February 24, 1836– Winslow Homer is one of the most prolific and important American artists of the 19th century. If you read #BornThisDay often, you know that I have a passion for American painting; recent columns have celebrated John Singer Sargent and Grant Wood. Homer is certainly a favorite of mine. He created a modern American classical style, a sort of visual equivalent to the writings of Henry Thoreau, Herman Melville or Walt Whitman.
Born in Boston, Homer started his career as a commercial print-maker in NYC, where he made his home in 1859. In October, 1861, he received an assignment to report from the front lines in Virginia as an artist-correspondent for Harper’s Weekly. Homer’s Civil War paintings were more a matter of reporting than the kind of art work you might frame. They were more in the manner of his advertising prints. When the War Between The States ended, his paintings brought a more profound understanding of the war’s impact and meaning on our country’s citizens.
Prisoners From The Front (1866)
After the Civil War, and back in NYC, Homer made his living doing magazine illustrations and building his reputation as a painter, but he found most of his subjects in the popular seaside resorts of Massachusetts and New Jersey, and in the Adirondacks of New York State and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Late in 1866, two of his Civil War paintings were shown in Paris at the Exposition Universelle. For the next year he explored Paris and the French countryside. Homer shared an interest in the same subjects and styles as the French painters of the era: Their fascination with serial imagery, and their desire to use outdoor light, simple forms and expressive brushwork.
In 1875, Homer began to paint using watercolors instead of oils, with solid success. The sales of his work enabled him to give up his job as an illustrator. He returned to Virginia to observe and portray what had happened to the lives of former slaves during the first decade of Emancipation.
In the early 1880s, Homer began to desire solitude, and his paintings took on a startling intensity. In 1881, he traveled to England. After visiting London, he settled in Cullercoats, a village on the North Sea, staying for 18 months. He observed the tough, courageous lives of the locals, whom he depicted in their boats, hauling and cleaning fish, and mending their nets. When Homer returned home to the USA, he was a changed man and a changed artist.
Detail from “Undertow” (1866)
In the summer of 1883, Homer moved to Prout’s Neck, a village in Maine, where he produced dazzling paintings, and where he lived for the rest of his life. He enjoyed the isolation and he was inspired by his privacy and the silence. This is where Homer painted the great themes of his career: The struggle of people against the sea and the relationship of fragile human life against the brute force of nature. His most famous paintings, the ones you think of when you hear his name, pictures of men challenging the power of the ocean with their own strength and cunning and responding to the water’s overwhelming force in scenes of dramatic rescues are from this period.
But by 1890, Homer gave up narrative depictions of humans and concentrated on the dynamic drama of the sea itself. His richly textured and composed seascapes capture the look and feel of rushing and receding waves. You can almost hear the sounds of the crash of water. In his own lifetime, these paintings were his most admired works, noted for Homer’s first exciting hints of modernist abstraction.
Main Coast 1896
Homer refused to answer questions about his personal life from critics and biographers. He left no revealing diaries or papers, and he produced no self-portraits. He was a lifelong bachelor and extraordinarily shy. Homer himself hinted at this sentiment in a 1908 note to a reporter:
“I think that it would probably kill me to have such a thing appear–and as the most interesting part of my life is of no concern to the public I must decline to give you any particulars in regard to it.”
He had a very close relationship with Albert Kelsey, another New England artist whom he met in 1858. They lived and traveled together for a decade.
But, the closest companion in his life was an African-American gentleman, LewisWright, who lived at Homer’s Maine estate for 25 years. It is known that Homer’s neighbors were made uncomfortable by the closeness of his relationship, especially when the two men were spotted leaving the gym together after core class and sharing an IPod, sweetly, each taking a single earbud. They both were into early R&B, and soaking in natural hot springs.
A photograph made while they lived in Paris, apes the conventions of period marriage portraits, as do so many photographic portraits of male friendships of this period. I am smart enough to know that many of the vintage photographs in my own collection represent male romantic comradeship and not necessarily sex partners, but we can never really be sure. As old as I am, I missed this epoch. But the title of the photograph of Homer and Wright is Damon And Pythias, the famous ancient Greek heroes and lovers.
Damon And Pythias (Wright with Homer, Paris, 1890)
Homer put down his brushes for good in 1910, gone at 74-years old, at his studio in Prouts Neck.
Political post fatigue? Orange POTUS outrage burn-out? These dogs are likely upset by something else but trust, from the looks of it, these pooches didn’t have such a hot week either.
Yes, we’re sick of her too, and DUH we saw this coming, but Caitlyn Jenner is somehow surprised. She’s now speaking out against Trump administration’s decision to get rid of Obama-era protections for transgender students. Jenner said in a video on Twitter.
“I have a message for President Trump from, well, one Republican to another. This is a disaster. And you can still fix it. You made a promise to protect the LGBTQ community. Call me.”
Other celebrities have already spoken out on social media, including Katy Perry, Chris Evans, Mark Hamill, Laverne Cox and Ellen DeGeneres, who tweeted
“For anyone who feels scared or hopeless, know that we will never stop fighting for your rights.”
Jenner supported Trump in the election, and was convinced he would be good on LGBT issues. She was at an inauguration gala with House Speaker Paul Ryan,
“He seems very much behind the LGBT community because of what happened in North Carolina with the bathroom issue.“
In her video, she reaches out to trans kids who may be feeling hopeless.
“I have a message for the trans kids of America. You’re winning. I know it doesn’t feel like it today or every day, but you’re winning. Very soon we will win full freedom nationwide and it’s going to be with bipartisan support. You can help by checking out the National Center for Transgender Equality and letting Washington hear you loud and clear.”
This like Sophie’s Choice and AFTER you give up one kid up to the Nazis, you tell them not to be afraid and everything is going to be OK. She had a word for transphobes, too.
“Now I have a message for the bullies: You’re sick. And because you’re weak, you pick on kids, you pick on women or anyone else you think is vulnerable. Apparently even becoming the attorney general isn’t enough to cure some people of their insecurities.”
You are on your own Caitlyn, I’m afraid the LGBTQ community does not have your back. But your wealth, celebrity and Trump’s policies WILL protect you.
The infatuation has now turned into a full-blown booty call. A picture of the Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau/Hottie in Chief wearing some very tight pants made its way around the internet a few million times in the last two days. Yes, gays have gone wild, and the ladies are thirsty too.
See. For. Yourself.
THIS POST WAS APPROVED BY FLASHBACK FRIDAY & GINGER MINJ:
Feeling like pu**y, feeling like STUN! It’s TGIF here at World of Wonder hunties and as we pulled into the office, Alaska Thunderfuck and Gia Gunn dropped a fashion-forward, pony-tail twirling, feelin’ their God given oats music video for ‘STUN’ and we are LIVING for it.
