Discrimination

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Theater

      5 Broadway Veterans on Race and Representation in Theater Design

      by

      “Theater traffics in unconscious symbolism.” Set designers, lighting designers and a sound designer talk about skin tones, aesthetics and more.Design for live performance can cast a surreptitious spell, shaping an audience’s perceptions with stimuli we might not even notice consciously: a change of light, a snatch of sound, a detail of costume or décor. It’s encoded language, and we respond to it viscerally.To the lighting designer Jane Cox, the Broadway veteran who directs the theater program at Princeton University, that dynamic makes design ripe for interrogation in the context of antiracism. A course that she and the playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins taught, about race and lighting design, was one of the seeds of a multidisciplinary symposium, “Sound & Color — The Future of Race in Design,” taking place Saturday and Sunday at the Park Avenue Armory. Organized by Cox and Tavia Nyong’o, a curator at the Armory, it will include commissioned installations by young designers of color.Cox and four other Broadway designers participating in the symposium spoke recently by phone about race and culture in design. These interviews have been edited and condensed.Mimi Lien, Set DesignerMimi Lien won a Tony Award in 2017 for the set design of “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812.”Emma PratteDesigners for live performance create and curate an experience, right, by juxtaposing visual, sonic, tactile, spatial elements within a time-based structure. All of these chosen elements carry so much cultural meaning and emotion. The job of designers is to handpick those elements and create a design vocabulary that communicates narrative or a particular emotion. With that comes so much responsibility, because our landscape is constructed with the goal of telling a particular story or reaching a particular audience with really calibrated visual and sensory cues.There is a lot of talk about representation right now. But for me, the real interest of this symposium is the aesthetic question. Like, why do people have certain associations with certain colors, and with darkness versus light? That is a huge cultural, media, anthropological question. And I’m really interested in how the two things intersect: What is the intersection between representation and aesthetics?Jane Cox, Lighting DesignerJane Cox was a Tony Award nominee in 2022 for her work on “Macbeth.”Evan AlexanderBranden says, “Racism is a visual ism.” And he’s right. Racism is perpetrated or understood through how we see other people. How we hear other people. And that happens through the way people are dressed, through the spaces they inhabit, through the way they move, through sounds. When they’re depicted in an image or on a stage or in a movie, design impacts enormously how you see people and how you feel about them. Who’s the center of focus, who’s not the center of focus. Theater traffics in unconscious symbolism, and so does racism.My great hope is to investigate more deeply the ways in which our imaginations are colonized by our specific cultures. Designers are people who believe in our senses. How does sensory input impact these questions of racism? The point of the weekend is to try to start to find a language to talk about these things.Justin Ellington, Sound DesignerJustin Ellington was a Tony nominee in 2020 for “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” and his work can be seen on Broadway in “Topdog/Underdog” and “Ohio State Murders.”Justin Ellington“Race.” [sighs] That word. The angle I’ll be coming from is more cultural than race. A lot of the work that we do, especially with the contemporary work, is very specific about certain communities. There are people that live in those communities, and then there are people that need to do research to understand what’s going on. Living in a place and then hearing about that place that you live in is often drastically different.I was part of a workshop recently and some of the dialogue that was given to the Black characters, I was like, “I don’t know those people, never heard of those people.” Definitely imagined Blackness. As a designer, we need to read scripts and not just say, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” Because you’ll find yourself in Act II like, “What?” It’s like, “That is a terrible misrepresentation of a people.” I’m a sound designer by title but I’m a storyteller first. Sometimes I feel like a cultural watchdog.Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, Lighting DesignerJeanette Oi-Suk Yew’s work can be seen on Broadway in “Kimberly Akimbo.”Hunter CanningThere’s no such thing as racially correct lighting. So in some ways I’m free of that burden. What I have as a burden is a conversation that always comes up, about skin tone — how to be able to represent performers in the best light. Lighting white skin is just as complicated as lighting other, nonwhite skin because everybody’s skin tone reflects a different kind of way. You do have to train your eye.Many years ago, I saw a show that had an Asian cast. There’s a certain idea of lighting design that we should always have a warm and a cool tone onstage. This lighting designer’s particular warm tone was very amber; amber gel has a lot of green in it. Literally the Asian people just looked like they had liver disease, warm and yellow because of the skin tone having more green in it.Adam Rigg, Set DesignerAdam Rigg was a Tony nominee in 2022 for “The Skin of Our Teeth.”Ian MaddoxWe’re taught rules. Especially in theater and opera, there are systems that we follow straight down to the architecture of the space. Which were mostly designed by white men. The future, for me, it’s not about wiping away that history. It’s about truly finding a way to find equity in the vocabulary.I don’t want to get myself in trouble, but I’ll just say it. “Ain’t No Mo’” was originally designed by a team of BIPOC designers [Black, Indigenous and people of color]. The work was shocking and exciting. Then it moved to Broadway with still some designers of color, but some white cis male designers incorporated into the team. You could feel the cleverness draining from it. It felt safer. If we’re really trying to broaden Broadway — which is what the end goal for most of us is, to able to make a living — that representation goes down to design as well. Who was in the room not saying, “Hey, ‘Ain’t No Mo’,’ it’s a really Black play.” Who was just like, “Let some white people design it”? More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      Jerrod Carmichael Addresses Scandals That Engulfed the Golden Globes

