Gender

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      Harry Styles Dedicated a Brit Award to Female Acts Who Weren’t Nominated

      by

      In 2022, the Brit Awards merged its top artist prizes to include male, female and nonbinary acts. This year, the event faced backlash for not nominating any women.On Saturday night at a glittering ceremony in London, the pop star Harry Styles was named artist of the year at the Brit Awards, the highest honor at Britain’s equivalent of the Grammys.After punching the air as he headed onstage, the singer then thanked his family, his mother and his former bandmates from One Direction.But to some watching the televised ceremony in Britain, the acclaim for the pop icon was a little soured because Styles triumphed in a category that did not have a single female nominee — an unintended consequence of the decision a little more than a year earlier by the Brit Awards to merge its categories for best male and best female artist of the year into one gender-neutral top prize.For the past few weeks, prominent figures in Britain’s music industry, and even some politicians, have been discussing the effects of that change on the visibility of female musicians here.At a time when other major cultural award shows — including the Tony Awards and the Academy Awards — are facing pressure to include nonbinary artists, the experience at the Brits shows the difficulties that can arise from removing gendered categories.Onstage, Styles made it clear he was conscious of the conversation. “I’m very aware of my privilege up here tonight,” he said, “so this award is for Rina, Charli, Florence, Mabel and Becky.” Those are the names of five female British pop stars — Rina Sawayama, Charli XCX, Florence Welch, Mabel and Becky Hill — who were not nominated.For much of the past decade, the British Phonographic Industry, or BPI, which organizes the awards, has broadcast its efforts to make the event more inclusive. But three years ago, the organization faced a dilemma after the singer Sam Smith announced they were nonbinary and used they/them pronouns.The Dreamy World of Harry StylesThe British pop star and former member of the boy-band One Direction has grown into a magnetic and provocative performer.A Destination for Fans: A stray lyric in Harry Styles’s song “Falling” radically changed the clientele — and fortunes — of a Beachwood Cafe, a cheerful spot with an all-day menu in Los Angeles.Latest Album: The record-breaking album “Harry’s House” is a testament to the singer’s sense of generosity and devotion to the female subject.Styler Fashion: Stylers, as the pop star’s fans are called, love to dress in homage to their idol. Here are some of the best looks seen at a concert.Opening Up: For his solo debut, Styles agreed to a Times interview. He was slippery in conversation, deflecting questions with politeness.That made the pop star — and frequent Brit Award winner — ineligible for the show’s artist of the year awards, which had long been split into “best male” and “best female” categories.When the BPI announced that it would drop gendered categories for the 2022 awards, the move was praised by British musicians and newspapers as long overdue.At last year’s Brit Awards, which was the first time the ceremony featured a gender-neutral best artist category, Adele won the trophy, along with three others. Kate Green/Getty ImagesThat decision did not immediately lead to the exclusion of women: Last year, Adele won the first best artist prize. “I understand why the name of this award has changed,” she said at the 2022 ceremony, “but I really love being a woman and being a female artist.”This year, however, the nominees list included four men alongside Styles: the rappers Stormzy and Central Cee, the dance act Fred Again.. and the singer George Ezra.Francine Gorman of Keychange, an organization that aims to increase female and nonbinary involvement in Europe’s music industry, said in a recent interview that the all-male list was “a real step backward” for inclusion.“We’re faced with five men, and they’re supposed to be representative of every British artist making music today,” she said.Smith — who was in the running for two awards at Saturday’s event — also criticized the all-male nominees in a recent interview with The Sunday Times, a British newspaper. “There’s so much incredible female talent in the U.K. — they should be on that list,” they said. (Smith’s representatives did not respond to an interview request for this article.)Sam Smith arriving at the 2023 Brit Awards. After the singer came out as nonbinary, the awards decided to award a single gender-neutral artist of the year prize.Andy Rain/EPA, via ShutterstockOn Wednesday, concern about the issue even made it to Britain’s parliament, where the Women and Equalities Committee was holding an inquiry into misogyny in music. Caroline Nokes, the committee’s chair, said afterward that she thought that the Brit Awards had acted “too soon” to remove gendered categories, given the significant barriers women face to building careers in music.In an era when some people in Britain see conflicts between women’s rights and those of transgender and nonbinary people, the absence of female nominees for the top award touched a nerve, though most commentary has focused on the barriers facing women in music.The BPI has not announced any steps to avoid another all-male shortlist at next year’s awards. YolanDa Brown, a saxophonist and the BPI’s chair, said in a video interview this week that the organization would review the nomination process and determine if any changes were needed to support women. That could include expanding the number of nominees, she said, but she would not guarantee that any measures would be taken.“Change and evolution is uncomfortable,” Brown said. The success of the move to gender-neutral categories should be judged over a longer time period, she added, noting that “this is just the second year.”The Brits’ best artist category has strict eligibility criteria. Acts must have released either a Top 40 album or two Top 20 singles, within a yearlong period, to make the longlist. This year, only 12 female acts and one nonbinary act qualified, compared with 58 men. The awards’ voting body, made up of some 1,200 music industry insiders, then chooses nominees from the longlist. This year’s voting bloc was 52 percent female.An all-male shortlist “was always going to happen sooner or later” because of the unequal nature of Britain’s music industry, said Vick Bain, a consultant on diversity issues and the president of Britain’s Incorporated Society of Musicians. Women make up only about 20 percent of artists, and 14 percent of songwriters, signed to British record labels and publishers, Bain said.Charli XCX performs at the 2022 Glastonbury Festival. That year, the singer’s album “Crash” was No. 1 in Britain, but she wasn’t nominated for artist of the year at the Brit Awards.Kate Green/Getty ImagesBain said the one positive aspect of the exclusion of female and nonbinary acts was that “it’s shone a spotlight” on that inequality. Women are similarly underrepresented in the British and American movie industries, Bain said, so the Academy Awards could expect similar problems if the academy were to do away with gendered acting categories.In 2020, the BAFTAs, Britain’s main film awards, made a host of changes to try to increase the diversity of its honorees. That included reserving half of the spots on the longlist for the best director prize for women. Yet at this year’s awards, just one female director was among the final six nominees.Before Saturday’s awards, few British musicians commented directly on the backlash. Representatives for more than 20 British pop acts declined interview requests for this article, including the publicists for all 12 female artists who were eligible for this year’s award, as well as all five of the representatives for the male nominees.Bain said the lack of diversity at the Brits requires action across Britain’s music industry, not just from the awards themselves. Record labels should sign more female acts and provide them with the same marketing support as male stars, she said, while festivals should book more women and more radio stations should play their music.Until those wider shifts happen, award shows will “have to be prepared to keep changing” their procedures to stay inclusive, said Bain, who noted that it was true of film awards as well as the Brits.On Saturday night, some acts suggested the Brits needed to up its game. When asked about the lack of female nominees for best artist on the Brits red carpet, Charli XCX told a BBC reporter that female musicians were “doing everything right.”“I don’t think it’s our fault,” she said. “I think it might be theirs.” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Theater

