The Best Twitter Takes on Gay Captain America, Lesbian Elsa. I think Captain Hello Kitty is lookin’ good…
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
The Best Twitter Takes on Gay Captain America, Lesbian Elsa. I think Captain Hello Kitty is lookin’ good…
Emma Watson as Belle.
Emma Watson will be starring in Disney’s live version of Beauty and the Beast. Oh, baby. Not normally something I’d watch, but along with Ms. Watson, the cast also includes Dan Stevens playing Beast, and Ian McKellen, Ewan McGregor, Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, Audra McDonald, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw will be featured as the many household items we’ve come to know and love.
Via Pride.
Vision Maker Media website.
Vision Maker Media (VMM) has announced financial support for six new projects for production by and about Native Americans.
With funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), Vision Maker Media’s Public Media Content Fund awards support to projects with a Native American theme and significant Native involvement. […] “The goal of the Public Media Content Fund is to increase the diversity of voices available to PBS viewers,” said Shirley K. Sneve (Rosebud Sioux), executive director of Vision Maker Media.
The final slate of documentaries funded this year represents Native voices and stories from across the United States, including Alaska, California, Illinois, Montana, Oklahoma and Washington, some documentaries will cover stories coast-to-coast. In this funding cycle, 66 percent of the filmmakers are women, 33 percent are male; 66 percent are enrolled in a federally recognized tribe.
Funding was awarded as 75 percent production, 19 percent post-production and completion and 6 percent new media.
The projects are:
ATTLA
Catharine Axley
Production | 100,000
ATTLA tells the gripping story of George Attla, an Alaska Native dogsled racer who, with just one good leg – childhood tuberculosis left him with a lame leg – and a determined mindset, became a legendary sports hero among both western and Native communities across the country.
Kendra (Working Title)
Brooke Swaney (Blackfeet/Salish)
Production | 100,000
What does blood have to do with identity? Kendra Mylnechuk, an adult Native adoptee born in 1980 at the cusp of the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act, is on a journey to reconnect with her birth family and discover her Lummi heritage.
The Blackfeet Flood
Ben Shors, Lailani Upham (Blackfeet/Sisseton Wahpeton/Gros Ventre)
Production | $73,484
More than a half-century after the worst disaster in Montana history, two Blackfeet families struggle to come to terms with the 1964 flood. While one family held on to their rural lifestyle, the flood scattered the other family across the U.S.
Words From A Bear: The Enigmatic Life of Author N. Scott Momaday
Jeffrey Palmer (Kiowa)
Production | 115,000
Words From A Bear examines the enigmatic life and mind of Pulitzer-Prize-winning author N. Scott Momaday. The biography delves into the psyche, ancestry and writings of one of Native America’s most celebrated authors of poetry and prose.
Keep Talking
Karen Weinberg, Kartemquin Films
Post-Production | 100,000
Kodiak Alutiiq Elders of Alaska’s Gulf Coast are victims of systematic assimilation and abuse, first by Russian occupation, then by the United States government. Now with less than 50 fluent Native speakers of Kodiak Alutiiq remaining, three young Alutiiq women battle the resulting historical trauma and discover that saving their language is truly a matter of life and death.
In the Beginning was Water and Sky
Mackenzie Gruer (Tyendinaga Mohawk), Ryan Ward (Métis)
New Media | $30,000
In the Beginning was Water and Sky is a short-form New Media project that tells two parallel stories about a Chippewa boy who runs away from Indian Boarding School in the 1950s and a Chippewa girl who runs away from her village in the 1700s.
If you haven’t developed a nerd
bonerbrainer for X-Men: Apocalypse and all its ‘80s glory yet, this new promo might just do the trick. It’s cleverly shot as an old school promotional film for Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, starring Jubilee and some of her mutant buddies. It’s Marvel meets Degrassi Junior High. Via Out.
Here’s the promo for X-Men: Apocalypse, in theaters May 27:
I skipped the second reboot flick, I just couldn’t cope with a pasty white Khan, but I might have to see this one because…Idris Elba.
Star Trek Beyond, starring Idris Elba, Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin and Karl Urban, dropped late yesterday at a fan event and features the Enterprise being torn to shreds by a terrifying shroud of alien creatures.
The alien leader even dares to sit in Captain Kirk’s chair.
The film is premiering in IMAX at Comic-Con on July 20 and hits theatres two days later.
Via Towleroad. More about the movie: http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2015/12/15/its-a-clash-of-philosophies-in-star-trek-beyond and http://screenrant.com/star-trek-beyond-alien-races/.