Now that the cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 9 was RUVEALED, we’ll be sharing our FAV Insta-picks from the new batch of girls that possess all the charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent. Today we are featured Jaymes Mansfield!
Check out her 9 most sickening Insta-picks and make sure you follow her on her Instagram!
Yes, last night, Barack Obama was in NYC. He surfaced post-vacation to dine at Emilio’s Ballato with daughter Malia, who’s in town to intern with Harvey Weinstein (and go clubbing too.) The red-sauce at the Italian restaurant is a favorite of Rihanna and Billy Joel, and apparently our former POTUS.
Oh, TS is putting the MAD in Madison today on Facebook Live. Now that Caitlyn Jenner is speaking out against Trump administration’s decision to get rid of Obama-era protections for transgender students. Jenner said in a video on Twitter.
“I have a message for President Trump from, well, one Republican to another. This is a disaster. And you can still fix it. You made a promise to protect the LGBTQ community. Call me.”
Call YOU? TS wants you to call HER! I’m not saying anymore.
Being out and proud in Hollywood is for some a huge obstacle. People believe it will halt big opportunities and others believe it can mess up their flow of income. Whatever the reasoning Nico Tortorella spoke with Vice about why he decided to come out and why it’s important for more closeted Hollywood Elite to break out of the closest!
I identify as a human being before anything else. Although I don’t believe in labeling myself with one word, right now I’m into using the word “bisexual” because of its radicalness in our generation. There needs to be more visibility in all things surrounding that word, and I am here for myself and for that community. But I do not believe in the binary of sexuality or gender.
I joke that I was never in the closet, I wasn’t even in the house. I’ve always done my own thing and been comfortable in it. But through working on myself and my sobriety, I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with who I am and what that means on a public level. I have a podcast where I talk to people about just that.
I’ve always said that if anyone was going to be able to pull off playing in the spectrum—be able to pass as straight on television and be whoever I want in my personal life and still get the 15-year-old in Missouri to have a poster of me on her wall—I was going to do it. And at the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to: Is your name going to sell tickets? That’s it. I also realize this is a result of privilege I have, stemming from how I look and various other reasons.
I think the system itself is changing so fast right now, in the sense that there are new networks being made every single day. The amount of product for actors right now is exponential and raising every single day. I mean, Netflix is going to do 100-plus original shows next year? That’s insane. If you’re already good at your job now, if you’re already established, you’re going to keep working whether you’re gay, straight, transgender, bisexual, or, like, fucking Casey Affleck. You’re going to work.
Nico Tortorella is an actor best known for roles in Scream 4, TV Land’s Younger and FOX’s The Following. His podcast The Love Bomb, in which Tortorella “explores love and the labels associated with it,” premiered in September. As told to Ian Daniel.
Being publicly out has been incredibly positive for me, and my perspective is that the industry as a whole just doesn’t really care anymore. Having said that, I imagine there are actors still out there who may feel they need to pretend to be straight in order to forge a certain kind of career. Also, whether you’re an actor or not, I think there are a whole host of reasons that the world still makes it difficult to come out. People still deal with family issues, personal fears, discrimination, bullying, hate crimes. We have people at the highest levels of government who want to make it OK to treat LGBT people as second-class citizens and strip away rights that we’ve only recently won. I’m looking at you, Mike Pence.
As actors, those personal fears or childhood scars don’t go away just because you’re suddenly on a TV show. So I think actors who may not be out are also just struggling with personal demons that may have nothing to do with their careers. Except that now you’re talking about being out to millions of people at once, which only amplifies all those fears.
It’s possible that being out has affected the kinds of roles that have come my way, but I honestly haven’t felt that. In the last few years, I’ve played several straight characters. And I’ll tell you that not feeling like you have a secret on set that you have to protect in order to play the role has allowed me to bring way more of myself to those parts and to feel 100 percent more comfortable in my skin.
Maulik Pancholy played Jonathan on 30 Rock and is a voice actor on shows including Phineas and Ferb and Sanjay and Craig. He will appear as Nambue on Star Trek Discovery. As told to Matt Baume.
I believe that people remain closeted because they’re afraid of losing opportunities, which is a fancy way of saying they don’t want their identity to mess with their money. Hollywood is really a game of façades. Everyone in this town has a narrative, and it’s all about perception. If being straight is a part of your façade, if that’s a part of your brand—well, you don’t want to fuck that up by having the public find out your truth. I think people are afraid of everything they’ve built falling down around them. Especially if you’re a person of color.
There aren’t many women of color who are out. Being black and gay is still taboo in the black community. There’s still a shame associated with being gay—and that’s not going away anytime soon. We’re making progress, but it’s slow.
That said, I think being open about sexuality has actually helped me! My gayness, my blackness—me being proud of where I come from is what makes me special. Sure, I could’ve taken a different path, and maybe I would’ve had a different career. But I like being my authentic self; I like being a beacon of light for little girls who are struggling with their sexuality and are afraid to be themselves. That’s more important to me than making a lot of money or making certain people feel comfortable.
Lena Waithe is an actor and screenwriter best known for roles in Bonesand Master of None. Showtime recently picked up her drama The Chi, a forthcoming series inspired by her childhood in Chicago. This summer, Master of None returns to Netflix for its second season. As told to Jon Shadel.
I came out at a time in my life where I knew there wouldn’t be another NSYNC album. I wanted to keep it private until I knew I wasn’t going to influence anyone’s business, meaning my four best friends. I was in an interesting situation, where 90 percent of my market was female, and teenagers at that. If I was going to rip the Band-Aid off, I was afraid it would be received as a betrayal and just ruin NSYNC. You’re constantly told things: “Don’t be seen with a beer in your hand, don’t be seen with a girlfriend.” They didn’t need to say “don’t be gay.” It’s implied.
My business completely changed after coming out. I was working on a sitcom, I had projects I’d been working on for years, and when they had to put the “gay” label on me, all those projects went away. My career went from being asked to do tons of stuff to only being asked to play gay stuff. It’s very disappointing; you go from doing something as big as NSYNC, having a huge team around you and getting amazing offers, then you share a personal thing and it completely changes the way people perceive you. You become part of a minority. Business is business, and when you’re part of a minority, there’s not a lot of money behind that, and they move on to something that will make them money and you get left behind.
Lance Bass is a member of NSYNC and was a daily panelist on NBC’s The Meredith Vieira Show. He has won numerous awards in his career as a musician, appeared on Broadway in Hairspray, published a memoir titled Out of Sync, has appeared on Dancing with the Stars, and hosted two shows on Sirius XM. As told to Jessica Ogilvie.
