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      Evan Rachel Wood Accuses Marilyn Manson of Abuse

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyEvan Rachel Wood Accuses Marilyn Manson of Abuse“He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years,” Ms. Wood, said on Instagram. Hours later Mr. Manson’s label dropped him.The rock musician Marilyn Manson last year. Mr. Manson and the actress Evan Rachel Wood publicly became a couple in 2007, when she was 19 and he was 38.Credit…Randy Shropshire/Getty Images for The Art of ElysiumJenny Gross and Feb. 1, 2021Updated 6:09 p.m. ETThe actor and singer Evan Rachel Wood, who has spoken publicly for years about being a survivor of sexual and physical violence, said on Monday that she had been abused by the rock musician Marilyn Manson.“The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” Ms. Wood wrote in an Instagram post. “He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission. I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives. I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent.”Ms. Wood, 33, was nominated for a Golden Globe in 2017 for her role in “Westworld” and voiced Queen Iduna in “Frozen 2.” She began acting as a child, receiving her first Golden Globe nomination early in her career for her portrayal of a volatile adolescent in the 2003 drama “Thirteen.”Her relationship with Mr. Manson became public in 2007, when she was 19 and he was 38. The two were briefly engaged.Representatives for Mr. Manson did not respond to several requests for comment on Monday. Last year, Mr. Manson’s representatives issued a statement to Metal Hammer, a music magazine, in response to questions about his relationship with Ms. Wood and her testimony before Congress about being a victim of domestic violence.“Personal testimony is just that, and we think it’s inappropriate to comment on that,” Mr. Manson’s representatives told Metal Hammer. “You then go on to talk about Manson being accused of ‘terrible things’ by unnamed ‘critics’ but offer no guidance on who these critics are and what these things are, so it’s not possible to comment.”Evan Rachel Wood at her home in Los Angeles last year.Credit…Rozette Rago for The New York TimesSeveral other women have also accused Mr. Manson of having abused them. In 2018, the actress Charlyne Yi accused Mr. Manson of harassment in a series of tweets that have since been deleted. In September 2020, Dan Cleary, who said that he had worked as an assistant to Mr. Manson for several years, wrote on Twitter that he had witnessed the singer being abusive.Loma Vista, the label that released Marilyn Manson’s latest recording, said Monday it would stop promoting it and would not work with him in the future.“In light of today’s disturbing allegations by Evan Rachel Wood and other women naming Marilyn Manson as their abuser, Loma Vista will cease to further promote his current album, effective immediately,” it said in a statement posted on Twitter. “Due to these concerning developments, we have also decided not to work with Marilyn Manson on any future projects.”Ms. Wood, who supported a California law that extended the statute of limitations on domestic abuse, testified before the State Senate in 2019 that a man whom she did not identify by name had groomed her when she was 18.“He cut me off from my close friends and family one by one, by exhibiting rage in some form or another when I was in contact with them,” she said in her testimony. “He had bouts of extreme jealousy, which would often result in him wrecking our home, cornering me in a room and threatening me.”She said that she felt terrified for her life, and that he broke her down through starvation and sleep deprivation, and by threatening to kill her. In one instance, he forced her to kneel in their bedroom, tied up her hands and feet, beat her and shocked sensitive parts of her body with a device called a violet wand.When she tried to leave him, he would call her house incessantly, she said.Mr. Manson told Spin magazine in 2009 that he had called Ms. Wood 158 times one day after a breakup. “I have fantasies every day about smashing her skull in with a sledgehammer,” he said.His representatives said last year, in response to questions by Metal Hammer, that Mr. Manson’s comment in Spin was “obviously a theatrical rock star interview promoting a new record.”Mr. Manson described his views on women in a 2015 interview with Dazed, a style magazine.“Girls should always present themselves to you when you come home,” he said. “‘Hi honey, I’m home,’ and she’s wearing lingerie, legs akimbo. ‘Come and get it, honey.’”Ms. Wood told Rolling Stone magazine in 2016 that she had been raped: “By a significant other while we were together. And on a separate occasion, by the owner of a bar.”In recent years, especially after the birth of her son in 2013 and the start of the #MeToo movement, she was galvanized to become an advocate for survivors of domestic abuse, she told The New York Times in a 2018 interview. “If you’re going to be famous, for me it has to mean something, or be used for something, because otherwise it just freaks me out,” she said in the interview.That February, she testified before Congress about what she had endured.“So often we speak of these assaults as no more than a few minutes of awfulness, but the scars last a lifetime,” she said in her testimony, in which she detailed an episode in which she thought she might die at the hands of her abuser. “Not just because my abuser said to me, ‘I could kill you right now.’ But because in that moment, I felt like I left my body. I was too afraid to run, he would find me.”For years afterward, she said, she “struggled with depression, addiction, agoraphobia, night terrors,” and made two suicide attempts; she said she was eventually diagnosed with long-term post-traumatic stress disorder.Before her Congressional hearing about the Survivor’s Bill of Rights, which expanded access to medical care and more for survivors of sexual assault, Ms. Wood said she had hardly uttered the full scope of her trauma to anyone. She had barely processed it herself, she said in the 2018 interview, until she was cast in “Westworld,” the sci-fi drama in which she plays an innocent who slowly awakens to the darkness around her.Ms. Wood has said that she did not report her abuser to authorities because the statute of limitations had long since passed, and that she chose not to name him because she felt she had to come to terms with her own story first. “It took me so long to process everything and to get to a place where I felt even safe enough to speak about the abuse. And it’s scary,” she said in Harper’s Bazaar in 2019.Giving survivors more time was part of her motivation in working on the Phoenix Act, the California bill for which she testified. It passed in 2019, and took effect last year. It lengthens the statute of limitations for domestic abuse felonies to five years, and expands training for officers working on domestic violence cases.In response to Ms. Wood’s allegations on Monday, Susan Rubio, the California state senator who proposed the legislation, and who is herself a survivor of domestic abuse, called for Mr. Manson to be investigated.She said Ms. Wood had been “instrumental” in getting California’s laws changed. “When survivors speak up, they help victims realize they are not alone and empower them to come out of the shadows,” she said. “The more stories we share, the less power we give our abusers.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Jamie Tarses, Executive in a Hollywood Rise-and-Fall Story, Dies at 56

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJamie Tarses, Executive in a Hollywood Rise-and-Fall Story, Dies at 56She broke barriers as a woman in the TV industry and turned out hit after hit, only to see it all fizzle under a very public spotlight.Jamie Tarses in 1996. At 32 she was named president of entertainment at ABC, the first woman ever to serve as a network’s top programmer.Credit…Steve GoldsteinFeb. 1, 2021, 3:09 p.m. ETLOS ANGELES — A young, female executive arrives in the men’s locker room that was broadcast television in the 1990s and snaps a few towels of her own, working with writers to shape juggernaut comedies like “Mad About You” and “Friends.” She is so good at spotting hits that she becomes, at 32, the president of entertainment at ABC, the first woman ever to serve as a network’s top programmer.But she fizzles in epic fashion, brought down by corporate dysfunction, unvarnished sexism, self-sabotage, weaponized industry gossip and scalding news media scrutiny.Such was the show business life of Jamie Tarses, who died on Monday in Los Angeles at 56. Her death was confirmed by a family spokeswoman, who said the cause was “complications from a cardiac event.” She suffered a stroke in the fall and had spent a long period in a coma.Ms. Tarses (pronounced TAR-siss) broke a Hollywood glass ceiling in 1996, when she became president of ABC Entertainment. ABC badly needed fresh hit shows, and Ms. Tarses, who had worked at NBC, had a reputation for serving up a steady supply — especially zeitgeist-tapping sitcoms. She had shepherded the cuddly “Mad About You” and the neurotic “Frasier” to NBC’s prime-time lineup. “Friends,” which she had helped develop, was the envy of every network.“Jamie had a remarkable ability to engage writers — to understand their twisted, dark, joyful, brilliant complexity and really speak their language and help them achieve their creative goals,” said Warren Littlefield, who was NBC’s president of entertainment from 1991 to 1998. “She was highly creative herself and, of course, came from a family of writers.” (Her father, Jay Tarses, wrote for “The Carol Burnett Show” and created “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,” an acclaimed comedic drama, from 1987 to ’91. Her brother, the comedy writer Matt Tarses, has credits like “Scrubs” and “The Goldbergs.”)Even so, Ms. Tarses faced extreme challenges.Upstart broadcast competitors — the scrappy Fox, UPN, the WB — were siphoning young adult viewers away from the Big Three networks. So were cable channels. In 1996, about 49 percent of prime-time viewers watched ABC, CBS or NBC, down from roughly 74 percent a decade earlier, according to Nielsen data. HBO was moving into original programming with shows like “Sex and the City,” further diluting the talent pool.The Walt Disney Company had purchased ABC shortly before Ms. Tarses arrived, heightening Wall Street scrutiny and intensifying corporate politics. “ABC was a snake pit in those days,” said Jon Mandel, who ran MediaCom, a television ad-buying agency. “Some people spent more time trying to assassinate internal rivals than actually doing their jobs.”Ms. Tarses in 1997 as president of ABC Entertainment. At NBC she had served up a steady supply of hit sitcoms, including “Mad About You,”  “Frasier” and “Friends.” Credit…Kevork Djansezian/Associated PressThen came The Article.After a year at ABC, Ms. Tarses, who had alienated some colleagues by not returning calls and missing morning meetings, gave the journalist Lynn Hirschberg unfettered access for an 8,000-word cover story in The New York Times Magazine. The piece portrayed Ms. Tarses as “a nervous girl” who swung erratically between arrogance and insecurity. “Women are emotional, and Jamie is particularly emotional,” one male agent, speaking anonymously, was quoted as saying. “You think of her as a girl, and it changes how you do business with her.”The article, which pointedly discussed Ms. Tarses’s hairstyle and feminine way of sitting, helped color the rest of Ms. Tarses’s career. Once someone is typecast in Hollywood, even as an executive, getting people to see that person in a different light can be a never-ending battle.