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3D Versions Of Masterpieces Bring Art To The Visually Impaired

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For centuries, people with limited vision have heard about artworks like the "Mona Lisa" through verbal description, imagining her famously bewitching smirk without the ability to experience Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece firsthand. Marc Dillon, an open source enthusiast and software programmer from Helsinki, Finland, wants to change the game. 


Through an initiative called Unseen Art, Dillon hopes to provide those living with various types of visual impairments with the universally nutritious experience of encountering art. Unseen Art aims to transform art history's most iconic (and mostly two-dimensional) artworks into three-dimensional reliefs using 3D printing. The touchable works of art will provide millions of blind and visually impaired individuals around the world the opportunity to read a painting as if reading a face. 



The operation hopes to enlist a variety of artists worldwide to contribute to the effort by volunteering to create 3D models of their favorite artworks. London-based artist Caroline Delen was the first to contribute; her 3D interpretation of the "Mona Lisa" is featured above. 


"We are crowdsourcing 3D artists to donate time to recreate classical paintings in 3D," Dillon explained in an interview with Dazed Digital. "The artist starts with a high-resolution scan or photograph of the painting, and then creates an interpretation of the work using 3D tools running on their computer. The artist aims to create depth in the art to make it easier for the hands to feel. Some details may be brought forward, and some may be simplified to highlight an impression of the painting."


This is not the first endeavor to make the art world more accessible to those who are visually impaired. The Guggenheim offers an app that provides in-depth descriptions of works to blind visitors. The Museum of Modern Art allows certain works, approved by conservators, to be touched by viewers wearing thin gloves. Organizations such as Art Beyond Sight advocate for accessibility and programming for the visually impaired as well.


Unseen Art, however, stands apart in its widespread, grassroots vision. Dillon hopes to expand the artworks modeled from the classics, readily available thanks to public domain, and recruit contemporary artists to offer up their works for 3D adaptations as well. Eventually, he wants the 3D models to be experienced in exhibitions, personal homes, and everywhere in between. 


Unseen Art is currently fundraising on IndieGogo, hoping to raise $30,000 by December 17. 









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These Bold Beauty Collages Are An Unexpected Style Inspiration

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Our hair has affectionately been referred to as our crowning glory -- and for good reason. No matter its color, length or texture, our tresses sit atop our heads with so much style. 

 

And that sentiment is certainly celebrated in Lorna Simpson's collection of eye-catching collages called "Ebony." The 55-year-old New York City-based artist has taken images of black women from vintage Ebony and Jet magazines and transformed them into colorful works of art. 


 

"For me, the images hearken back to my childhood, but are also a lens through which to see the past fifty years in American history," Simpson told The Paris Review

 


The vibrant ink-washed hairdos might seem over-the-top and unexpected, but they are the perfect style inspiration -- beauty- or fashion-wise -- for this party-filled holiday season and beyond. And if you've been thinking about dying your hair a gorgeous shade of gray, a lovely lilac, or a ravishing red then you'll definitely want to pin the following images to your Pinterest board. And for a pretty penny you can even snag one for your wall at home.

 

Check out the head-turning works of art below and tell us which one is your favorite.  



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Dress Your Own Personal Kanye West Paper Doll, Buy Any Jeans Necessary

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"So if the devil wear Prada / Adam, Eve wear nada / I’m in between but way more fresher."


Think of Kanye West standing in front of what one can only imagine is a very big walk-in closet. Donning solely his briefs, West boldly confronts the sea of options before him -- leather, leopard, camouflage, denim, Versace, Dior, Celine, Dolce, stunner shades, crystalline helmets, a crown made of pure gold. Quick, the clock is ticking. Kim is all, "Kanye, baby, hurry up!" What is the man, the legend, the Yeezus himself, to do? 


We all know Kanye West needs no stylist, as he shops so much he can speak Italian. But if you too like to fantasize about Kanye West dressing himself, Cher Horowitz style, there's a paper doll for that. Called Dressing the Yeezy Way, the artist-made paper doll book invites you to grab scissors and glue and get to work dressing up the man who, in his own words, was "in the projects one day, to Project Runway." 