      Frigid Fringe Festival Is ‘Uncensored’ No More After Pulling a Work About Gender

      by

      The Frigid Fringe Festival in New York said it would no longer bill itself as “uncensored” after deciding not to move ahead with a performance it deemed anti-trans.Since its 2007 founding, the Frigid Fringe Festival in New York has selected the plays it produces randomly, like many other fringe festivals around the world that aim to highlight voices from outside the theatrical establishment. It boasted that it was both “unjuried,” since it did not rely on gatekeeping panels, and “uncensored.”But that changed this past fall, when Frigid decided for the first time that it would not stage one of the productions it had chosen. A staffer at the festival had red-flagged the work, “Poems on Gender,” after its author, David Lee Morgan, submitted a blurb drawn from the show that began: “There are two sexes, male and female.” Further investigation led organizers to conclude that it “featured material we deem to be anti-trans.”In canceling its production of “Poems on Gender,” Frigid announced that it would stop calling itself “uncensored,” and that it would reserve the right to withdraw future plays. “Our commitment to freedom of expression does not obligate us to lend our efforts to platform what we consider to be hate speech, or even just very offensive and hurtful speech,” it said in a news release. It added, “In this case we choose to just say no.”The festival was “uncensored” no longer, becoming the latest example of a wider rebalancing in the worlds of culture, publishing and academia, as many institutions that once emphasized freedom of expression and artistic license have curbed speech that they deem hateful or offensive to members of marginalized groups.Morgan, a busker and spoken-word poet based in London who performs “Poems on Gender” as a recited monologue, said in an interview that he did not expect Frigid to tolerate absolutely everything. “If I were presenting a recruiting film for the Ku Klux Klan,” he said, “I’d be astounded if they’d be fine with putting it on.”On Being Transgender in AmericaFeeling Unsafe: Intimidation and violence against gay and transgender Americans has spread this year — driven heavily, extremism experts say, by increasingly inflammatory political messaging.Puberty Blockers: These drugs can ease anguish among young transgender people and buy time to weigh options. But concerns are growing about their long-term effects.‘Top Surgery’: Small studies suggest that breast removal surgery improves transgender teenagers’ well-being, but data is sparse. Some state leaders oppose such procedures for minors.Generational Shift: The number of young people who identify as transgender in the United States has nearly doubled in recent years, according to a new report.But he disputed that his show, which he performed last year at the prominent Edinburgh Festival Fringe, was deserving of censorship. “Is it reactionary?” he said. “Is it anti-trans? Is it bigotry to say there are two sexes, male and female?”Erez Ziv, a founder of Frigid New York and its managing artistic director, said he could not ask his increasingly diverse staff, which includes several transgender and nonbinary people, to be part of a production that denied their realities. The Frigid Fringe Festival, which will run in February and March, supplies shows with theatrical space and publicity, and tech and front-of-house workers. Productions keep all box office revenue. (Frigid relies on grants and small fees from the productions.)“In November, I boastfully said to an entire room full of fringe producers in North America that I would allow a show to happen no matter what,” Ziv said. “But then it happened: We actually got a show that I just couldn’t ask my staff to work.”“I support free speech,” he added. “I think all speech should be legally protected, but not all speech should be platformed.”David Lee Morgan said he did not believe his work “Poems on Gender” deserved censorship: “Is it bigotry to say there are two sexes, male and female?”Charlotte Hadden for The New York TimesBefore deciding, Ziv, who never reads production scripts for Frigid, viewed several online videos of Morgan performing other works. He also consulted a colleague: the co-artistic director at Frigid, Jimmy Lovett, partly because Lovett is trans.Lovett said that some of Morgan’s online performances of related works were “very minimizing of our experiences” and framed transition-related surgery and other medical care as “damaging to the body rather than necessary and healthy for the individual.”In sometimes elliptical language, “Poems on Gender” raises questions about how some people define their genders (“You tell me I can’t be your friend/Unless I believe you are a real woman/I can’t do that”) and about transition-related medical care (“You took a rainbow and forged it into a knife”).Morgan, who grew up in Washington State, describes himself as left-wing and feminist and said that “Poems on Gender” was partly inspired by conversations with trans friends from the spoken-word poetry scene. “I’m looking at people I have a lot of respect and unity with, and then seeing where we disagree,” he said, noting that he believes some of the friendships have ended because of his views.Frigid’s evolution away from its stage-anything ethos is striking, because the festival exists precisely to ensure that even unusual or outré works get a chance to go up in New York City.Fringe festivals share a mandate to elevate edgier voices. The concept originated when troupes that were not invited to the first Edinburgh International Festival in 1947 put on a counter-festival, which a journalist later described as “round the fringe of official festival drama.” They have earned a reputation for giving opportunities to new talent: the hit Broadway musical “Six,” about the wives of Henry VIII, was written by college students and was one of the 3,398 shows the Edinburgh Festival Fringe put on in 2017.Xela Batchelder, a veteran fringe producer who studied fringe festivals for her Ph.D. dissertation, said that generally “the audience is the curator,” and that it would be a challenge for festivals to begin deciding which works to stage and which to rule out. “It’s going to be very hard for the arts organizations and the artists trying to figure out how to work through all this,” she said.The fringe model has been tested in recent years. The Chicago Fringe Festival, which like Frigid selected works entirely by lottery, faced backlash in 2017 for staging “A Virtuous Pedophile.” (Its author, Sean Neely, said the play did not advocate pedophilia.) The outcry was “very detrimental” to the festival, said Anne Cauley, its executive director at the time, and the festival’s largest foundation sponsor declined to renew its support the next year. The festival ceased after 2018.The Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals, whose guiding principles call for convening no juries for selecting plays and allowing no interference with artistic content, added a new plank in 2017 that said, “Festivals will promote and model inclusivity, diversity and multiculturalism.”A spokeswoman for the association, Michele Gallant, said that Frigid, which is one of its members, had still abided by the principle that says “festival producers do not interfere with the artistic content of each performance,” because it had not altered the show — but simply pulled it entirely.Morgan still hopes to take “Poems on Gender” to other fringe festivals.He won the Canadian association’s lottery in November, which gives him entry to fringe festivals next summer in the cities of Victoria and Vancouver, in British Columbia. The Vancouver Fringe declined to comment, and an official at the Victoria Fringe did not respond to a request for comment. More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      Advice From Pelosi’s Daughter: ‘Every Woman Needs a Paul Pelosi'