“A lot of it was pure sexism,” said Betsy Thomas, a screenwriter and friend.Even so, Ms. Tarses was criticized at times as showing poor judgment. In 1998, ABC hosted more than 100 television critics and entertainment journalists from across the United States at a promotional event in Pasadena, Calif. ABC stars were also invited, including a young Ryan Reynolds, then appearing on a sitcom called “Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.” As the evening wore on, reporters witnessed Ms. Tarses and Mr. Reynolds go outside and become amorous.The indiscretion, which was reported on by some newspapers, contributed to a narrative that had congealed around Ms. Tarses: She was too impetuous for such a big job.Her bosses, including Robert A. Iger, then chairman of the ABC Group, had been applying patches to the situation. A veteran television executive, Stuart Bloomberg, was installed above Ms. Tarses. Then, as part of a restructuring, yet another manager, Lloyd Braun, was placed over her in what was essentially a demotion. Vicious infighting ensued, what The Wall Street Journal later deemed “a case study in dysfunctional corporate relationships.”Thomas Gibson and Jenna Elfman in 1998 in “Dharma & Greg,” a popular sitcom that Ms. Tarses developed at ABC. Credit…Jerry Fitzgerald/ABCMs. Tarses resigned in 1999. She left ABC with one popular sitcom, “Dharma & Greg,” and one comedy that was a hit with critics, Aaron Sorkin’s “Sports Night.” She also put “The Practice,” a popular legal drama from David E. Kelley, on the ABC schedule.“I just don’t want to play anymore,” she told The Los Angeles Times when she left ABC. “The work is a blast. The rest of this nonsense I don’t need.”Sara James Tarses was born in Pittsburgh on March 16, 1964 to Jay and Rachel (Newdell) Tarses. The family moved to suburban Los Angeles, where her father became a successful sitcom writer (first on “The Bob Newhart Show”).Ms. Tarses attended Williams College in Massachusetts, studying play structure and receiving a theater degree in 1985. She was a production assistant on “Saturday Night Live” in New York for a season before returning to Los Angeles in 1986 to become a casting director for Lorimar Productions. She joined NBC in 1987 in the “current” comedy programming division (shows already on the air), where she monitored scripts for shows like “Cheers” and “A Different World,” starring Lisa Bonet.Brandon Tartikoff, NBC’s much-admired entertainment chief, became her mentor. He swiftly promoted Ms. Tarses to the network’s comedy development department, where she worked on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” which turned Will Smith into a household name; the oddball “Wings,” set at a New England airport; and “Blossom,” centered on a teenage Mayim Bialik.Ms. Tarses’s departure from NBC was ugly.Michael Ovitz, the polarizing former power agent, had become Disney’s president. He began talking to Ms. Tarses about taking over ABC. But she was under contract at NBC. Gossip swirled in Hollywood that she solved the problem by claiming that she had been sexually harassed by Don Ohlmeyer, a senior NBC executive. (Mr. Ohlmeyer blamed Mr. Ovitz for the rumor and publicly called him “the Antichrist,” leading to a media frenzy.) Ms. Tarses and NBC denied the story, as did Mr. Ovitz, but it continued to hound her, making the young Ms. Tarses appear as someone “who would do anything to get ahead,” as Ms. Hirschberg wrote.When she arrived at ABC in the spring of 1996, Ms. Tarses was the second-youngest person ever to be the lead programmer of a network. (Mr. Tartikoff was 31 when he took over at NBC.) Her age, along with her status as the first woman to have that prestigious job, resulted in an unusual amount of scrutiny, often negative. Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, referred to her as “Minnie Mouse” in one article and “scarily ruthless” in another.Karey Burke, who ran ABC from 2018 to 2020 and is now president of 20th Television, a leading TV studio, said of Ms. Tarses in a statement: “She shattered stereotypes and ideas about what a female executive could achieve, and paved the way for others, at a cost to herself.”After quitting ABC in 1999, Ms. Tarses avoided the spotlight and remade herself as a producer. Several television pilots failed, but she ultimately found a few modest hits, including “My Boys,” a comedy created by Ms. Thomas and centered on a female sportswriter, and “Happy Endings,” a sitcom that dusted off the “Friends” formula.“She was a hands-on, deeply involved producer who just so totally got my voice and my sense of humor,” Ms. Thomas said. “She knew how to pull the best out of you without trying to change your writing or make it into something different.”Ms. Tarses in 2018. After quitting ABC she avoided the spotlight and remade herself as a producer. Credit…Emma Mcintyre/Getty ImagesIn addition to her brother, Matt, Ms. Tarses is survived by her partner, Paddy Aubrey, a chef and restaurateur; their two children, Wyatt and Sloane; her parents; and a sister, Mallory Tarses, a teacher and fiction writer.Even decades after she had left ABC, Ms. Tarses continued to serve as a lightning rod in Hollywood. To some, she was the victim of a misogynistic television industry. Others stubbornly viewed her as a callous climber.“She had smarts, drive, family connections, money, the mentor everyone wished they had, very good looks, absolutely everything going for her,” Mr. Mandel said. “That automatically created jealousy and resentment.”He continued: “Yes, she made mistakes. But the same could be said about any guy in Hollywood — especially then — and none of them had the added pressure of breaking a glass ceiling.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      What Defines Domestic Abuse? Survivors Say It’s More Than Assault

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat Defines Domestic Abuse? Survivors Say It’s More Than AssaultThe Congresswoman Cori Bush and the musician FKA twigs describe how manipulative, isolating conduct known as “coercive control” helped trap them in abusive relationships. Lawmakers are starting to listen.Congresswoman Cori Bush of Missouri has been sharing her story as a survivor of domestic abuse to help “normalize the conversation.”Credit…Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesMelena Ryzik and Jan. 22, 2021Updated 5:16 p.m. ETIt was, at first, the kind of dreamily romantic attention that Cori Bush craved. She was 19 or so, barely making ends meet working at a preschool, and a new boyfriend was spooning on affection. He lavished her with gifts, too. “He would spoil me, he would spoil my friends, my sister — whoever was near me,” she said.But quickly, she said, the high-watt beam of his attentiveness became an unyielding glare. He monopolized her time and curbed her independence.“He would answer my phone,” Ms. Bush said. “I thought it was cute at first — he wanted to answer my phone and talk to my friends. But then it turned into him screening my calls.”When she tried to end things, he hit her, she said. It was the first of many instances in which he was physically violent. “He would pinch me so hard, he would take off not only skin, but flesh,” she said. “He would cut me with knives, box cutters.” She couldn’t leave, she said, because he threatened to turn the weapons on himself. And then the cycle began anew: “He would come back so sweet and so kind and so loving — and so sorry,” she said.Days into her freshman term as a Democratic Congresswoman from Missouri, Ms. Bush, 44, emerged as a public force; as her first action, she introduced legislation to investigate and expel members of Congress who voted to overturn the election and supported the riot in the Capitol.But even before she was sworn in, she shared her experiences as a survivor of domestic abuse, in hopes of reframing the issue. “I’ve allowed myself to be vulnerable about it,” she said in an interview last month, “because I feel like if we don’t normalize the conversation — people are still being hurt, especially right now, with Covid, and the lockdown,” when calls to support networks are spiking.Ms. Bush’s candor comes as some state lawmakers, working with researchers, have begun to reshape the law to acknowledge that the controlling and isolating behaviors she cites, often referred to as “coercive control,” are not only steppingstones to violence, but can be criminally abusive in their own right. Activists hope that by broadening the definition of abuse, they can help victims reclaim their autonomy, and catch perpetrators before cases spiral toward hospitalization — or worse.In September, California passed a law that allows coercive control behaviors, such as isolating partners, to be introduced as evidence of domestic violence in family court. That month, Hawaii became the first state to enact anti-coercive control legislation. A similar law was introduced in the New York legislature.The efforts address what experts say is a common, long-held misperception that an abusive situation is only a partner throwing a punch, rather than an incremental constricting of someone’s life, to dominate them.“By the time you see a broken bone, the person has experienced a lot of other damaging behaviors,” said Lynn Rosenthal, who was the first White House adviser on violence against women and served on the Biden transition team.Of course the violence itself has not abated. In the United States, one in four women and one in seven men experience severe violence in their relationships in their lifetimes, and it’s the leading cause of homicides for women, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.But as gender-based inequities surfaced in the wake of the #MeToo movement, and more women — and therefore more survivors — entered government, they and others have been vocal about how much more complicated the calculus of abuse can be, how yawning the gaps in protection and how damaging the belief that victims can just leave.Though they may suffer injuries, many survivors say that what keeps them in the relationship, and what makes the trauma last, is mental and emotional abuse. The musician FKA twigs, 33, who filed a lawsuit last month accusing her former boyfriend, the actor Shia LaBeouf, of sexual battery, assault and inflicting emotional distress, said in the suit that his constant “belittling and berating” shrunk her self-esteem and made her easier to control. A year later, she said in an interview, she was still suffering the repercussions: “I have panic attacks almost every single night.”The musician FKA twigs, born Tahliah Debrett Barnett, filed a lawsuit accusing her former boyfriend, the actor Shia LaBeouf, of abuse.Credit…Ana Cuba for The New York TimesThe term coercive control is embraced by some researchers to describe the dynamics of abuse because it encompasses acts like creeping isolation, entrapment, denigration, financial restrictions and threats of emotional and physical harm, including to pets or children, that are used to strip victims of power. Mild but frequent bodily aggression — pushing and grabbing, or increasing roughness during sex in a way the partner does not like — is another hallmark, experts said.As destructive as those behaviors may be, they are not often treated by law enforcement or courts as improper on their own, sharpening the belief