Illustrators Charlotte Mei, Guy Field and Thomas Slater provide the outfit options in Yeezy Way, including a T-shirt from the Kardashians' clothing store, Beyoncé 's lost VMA, a dick pic, a Yeezus cross, and a damn croissant. We all know with Kanye's ego he could stand there in a Speedo, and be looked at like a f**king hero. But, alas, let's put some clothes on him ASAP. 


Cut and paste to make Mr. West look like the fly Malcolm X, buy any jeans necessary. Just please, don't get spunk on the mink.


"Dressing the Yeezy Way" is available from Sugoi Books.



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This All-American Pin-Up Calendar Is Red, White And Boobs

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This year, illustrator Andrew Tarusov, born in Rybinsk, a small town near Moscow, Russia, moved with his wife and two dogs to Los Angeles, California, in the United States of America. Needless to the say, the move made a big impression. 


Tarusov has long been fascinated by the mythology of the pin-up girl, the all American girl next door who is as flirtatious as she is sweet, as genial as she is independent. From a more artistic angle, the pin-up girl is the perfect nexus of retro aesthetics, cheeky humor, clean drawing technique and, yes, lots of bombshells. 


Putting two and two together, Tarusov decided to create a babely tribute to the U.S. of A., crafting a pin-up calendar highlighting the country's most gorgeous views. Behold, the American Pin-Up Calendar, spanning Hawaii's white sand beaches to Hollywood's limousines, New Orleans' bead-strewn streets to New York's mirrored skyscrapers. All, of course, occupied by some scantily clad and foxy ladies.


Tarusov is currently raising funds on Kickstarter to make his vision a reality. He's hoping to raise $4,000 by December 15. 



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How 'Brooklyn' Became The Year's Best Book Adaptation

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"Brooklyn" manages to tell a simple story profoundly, the mark of an accomplished script. It's one of the year's best films, and perhaps one of the best literary adaptations of the decade, thanks to Nick Hornby's take on Colm Tóibín's 2009 novel of the same name. Saoirse Ronan plays an Irish emigrant who starts a new life in New York but finds herself torn between a devotion to two homes.


In a featurette exclusive to The Huffington Post, Hornby, Toíbín, Ronan, director John Crowley and others dissect the story's page-to-screen transition. "The very streets where I walked as a kid, I put into my novel," Tóibín says. "Those very streets became a film set. So it's funny the way life moves into fiction and then in this film it sort of moved back into life."


"Brooklyn" is now in theaters.





 


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Your Perfect Instagram Shot Might End Up Killing A Snowy Owl

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As snowy owls begin to migrate south from the Arctic this winter, an Ohio wildlife rehabilitator is warning photographers that they shouldn’t get too close in an attempt to get the perfect shot.


“The wild animal doesn’t know you just want to see it,” Heather Tuttle, manager at Back to the Wild in Castalia, Ohio, told The Huffington Post. “all they see is this large predatory animal that’s getting too close for comfort.”



Pursuing a wild animal for a photo op is never a good idea, Tuttle said, but it poses a particular danger for snowy owls that have just migrated from the Arctic tundra.


Because the birds have just completed a long flight, she said, many are short on energy. If a person frightens the bird away, the animal may spend all of its remaining energy fleeing, having little left for necessary hunting.


“We get them in and they’re just starved almost completely,” Tuttle said.





While most snowy owls remain in the Arctic year-round, occasionally some owls will head south during the winter in what’s known as an “irruption.” But there’s no consistent way to predict how many owls may head south in a given year, according to Andrew Farnsworth, Cornell Lab of Ornithology research associate and project leader for migration forecaster BirdCast.


“In the past, there has been some ability to suggest which years might be big irruptions by looking at the timing of previous years' irruptions and considering the rodent populations and breeding success of the species,” Farnsworth told HuffPost in an email.


This year, Farnsworth said, the Midwest is seeing particularly high snowy owl numbers, though there have also been news reports of the birds in the Northeast.


But he explained there are numerous factors that influence the irruptions, including fluctuating rodent populations that may push the birds southward to search for food, as well as climate changes in the Arctic that can change the birds’ winter behavior. He also noted that not all birds show up weak and starving -- many arrive in perfectly healthy condition. That's partially because of natural variation between individual birds, as well as the food resources in the birds' homes and the different reasons they migrated in the first place. 



Last year, Back to the Wild took in about three snowy owls that were starved so badly the sanctuary was unable to save them, Tuttle said. Of course, when someone brings in a starving owl — usually because they’ve found the bird collapsed in their yard — it’s impossible to say exactly what led up to the starvation, though other wildlife experts have also noted the threat that photographers and birdwatchers can pose.


