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AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyPopcastSubscribe:Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsTikTok and the Pop Music Rough DraftThe wildly popular platform has reshaped pop during the coronavirus pandemic, and changed how record labels grapple with unpredictable virality.Hosted by Jon Caramanica. Produced by Pedro Rosado.More episodes ofPopcastMarch 13, 2021 • More
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyKelly Marie Tran: ‘I’m Not Afraid Anymore’The actress has left the “Star Wars” bullies behind to star as Disney’s first Southeast Asian princess in “Raya and the Last Dragon.” She says, “I’m finally asking for the things I want.”Kelly Marie Tran in Los Angeles. Three years after enduring vicious online trolls, “I’m a much stronger person now,” she said. “And I have the tools to react to those situations.”Credit…Tracy Nguyen for The New York TimesMarch 5, 2021, 11:24 a.m. ETThere are two Kelly Marie Trans in this story.One is self-assured, confident and eager to show young Asian-American girls that, yes, women who do not have long blond hair, big doe eyes and porcelain skin can get major roles in films.The other is a distant, if prominent, memory.When Tran wrote a scathing essay in The New York Times in August 2018 excoriating a culture that had marginalized her for the color of her skin, she’d just deleted her Instagram posts amid online harassment from “Star Wars” fans. Her performance as Rose Tico, the first lead character in a “Star Wars” film to be played by a woman of color, had been a proud moment for her. But then, she wrote, she started to believe the racist and sexist comments from online trolls. “Their words reinforced a narrative I had heard my whole life,” the Vietnamese-American actress wrote. “That I was ‘other,’ that I didn’t belong, that I wasn’t good enough, simply because I wasn’t like them.”But recent box office successes like “Crazy Rich Asians” and critical hits like “Minari” that have focused on Asian characters have brightened her view of the film industry — and contributed to her own empowerment. “I’m finally asking for the things I want and learning to trust my own opinion,” she said in a video interview from Los Angeles last month. “And I wish so badly that I grew up in a world that taught me how to do that at a younger age.”Tran voices the starring role of the warrior princess Raya (which rhymes with Maya) in the animated film “Raya and the Last Dragon,” out March 5 on Disney+. That makes her the first actress of Southeast Asian descent to play a lead role in an animated Disney movie, a milestone she doesn’t take lightly. “I feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility,” she said. “To be honest, I haven’t slept in, like, two weeks.”Tran’s title character in “Raya and the Last Dragon.” She said she felt “an overwhelming sense of responsibility” as the first actress of Southeast Asian descent to get a lead role in a Disney animated movie.Credit…DisneyIn a conversation, Tran discussed how the “Star Wars” films prepared her for the pressure that comes with being a Disney princess, the boom in Asian and Asian-American screen stories, and the pros and cons of life without social media. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Do you intentionally target barrier-breaking roles?I wish! I never thought in a million years that I would be doing what I’m doing now. I was the first woman of color to have a leading role in a “Star Wars” movie; I’m the first Southeast Asian Disney princess — these are things that no one that had looked like me had done before.In your New York Times essay, you spoke out about the harassment you experienced after your role in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” Given the recent slate of successful Asian and Asian-American films, does it feel like things have shifted in Hollywood?I’m so [expletive] excited that more of these movies like “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Parasite” and “Minari” are being made. I’m really proud to be part of that change in terms of making movies that honor people from those parts of the world. But there have also been a lot of anti-Asian hate crimes recently, so there’s still a lot of work to be done.Would you still have done “Star Wars” knowing the harassment you’d face?[Long pause] I think I would’ve done it anyway. Doing that first movie was so fun — it was like being admitted to Hogwarts. It was like, “This is impossible,” and then I was doing it. I don’t really look back with that much regret anymore. “Star Wars” feels like I fell in love for the first time, and then we had a really bad breakup, and then I learned how to love again, and now I’m in a better relationship with “Raya.” I’ve moved on, and it feels great.Tran with John Boyega in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” After enduring online harassment over her role in the franchise, the actress said, “I don’t really look back with that much regret anymore.”Credit…David James/DisneyHow are you a different person than you were three years ago?I was so afraid and put so much pressure on myself starting out. You feel like you have to do it the right way or else no one else is going to get a chance. But I’m a much stronger person now, and I have the tools to react to those situations when they happen. I’m not afraid anymore. I’m finally making room for myself and asking for the things that I want. God, I wish I knew how to do that 10 years ago!What are some of the things you feel comfortable asking for now?I’ve been very, very loud about the projects I do and don’t want to be involved in. I never want to further a stereotype or take a job that makes me feel like I’m perpetuating some sort of idea about what it is to be Asian. And I’ve been really, really adamant about my boundaries. Leaving social