that victims must be battered and hospitalized before their accounts might be taken seriously. Doubt about how the justice system would treat them is not unfounded: About 88 percent of survivors surveyed by the ACLU said the police did not believe them or blamed them for the abuse.The new laws to address coercive behaviors have raised some concerns from advocates who worry that — in court proceedings that lawyers in the field say are already stacked against survivors — the standard of proof might be too high, especially when officials don’t have the tools to identify and prove patterns of risky behavior. “Researchers understand coercive control as something that can help predict the outcome of a dangerous situation that becomes deadly,” said Rachel Louise Snyder, author of the 2019 book “No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us.” But, she added, “law enforcement doesn’t necessarily recognize that.”Coercive control has been illegal in England and Wales since 2015, but 2018 saw the highest number of domestic violence-related killings in five years, according to the BBC. The Center for Women’s Justice, a British watchdog group, filed complaints in 2019 and 2020 alleging “systematic failure” on the part of police to safeguard victims. “Officers on the ground don’t understand” coercive control, said Harriet Wistrich, the center’s director. Though there has been some training, she emphasized that for the law to be most effective, police, social workers and the courts need to have a shared understanding of how emotional abuse can become criminal.Others are concerned that, in the United States, adopting and implementing new laws could drain resources from survivors’ pressing logistical needs, or from other pathways to justice. A growing faction of advocates say the best response lies not in the criminal courts, with their racial and economic inequities, but in dialogue-based alternatives like restorative justice.Judy Harris Kluger, a retired New York judge who is executive director of the nonprofit Sanctuary for Families, said she agreed that coercive control is important as a concept. As a judge, though, “I’d rather have energy put into enforcing the laws that we have,” she said, “but also focusing on other things besides litigation to address domestic violence,” like funding for prevention, housing and job programs for survivors.Still, supporters say that legally acknowledging how pernicious the problem is will make it easier to fight — and help force a reckoning over its pervasiveness.They point to Scotland as a potential model. Its domestic abuse laws enacted in 2019 focus on coercive control and include funding for training; a majority of its police and support staff has taken mandatory courses to understand the issue, said Detective Superintendent Debbie Forrester, Police Scotland’s lead for domestic abuse. The judiciary got lessons too. Alongside a public campaign explaining that controlling behavior is illegal, the authorities put abusers on notice that they would be scrutinized: “We will speak to previous partners,” a police statement warned.In the year following the law, the number of charges reported for prosecution related to domestic abuse jumped nearly 6 percent, according to the Scottish government. Though they could always prosecute violence, previously “there was nothing that was actually called domestic abuse,” Ms. Forrester said. “That has been really important for victims — they understand that the laws and the structure is there to support them.”Susan Rubio, 50, the state senator from California who headed the effort to adopt new legislation there, said she was motivated partly by her own experiences. In 2016, during divorce proceedings, she accused her husband, Roger Hernández, a California state assemblyman, of domestic violence, describing instances in which he punched her in the chest and attempted to strangle her with a belt, court documents say. The judge granted her a restraining order. Mr. Hernández, who was gearing up for a congressional primary, denied the allegations. Rebuked by his statehouse colleagues, he disappeared from his congressional race. (Mr. Hernández did not respond to requests for comment.)The law Ms. Rubio proposed, which allows coercive control to be used as evidence of domestic violence in family court, went into effect this month. It defined those behaviors as instances in which one party deprived, threatened or intimidated another, or controlled, regulated or monitored their “movements, communications, daily behavior, finances, economic resources or access to services.”Susan Rubio, a state senator from California, headed the effort to adopt legislation that allows coercive control behaviors to be used as evidence of domestic violence in family court.Credit…Lorie Shelley, California Senate Rules PhotographyIn Hawaii, the definition of domestic violence was expanded to acknowledge coercive control, including name-calling and degradation. The law was shaped in part by a researcher, Barbara Gerbert, and a local police officer, May Lee. “Domestic violence is a complex issue, but at the heart of it is the need for power and control,” Ms. Lee wrote to the legislature.The term coercive control was popularized around 2007 by Evan Stark, a researcher and forensic social worker whose work was cited by governments in the United Kingdom.The laws, in the United States and other countries, recognize an evolution in thought and research about domestic abuse, once normalized and minimized as an unfortunate outgrowth of bad relationships. Experts say research has increasingly shown the insufficiency of law enforcement approaches that treat domestic assaults as isolated incidents, akin to being punched by a stranger in a bar fight, and ignore the experiences of those for whom the abuse was often broader in scope and not always marked by violence, but debilitating, repetitive and no less damaging.“We have failed to connect the dots until very recently in all these other ways,” Ms. Snyder, the author, said. “Coercive control laws are a first attempt to address some of that — the unseen dynamics that are so, so dangerous.”Those who study domestic abuse say it follows a pattern: Ardent, rapid courtship that gives way to tests of loyalty, isolation from loved ones, belittling and deprivation of resources, whether it’s money, time, sleep or food — all in service of breaking down and controlling another person.At the outset of a relationship, “love-bombing,” as it’s sometimes called, is a classic warning sign, experts say. “Showing up early to give the partner flowers. Picking her up when she doesn’t expect it,” said Chitra Raghavan, a forensic psychologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.The gestures may seem sweet, thoughtful, but they’re a test: Monopolizing a partner’s time and attention sows isolation and shows the abuser “that he can control her,” Dr. Raghavan said.If a partner protests, an abuser may ratchet up the charm, experts said. The cycle gives the victim an illusion of control, and the perpetrator an excuse to mete out punishment: just don’t hang out with those friends, wear that outfit, cook that meal. But the boundaries for correct behavior keep shifting.“Every time we see that someone died at the hands of their partners, that’s something we could’ve stopped, as a society,” Ms. Bush said.Credit…Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesMs. Bush’s former boyfriend had rules about how and when she could wash the dishes or use the stove, she recalled. FKA twigs, whose given name is Tahliah Debrett Barnett, said that Mr. LaBeouf was feverishly jealous, and would also grow angry if she handed him his toothbrush when he was in the shower, even though that’s when he liked to brush his teeth. “He said that I was controlling, because I had given him the toothbrush with toothpaste,” she recalled.(Mr. LaBeouf did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement to The New York Times when Ms. Barnett’s lawsuit was filed, he said: “I have been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years. I have a history of hurting the people closest to me. I’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt.” He added that “many” of the allegations by Ms. Barnett and another former girlfriend were not true, but gave no further details.)Jennifer Spivak, 31, the founder of a digital advertising agency whose ex-boyfriend pleaded guilty in 2011 to felony strangulation, said that he more often used threats than physical violence. During the early wave of affection, she gave into requests like forgoing the gym to spend more time with him. She relinquished her privacy, showing her boyfriend her texts and emails. But he wasn’t satisfied.“I became obsessed with figuring out how to keep things nice, moment to moment,” Ms. Spivak said. He would escort her to the bank and force her to cash her paychecks and relinquish the money, which complicated her ability to leave him.Jennifer Spivak said her ex-boyfriend forced her to hand over money from paychecks. Now she makes a point to work with women, to boost others’ financial independence.Credit…Meghan Marin for The New York TimesFor the most part, she said he didn’t hit her; rather she said he “psychologically tortured” her for small infractions like not answering his call at work, berating her for hours while she stood in the tub naked and he held an iron above the water.“I would wonder, am I being abused if I don’t have any bruises?” said Ms. Spivak, whose isolation exacerbated her self-doubt. As a survivor, she makes a point to work with women, to boost others’ financial independence.Ms. Barnett said that once she could finally see how bad things were with Mr. LaBeouf, she was too ashamed to admit it: “I just couldn’t connect with my old life, because it was a reminder of how far away I was from myself.” She filed the lawsuit, she said, to highlight the patterns in her relationship, and to show how anyone, no matter their status, can be ensnared.The most dangerous moment for victims of domestic violence, experts say, is when they decide to end their relationship; on average, it takes seven attempts to leave an abuser, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Shame and fear — coupled with economic insecurity, racial and social justice concerns, and worries about destabilizing the household, especially with children — keep many from reporting their assaults or the terrors they live with, advocates say.Ms. Rubio, the California lawmaker, resisted calling authorities during her marriage — despite her resources, she didn’t have the courage, she said, and worried about public scrutiny. “Coercive control, it paralyzes a victim,” she said.Ms. Bush said her boyfriend’s violence escalated to the point that he once shot at her with a gun. She never called the police. “I didn’t want him to go to jail,” she said. “So I couldn’t figure out how to say what happened. And I didn’t want people to look at me like I was stupid — like, why are you with this guy? Because I’m smarter than what they’re going to think.”As she enters Congress, Ms. Bush said she thinks of combating domestic violence as building a social movement to save lives. “Every time we see that someone died at the hands of their partners,” she said, “that’s something we could’ve stopped, as a society.”If you or someone you know is being abused, support and help are available. Visit the hotline’s website or call 1-800-799-7233.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Rape-Revenge Tales: Cathartic? Maybe. Incomplete? Definitely.