(Credit: Marvel)
future X-Men movie could have a so-called “female Wolverine” and — for once — fans are embracing the change.
After 17 years of Hugh Jackman filling the role of Wolverine on the big screen, X-Men: Apocalypse director Bryan Singer revealed to Fandango this week that he had already spoken to Fox about instead using the character X-23 — a female Wolverine clone — for a future X-Force movie.
“I have discussed that with the studio,” Singer explained. “I actually initially pitched the X-Force and the female.”
According to the Marvel Database, scientists created Laura Kinney — or X-23 — as a clone when they were unable to salvage the Y chromosome from the original Weapon X experiment.
Unlike fans disdain for female Ghostsbusters characters, the idea of a “female Wolverine” was largely met with praise on Twitter.
There are some tweets and more at Raw Story. Many of those supportive of the change have what I feel is a bad reason – they don’t want another male actor to replace Jackman, so a female Wolverine would be easier to take. As someone who has never much cared for Jackman, I wouldn’t care about him being replaced, but I am all for X-23, bring her on!
Last year, Canadian filmmaker Dominic Gagnon released a 74-minute film entitled “Of The North.” The film is a collage of the life of Inuit people using film clips the director says he took from public video sites such as Youtube.
Last year, Canadian filmmaker Dominic Gagnon released a 74-minute film entitled Of The North. The film is a collage of the life of Inuit people using film clips the director says he took from public video sites such as Youtube.
[…]
Of the North has been screened at the Montreal International Documentary Festival, the Prizren festival of Kosovo, Leeds in Great Britain, the Film Festival of Rotterdam, the Distrital festival of Mexico City and it won an award at the prestigious Visions du Réel festival in Nyon, Switzerland.
[…]
The film has drawn tremendous criticism, because Gagnon has never been to the Northern territories and his film shows only selected segments of Inuit life, such as extreme weather, Ski-doos and hunting, and also shows drunk people, crashing vehicles and some sexually explicit scenes.
Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, an Inuk and a documentary filmmaker, told the CBC Gagnon’s film left her shaking.
“Violent, wandering drunks that neglect their children and don’t care for the lives of animals: that’s the image I took away from the film. I think it’s kind of a cheap move to totally play up a negative stereotype of a marginalized people for your own artistic gain,” she said.
Gagnon used the music of Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq in his film; she told the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) she was “disgusted” by the festival’s decision to screen Of the North, a film she says is racist and used her music without permission.
[…]
Thirty-four of the videos are not made by Inuit, and not from the North, like the men fighting on the floor: this sequence was shot in Austin Texas, and they are not Inuit. The videos of the industrial off-shore drilling are in the Baltic sea. It is misleading, as the trailer suggests that Inuit are working on the oil drill, which is not true. Then he is mocking Inuit identity in a music clip, “don’t call me Eskimo.” The term “Eskimo” is derogative. It is a Cree word, they used it as an insult to the Inuit.
Adding what I said in a comment:
You need to read the full story, where it’s made clear that assholes like Gagnon could get away with this because the Inuit have next to no resources when it comes to communicating with the wider world. Efforts have started, and small headway has been made, but this is a poor community, with pretty much no one giving a damn about them. It’s even worse when you realize this piece of fakery won a fucking award – people else where in the world don’t know, and unless they make a serious effort to find out the truth, this bullshit will be taken for truth, screaming the old standard of Indians everywhere being drunken, savage brutes, and in the case of women, drunken whores not interested in any children they may have. This was a bone deep shock to Inuit people, who know the truth of their lives, and what is in this piece of fakery is not it. When the average American and the average Canadian doesn’t know jack shit about Indigenous peoples, what can be expected of those who live in Britain, Switzerland, and so on? It’s bad enough that people often romanticize the idea of Indians, in a completely unrealistic way, and here comes along someone who decided to make a profit through exploitation and theft.
The first issue of Black Panther, a Marvel series written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, was released last month. Marvel Comics.
The stakes are high for Marvel and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates to do Black Panther well. The character appears this month in the blockbuster “Captain America: Civil War,” a prelude to the film he’ll headline in 2018. And last month, Coates released the first issue of a new Black Panther comic series.
When it was first reported last September that Coates would script a 12-issue arc of the Black Panther, some commentators suggested that he might be an “odd” fit.
