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      ‘The Legend of the Underground’ Review: Gay Activism in Nigeria

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      In this stylish documentary, young men discuss their country’s laws criminalizing gay sex.The documentary “The Legend of the Underground” captures queer Nigerian activists as they discuss their country’s laws criminalizing gay sex. Together, they lament unjust arrests and police brutality. But they are not aiming for either martyrdom or altruism — instead, their goal is to improve the circumstances of their own lives.This film is stylish, like a well-curated advertisement. These men are beautiful, youthful, dressed in mesh and silks. But the movie’s almost shallow appeal to aesthetics is not disconnected from the political agenda of gay Nigerians. For these men, desirability serves multiple purposes. It may entice potential partners, but also advertisers, the global entertainment industry and the hostile Nigerian public.The movie shows the tug of war between profit and public service by contrasting the civic-minded approach of Michael, an organizer who splits time between Lagos and New York for his safety, with the actions of the prominent Nigerian activist James Brown. James wants to grow his follower count to publicize the queer cause, but he also has ambitions to become a global influencer.The filmmakers Giselle Bailey and Nneka Onuorah capture arguments as other activists wrestle with the contradictions of James’s motivations. But crucially, they don’t shy away from James. Instead, the film leaves the tension unresolved, suggesting that James’s mix of political protest and personal ambition may be new tactics from a new generation. In the Nigerian queer scene, there are no sinners and no saints. In the end, Michael dons a sweater for a night out at the club. The shirt’s glitter typeface shows a single word: Buysexual.Legend of the UndergroundNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. Watch on HBO platforms. More