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      #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 storyRape-Revenge Tales: Cathartic? Maybe. Incomplete? Definitely.Films like “Promising Young Woman” should be especially urgent in the wake of #MeToo. Instead, they sell female characters short.Carey Mulligan as a medical school dropout bent on avenging a friend’s rape in “Promising Young Woman.”Credit…Merie Weismiller Wallace/Focus Features, via Associated PressJan. 14, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ETThis article contains spoilers for “Promising Young Woman.”Early in “Promising Young Woman,” a pedantic creep inserts his fingers in the protagonist’s vagina. Our heroine, who has been feigning drunkenness, quickly snaps out of her stupor, shifting from easy prey to vigilante.The creep tries to cover his assault, insisting that he is a nice guy who’d felt a connection with her.“A connection?” Cassie repeats. “OK. What do I do for a living?”The man has no answer, so she continues: “How old am I? How long have I lived in the city? What are my hobbies? What’s my name?”Cassie, 29 going on 30, is a barista whose hobby is, ostensibly, this: luring would-be rapists into sardonic lectures. Yet as the movie unfurls, we learn little about her, and even less about the woman she is trying to avenge.Critics have hailed “Promising Young Woman,” written and directed by Emerald Fennell, for its timeliness, often connecting it to the #MeToo movement that has given a platform to victims of sexual harassment and abuse. As that movement continues to change the way we think about sexual violence, centering victims’ experiences and exposing abuses of power, rape-revenge stories like this one should feel more relevant than ever.Instead, “Promising Young Woman” and a handful of other recent movies — “The Perfection,” “Revenge” and “I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu” — recall films from the ’70s and ’80s that reduced rape victims to emotionless, even sexy avengers. They offer female characters a facile kind of agency. A woman, once made powerless by an attacker, can take justice into her own hands — but she must pay for that power with her personhood.Rape itself turns girls and women into little more than objects, and these films — two of them directed by women — contribute to that dehumanization, rather than defy it. They confine female characters to lives of sociopathic wrath. But it doesn’t have to be that way: The recent “Black Christmas” revival, as well as TV shows like “Big Little Lies” and “I May Destroy You,” give their victims more room to grow and heal.In “Promising Young Woman,” Cassie (Carrie Mulligan) lives to avenge her best friend, Nina. We learn that she and Nina were in medical school when another student raped Nina in front of his friends. Nina dropped out, and Cassie soon followed suit, to care for her.Despite her importance to the narrative, Nina never comes into focus. She’s dead, but we never learn how she died. We don’t even know what she looked like as an adult, since the only pictures we see of her come from Cassie’s childhood. Nina’s fiery personality shines through in glimpses — an anecdote her mother tells, a speech Cassie delivers to the rapist. But ultimately, the movie perpetuates the very wrong it condemns, turning a woman who was “fully formed from day one” into little more than the worst night of her life.“Promising Young Woman” adamantly criticizes predators and their enablers, and nods to #MeToo. (The creep Cassie deceives is writing a novel about “what it’s like to be a guy right now.”) Yet despite its assertion that rape is “every woman’s worst nightmare,” the film carelessly subjects its female characters to it, or at least the threat of it. Cassie exacts worse revenge on the women who discredited Nina than she does on nightclub predators and their enablers: She tricks a former friend into believing she has been raped and kidnaps the teenage daughter of a college dean. Cassie also offers herself up for assault, letting some of the nightclub men — like the novelist creep — violate her before she schools them.This behavior recalls that of Jennifer, a rape victim in the 1978 cult hit “I Spit on Your Grave,” who seduces two of her attackers to lure them to their dooms. In “I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu,” last year’s straight-to-DVD sequel by the original movie’s writer-director, Meir Zarchi, Jennifer (Camille Keaton) discusses the experience in a radio interview. “The only advantage at my disposal was my God’s given weapon: my sexual appeal. So I used it to entice and trick them,” she says.Jennifer’s daughter, Christy (Jamie Bernadette), does the same later when she avenges her own brutal rape. Both “I Spit on Your Grave” and the sequel revel in gang-rape sequences as much as the massacre that follows, with prolonged, explicit scenes of men (and, in the case of “Deja Vu,” one woman), taunting, wounding and penetrating their helpless victims. If the protagonists experience meaningful evolutions in their transformation from wailing victims to dead-eyed avengers, they’re not shown.The women of “Revenge” (2017) and “The Perfection” (2018), though more calculating, are barely better rendered. Vengeance takes center stage when Charlotte and Lizzie, the cellist heroines of “The Perfection” (directed by Richard Shepard), dismember the musician behind their childhood abuse. But they sacrifice their humanity along the way: Charlotte (Allison Williams) tricks Lizzie into maiming herself, and Lizzie (Logan Browning) play-acts raping Charlotte. In “Revenge,” written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, the bombshell Jen (Matilda Lutz) mows down the three men complicit in her rape and attempted murder. Despite her ingenious recovery, Jen transforms from one male fantasy to another, swapping blond curls and lollipops for booty shorts and bloodshed.Perhaps most important, none of these movies seem particularly interested in the real aftermath of rape. Their characters may shed some tears, but there are no phone calls to loved ones, no visits to hospitals or therapists, no chronic depression or panic attacks. If anything, rape makes these women more resourceful, preternaturally capable of exacting justice without fear of retribution.“Black Christmas” (2019) is a more grounded tale of rape and revenge. Though the Sophia Takal film failed to dazzle at the box office or wow critics, who scorned its supernatural climax, it acknowledged the trauma of rape as much as it did the catharsis of revenge. In the film, the sorority sister Riley (Imogen Poots) is still recovering from sexual assault at the hands of a fraternity’s former president. She copes with flashbacks and anxiety, and her friends comment on her withdrawn affect. Riley eventually vanquishes her rapist, but not as part of some violent power trip; she does so in self-defense.Michaela Coel plays a woman coping with the trauma of rape in “I May Destroy You.”Credit…Natalie Seery/HBOMore balanced takes on these themes can be found on television, where long-form storytelling makes ample room for nuance. In the first season of “Big Little Lies” (2017), the murder mystery has rape at its center. Jane (Shailene Woodley), whose attack by an unknown assailant leads to the birth of her son, struggles to cope as a young mother in a cutthroat, elitist community. When her son is accused of choking his classmate, she worries that his father’s influence might have played a role and begins to relive the incident. She fantasizes about shooting her attacker and chases flashbacks away with long runs and Martha Wainwright songs. When her rapist turns out to be her friend’s abusive husband, the show’s ensemble of women rallies around Jane. One of them kills the man to defend her friends from his wrath.The 2020 series “I May Destroy You” ruminates entirely on the aftermath of sexual trauma, as the main character, Arabella (Michaela Coel), and her friends each try to cope. In the final episode, Arabella lives through multiple confrontations with her rapist, two of which involve deception and revenge, before she eventually decides to move on.At the climax of“Promising Young Woman,” Cassie tries to torture Nina’s rapist. The man overpowers and kills her, but the script throws viewers one last revenge Hail Mary: Cassie has orchestrated his arrest from beyond the grave.This cheeky, borderline celebratory reveal (complete with “Angel of the Morning” ironically on the soundtrack) rings hollow. The film is more interested in what Cassie represented — a clapback against rape culture, a pastel-painted middle finger — than it ever was in Cassie as a human being.Though rape and revenge both figure in “Black Christmas,” “Big Little Lies” and “I May Destroy You,” their narratives do not isolate women who’ve been attacked, nor do they condemn them to single-minded quests for revenge. These women lean on other people, often other women. They find a peace that ultimately matters more than confrontations with their attackers.As the saying goes, living well is the best revenge.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Suzi Analogue Wants Black Women in Experimental Music to Never Compromise