      by

      He didn’t wait long to get to the point.“I am your host, Jerrod Carmichael,” the comedian began, “and I’ll tell you why I’m here. I’m here ’cause I’m Black.”The Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s history of lacking Black members was an expected comedic target in the first Golden Globes telecast since 2021, when a Los Angeles Times investigation revealed that the association had zero Black members, and scrutinized its financial and ethical practices.“I won’t say they were a racist organization, but they didn’t have a single Black member until George Floyd died, so do with that information what you will,” Carmichael said.In an opening monologue that was striking for its candor and its window into the inner workings of the organization that puts on the show, Carmichael recounted what went through his head when the producer of the Golden Globes invited him to host.“I’m only being asked to host this, I know, because I’m Black,” he said, calling it a “moral, racial” dilemma. (He said a friend suggested that the $500,000 payment would make it worthwhile.)Carmichael, whose stand-up special “Rothaniel” won an Emmy last year, explained that despite taking the job, he had refused to meet with the association’s president, Helen Hoehne, who — he said he was told — wanted to “educate” him on the changes the organization had made. Carmichael said he wasn’t interested, saying, “I know a trap when I hear a trap.”“I heard they got six new Black members — congrats to them,” Carmichael said facetiously.(The 96-member group now has six Black members — up from zero in 2021 — and has added 103 nonmember voters, a dozen or so of whom are Black.)Carmichael said he still said yes to the job because he wanted to recognize the talent and artistry in the room.“I’m here, truly, because of all of you,” he said. “Regardless of whatever the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s past may be, this is an evening where we get to celebrate.”Here is the full monologue:Welcome to the 80th annual Golden Globe Awards. I am your host, Jerrod Carmichael, and I’ll tell you why I’m here. I’m here because I’m Black.I’ll catch everyone in the room up. If you settle down a little bit, I’ll tell you what’s been going on. This show, the Golden Globe Awards, did not air last year because the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which I won’t say they were a racist organization, but they didn’t have a single Black member until George Floyd died. So do with what information what you will.I’ll tell you how I got here, why am I here on the stage with you guys tonight. Well, I was at home just drinking tea. And I got a phone call from my man Stephen Hill. Stephen Hill is a great producer and he said, “Jerrod, really I’m honored to be making this phone call.” He said, “I’m producing the 80th Golden Globes, and it would be an honor if you would agree to join as the host.” I was like, “Whoa. Like, one minute you’re making tea at home, the next you’re invited to be the Black face of an embattled white organization.” Life really comes at you fast, you know.So I said, “Stephen, I’m torn, I’ll be honest with you, I’m a little torn because, you know, one, it’s a great opportunity, thank you for the call, but I’m only being asked to host this, I know, because I’m Black.” And Stephen said, “Let me stop you right there, Jerrod.” He said, “You are being asked to host this show because you are talented. You’re being asked to host this show because you are charming.” He said, “You’re being asked to host this show because you are one of the greatest comedians of our generation.”But Stephen’s Black, so what does he know? Like, he’s only producing this show because — they’re not going to tell him why he’s here, either — so I said, “Stephen, this is a lot for me, let me call you back.”So I did what I do when I have a moral, racial dilemma. I call the home girl Avery who, for the sake of this monologue, represents every Black person in America. And I said to Avery, I said, “Avery, they asked me to host, and I said, you know, what should I do?” And she said, “Oh, bookie, I’m so proud of you, now remind me, which awards show is that again?” And I told her what the show was, and I told her about how last year didn’t air because of the no-Black-people thing. And she was like, “Well, how much are they paying you?” And I said, “Well, Avery, it’s not about the money honestly, it’s about the moral question of —” And she said, “Jerrod, enough of all that, how much are they paying you?” And I said, “$500,000.” And she said, “Boy, if you don’t put on a good suit and take some white people money —”And I kind of forget that, like, where I’m from, like, we all live by a strict take-the-money mentality. I bet Black informants for the F.B.I. in the ’60s, their families were still proud of them like they were — like, “Did you hear about Clarence’s new job? They’re paying him $8 an hour just to snitch on Dr. King. It’s a good government job.”And I called Stephen back, and I said, “I’m happy to do this.” And I was really proud of that decision until I got an email from my publicist saying that Helen, the president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, wanted to have a one-on-one sit-down with me and I said, no thanks. I know a trap when I hear a trap, and I thought it went away, then it came back.I was like, “Well, they’re not really asking, Jerrod, they’re insisting that you take the meeting.” And I’m like, “Or what? They’re going to fire me? “They haven’t had a Black host in 79 years, they’re going to fire the first — I’m unfireable.”And it came back again a third time, they were, like, “You know, Jerrod, Helen really just wants to educate you on the changes that the organization has made in regards to diversity.” And I’ll be totally honest with everyone here tonight. I don’t really need to hear that. I took this job assuming they hadn’t changed at all. I heard they got six new Black members, whatever, congrats to them, but not why I’m here.I’m here truly because of all of you. I look out into this room and I see a lot of talented people — like, people that I admire, people that I would like to be like, and people that I’m jealous of and people that are really incredible artists. And regardless of whatever the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s past may be, this is an evening where we get to celebrate. And I think this industry deserves evenings like these. I’m happy you all are here. And we’ll have some fun tonight. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Theater