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      in Television

      James Corden's Food Bit Draws Ire and a Petition For It to End

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      For years, the late-night TV host has dared celebrities to eat choice foods, but an online petition is calling for it to end.For years, the late-night television host James Corden has played a food-based truth or dare with celebrities called “Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts.” Participants choose to either answer personal questions or take a bite of a food deemed disgusting to eat, like ghost pepper hot sauce, a sardine smoothie or dried caterpillars.“Wow, it all looks so terrible,” Jimmy Kimmel, the host of late night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” said as he appeared on Mr. Corden’s segment in 2016. “I know people can’t smell it, but it doesn’t smell good, either.”Mr. Corden responded, “It’s really disgusting, it’s horrific,” as he spun a table with Asian ingredients and snacks like chicken feet, balut, pig’s blood and thousand-year eggs.While the segment has received scrutiny in the past, an online petition posted this month has brought renewed criticism that its portrayal of Asian foods as disgusting is harmful. More than 46,000 people have signed the petition, asking Mr. Corden to change the food options on the segment or end its run.“Everyone is entitled to their opinion on food,” said Kim Saira, 24, a Los Angeles activist who organized the petition and set up a protest last Thursday near Mr. Corden’s studio, posing behind a sign that said “Delicious, Not Disgusting.” “My whole point is that James Corden is a white person and is actively using ingredients from Asian cultures and profiting from it and showing it in such a negative light. There’s a way to not like foods and still be respectful about it.”Ms. Saira said she was confused when she first watched the segment featuring balut about two years ago.Balut, a fertilized duck egg, is a late-night snack Ms. Saira grew up eating when she visited relatives in the Philippines every year. She has memories of sitting around a table with her family during power blackouts, which were common, eating the balut by candlelight while they told stories.“I didn’t know why they were calling a food that was so sentimental ‘disgusting,’” said Ms. Saira, who is Filipina and Chinese American.Mr. Corden has been doing the bit for years. A YouTube playlist created by his program has videos as far back as 2016. Speaking to Howard Stern on his radio show June 16, Mr. Corden addressed the controversy.“The next time we do that bit, we absolutely won’t involve or use any of those foods,” Mr. Corden said. “Our show is a show about joy and light and love. We don’t want to make a show to upset anybody.”Mr. Corden’s staff did not respond to requests for comment for this article.“We’re in a kind of cultural moment where bits like this one exist with this increasing acceptance of cultural foods,” said Alison Alkon, a professor at the University of the Pacific. “We’re kind of in this Ping-Pong dialectic.”Using food to prompt a response of disgust, for entertainment, has a long history, said Merry White, an anthropology professor at Boston University. In the United States, the game show “Fear Factor” challenged contestants to eat foods with ingredients like fish eyes, cow bile and coagulated blood paste. Reactistan, a YouTube reaction channel, has had Pakistani people try foods that were strange to them, like American hamburgers, doughnuts and candies such as Ring Pops and Airheads.Even Mr. Corden, who is British, hosted a segment using foods from his homeland, such as haggis and a smoothie with fish, chips and mushy peas.Lok Siu, an associate professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said the practice disrespects people’s cultures. The choice of Asian foods has made Asian Americans feel more vulnerable or marginalized during a time of rising violence against them.The perception of Asians in the United States has historically been defined through food, Professor Siu said.“You use food as a metaphor to describe that distance, the kind of strangeness between a group of people that you don’t understand and their habits, the way they’re eating, the smell that comes with the spices,” she said. “There’s something around the way we discuss food, the way we think about food in our acceptance or rejection of it, it’s a rejection of a culture and the people that’s associated with it.”She added that Mr. Corden’s use of Asian foods on the segment defines which foods are considered mainstream, delicious or disgusting; food is a metaphor for what is considered normal..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media 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ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“Why is this not seen as racist immediately?” Professor Siu said. “If he made fun of any other group, would there be a much more broader understanding that that’s racist? It’s not immediately thought of as being racist and damaging because it’s Asian food. There is such a denial of anti-Asian racism in the U.S., and this is a prime example of it.”In Mr. Corden’s most recent episodes, he has served up blood and pork jelly, scorpion-dusted plantains, a thousand-year egg nog (made with thousand-year eggs), cow tongue, turkey testicles, an ant-covered corn dog and a salmon, tuna and fish-eye milkshake.For some Filipino chefs, who grew up eating some of the ingredients that have been mocked on Mr. Corden’s show, the renewed focus on the segment has stirred up memories.Lou Boquila, the chef and owner of Perla, in Philadelphia, said he remembers questioning why he ate balut — which tastes of duck broth, and other ingredients like intestines, tongues or blood — when he was growing up in the United States.“It’s actually very delicious, nothing out of the ordinary for us, but it put us in a different light,” Mr. Boquila said. “If you look at all the great chefs, they use every part of the animal.”“You try American food, speak American, it made you not proud of what you ate growing up, and I was totally stupid for not standing up for it,” he added. “It steers you toward being more Americanized and turning back on your culture.”Javier Fernandez, the chef and owner at Kuya Ja’s Lechon Belly, in Rockville, Md., said “Spill Your Guts” presents an opportunity for him to educate people about Filipino food, the culture and ingredients like pig’s head and pork blood (also featured on Mr. Corden’s show).“When people talk about Filipino food or these non-American ingredients where they feel it’s gross to see, it does better for the culture,” he said. “It helps promote what the cuisine is like. My job is to promote the cuisine itself.”Follow NYT Food on Twitter and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest. Get regular updates from NYT Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice. More