      by

      Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, a multimillionaire venture capitalist recovering from a brutal attack, has long taken care of the couple’s “business of living,’’ including shopping for the speaker’s clothes.WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was glued to CNN the night after the 2020 election, while her husband, Paul Pelosi, sat nearby unwrapping a package.“What is that?” she asked him in a scene from the new HBO documentary, “Pelosi in the House,” directed by their daughter Alexandra Pelosi.“Dish towels,” Mr. Pelosi responded with a hint of irony as he popped the bubble packing. Ms. Pelosi smiled and then turned her attention back to the election coverage.It was just one instance of a dynamic on display throughout the film: Mr. Pelosi, who was brutally attacked at the couple’s San Francisco home by an assailant who was said to have been targeting the speaker, takes care of what their family refers to as the “business of living.” That leaves his wife, who will step down as speaker when Republicans assume the House majority on Jan. 3, free to focus on her work.It is the kind of relationship that women in politics rarely talk about, but can sometimes help make the difference between success and failure: a partner willing to take on the mundane tasks and supportive role that traditionally fell to political wives. And although the Pelosis are wealthy and can get all the household help they need, the documentary captures that being a political spouse can mean simply showing up, and then standing off to the side.Throughout the film, as Ms. Pelosi does business on the phone with Vice President Mike Pence, Senator Chuck Schumer or Joseph R. Biden Jr., who was then a presidential candidate, Mr. Pelosi, 82, a multimillionaire businessman who founded a venture capital investment firm, is often in the same room dealing with the day-to-day necessities of their lives.In one scene, Ms. Pelosi was in her pajamas strategizing on a call with Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, about the first impeachment of President Donald J. Trump while Mr. Pelosi, sitting across from her, was on his cellphone dealing with a contractor trying to access their San Francisco home to fix a broken shower.A New U.S. Congress Takes ShapeFollowing the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats maintained control of the Senate while Republicans flipped the House.Who Is George Santos?: The G.O.P. congressman-elect from New York says he’s the “embodiment of the American dream.” But his résumé appears to be mostly fiction.McCarthy’s Fraught Speaker Bid: Representative Kevin McCarthy has so far been unable to quash a mini-revolt on the right that threatens to imperil his effort to secure the top House job.The G.O.P.’s Fringe: Three incoming congressmen attended a gala that drew white nationalists and conspiracy theorists, raising questions about the influence of extremists on the new Republican-led House.Kyrsten Sinema: The Arizona senator said that she would leave the Democratic Party and register as an independent, just days after the Democrats secured an expanded majority in the Senate.“I don’t know what happened to that key,” Mr. Pelosi said, using an expletive.Paul and Nancy Pelosi met as college students while taking a summer class at Georgetown University in 1961. They married two years later and had five children in six years. Ms. Pelosi spent her early years in the marriage as a stay-at-home San Francisco mother and did not run for Congress until she was in her 40s. What followed was nothing that Mr. Pelosi ever pictured for his wife, or his family, according to his daughter.“I don’t think this is what he signed up for in 1987,” Alexandra Pelosi said in an interview, referring to the year Ms. Pelosi was first elected to Congress. “He just had to get over it.”The couple had five children in six years.Peter DaSilva for The New York TimesMr. Pelosi, according to his daughter, never caught the political bug. He forbids political talk at the dinner table. But over the years he has been at his wife’s side at her big political moments, and has taken on many of the duties of the homemaker. He does the dishes, deals with contractors, pays the bills and shops for Ms. Pelosi’s clothes.“She’s never ordered dish towels in her life,” Alexandra Pelosi said. “That’s what he’s been doing forever. He does the shopping for her, from the dish towels to the Armani dress.’’“He’s got Armani on speed dial,’’ she added, referring to the Italian designer Giorgio Armani, one of the speaker’s favorites. “He’s the full-service husband.”Ms. Pelosi had more to say: “The dress she wore to the state dinner; he ordered it for her, and he sent my sister to go try it on.” (Ms. Pelosi was referring to a gold sequin gown by another Italian designer, Giambattista Valli, that her mother wore to a White House state dinner early this month for President Emmanuel Macron of France.)The documentary, focused on Ms. Pelosi’s rise and professional accomplishments, offers glimpses into how a marriage to a supportive spouse helps create the space for a woman’s work — in her case, operating years as the most powerful political force in the Democratic Party in recent years.Other than Hillary Clinton, few women in politics have risen to Ms. Pelosi’s stature, and there are not many male spouses like her husband. Former President Bill Clinton played the role of supportive spouse during Mrs. Clinton’s two presidential campaigns, but after he had already had his turn.Doug Emhoff has assumed a supporting role to Vice President Kamala Harris, but that has also meant becoming a public figure in his own right. Mr. Pelosi never wanted anything close to that.“He’s a private person with a private life with a very interesting collection of friends, including Republicans,” Alexandra Pelosi said. “He didn’t sign up for this life.”But, she said, he has made it work. “Every woman needs a Paul Pelosi.’’The Pelosis met in 1961, while taking a summer class at Georgetown University. Doug Mills/The New York TimesIn one scene in the documentary, Mr. Pelosi was scraping breakfast dishes in a robe while his wife spoke on the phone to Mr. Pence. At one point, she put herself on mute and blew kisses at her husband.In a scene shot during the 2020 presidential campaign, Ms. Pelosi was on the phone with Mr. Biden advising him “don’t go too far to the left.” Mr. Pelosi was sitting next to her, reading his iPad, only half paying attention to his wife’s conversation.Mr. Pelosi appeared at ease in his supporting character role.“Are you in line to get a picture with the speaker?” his daughter shouted at him from behind the camera at a gathering at the U.S. Capitol ahead of one of Mr. Trump’s State of the Union addresses, while Ms. Pelosi was working a photo line.“Oh I am,” he joked.The following year, there he was again, sitting and snacking while Ms. Pelosi worked the room.“I heard Paul Pelosi was here,” his daughter joked.“I just came for the pistachios,” he said.As Ms. Pelosi prepared to enter the House chamber — where she would eventually tear up Mr. Trump’s speech and dismiss it as a “manifesto of mistruths” — her husband was with her in her office offering moral support.“You look great, hon,” Mr. Pelosi told her.Despite his appearances in the documentary, Mr. Pelosi is not always at the speaker’s side, including in May, when he was in a car accident in Napa County, Calif., and afterward pleaded guilty to a single count of driving under the influence of alcohol. Ms. Pelosi was across the country, preparing to deliver a commencement address at Brown University.“He’s there for the days that matter,” Alexandra Pelosi said. “It’s really just because she says you have to come. These kinds of people need a family to be there for support on days that matter.”In October, Mr. Pelosi was beaten with a hammer at the couple’s San Francisco home by an assailant who was said to have been targeting the speaker. He suffered major head injuries, but has appeared in recent days by Ms. Pelosi’s side, including her portrait unveiling at the Capitol and at the Kennedy Center Honors celebration.Still, his daughter said he was on a long road to recovery. “He has good days and bad days,” she said, noting that he has post-traumatic stress and tires quickly.The attack on the man who has been a quiet pillar of the Pelosi family life has taken a toll on all of them. The speaker told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in a recent interview that “for me this is really the hard part because Paul was not the target, and he’s the one who is paying the price.”“He was not looking for Paul, he was looking for me,” she added.His daughter said one of the most uncomfortable parts of the ordeal has been the glare of the public spotlight on a person who has tried to avoid it.“He’s remained out of the limelight as much as he could,” she said. “He almost got to the end without anyone knowing who he was.” More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Music