      How These Sign Language Experts Are Bringing More Diversity to Theater

      by

      As productions increasingly include characters and perspectives from a variety of backgrounds, deaf and hearing people who translate the shows for deaf audiences are trying to keep up.Zavier Sabio didn’t have much exposure to theater growing up. But when he was asked to join the Roundabout Theater Company’s production of “A Soldier’s Play” and help make the show — about race relations in the military in the segregated South — accessible to deaf theatergoers, he decided to give it a shot.“I really wanted to present this story, as well as the interpretation, through a Black lens,” Sabio, who is Deaf and Black, said through an interpreter. To do that, he also relied on his knowledge of Black American Sign Language (a variation of American Sign Language) and Black Deaf culture.Sabio joined the 2020 production as a co-director of artistic sign language, or DASL, a position that some shows fill in order to create a more cohesive theater experience for deaf audiences. DASLs collaborate with American Sign Language interpreters who specialize in theater, translating the script into ASL and establishing how to perform the signing — while staying true to the spirit of a show. That also entails accounting for representations of race in source material and casting.Amid a racial reckoning in theater, the work of DASLs and theatrical interpreters from a variety of backgrounds has become increasingly sought after in the past few years — both by deaf audiences and theatrical productions. But while there have been efforts to recruit more diverse interpreters, the push for better representation is not without challenges.That became evident in November, when Keith Wann, who is white, filed a lawsuit against the Theater Development Fund and its director, Lisa Carling, accusing them of discrimination. In the suit, Wann charged that a job offer from TDF — for theatrical interpreting for “The Lion King” on Broadway — had been retracted because of his race. A spokesperson for TDF, a nonprofit organization focused on making theater more affordable and accessible, declined to comment. The show, which has a racially mixed cast, draws on African imagery.Some deaf people took to social media when news of the lawsuit (which was eventually settled) broke, calling for more alignment along racial lines between productions and those providing interpreting services.“The interpreting field itself is very white-dominated,” said Kailyn Aaron-Lozano, who has worked as a DASL for “My Onliness” at the New Ohio Theater and “Sweeney Todd” at IRT Theater, speaking through an interpreter.Aaron-Lozano, who is Deaf and Afro-Latina, explained that having theatrical interpreters and DASLs who are BIPOC (an acronym that stands for Black, Indigenous and people of color) can have a big impact on the audiences of the productions that focus on those groups. “We are screaming for more BIPOC individuals to be in these positions,” she said. “There are not enough BIPOC interpreters who can fit the roles — and to better understand those nuances and those cultural pieces.”Jina Porter, a hearing theatrical interpreter and a person of color, said that when there is a mismatch between the interpreting team and what is happening onstage, it can be jarring for deaf viewers. “I feel like you should look at the team and then look at the show and feel like they would all kind of be in the same place together,” she said.Porter said that ensuring more diversity in theatrical interpreting is also a matter of providing equal access and opportunity. “That’s just the way the world should be,” she said.Patrice Creamer, a Black and Deaf theater artist who also works as a DASL, says that not every show requires a perfect racial match of actors and those making the show accessible. (She is currently a DASL for “The Lion King” but was not named in Wann’s lawsuit.)But having that alignment, Creamer said through an interpreter, can help the viewer form a more immediate connection with a show. That was the case, she added, with her work in the 2000 Broadway revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” where she interpreted for the role of Mary Magdalene, played by Maya Days, who is Black.“I played that character so that the Deaf audience could really take everything in with their eyes,” she said, “since their focus isn’t as much on what is happening on the stage, but on what’s happening with the interpreter.”Having deaf people whose first language is ASL working in artistic sign language direction brings a whole other perspective — a deaf one — to a production, Michelle Banks, a Black actress, director and writer who is Deaf, said through an interpreter. DASLs can also have a say in hiring, and can choose interpreters who are a better fit for the characters, the culture represented and the chosen signing style, Banks added.Banks has served as a DASL on shows including Camille A. Brown’s Broadway revival of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” which starred Alexandria Wailes, a deaf and mixed race actress, and incorporated ASL into the fabric of the show.“I worked with Deaf actors, but I also worked with hearing actors,” Banks said of “For Colored Girls.” “So it’s not just Deaf culture that I brought to the production, but also the Black Deaf culture. And I did that with signing that showed that specific culture that is specific to the Black Deaf community.”She described one scene, for example, in which Wailes signs in Black American Sign Language, or BASL, which relies in a unique way on body language and rhythm. Onstage, Wailes’s signing became almost sensual, she said. “It was totally different from everyday conversational ASL.”“It became a lot more emotive,” Banks added. “There was a lot more feeling in that.”Sabio, who also incorporated BASL in the interpreting for “A Soldier’s Play,” said that for authenticity, he also researched and used signs from the historical period in which the play is set.Monique Holt, a professor in the theater and dance program at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., who also works as a director, actor and DASL, said that although more diversity exists in theater these days, there are not enough interpreters from diverse backgrounds — especially those who, like her, are Asian and Deaf.Offering more training opportunities and scholarships for those hoping to have a career in the field could make a difference, added Holt, who also mentors people interested in becoming artistic directors for sign language.Banks believes that theatrical interpreters can also be more thoughtful when booking interpreting roles and “really do some self-assessment: Am I the right person for this role? Am I the right interpreter for this job?”Theaters that provide interpreting should be part of the solution, too, Creamer said, adding that some of them tend to rely on a narrow group of established interpreters who are predominantly white. “They don’t have people of color on their list,” she said. “And there are excuses: ‘We can’t find them. We don’t know where they are.’ But how hard are those people really looking?” More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Music