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      in Music

      Violinist Apologizes for ‘Culturally Insensitive’ Remarks About Asians

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      Pinchas Zukerman was criticized for invoking ugly stereotypes about Asians during a master class at Juilliard, which called his remarks offensive.A master class by the renowned violinist Pinchas Zukerman was supposed to be the highlight of a recent virtual symposium hosted by the Juilliard School.Instead, Zukerman angered many of the roughly 100 students and teachers in the class on Friday when he invoked racist stereotypes about Asians, leading Juilliard to decide not to share a video of his master class afterward with participants, as it had initially intended.At one point, Zukerman told a pair of students of Asian descent that their playing was too perfect and that they needed to add soy sauce, according to two participants in the class. At another point, in trying to encourage the students to play more lyrically, he said he understood that people in Korea and Japan do not sing, participants said. His comments were reported earlier by Violinist.com, a music site.Zukerman’s remarks were widely denounced by musicians and teachers, with many saying they reinforced ugly stereotypes facing artists of Asian descent in the music industry.Juilliard tried to distance itself from the matter, describing Zukerman as a guest instructor and saying his “insensitive and offensive cultural stereotypes” did not represent the school’s values. Zukerman apologized Monday for what he called his “culturally insensitive” comments.“In Friday’s master class, I was trying to communicate something to these two incredibly talented young musicians, but the words I used were culturally insensitive,” he said in a statement. “I’m writing to the students personally to apologize. I am sorry that I made anyone uncomfortable. I cannot undo that, but I offer a sincere apology. I learned something valuable from this, and I will do better in the future.”Asian and Asian American performers have long dealt with racist tropes that their playing is too technical or unemotional. A wave of anti-Asian hate in the United States in recent months has heightened concerns about the treatment of Asian performers.Zukerman is a celebrated violinist and conductor whose career has spanned five decades. He was the biggest name at the Juilliard event, known as the Starling-DeLay Violin Symposium, which is focused on violin teaching and attracts promising young musicians, many of them teenagers, to take part in master classes.He made the remarks on Friday while offering feedback to a pair of sisters of Japanese descent.After the sisters played a duet, Zukerman told them they should try bringing more of a singing quality to their playing, according to participants in the class. When he said that he knew Koreans did not sing, one of the sisters interrupted to say that they were not Korean, adding that they were partly of Japanese descent. Zukerman replied by saying that people in Japan did not sing either, according to participants.His remarks prompted an outcry among Asian and Asian American musicians, with some sharing stories on social media about their experiences dealing with stereotypes and bias..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Hyeyung Yoon, a violinist who last year founded Asian Musical Voices of America, an alliance of artists, said Zukerman’s remarks represented a type of thinking that “dehumanizes a group of people without actually getting to know who they are.”“It’s so prevalent in classical music, but also prevalent in the larger society,” she said in an interview.Keiko Tokunaga, a violinist, said she and many other Asian musicians had heard comments similar to Zukerman’s.“We are often described as emotionless or we just have no feelings and we are just technical machines,” she said in an interview. “And that is very offensive, because we are as human as anyone else on the planet.” More

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      in Movies

      Review: ‘Sisters on Track,’ ‘LFG’ and the Price of Star Power

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      Two documentaries explore the flaws of the financial reward systems in elite sports and their effects on the athletes involved.Two documentaries, “Sisters on Track” and “LFG,” explore the achievements of world-class athletes and, more intriguingly, the way money is allocated within sports.“Sisters on Track” follows Tai, Rainn and Brooke Sheppard, three preteen sisters who qualified as junior Olympians in track. The film begins in their first moments of national recognition, as they are invited on to shows like “The View” to discuss their family’s achievements. At the time, their mother was single, working minimum-wage jobs that were insufficient to cover their rent in Brooklyn. The Sheppard family was living in a homeless shelter, and their athletic success is presented as a story of resilience.The documentarians Corinne van der Borch and Tone Grottjord-Glenne show how this flash of national attention granted them immediate opportunity, including an offer by the entertainer Tyler Perry to pay for the family’s housing for two years. Their film follows the Sheppard sisters in vérité style through this period, as their mother, Tonia, and their coach, Jean, guide them through middle school, puberty, nerves and indecision. The shared dream is for all three girls to earn college scholarships.“Sisters on Track” shows a family working within the imperfect system that controls the financial rewards available to them. By contrast, the subjects of “LFG,” (it stands for a soccer rallying cry), are looking to upend the entire pay structure of their sport. The documentary follows the U.S. women’s soccer team as the players pursue a lawsuit against their employer, the United States Soccer Federation, for institutionalized sex discrimination.Soccer stars like Megan Rapinoe, Christen Press and Jessica McDonald explain how the women’s team has to win more games, secure more viewers and generate more revenue to make a wage that is comparable to that of the men’s team. In talking-head interviews with the documentary’s directors, Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine, the teammates express their hopes that future generations of girls will be able to earn a living as athletes without having to maintain an unparalleled record within their sport.Jessica McDonald in the soccer documentary “LFG”.HBO MaxBoth films are conventional in cinematic style, and they constitute the kind of feel-good entertainment that is easy to recommend. But what is timely and interesting — even thorny — about these films is their focus on the economic opportunities generated by athletic achievement. For the Sheppard family, continued track success pushes closed doors open, granting the sisters access to shelter, scholarships and private school admissions that might have otherwise been beyond their means. But as they plan ahead for college — its opportunities and its expenses — they know they have to maintain their national records if they want to translate early success into lifelong stability.Unlike the Sheppards, who are at the start of their athletic careers, the women of the national soccer team have already proven themselves as world champions. But their astronomical achievements have not translated into astronomical earnings, suggesting that a glass ceiling looms over all women in sports. Both documentaries question how much success women must achieve to attain financial stability, and both films find that it’s not enough to be very good. To translate physical ability into financial gain, you have to be the best in the country, if not the best in the world.Though both movies are peppered with promises that everything will work out in the long run, they also function as documents of the exploitation that elite athletes experience. Here, superhuman strength runs straight into all-too-recognizable barriers — poor working conditions, low wages, discrimination, corporate greed. The subjects of “Sisters on Track” and “LFG” confront challenges with the mentality of champions, but that doesn’t make the opposition any less daunting.LFGNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on HBO Max.Sisters on TrackRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      in Music

      Grammy Officials Oppose an Open Hearing on Reasons for Ousting C.E.O.

