The Director in the Middle of the #CancelNetflix Backlash Speaks Out

Aside from rare examples like Crooklyn, Eve’s Bayou, and Beasts of a Southern Wild, Hollywood has dismissed the young Black female experience. But with her feature film debut, Cuties, French Senegalese filmmaker Maïmouna Doucouré is putting the spotlight on Black girls while helping them reclaim their girlhood.

Doucouré won a distinguished directing award for Cuties when the film debuted at Sundance in January, but months later, she found herself in the middle of a media firestorm after Netflix released a shocking poster for its English-speaking audience. The poster showed a sexualized image of young girls that stood apart from the film’s religious versus secular context and nuance. Though Netflix has apologized for its failure, Doucouré has been the recipient of numerous death threats and personal attacks.

In recent days, the hashtag #CancelNetflix has trended in response. Some viewers find the film to sexualize young girls. Others point out that the film is the unfortunate victim of a poor marketing campaign and that critics took the poster out of context.

Set in present-day Paris, Cuties follows 11-year-old Amy (Fathia Youssouf), a recent transplant from Senegal who becomes increasingly enamored with her classmate Angelica (Médina El Aidi-Azouni), the queen bee of a group of schoolgirls who call themselves the Cuties. With her mother preoccupied by the devastating news that her husband has taken a second wife, Amy desperately throws herself into becoming a Cutie, even taking part in a dance competition with Angelica and her friends. Like most girls new to town, she just wants to belong.

Amid the film’s Netflix debut and the swirling social media scandal, Doucouré spoke with ZORA about Cuties, standing in her truth, and why this story is so important for her.

Continue reading at ZORA.

'No Church In the Wild' ALL EPISODES OUT NOW

On this Freedom Day, I am so proud to present No Church In the Wild, Leslie Wagner-Wilson’s harrowing story of faith and survival. The mini-series chronicles her time in The Peoples Temple through her escape from Jonestown, Guyana. It’s a story that has weighed heavy on my spirit since director Richmond Obeng introduced me to it many months ago.

I am so happy he brought me on along with Lindsey Addawoo to produce. This is just the beginning of our journey. ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽 ALL EPISODES OUT NOW via YouTube.

“It is easier to forget than to remember.” Leslie Wagner-Wilson 🤎🖤

On Grief #BLACKLIVESMATTER

I am well acquainted with grief.
It’s a diagnosis too far gone, a wooden casket lowered into the hard cold earth on a February morning.
An adulthood snatched from a promising young man. An afternoon call; a patriarch has fallen.
I’ve sat across from grief.
It has taken up space in my bones for years. Sometimes it’s a companion— silent but present and other times like a gut punch to the stomach, vomiting, wheeping, screaming out into the night: bleeding into the day.
Grief feels like vivid dreams, scents, smells and warm wrapped hugs, only to be shaken awake alone—tears streaming down your face.
I know grief.
I know the shattering of lives, moments stolen, a ripping away away of a world you once knew.
I’m acquainted with grief, barely able to articulate itself.
Grief haunts me.
It sits in my spirit, asking me to stuff it down, hide it away, to numb myself to feel only positivity and joy until it bubbles up to the surface of my soul, bare and visible to all.

Julia Roberts as Harriet Tubman was a racist idea, but that's quite common in Hollywood

Hollywood hardly has had a stellar track record when it comes to diversity and inclusion, from its dismal (and continuing) use of yellowface, its past (and present) utilization of blackface or the prevalence of brownface in movies as wide-ranging as "West Side Story," "Argo," "A Beautiful Mind" and "House of the Spirits." However, a recent revelation proves just how absurd its insistence on relying on such tropes really is, and how resistant the industry has been to change.

In a recent interview with Focus Features, Gregory Allen Howard, the screenwriter behind2019's Harriet Tubman biopic "Harriet," dropped a bombshell. Howard, who has been working for more than two decades to get Tubman's story to the big screen, said that, when he first began his journey in 1994, a studio executive suggested that Julia Roberts — then a 27-year-old starring in a summer rom-com with Nick Nolte — should portray the former slave, freedom fighter and abolitionist.

"I was told how one studio head said in a meeting, 'This script is fantastic. Let's get Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman,'" Howard remembered. "When someone pointed out that Roberts couldn't be Harriet, the executive responded, 'It was so long ago. No one is going to know the difference.'"

Continue reading at NBC THINK.

Image: Focus Features.