      Elayne Jones, Pioneering Percussionist, Is Dead at 94

      by

      She challenged racial barriers when she joined the San Francisco Symphony in 1972. But she became embroiled in a legal battle when she was denied tenure two years later.Elayne Jones, a timpanist who was said to be the first Black principal player in a major American orchestra when she joined the San Francisco Symphony in 1972, and who mounted a legal battle over racial and sexual discrimination when she was denied tenure two years later, died on Saturday at her home in Walnut Creek, Calif. She was 94.Her daughter Cheryl Stanley said the cause was dementia.The charismatic, Juilliard-trained Ms. Jones was not only a rare woman among the orchestral percussionists of her time; she also helped lead a generation of Black musicians in confronting the pervasive — and enduring — racism of the classical music industry. Her appointment in San Francisco, under that ensemble’s modish music director, Seiji Ozawa, “projected a forward-looking vision of classical music,” the scholar Grace Wang has written.Admired for her lyricism and finesse, Ms. Jones was an instant hit in San Francisco. “Her playing is so outlandish in quality, one gets the titters just thinking of it,” the critic Heuwell Tircuit wrote in The San Francisco Chronicle of her debut. Arthur Bloomfield of The San Francisco Examiner wrote that her work in a seemingly straightforward passage of “Norma,” at the San Francisco Opera, was “so rounded and suave I just about fell out of my seat.”Once described in a headline as “the groovy tympanist,” Ms. Jones had seen the San Francisco auditions as a last chance to win a permanent post, a success that had been denied her during the two decades she spent toiling to challenge the color line as a freelancer in New York City.“I had to prove that music could be played by anyone who loves it,” she said in 1973. “It’s been a terrible burden because I always felt I had to do better, that I wouldn’t be allowed the lapses other musicians have. It’s true even now.”Orchestral musicians typically serve probationary periods before being granted tenure. Approval seemed a formality in Ms. Jones’s case, but a seven-man committee of the San Francisco players voted against her — and a bassoonist, Ryohei Nakagawa — in May 1974, despite Mr. Ozawa’s advice to the contrary; two rated her competence at 1 out of 100.As audience members launched pickets and petitions, many white critics portrayed the incident primarily as a challenge to Mr. Ozawa’s authority; though the conductor denied any link, he soon quit. Ms. Jones saw things differently.“I’ve had good vibes everywhere. Now I wonder what the hell is wrong and what do I do that’s so wrong?” she said that June, announcing her intention to sue the orchestra and the musicians’ union. “Was it because I was a woman or a Black? Or both?”Ms. Jones played on for a season while her lawsuit made its way through the courts. But when a judge ordered a second, supervised vote in August 1975, a new committee of players turned her down again, citing concerns about her intonation. Although she performed, tenured, in the pit of the San Francisco Opera until 1998, her effective firing at the symphony stayed with her.“It has been quite difficult,” she said in a television interview in 1977, “not only playing but trying to live through all this, and living with myself too, which is kind of hard because you begin to question, well, am I really a good performer, am I worthy person?”But, she went on, “I listen to other people, and I have more confidence in myself.”Ms. Jones looked on as the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the conductor Seiji Ozawa acknowledged the audience’s applause after a performance by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra at the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in 1973.Bruce Beron, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony ArchivesElayne Viola Jones was born on Jan. 30, 1928, in Harlem, the only child of immigrants from Barbados. Her father, Cecil, was a porter and then a subway conductor; her mother, Ometa, dreamed of becoming a professional pianist, but had to enter domestic service. They had a piano in their apartment, and Elayne used it to play along with the big-band jazz she heard on the radio. She was 6 when her mother introduced her to classical music.“At first, I thought it was strange to have music that people didn’t dance to, because we all loved dancing to swing music,” Ms. Jones wrote in her autobiography, “Little Lady With a Big Drum” (2019). “However, I didn’t reject this different kind of music and practiced it every day, growing to enjoy its irregularities.”She qualified for the High School of Music & Arts (now the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts), and she hoped to add the violin to her studies on the piano; she was given drumsticks instead. “We all know that Negroes have rhythm,” she recalled a teacher saying.Ms. Jones was sufficiently talented to win a scholarship to the Juilliard School in 1945, under the sponsorship of Duke Ellington. Her tutor was Saul Goodman, the storied timpanist of the New York Philharmonic, and after she graduated, in 1949, he persuaded New York City Opera to hire her as its timpanist.But the City Opera season was limited, and she had to scrounge for jobs for much of the year; on tour with the company, she was forced to sleep in separate hotels from the other musicians, stopped at stage doors as white colleagues walked through, and told to perform hidden from view.Politically a leftist, Ms. Jones became an insistent activist. When the critic Howard Taubman wrote in The New York Times in 1956 that “if there are capable Negro musicians” they would deserve major-ensemble jobs, she visited him to demonstrate that such musicians did, in fact, exist. She worked on an Urban League report about racism in the music world; within weeks of its publication in 1958, she found herself filling in at the New York Philharmonic. Although the Philharmonic’s records of substitute players are sparse, archival documents name her as the first Black musician to perform as part of the orchestra.Ms. Jones left City Opera in 1960 at the request of her husband, the doctor and civil rights activist George Kaufman, who asked that she spend more evenings with him and their three children. But Leopold Stokowski, long a fan, quickly tapped her for his American Symphony Orchestra, for which she performed until 1972. She was one of the driving forces behind the founding of the integrated Symphony of the New World in 1965, and she joined other Black musicians to urge that the initial rounds of auditions be held blind, with the musicians behind a screen, to reduce bias. The San Francisco Symphony was an early adopter of that approach.“I wouldn’t have gotten the job if the screen wasn’t in play,” she later told Dr. Wang. “I’m the recipient of a thing that I worked on.”Ms. Jones’s marriage to Dr. Kaufman ended in divorce in 1964. In addition to her daughter Ms. Stanley, she is survived by her son, Stephen Kaufman, a violinist and performance artist also known as Thoth; another daughter, Harriet Kaufman Douglas; and three grandchildren.As a single mother, Ms. Jones often had to take her children to rehearsals, she told The Times in 1965. She hoped, she said, that she offered them an example.“All youngsters need an image to project to, Negro youngsters even more than white,” she said. “When they can see Negroes playing in the orchestra, they may feel that they can get there someday, too.” More