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      The lawyer for the former chief executive, Deborah Dugan, said the Recording Academy, which runs the Grammy Awards, had already agreed to an open session to discuss her grievances.As the organization behind the Grammy Awards prepares for an arbitration hearing next month with Deborah Dugan, its ousted chief executive, lawyers for Ms. Dugan have accused the Grammys of reneging on a promise to have the proceedings be open to the public.The arbitration, over Ms. Dugan’s dismissal early last year after just five months on the job, could be a rare window into the opaque politics of the Recording Academy, after years of complaints from artists and others in the music industry that the group fails to adequately recognize women and minorities and is rife with conflicts of interest.Those criticisms boiled over when Ms. Dugan was placed on administrative leave by the academy just 10 days before the 62nd annual Grammys ceremony, in January 2020, and later fired. As the dispute played out between Ms. Dugan and the academy, Harvey Mason Jr., who was then the chairman and interim chief, declared the academy’s dedication to transparency.In a letter on Feb. 4, 2020, Mr. Mason, who has since taken over as chief executive, told Ms. Dugan that the academy had agreed to waive the confidentiality provision of the arbitration clause in Ms. Dugan’s employment contract.“The Recording Academy has absolutely nothing to hide,” Mr. Mason wrote, “and, in fact, welcomes the opportunity to tell its story so that the entire music community and the world can hear the truth — and nothing but the truth — about what you did to this proud institution during your brief tenure as president/C.E.O.“In short,” Mr. Mason continued, “we welcome a full public airing of your allegations against the Academy as well as the Academy’s many claims and defenses against you.”Harvey Mason Jr. wrote that “The Recording Academy has absolutely nothing to hide,” in a letter dated Feb. 4, 2020.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressBut as the hearing, now set for July 12 in Los Angeles, approaches, the academy has requested the proceedings remain closed. In correspondence with the arbitrator, Sara Adler, and lawyers for both sides, the academy’s lawyers said that the organization “was and is willing to make public the results of this arbitration, and the reasoning for those results, and nothing more,” according to Anthony J. Oncidi of Proskauer Rose, a law firm that has long represented the academy.According to Mr. Oncidi, the confidentiality provision cited in Mr. Mason’s letter last year covered only the disclosure of “the existence, content or result of any arbitration,” and that a full public hearing would expose other confidential information and cause “further emotional distress” to witnesses.In an email to Ms. Adler last week, Michael J. Willemin, a lawyer for Ms. Dugan at the firm Wigdor LLP, said that the academy was changing its position and should be required to keep the hearing open.“The simple, undeniable fact,” Mr. Willemin wrote, “is that the parties agreed to open this proceeding to the public, and, therefore, it must be open to the public unless Ms. Dugan agrees otherwise.”According to the academy, Ms. Dugan was dismissed because she alienated the staff and exhibited bullying behavior toward an executive assistant assigned to her.Ms. Dugan cast the decision to dismiss her differently in a discrimination complaint lodged with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Ms. Dugan — who had led Red, the nonprofit co-founded by Bono of U2, and was brought into the Grammys as a change agent — said her dismissal was an act of retaliation after she challenged the “boys’ club” that she said dominated the academy.Dugan’s ouster also came three weeks after she wrote a detailed letter to the academy’s human resources department alleging voting irregularities, financial mismanagement and conflicts of interest involving members of the academy’s board and its executive committee. She also accused a prominent outside lawyer for the academy of making unwanted sexual advances toward her. (That lawyer, Joel Katz, disputed Ms. Dugan’s account.)The Recording Academy has for years faced complaints about its voting process and its poor record of recognizing women and people of color in many of the top awards. In 2018, Neil Portnow, Ms. Dugan’s predecessor, was criticized for suggesting that women should “step up” to be recognized at the Grammys.This year, the academy voted to eliminate most of its anonymous nomination review committees, in which experts selected by academy executives made the final decision on who made the final ballot in 61 of the Grammys’ 84 categories.Those committees were criticized by Ms. Dugan and came under fire from top musicians like the Weeknd. The next Grammy ceremony, set for Jan. 31, 2022, will be the first in years in which the committees will play no part in making up the ballots of most awards, although they will still be used for 11 categories like production and packaging. More