Adrienne Warren Is Absolutely Astonishing In 'Tina: The Tina Turner Musical'

Many of us grew up listening to Tina Turner's soulful vocals, and learned about her personal life from her revealing memoir, I, Tina, and the 1993 biopic What's Love Got To Do With It? As much as Angela Bassett embodied the queen of rock n roll, the spirit of Tina Turner also lives within powerhouse talent, Adrienne Warren. Her performance in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical is electrifying. (Nkeki Obi-Melekwe steps into Turner's dancing shoes during matinees.)

Like the film's iconic opening scene, the play begins with a young Anna Mae Bullock singing in a Nutbush, Tennessee church during the 1940s. Matching her elder counterpart's out of this world vocals, actress Skye Dakota Turner blew the top off the theater with a gospel rendition of "Nutbush City Limits." From that moment, it was clear that Tina is something special.

Helmed by director Phyllida Lloyd and written by The Mountaintop playwright Katori Hall with Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins, Tina follows the traditional beats of a musical biopic. A teenage Turner, at the urging of her ailing Gran Georgeanna (Myra Lucretia Taylor), leaves behind her southern hometown for St. Louis. Turner moves to the city with her stern and emotionally withholding mother, Zelma (A Different World alum Dawnn Lewis), and sister Alline (Mars Rucker). There is, of course, a significant focus on the icon's relationship and marriage with the volatile Ike Turner (Daniel J. Watts), and their work as The Ike and Tina Turner Revue. However, Lloyd and the writers' handling of the Ike and Tina years, as well as Warren's passionate and tireless performance, elevates Tina to one of the most exquisite performances on Broadway.

Continue reading at Shadow and Act.

Mati Diop Is Doing More Than Just Storytelling: EXCLUSIVE

Set in Senegal’s bustling capital Dakar, Mati Diop’s Atlantics is mesmerizing, poetic and haunting. The filmmaker is the first Black woman to win a Jury Grand Prize at Cannes Film Festival. As the first frame of Atlantics was displayed on the screen, it became clear why this story stood out. Based on her 2009 short film of the same name, Atlantics follows Ada (Mama Sané), a captivating and headstrong woman banging against the traditional Muslim norms of her culture to speak for herself and listen to her heart.

Engaged to a wealthy but arrogant man, Ada longs for her true love Souleiman (Ibrahima Traoré), who has sailed across the sea in search of better work opportunities. As her wedding day looms –Ada becomes increasingly haunted by memories of her lover, despite her family and friends urging her to look towards her future. Atlantics isn’t just about love–greed, class status and politics are also themes in this film. The added layer of supernatural mystique only serves to draw the audience in further—leaving them enraptured until the very last moment of the film.

Ahead of Atlantics’ Netflix debut, STYLECASTER sat down to chat with Diop about her inspiration for the film, her filmmaking process, and what it has meant to be the first Black female Palme d’Or winner.

“Atlantics the short, was initially supposed to be a scene in a movie that became a short film,” Diop explained. “I was witnessing a lot of young people leaving the country for Europe. What was most striking, was not the fact that they wanted to leave, but how they were doing it. They were crossing the ocean by boat. That’s a real risk to your life.”

When Diop initially made the short film, she had no idea what would come of it. “The young man I filmed throughout the night who was crossing the sea– it was unclear to both of us what would happen,” she revealed. “His story was epic and poetic. That’s what I actually wanted to capture. I wanted to hear a crossing from the point of view of somebody who experienced it. But it needed to be positioned heroically. I wanted to make sure to add dimension to the story as opposed to how the media was treating these people. I was so sick of it. As a French Senegalese filmmaker with the tools of cinema, I decided to put my cinema at the service of that situation. It took me a little while before I realized that, but I knew I needed to continue to talk about this situation.”

Adding the supernatural aspect to her story was also important to Diop’s vision. “I was moved by the connection between reality and fantasy,” she reflected. “There was also a coherence as I was talking about a lost generation—a ghost generation. These people have disappeared in the ocean, trying to reach a better future. I felt that there was nothing better than using a fantasy film to talk about this ghost generation. I wanted to talk about loss, about being hunted by these boys in the neighborhood–to really feel the difference between their presence in the neighborhood and their absence, and how it just transforms the society and the women who stayed behind.”

Continue reading at STYLECASTER.

Image: Instagram.

The Oscars disqualified 'Lionheart' because Nigerians speak English in it — just like in Nigeria

On Monday, Nov. 4, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced their devastating decision to disqualify Nigeria's entry in the best international film category, Genevieve Nnaji's feminist and emotionally searing "Lionheart," from the 2020 Oscars race. Apparently, the film had not been vetted by the academy’s International Feature Film Award Executive Committee prior to the Oct. 7 announcement of qualifying films, when it was first named.