I recently watched Ellenfor the first time, and I never watch Ellen. I’m like, “How has this sort of butch, masculine-presenting white woman—who’s been totally out of the closet for the last 15, 20 years—taken over daytime television to the degree where there are slews of white women clapping and oohing and ahhing at her when she dances in the aisle?” You know, who needs to come out when Ellen’s coming out every day? I think that for me, what I’d like to see are those intersections of coming out around my class, my race.
I think if coming out is not done as a spectacle, and if it’s done as an act of coalition building and intersectional allegiance, then yes, we’ll see more of it. I think as people wake up and stumble around and wipe the sleep off their eyes, I think we’ll feel the pinch to need to come out or recognize who’s out and grab onto them to do something more tightly and more powerful.
Cheryl Dunye is a filmmaker and assistant professor in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University. Her 1996 directorial debut, The Watermelon Woman, is widely considered the first feature film directed by a black gay woman. Her forthcoming film, Black is Blue, is due out in 2018. As told to Jennifer Swann.
Growing up, I never really came out, but everyone sort of knew. There’s an old Spanish saying that’s like, que lo que ves no necesitas preguntar, “that what you see you don’t need to ask.” It’s funny because it’s true. I came out more for my mom than myself, so that she could be comfortable.
I never felt pressure to suppress my sexuality from my agent or anyone else, and I don’t shy away from it. I feel like because I’m comic relief, I’m a sidekick, I’m endearing—it’s like I’m everyone’s best friend. The roles and characters I’m fortunate enough to bring to life are more forgiving. The difference is that when a muscular, model-esque Adonis comes out as gay, then they lose their demographic and their agents drop them. I have those friends, and I know they’re gay, and I would never out them. That’s their journey, their life. It is a different topic for them.
I get messages from people like, “Oh my God, you’re Latino, you’re short, you’re round, you’re not the stereotype.” I’m not cookie cutter, that’s for sure. But I made a career by owning who I am. Being short, stout, gay, Latino—statistically, I shouldn’t be where I’m at. But I’m working in Hollywood because I want to be that example. When I grew up, I didn’t see people who looked like me, but now I’m that person. I want kids to look at the TV and be like, “Oh my God, there is hope. I can do this. I can be this.”
Harvey Guillen is an actor known for roles on SyFy’s The Magicians, ABC Family’s Huge and The Internship. As told to Ian Daniel.
I think the closet is absolutely generational, and I totally understand the importance of coming out, but what I don’t understand is people my age ganging up on the Jodie Fosters and John Travoltas of the world, who grew up in the spotlight. They never had a normal youth that would have given them the freedom to make those discoveries in a private place. And coming out when they may have naturally wanted to do it would have been dangerous—not just for their careers, but socially, and maybe just interpersonally. And if your public image is part of how you make money, or if that’s where you derive your self-worth, then it might feel a lot more dangerous to you than it actually is to make a big change in that image. I think we need to be a little more forgiving of those who grew up in a totally different time, and whose lives are just completely distorted due to their massive wealth and fame.
And also, the sad thing is, if John Travolta came out, I do think it would help his career. I think that he and the Kevin Spacey’s of the world are living under this kind of 80s assumption of what acting is and they’ve got to be able to play straight to get the straight roles, but I think that we’re actually living in a far more personal, confessional time in entertainment. We’re living in an era of reality television and direct-to-camera confessional YouTube stuff, so it’s a totally different time when everyone is—major stars, you have access to their unfiltered minds through Twitter—so it would actually be beneficial to their careers. Especially among young people, like literal teenagers who over 50 percent of them don’t identify as straight now, who do not know who those people are. I actually do think it would be brilliant PR move for them to come out this late in the game. I just really think it would shake shit up a little bit for their careers. I don’t think anyone needs John Travolta to still be this, like, beacon of masculinity.
John Early is an LA-based comedian and actor who can be seen in TBS’s Search Party, Netflix’s The Characters, and his Vimeo series alongside co-creator Kate Berlant, 555. As told to Tyler Trykowski.
We’ve been having this conversation about diversity in Hollywood for a while—though not long enough—but certainly it touches on women and people of color and people behind the camera and in front of the camera and LGBT people and trans people, and it’s all connected. I do like to see [actors] come out and be out, because it just adds more complexity to what kinds of roles and range they can play, and what we all accept and appreciate as the complexity of human experience. So to kind of minimize that or sort of say, “Well, let’s not make a big deal out of queerness,” I think is kind of conservative.
I do think there’s a fear of being typecast as gay, and I wouldn’t say that that fear is baseless. There still is a double standard to some degree, although I think it is sort of dissipating. But the experience that we’re coming from is that Sean Penn can play Harvey Milk, but a gay actor has less flexibility to play a straight leading man, for example. I do feel like that’s sort of changing, and we’re in the middle of an evolution, and the only way it’s going to change is for people to stand up and come out and continue to express the diversity of the human experience and be sort of uncompromising about that. And if there’s enough well-loved actors and celebrities who are authentic about who they are, people will still want to see them.
Rhys Ernst is an LA-based writer, artist, and filmmaker who serves as a producer on the series Transparent. Last year, he released Relationship, a private photo diary documenting a six-year relationship with the artist Zackary Drucker, in which both transitioned genders. The documentary mini-series he executive produced, We’ve Been Around, was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award this year. As told to Jennifer Swann.
It used to be when people heard I worked in Hollywood that the first question out of their mouths was, “Who’s gay?” But I don’t get that question much anymore. I don’t think people are as obsessed over sexuality like they once were.
For a while, it was the glass closet—it seemed hardly anyone was coming out. But now that more major celebrities have, it’s made it less of a thing. It’s not as scandalous or forbidden. It’s not as titillating to think about who is or who isn’t gay. Take Kristen Stewart’s recent Saturday Night Live monologue—the fact that she said she was gay seemed almost secondary to Trump’s obsession with her. I just don’t think sexuality carries the same scandalous weight that it used to.
That said, I see both sides of it—coming out is a very personal journey. And even once you’re committed to doing it, you can botch it in a lot of ways. I think the most in-your-face coming out in recent years was Ellen Page, and I interviewed her about that. She got on the stage at this human rights campaign event in Las Vegas and announced to the world that she was gay. But then you have what Jodie Foster did at the Golden Globes. She sort of gave a coming-out speech, in which she never said she was gay. It seemed like she was doing these acrobatics to not have to say it—but still say it. Once you’re going that far, just say it.