media was so mentally healthy for me, even though I’ve been told over and over again, “Kelly, you’re not going to get brand sponsorships.” I just don’t care, because I know what’s best for myself, and I know that I’m happier than I ever was being on it.What is most encouraging to you about the entertainment industry right now?I’m most inspired by the people who continue to fight in order for their voices to be heard, and not just in the Asian community, but in the Black, trans, L.G.B.T.Q. and other underrepresented communities. On my dark days, when I feel sad and insecure about myself, those are the shows that I watch and the stories that I turn to. It brings me so much hope that people are speaking their truths and actually having people listen.Asked if she sets her sights on barrier-breaking roles, she said, “I wish! I never thought in a million years that I would be doing what I’m doing now.”Credit…Tracy Nguyen for The New York TimesAre microaggressions something you still encounter?I haven’t recently experienced outward racism in the way I experienced it when I was a young child, but now I experience subtle racism in terms of people who are publicly allies but privately complicit. In Hollywood, there are people who outwardly are like, “We believe in this,” and then when you’re actually in the trenches with them, they do things that show you they are actually complicit with white supremacy, and with institutions of power that have allowed specific types of people to get away with injustice over and over and over again.Your Vietnamese name is Loan. When did you start using the name Kelly?The name on my birth certificate is actually Kelly. My parents, who are war refugees from Vietnam, adopted American names when they started working — my dad worked at Burger King for almost 40 years, and my mom worked at a funeral home. And they gave their children American names. I didn’t realize it until I was older, but it was them protecting us so that people wouldn’t mispronounce our names. But I didn’t realize until later on that it was also an erasure of culture. It makes my heart hurt a lot to think about it.What advice do you have for young Asian-American actors?Do not blame yourself if someone is not educated enough to understand that there are different types of people in the world who exist and who deserve to be heard. Do not internalize racism, do not internalize misogyny, make space for yourself and ask for what you want, because no one else is going to make space for you.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLady Gaga’s Dog Walker Recalls Being Shot and Cradling ‘Guardian Angel’ DogRyan Fischer wrote on Instagram about his “recovery from a very close call with death.”Ryan Fischer posted this image of himself on Instagram in 2017.Credit…Ben AlfonsoMarch 1, 2021Lady Gaga’s dog walker recounted in a vivid Instagram post on Monday his frantic thoughts in the moments after he was shot in Los Angeles last week by two men who stole two of the singer’s French bulldogs and left him in a pool of blood.Referring to Asia, a third dog owned by the singer, the dog walker, Ryan Fischer, wrote that as “blood poured from my gun shot wound, an angel trotted over and laid next to me. My panicked screams calmed as I looked at her, even though it registered that the blood pooling around her tiny body was my own.”Mr. Fischer, who did not immediately respond to a message on Instagram, wrote that he was “still in recovery from a very close call with death” and “will write and say more later.”The Feb. 24 shooting took place around 9:40 p.m. local time as Mr. Fischer was walking north on Sierra Bonita Avenue in Hollywood, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.As of Monday, the Police Department had not announced an arrest in the case, nor released information about the woman who returned the dogs, unharmed, to the police two days later.“Investigators are still working the case, and the investigation is still ongoing,” Capt. Stacy D. Spell, a spokeswoman for the department, said in an email on Monday. She also referred to a statement the police released last week, saying they would not discuss the woman who returned the dogs, nor the location of where they were found, “due to the active criminal investigation and for her safety.”A report by The Associated Press on Friday quoted Capt. Jonathan Tippett of the department as saying that the woman who took the dogs to the police station appeared to be “uninvolved and unassociated” with the attack.Mr. Fischer’s Instagram posts, which accompanied pictures of him in a hospital bed, included praise for family and friends, as well as for emergency personnel and health care workers: “you literally saved my life and helped me take newborn walks, I can’t thank you enough.”What exactly led to the attack is not clear. Most of what is publicly known comes from surveillance video from a nearby home.On it, Mr. Fischer is seen walking on a sidewalk, which is partly obscured by a fence, as a white car pulls up next to him. Two men exit the car and tussle with Mr. Fischer. He screams repeatedly and moments later, a gunshot is heard. “Help me, I’ve been shot,” Mr. Fischer can be heard saying just after the car drives away. “I’ve been shot. Oh my god.”Mr. Fischer recalled that exact moment, writing on Instagram, “I cradled Asia as best I could, thanked her for all the incredible adventures we’d been on together, apologized that I couldn’t defend her brothers, and then resolved that I would still try to save them… and myself.”“I looked backed at my guardian angel. I smiled at her shaking form, thankful that at least she would be ‘okay,’” he added.When emergency medical workers treated Mr. Fischer, he was cradling the dog, according to KABC-TV, which had a helicopter over the scene.Officer Jeff Lee, also a spokesman for the Police Department, said last week that a semiautomatic handgun was believed used in the attack.The once-stolen dogs are named Koji and Gustav and belong to Lady Gaga, who had offered a $500,000 reward for information about them, a representative for the singer said. Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, announced in 2016 that she had added a black-and-white puppy to her family of dogs, which included two named Koji and Asia.At the time, she named the puppy “cowpig and moopig” before naming it Gustav. She has featured the dogs in her social media posts over the years.In his Instagram post on Monday, Mr. Fischer included a message to Lady Gaga: “your babies are back and the family is whole… we did it!”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyChris Harrison to Step Away From ‘The Bachelor’ After ‘Harmful’ CommentsThe reality television show’s longtime host will be absent for an unspecified amount of time. He has come under fire after making remarks he now acknowledges were dismissive of racism.“I invoked the term ‘woke police,’ which is unacceptable,” Chris Harrison, the host of “The Bachelor,” said on Instagram. “I am ashamed over how uninformed I was. I was so wrong.”Credit…Richard Shotwell/Invision, via Associated PressFeb. 13, 2021, 7:36 p.m. ETChris Harrison, the longtime host of “The Bachelor,” announced on Saturday that he would be “stepping aside for a period of time” from the flagship reality television show, which he helped develop into a national obsession, after coming under fire for making comments that he acknowledged were dismissive of racism.In an Instagram post, Mr. Harrison said he had made the decision after consulting with ABC and Warner Bros. and would also not participate in the “After the Final Rose Special.”Media representatives for ABC, which broadcasts the show, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not clear what exactly Mr. Harrison’s “stepping aside” would entail.The move by Mr. Harrison and the controversy surrounding his remarks are likely to send shock waves through “Bachelor” Nation and dampen a trailblazing season that features the first Black bachelor, Matt James.Before Mr. James, there had been only one other Black lead, Rachel L. Lindsay. In an interview on “Extra” with Ms. Lindsay this week, Mr. Harrison had sought to defend a current “Bachelor” contestant. That contestant has since apologized for what she said were racist “actions.”“I invoked the term ‘woke police,’ which is unacceptable,” Mr. Harrison wrote on Instagram, adding, using an abbreviation for Black and Indigenous people and people of color: “I am ashamed over how uninformed I was. I was so wrong. To the Black community, to the BIPOC community: I am so sorry. My words were harmful.”“This historic season of ‘The Bachelor’ should not be marred or overshadowed by my mistakes or diminished by my actions,” he continued, before announcing that he would step aside.The tangled situation that resulted in Mr. Harrison’s statement Saturday was ignited by his interview with Ms. Lindsay and involves Rachael Kirkconnell, a current contestant on the show whom many believe to be a front-runner.In recent weeks, Ms. Kirkconnell has faced scrutiny on social media platforms from users who have produced photos and other materials that purport to show her liking and participating in cultural appropriation and attending an “Old South” plantation-themed ball. Ms. Lindsay asked Mr. Harrison about the controversy surrounding Ms. Kirkconnell, and Mr. Harrison issued a staunch defense.He called for “grace” and assailed Ms. Kirkconnell’s critics as being “judge, jury, executioner.”“People are just tearing this girl’s life apart,” he said. “It’s just unbelievably alarming to watch this.”At one point in the interview, Mr. Harrison appeared to downplay the significance of a photo that purported to show Ms. Kirkconnell at the “Old South” antebellum-themed party, drawing pushback from Ms. Lindsay, who at 31 was cast as the first Black star of “The Bachelorette” in a season that aired in 2017.On Thursday, Mr. Harrison offered an initial apology on Instagram, saying he had caused harm “by wrongly speaking in a manner that perpetuates racism.”Then, on Friday in a podcast she co-hosts, Ms. Lindsay spoke out about the interview with Mr. Harrison. She said Mr. Harrison had apologized to her but said she was “having a really, really hard time” accepting his apology.“I can’t take it anymore,” she said, speaking broadly about her frustration with the franchise’s handling of race. “I’m contractually bound in some ways, but when it’s up — I am so — I can’t, I can’t do it anymore.”Ms. Kirkconnell also posted an apology on Instagram. While she did not directly confirm the veracity of the photos and other content posted online, she said her actions had been racist.“I’m here to say I was wrong,” she wrote in her post. “I was ignorant, but my ignorance was racist.”Mr. Harrison then offered his fuller apology on Saturday in the post in which he announced he was stepping away from the show for an unspecified amount of time.As the franchise has become somewhat more diverse, “The Bachelor” has also wrestled more awkwardly with race.In 2017, when Ms. Lindsay’s season as the first Black bachelorette aired, one contestant’s racist tweets were excavated; another called her a “girl from the hood.” She is from Dallas, where her father is a federal judge.In 2019, when contestants traveled to Singapore, they were unable to make sense of that city’s internationally famous food markets.In 2020, a contestant lost the prize of a cover of Cosmopolitan magazine when it was discovered she had modeled White Lives Matter merchandise.The franchise creates and recirculates a pantheon’s worth of former contestants, building dozens of brands each year that may become useful to the franchise or may be discarded.Sometimes past contestants re-enter the cluster of “Bachelor” shows (which include “Bachelor in Paradise,” a hookup-oriented bacchanal that brings together fan favorites and villains), but these careers often go on to exist just on social media, where people do sponsored content for toilet paper and start gyms.But in this case, in a rare show of solidarity, past contestants came together to speak up. For instance, the men of Season 16 of “The Bachelorette” came together to make a statement.Vocal online fans have included those in Reddit’s thebachelor channel, where hard-core followers of the show have blasted Mr. Harrison — and at least one popular post this week suggested boycotting the show entirely as viewers.Evan Nicole Brown and Choire Sicha contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA New Generation Pushes Nashville to Address Racism in Its RanksA small contingent of country artists and industry players have been speaking up in a business that likes to shut down dissent.Mickey Guyton, the only Black female country singer signed to a major label, quickly tweeted a challenge to Nashville after the star Morgan Wallen was caught on video using a racial slur.Credit…Mark Humphrey/Associated PressFeb. 12, 2021Less than 30 minutes after TMZ posted a video of the country star Morgan Wallen using a racial slur on Feb. 2, Mickey Guyton, the only Black female country singer signed to a major label, tweeted her reaction: “The hate runs deep.”She added, “How many passes will you continue to give?” and “So what exactly are y’all going to do about it. Crickets won’t work this time.”A few other mainstream country artists commented about the incident on social media, but many figured Nashville would do as it has almost always done when one of its stars is under fire: circle the wagons and shut up. “It’s been the norm for country artists to stay silent and not use their platform for controversy,” said Leslie Fram, CMT’s senior vice president of music strategy.By the following day though, radio conglomerates including iHeartMedia, Cumulus and Entercom pulled Wallen’s songs from rotation at hundreds of stations, and major streaming services removed him from playlists. CMT stopped running his videos. The Academy of Country Music declared him ineligible for its upcoming awards. All this while Wallen’s second album, “Dangerous: The Double Album,” topped the Billboard 200 chart for the third straight week.While Guyton’s tweets alone weren’t responsible for the swift rebuke, she is one of a small contingent of mostly female artists — among them Cam, Maren Morris, Margo Price and Amanda Shires — and industry players whose advocacy has pushed the country music business to begin confronting issues of racism and diversity that go beyond one artist’s misdeeds.“I was really encouraged by how fast every group in the industry showed up,” said Cam, a Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter. “But I don’t think aha moments to call someone on something so ingrained in everyone is going to be the tide changer.”“I’d assume a lot of males aren’t speaking out because they’re comfortable in their places of power and money,” said Amanda Shires.Credit…Mark Zaleski/Associated PressThe work these women do isn’t easy to quantify. Much of it is about deliberately nudging the public conversation in Nashville toward uncomfortable questions about racial equity. That can mean using social media to trumpet a book like Layla F. Saad’s “Me and White Supremacy” or excoriate the band formerly known as Lady Antebellum for tangling with a Black artist over the name Lady A. Other times, it’s participating in diversity and inclusion task forces. In November, when Morris was named female vocalist of the year at the Country Music Association Awards, she used her acceptance speech to highlight the struggle of Black women in country music, including Guyton, Rissi Palmer, Yola and Brittney Spencer.That it’s often been a group of women who speak the loudest is perhaps unsurprising. Female artists have faced huge barriers in the industry themselves, from sexual harassment and objectification to unwritten rules limiting airplay for women.“In the female experience, you understand what it is to be the underdog, to come into a situation that’s mostly white-male-driven and try to assert yourself,” said Palmer, who hosts an Apple Music radio show called Color Me Country that spotlights the genre’s Black, Indigenous and Latino roots.Shires, a singer-songwriter who also performs alongside Morris in the Highwomen, put it bluntly: “I’d assume a lot of males aren’t speaking out because they’re comfortable in their places of power and money. Why would they want it to change?”The story of male artists’ dominance in country music is a long-running one. Between 2014 and 2018, 84 percent of artists on Billboard’s year-end country charts were men, according to a study by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California.The relative silence of many of country’s biggest stars, male and female, is partly habit but also partly economics. Whether stars and gatekeepers are indifferent to racism or not, they fear fans are.“If they’re worried they’re going to financially take a fall, they keep their mouths shut,” said Price. “They’d rather keep that rebel dollar.”“For three days, I was threatened, called a racist, a bigot, a nobody,” Rissi Palmer said of the consequences of speaking up online after Charley Pride’s death.Credit… Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesBut crediting these mostly white women for being country’s social conscience is itself indicative of the larger problem. “White women speaking up is a result of we don’t let Black women speak up,” said Cam. With a few frequently noted exceptions, in Nashville, she said, “Black people aren’t even allowed in the door, cannot be in writing rooms, cannot get signed, don’t have a Twitter following, so you never hear them.”Part of this work is amplifying those marginalized voices. Shires and Morris have worked with both Spencer and Yola. Morris, Cam and Guyton are part of a group text with Palmer and Andrea Williams, a Black journalist and author based in Nashville, where they share reading suggestions, relay personal experiences and strategize.