Of course, it's possible to photograph a snowy owl responsibly. If you spot an owl at a distance where the bird seems comfortable, just “don’t get any closer,” Tuttle said. If the owl starts to stiffen up, or starts looking around, freeze and then move back slowly.


If you’re serious about getting good shots of the beautiful birds, Tuttle said, invest in a camera with a good zoom feature. Problems arise when people with cameras with minimal zoom -- like those found on many smartphones -- find themselves having to get physically closer to get a decent shot.


She also said that people would be doing the birds a favor if they refrained from posting the locations of owls online, as the sheer number of people that show up can also be highly stressful for the birds.


“We see this all the time,” she said. “When somebody spots a snowy owl, you’re having 20, 30, 40 people show up.”'


Contact the author at Hilary.Hanson@huffingtonpost.com


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These 20 Women Are Vying For Best Supporting Actress At The 2016 Oscars

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Welcome to For Your Consideration, The Huffington Post's breakdown of all things Oscars. Between now and February 28, 2016, entertainment editors Matthew Jacobs and Joe Satran will pore over awards season and discuss which films will make the most noise at the 88th annual Academy Awards.


This time last year, Patricia Arquette had already become the bulletproof Best Supporting Actress front-runner. She won just about every prize there was to win for "Boyhood." This year, there's no such pacesetter. The two thespians who come the closest to being favorites are Rooney Mara and Alicia Vikander, but could their odds be jeopardized by Oscar machinations? Their movies' studios are touting them as supporting players even though both roles are really leads, which might puzzle voters, who are otherwise looking at a wide-open field.


Next week's Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations will provide more focus, but in the meantime, we've nixed a host of third-tier candidates from our list -- Ellen Page ("Freeheld"), Helena Bonham Carter ("Suffragette") and Julianne Nicholson ("Black Mass"), for example -- because that's how crowded and hazy this race is. But that's the best kind, right? Below, we'll rank the ladies with Best Supporting Actress trophies dancing through their dreams. 


A note on the headline: We've compiled these lists of Oscar contenders for a few years using the same headline structure: One Of These 22 Men Will Win Best Actor At The 2016 Oscars. Every time we've posted one, comments indicate readers think we're making clear-cut predictions instead of comprehensively handicapping the race. "Wow, you're really going out on a limb, HuffPost," our kind commenters scream. So let us clarify: Even though our lists are ranked, they are intended as all-encompassing windows into the ever-evolving Oscar derby, where narratives shift weekly and studios spend months -- and millions -- jockeying for their candidates. Twenty-two people may sound like a lot, but that's the point. You wouldn't believe how many Hollywood execs are shoveling money into Oscar crusades, no matter the odds. Honestly, these lists could be twice as long -- and that's part of what makes awards season fun. Regardless, we've tweaked the headline format for clarity's sake. Now, onward!



Also check out our Best Actor and Best Actress rankings. 


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10 Unexpected Gifts For People Who Love Latin American Literature

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Want to get something special for the Latin American literature buff in your life? Don't just get books (though those are great), but try something a bit out of the box. 


From bracelets to framed quotes, here are 10 totally unexpected gifts any Latino bookworm would love to receive.



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How Social Media Changed The Way We Read Books

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Last week, during a dwindling work day, I scrolled through Twitter for something to engage me, something newsworthy or pithy or both. I felt drawn to the sort of tweet that was neither hackneyed nor too intimate, neither click-baity nor dry. After all, I’d curated a list of Twitter accounts that more or less pandered to my precise interests. News sites that specialize in deep dives into the uncanny, authors who manage to employ their style in 140-character observations.


Instead -- and I’m sure you’ll relate to this painful experience -- what I got was a rash of strangely dogmatic tweets from an author I like, Joyce Carol Oates. “This is sad,” the National Book Award-winning author wrote, “Please consider ‘fostering’ these orphans ... ” Embedded in the tweet is another tweet from @citykitties, and a link to adult cats in need of owners.


“God,” I wrote a coworker. “Joyce Carol Oates is everyone’s most condescending friend.” What I meant was that this type of tweeting -- sharing something tragic yet too specific to be engaged with meaningfully in quick, offhand conversation -- was uncomfortable to read. What I didn’t say was that I was confused and bothered by the dissonance between the words I was used to reading under her name, and the words she proliferated daily.