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySuzi Analogue Wants Black Women in Experimental Music to Never CompromiseShe couldn’t find a label that understood her work, so she started her own. Now she’s doubling down on her mission to provide a home for others who want to create with total freedom.In the mainstream music industry, “There’s not a lot of room to find your own creative direction,” Suzi Analogue said.Credit…Rose Marie Cromwell for The New York TimesJan. 6, 2021The Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 put renewed pressure on the music industry to scrutinize its long-troubled relationship with race. It’s a business that has relied on Black talent onstage without investing in Black executives behind the scenes; a space where Black artists have been nudged into specific genres and ways of creating; a place where women and L.G.B.T. people of color have been even further marginalized.None of this was news for Suzi Analogue. The 33-year-old Miami-based producer and label owner born Maya Shipman has spent most of her career carving out her own path — and offering alternatives to others looking to avoid being put in a box.Chatting from her multimedia studio filled with wide-screen monitors, tape decks and keyboards in the Faena Forum, where she’s an artist-in-residence, it didn’t take long for Analogue to articulate the core of her mission: “Access to capital is a must for Black music in the future, especially for creative and cultural organizers who happen to be women, who happen to be queer,” she said in the first of two lengthy video interviews. (She happens to be both.) In this vast, sunlit space, Analogue creates electronic dance music that centers high-speed drums and obscure audio samples — an idiosyncratic sound that’s equally of-the-moment and forward-looking.“Listening to her music makes me feel like I’m in Tokyo for the first time,” said the producer Ringgo Ancheta, a noted figure in the underground beat scene known as Mndsgn. “It has that same glamour to it, like a raw glamour. It’s like if Sun Ra was a woman who dropped acid a lot and went to raves.”Because she makes distinctive music in spaces historically reserved for white men, Analogue still flies beneath the mainstream radar, despite a stacked résumé — a decade-long list of critically acclaimed mixtapes and collaborative albums. Through Never Normal Records, the imprint she created in 2013, she not only releases her own hard-to-describe work, but is also providing a platform for other like-minded artists to do the same.In the mainstream industry, “There’s not a lot of room to find your own creative direction,” Analogue said. “People will say, ‘Oh, we don’t know how to market that.’ That’s a blanketed term for discrimination and racism in the music business.”Analogue’s interest in music started early and originated in several regions on the East Coast. Her family relocated from Baltimore to Quincy, Mass., when she was a toddler, and after her parents split, she and her mother moved to Prince George, Va., 30 minutes south of Richmond. Her father is from the Bronx; in the summer months, she’d visit him there and was exposed to hip-hop culture firsthand. “So growing up, it was nothing to hear music from everywhere,” she said.In elementary school, she made friends with the military kids who had moved to Prince George from countries like Japan or Germany, and they introduced her to their local music. As a second-grader, she and a few other girls bonded over a shared love of the R&B trio TLC and “started a little music group and sang at our class assembly at the end of the year,” Analogue said. “I think we sang Boyz II Men. But it was me, I was putting it together.”Even as a child, she knew she didn’t want to be just a singer or just a producer: “I think I always felt like I had a mind to do more, like ‘I don’t want to just sing somebody’s song, I’ll sing my own song.’” During the day, she sang R&B and opera; at night, she listened to local rap on FM radio.“It could be jungle, gabber, ghetto house, trap, everything,” Analogue said. “This is all Black music, Black heritage, Black culture, and Black traditions.”Credit…Rose Marie Cromwell for The New York TimesAnalogue was a preteen when two other Virginia residents, Missy Elliott and Timbaland, started making waves. Other early influences included locals like Teddy Riley (who moved to Virginia Beach from Harlem) and Pharrell Williams; they all made progressive R&B, and thrived commercially despite living outside of the major cities known as funnels to the industry.After high school, Analogue went to Temple University in Philadelphia; enticed by the community there that had grown out of the website and message board Okayplayer, she wanted to connect with more like-minded creators away from the South. She started making beats after friends gave her music production software, and later adopted an artist name that’s a nod to RZA’s alter ego, Bobby Digital.“They knew I made songs mostly for school and church,” Analogue said. “I just would make what I could with downloading. I remember I downloaded speeches, like Malcolm X speeches from Napster. And I’d try to put a little jazz sample with it.”That was her first foray into the patchwork production style she’s known for today. Analogue created a Myspace account and started sharing her music online, which caught the attention of Glenn Boothe (known as Knxwledge), then an upstart in Philly who’d become one of the most popular beatmakers in underground music. The two became fast friends. “We were just trying to find our own waves,” Analogue said. “I secretly got my own apartment, because being an only child, I couldn’t do the dorm thing. It was good because I was able to have the crib where people could come through and lab out.”Ancheta was living in southern New Jersey; he traveled to Philadelphia to make music with Knxwledge and Analogue in a collective named Klipmode after chatting with her online. “Suzi’s music had these crazy chord progressions,” Ancheta said. “Everything had this weird blend with organic textures; there was something a little loose and off about it.”Analogue’s sound has always had a global flavor and appealed to listeners overseas — its offbeat time signatures and stacked drums are well suited for dance floors in West or East Africa — and in her early 20s she released work on international labels. But she has never connected with the industry at home.“I never tried to get a major U.S. deal when I started releasing tracks, for many reasons, but a big one was that the music I was making was being valued more outside of the country it came from,” Analogue said. “Some sniffed around but I just couldn’t get serious about waiting around for them to ‘get it.’”She started Never Normal Records out of necessity: “I would say many of my musical male counterparts did receive help to release music before I did. When I saw it happen, I would just continue to build what I was working on.” As a result, her label is a safe space for musicians to buck industry notions of what their work is supposed to be. Acts like the multidisciplinary artist Khx05 and the electronic music producer No Eyes have free rein to be themselves.“It could be jungle, gabber, ghetto house, trap, everything. This is all Black music, Black heritage, Black culture, and Black traditions,” Analogue said. Despite those Black roots in many strains of dance music, Analogue said she has faced discrimination in the genre. “Electronic music is severely whitewashed,” she said. “Everyone who is not white is treated like an anomaly.”The biases extend beyond color lines. “As women, we all go through it,” said the experimental producer Jennifer Hernandez, who records as JWords and released her “Sín Sénal” EP last year on Analogue’s label. “In the beginning, I’d be on these bills and all these guys were a little uncomfortable,” she said.While her label has helped her profile rise, Analogue knows her work is far from done. This year, she’s starting a project that unites producers from the African diaspora with beatmakers in Africa to make new tracks. She’s also planning to release new music and visual art from other unconventional Black creators while teaching music education workshops in Ghana as a cultural diplomat for the U.S. Department of State.“Music has always been about the people,” she said. “It’s always been an instrument of connection.” As a Black woman, Analogue added, she knows exactly how it feels “to feel like there’s no place for me. I want to show other artists that there will always be a place for you.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      K.T. Oslin, Country Singer Known for ‘80’s Ladies,’ Dies at 78

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyK.T. Oslin, Country Singer Known for ‘80’s Ladies,’ Dies at 78Her song, the first of many hits, heralded the arrival of a songwriting voice whose sharply drawn miniatures conveyed domestic humor and pathos.The singer and songwriter K.T. Oslin in Central Park in 1987. Her song “80’s Ladies,” released that year, became an anthem for a generation of women.Credit…Oliver Morris/Getty ImagesDec. 22, 2020Updated 4:49 p.m. ETNASHVILLE — K.T. Oslin, the pioneering country singer-songwriter whose biggest hits gave voice to the desires and trials of female baby boomers on the cusp of middle age, died on Monday at an assisted-living facility here. She was 78.The country music historian Robert K. Oermann, a longtime friend, said that the cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease. He said she had also tested positive for Covid-19 last week.“80’s Ladies,” Ms. Oslin’s breakthrough single, became an anthem for a generation of women. Released in 1987, it heralded the arrival of a songwriting voice whose sharply drawn miniatures conveyed domestic humor and pathos reminiscent of the songs of Loretta Lynn two decades earlier.“We’ve been educated/We got liberated/And had complicating matters with men,” Ms. Oslin sang in a rich, throaty alto to open the song’s second stanza, looking back over four decades of living.Oh, we’ve said “I do”And we’ve signed “I don’t”And we’ve sworn we’d never do that again.Oh, we burned our brasAnd we burned our dinnersAnd we burned our candles at both ends.Its rock-leaning arrangement might have had more in common with the piano-based ballads of the California singer-songwriter Jackson Browne than with the standard Nashville fare of the era, but “80’s Ladies” was down to earth and catchy enough to make the country Top 10 in 1987. The next year, it also made Ms. Oslin the first female songwriter to earn song of the year honors from the Country Music Association.Ms. Oslin performing at the Country Music Association Awards in Nashville in 1987. A year later, she was named female vocalist of the year.Credit…CMA“Do Ya,” her next single, proved that “80’s Ladies” was no fluke; rather, it was the first in a series of poignant meditations from Ms. Oslin on the ebb and flow of midlife vulnerability and desire.“Do you still get a thrill/When ya see me coming up the hill?