“How is it that two white women even partially understand what the experience is like for Black people in country?” asked Cam. “It’s because we’re learning from Black women. We watched what’s going on with Mickey and talked to her.” Cam said she and Morris use their platforms to share what they’re learning more widely.Williams, a lively Twitter presence, hasn’t shied from needling the ideologically like-minded — including Morris, and Shires’ husband, Jason Isbell — when she feels they’ve fallen short in bids to be good allies. “I’d rather people not say anything than say the wrong thing,” she said. “Sometimes, you need to listen and learn.” She pointed out that two of the first artists to respond to the Wallen incident, Kelsea Ballerini and Cassadee Pope, posted that his behavior “does not represent” country music.“That’s more hurtful than people who didn’t say anything because you’re diminishing the very real experiences of people who know for a fact this is actually indicative of the way this entire industry works,” she said.Cam stressed the importance of white artists listening to and learning from Black people before speaking out: “We watched what’s going on with Mickey and talked to her.”Credit…Frank Hoensch/Redfern, via Getty ImagesAccording to Williams, focusing on gender obscures country music’s “original sin”: “Country was created with the sole intent of marketing to a particular racial demographic. We divided Southern music into white hillbilly records and Black race records. This dividing line is as stark now as in the 1920s,” she said.This current reckoning traces to last summer’s nationwide Black Lives Matter protests. Just days after George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police, Guyton released the startlingly personal “Black Like Me” and country’s only mainstream male artists of color — Darius Rucker, Kane Brown and Jimmie Allen — spoke forthrightly about their own experiences, while the rest of the country music industry largely struggled to meet the moment. Other artists and executives were quick to share supportive hashtags but in a genre where mainstream Black performers can be counted on one hand and Black faces are hardly any more common behind the scenes, their efforts felt insubstantial.Lorie Liebig, a Nashville-based publicist and journalist, began compiling a Google Doc tracking what country artists had posted — or not posted — in support of Black Lives Matter. Shires was among the first to share the spreadsheet widely, but as it was disseminated, the harshest reactions often were aimed at Liebig herself.“There was a day when it first hit, my Twitter was just cascading with negative responses,” she said. “A lot were saying I was racist toward white people. I ended up being doxxed. They posted my parents’ address.”Many of these women have faced similar bile. “I’ve been called pretty much every name in the book,” said Price. “I’ve had people send me threatening DMs. I’m sure it’s cost me album and ticket sales.”After the Black country pioneer Charley Pride’s death in December, Palmer criticized eulogies that whitewashed his legacy. “For three days, I was threatened, called a racist, a bigot, a nobody,” she said. “I’ve been called a Nazi propagandist, which was my favorite.”But the steady pressure these women have been exerting seems to be starting to shift the conversation. While it remains to be seen whether the consequences Wallen has faced signal any enduring appetite for change — he returned for a fourth week at No. 1 after the incident, and was not roundly condemned by Nashville, where defenders and sympathetic voices spoke up on his behalf — there are signs the ground is moving. Four of the 10 acts chosen for CMT’s “Next Women of Country” this year are Black. The National Museum of African American Music recently opened in downtown Nashville — across the street from country music’s symbolic home, the Ryman Auditorium.“We’re a long way from seeing sweeping changes but every time the light bulb goes on for somebody else, we’re closer,” said Williams. “Because as we all come together, and we’re all firing texts back and forth at midnight in these group chats, we’re more powerful than any of us as individuals. All we need is more people to join the fight.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGina Carano Is Off ‘Mandalorian’ Amid Backlash Over Instagram PostLucasfilm’s statement came hours after a new backlash against the actress, who on Instagram compared “hating someone for their political views” to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.The actress Gina Carano as Cara Dune in the second season of “The Mandalorian,” Disney’s hit “Star Wars” spinoff series.Credit…Disney+Feb. 11, 2021Updated 4:56 p.m. ETThe actress Gina Carano, who starred as Cara Dune in the “Star Wars” spinoff series “The Mandalorian” on Disney+, on Wednesday compared “hating someone for their political views” to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust in an Instagram post, her latest social media post to create a fan backlash.Lucasfilm, the company within Disney that owns the show and the rest of the “Star Wars” franchise, condemned her comments and said in a statement that she was “not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future.”“Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable,” Lucasfilm said in a statement.Ms. Carano was also dropped by her agency, UTA, according to The Hollywood Reporter.The Instagram post, which re-shared an image from a different account, is no longer visible on her page. It led to thousands of complaints on social media, where many people used the hashtag #FireGinaCarano, not for the first time. (Some conservatives, who viewed her posts as a matter of free speech, countered with #CancelDisneyPlus.)In September, Ms. Carano added “beep/bop/boop” to her Twitter bio, which many saw as mockery of people who list their pronouns. She denied that accusation and said she was responding to people who asked her to list her pronouns, “exposing the bullying mentality of the mob that has taken over the voices of many genuine causes.”She said she talked with her “Mandalorian” co-star Pedro Pascal, who “helped me understand why people were putting them in their bios.” (Mr. Pascal would later publicly support his sister, Lux Pascal, an actress who came out as transgender this week.)Ms. Carano has also mocked the use of masks and the need for vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic, and embraced baseless claims of voter fraud after the presidential election.Before she shifted to acting, she was one of the world’s top female mixed-martial artists and performed for two years on “American Gladiator” under the stage name Crush. She appeared in seven episodes of “The Mandalorian” as a trusty ally of the protagonist, played by Mr. Pascal, and is otherwise known for roles in “Haywire,” “Deadpool” and “Fast & Furious 6.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Britney Spears’s Legal BattleControl of Spears’s EstateThe ‘Free Britney’ MovementWatch ‘Framing Britney Spears’ in the U.S.Making the DocumentaryAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTimes InsiderBehind the Making of ‘Framing Britney Spears’The director and a senior editor of the Times documentary answered viewer questions about the media response, the star’s mother and searching for clues on Instagram.A new documentary from The New York Times examines the so-called Free Britney movement made up of fans of the pop star Britney Spears.CreditCredit…G. Paul Burnett/The New York TimesFeb. 11, 2021Updated 2:22 p.m. ETTimes Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.The premiere last week of the film “Framing Britney Spears,” part of the TV documentary series “The New York Times Presents,” looked closely at Ms. Spears’s legal battle with her father, Jamie Spears, over control of her finances. For more than a decade, that control has been held largely by Mr. Spears in a conservatorship, a complex legal arrangement typically used for the sick or elderly.Since the film’s release on FX and Hulu, celebrities and fans have expressed their support for Ms. Spears on social media. The latest court hearing in the fight was scheduled for Thursday in Los Angeles. On Wednesday, Samantha Stark, the director, and Liz Day, a senior editor on the film, answered questions from readers in an “Ask Me Anything” session on the website Reddit. The following are edited excerpts.Were there any legal hurdles you faced in making the film?LIZ DAY We did not receive any direct legal threats while making the documentary. Reporting any investigative story requires extreme attention to factual accuracy and fairness, and this project was no different, though it was made even more difficult by an ongoing court case, attorney-client privilege, medical privacy, celebrity nondisclosure agreements, distrust of the press and other factors.What is the involvement of Lynne Spears, Britney’s mother, in all of this?SAMANTHA STARK So what we know about Lynne Spears is that she is not legally a part of Britney’s conservatorship team. We know she recently petitioned to be included to have access to more information and to be able to have her lawyer speak during the hearings, and that she filed as an “interested party” to do that.It’s unclear what involvement Lynne had related to the conservatorship up until recently. In a Nov. 10 hearing, Lynne said, through her lawyer (and I’m paraphrasing) that she thanked Jamie for the work he had been doing but that she wanted Britney to wake up to see brighter days. It’s very hard to understand what role Jamie, Lynne or a number of other people have played throughout the conservatorship because so many of the court records are sealed.What’s your view on the media response to the documentary? It feels as if many of the outlets that disparaged Britney years ago are now doing thinkpieces about how the media destroyed her.STARK There’s one thing I noticed in the past week doing interviews with media outlets that I never even thought of before the film came out. When Britney was being shamed for her sexuality as a teenager and stalked as a young adult, the gatekeepers to all these media outlets — the ones doing the shaming — were in their 30s, 40s, 50s. We as teenagers watched that happen. Now that my/our generation are a lot of the gatekeepers, we’re saying “no more.”How should those media outlets respond after playing a part in all the derision that Britney endured?STARK I think they should respond by not ever doing anything like it ever again. I think they should take a note from Britney’s book and be kindhearted, open and nonjudgmental.Did you contact any of Britney’s ex-husbands or boyfriends, like Jason Alexander, Kevin Federline, Jason Trawick or Charlie Ebersol, or some of her photographers/videographers, like David LaChappelle and Nigel Dick?DAY Yes, at the end of the doc we listed the members of Ms. Spears’s family who we requested on-camera interviews with but who did not respond or declined. But we reached out to a lot more people than just that list, including the ex-husbands/boyfriends mentioned. We spoke with Nigel Dick and reached out to David LaChappelle too. There were many people we spoke with on background who did not appear on camera. There were also a few people whose on-camera interviews we did not include because of time.Britney Spears hasn’t been able to fully control her career for 13 years under a court-sanctioned conservatorship. A