I’d read Mudwoman and enjoyed it, finding the style Oates used when bringing to life the windstorm of thoughts that accompany a nervous breakdown thoughtful and artistic. I didn’t like it as much as A Garden of Earthly Delights, though. It’s hard for me to say whether my opinion on the former was colored by Oates’s truly bizarre Twitter feed, and as much as I’d like for that not to be true, it seems likely.


By the time I read Mudwoman, Oates had already made a reputation for herself on Twitter. She was an early adopter of the platform, and, just as she writes books prolifically, she tweeted relentlessly about anything that came to mind, sans the artistic filter that’s presumably in place when she writes her fiction. When reading the deliberately chosen words of Mudwoman, I couldn’t unsee her weird pontifications on naps and kittens. This is because, for better or for worse, social media has turned Famous Authors into mere mortals, Literary Novels into malleable things that can bend to match our own personal experiences.


Nowhere is this more apparent than on the fan pages and social media accounts of authors with huge followings -- J.K. Rowling and George R.R. Martin in particular.



Occasionally, Rowling will tweet new details that cast Hogwarts in a new light, infuriating fans who feel their own interpretations of the books have been undermined. To firm up the boundary between writer and reader, Rowling will encourage some debate, but assert that some of her characters’ attributes -- like the pronunciation of Voldemort’s name -- are fixed truths. As the creator of the Harry Potter world, she has every right to share notes about it not included in the books proper. But for readers who’ve devoted hours to exploring her pages, claiming such ownership is a bristly matter. We’re torn by our warring wants: we want more of the books we love, but we want the books we love to remain sacred, fixed things.


For the most part, authors seem pleased with the ability to give their readers more to chew on outside of their published stories. In an email exchange with Andy Weir, author of The Martian, he told me about the positive impact social platforms have had on his book. "Social media removes barriers for my readers,” he wrote. “They feel a much more direct connection with me because they can message me directly and I answer them. I'm not a faceless entity like authors of the past. My readers know the person behind the story -- my interests, my hobbies, and my concerns. It fosters a much closer connection. Instead of being ‘a book,’ it's ‘a book by this guy I know.’”


Here’s the rub: our dream of reducing the author, previously enthroned as a kind of genius, to a pal we can chat with, works better when the author has a palatable personality. Ideally, she should be prone to quip-making, should be mostly apolitical (or at least have straightforward, digestible political opinions), and should be consistent in her mood or beliefs. Anything else is “bizarre”; anything else is Joyce Carol Oates.


This doesn’t leave very much room for the sort of grey area so much good fiction lives in -- worlds where opinions are changeable, moods are capricious, and people are human. Worlds where we rant about how sad it is to see so many cats go unadopted, and yet maintain a level of respect in the public eye.


This, coupled with the amount of energy it takes to lay one's personality bare publicly, has led plenty of authors to forgo the whole social media thing altogether, or at least cut back on the time they spend interacting. Jonathan Franzen probably won't be taking up tweeting anytime soon, and Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You, recently requested that teachers not ask their students to email her. "It's not fair to us or to them," she wrote. Both Ng and Franzen are making personal choices by abstaining, to some degree, from socializing. Both Ng and Franzen got a lot of flak for their choices. 


There’s an upside to all of this, particularly for authors of nonfiction books meant to spark a conversation about the topic at hand, or authors who write books that directly address their readers. One such book, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, was actually inspired by the author’s bevy of Facebook fans.



Gilbert told The Huffington Post that her latest book “would not exist without my relationship with my Facebook followers.” She added, “When it came time to write this book, I was therefore able to write directly to my readers, because I know them so well. For me, social media dissolved the border between author and reader, replacing that border with real intimacy.”


A few other authors I emailed had similar feelings about engaging with their readers on social media platforms, Facebook in particular. Paulo Coelho observed, “My bonds with my audience have never been stronger. Now I can really interact with readers,” but added, “I believe books in the future will change totally, and I need to be ready for this.”


Cheryl Strayed, whose memoir inspired a litany of fans well before it was adapted into a blockbuster movie, wrote, “Social media platforms have reduced the distance between readers and authors -- at least authors who are active on social media. It’s also expanded the conversational territory between readers and authors who are active on social media. It’s no longer limited to the books that have been written and read.”