It’s personal, sure. But if a celebrity came to me for advice, I would encourage them to come out openly. It still helps people to hear it—to hear the words “I’m gay” or “I’m lesbian” from a public figure. Especially for kids being bullied in schools and those in states like Texas and North Carolina, where these discriminatory bills are being passed.
As senior writer at the Hollywood Reporter, Seth Abramovitch has extensively covered the entertainment industry, profiling celebrities from Ellen Page to RuPaul to Anderson Cooper. As told to Jon Shadel.
I still believe that the single most important act there is for LGBTQ people is coming out. If every gay person in America came out today, people would understand the depth of our power. But we’re getting there, too. We’re getting there. And one of the reasons we have that kind of power is because we have come out in such great numbers… Traditional PR is one way [for celebrities to come out], and I’ve done it all sorts of ways with my clients. It depends on the circumstance. You have to understand, when you take somebody out, there has to be a strategy. Am I just coming out to live a true life? Is there a commercial venture associated with it? You have to determine the what and the why and then build from there.
Years ago, in 2010, I had a deal with A&E to put a show together called Coming Out, where we were actually going to take celebrities out of the closet and follow their journey. It proved, at the time, to be un-castable. I just couldn’t get the caliber of celebrities I needed to come out. But the irony of the whole thing is that so many of the people who were approached are now out. I approached [Titanic actor] Victor Garber, and I approached Tuc Watkins, who’s a soap opera actor, and I approached Jonathan Bennett from Mean Girls, and it wasn’t quite right for any of them at the time, but they’re all out now. So that’s a very good measure to me of how far we’ve come.
Howard Bragman is the founder and chairman of Hollywood PR agency Fifteen Minutes. A publicist with more than 30 years experience, Bragman is known for helping celebrity clients including country singer Chely Wright, Bewitched star Dick Sargent, and more recently, Michael Sam—the NFL’s first openly gay football player—come out of the closet.As told to Jennifer Swann.
I think when you compare movies to television, there’s a real split in diversity of all stripes. Yes, we saw more people of color lead prestigious films in the past year—the box office reflected it—but there’s still been a conservative retrenching when it comes to who ought to lead a film, and that’s been motivated in large part by the global audience. If it weren’t for people holding studio executives’ feet to the fire, we wouldn’t be seeing a whole lot of people other than generic white guys in movies. And we still do.
But on television, you have auteurs like Shonda Rhimes and Lee Daniels, who have proven they can draw audiences for shows that aren’t just white-guy procedurals. As a result, you see more gay characters and actors on television than in movies. There are a couple reasons—the most famous actors to come out as of late are television actors, predominantly. And there are also so many channels, all of which are looking to get into original programming.
Really, if you’re a gay actor, now is the time to be out, because there’s plenty of work out there. Television is so back, and there are so many more shows now that it provides for more of a safe space for actors to come out. I’m not saying that someday you couldn’t have a comic-book superhero come out in a movie. I’m sure that will happen at some point. But with the pace it’s taking those giant movies to even produce an incidental gay character, I just don’t think that’s their priority. Most television shows at this point at least have a gay character, whether it’s regular or recurring or a guest star. It’s really rare for a new television series to have not touched on that in some respect.
Kyle Buchanan is a senior editor at Vulture, where he covers the entertainment industry. As told to Tyler Trykowski.
The whole notion of this kind of “tearful confession”—you know, you go on Oprahand reveal your truth and all that—kind of presupposes that it’s a really big deal, that it’s something that’s going to be really challenging to people. But that’s just not the case anymore, for the most part. I don’t think audiences really care as much, and in this day and age, when there are so many out celebrities, when gay marriage is legal… there’s just not that need. I think the default is kind of like, OK, so what?
With trans people, there are two different situations. There’s the situation that Caitlyn Jenner and Lilly Wachowski went through, where they’re already known in the public as one gender, and they have to go through the coming-out process. There’s no way to do that privately, obviously, because your appearance has to change so much. So that’s really difficult, and I think that’s part of the reason why Caitlin waited so long to come out. The other case is that of people who transitioned a while ago and are just seen as their gender, and people today don’t know about their past. So there could be people in the public eye who are waiting to come out as trans.
Jen Richards is an LA-based writer, actress, and producer whose web series, Her Story, was nominated for an Emmy last year. She was a series regular on E!’s I Am Cait and will appear in the upcoming CBS show Doubt and the CMT series Nashville.As told to Jennifer Swann.
Very few people were out when I came out in 2002, and that’s kind of why I wanted to do it. It would have been huge for me, as a 13-year-old, to watch an out-gay person on TV who was like me—someone who was nerdy, and not especially fashionable, and into music. That would have been mind blowing to me
It’s way easier to come out now, because everybody has to be a 360-degree public figure these days. You have to let people into your personal life on social media, so it’s easier to incorporate it into your persona. You don’t have to force a magazine to do an interview with you anymore—you can just be yourself online.
The way that people make careers in the entertainment world today is completely different from how it was even five years ago. You can kind of steer your own ship through this world. It’s not like the studio system. People don’t have traditional, predictable careers anymore. You can kind of make your own way, make your own thing, and live pretty well in this industry. There’s a growing middle class in the entertainment industry now, and it’s made up of people who defy categorization, who are writers, and performers, and sort-of-comedians but not really. You can kind of do whatever you want, so there’s no reason not to incorporate your sexuality into that. And I think it’s been a good thing for me. It’s always been one less thing to worry about.
Dave Holmes is a writer, actor, and former MTV VJ. He writes for Esquire and hosts the podcast International Waters and the Friday Forty live show at Meltdown Comics. His latest book, Party of One, is a memoir about music, coming out, and feeling weird. As told to Matt Baume.
I won an Academy Award in 2010 for my documentary about a severely disabled singer from Africa, Music by Prudence. I came out in that film. And I got no calls from Hollywood agents after. Not one. No one even inquired. It just felt like, with me a black gay man, they weren’t interested in the stories that I wanted to tell or my voice. And I know that straight white documentary directors who weren’t even getting nominated were getting lots of calls. For me, it was just, “OK. That’s Hollywood.” Hollywood has lots of problems with race and homophobia, and it’s not like I expected anything different to come out of it.
I don’t think the doc world is at all involved in the Hollywood system. We are very much outsiders, our own community, and we’re accepting. The doc world has its own issues, and it also has a long ways to go, but it’s very different from Hollywood. When I look at Hollywood as someone who’s sort of an outsider, it’s pretty shocking. It amazes me in this day and age that it’s still major news for an actor to come out, and that there are still closeted actors. And not only actors but producers, directors. I just don’t understand why. Maybe if someone’s a romantic lead, and they feel they will lose their audience, but I don’t think the box office has shown that. An actor’s an actor. He’s acting. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight or what your sexuality is. It’s mind-boggling that Hollywood still thinks this way. It likes to think of itself as progressive, but I think it’s quite conservative.