/Honey now do ya?” she entreats her lover, the coarse timbre in her voice redolent of some of Janis Joplin’s more intimate performances.Do ya whisper my nameJust to bring a little comfort to ya?Do ya?Do ya still like the feel of my body lying next to ya?“Do Ya” was the first of Ms. Oslin’s four No. 1 country hits, cementing her place among a distinguished circle of thoughtful, independent female songwriting contemporaries that included Pam Tillis, Gretchen Peters and Matraca Berg. In contrast to their plucky rural forebears Dolly Parton and Ms. Lynn, Ms. Oslin and her peers attended college and openly embraced feminism, weaving its insights into their lyrics.A late bloomer, Ms. Oslin was 45 when “80’s Ladies” ignited her recording career. Before that she had worked as a folk singer, appeared in traveling productions of Broadway shows like “Hello, Dolly!” (with Carol Channing) and recorded television commercials for soft drinks and household cleaning products.She might have languished in obscurity had Joe Galante, the longtime president of RCA Nashville, not taken a chance on her when she was at an age when many recording artists were contemplating retirement.“I thought it was my last chance at doing anything in this business, which was all that I knew how to do,” Ms. Oslin said in a 2015 interview with Billboard. “I would have ended up selling gloves at Macy’s if it weren’t for Joe Galante. I was so naïve about the business.”Ms. Oslin’s first two albums for RCA, “80’s Ladies” and “This Woman,” were certified platinum for sales of more than one million copies. She had 11 Top 40 country hits in all, most of them collected on the brashly titled 1993 compilation “Greatest Hits: Confessions of an Aging Sex Bomb.”Ms. Oslin also won three Grammy Awards, as well as female vocalist of the year honors from the Country Music Association in 1988. She was later inducted into both the Texas and Nashville songwriter halls of fame.Kay Toinette Oslin was born on May 15, 1942, in Crossett, Ark. Her father, Larry, died of leukemia when she was 5. Her mother, Kathleen (Byrd) Oslin, worked as a lab technician for the Veterans Administration.Ms. Oslin and her brother, Larry, who died several years ago, spent much of their childhood with their mother in Mobile, Ala., and their teenage years in Houston, where Ms. Oslin studied drama at Lon Morris College and sang in a folk trio with the singer-songwriter Guy Clark.In the mid-’60s she moved to New York, where she worked in the theater and as a jingle singer.Ms. Oslin made New York her home for much of the next two decades, appearing in, among other productions, the Broadway musical “Promises, Promises” and the Lincoln Center revival of “West Side Story.”She also started writing songs and was encouraged by Diane Petty, an executive with the performing rights organization SESAC, to pitch her country-leaning material to song publishers in Nashville.She eventually was signed, as Kay T. Oslin, by Elektra Records, but neither of the singles she released for the label went anywhere. It was not until other singers started having success with her songs that her career began to gain momentum, ultimately leading to the showcase at which she performed for Mr. Galante.Her acting experience served her well, resulting in several memorable music videos, including the “Bride of Frankenstein”-inspired staging of her final No. 1 single, “Come Next Monday” (1990).Dusty Springfield, the Judds and the soul singer Dorothy Moore are among those who have recorded Ms. Oslin’s material. Latter-day country singers like Chely Wright and Brandy Clark have cited her as an influence.Ms. Oslin in concert in 2012.Credit…Rick Diamond/Getty ImagesMs. Oslin began to focus more on acting than singing as the 1990s progressed, appearing most notably as a Nashville nightclub owner in Peter Bogdanovich’s country music-themed 1993 movie, “The Thing Called Love,” starring Sandra Bullock and River Phoenix.She also appeared frequently on the TV talks shows of Johnny Carson, Arsenio Hall and Joan Rivers and was profiled on the ABC program “20/20.”She had quadruple heart bypass surgery in 1995 and recorded only sporadically after that, embracing her Americana influences on “My Roots Are Showing” in 1996 and releasing a dance-floor mix of the 1951 Rosemary Clooney hit “Come On-a My House” in 2000.No immediate family members survive.In 2015, two years after celebrating its 25th anniversary, Ms. Oslin recorded a new version of “80’s Ladies” for her final album, “Simply.”“That’s the one I still hear the most about, and that’s great,” she said of “80’s Ladies” in her 2015 Billboard interview. “I still love that song. It spoke to a lot of people. I don’t know how I managed to write it, but it was a great song.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Emerald Fennell’s Dark, Jaded, Funny, Furious Fables of Female Revenge

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeHoliday TVBest Netflix DocumentariesCredit…Alexandra Von Fuerst for The New York TimesSkip to contentSkip to site indexEmerald Fennell’s Dark, Jaded, Funny, Furious Fables of Female RevengeA brilliant young show runner from “Killing Eve” unveils her first film, “Promising Young Woman,” bringing macabre feminist wit to experiences that no one wants to talk about.Credit…Alexandra Von Fuerst for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyDec. 17, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETThe germ of the idea for “Promising Young Woman” first lodged itself in Emerald Fennell’s mind six or seven years ago, at a dinner party she and her roommates were throwing for some old college friends in London. Everyone was sitting around the kitchen table, eating pasta, when one woman happened to mention a creepy encounter she’d had with a guy on the tube on her way over. The men at the table were shocked. The women were shocked that the men were shocked. What world did they live in? Apparently not one filled with creeps who followed you home, or groped you on public transport, or catcalled you and turned nasty when you ignored them.In other words, the usual. But the men at this party might as well have been walking through a wardrobe into a land of perpetual winter. As women regaled the table with one gruesome story after another, gleefully besting one another’s floridly crappy experiences, they were shocked by the relentlessness of it all, and by the gallows humor and resignation in the women’s response. “They were just staggered,” Fennell told me when I met with her last winter. “And these were just the milder things.” One man said he grew up thinking everything was fine, and was just now realizing it was only fine for him.The experience was an eye-opener for Fennell as well. “Their surprise was so interesting,” she said. She suspected men would not be so unaware of women’s experiences if women weren’t culturally shamed into “laughing off” or “being cool with” their trauma — helping to create a fairy tale in which everything really was mostly fine, and bad things only happened occasionally, to girls who probably did something to deserve it. What made this striking was not the actual events the women were describing, which were too quotidian to be horrifying; it was seeing how readily the culture enabled and normalized this stuff, making women feel uncomfortable or embarrassed for talking about it honestly.The film that emerged from this realization, “Promising Young Woman,” is Fennell’s debut as a feature director — a ruthless, pitch-black story of revenge set in an off-kilter, fairy-tale world. Carey Mulligan plays Cassie, a young woman who dropped out of medical school after a traumatic incident the film does not initially reveal. At 30, Cassie still lives with her parents and works as a barista in a coffee shop. But her real mission in life, which she pursues with singular dedication, is to confront people who think of themselves as blameless with the truth about their behavior. Every week she dresses up for a night out — sometimes in business attire, other times in more revealing outfits. She goes to bars and pretends to be blackout drunk. Invariably, a man comes to her rescue. Invariably, he takes her home and tries to have sex with her. Then things take an unexpected turn.Fennell started writing after thinking over all the conversations she’d participated in about alcohol and consent — all the rollicking stories guys told about hitting on drunken girls, or getting them drunk to “loosen them up.” None of this was taboo when she was younger: “It was all completely normalized by all the American ‘raunch era’ films and TV that everyone watched,” she told me. “Drinking was part of seduction culture — and if people couldn’t remember things, it was often met with an eye roll.” Fennell questioned that logic. If having sex with a girl who was blackout drunk was nothing to feel bad about, then a man wouldn’t feel guilty if she turned out not to be drunk, would he? It made her wonder. “What if I went to a nightclub and pretended to be really, really drunk, and somebody took me home, and then just as they were removing my pants, I revealed I wasn’t drunk?” An image formed in her mind of a woman sitting up in bed, suddenly sober, and asking, “What are you doing?” She later described this very scenario to a producer. “I said, ‘And then she sits up, and she’s not drunk!’ And he went, ‘Holy [expletive], she’s a psycho!’”This was the reaction she’d hoped for. “The reason it feels so uncomfortable is because the person who’s doing it knows it’s wrong,” she said. “That’s why they freak out. Everybody thinks of themselves as a good person — so what happens when someone comes along and shows you that you’re not?”With her long, wavy blond hair and flouncy dresses, Cassie looks like a romantic-comedy heroine, or like the good girl in a film noir, but she radiates white-hot rage, and not even the stifling artificiality of her parents’ house, with its pink wall-to-wall carpeting and passive-aggressive suburban rococo furniture, can smother it. From the film’s opening image — a hilarious, slow-motion sequence of paunchy, khaki-clad office dudes on a dance floor, gyrating and slapping their own butts — “Promising Young Woman” subtly skewers gender conventions and double standards, and as the movie progresses we start to piece together what is happening: Cassie is trying to redress an injustice that was swept under the rug, by not allowing anyone to forget.Fennell has been scrupulous about crafting the mechanics of Cassie’s revenge: “She doesn’t entrap anyone. She never says yes, she never says no. She just exists. She says, ‘I’ve lost my phone,’ and then they do all the talking.” What you see, Fennell said, “is a man thinking he’s got a rapport with a woman, which I think happens a lot. It’s just that he hasn’t noticed that she’s not said a word.” The moment Cassie reveals that she is conscious of what is happening is, for that person, the ultimate threat: She forces them to confront themselves. “Isn’t that the worst thing?” Fennell laughed. While pitching the movie, she would joke that most people would rather be shot in the knee than be shown who they really are. “That’s our worst nightmare,” she said. “It’s what makes Cassie frightening — much more frightening than a knife-wielding maniac. Much more devastating, really.”I met Fennell for tea last February, in the library of the Soho Hotel in London — a cozy, faux-bookish setting where, moments before she joined me, a man at a nearby table loudly and graphically debriefed two others on some torture instruments he’d recently had the chance to inspect. Fennell arrived two minutes late, in jeans and an oversize, fuzzy, bright pink sweater, apologizing profusely. She looked as if she could have stepped directly off the set of her movie, in which she has a cameo as a video blogger giving a “Blow Job Lips Makeup Tutorial.” Fennell herself is compulsively, hilariously self-effacing — a trait she attributes partly to being female and partly to being English — but her good friend Phoebe Waller-Bridge, of “Fleabag” fame, whom she first met on the set of the film “Albert Nobbs,” calls her “the most stylish person I’ve ever met. Not just in her work and her appearance, but in her spirit, how she speaks, how she carries herself.”Fennell is highly attuned to presentation. When I commented on the brilliance of Nancy Steiner’s costume design for her film, which makes everyone look like a character in a Hallmark movie of the damned, she spoke about the ways women know how to use clothes, hair, makeup and voice to hide their anger and trauma. “There are lots of people who hide it by putting on really accessible, really sweet, really unthreatening — oh … ” She stopped. “I just realized I’m wearing an enormous jumper.”Tonally, there is a similar tension at play in Fennell’s movie. Her work tends to feel, in general, like an enormous, fuzzy pink jumper wrapped around a dagger. As one of the film’s producers told me, “Emerald would describe this as ‘poison popcorn,’ which I think is a great term for it.”“Everybody thinks of themselves as a good person — so what happens when someone comes along and shows you that you’re not?”Credit…Alexandra Von Fuerst for The New York TimesFennell may be better known as an actor and writer than as a director — especially given her role on “The Crown,” a huge hit whose latest season included the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer. As Camilla Parker Bowles, Fennell plays a character with an upbringing she’s familiar with — “I’m basically playing a chain-smoking posho standing in a corner making cutting remarks,” she said. “So it’s not a stretch” — who finds herself cast as the villain in a fairy tale, which, in reality, was anything but. “I was drawn to Camilla because she struck me as a normal person sucked into a completely extraordinary circumstance,” Fennell said. This comes across in her performance, which hovers between amusement and disbelief.The time period covered in this season of “The Crown” roughly corresponds to the years just before Fennell was born, in 1985. She grew up in Chelsea, in a flat that was eventually joined to another to form a house. Her father is the celebrity jeweler Theo Fennell, known for his intricate, often dark and funny one-of-a-kind pieces, like “opening rings” that hinge back to reveal magical, fairy-tale worlds (a Mole and Toad piece inspired by “The Wind in the Willows,” a Colosseum with a dead gladiator in it). Her mother, Louise, worked in fashion and as a photographers’ agent before writing, in her mid-50s, her first book, a satire of celebrity called “Dead Rich.” Emerald’s sister, Coco, is a fashion designer. Elton John and Andrew Lloyd Webber, at whose offices we would meet for a second time, are friends of the family.Fennell was educated at Marlborough College (the boarding school that the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, also attended) and studied English at Oxford, where she performed in plays and was spotted by an agent. She auditioned for what she thought would be a one-episode role in the BBC drama “Call the Midwife,” but her character, Nurse Patsy — a redheaded lesbian with a blunt demeanor and a traumatic past — remained on the show for three seasons. In between those seasons, Fennell wrote books, one for each hiatus: two children’s stories set at a creepy boarding school, and one adult novel, “Monsters,” a black comedy about two kids who are delighted to find a dead body on the beach.She works, says Waller-Bridge, “like a bloody Trojan. She’s been working on about 10 projects at once since the day I met her.” She has been known to work on writing projects even after 14-hour days on television sets as an actress. She shot “Promising Young Woman” over 23 days in Los Angeles, while seven months pregnant. After Waller-Bridge’s departure as the showrunner of “Killing Eve,” Fennell joined the writing staff for Season 2 and, after a few months, was promoted to head writer and co-showrunner, eventually winning Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her work.This prodigious output would be remarkable even if she weren’t just 35 (or 34 when we first met). At the time, she was on a short break from shooting “The Crown.” She was also promoting her movie and writing the book for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s upcoming musical “Cinderella,” expected to have its premiere in 2021. When Lloyd-Webber first approached her about collaborating, she thought: “ ‘Cinderella’ — there’s not really much one can do.” Then she thought: What if Cinderella were a normal person who was forced to live in a fairy-tale world? We’re used to the story of the girl who gets made over and rescued, but what if, instead of the transformation being the best thing that ever happened to her, it was the worst? She pictured a woman who didn’t mind being who she was — “and then, suddenly, they’ve been made to mind.” Her “Cinderella” is the story of a real girl in a fairy-tale world that expects her to annihilate herself to meet its demands.Fennell grew up reading stories of beautiful cheerleaders, of gorgeous, glowing, unconscious girls. But her real loves were Nancy Drew books, Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Daphne du Maurier and the Brontës. (“The Brontës! The greatest!” she wrote to me later. “All of them — except Branwell, obviously.”) “All the stuff that I love — all the Victorian female novelists, the perverted domestic, the madwoman in the attic — all that stuff, in a way, is what I would love to be able to do,” she says. Recently she’s been reading Hilary Mantel, whose work she finds can be “very visceral and very feminine, horrifying in a way I’ve never ever experienced.” Literature, she says, is full of fascinating, frightening women, “but when it comes to television and film — I suppose because our preoccupation with the women in that media is still based on the way they look — we don’t see those characters so much. These kind of weird old ladies or pervs or voyeurs. We don’t see female losers at all.”One day in the early 2000s, when Fennell was a teenager, she was at a cash machine, wearing a crop-top that exposed her pierced navel, and noticed an elegant, well-dressed woman hovering uncomfortably nearby. Finally the woman spoke to her: “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know whether to tell you or not, but you’re going to die of stomach cancer before you’re 30.” “I said, ‘What?’” Fennell remembers. “And she said, ‘I just thought you should know.’ Then she walked away.” Fennell was stunned, but the casual savagery of the gesture — the subtle, underhanded violence of it — impressed her. To this day, she thinks of it every time she has a stomachache. “Isn’t it so clever to pretend to be a kindly citizen?” she laughs. “I just thought, That’s it. That’s what it’s like. That’s what it’s like to be an angry, frightened, mean woman.” Years later, she included it in a short film, “Careful How You Go,” which consists of three vignettes depicting three moments of psychological violence and recreational sadism. “I guess she’s my muse,” Fennell said. “That cruel, cruel woman.”In the past five years or so, after decades of seeing women subsumed into highly regulated, rigidly prescribed roles, we’ve seen an explosion of dark, uncontained, shockingly human female characters. There’s a sense, Fennell told me, that the types of stories she wants to tell are “new” or of-the-moment in film and television, but she believes they have always existed. They’ve just been walled in, closed off, “like those anchorites” — medieval ascetics — “who used to build themselves into the walls of churches and see insane, terrifying visions and write about them.” What is fresh is that they are appearing in films and on television. Waller-Bridge’s “Fleabag,” Michaela Coel’s “I May Destroy You,” Aisling Bea’s “This Way Up,” Pamela Adlon’s “Better Things,” Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer’s “Broad City” and, more recently, Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle’s “PEN15” and Lucy Prebble and Billie Piper’s “I Hate Suzie” — this is an emergent mini-canon of tales from the other side, from behind the veil of decorum. “We’re only just getting to the stage, some of us, to tell them,” Fennell