Strayed points out the value of the aura that now surrounds a book: “You can talk to Susan Orlean about her pets because she’s tweeting about them or you can get recommendations from Elizabeth Gilbert about where to go in Greece because she’s posting photos of her recent travels there.”


Such conversations are fun ways for readers to immerse themselves further into authors’ worlds, generating the deeper sense of intimacy that writing is supposed to be about. The only danger in this is that when that sense of intimacy is established -- when author and reader are put on level playing fields -- the reader sometimes begins to feel ownership of the book’s content. Trust that the author knows what she's talking about can be diminished, as myriad interpretations grow into larger, more emphatic conclusions. The book, once a solid physical object, risks becoming a fluid thing, subject to quick shifts in meaning, tone and content, like a chat with a friend. 


The metaphor we choose here matters. The book could also be characterized as an inanimate thing brought to life by the conversation it inspires. It could be characterized, too, as a house with sturdy walls and open doors. As readers, we’re invited in, but we should be polite. We should not track our dirty footprints all over the carpet. After all, it’s not our house.


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Tragically Beautiful Exhibit Shows How Our Oceans Suffer

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In Hawaii, "Never turn your back on the ocean" is a common adage -- a warning for anyone who visits the beach. But when Sophie Thomas, a London-based designer, visited the remote Kamilo Beach on Hawaii's Big Island in 2014, the phrase took on new meaning. Thomas couldn't keep her eyes off the devastatingly littered shores.


"Everywhere you looked, plastic was present, deep in the fabric of the beach and seemingly almost impossible to extract," Thomas, director of Circular Economy at the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in London and founder of the Great Recovery Project, told The Huffington Post in an email.


The experience inspired her latest art exhibit, "Never Turn Your Back On The Ocean," a collection of mixed media pieces that debuted at Pentagram's Design Studio in London on Nov. 18 and is on display at the RSA until Friday, Dec. 4.



After collecting whatever trash she could carry with her, Thomas turned the debris into various designs that she hoped would challenge designers to rethink the way they view and use plastics.


Thomas sorted pieces of trash into simple yet striking color schemes to show the potential for beauty. For example, deteriorated toothbrushes, bristles in tact, are lined against a faded pastel purple. Another collection of bright plastic shards and a deconstructed razor are striking over a clean white slate. Thomas also created several sculptural box studies, photographs and letterpress prints made with waste ink and the plastic particles and garbage she collected during her trip.


"There were snatches of words on bottles bleached by the sun -- flotsam poetry," she said of her discoveries on Kamilo Beach. "Some plastic had been in the sea and under the hot sun so long, it turned to powder when I touched it."


Thomas's exhibit was featured as a part of RSA's Great Recovery Project, which aims to "turn waste into value and reduce environmental impacts through system thinking." 



Kamilo Beach is known locally in Hawaii as Trash Beach. It is considered one of the dirtiest beaches in the world, where man-made garbage and plastic debris from all over the Pacific wash up on the shore, sent from massive rotating vortexes of trash controlled by the ocean's currents. So much plastic has collected on Kamilo's shores that a new type of plastic-infused stone was even identified there, resulting in a permanent marker in Earth's geologic record. 


"The islands of Hawaii are extraordinary, diverse and incredibly beautiful, but their beautiful beaches see the results of this global plastic waste tragedy wash up onto their shores every day on every tide," Thomas explained.



Thomas hopes her exhibit shows other designers the value in reimagining the plastic products we discard almost every day.



"The solution to this truly global challenge must be to tackle the problem at its source," she said. "I want to see a global movement to redefine how we use plastic and begin to value it better so that we stop using it once then throwing it away."



 


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In Her Latest Show, 'Hedwig' Star Lena Hall Just Wants To Live Her Truth

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After her Tony-winning, gender-bending stint as Yitzhak in Broadway’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” singer-actress Lena Hall just wants to be herself for a while. Still, she said she has found that task to be a lot harder than it sounds.


The 35-year-old star told The Huffington Post that “opening up” and showing her vulnerability before an audience has been the biggest challenge of her career. She added, “I can do it in character very easily, because I have a guise to hide behind. But to be vulnerable in front of people as myself is a much harder thing for me to do.”