      The Year Pop’s Men Dismantled Their Masculinity

      by

      In 2022, stars including Harry Styles, Jack Harlow and Bad Bunny offered liberated takes on gender, but also risked pandering. Are men OK?In April, during his headlining set at Coachella, the reigning pop prince Harry Styles invited a surprise guest, Shania Twain, to the stage to sing a provocatively chosen duet: “Man, I Feel Like a Woman.”Clad in a low-cut, silver sequined jumpsuit, Styles strutted, twirled and belted out the cheeky anthem’s lyrics. “This lady taught me how to sing,” he told the raucous crowd of over 100,000 when the song was over. “She also taught me that men are trash.”The performance was fun, headline-generating and relatively radical: It is difficult to imagine Styles’s generational predecessor, Justin Timberlake — or even Timberlake’s successor, Justin Bieber — playing so fast and loose with gender roles. That is partially because the Justins embraced hip-hop and R&B — genres where such experimentation is often less welcome — more directly than Styles ever has. But it’s also because the cultural forces that shape the norms and expectations of what a male pop star can and should be are evolving.While the year in music was dominated by a handful of female powerhouses (critically, by Beyoncé’s widely praised dance-floor odyssey “Renaissance” and commercially, by Taylor Swift’s moody synth-pop juggernaut “Midnights”), the top male pop stars — Styles, Bad Bunny and Jack Harlow — all found success while offering refreshingly subversive challenges to old-school masculinity.Styles and Harlow seem cannily aware of how to position themselves as heartthrobs in a cultural moment when being a man — especially one that scans straight and white — can seem like a minefield of potential missteps, offenses and overextended privilege. Bad Bunny, even more subversively, ripped up the English-language pop star’s rule book and offered a more expansive vision of gender and sexuality.Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican superstar whose summery smash “Un Verano Sin Ti” spent more weeks atop the Billboard chart than any other album this year, has gleefully rejected the confines of machismo. Instead, he has embraced gender-fluid fashion, called out male aggression in his songs and videos and even made out with one of his male backup dancers during a performance at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards — decisions that carry extra weight considering his aesthetic-hopping pop is rooted in reggaeton, a genre that has leaned on heteronormativity.Bad Bunny has gleefully rejected the confines of machismo.Isaac Esquivel/EPA, via ShutterstockStyles, too, has won fans and admirers by treating his gender presentation as something of a playground, whether that means wearing a dress on the cover of “Vogue,” refusing to label his sexuality or flipping the familiar script of the older male auteur/younger female muse in his much publicized relationship with his “Don’t Worry Darling” director Olivia Wilde, who is 10 years his senior. None of it has been bad for business: Styles’s “As It Was” was the year’s longest-reigning Billboard No. 1 and, globally, Spotify’s most-streamed song of 2022.But there’s also an increasingly fine line between allyship and pandering, one that fans aren’t shy about calling out online. Styles and Bad Bunny have been accused of the very contemporary crime of “queerbaiting,” or cultivating a faux mystique around one’s sexuality to appeal to an L.G.B.T.Q. fan base. To overemphasize straightness and alpha-male stereotypes, though, presents its own risks, especially in a post-MeToo moment. What’s a man to do?Harlow, the 24-year-old Kentucky-born rapper, spent 2022 trying to figure it out. A technically dexterous rapper with an easy charisma and a head of Shirley Temple ringlets, Harlow is known for making artistic choices that spotlight his skills and convey his seriousness as an MC. He’s also cultivated a persona as an irrepressible flirt with a particular attraction to Black women. He famously shot his shot with Saweetie on the BET Awards red carpet, repeatedly popped into Doja Cat’s Instagram live broadcasts and even parodied his reputation during a star-turning “Saturday Night Live” hosting gig, when he played himself in a skit that imagined him seducing Whoopi Goldberg on the set of “The View.”Harlow’s music, too, actively cultivates the female listener. As he explained in an interview with The New York Times earlier this year, “I always think about if I was in the car and the girl I had a crush on was in the shotgun and I had to play the song, would I be proud to play the song?”Jack Harlow’s music focuses on a kind of glorification of the female listener.