurry of embarrassment and apologies, could have been avoided by choosing not to drag a Black woman down by her hair. Yet for too many and for too long, it has felt irresistible not to mess with it, mess with us.So to anyone who ever feels the urge to mock, I’ll reframe Will Smith’s warning at the show: Keep the mention of Black women’s hair out of your mouth. More