And if autobiographical show “The Villa Satori: Growing Up Haight-Ashbury” is any indication, then Hall is rising to the challenge. It opened on Nov. 28, at New York’s Feinstein’s/54 Below and has Hall peeling back the layers of a persona shaped by roles in “Hedwig” and “Kinky Boots” as well as by being the lead singer of a rock band, The Deafening. Musically, she offers a blast of downtown cool, with a rollicking set featuring tunes by Jefferson Airplane, the Sex Pistols, Pearl Jam and Janis Joplin.


Hall will pair each song with an anecdote about her early days growing up in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in a “hippie” home (the “Villa Satori” of the show’s title) that she said was “just an example of creativity and boundlessness.” Hall’s father was a choreographer and her mother was a prima ballerina, and together, they ran a non-traditional household that was always filled with incense, acid paintings and other relics.



“Villa Satori,” Hall said, differs from her recent New York club act, “Sin & Salvation,” in that each song is actually “personally connected to me in a very strong way.”


“The show is about very strong, specific memories that are linked to specific songs,” she said. Its genesis began during a time when she said she was “kind of feeling stifled creatively, and I thought I needed to welcome back some of my creative outlets -- my old friends.”


As Hall explained in the show, she had to learn to appreciate her unconventional upbringing. Now it’s something she said she cherishes and, among other benefits, it’s given her particular empathy for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, many of whom were her friends and family members in the Bay Area. In November, she and her “Hedwig” castmates were honored by the Hetrick-Martin Institute for their fundraising efforts on behalf of LGBT youth at the 2015 Emery Awards in New York.


“I knew ['Hedwig'] was special from the beginning, I just knew,” Hall said. “It’s a story that everyone can relate to in some way, but because of the package of the story, it’s harder for close-minded people to accept. There are still major haters, and I wish everyone would understand that we’re all just human beings in the end.”



She added, “You have to be able to live your life fully as who you are and who you want to be. To deny that is to deny a basic human right.”


Well said, Lena. So long as you want to keep telling stories, we’re happy to come along for the ride.


Lena Hall will perform in “The Villa Satori: Growing Up Haight-Ashbury” through Dec. 7 at Feinstein's/54 Below in New York. Head here for more details. 


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Here's What Being A Rockette Is REALLY Like

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For us mere mortals, the prospect of waking up at 6:30 a.m after a full evening of events is a challenge, to say the least. For Sarah Grooms, a Rockette I am scheduled to spend the day with, it's business as usual. 



Grooms, along with the elite group of 80 women chosen to be New York City Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall each year, perform as many as four shows in a day during the busy season, with television appearances, photo shoots and hours upon of hours of rehearsal time sprinkled in -- all while maintaining the poise of a professional dancer and a smiling face.



But what are these elusive women really like? You know, when the curtain goes down and they hang up their (eight) elaborate costumes for the day?


As it turns out, they're almost just like us. Grooms, a dancer from Ohio who is currently in her ninth year as a Rockette, nearly proved that sentiment during our day together right as the Christmas Spectacular, now in its 82nd year, is getting into full swing. 


We meet Grooms at 8:30 a.m. at her apartment, which is a subway ride away from Radio City. She needs to be there with ample time to get ready before the first show at 11 a.m., so, like any good New Yorker, we pick up a bagel (her favorite during the season is a toasted everything with pepper jack cheese and avocado) and an iced coffee from Starbucks, and we hop on the train to the iconic venue. 



We are escorted upstairs and backstage, which, to my surprise, looks more like a dressing room for an intimate, off-Broadway show than the grandiose "Spectacular." It's homey and a bit cramped, and our presence (including my male photographer) is not exactly un-welcomed, but not met with open arms, either.


I make a joke about how unnatural it is for a reporter and photographer to be snapping away in such close quarters before showtime, and that gets enough laughs to assure me I have voiced something they are quite used to -- and are likely unfazed by, at this point.



Grooms starts to get ready. The girls all do their own hair and makeup, with hair up in a twist, but are not given rules about wearing the same exact products. "We're free to pick what works with our skin tones, which helps in keeping our individuality," Grooms said.



Individuality is a word not often associated with the Rockettes, whose iconic 300-kicks-per-90-minute-show are just as in-sync in person as they are on television, I learn upon watching the show. 