Roger Ross Williams is a documentary director and writer. He won an Oscar in 2010 for Best Documentary Short Subject for his film Music By Prudence and has directed several notable short and feature-length documentaries, including last year’s Life, Animated, which is nominated for an Academy Award this year. As told to Ian Daniel.
There’s a lot of fear in Hollywood: Executives are afraid of losing their jobs; networks are afraid of losing advertising revenue; writers are afraid of getting fired; actors are afraid of losing fans. This keeps everyone second guessing themselves and avoiding anything they consider risky.
In fact, before I sold Looking to HBO, I had successful, knowledgeable people telling me not to pursue the project because it wasn’t “commercial enough”—they said that nobody would want to do it because it was all gay guys.
And a few funny things happened when we were casting the show. Some people would be begging to come in for an HBO series, but then they’d mysteriously disappear after they read the sides and saw it was gay stuff—not just straight actors, but gay actors, too. Other times, an actor would come in and say, “I think what you guys are doing is really brave.” Brave? Only a straight person would call a gay show brave. Even so, it’s hard to generalize—straight actors like Raúl Castillo and Frankie Alvarez in Looking can dive right in and learn to rim with the best of ’em.
So things have changed a lot since I started in the industry 15 years ago—the world is different, and so is entertainment. Hidden and systemic problems do still exist, but things have definitely improved. Like, recently, a straight guy who works as an agent told me, “I made myself watch your show until I didn’t think dudes kissing each other was gross.” I guess that’s a good sign?
Michael Lannan is the creator and producer of HBO’s Looking, a dramedy series that focused on the romantic lives of several gay friends in San Francisco. Looking: The Movie aired last July. As told to Jon Shadel.
When it comes to the closet, you are really talking about huge, bankable film stars—someone who has a lot to lose. That’s the only door you are really potentially closing for yourself. You might have a career if you come out, but you are not considered for big tentpole franchises, action movies. You’re not that symbol of masculine, swashbuckling fantasy that hordes of young men are going to buy tickets to and believe it might be them in the movie.
You understand the pressure on younger stars who are on the cusp of what could be a good career, a ten-year run and big juicy action parts. Overseas markets are increasingly important, and there are countries where that’s going to hurt the foreign box office. So it becomes, Will I get any of this if I’m honest?
I think it changes with age. Film stars in their 20s through 50s, when they think they’ve got something they can monetize, don’t want to do anything to risk being the biggest possible star. You get the sense that they’re saving being gay as a hobby for their retirement once no one cares who they’re fucking anymore.
It’s different behind the scenes. I’ve been out since high school; I barely recall being in. I’ve not heard a story about a writer not getting a job because he was gay. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist—I would never allege that there aren’t still plenty of people coming up against an invisible wall—but I just haven’t experienced it myself. People are more concerned with the quality of your work.
Joe Keenan is a television writer, producer, and novelist. He is best known for his work on Frasier and Desperate Housewives, and for his three novels, Blue Heaven (1988), Putting On the Ritz (1991), and My Lucky Star (2006). As told to Jessica Ogilvie.
I don’t think there is a political or moral stance in Hollywood to marginalize LGBTQ people. Instead, I think there’s a fear that advertisers or audiences might resist or give negative feedback in response to someone’s sexuality or gender. It’s the entertainment business—the dollar is the bottom line, so it’s all about perception and what an audience will accept.
I am both a filmmaker and an educator. I have many LGBTQ students, so I know the vibrant and healthy dialogue that comes from telling the stories of marginalized people. But I think there is a corporate fear that “America” will not accept diversity. This is also an industry primarily run by relationships: Who knows whom? Whose father was in the business? Who went to the “right” university, was in the “right” fraternity?
These dynamics—corporate fear and the nuances of this “relationship business”—exclude many: LGBTQ people, people of color, women. Take gender issues. There’s a deep and pervasive prejudice about women’s capabilities as directors, and that’s been a monumental stumbling block. It isn’t changing much. In the Directors Guild of America, the next highest percentage of employment after white men is African American men—not women, or white women.
There are actually more lesbian than straight-identified women who are actively employed as directors. I muse that perhaps male executives think that queer women are somehow more relatable because of the misconception that they fit more into a “male” paradigm.
Becky Smith is professor and vice chair of production at the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television. Smith has directed numerous films and TV series over her prolific career, including Bravo’s Emmy Award-winning Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the documentary series Gay Weddings. As told to Jon Shadel.
In 1970, in Spartanburg, South Carolina, I played a bisexual character in a musical, and it went against the tastes of the local chief of police. I was arrested, illegally, and faced a potentially very harsh jail sentence. It was uncovered that the whole thing was illegal, and of course, I was released, and there were no charges or anything. It was a huge win. But it was prejudice that put me in that situation. I had traveled to enough places back then to know that gays were not only being harassed, they were being imprisoned. Forget about whether you could get cast; it was whether you were going to have freedom. There were things happening in the world that were more frightening than whether I would get the next job.
Of course, more people are out today. And those who have been out there on the front lines before us, who have risked their lives and reputation, who have done everything they can to give voice to the LGBTQ movement—I think they have broken us through in ways that make it easier for more people to come out and lend their voice and create a larger voice that is now refusing to bow down.
My father used to say to me, “Don’t get angry, get better.” He meant it in terms of when I lost out on an audition, but I started thinking, “Just keep working on yourself, and ultimately you’ll be able to rise above.” And so I didn’t let it make me afraid that I wouldn’t have a career.
The only advice I would give to closeted entertainers today is the advice I took for myself: It was lonely and it was scary and it was dark and I was unhappy, so be true to thine self. You’re not going to be happy living in the dark. You have to come out into the light to have personal happiness.
Kenny Ortega is an award-winning producer, director, and choreographer. His credits include Hocus Pocus, High School Musical, and Michael Jackson’s This is It. As told to Matt Baume. (via Vice)
“There are two kinds of people I don’t trust: People who don’t drink and people who collect stickers.”
A Gay, a Muslim and a Jew walk into a Nordstrom…
When President Rapey Von Tinyfingers tweeted about Nordstrom dropping daughter Ivanka’s crappy clothing line: “My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!”, our girl Chelsea Handler decided on retail therapy as a method of protest.
Handler posted pictures on Twitter and The Facebook, showing her and her two friends brandished bulging Nordstrom bags in front of the White House.
“Took my gay and Muslim friend to Nordstrom and then to the White House to pay our respects.”