    • 50 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      America Has a Problem

      by

      Listen and follow ‘Still Processing’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicWesley Morris and Elyssa Dudley, Hans Buetow and “We’re in deeply vile territory, and I can’t make intellectual sense of that,” Wesley Morris says about the rapper Kanye West, who now goes by Ye.In 2004, when Ye released his album “College Dropout,” he seemed to be challenging Black orthodoxy in ways that felt exciting and risky. But over the years, his expression of “freedom” has felt anything but free. His embrace of anti-Black, antisemitic and white supremacist language “comes at the expense of other people’s safety,” their humanity and their dignity, J Wortham says.Today: The undoing of Kanye West — and what it means to divest from someone whose art, for two decades, had awed, challenged and excited you.Kanye West in 2016.Taylor Hill/Getty ImagesAdditional resources:In “The Long Emancipation,” Rinaldo Walcott distinguishes between emancipation and freedom, and argues that we are still living in a period of emancipation.Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor explores the enduring power of “Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America,” Saidiya Hartman’s book from 1997.In “Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination,” Robin D.G. Kelley examines how Black artists and activists of the 20th century turned to imagination to envision a better future.Wesley and J previously discussed Ye and all his controversies in this episode from 2018.Hosted by: Wesley Morris and J WorthamProduced by: Elyssa Dudley, Hans Buetow and Christina DjossaEdited by: Sara Sarasohn and Sasha WeissEngineered by: Marion LozanoExecutive Producer, Shows: Wendy DorrSpecial thanks: Paula Szuchman, Sam Dolnick, Mahima Chablani, Jeffrey Miranda, Eslah Attar and Julia Moburg. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      For Ghana’s Only Openly Transgender Musician, ‘Every Day Is Dangerous’

      by

      Maxine Angel Opoku has found a new audience for her music with songs opposing a proposed law that would make it illegal to identify as gay, transgender or queer.ACCRA, Ghana — When Maxine Angel Opoku was still an upstart musician, relatively unknown and struggling to stand out in Ghana’s competitive music scene, she sang about love, romance and being sexy.Then, in August 2021, lawmakers in the country’s Parliament introduced a bill that would imprison people who identify as transgender, as Ms. Opoku does, and her art urgently turned to advocacy. Her music began to attract both legions of new fans as well as powerful adversaries.“Dear Mr. Politician, fix the country right now. The people who voted for you, are disappointed in you,” Ms. Opoku sings in one of her latest songs. “Kill it, kill it, kill the bill.”The subject of the song is the “Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill,” which, if passed, would make identifying as gay, transgender or queer a crime punishable with a maximum prison sentence of five years.As Ghana’s only openly transgender musician, Ms. Opoku, who is known on stage as Angel Maxine, is one of the most visible targets of the proposed legislation in a country where the gay and transgender community is largely closeted.Ms. Opoku, preparing for the day last month in Accra, Ghana.Francis Kokoroko for The New York Times“Music is the tool for my advocacy,” Ms. Opoku said in an interview in Accra, the capital of Ghana. “This is the only way my voice can reach the politicians, the president, the homophobes, the layperson.”Same-sex sexual acts are already criminalized in Ghana, in part because of a British colonial-era law, but it is currently not a crime to publicly identify as gay, transgender or queer.In response to the proposed legislation, Ms. Opoku released a song called “Kill the Bill” and, shortly before that, another song, “Wo Fie,” which means “in your home,” in the Akan language, one of the most widely spoken in Ghana.“Wo Fie” talks about how L.G.B.T.Q. people may be part of every family, and calls for tolerance and respect. In the lyrics, Ms. Opoku sings about being unapologetically herself.Ms. Opoku, the oldest of five children, was born in Accra on Sept. 3, 1985, to a fashion designer mother and a civil servant father.“Everybody that saw her would say: ‘Hey, you have a beautiful girl,’” her mother, Faustina Araba Forson, 60, recalled. “Then I would say: ‘No, it’s a boy.’”“She loved wearing girls’ dresses, playing with the girls,” her mother added. “She was a girl trapped in a male body.”Still, it took Ms. Forson many years to accept her daughter’s identity. Ms. Opoku recalled that mother and child would frequent churches to hear pastors, including the controversial Nigerian preacher T.B. Joshua, seeking to “cast the gay out.”