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesThroughout his second album, “Come Home the Kids Miss You,” Harlow paints himself as stylish and sensitive, a man who keeps his nails clean and discusses his romantic encounters in therapy. In the grand tradition of his elder Drake, Harlow often uses the pronoun “you” to directly and intimately address women in his songs. His biggest solo hit to date, “First Class,” which spent three weeks at No. 1 this spring, turned “Glamorous,” Fergie’s blingy 2007 hit about luxury and hard-earned success, into a chivalric invitation for a lady to come enjoy the good life on Harlow’s dime: “I could put you in first class,” he clarified.Stylistically, Harlow’s music is worlds away from Styles’s, but both share a kind of glorification of the female listener, a lyrical attentiveness to her pleasure and a subtle insistence that they are more caring partners than all those other men who, in Styles’s parlance (and on superhumanly empathetic ballads like “Boyfriends” and “Matilda”), are “trash.”In some sense, this is certainly progress. Consider that Timberlake’s early aughts success involved the excessive vilification of his ex Britney Spears, or that a performance that pantomimed a kind of hyper-heterosexual dominance over Janet Jackson had virtually no effect on his career, but nearly ended hers. Harlow’s collaboration with and public support for the gay pop star Lil Nas X and even his fawning over his female peers are worlds away from his predecessor Eminem, who negotiated his complex stance as a white man in a predominantly Black genre by punching down at women and queer people. Misogyny and homophobia aren’t exactly good for business anymore — and thank goodness.It’s hard to imagine these men making the same mistakes as their forebears, and overcorrection is in some sense welcome, given the alternative. (Bad Bunny, again, has taken even bolder risks, like vehemently criticizing the Puerto Rican government in response to island-wide blackouts.)But even responsibly wielded privilege is still, at the end of the day, privilege. And Styles’s and Harlow’s music often betrays that by its relative weightlessness, its sense of existence in a space free of any great existential cares. Styles’s songs in particular seem hollowed out of any introspection; most of the ones on “Harry’s House” pass by like cumulus clouds. The focus of Harlow’s music vacillates between girls and ego, with few gestures toward the riskier political statements he’s made on red carpets (decrying homophobia) and on social media (attending protests demanding justice for Breonna Taylor). That failure to see oneself as part of a larger problem is a symptom of privilege, too. Even if he’s wearing sequins, a man declaring that “men are trash” is just a very subtle way of saying “not all men.” What about the guy saying it?On “Part of the Band,” a moody, verbose single released this year by the British band the 1975, the frontman Matty Healy imagines overhearing a snippet of chitchat between two young women: “I like my men like I like my coffee/Full of soy milk and so sweet it won’t offend anybody.” The implication is that Healy is decidedly not one of those men, and it’s indeed hard to imagine a listener — particularly a non-male one — making it through all 11 tracks of the 1975’s soft-focused “Being Funny in a Foreign Language” without cringing at something Healy says. (Just one example: “I thought we were fighting, but it seems I was ‘gaslighting’ you.” Yeesh.)But in Healy’s musings, there’s something often lacking in Harlow’s or Styles’s music: a genuine sense of self-scrutiny, and an active internal monologue about what it means to be a man at this moment in the 21st century. Healy’s songs are, as the critic Ann Powers put it in an astute essay tracing the cultural lineage of “the dirtbag,” excavations of “the curses and blessings of his gendered existence.” Under his relentless microscope, straight(ish) white masculinity is, blessedly, freed from its status as the default human condition and instead becomes a curiosity to poke and prod at, exposing its internal contradictions and latent anxieties.“Am I ironically woke?” Healy wonders later in “Part of the Band.” “The butt of my joke? Or am I just some post-coke, average, skinny bloke calling his ego imagination?” Cringe if you want. He’s man enough to let the question hang there in the air. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Theater