The academy, which has recently changed the name of the category from "best foreign language film" to "best international film," disqualified "Lionheart" under the rule that best international film entries must boast "a predominantly non-English dialogue track." It should be noted that in addition to English, the Nigerian language Igbo is also spoken throughout "Lionheart," Netflix's first original film from Nigeria.

A female trailblazer for African cinema, Nnaji began her career in Nigeria's burgeoning film industry, known colloquially as Nollywood, as a child star on soap operas and in commercials, moving into films as first an actor, then a producer and now a director. "Lionheart," her directorial debut, follows Adaeze (Nnaji), a whip-smart businesswoman who is desperately trying to save her father's transport company in the wake of his illness and her fraught relationship with her uncle.

But perhaps more important than the plot or its talented director-star, is an understanding of the history of Nigerian filmmaking and Britain's century-long rule over the country.

Though Nollywood is now one of the top film industries in the world, it only got its start in the 1960s, when Nigerian film pioneers like Ola Balogun realized in the post-colonial era that an entire country of people, with a rich culture and traditions, were looking outward — toward Hollywood — for their entertainment. Nigeria has always been pulsing with its own stories to tell. Along with Balogun, Hubert Ogunde, Jab Adu, Moses Olayia and Eddie Ugboma became the first generation of Nigerian filmmakers, setting the foundation for an industry that would explode in the 1990s.

Reeling from the imprint of colonization and teetering under the weight of decades of government instability, a ban on imports and a massive economic crisis, Nigerian filmmakers, artists and entrepreneurs had to find new ways to make movies and distribute them without the high overhead costs of traditional film. Using VHS systems, which were cheaper and more widely available, producer Kenneth Nnebue launched Nigeria's home-video industry in 1992 with his first straight-to-video movie, "Living in Bondage."

From there, cinema in Nigeria became a nearly $700 million a year phenomena.

Continue reading at NBC THINK.

Image: Netflix.

Chatting On WNYC's 'The Takeaway' About Disney + and What’s to Be Done With 'Song Of the South'

Next month, Disney is set to launch its new streaming service, Disney Plus, giving audiences access to an extensive range of the studio’s films, from classics like "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" to less well-known releases like 1995’s "Operation Dumbo Drop." 

But one controversial title will remain locked away in the Disney Vault: 1946’s "Song of the South." Set on a plantation in the late 19th century, the film was boycotted by the NAACP at the time of its release for selling a whitewashed version of slavery.

While "Song of the South" has been unavailable to the public for decades, Disney has continued profiting off of the property: including the song "Zip a Dee Doo Dah" on music compilations and using the film as the basis for the Splash Mountain ride at Disneyland.

Joining The Takeaway to discuss "Song of the South" is Aramide Tinubu, an entertainment editor for Stylecaster.com and freelance film critic. 

Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear this segment. Don't have time to listen right now? Subscribe for free to our podcast via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts to take this segment with you on the go.

LISTEN HERE.

Image: Aramide Tinubu

Skai Jackson Can Speak For Herself: EXCLUSIVE

Though she may have begun her career as a Disney-kid, there’s nothing meek or mild about this actress, activist and author. Skai Jackson’s book and awards prove that she has come into her own. Her new book, Reach for the Skai: How to Inspire, Empower, and Clapback proves that she’s more than capable of speaking up for the causes near and dear to her heart. Though many of us know Skai for her roles on shows like Jessie and Bunk’d and her more-recent appearance in Lil Nas X’s “Panini” video–a good chunk of Jackson’s life work thus far has been done off the screen.

The 17-year-old has been vocal about her zero-tolerance policy against bullying and her classy clapbacks that have empowered others to stand up for themselves. On the heels of the release of Reach for the Skai–-Jackson was honored at TLC’s Third Annual GIVE A LITTLE Awards In partnership with Love Is Louder, a project of The Jed Foundation. The New York City native was recognized for her tireless work to eradicate bullying and promote kindness for the generations coming after us. In the wake of our current political climate and with the explosion of social media–this is no easy feat.

Yet, with grace, poise and self-assurance that many teenagers are still trying to find–Jackson is using her voice to show us that harassment of any kind has no place in our communities. On the day of her book launch–STYLECASTER sat down to chat with Jackson about her new book, why she’s never going to be silenced and preparing herself for the next phase in her career.

Continue reading at STYLECASTER.

Image: Instagram.