“One day I was praying, and I heard God say, ‘I created her in my own image and I love her,’” Ms. Forson said.Ms. Opoku started out singing at home during morning devotional prayers with her family, and as a teenager shadowed members of a now defunct girl group. She began performing music as a woman in 2008 while studying hospitality management in Koforidua, a city north of Accra. It was a dangerous endeavor. Once, during a set, a bottle was thrown from the audience, striking her in the head, she said.With no label to back her or to sponsor recording sessions, she put her music — whose sound is a fusion of Afropop, dance hall and the increasingly popular Afrobeats — on hold and instead moved between jobs in the hospitality sector as a cook and waitress, where she faced issues such as misgendering.Ms. Opoku and her mother, Faustina Araba Forson.Francis Kokoroko for The New York TimesEven before the threat of prison in the impending legislation, to be openly gay or transgender in Ghana was extraordinarily risky, with those identifying — or perceived to be — as such facing acts of violence from both strangers and their own families. Employment and housing discrimination is common.“Some get forced into marriages, get thrown out of their homes; some of them drop out of school because they no more have support,” said Leila Yahya, executive director of One Love Sisters, Ghana, an advocacy organization for L.G.B.T.Q. Muslims, and a friend of Ms. Opoku.Ms. Opoku returned to music in 2018, and while defiance has won her followers online at home and abroad, it has also marked her out. Her home was ransacked and looted by a mob last year, forcing her to scale back on public appearances. Ms. Opoku was not at home when the mob attacked.“They could have taken me to the police station, maybe I could have even died,” said Ms. Opoku, who now performs rarely, and only in private. “I could have been lynched.”After Ms. Opoku’s home was attacked, the maverick musician Wanlov the Kubolor and his sister, known as Sister Deborah, helped her find a safe space and began a professional and personal relationship. The siblings, long viewed as social contrarians in Ghana’s music industry, are featured on both “Kill the Bill” and “Wo Fie.”“It blew me away, the stuff she was living with from day to day: financially, psychologically, physically,” said Wanlov the Kubolor. “I don’t think I could have survived that life.”Ms. Opoku said she also wants to be known for music unrelated to her activism. But that has been an unrealized ambition, so far. A completed mini-album of non-advocacy songs remains unreleased because of a lack of sponsorship, she said.Ms. Forson with a picture of Ms. Opoku as a child next to her aunt.Francis Kokoroko for The New York TimesFor Wanlov the Kubolor, the recent rise in Ms. Opoku’s public stature has been equal parts joyful and painful.“It is painful because she could have bloomed much earlier, because she has a super talent, and she could have been a world star already,” he said.Recently, the song “Wo Fie” went viral on TikTok outside Ghana, and he believes Ms. Opoku’s increasing international visibility — although fraught with safety risks — could also serve as a protective factor for her.But Ms. Opoku isn’t so sure. “Every day is dangerous for me,” she said. “I cannot walk on the street as a normal person.”Taking a bus is out of the question, she said, as is going to the market. “I cannot do a lot of things,” she said.Her daughter’s safety is front of mind for Ms. Forson, too. “I fear for my daughter a lot,” she said. “She is a vociferous person and so she is a target, and I always pray that God should protect her.”If passed, the bill would criminalize positive portrayals of queer life in the media, codify the widely discredited pseudoscience of conversion therapy and compel the families and neighbors of L.G.B.T.Q. people to report them to the authorities.Those who are arrested can avoid prison by undergoing psychiatric and endocrinological treatment “to overcome their vulnerabilities.” The bill also states that allies who give any form of assistance to L.G.B.T.Q. people, such as housing, could be sentenced to between five and 10 years in prison.Ms. Opoku, with friends, at a hotel before a workshop she facilitated for people in Ghana who identify as transgender.Francis Kokoroko for The New York TimesThe proposed legislation is backed by the country’s powerful religious leaders, politicians from the two leading parties and large sections of the local media. It also has broad popular support in a country where a 2019 survey found that 93 percent of Ghanaians would dislike having a homosexual neighbor.The bill has also galvanized outspoken opposition from a small but influential coalition of local academics, lawyers and rights activists.Last month the Speaker of Parliament, who has previously expressed support for the legislation, said it was a priority and would be passed before the next elections in 2024.Thanks in part to the L.G.B.T.Q. antipathy fomenting around the bill, Ms. Opoku said it was difficult to see a future for herself in Ghana. It’s nearly impossible for her to perform freely in public now; the bill would make it legally impossible.“I don’t see a life here for me,” she said. “If I cannot come out openly, go on the streets to move about my daily life, if I cannot get a job, how do I sustain myself? This is no life.”Despite the difficulties, she remains resolute about speaking up for Ghana’s L.G.B.T.Q. community in the face of this rising hostility.Her next song, she said, will encourage at-risk people to sign up for the H.I.V. prevention pill PrEP.“I feel like it is a responsibility,” Ms. Opoku said. “If I win, people like me will also win.”She added, “People like me will also be happier, people like me will also feel free.”Ms. Opoku, at home.Francis Kokoroko for The New York TimesReporting for this story was supported in part by the Pulitzer Center. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Television