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      in Theater

      Sharon Pollock, Playwright Who Explored Canada’s Identity, Dies at 85

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      Ms. Pollock was best known for dramas inspired by historical events that examined racial tensions and other volatile issues.Sharon Pollock, an oft-produced Canadian playwright who was known for works that explored Canadian history and identity at a time when few of her contemporaries were doing so, died on April 22 at her home in Calgary, Alberta. She was 85.Her daughter Lisa Pollock said the cause was cancer.Ms. Pollock’s works covered a wide range, but she was especially known for dramas inspired by historical events. Her best-known play, “Blood Relations” (1980), was a take on Lizzie Borden and the ax murders of her father and stepmother in 1892 in Massachusetts (Borden was acquitted). But most of her history-inspired plays involved events in Canada’s past.“Walsh” (1973), one of her first staged works, was about James Walsh of the North-West Mounted Police and his handling of Sitting Bull and the Sioux Indians who had come from the United States in the 1870s seeking refuge. “One Tiger to a Hill” (1980) was inspired by a 1975 hostage-taking at a prison in British Columbia.These and her many other historical works didn’t merely document an event; they used it as a jumping-off point to explore themes like racial tension. That was at the core of her “End Dream,” about a real-life 1924 case in Vancouver in which a Scottish nanny died under murky circumstances and a Chinese servant was charged. The charges were later dropped.“I am only interested in historical things if I can manipulate them,” she told The Globe and Mail of Canada when that work was given its premiere in 2000 by Theater Junction in Calgary. “I want to make something bigger than the mystery.”Anne Nothof, a professor emerita at Athabasca University in Alberta who writes frequently about Canadian drama, said Ms. Pollock viewed theater “as a means of illuminating the dark corners of apathy and ignorance” and used it to examine areas of history that were often sanitized.“In her plays, she provided multiple perspectives on historical events,” Dr. Nothof said by email. “Pollock was committed to creating a theater that responded to the past and the present, that challenged historical and personal assumptions.”Stephen Hair and Julie Orton in “Blow Wind High Water.” Staged at Theater Calgary in 2017, it was Ms. Pollock’s last new produced play.Trudie LeeMs. Pollock had a long relationship with Theater Calgary, where she was artistic director in 1984 and 1985 and where four of her plays had their premieres, including “Walsh” almost 50 years ago and her last new produced play, “Blow Wind High Water,” in 2017.Two of her plays, “Blood Relations” and “Doc” (1984), received the Governor General’s Literary Award, a top honor in Canada, and in 2012 Ms. Pollock was given the Officer of the Order of Canada designation “for her contributions to the theater as an award-winning playwright, actor, artistic director and teacher.” That same year, when the University of Calgary held a conference celebrating her, it was called simply “Sharon Pollock: First Woman of Canadian Theater.”Mary Sharon Chalmers was born on April 19, 1936, in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Her father, Dr. George Everett Chalmers, has a hospital in Fredericton named after him, and her mother, Eloise (Roberts) Chalmers, was a nurse. She was also an alcoholic; Ms. Pollock painted a stark picture of her early years in “Doc,” a play that had autobiographical elements, and she talked bluntly about her mother.“To be truthful, I didn’t like her very much,” she told The Calgary Herald in 2013. “She was an ugly drunk. She didn’t go somewhere nice and quiet and drink herself into oblivion. I always say that every statutory holiday she would try and kill herself. Eventually she succeeded. I think I was 17 when that happened.”She dropped out of the University of New Brunswick in 1955 and married Ross Pollock. But their relationship, she said, was troubled, and the marriage ended after about a decade. In 1966 she moved to Calgary with the Canadian actor Michael Ball, with whom she had a long-term relationship.From left, Amanda Dahl (Ms. Pollock’s daughter), Kate Trotter and Susan Hogan in “Doc,” a 1984 play that had autobiographical elements.George GammonShe began her theater career as an actress. In a 2008 interview with the The Calgary Herald marking the 40th anniversary of Theater Calgary, she recalled working with that company in its early years. She had especially vivid memories of the old QR Center, which was notorious for a leaky foundation.“The dressing rooms were in the basement, so in the spring you’d have about three inches of sewage and horrible water all through the dressing room areas,” she said.The seepage, she said, somehow always seemed to be worst when a production called for period costumes.“You not only had to watch your feet,” she said, “but you had to hold up these reams of skirt, or else you’d enter onstage with a kind of osmosis — water creeping up all over the edge of your clothes.”(Perhaps appropriately, a decade later “Blow Wind High Water” was part of that theater’s 50th-anniversary season. It was about a Calgary flood.)Ms. Pollock’s plays were staged at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, the Neptune Theater in Halifax and many other theaters, including the Garry Theater in Calgary, which she ran for five years in the 1990s. She also served in executive roles at Theater New Brunswick and other houses, though her strong personality sometimes led to clashes with board members.Ms. Pollock in 2017.via Theatre CalgaryStafford Arima, Theater Calgary’s current artistic director, experienced that personality when he staged her final play.“I fell instantly in like with Sharon’s no-filter way of communicating,” he said by email. “Her energy reminded me of a glorious tsunami wave that engulfed any space she inhabited — whether it was a rehearsal room or a coffee house.”In addition to her daughter Lisa, she is survived by five other children, Jennifer Pollock, Kirk Pollock, Melinda Tracey, Michele Pollock and Amanda Dahl; 12 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.In a “Playwright’s Note” in the program for “Blow Wind High Water,” Ms. Pollock addressed the audience in words that might well have applied to many of her plays:“I hope you’ll experience in some small way some small parts of history that have made the place you live in the place it is.” More