Handler, an ex-Mormon, has long been a champion of Gay and Transgender Rights. Handler:
“I’m like a gay man trapped in a woman’s body, and that’s exactly why the gays and I get along so well. We have the same attitude, which is “fuck everybody and let’s say exactly what we think.” I understand somebody who doesn’t exactly fit in, somebody who’s struggled or felt embarrassed, ashamed, or not confident in who they are. Growing up, I got tortured and made fun of, but that makes you a lot stronger. And now, obviously, I’m very popular.”
Handler was born in Livingston, New Jersey, a town where 48% of the population is Jewish, making it one of the highest percentages of Jews in any American municipality. She grew-up the youngest in a family of six kids, with a Jewish father and Mormon mother, good source material for a comic. When Handler was 10-years old, she lost her oldest brother. His death devastated her family, but it made Handler want to strike out on her own as soon as she could.
She moved to Los Angeles when she was 19-years old, hoping for a career as an actor. But like so many hopefuls, Handler ended up waiting tables, but then she turned to stand-up comedy. She played the comedy clubs and got small roles on television shows, before turning to writing. When she was 21-years old, Handler received a DUI. She had to take a special class as her sentence. During the class, Handler got laughs from the other students for her depiction of her arrest. This experience led to a more brash version of stand-up act.
She has written five books that have made the New York Times Best Seller List, four reached number one. Her first book, My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands (2005), is about her sexual encounters and misadventures. Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea (2008) is deliciously skewed collection of essays, where Handler mines her past for stories about her family, relationships, and career that are at once singular and ridiculous. She went on a worldwide tour in support of her third book, Chelsea ChelseaBang Bang (2010), where she takes aim at herself. Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me (2011) opens up a chance for her coworkers and family members to discuss their experiences with Handler. Uganda Be Kidding Me (2014), is about a trip to Africa. It was another number one bestseller and was adapted to a stand-up special for Netflix.
I discovered Handler in 2007 when I caught her late-night talk show on E!, Chelsea Lately. I became an instant fan because, for me, her comedy is so smart, and different, often improvised, and the show was refreshingly only a half hour long. Her round table panel was always amusing as her three guests would spar with Handler over celebrity gossip. Her sarcastic, blunt delivery, and earthy wit brought me much pleasure and Chuy Bravo was the best sidekick ever (Handler and I both have a thing for little people).
I also was amused by After Lately (2011), a nutty scripted series about the backstage maneuverings of Chelsea Lately. And then, Handler got rather serious, but in a humorous way, with Chelsea Does, a well-produced series of four 70 minute documentaries on Netflix, each on a different topic: Marriage, Silicon Valley, Racism, and Drugs. They are part stand-up special, and part Handler sitting around having dinner and getting high at her house with an interesting assortment of guests. Each of the docs are provocative and often touching, including a segment where Handler interviews her elderly father about his marriage to her mother, or when she talked with the family of Walter Lamar Scott, who was shot eight times by a police officer, or when she experienced, on camera, the hallucinogenic drug Ayahuasca in Peru.
Last summer, Handler began a new Netflix original, more traditional talk show, Chelsea. I’m a big fan of this one. It is witty and challenging without being as silly as her first show. It’s rather grownup. Like me. Plus, it has the best set of any talk show, where her dogs are allowed to wander around during the taping. It’s the show I wish that I could have.
“I would like a healthy mix of everything that goes on around the world, mixed with interesting stuff in our country. The well-roundedness of 60 Minutes but faster, quicker, cooler.”
From 2006-2010, Handler dated Ted Harbert, the CEO of Comcast Entertainment Group. She has been romantically linked to rapper 50Cent. In 2010, a sex tape of Handler was being offered for sale. On Chelsea Lately she announced:
“I made it 10 years ago as a joke. I put it on an audition tape for a comedy club, because I’m a comic, and I’ve been showing it at birthday parties for fucking years.”
Handler does love her gays. She lives in a six bedroom, seven bath home in Bel Air with two lesbian pals. She has the hosted the GLAAD MediaAwards and served as Grand Marshal of Los Angeles Pride Parade. In 2012, she hosted the Human Rights Campaign Gala in Los Angeles. The HRC also gave her their Ally For Equality Award, recognizing: “The outstanding efforts of those who dedicate time, energy, spirit and whole-hearted commitment to better the lives of LGBT people.”
Handler is a big supporter of Hillary Clinton and she has nothing nice to say about our current President.
“He is the grossest. Physically, emotionally, mentally. Those statues they made of him were accurate. I bet you that is what he looks like naked, with a little grape in between his legs.”
She has stated the issue she is most concerned about is funding Planned Parenthood:
“No one has any right to tell us what to do with our bodies. That is not okay. You get off of your religious bullshit soapbox. I am my own person. No man gets to tell me what to do with my body. No one. Not your husband, not your politician. Why would somebody I don’t know tell me what to do? This is America. People who have nowhere to go, go to Planned Parenthood. I went there through my teenage years. It’s not just about abortions; it’s about birth control. You don’t want us to have abortions, and you don’t want us to have birth control? What do you think is going to happen there?”
On Saturday, January 21, Handler led 1000 people through the slushy streets of Park City, Utah for The Women’s March, and was one of the speakers at the rally, along with Maria Bello, Connie Britton and AishaTyler, all of them speaking out for solidarity and support of Women’s Rights.
SCROTUS is doing nothing for LGBTQ rights, women’s rights and now the latest, he is barring The New York Times, CNN, Politico, the Los Angeles Times and others from a White House press briefing. Fascist much, gurl? Oh, but sassy, gay Trump is going to set the record straight (?) and MAFA. #MakeAmericaFABULOUSAgain. OMG, not really…
But watch. It’s hilarious. (All the words are Trump’s, btw)
Australian sculptor Ron Mueck has made just a few dozen sculptures in the last 20 years. His likenesses of humans range from newborns to octogenarians are often out of scale.
He spends more than a year conceiving and making each figure, capturing every feature with astonishing detail. Mueck rarely talks about his work but said in an interview in 2003,
“I never made life-size figures because it never seemed to be interesting. We meet life-size people every day. [Altering the scale] makes you take notice in a way that you wouldn’t do with something that’s just normal.”
The son of German émigrés, Mueck was born in Australia in 1958. After working in film and television in the United States and London, he shifted his focus to the fine arts in the mid-1990s. The sculptures assembled here —about a third of Mueck’s entire production— illustrate the arc of his career from 1999 to 2013.
Fresh from a world tour, 13 of Mueck’s sculptures will be on view at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts starting today through August. Here’s an unsettling preview.