One other thing that gives the Rockettes a sense of uniqueness is their costume selection for the show's finale, "Snow." Like the snowflakes they are meant to embody during the number, each one is a little bit different. "There are six different designs and six different colors, and the straps and extra add-ons are all unique to each Rockette," Grooms said. "Snowflakes are similar to the Rockettes in that we're all very unique, but when you bring us together on stage, we create something beautiful."



One quick change into "normal clothes" later, and we are just a bunch of normal people on the street amidst the Midtown lunch bustle. This is aside from the fact, of course, that two people in our group are particularly beautiful and wearing full hair and makeup. They are Grooms and her roommate, Natalie Reid, who joins us to eat.


The two live and work together both at Radio City and at the same fitness studio. It's something they admit is "unusual" within the group, but the two can go days only seeing each other onstage. "It just depends on our schedules," Reid explained.



Call times are extremely strict, and the long line we wait in at the trendy, health-conscious eatery The Little Beet means we won't be able to sit and eat together before their next show at 2 p.m.


Thankfully, there's a long line, and we have time to chat about things like the most perfect show day meal: "Pizza," Grooms admits. "People laugh, but it's the best thing to eat between shows. Veggies can make your stomach unsettled, and you need carbs throughout the day." 



I also learn what they like to do to unwind (watch "Jeopardy"), if their legs are insured ("No") and if being part of the iconic show was always their dream.


Grooms tells me about a particularly full-circle experience she had with a former dance teacher, who, like her, once starred as a Rockette. "When I was 11 years old, I was fortunate enough to visit New York and see my teacher perform at Radio City. A couple seasons ago, I was lucky enough to have the very same teacher visit me along with two of her children at Radio City. I took them on a backstage tour, and my teacher and I got to reminisce on the times we've both had as Rockettes," she said.



When we meet up again once Grooms is done for that day at 4:30 p.m. and she suggests a stop for doughnuts, I can't help but feel like this isn't really an authentic part of her everyday life. "Oh, it is. A group of us were just here last week for my birthday," she reassures me. "There are so many great little hole-in-the-wall doughnut shops in the city that I'll grab a friend or two and go on a hunt to find the best doughnut in the city."



Fair enough.


We taste four types of decadent Dough doughnuts she picked out and head out for, what else? A manicure. Grooms tells me she gets gels during the season. With a total of seven outfit changes during the show and sometimes as little as 80 seconds to execute the change, "they get destroyed otherwise."



We talk about everything from plans for the upcoming holidays (Radio City hosts both a Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner for the cast) to the dreaded expenses of upcoming weddings we both have next year. And the most challenging part of the job? "The physical aspect," she said. "Rockettes are athletes dripping in diamonds."


By the time we part ways, I've almost forgotten that I'm hanging out with someone whose schedule makes mine look like child's play. That is, until I remember, I'm off to a bar and consequently a hangover the next morning, while Grooms is set to have dinner with her mom and then rest up for another full day, season and year, of crowd pleasing.



 


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The Most Popular Museums Around The World, According To Geotags

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As the end of the annum approaches, it's typical for people to rehash how they've spent the past 365 days, counting the moments sacrificed to streaming videos or the hours enveloped by social media. While Netflix or Facebook data could surely illuminate some rather startling habits, the latter's daughter company, Instagram, has helped HuffPost Arts & Culture to examine a statistic we're particularly interested in: museum attendance.


Specific data on museum attendance, while easy to come by, is often a few years old. According to an Institute of Museums and Library Services study, American museums record about 850 million visits each year, more than the attendance for all major league sporting events and theme parks combined (which was 483 million in 2011). The 2012 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), conducted by the NEA, revealed more exciting news: adults who attended performing arts or visited museums as children were three to four times as likely to see shows or visit museums as adults. Turns out early exposure to the arts is pretty powerful.





However, other museum-related statistics are less rosy. The NEA General Social Survey from 2012 concluded that nearly 60 percent of people with children under age 6 said lack of time was the greatest single barrier to attending arts and culture events. Research on the actual demographics of patrons in the U.S. shows us that non-Hispanic white Americans are over-represented, while data from 2012 tells us that the percentage of Americans visiting art museums and galleries has dropped by 21% since its peak.


At the end of the day, museum's like the Metropolitan Museum of Art can have record contemporary attendance numbers, but that doesn't mean museums and arts educators are reaching new audiences of parents, minorities or even men.