said. “I feel like there’s a backlog of stuff.” They aren’t new stories so much as alternate ones — subversions of the official story, secret histories, gnostic texts. “They’re the underworld,” she said.Fennell has been encouraged, recently, to see shades of this underworld — works marked by senselessness, chaos, the ease with which savagery can be cloaked in banality, all the repressed darkness and gallows humor that women use to cope — all around her: in Alice Lowe’s slasher film “Prevenge,” in Julia Davis’s filthy, Victorian-themed black comedy “Hunderby” or her hugely successful, also hugely filthy, podcast with Vicki Pepperdine, “Joan and Jericha,” in which they dispense advice as “two women for whom nothing is too disgusting. In fact, everything should be more disgusting. But also women are always wrong — so every woman who emails in, whatever the email, no matter how terrible or vile her partner, it’s always the woman’s fault.”Fennell told me a story about visiting the White Cube gallery in London, where she became enraptured by “a very weird sculpture of a woman having sex with a huge tentacled creature, or being murdered by it, or something.” She remarked to a gallery assistant how much she liked it. He told her there had been mixed reactions to it — “But do you know who loves it? Women.” Considering how women have embraced the surge in dark, realistic portrayals of contemporary female life, this is not surprising.There is something about the way the world relates to women that is bound to breed darkness — even if that darkness is sub rosa, hidden under blond curls and pretty dresses. This unvarnished darkness should not be confused with earlier, often studio-driven attempts at girl-themed “raunch culture.” It is coming from inside the house, reflecting a certain kind of smart, sensitive, reflexively caustic woman’s view of a culture that seems to insist on keeping her hidden from view, and subbing a compliant fembot in her place. As Fennell observes, it’s much more comfortable to imagine women are sweet and happy than face the fear they might want to hurt you. Cinema is full of stoic, gun-toting, “empowered” female avengers, but “that’s not how it works when women are angry and upset and traumatized,” she said. Cassie’s refusal to forget is more threatening: a constant, unendurable rebuke to those around her. “It was important that there was another path for her,” Fennell said. “And that we see how smooth and soft and well-lit that path is, versus the other one, which is so bleak.” Nothing threatens a culture of complicity more than self-sacrifice.After watching “Promising Young Woman,” Fennell told me, she noticed that a male friend of hers looked upset. “I said, ‘Are you all right?’ And he said, ‘You’ve been watching everyone.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah.’ I don’t want to be cruel. I want to be honest.” She paused. “Let’s talk about it.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Le Jeu de la dame’ encourage les femmes à se mettre aux échecs

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsThe actress Beth Behrs has been obsessed with chess since watching ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ on Netflix.Credit…Jessica Lehrman for The New York TimesSkip to contentSkip to site index ‘Le Jeu de la dame’ encourage les femmes à se mettre aux échecs La série-phare de Netflix montre que “les femmes peuvent être des rock stars” aux échecs; elle suscite de nouvelles vocations auprès de ses fans, dont des adolescentes et l’actrice Beth Behrs. The actress Beth Behrs has been obsessed with chess since watching ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ on Netflix.Credit…Jessica Lehrman for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyDec. 11, 2020Read in EnglishLa comédienne Beth Behrs a une nouvelle obsession — les échecs — et c’est la faute de la série “Le Jeu de la dame”, sur Netflix. Elle lui a même attiré des ennuis sur le plateau de la série CBS “The Neighborhood” dans laquelle elle joue le rôle de Gemma Johnson.“Ils m’ont crié dessus hier au boulot parce que je cachais mon téléphone sous mon scénario”, raconte-t-elle. “Au lieu de faire mon métier d’actrice, je jouais à Chess.com.”Behrs est loin d’être la seule à s’être découvert cette nouvelle passion. “Le Jeu de la dame”, ou “The Queen’s Gambit”, raconte l’histoire de Beth Harmon, une prodige aux échecs, qui se fraie un chemin dans le monde des tournois, dominé par les hommes. La série est un succès pour Netflix — 62 millions de foyers ont regardé au moins une partie de la série, selon la plateforme de streaming — et le phénomène a réveillé l’intérêt pour ce jeu, notamment auprès de femmes et de jeunes filles.Chess.com, le site sur lequel jouait Beth Behrs, a enregistré plus de 2,35 millions de joueurs supplémentaires depuis la sortie de la série fin octobre, selon Nick Barton, son directeur du développement commercial. Les inscriptions de femmes sont en hausse de 15% depuis la diffusion du “Jeu de la dame”, précise-t-il.La demande de cours d’échecs monte en flèche. Evan Rabin, le fondateur de Premier Chess, précise que les inscriptions à des leçons virtuelles cet automne ont crû de 50%, en grande partie par des femmes. Chez Maxim Dlugy, un grand maître qui dirige la Chess Max Academy à Manhattan, la demande de cours particuliers a doublé, et lui aussi constate qu’il y a davantage de joueuses.Parmi ces nouvelles adeptes, il y a Leyli Zohrenejad, membre du conseil d’administration de plusieurs organisations à but non lucratif, dont Pioneer Works à Red Hook, un quartier de Brooklyn. Elle a appris à déplacer les pièces lorsqu’elle était jeune, mais ne s’est mise proprement à jouer qu’avec la diffusion du “Jeu de la dame”.“Ça m’a en quelque sorte décidé à passer de ces jeux distrayants sur smartphone à quelque chose de vraiment plus significatif”, explique Zohrenejad.Elle prend jusqu’à quatre leçons par semaine et débute certaines de ses journées en réfléchissant à des problèmes d’échecs, sa tasse de café à la main.Beth Behrs chez elle. Elle et son mari, l’acteur Michael Gladis, se réservent une soirée à deux par semaine pour jouer aux échecs.Credit…Jessica Lehrman for The New York Times“Ça me réveille le cerveau le matin”, dit-elle. “Il n’y pas grand chose que je puisse faire le matin qui me mettrait dans une disposition d’esprit similaire”. Svetlana Timofejeva, qui vit à Athènes, en Grèce, a débuté des cours d’échecs il y a quelques semaines avec Anastasiya Karlovich, une femme grand maître, après avoir vu sur Facebook une publicité avec la photo de Beth, l’héroïne de la série. Les échecs lui rappellent son père, raconte-t-elle, qui lui avait appris à jouer quand elle était jeune et qu’elle vivait en Lettonie. Il s’y adonnait avec des amis dans un jardin public, tout comme dans les scènes du dernier épisode de la série.Bianca Mitchell, qui a 15 ans et qui vit à Albuquerque, s’est mise à jouer au CP mais a arrêté en classe de cinquième, quand elle est partie un an à Rochester, dans l’État de New York.“J’étais la seule fille à jouer et ça me mettait vraiment mal à l’aise”, admet-elle.À son retour au Nouveau-Mexique, elle n’avait pas envie de reprendre. Mais son état d’esprit a changé en voyant “Le Jeu de la dame”. Apprentie cinéaste, elle est enthousiasmée par la cinématographie et par le personnage de Beth. La série montre les échecs sous un jour “très glamour et luxueux, que les femmes peuvent être des rock stars”, dit-elle. À présent, elle aussi veut devenir grand maître.Lila Field, à gauche, et sa soeur  Rowan Field en 2019; elles ont toutes deux pris part à des tournois internationaux d’échecs.Credit…Carmen FieldLa série a même inspiré des joueuses d’échecs établies. Rowan Field, 12 ans, et sa sœur, Lila, 11 ans, qui vivent à New York (et ont toutes deux auditionné pour le rôle de Beth enfant), sont des juniors bien classées qui ont pris part à des tournois internationaux au Brésil, en Chine, en Espagne et au Chili.Si elles disent ne pas s’identifier à Beth, parce qu’elle est orpheline et souffre d’addictions, elles trouvent que ce personnage “montre qu’il peut y avoir des joueuses d’échecs extrêmement talentueuses”, se félicite Rowan, sa sœur acquiesçant d’un hochement de tête lors d’un appel Zoom. On voir rarement ça dans les séries télévisées ou les films, note Rowan.Pour Marisa Maisano, 13 ans, qui vit à Philadelphie et qui a commencé à jouer aux échecs au CP, Beth est un modèle d’excellence. “Suivre ses progrès au fil du temps et constater à quel point ils sont stupéfiants, et comment elle a réussi, ça a vraiment été une source d’inspiration pour moi”, confie-t-elle. Deux de ses amies qui ne savaient pas jouer aux échecs lui ont demandé de leur apprendre le jeu.Beth Behrs, comédienne et passionnée d’échecs.Credit…Jessica Lehrman for The New York TimesOn n’avait pas vu un engouement pareil pour les échecs depuis 1972, l’année où l’Américain Bobby Fischer est devenu champion du monde en l’emportant sur le Russe Boris Spassky. Une génération de passionnés s’en est suivie mais la vogue est retombée — en grande partie parce que Fischer s’est progressivement enfermé dans la solitude et l’instabilité, tenant des propos antisémites puis renonçant à son titre. Il est trop tôt pour savoir si l’enthousiasme actuel pour ce jeu perdurera et s’il est susceptible d’engendrer de nouvelles Beth Harmon. Mais beaucoup lui ont déjà fait une place dans leurs vies.Pour la comédienne Beth Behrs, savoir jouer aux échecs est une priorité depuis longtemps car son mari Michael Gladis — l’acteur de la série “Mad Men” — est un passionné. Il arrive à ce dernier de jouer plusieurs parties par jour sur Internet. Quand ils se sont mis en couple il y a 10 ans, Behrs a tenté de s’y adonner mais se sentait intimidée.“J’ai mis ça de côté et je ne m’y suis jamais mise”, reconnaît-elle.“Le Jeu de la dame” a tout changé. La série lui a donné confiance et elle trouve le jeu créatif et stimulant.Désormais, Behrs et Gladis se réservent une soirée à deux par semaine pour les échecs. Ils mettent un disque, allument un feu dans la cheminée et commencent la partie.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More