      Review: In ‘Orlando,’ Emma Corrin Straddles Genders and Centuries

      by

      In a freewheeling London adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel, Corrin plays a character whose emotions are as fluid as their identity.LONDON — The play comes perfectly matched with its leading player in “Orlando,” a freewheeling take on Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending novel that opened Monday at the Garrick Theater here.Neil Bartlett’s breezy adaptation of its 1928 source is playful, and ultimately moving, but the director Michael Grandage owes much of the production’s success to its galvanizing star, Emma Corrin, who made an acclaimed West End debut last year in the short-lived “Anna X.” Thankfully, this time, Corrin can be seen onstage for considerably longer; “Orlando” runs through Feb. 25.The fast-rising Corrin, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, has made headlines recently as much for their gender identity as for increasingly prominent screen roles. After winning a Golden Globe for playing Princess Diana in “The Crown,” Corrin starred in two films this season, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” and “My Policeman,” which was also directed by Grandage.Yet none of those roles has connected as directly to Corrin’s ongoing self-inquiry as the restless, century-straddling Orlando. “Being nonbinary is an embrace of many different parts of myself, the masculine and the feminine and everything in between,” Corrin said in a recent interview with The New York Times.Corrin has obviously spent some time with a question that Orlando asks rhetorically throughout the play: “Who am I?” We first meet the character as a young nobleman, born into Elizabethan-era luxury and a home containing 365 rooms. (The real-life inspiration for this vast property was Knole House, the countryside home of Vita Sackville-West, the author and socialite for whom an adoring Woolf wrote the novel.)But as time hurtles forward, Orlando barely ages and awakens one day from an extended slumber, age 30, as a woman. “Well, knock me down with a flipping feather,” says Orlando’s longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Grimsditch, in response. On the other hand, this loyal sidekick has seemed comfortable with gender fluidity from the start: “Ladies and gentlemen — no, sorry, everyone” she says in an early speech to the audience. The invaluable Deborah Findlay, hair disheveled but her sense of fun unimpaired, is a delight in the role.Corrin is more than game for whatever the play requires. This includes putting on and taking off Peter McKintosh’s ravishing costumes, to keep pace with the passing centuries.The youthful male we glimpse at the play’s start has an impishly androgynous allure, along with a gift for rewriting Shakespeare: “Shall I compare me to a summer’s day?” a glinting Orlando asks early on. But with age comes experience and exposure, not just to royalty (Lucy Briers makes a memorably stern Elizabeth I) but also to lovers and intimates of various genders and circumstances, including a bawdy Nell Gwyn (Millicent Wong) who tells Orlando, “For a lady, you’re really quite the gentleman.”Corrin is in full-throated voice throughout the vicissitudes of Orlando’s fraught love life — when Orlando’s heart is broken, you know it — and in moments when Orlando is taken over by fear. It’s not just that gender is fluid, we feel, but emotions are, too, and the play comes blessed with an actor who can project confidence one minute, and surrender to uncertainty the next. “Orlando” features a cast of Virginia Woolfs, who the titular character turns to to amend or amplify the story. Marc BrennerThe production features a bustling chorus of Woolfs, nine in all, bespectacled and drably attired; each of them adroitly handles at least one additional role, and sometimes more. (That supporting cast includes another nonbinary actor in Oliver Wickham, who plays Clorinda, an early crush for Orlando.)The sobriety of the author on view in this version contrasts with the vivacity of her creation. We see an anxious Orlando interacting with the lineup of women: “Come on, you wrote me,” she says, almost pleadingly, as if Woolf could posthumously amend the story. And yet the play sustains a spryness of tone.Bartlett’s adaptation is more of a sparky, affectionate pastiche, whether invoking another Woolf title, “A Room of One’s Own,” or handing a song lyric from the musical “Cabaret” — another show about shifting identity — to an especially ardent suitor, the Archduchess Harriet. (Richard Cant has particular fun with that role.)We get a synoptic survey of changes in women’s circumstances over time — I loved the sight of the Virginias producing teacups from their bags to signal the arrival of the Victorian era — and there’s a verbal lob in the direction of Britain’s governing Conservative Party that surely owes more to Bartlett than Woolf. But Corrin’s gorgeous performance lifts the 90 minutes, no intermission, well beyond anything resembling a history lesson or a night out requiring preparatory homework.“I once did love,” Orlando says wistfully, and the play leaves us hopeful that this mutable, mesmerizing character will find his, or her, or their, own way to do that again.OrlandoThrough Feb. 25 at the Garrick Theater, London; thegarricktheatre.co.uk. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Theater