Baddie Winkle Is Committed To Living Her Best Life: EXCLUSIVE

While most of us have to remember not to take ourselves so seriously, some people are born with a euphoric energy that they never lose. Our favorite grandma influencer Baddie Winkle teamed up with Jack in the Box for Jack’s Playground–a whimsical adult-sized playground that boasted everything from curly fry swings, a massive (and super-fast) bacon slide, and a couple of taco see-saws. In the midst of Las Vegas’ Life Is Beautiful–an immersive music, arts, comedy and food festival, Jack’s Playground was the perfect place to get into the swing of the day (literally). It also proved to be the ideal location to let our hair down after a long day of listening to acts like Bea Miller, Cautious Clay and Pink Sweat$.

Hanging with Baddie was certainly one of the highlights of the three-day affair. Adrienne Ingoldt–Jack in the Box’s VP of Marketing and Communications revealed that the 91-year old influencer was their only choice to host Jack’s Playground. “We are very choosy about where we choose to activate,” she explained. “We want to keep company that shares our mindset about being an individual, expressing yourself, going against the grain. And, as we say, be the curly fry in a sea of regular fries, and this is definitely the festival for that. Baddie’s awesome. She marches to the beat of her own drum, and the energy she brings, the individuality she brings absolutely reflects the spirit of Jack in the Box and the people who work there–the food we make. We do everything a little bit different.”

When she wasn’t zooming around in her plush rainbow shooter, crushing Jack’s Playground visitors in games of fiery skeeball, and spending time with fans–STYLECASTER sat down to chat with Baddie on a plush red lip couch with swirls of whipped cream complete with cherries on top as a backdrop. We chatted about Life Is Beautiful, her partnership with Jack Ii the Box, the fashion that speaks to her soul and why this the best time to be a woman.

Continue reading at STYLECASTER.

Image: Instagram.

Keke Palmer’s Superpower Is Being True To Herself: EXCLUSIVE

When you’ve been working in the industry since you were a kid, you know the interworkings of Hollywood like the back of your hand. This knowledge has enabled Hustlers actress Keke Palmer to cultivate a distinguished and multifaceted career at just 26-years-old. An actress, singer, and morning show host–Palmer can’t be placed in a box.

Though she began her career in films like Akeelah and the Bee and on shows like Nickelodeon’s True Jackson, VP–as an adult, the veteran actress has starred in everything from the musical Joyful Noise to the gritty drama, Pimp. Now, in addition to the critically acclaimed Hustlers, Palmer is lending her voice and her opinion to the morning show, GMA3: Strahan, Sara and Keke while continually working in entertainment.

All of this hasn’t deterred Palmer from continuing to seek out movie roles or becoming the face of the most hilarious viral meme of 2019 –“Sorry to This Man.” At #BlogHer19 Creators Summit, STYLECASTER sat down to chat with Palmer about the most terrifying thing she’s done in her career, how she’s remained so positive amid #cancelculture, and what compels her to say “yes” to a role.

“I think at home, my mom always encouraged me to be myself,” Palmer reflected on how her upbringing shaped who she is today. “She encouraged me to be true, to not let other people’s perception of me be the perception of myself as a woman, as a Black woman, as a Black person, and as a young person. She always made me feel like I could defy whatever those odds were. Growing up in the church, I think that’s a place where many people can find their voice. That sense of community that I saw very early on, it always made me feel like I had that foundation that I could stand tall.”

Continue reading at STYLECASTER.

Image: Cierra Miller/ STYLECASTER.

Dakota Fanning's role in 'Sweetness in My Belly' flaunts Hollywood's addiction to the white gaze

With buzz words like "inclusion" and "diversity" swirling about, the film industry has in recent years begun scrambling to present stories that have previously been ignored or suppressed. However, in doing so, they continue to strip agency from Black and brown voices, pushing them to the side of their own narratives to center white faces.

A rather egregious example of this is the upcoming film, ”Sweetness In the Belly,” starring Dakota Fanning. Based on Canadian author Camilla Gibb's award-winning novel, the story follows Lilly (played by Fanning), a white child abandoned by her hippie parents in a Moroccan village. Raised by a Sufi master in the Islamic faith, 16-year-old Lilly eventually makes an overland pilgrimage to an Ethiopian city — which, if your geography is lacking, is roughly the distance from Anchorage, Alaska, to Miami — and settles there until the revolution breaks out and she's forced to flee to London.

Shoving aside the experiences of Ethiopian people who actually lived through the atrocities of the Ethiopian Civil War is offensive enough — but Lilly never even existed. Gibb, who was born in England, wrote a novel about the "imagined narrative of one woman's search for love and belonging, cast against a nuanced portrait of political upheaval." As astounding as it is to consider, Gibb literally chose a historical incident that involved Black people and created a white woman to place in the center of it all. And now her story will reach an even wider audience through cinema.