      After Hollywood’s #MeToo Reckoning, a Fear It Was Only Short-Lived

      by

      Harvey Weinstein’s second sex crimes trial began Monday in Los Angeles. “She Said,” about the journalistic investigation that took him down and helped ignite the #MeToo movement, arrives in theaters on Nov. 18. “The Woman King” opened to strong ticket sales last month, with Viola Davis saying she thought about the man who sexually assaulted her to power her visceral performance as the leader of an all-female group of African warriors.The convergence is a reminder of just how earthshaking #MeToo was for Hollywood.It helped touch off a broader reckoning in the entertainment industry around diversity, equity and inclusion on both sides of the camera — who gets to make movies, who gets to be the subject of them. Activists say that studios and sets have been permanently changed for the better. Zero tolerance for workplace sexual harassment and discrimination is real.In recent months, however, Hollywood’s business culture has started to regress in subtle ways.New problems — widespread cost-cutting as the box office continues to struggle, coming union contract negotiations that producers worry will result in a filming shutdown — have become a higher priority. Fearing blowback, media companies that were vocal about #MeToo and Black Lives Matter have been quieter on more recent political debates over cultural issues.Diversity, equity and inclusion executives say they are exhausted by an old-boy network that is continuously trying to reconstitute itself: Women who were hired for big jobs and held up as triumphant examples of a new era have been pushed aside, while some of the men who were sidelined by misconduct accusations are working again.“The Woman King,” starring Viola Davis as the leader of an all-female group of African warriors, opened to strong ticket sales last month.Ilze Kitshoff/Sony PicturesIf asked to speak on the record about their continued dedication to change, Hollywood executives refuse or scramble in terror toward the “we remain staunchly committed” talking points written by publicists. But what they say privately is a different story. Some revert to sexist and racist language. Certainly, much of the fervor is gone.This article is based on interviews with more than two dozen industry leaders — including top studio executives, agents, activists, marketers and producers — who spoke on condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the current state of the entertainment business. They varied in age, race, ethnicity and gender.“For three years, we hired nothing but women and people of color,” said a senior film executive, who like many leaders in the industry is a white male. He added that he did not think some of them were able to do the jobs they got.In hushed conversations over lunch at Toscana Brentwood and cocktails at the San Vicente Inn, some powerful producers and agents have started to question the commercial viability of inclusion-minded films and shows.They point to terrible ticket sales for films like “Bros,” the first gay rom-com from a major studio, and “Easter Sunday,” a comedy positioned as a watershed moment for Filipino representation. “Ms. Marvel,” a critically adored Disney+ series about a teenage Muslim superhero, was lightly viewed, according to Nielsen’s measurements.“There was an overcorrection,” one studio head said.At another major studio, a top production executive pointed to the implosion of Time’s Up, the anti-harassment organization founded by influential Hollywood women, as a turning point. “For a while, we all lived in complete fear,” he said. “That fear remains, but it has lessened. There is more room for gray and more benefit of the doubt and a bit of cringing about the rush-to-judgment that went on at the height of #MeToo.”“Bros,” the first gay rom-com from a major studio, had disappointing box office results.Nicole Rivelli/Universal PicturesIs this a pendulum swing back to the bad old days?“Amazing progress has been made that is not going away, and that should not be discounted or overlooked,” said Amy Baer, a producer, former studio executive and the board president of Women in Film, an advocacy organization. “But there is fatigue. It is hard to maintain momentum.”Entertainment companies are not backing off the tough sexual harassment policies that have been introduced in recent years, in part because board members are worried they will face shareholder lawsuits. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently recommitted to its diversification campaign. Despite years of aggressive efforts to invite women and people of color to become members, the academy is currently 66 percent male and 81 percent white..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.Studios remain focused on inclusive casting, most notably Disney, which has a live-action “Little Mermaid” movie on the way with a Black actress playing the title role, and a “Snow White” movie in production with a Latina lead.The moment is nonetheless unnerving, said Sarah Ann Masse, an actress who appears in “She Said” — which is based on a book by The New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey — and who serves on two sexual harassment prevention committees for SAG-AFTRA, the omnipotent actors union. In 2017, Ms. Masse accused Mr. Weinstein of sexually assaulting her in 2008. He has denied wrongdoing.“I’m not naïve enough to think that a system that is unequal and oftentimes oppressive — yes, still, very much so — is going to change overnight,” Ms. Masse said. “At the same time, I find it incredibly frustrating. People at the top of the food chain, in particular, seem to have gotten distracted by new concerns.”In August, Warner Bros. Discovery shelved “Batgirl,” a nearly finished movie starring a Latina actress, featuring a transgender actress in a supporting role, written by a woman, produced by women and directed by two Muslim men. Warner Bros. Discovery never publicly explained its decision, but signaled that it found “Batgirl” to be creatively lacking.Dan Lin, a producer whose credits include “Aladdin” (2019) and “The Lego Movie,” was among those who inferred something else.“It’s no longer about optics,” Mr. Lin said. “A recession is coming, budgets are tightening and I’m really worried that diversity is going to be the first thing that goes.”The producer Dan Lin recently started a nonprofit that aims to help budding minority filmmakers and writers.Todd Williamson/Invision, via APLast week, Warner Bros. Television, as part of wider cost cutting, shut down “new voices” programs for emerging writers and directors, prompting a fiery reaction from the Directors Guild of America. “The D.G.A. will not stand idly by while WB/Discovery seeks to roll back decades of advancement for women and directors of color,” the guild said in a statement.Within a day, Warner Bros. Discovery had scrambled to clarify that, while the “new voices” programs would indeed end, it had planned all along to expand talent pipeline programs in its diversity, equity and inclusion department.“The resolve is still there to have more women and people of color in writers’ rooms and directing and up on the screen” Mr. Lin said. “The problem is that there is so little training and support. Those things cost money.” To help, Mr. Lin recently started a nonprofit accelerator called Rideback Rise that focuses on budding minority filmmakers and writers.There is no longer across-the-board banishment for men who have been accused of misconduct. Johnny Depp is directing a film, having largely won a court case in which his former spouse, the actress Amber Heard, accused him of sexual and domestic violence. John Lasseter, the animation titan at Disney and Pixar, was toppled in 2018 by allegations about his behavior and unwanted hugging and apologized for “missteps” that made some staff members feel “disrespected or uncomfortable.” He is now making big-budget films for Apple TV+. James Franco’s acting career imploded in 2018 amid sexual misconduct allegations. Four years later, after a $2.2 million settlement in which he admitted no wrongdoing, he has at least three movies lined up.Johnny Depp largely won a court case in which his former spouse, the actress Amber Heard, accused him of sexual and domestic violence.Craig Hudson/Associated PressStudios have also started to take more risks with content — backing scripts, for instance, that would have been radioactive in 2018, at the height of #MeToo, or in 2020, when Black Lives Matter was at the forefront of the culture.Examples include “Blonde,” the Netflix drama about Marilyn Monroe that has been derided by critics as exploitative and misogynistic. (It features an aborted fetus that talks.) Paramount Pictures is working on a live-action musical comedy about slave trade reparations; it comes from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the politically incorrect creative forces behind “South Park” and “The Book of Mormon.”Two ride-along reality shows that glorified the police, “Cops” and “Live PD,” and were canceled in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing in police custody have both been reconstituted. “Cops” was picked up by Fox Nation, a streaming service from Fox News, and “On Patrol: Live,” a thinly disguised copy of “Live PD,” debuted over the summer on Reelz, a cable network.At the same time, some movies and shows that overtly showcase diversity and inclusion have either struggled in the marketplace or failed to get off the runway. The takeaway, at least to some agents and studio executives: We tried — these “woke” projects don’t work.Of course, most of what Hollywood makes struggles to get noticed, and almost never for a single reason; nobody looks at poor ticket sales for a Brad Pitt movie and concludes that no one wants to see older white men onscreen. But entertainment is a reactive business — chase whatever worked over the weekend — and there is a risk that “go woke, go broke” jokes could calcify into conventional Hollywood wisdom.“When the real question should be whether comedies generally can succeed at the box office, my concern is that the question is becoming ‘can a Filipino comedy work’ or ‘can a gay comedy work,’” said Mr. Lin, who produced “Easter Sunday,” which starred Jo Koy and collected $13 million in theaters before stalling out. “If you are a woman or a minority, you still do not get repeated chances.” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Two Black Comedians Sue Police Over Search at Atlanta Airport