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      in Television

      How One Graphic Novel Looks at Anti-Asian Hate

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      In “Cyclopedia Exotica,” the artist and writer Aminder Dhaliwal created a fictitious community facing xenophobia, fetishization and media misrepresentation. It’s resonating with her thousands of Instagram followers.In the new graphic novel “Cyclopedia Exotica,” immigrants with one eye coexist uneasily with their two-eyed neighbors.Members of the cyclops community are targeted by curious online daters and porn addicts, as well as cosmetic surgeons eager to give them that desirable two-eyed look. They contend with xenophobes protesting mixed marriages, hateful comments from subway Karens and, in some cases, physical violence.In 2018, when the artist and author Aminder Dhaliwal began sharing pages with her nearly 250,000 Instagram followers, she was drawing from her experiences as a South Asian woman growing up in England and Canada, but she wondered if the topic was relevant.“I remember saying to a friend, I want to do a book on microaggressions, but that’s, like, so old. Is it even worth doing?” she said in a phone interview from Burbank, Calif., where she now lives.Three years on, Dhaliwal’s book seems particularly of the moment. It’s tough to miss the parallels between its characters, minorities singled out because of their eyes, and the spate of reported attacks on Asian people in the United States over the past months. “I could not imagine that this would be happening this year,” she said.The graphic novel begins with the story of Etna, the world’s first cyclops sex symbol. Her critically acclaimed 2018 debut, “Woman World,” imagined an idyllic, supremely chill future in which guys went extinct years ago. (Spoiler alert: They aren’t really missed.) Published by the Canadian comics house Drawn & Quarterly this month, “Cyclopedia Exotica” is her second book and has already connected with a diverse readership.“A lot of the microaggression stuff was specifically about Asians,” Dhaliwal, 32, said. “But I also get questions like, ‘Is this about queer people?’ Or, ‘I relate to this so much as a trans person.’”Born in Wembley, London, she moved when she was 11 to Brampton, Ontario, a predominantly South Asian suburb of Toronto. She loved to draw from an early age, tracing the covers of her brother’s video game cases and creating Harry Potter fan art. She knew she wanted to do something art-related but wasn’t sure what she could do or whom to even ask. “Being an Asian kid, I feel like my family had access to every doctor,” she said. “But I didn’t know anyone doing art.”Inspired by a presentation at Sheridan College given by a Disney “Beauty and the Beast” animator, Dhaliwal enrolled in the school’s animation department. “He was this larger guy with a big old beard, and he flips a switch and he’s Belle,” she said. “It was just bananas to me. I knew at that moment that I wanted to dedicate my life to this craft, because it just seemed so fun and silly.”After graduation, Dhaliwal found work in Los Angeles as a writer and artist on animated shows like “The Fairly OddParents” and “Sanjay and Craig.” The work was rewarding — in 2020, she earned a spot on Variety’s list of “Ten Animators to Watch” — but the secrecy and nondisclosure agreements involved wore her down. “So much of my day-to-day is hidden behind N.D.A.’s,” she said. “You get exhausted not getting to talk about the cool things you’re working on or getting to process the hard things you’re going through.”Aminder Dhaliwal began sharing pages on Instagram in 2018. “I remember saying to a friend, I want to do a book on microaggressions, but that’s, like, so old,” she said. “Is it even worth doing?”Joyce Kim for The New York TimesAfter working for four years on a pilot for an animated series that never got greenlit, she knew she had to create her own comics, things she could post online for immediate feedback. She started with a Harry Potter spoof, then a tongue-in-cheek comic based on the Japanese manga series “Death Note.”