Continue reading at NBC THINK.

For Toni Morrison, Storytelling Was The Measure Of Life

obel and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison has passed away. She was 88. Though Morrison is no longer with us, her story and all that she accomplished in her profound life will live on forever. Toni Morrison’s documentary, legacy and quotes present a woman determined to tell her own story. Though many of us were first introduced to the Ohio native in the classroom– Morrison’s story began long before her birth in 1931. She was born into a family who valued literacy above all else.

In the recent film, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am--we learn about a woman who loved literature, language, and Black people so much that she wanted to share it with the world. However, Morrison’s entry into the world of publishing was not a straight path. She did not pen her first novel, The Bluest Eye, until she was nearly 40 years old.

In The Pieces I Am, we learn about the Nobel Prize winner’s background. Though she was born into an impoverished family–her people were proud and brilliant. Morrison learned to read at age three. Because of the tight-leash that her parents had on her, and her desire to explore–she knew that to spread her wings, she needed to leave Ohio behind.

Morrison’s journey to find herself would lead her to Washington, D.C.’s Howard University. As Morrison said in 1987’s Beloved, “Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” Though she was always an avid reader–Morrison was increasingly aware that Black female voices were virtually non-existent in the literature space.

Continue reading at STYLECASTER.

Image. Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.

The Rap Game Is In Megan Thee Stallion’s Blood

“Real hot girl shit.” Megan Thee Stallion has defined the summer for women (and like-minded men) across the globe. At a time when women in the music industry are pitted against one another, Hot Girl Meg has claimed her space center stage. She’s entered the rap game with her unique Houston swag–a Stetson cowboy hat placed cutely on her multi-colored hair.

Though she’s been working on her bars for literal years–the world got their first glimpse of the “Shake That” rapper back in 2017 when a video of a cypher that she was in–the sole woman in a sea of men–went viral.

At the time, Megan was a full-time student at Texas Southern University. Her career has exploded since then, forcing her to leave school on the backburner for now. Exuding sexuality, positivity and a feminist-minded focus, the world has learned who Megan is–and we’ve learned quick. “I’ve been writing since I was maybe seven,” she told Rolling Stone. “I was kind of shy about telling people that I could rap for the longest.” It’s clear with her thunderous 2019 mixtape Fever, Megan isn’t shy anymore.

Born Megan Pete in 1995, the “Simon Says” rapper’s global debut on that roof in Houston where she declared, “Name a bitch you know that’s f—king with my flow,” didn’t come by accident. The “Big Ole Freak” lyricist has the rap game in her blood. Her mother was Holly Thomas a.k.a. Houston rapper Holly-Wood. From an early age, Megan was mesmerized watching her mother go hard in the studio. She also gravitated toward legends like Pimp C and Three Six Mafia. “There wasn’t anything I couldn’t listen to, so it definitely made me more free to say anything I wanted to say,” she told Elle Magazine. “That’s what I feel like my music represents—having no limits or restrictions.” Though Holly’s popularity was confined to Houston and the South, watching her mother’s grind and work ethic in an attempt to start her own label gave Megan the confidence to go after her own rap dreams.

Continue reading at STYLECASTER.

Image: Instagram.

Rachel Brosnahan Spills Her Beauty Routine & Responds To That “Women Aren’t Funny” Trope

Celebrity endorsements aren’t exactly few and far between; they feel very ingrained in our culture. So it’s beyond refreshing when a brand and its chosen face boast a genuine relationship. In her first major brand deal ever, Rachel Brosnahan has linked up with Cetaphil, everyone’s favorite skin care staple. Though the company has been around since 1947, their collaboration with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel star marks the first time in Cetaphil’s history that they’ve had a celebrity ambassador. The cult-classic skin brand clearly wouldn’t recruit just any famous face to front their line, and that brings me to Brosnahan.

As an actress who spends most of her time standing in Midge Maisel’s 1950s-style pumps, the 28 year-old actress has had to be very deliberate about her skincare routine. She grew up in the Midwest, with its tumultuous weather, and spent her teen years as an athlete. Brosnahan understood early on the importance of using products that wouldn’t irritate her sensitive skin. Though her schedule has only gotten more hectic, the House of Cards alum has stuck with Cetaphil all of these years, and her nearly-poreless complexion is living proof.

On the day that her partnership with Cetaphil was announced, I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Brosnahan. After bonding over our Midwestern upbringings, and musing over gel nails and charcoal teeth whiteners, we discussed her passion for Cetaphil, the five products she would take with her back to the 1950s and why she’s disgusted by the pesky trope that women aren’t funny.

Continue reading at STYLECASTER.