      At Shakespeare’s Globe, a Nonbinary Joan of Arc Causes a Stir

      by

      Even before the production debuted, it had inflamed a rancorous debate about sex and gender that plays out almost daily in Britain.LONDON — When the playwright Charlie Josephine watched the first performance of their play “I, Joan” at Shakespeare’s Globe last week, they sat in the theater, wracked with nerves.The play, based on the story of Joan of Arc, is Josephine’s first on a major London stage. But that was not the only reason that the playwright, who identifies as transgender, queer and nonbinary, and uses the pronoun they, was anxious. Throughout last month, “I, Joan” had been at the center of a media furor in Britain because of Josephine’s decision to depict Joan of Arc as nonbinary.In the play, which runs at the Globe through Oct. 22, Joan of Arc comes to terms with their gender identity while inspiring French soldiers to repel English forces from their soil. “I’m not a girl,” Joan says at one point. “I do not fit that word.”When The Daily Mail, a tabloid newspaper, reported details of the Globe production in August, it led to a barrage of complaints on social media and in print. Allison Pearson, a columnist for The Daily Telegraph, a conservative newspaper, wrote that recasting Joan of Arc as nonbinary was “an insult.” Sophie Walker, a former leader of Britain’s Women’s Equality Party, wrote on Twitter that when she “was a little girl, Joan of Arc presented thrilling possibilities about what one young girl could do against massed ranks of men. Rewriting her as not female and presenting it as progress is a massive disappointment.”Shakespeare’s Globe, where “I, Joan” is running through Oct. 22.Alex Ingram for The New York TimesThe Globe warns patrons about details in “I, Joan” that some may find upsetting. This is not the first show there that has caused a stir.Alex Ingram for The New York TimesBefore anyone had even seen it, the Globe’s show touched a nerve in Britain, where a perceived conflict between the rights of women, and transgender and nonbinary people, has ignited a furious debate that plays out almost daily in the news media, in lawmakers’ speeches and in the courts. Some feminists in Britain have long called for the maintenance of rights based on biological sex, rather than gender identity, which they say threatens women’s-only spaces. Many transgender and nonbinary people say those campaigns discriminate against them and create a hostile environment.The story of Joan of Arc — a 15th-century teenage girl who is said to have heeded God’s instructions to put on men’s clothing and lead French soldiers in battle, only to be tried for heresy and burned at the stake — has been the subject of plays for centuries. Daniel Hobbins, a historian at the University of Notre Dame, said many of those depictions played fast and loose with historical truth. Shakespeare, in “Henry VI, Part 1,” portrayed Joan of Arc as a witch, in keeping with British views at the time, Hobbins said. In the early 19th century, Friedrich Schiller, in “The Maid of Orleans,” showed Joan falling in love with an English knight. “That didn’t happen,” Hobbins said. “She has been reimagined forever to suit contemporary needs.”Joan of Arc was tried for heresy in the 15th century and burned at the stake.Helen MurrayLucy Delap, a professor of gender history at the University of Cambridge, said Josephine’s reinvention of Joan of Arc had fed into a debate in Britain that had become “so heightened” that there was little communication between the two sides. A play like “I, Joan” could have been a way to open a conversation that would cross that divide, she said, but it had instead become a “useful dog whistle” for people “who were hot under the collar about trans issues.”Heather Binning of the Women’s Rights Network, a group that aims “to defend the sex-based rights of women,” said in an email that she objected to “I, Joan” because a nonbinary identity was “a 21st-century idea.” Joan of Arc “existed in a time where her struggles were that of being a woman,” she wrote. “Being female, and the biological sex of her body, lies at the root of this story.”Binning said she thought “I, Joan” was “trying to attract attention by riding on the wave of gender identity ideology that is sweeping not just the U.K., but many other countries.”Sitting on the roof terrace of the Globe’s offices last week, Josephine, the playwright, said they had anticipated most of the complaints, and felt they were misguided. The play was not trying to erase women from history, Josephine said. It was meant to open up new ways of thinking about a historical figure. If anyone wanted to keep thinking of Joan as a young woman, they said, “then, cool — you still can.”Josephine, 33, said the French martyr’s story had meant little to them growing up in a working-class family in Hemel Hempstead, southern England. The Globe asked them to write the play last year; the playwright’s main concern, at first, was nothing to do with gender, but how to talk about Joan’s religious beliefs in a way that would resonate with a largely nonreligious theatergoing audience.Thom as Joan of Arc.Helen MurrayMembers of the “I, Joan” cast, including dancers the script describes as “young, queer and fierce.”Helen MurrayJosephine said the decision to make Joan nonbinary came after studying Joan’s life and realizing that Joan of Arc had been willing to die at the stake rather than stop wearing men’s clothing. This was “not a casual fashion statement,” Josephine said. “It was a deep need for them.” Josephine wanted to depict what it would have been like for “a young person in a female body, who is questioning gender in a very different society than what we live in now,” they said. “My younger self really needed a protagonist like this,” they added.Michelle Terry, the Globe’s artistic director, said the playhouse had a history of causing a stir by playing with gender onstage. In 2003, Mark Rylance, the company’s artistic director at the time, upset some patrons with all-female productions of “The Taming of the Shrew” and “Richard III.” More recently, Terry said she received complaints for playing Hamlet there in 2018, and again this year, when the Globe toured a production of “Julius Caesar” in which the main male characters were played by women.“Everyone’s got an idea of how plays should be done and how historical figures should be treated,” she said. All “I, Joan” was doing, Terry said, was asking, “Who is Joan for now?”For all the media fuss, the one place where few people seemed concerned about Joan of Arc’s gender was in the auditorium of the Globe itself. At a recent performance of “I, Joan,” the audience of nearly 1,000 was made up of the theater’s usual mix of British theater lovers, tourists and school groups. At 7:30 p.m., Isobel Thom, who plays Joan, walked onstage and began the show’s opening speech: “Trans people are sacred. We are the divine.” The monologue was interrupted by cheers of support.Audience members seem to have embraced the depiction of Joan of Arc as nonbinary. In interviews with nearly 20 spectators, no one said they had a problem with it.Alex Ingram for The New York TimesRobin van Asselt, 23, a transgender woman from Amsterdam in the audience, said she had cried watching the “casual queerness” onstage. Joan’s “aggressive push to be seen and respected” as nonbinary “was just so cathartic,” van Asselt added.In interviews with nearly 20 more audience members, no one said they had a problem with a nonbinary Joan of Arc. Wanda Forsythe, 72, a retired college administrator on vacation from Toronto, said she “didn’t feel offended as a woman — just that it could have been done a bit better, and shorter.” (The show runs almost three hours.)Jackie Warren, 62, a retired government official, said she and her husband came to two plays at the Globe every year and had picked “I, Joan” at random. Portraying Joan as nonbinary was “really clever,” Warren said.“I’m old, aren’t I?” she added, “so I don’t understand a lot of it. I just think we need to open our hearts to everybody, and I can’t understand why we can’t.” More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Theater