“Woman World” came to Dhaliwal after she participated in the 2017 Women’s March in Los Angeles and saw signs that read “the future is female.” What might that look like, she wondered? As with “Cyclopedia Exotica,” she questioned her idea early on. “I remember starting to write it and thinking like, ehhh, feminism is doing great,” she said. “And then the #MeToo movement happened, and I was like, oh yeah.”The animation industry had its own reckoning in 2018, dubbed the #MeToon movement. Dhaliwal and her fellow animator Megan Nicole Dong (“Pinky Malinky,” “How to Train Your Dragon 2”) joined others in creating an organization that led to changes in human-resources practices at several studios and the one-year suspension of the “Loud House” creator Chris Savino following sexual harassment allegations. “Initially, we were just trying to create a safe space to talk about things that had been happening in animation,” Dong said. “But it evolved into a much bigger movement within our industry.”The success of “Woman World” gave Dhaliwal new confidence. “I had been working as a comedy writer for years and didn’t know if I was funny,” she said. “I remember asking one of my office mates, ‘Am I funny?,’ which now seems like such a sad question. It’s like a teenager asking a friend, ‘Am I pretty?’ I didn’t realize how much I needed someone else to say yes, you’re funny.”Unlike “Woman World,” the inspiration for “Cyclopedia Exotica” didn’t come from a march or movement. “I wish I could tell you there was some really beautiful reason,” Dhaliwal said. “But truly, I just found cyclops so interesting. So often they just look like people, except for their one defining feature. The first thing I remember sketching were pinup drawings of cyclops, and it went from monsters in erotica to looking at how minorities find acceptance through being attractive.”Dhaliwal is among several artists who have showcased and serialized their work on Instagram, including Lucy Knisley (“Kid Gloves”), Shelby Lorman (“Awards for Good Boys”), and Liana Finck (“Passing for Human”). Like Dhaliwal, many use social-media platforms to show their work, describe their creative processes and discuss everything from depression to writer’s block.“Cyclopedia Exotica” begins with the story of Etna, the world’s first cyclops sex symbol. Later, other cyclops deal with being perceived as overly submissive, the lack of cyclops representation in Hollywood movies, and worries about whether mixed children will have one eye or two.“Aminder has always been so observant about everything,” Dong said. “She’s also friends with so many people, and so many different kinds of people, that all of these things in her book feel very authentic, because they’re either based on things she’s experienced or things her family and friends have gone through.”One cyclops goes to a cosmetic surgeon to get two eyes — a nod, Dhaliwal said, to double-eyelid surgeries targeted at Asians. The character’s surgery doesn’t take. “People die for beauty, because they feel they don’t look a certain way,” she said. “But so often people trivialize beauty, and say things like, you need to get over it, or you need to be OK with yourself.”“That’s the message animation shows always try to tell kids,” she continued. “Be true to yourself. But I think that can be really hard to swallow when the world has punished you so often for being who you are.”In many ways, the current climate of anti-Asian hate feels familiar to Dhaliwal. “I remember after 9/11, and for the next 10 or 15 years, it just sucked having brown skin. It seemed like every offhand joke was about being a terrorist. And then you get this odd experience where you’re like, finally, the Eye of Sauron turns to another group, and your first reaction is like, phew, we’re out of it, the eye’s not on us anymore! When instead, we should be thinking: No one should ever feel like this.”Dhaliwal is working on a new comic series that she hopes to begin posting on Instagram this month. She’s also written for the upcoming Netflix animated series “Centaurworld,” created by Dong, and was recently selected to serve as a mentor and consultant on the Creative Council of Cartoon Network’s shorts program, “Cartoon Cartoons,” which will showcase the work of diverse and up-and-coming animators.While Dhaliwal probably won’t be telling her mentees to just be true to themselves, she will be able to share what it means to be a working animator in an industry that’s gotten more inclusive but still has a ways to go. “I’m going to get to give creative feedback to all these people who are trying to make something and do something really creative,” she said. “It’s exciting to be in this position, because I’ve been in their position so often.”Follow New York Times Books on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, sign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar. And listen to us on the Book Review podcast. More