      by

      Eric André and Clayton English said they were two of hundreds of Black travelers who have been stopped and questioned by officers just as they were about to board flights.Eric André cleared security at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, gave the gate agent his boarding pass and was moments away from stepping onto a plane when he was stopped by officers with the Clayton County Police Department.The officers questioned Mr. André, who is Black, about whether he was selling drugs and what drugs he had in his possession, he said in an interview and a court complaint.They asked to inspect his bag. When he asked if he had to comply, the officers said no, and Mr. André was eventually cleared to board, he said.During the interaction with the police, other passengers had to squeeze past Mr. André and the officers on the jet bridge, the narrow passageway that connects the gate to the airplane during boarding. He said he was allowed onto the plane but left shaken by the interaction.“I knew it was wrong,” said Mr. André, the creator of “The Eric André Show,” a stand-up comedian, actor, producer and writer. “It was humiliating, dehumanizing, traumatizing. Passengers are gawking at me like I’m a perpetrator as they’re like squeezing past me on this claustrophobic jet bridge.”Mr. André’s encounter in April 2021 echoed another one in October 2020 by Clayton English, another Black comedian, at the same airport.Mr. André and Mr. English filed a lawsuit this month against the Police Department, saying they were unfairly targeted for drug checks, according to the complaint. Their lawyers said the department’s practice discriminated against Black travelers who had already been cleared by Transportation Security Administration agents.The Clayton County Police Department runs a jet bridge interdiction program at the airport and made stops between Aug. 30, 2020, and April 30, 2021, according to the suit.Court papers say the stops resulted in a total of three seizures: “roughly 10 grams (less than the weight of one AAA alkaline battery) of drugs from one passenger, 26 grams (the weight of about 4 grapes) of ‘suspected THC gummies’ from another, and 6 prescription pills (for which no valid prescription allegedly existed) from a third.”Two passengers — those who had the roughly 10 grams of drugs and the pills — were charged, the suit said.In that time, a total of 402 stops were made. In cases where race was recorded, more than half of the 378 passengers who were stopped were Black.The Clayton County Police Department declined to comment, citing pending litigation. In April 2021, when Mr. André shared his experience on Twitter, the department denied wrongdoing.“This type of interaction occurs frequently during our officers’ course of duties, and is supported by Georgia law and the U.S. Constitution,” a 2021 department statement said. The department added, “Our preliminary findings have revealed that Mr. Andre was not racially profiled.”The Atlanta Police Department — not the Clayton County Police Department — is the primary law enforcement agency at the airport, the airport said in a statement. “APD has a robust drug interdiction program but, unless otherwise required, does not engage in jet-bridge stops of passengers,” the statement said.From September 2020 to April 2021, the police seized about $1 million from passengers, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.Richard Deane, a lawyer involved in the suit, said the purpose of the stops appeared to be to seize money and that the stops were made largely, if not solely, based on race.The suit maintains the police violated the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures and the equal protection clause, which guarantees racial equality and prohibits racial discrimination, said Barry Friedman, founding director of New York University’s Policing Project, and another lawyer on the case.“We have a great concern about police acting when there’s no policy in place, particularly democratically accountable policy that guides the discretion of police officers,” he said at a news conference this month. “When there’s undue discretion, we get what you have here, which is severe racial discrimination.”Drug interdiction programs at airports started in 1975 with a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration operation in Detroit and expanded to other airports, said Beth A. Colgan, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.“I think it’s a strong suit,” she said. “In terms of the Fourth Amendment claims, it seems clear that they were seized and that searches did occur and it would be difficult to describe these as consent searches.”Civil asset forfeiture allows law enforcement to seize cash, property or vehicles based on probable cause that those involved are associated with criminal activity, Professor Colgan said. This is a low standard, she said, and people often do not challenge forfeitures because the process to get the money back is costly and time-consuming.Courts have favored law enforcement in cases of consent versus coercion, said Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, a fellow and visiting professor at Harvard Kennedy School.“People may feel the need to say yes, and it’s a coerced sense of giving consent as opposed to a freedom of saying no and then feeling like everyone is going to suspect they had drugs on them,” she said.Mr. English, who lives in Atlanta, was the winner of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” competition in 2015 and has headlined in clubs, colleges and festivals.He said he spent his three-and-a-half-hour flight in 2020 wondering what he had done wrong and whether he would be arrested upon landing. When the police took his boarding pass and identification and searched his bag, he felt he had no choice but to comply.“I felt completely powerless,” he said at the news conference. “I felt violated. I felt cornered. I felt like I couldn’t, you know, continue to get on the plane. I felt like I had to comply if I wanted everything to go smoothly.”Mr. André lives in Los Angeles but travels through the Atlanta airport often for work and has recently taken to hiring a service that brings passengers directly to the plane after they’ve cleared security because he’s afraid of repeating his experience from last year.“It’s not just about me or what I went through,” he said. “It’s about the community I identify with. It’s about Black and brown people being discriminated against and being treated like second-class citizens, being treated as if they’re already suspicious and they don’t belong in this country by their own government and the trauma that comes with that.” More