      Hitting the Right Notes When Setting History to Song

      by

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

    • 25 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      Gotham Award

      by

      The Gothams will replace the best actress and best actor categories with a single category for “outstanding lead performance.”Should acting prizes be gender neutral? The question has been percolating for years, with zealous arguments for and against.But the biggest ceremonies that honor acting, aware that change would kick a cultural hornet’s nest, have adhered to tradition. Best actor. Best actress.On Thursday, a significant stop on the annual road to the Oscars broke ranks. The Gotham Awards said that, beginning with its November ceremony, prizes for acting would no longer be broken out by gender. The Gothams will replace its best actress and best actor categories with a single category for outstanding lead performance. For the first time, there will be a category for supporting roles: outstanding supporting performance.Each category can have up to 10 nominees, with the field chosen, per custom, by committees of film critics, festival programmers and film curators. Separate juries made up of writers, directors, actors, producers and other film professionals will determine the final recipients, the same as always. The acting categories at the Gothams previously had five nominees.“There are so many talented nonbinary individuals, and it’s not fair to force them into male and female boxes,” said Jeffrey Sharp, the executive director of the Gotham Film and Media Institute in New York. “We have a really proud history of inclusivity. It’s part of our DNA. But it was time for us to evolve, too.”Will other significant ceremonies follow?“We can only speak for ourselves, but we do have a history of leading the conversation,” Mr. Sharp said, referring to the position the Gotham Awards has as the first significant ceremony of Hollywood’s prize-collecting season.The influential Berlin Film Festival went gender neutral with its performance awards in the spring. Although not taken seriously as markers of artistic achievement, the MTV Movie & TV Awards stopped separating acting prizes by gender in 2017, along with MTV’s Video Music Awards. The Grammys did away with the division in 2012.But none of the organizations behind the most prestigious acting awards — Oscars, BAFTAs, Tonys and Emmys — have indicated that they will take the same action. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which manages the Oscars, has perhaps gone the furthest, telling The New York Times in 2019 that, while it planned to keep its current structure in place, it would “continue to be sensitive to the evolving conversation.” The Academy Awards for best actress and best actor were first presented in 1929.The Screen Actors Guild Awards, Independent Spirit Awards and Golden Globes also have male and female acting categories.The debate has roots in older conversations about whether carving out places in a male-dominated field for one group, in this case women, comes at the cost of excluding others.Those seeking change contend that, in addition to forcing nonbinary performers into boxes, gendered categories give the false appearance that prime roles for women are far more prevalent than they actually are.“We should be more afraid of upholding a discriminatory, sexist policy than we are of abolishing it,” the nonbinary actor Asia Kate Dillon, known for their role on Showtime’s “Billions,” wrote in an essay last year. They added, “There are ultimately, two tangible obstacles to abolishing the actress category at awards shows, and they are — to be blunt — money and feelings.”Supporters of gendered categories say that absent such distinctions, men would dominate the nominees and winners. There are also those who swat away potential change as an example of progressive ideology run amok.Mr. Sharp said that the concern about maintaining an equitable mix of nominees when doing away with gendered categories was “valid.”“In terms of the danger of being skewed one way or another, we have great faith in the individuals who make our nominations decisions,” he said, referring to the Gotham Awards’ committee system. (The New York Times is a corporate sponsor of the awards and had no role in the decision about the new categories.)Mr. Sharp noted that his organization’s longtime “breakthrough actor” award, which will be renamed “breakthrough performer,” has always been gender neutral, having been given to stars like Amy Adams (“Junebug”), Elliot Page (“Juno”), Michael B. Jordan (“Fruitvale Station”) and Mya Taylor (“Tangerine”).The most-recent Gotham Awards ceremony took place in January and was staged virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic. Nicole Beharie was named best actress for her performance in “Miss Juneteenth” and Riz Ahmed won the best actor prize for “Sound of Metal.”The Gotham Film and Media Institute (formerly the Independent Filmmaker Project) also said on Thursday that it had created two new television categories: breakthrough nonfiction series and outstanding performance in a new series.Cara Buckley More