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      in Music

      Did the Music Industry Change? A Race ‘Report Card’ Is on the Way.

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      The Black Music Action Coalition, a group of managers, lawyers and others, was created last summer with a mission to hold the business to account. In June, it will report on the progress so far.Last summer, as protests roiled over the death of George Floyd, the music industry began to take a hard look at itself with regard to race — how it treats Black artists, how Black employees fare at music companies, how equitably money flows throughout the business.Major record labels, streaming services and broadcasters pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in donations, convened task forces and promised to take concrete steps to diversify their ranks and correct inequities. Artists like the Weeknd and BTS donated money to support social justice, and Erykah Badu and Kelis signaled their support for economic reforms in the music industry.Everything seemed on the table. Even the term “urban,” in radio formats and marketing — to some a racist euphemism, to others a signifier of pride and sophistication — came under scrutiny. But there was still wide skepticism about whether the business was truly committed to making substantial changes or whether its donations and lofty statements were more a matter of crisis P.R.The Black Music Action Coalition, a group of artist managers, lawyers and others, was created last summer with a mission to hold the industry to account. In June, it intends to release a “report card” on how well the various music companies have made good on their promises and commitments to progress.The report will lay out what steps the companies have taken toward racial parity, and track whether and where promised donations have been made. It will also examine the number of Black executives at the leading music companies and the power they hold, and how many Black people sit on their boards. Future reports will take deeper looks at questions like how equitably the industry itself operates, Binta Niambi Brown and Willie Stiggers, a.k.a. Prophet, the coalition’s co-chairmen, said in an interview this week.“Our fight is much bigger than just whether or not you wrote a check,” said Prophet, an artist manager who works with Asian Doll, Layton Greene and other acts. “But the fact that you said you were going to write a check, we want to make sure that money was actually given and that it went to a place that actually hit the veins of the Black community.”The report, to be written by Naima Cochrane, a journalist and former label executive, will be modeled on the annual media studies by the advocacy group GLAAD, which track the representation of L.G.B.T.Q. characters in film and television and assign ratings to the various companies behind them. It is expected to be issued by June 19 — Juneteenth, the annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.The coalition’s public statements have made it clear that it sees itself as a strict and unflinching judge of the music industry, which has a dark history of exploitation of Black artists even as Black music has long been — and remains — its most essential product. Last summer, an online campaign called #BlackoutTuesday brought out painful commentary that, even today, many Black executives feel marginalized, subject to white supervisors who hold greater powers and earn more money.Brown, a label executive and artist manager, said the goal of the report is not punishment but encouragement.“We want to do it in a way that is more carrots than stick, so we can continue to incentivize good behavior,” she said. “We want to hold folks accountable, not cancel them.”Most of the major music companies have hired diversity officers and promoted some top Black executives to positions equal to those of their white colleagues, though there are still only a handful of Black people at the uppermost levels of leadership.A number of outside studies have also been commissioned to examine diversity within the industry, including one by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California and another by the Recording Academy, the Berklee College of Music and Arizona State University about women in music.Yet there has been relatively little public discussion about looking at artist contracts, including ones from decades past, and curing any unfair terms.One company, BMG, examined thousands of contracts and found that, of 15 catalogs it owns that have rosters with both Black and non-Black artists, 11 showed no evidence of racial disadvantage. Among the four that did, the company found “a statistically significant negative correlation between being Black and receiving lower recorded royalty rates” of 1.1 to 3.4 percentage points. BMG has pledged to take action to correct that disparity.Those deeper issues about fairness in the music industry may well be covered in future reports by the coalition. For now, they are limiting their scope to whether promises have been kept.“Racism is 400-year-old problem,” Prophet said. “We didn’t think it would be solved in 12 months.” More