After catching the first two installments of HBO’s new seven-part limited series Big Little Lies, I must say I am hooked bigly. Based on the fake news New York Times number-one bestseller by Liane Moriarty, the show is a subversive, darkly comedic drama that tells a tale of murder and mischief while exploring our society’s myth of perfection and the contradictions beneath our idealized façade of marriage, sex, neighbors, parenting and friendship.
It is set in tranquil Monterey, California, where nothing is quite as it seems. Helicopter moms, successful husbands, adorable kids, gorgeous houses right out of a magazine, but what lies will be told to keep their perfect worlds from unraveling on Big LittleLies?
The focus is on four mothers: Madeline Martha Mackenzie, played with pitch perfect Tracy Flick-ness by Resse Witherspoon; Nicole Kidman’s cool, controlled Celeste Wright; and new-to-town single mom Jane Chapman, played by the terrific ShaileneWoodley; and Laura Dern’s queen bee, Renata Klein. All of them are at their very best in this show, and although the men don’t have as much camera time, Alexander Skarsgård,Adam Scott, James Tupper, Jeffrey Nordling bring welcomed nuance and verve to their characters.
Big Little Lies paints a picture of a seaside town fueled by rumors and divided into the haves and have-nots, exposing the conflicts, secrets and betrayals.
It was refreshing to see a male couple who are dads portrayed so nonchalantly as just part of the fabric of the community. Even better, I discovered that the two actors playing Oren and Bernard are a real life married couple and actual fathers. Handsome David Monahan and Larry Sullivan have solid theatre and film credits. Sullivan has played gay before, notably as Robert, Will’s ballet dancing boyfriend, on NBC’s Will & Grace and on ABC’s Modern Family as Mitchell’s ex-boyfriend. Monahan has had recurring roles on CrossingJordan as Detective Matt Seely and Dawson’s Creek. Plus, they were featured in an adorable 2015 Campbell’s Soup commercial with Star Wars tie-in that shows the two of them feeding their son, Cooper.
People Magazine’s annual Sexiest Men Alive issue in 2015 featured the couple as “Sexiest Pitchmen”.
Sullivan:
“I didn’t realize it would blow up and become the big deal it has become. Neither of us have been on the ‘I’m an activist’ train, and I still don’t think we really are, because all we’re doing is just living our lives. But it just so happens that our spot is entering people’s living rooms that normally probably wouldn’t let us into their homes, and they don’t really have a choice.”
Monahan:
“All we’re trying to do is pay for preschool and our mortgage! But we’re happy to be that couple who put ourselves out there to just show that families come in all shapes and sizes.”
The commercial totally pissed off the Right Wing Christians and a call for a boycott by the Million Moms organization.
How great to see them play husbands in this prestige project. They are just adorable.
Big Little Lies is directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, who directed Dallas Buyers Club (2013) andWild (2014), and it is written for television and created by seven time Emmy Award winner David E. Kelley (Picket Fences, LA Law, and Ally McBeal).
You’ve got to check it out. I give it a straight-up A on The Rutledge Report Card.
Seth Meyers news and segments at the top of Late Night are becoming true Must-See TV. He slammed Trump once again, this time for pulling Obama-era guidelines instructing schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom they identify with. In a segment called Hey!, he said,
“Hey! What are you doing? As I understand it, you were elected to bring jobs back to the U.S. Now you don’t want to let transgender kids use the bathroom of the gender they identify with? Do you think that’s why the auto industry went to Mexico? For the bathrooms? First you demonize Muslims, then immigrants, and now the transgender community. Hey, just because you want to bring back coal mining doesn’t mean you have to bring back everything from the 1800s.
And hey! During the election, you told the LGBT community that — and I quote — ‘I will fight for you.’ Did you not mean to include the word ‘for’? There’s apparently this fear that transgender kids are using [these rights] as a ruse to sneak into restrooms and grab people by the genitals, but if you’re looking for the kind of person who would do that, you need to look no further than the Oval Office.”
Meyers took his last jab at FLOTUS’s agenda,
“Melania, I know you wanted to work on an anti-bullying campaign, and now I know where you can start!”
Jimmy Kimmel is hosting the Oscars tomorrow night, but Seth Meyers and Late Night have been KILLING IT lately. They nailed this parody. As they describe it, Oscar Bait is,
“A story of redemption, racial tension and latent homosexuality shamelessly timed for award season“
It is everything the Academy ever rewarded crammed into one film. The actual movie might be an incoherent mess, but this trailer is going for the gold.
Tonight, Jimmy Kimmel is hosting the 89th annual Academy Awards. What? You don’t have access to a TV? Don’t worry, you have options.
• ABC will be live-streaming the ceremony online, although you will need to ask someone to share their cable login info with you in order to sign in. Since ABC’s live stream is only available in select cities, make sure to check their site here to see if that option is available to you.
• ABC will also be streaming the Oscars on their app, which is compatible with both Fire mobile devices along with set-top devices including Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV and Roku.
• C-Net suggests that you get a free one week trail on Sling TV or PlayStation Vue, streaming services that both offer up ABC.
• If that seems like too much of a commitment, you can always run out and buy small indoor digital antenna. You can easily pick up and broadcast a number of channels for free.
• If you want to watch E!‘s streaming coverage of red carpet arrivals, go here to download the app on iTunes.
• As a last resort, you can always post on social media and get yourself invited, last-minute, to an Oscar party.
Here’s a full list of nominees to get you in the mood:
Actor Bill Paxton, whose career included films like The Terminator, Aliens and Titanic, has died. A representative for his family said in a statement,
“It is with heavy hearts we share the news that Bill Paxton has passed away due to complications from surgery. A loving husband and father, Bill began his career in Hollywood working on films in the art department and went on to have an illustrious career spanning four decades as a beloved and prolific actor and filmmaker.
Bill’s passion for the arts was felt by all who knew him, and his warmth and tireless energy were undeniable. We ask to please respect the family’s wish for privacy as they mourn the loss of their adored husband and father.“
The Texas native won an Emmy for his role in the mini-series Hatfields and McCoys. Paxton’s fame rose in the 90s due to good parts such as Morgan Earp in Tombstone, Fred Haise in Apollo 13 and the lead role in the ’96 hit Twister.
Paxton’s final big-screen role will be in the thriller The Circle, which is currently in post-production, starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks.
The actor is survived by his two children, James and Lydia Paxton, and his wife Louise Newbury.
Paxton’s son was recently tapped to join the actor in his new CBS drama, Training Day. Paxton told People earlier this month.