New York Times documentary, now streaming on FX and Hulu, examines the pop star’s court battle with her father for control of her estate.CreditCredit…Ting-Li Wang/The New York TimesWhat are your thoughts on the obsessive Britney fans who question and dissect her social media posts?STARK There’s such a tight circle around Ms. Spears, seemingly enabled by the conservatorship, that it’s really hard to ask her how she is or what she thinks. We know that she hasn’t done interviews in a long time and that when she did for many years she was likely under very careful watch. So I honestly think it makes sense for people to look to her Instagram to try and parse how she might be doing. It’s the only place we’ve been able to see or hear from her for quite some time.Did you look at the financial records? Forbes has estimated her wealth at $60 million. Shouldn’t it be higher?DAY Excellent question. Britney’s true net worth is a mystery, and there’s speculation that there may be a lot more money beyond $60 million outside of her estate, in trusts or elsewhere as royalties, intellectual property and more. There are lots of companies set up as private LLCs, of which records are scant. One thing I would add is that often when you hear big Hollywood paychecks, you have to consider everyone who is taking a cut — managers, lawyers and government taxes, for example.Did you expect this film would result in a big resurgence of the #FreeBritney movement?STARK When making a film, I never know what parts of the piece will hit people in the emotional gut. I really had no idea this would happen.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody were mystified when some of the videos they made with their son while waiting out the pandemic in upstate New York were viewed more than a million times.Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesThe Great ReadScenes From a Marriage, Patinkin-StyleMandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody’s charming, irreverent pandemic-era posts led to unlikely social media stardom. Will the vaccine end their run?Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody were mystified when some of the videos they made with their son while waiting out the pandemic in upstate New York were viewed more than a million times.Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 3, 2021Updated 1:27 p.m. ETMandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody have been together since their first date nearly 43 years ago, a giddy daylong romp through Greenwich Village that began with brunch and ended with them making out on a street corner. “I’m going to marry you,” he declared. “You’re going to get hurt, because I’m not going to marry anyone,” she replied.Their wedding was two years later, in 1980. But like many long-term couples, their partnership has thrived in part because they are away from each other so much. Grody, 74, is an Obie Award-winning actress and writer; Patinkin, 68, finished the final season of “Homeland” last year and spent the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 on a 30-city concert tour.In March, they left Manhattan for their cabin in upstate New York and embarked, like so many of us, on something radically different: months of uninterrupted time together. The result is a matter of public record, because scenes from their marriage — in all its talky, squabbly, emotional, affectionate glory — are all over social media, courtesy of their son Gideon, 34, who started recording them for fun and then realized that there was a vast demand for Patinkin-related content.Patinkin said that “being with my family holed up for 11 months has been one of the true gifts of my life.” Grody urged their son Gideon, who made their videos, not to portray them simply as an “adorable older couple” but to “get some of our annoyance in there.”Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesFor months, people have scrolled through Twitter, Instagram and TikTok to watch Grody and Patinkin debate, declaim, snuggle, bicker, horse around, play with their dog, Becky, obsess about politics and display their (lack of) knowledge about such topics as text-speak and the New York pizza rat. More recently, the world has followed along as they got their first doses of the vaccine (“one of the few benefits of being old,” Patinkin wrote).Now, as they near the first anniversary of all that togetherness, they say that except for desperately missing their older son, Isaac, who lives in Colorado and recently got married, they feel lucky to be together. “There’s no question,” Patinkin said. “Being with my family holed up for 11 months has been one of the true gifts of my life.”As this phase of the pandemic nears its end, do they plan to turn their unlikely social-media fame into a family sitcom or reality TV show? No, says Gideon, although they have gotten endless inquiries. For one thing, his parents can barely operate the video functions on their phones, and eventually he will again have to leave them to their own devices. “Once the world is vaccinated and living life is back in vogue, I might have to teach them how to do selfie videos,” he said. “That should be something.”After the first few videos last spring, Grody exhorted Gideon not to portray them simply as an “adorable older couple,” she said. “You have to get some of our annoyance in there,” she told him.What annoyance? In dueling interviews, the couple outlined the many ways they irritate each other. Patinkin hates the way his wife amasses old newspapers, like a hoarder. Grody hates how, when she fails to answer her husband’s calls, he redials incessantly — three, four, five times — until she picks up. She likes podcasts; he likes rewiring the house. She is a “social maniac,” Patinkin said; he “likes humanity in general, but very few specific people,” Grody said.In one video, they tell Gideon how they celebrated their anniversary the day before.