The implication was that a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and winner of the National Book Award was participating in a genre and medium beneath his talents. But they might be surprised to learn discussions of racism in superhero comics is a long – albeit often troubled – tradition. They also might not recognize the extent of Coates’ literary undertaking. He is tasked not only with appealing to comics readers but also with attracting new fans to the genre. This would be a daunting prospect, no matter the property. But the Black Panther character poses a very specific set of challenges.
[…]
A white superhero film failing has not caused studios to shy away from superhero films with white protagonists. The failure of a superhero film starring a woman or person of color, however, can set back the development of diverse superhero films for some time. Many people would probably rejoice in anything that stops the superhero franchise juggernaut. But the last few years have brought increased attention to the real struggles for women and people of color to break into the comics and film industries.
Unfortunately, when it comes to underrepresented populations, the success or failure of these texts always ends up being about more than the specific text in itself. It becomes a referendum on whether or not stories about people who are not straight, white men are valuable, and whether or not people who tell such stories should be given the resources to do so.
Elsa in Disney’s Frozen.
While some groups want the fictional ice princess in Disney’s animated hit Frozen, to have a girlfriend in an upcoming sequel, conservatives recoiled in rage, demanding instead that Elsa be set up with the requisite Disney prince, Right Wing Watch reports.
Twitter users have been mounting a campaign using the hashtag #GiveElsaAGirlfriend to make the character Disney’s first lesbian princess.
A conservative group, CitizenGO is up in arms about that prospect, responding in-kind with the hashtag #CharmingPrinceForElsa.
“Disney is facing fierce pressure from liberal groups who are demanding their writers turn Queen Elsa into a lesbian during the sequel, Frozen 2,” Gregory Mertz wrote to fellow CitizenGO members. “Please join the 37,000 who’ve already signed our petition against this absurd ‘movement.’ With our petition, we’re suggesting Disney with a much better idea… An idea that promotes solid family values to our children and represents the natural family.”
Then there was Kevin Swanson, who has advocated for the execution of LGBT people, who was already seething with fury over the first installment of Frozen.
“Of course Elsa is going to get her girlfriend eventually,” he said on his radio show Monday. “That’s the way you destroy sexuality. That’s the way you destroy an entire civilization. The entire social system of the United States of America is collapsing.”
Full Story Here. I haven’t seen Frozen, but I’m all for Elsa having a girlfriend. She could even be a Charming Princess.
The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road ensemble opens in theaters starting June 10.
Louie’s Jurassic Park:
In his off-duty time, NASA Astronaut Don Pettit experiments with the physics of
water in the weightless environment aboard the International Space Station:
McAvoy goes full Stewart:
25 Contemporary Artists Reimagine the African Mask.
Nandipha Mntambo (South African, born 1982). Europa, 2008. Exhibition print, 31 ½ x 31 ½ in. (80 x 80 cm). Photographic composite: Tony Meintjes. Courtesy of the artist and STEVENSON, Cape Town and Johannesburg. © Nandipha Mntambo. Photo: Courtesy of STEVENSON, Cape Town and Johannesburg.
Click the link for more photos, and the full story.
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW:
L-R: Laverne Cox and Ben Vereen.
EW released the first photo of Laverne Cox as Frank-N-Furter, the doctor from Transsexual, Transylvania, in the upcoming Rocky Horror Picture Show reboot.
I don’t know that I’d call a made for TV movie a reboot, but Laverne Cox is rocking the look. I think I’ll have to confess that I’m on the glad side I don’t have television though, because I’m one of those old school fans when it comes to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I went to midnight shows when I was in high school (as Magenta), and those memories are special. I expect I’ll see this one at some point, I just need a bit of prep time.
Will Marvel Films Feature LGBT Superheroes? Civil War Directors Think So.
Captain America: Civil War directors Joe and Anthony Russo believe the Marvel universe is pushing “what people’s expectation of a superhero movie are.”
The duo recently talked about the possibility of a LGBT character in the upcoming Marvel films. “I think the chances are strong,” said Joe Russo. “It’s incumbent on us as storytellers who are making mass-appeal movies to make mass-appeal movies …. It’s sad in the way that Hollywood lags behind other industries so significantly.”
Joe’s got no idea. GLAAD’s Studio Responsibility Index recently found, among other data, that there was no significant increase in LGBT portrayal in major-studio films from 2014 to 2015—only 17.5 percent.
[…]
“I think this is a philosophy of Marvel—in success it becomes easier to take risks,” Anthony Russo said. “So I think that’s very hopeful for all of us moving forward that bolder and bolder choices can be made.”
So who will it be? Maybe we can sneak in a gay Iceman while Fox isn’t looking …