“I was thrilled to have my son [James, 22,] guest-star on the eighth episode of Training Day,” “He plays the son in a father-son robbery team, and my character, whose dad was also a criminal, tells him, ‘We’re both our father’s sons, but that doesn’t have to define us.’ It was surreal saying that to him.”
Bill Paxton was 61.
Paxton with son James Paxton in 2016. Photo by Gregg DeGuire
“A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies… & I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.”
This afternoon I caught Annie Hall (1977), the Oscar winning Best Picture and very possibly my number one film of all time. I have seen Annie Hall at least a dozen times, but watching again, I was flooded with memories of my own version of this comedy. I think this is what makes a film truly great, when a very specific story feels universal.
We met “cute” in the stationary store at ground level of the ASCAP Building across Broadway from Lincoln Center. I gave him the eye, he glanced at me, and then we managed to be in the same aisle looking at the same journal notebook. This is how cruising was done before that Internet thing. He was Brooklyn born, Jewish, neurotic, seeing a shrink, smart, and funny. He was a former rabbinical student, but setting out to be writer. He was also named Stephen. He was very handsome, he looked like a young Frank Langella, and he seemed to me to be the definition of cosmopolitan. We kissed within minutes of meeting, but didn’t have sex until our fifth date. I was impressed. Any sort of restraint was new to me.
Our relationship was right out of Annie Hall, a film we saw together at the Carnegie Hall Cinema. I was, of course, playing the Diane Keaton role. At the time, I even dressed in thrift shop clothing with vests and hats. I was eager to be a true New Yorker, but hopelessly West Coast and a Wasp. He showed me a NYC that I wouldn’t have discovered on my own.
Stephen took me on a tour of the homes and haunts of famous writers: WaltWhitman, Edith Wharton, Dylan Thomas, Truman Capote, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Dorothy Parker, Chaim Potok, Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller, Henry James, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mel Brooks, Herman Melville and more. We made visits to the Plaza Hotel, Algonquin Hotel, The WhiteHorse Inn, The Chelsea Hotel, Washington Square, BrooklynHeights, and Greenwich Village. We made frequent stops for martinis.
On a beautiful spring day, Stephen and I walked from The Cloisters to TheBattery, 11.5 miles of Manhattan history. We started drinking in Midtown, stopping about once an hour to “refresh”. Then we went back to his huge floor-through, pre-war two bedroom, book-filled apartment across from The Bronx Zoo, where we smoked joints and watched the Academy Awards, which were held in March in those days. Rocky won Best Film over Network and Taxi Driver that year. I was beside myself with grief and could only be consoled with three hours of making love… NYC style. Stephen was “gifted”. We even had sections of our love affair that were filmed in animation, with a score of Gershwin tunes.
Stephen and I broke-up over geography and because we had a dead shark on our hands. He had no need to leave the five boroughs of NYC, and I was exhausted from having two jobs, and just barely getting by in that toughest of cities. The naked ambition of my associates, fellow students at HB Studios, and every waiter that I encountered, was foreign to my own laid-back California demeanor. I sang Seems Like Old Times at an Upper East Side piano bar while Stephen watched and listened. He walked me home in silence. I moved back to my beloved West Coast.
The breakup was emotional, but necessary. We did not stay in touch. If we had stayed a couple and tried to make a real go of it, I think Stephen and I might have also lived Husbands And Wives (1992). I swore that I would never fall in love again. But, two years later, when I least expected, I met and fell for another man who would eventually become my husband and we lived happily ever after… but I still think about Stephen and our year of living Annie Hall. We lost contact. Maybe he will read this.
Alvy Singer:
“That Sex Was The Most Fun I’ve Ever Had Without Laughing.”
U.S. immigration authorities have barred a 21-year-old Syrian cinematographer who worked on a harrowing film about his nation’s civil war, The White Helmets, nominated for an Academy Award entry into the U.S.. According to internal Trump administration correspondence seen by A/P, the Department of Homeland Security has decided at the last minute to block Khaled Khateeb from traveling to Los Angeles for the Oscars.
Khateeb was scheduled to arrive yesterday in L.A. on a Turkish Airlines flight departing from Istanbul, but his plans have been upended after U.S. officials reported finding “derogatory information” regarding Khateeb.
The term “derogatory information” is a broad category that can include anything from terror connections to passport irregularities. A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Gillian Christensen, said,
“A valid travel document is required for travel to the United States.”
The White Helmets, a 40-minute Netflix documentary, has been nominated for Best Documentary Short. If the film wins the Oscar, the award would go to director Orlando von Einsiedel and producer Joanna Natasegara. Khateeb is one of three people credited for cinematography; Franklin Dow is the film’s DP.
The film focuses on the rescue workers who risk their lives to save Syrians affected by civil war and many of the group’s members have been killed by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s air forces. The group also was nominated for last year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Khateeb had been issued a visa to attend the ceremony with Hollywood’s biggest stars, but Turkish authorities detained him this week, according to the internal U.S. government correspondence, and he suddenly needed a passport waiver from the United States to enter the country. The correspondence indicated he would not receive such a waiver.
There was no explanation in the correspondence for why Turkey detained Khateeb. You can see a trailer for the film below.
Yes, we’re sick of her too, and DUH we saw this coming, but Caitlyn Jenner is somehow surprised. She’s now speaking out against Trump administration’s decision to get rid of Obama-era protections for transgender students. Jenner said in a video on Twitter. 
The infatuation has now turned into a full-blown booty call. A picture of the Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau/Hottie in Chief wearing some very tight pants made its way around the internet a few million times in the last two days. Yes, gays have gone wild, and the ladies are thirsty too.
SCROTUS is doing nothing for LGBTQ rights, women’s rights and now the latest, he is barring The New York Times, CNN, Politico, the Los Angeles Times and others from a White House press briefing. Fascist much, gurl? Oh, but sassy, gay Trump is going to set the record straight (?) and MAFA. #MakeAmericaFABULOUSAgain. OMG, not really…
Seth Meyers news and segments at the top of Late Night are becoming true Must-See TV. He slammed Trump once again, this time for pulling Obama-era guidelines instructing schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom they identify with. In a segment called Hey!, he said,
Jimmy Kimmel is hosting the Oscars tomorrow night, but Seth Meyers and Late Night have been KILLING IT lately. They nailed this parody. As they describe it, Oscar Bait is,
U.S. immigration authorities have barred a 21-year-old Syrian cinematographer who worked on a harrowing film about his nation’s civil war, The White Helmets, nominated for an Academy Award entry into the U.S.. According to internal Trump administration correspondence seen by A/P, the Department of Homeland Security has decided at the last minute to block Khaled Khateeb from traveling to Los Angeles for the Oscars.