“It began lovely, and turned into an absolute fight,” Patinkin says. “Both of us lost.”“I apologized and that made dad cry,” Grody says. “We’ve always connected through weeping.”The response was so positive, with people posting that the couple reminded them of themselves or their parents or just brought joy at a dark time, that Gideon now advises other young adults confined at home to embark on similar projects. “I became astonished at how much I could get out of them,” he said.Their efforts expanded this summer and through the election. Patinkin has long volunteered for the International Rescue Committee, a nonprofit humanitarian organization, and Gideon encouraged his parents to use their growing social media base — now 250,000-plus on Twitter, 155,000-plus on Instagram, 940,000-plus on TikTok — to work for Democratic candidates in the presidential and Senate elections.The couple took part in virtual fund-raisers; did endless phone banking; danced, sang, cooked and goofed around. Enlisting the services of the writer and director Ewen Wright, they recorded TikTok campaign spots, like one in which Patinkin tells young people to get their parents and grandparents to vote, and then twerks to a remix of the song “Stand By Me.” Mystifyingly to them, some of their videos have been viewed more than a million times.Will the show go on? After their cameraman — one of their sons, Gideon — is vaccinated and returns to his daily life, Patinkin and Grody will be left to their own devices, literally.Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York Times“I don’t understand this stuff,” said Grody, who on one video can be seen trying to explain what she thinks TikTok is: “a communication tool” that encourages “young people to meet various kinds of other young people.”All the while, Gideon kept filming, adding new nuances to what has turned into a portrait of a complex marriage.It has not been without its adversities. (“They are an exquisite mess, but theirs is a deeply rich joy,” is how Gideon put it.) For one thing, there is Patinkin’s self-proclaimed moodiness. Once, he related, he was so unpleasant in the car en route to visit a relative that Gideon, then a teenager, said, ‘Dad, if you can’t get it together, don’t come in.” (He didn’t come in.) Another time, he felt so trapped and sulky before Thanksgiving — a difficult time of the year for him — that he decided to fly to New Orleans to spare his family, only to change his mind and demand, successfully, to exit the plane before it took off.“Everyone in the family knows I’m a (synonym for jerk),” Patinkin said. “But they know me and they love me and they forgive me, and that’s why I feel safe. The word ‘safe’ is such an operative word at this moment.”By that he meant the pandemic, and how lucky it is to be with someone who makes you feel secure in a time of insecurity.“There have been times during this whole period — sometimes I don’t even know what triggered them — there are times when I wake up and I find myself weeping, and she holds me and no words are spoken,” Patinkin said of his wife.“I married a woman who knew a guy was nuts, and she has loved me and stood by me and educated me and politicized me,” he continued. Or, as Grody said: “I used to say that I was supposed to marry a rock so I could be the lunatic, but instead I married a lunatic and I’ve had to be the rock.”They have separated twice in the course of their marriage, once for six months, the other for eight months.“We spoke to each other every day; we saw each other every day,” Patinkin said. “We couldn’t be apart.”“It was ridiculous, to tell you the truth,” Grody said. “I would say, ‘Don’t you know we’re supposed to be separated?’ As difficult as our problems were, it was far more difficult to be without each other.”They love describing how they met. They told the story in separate interviews, each observing that the other would focus on totally different details.Her version includes noticing her future husband in a 7Up commercial, circa 1970, a full eight years before they met. She then noticed him again in 1975, in his debut theater performance — the premiere of “Trelawny of the Wells,” which also starred Meryl Streep, Mary Beth Hurt and John Lithgow. She found the young Patinkin so appealing from afar that she turned to her then-boyfriend and said, “He’s my type — what am I doing with you?”Patinkin’s version includes how he went to her house for dinner soon after their fateful initial brunch and found that, living in a tiny walk-up in Little Italy, she stored her sweaters in the oven. Mis-following a recipe, she served him chicken covered in raw bacon.“I felt that I had lost my mind,” he said. “I was knocked out by her.”“When I look at Mandy, I see all of the Mandys I’ve ever known, from the person he was then to the person he is now,” Grody said.Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesPatinkin brought up “The Princess Bride,” in which he played Inigo Montoya, a swordsman trying to avenge his father’s death — and which at heart is about the search for true love.“I have found true love,” he said, “and first and foremost, I have it with my wife.”Grody feels the same way.“When I look at Mandy, I see all of the Mandys I’ve ever known, from the person he was then to the person he is now,” she said. “I’m still in love with his face.”In November, the couple appeared together in a video for the Jewish Democratic Council of America. They toasted the election results, exhorted everyone to stay safe. And then he sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in Yiddish, as his wife wept quietly beside him.“To have known somebody all these years, and to have lived this life together, and to have weathered the brutalities of intimacy — it’s a daring thing,” she said. “It’s an astonishing thing.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