Thanks to Instagram's own data, we have a list of the 20 most geotagged museums around the world. These are the institutions 'gram-happy patrons visited most frequently over the past year. From Los Angeles to Amsterdam to St. Petersburg, social media users -- whether they are allowed to or not -- are sharing their experience viewing art across the globe, and you should too. Here are 20 museums to add to your bucket list:



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Holy S**t, Lisa Frank Is Hiring

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Girls of the world, if your 9-year-old selves could have been granted one single wish, what would it have been? Besides making out with Josh Hartnett. Or bestowing your Tamagotchi with eternal life. Yes, I'm talking about working for her majesty of cool binder folders, goddess of anthropomorphized animals sharing ice cream sundaes, reigning queen of lunchboxes with attitude. The one and only Lisa Frank.


Girls (now probably women or somewhere in between), we bear potentially life-changing news: Lisa Frank is hiring. 


Well, at least according to this Craigslist posting



That's right. You, sitting at your sad brown desk in your sad white office, could soon be in the magical land of Tucson, Arizona, surrounded by a potentially underwater office definitely covered in rainbow magic and sparkles. Your coworkers would likely include aliens and flirtatious golden retrievers, and you can all goof off and watch YouTube videos together until the boss unicorn comes in and everyone is like, "Get back to work!" But this so-called "work" would just be drawing magical universes of your own creation. 


The Huffington Post has reached out to Lisa Frank, Inc., to verify the job posting, but (probably due to the wildly secretive nature of Ms. Frank) we have yet to hear back. So apply at your own risk. Or, while you wait for more news, change your email signature to Queen Professional Lisa Frank Artist for the day just to feel it out.


Jezebel did report on a potential Lisa Frank job posting last year, which noted that applicants must be willing to relocate to Tucson -- the headquarters of the company. And if you're tempted to visit to the Lisa Frank website after reading this, you'll come across a message prompting visitors to check back soon to see the "new Fantastic World of Lisa Frank® website!" 


Whatever's happening over at LF headquarters, if you're an obsessed artist who is open to living in Arizona and has experience in packaging and process design, will you please switch bodies with me by spell or incantation so I can make my lifelong dream come true? Thanks. 


UPDATE: The post has since been removed from Craigslist. We are awaiting comment from Lisa Frank, Inc.


 


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Moms Present '12 Days Of In-Laws,' Because It's That Time Of Year Again

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The holidays mean catching up and spending time with the family -- including your in-laws.


Alisha Merrick and Eden Morris, the parody-loving mothers behind Laughing Moms, already turned The Weeknd's "Can't Feel My Face" into a song about in-laws, and now they're back with a similar revamped makeover of the holiday classic "12 Days of Christmas."


There's no partridge in a pear tree in sight in "12 Days of In-Laws," but the parody does feature funny lines like "10 joints a-achin,'" "nine hours of card games" and "7 o'clock bedtime."


Take a break from gearing up for the holidays and enjoy. 


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Parents Are Sharing Their Kids' Unintentionally Crude Art And It's Hilarious

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A U.K. mom started a hilarious trend after she shared a photo of her son's creative drawing of Santa. 


When Elletia Thomas' 8-year-old son Caleb showed her the Christmas card he'd designed at school, she couldn't help but notice it had a rather ... phallic quality. Thinking others might appreciate the funny design, Thomas posted it on the Facebook page for the parenting humor blog, The Unmumsy Mum





Thomas told The Huffington Post that she decided to share the drawing because knew other parents would appreciate the innocent, unintentional humor of the situation.


She also clarified what the phallic element of the drawing was intended to be. "Caleb says it's Santa's sack," the mom explained. "He's holding it upside down as he's emptying the gifts out, to put under the tree."


Though she didn't expect to get such an overwhelming response, Thomas said she was not surprised that other parents had similar art work to share. 


"We see pristine, perfect artwork being shared and Pinterest examples for us parents to aspire to, but these pictures were real life!" she told HuffPost. "I think that's why it was so popular and so easy for everyone to relate to each other. Like, no my child isn't creating a Da Vinci replica, he's drawing really weird stuff that looks like willies, but so are everyone else's kids!"


After The Unmumsy Mom shared Thomas' post, the comment thread quickly evolved into a gallery of kids' unintentionallyphallicart. Parents shared their children's Christmas-themed drawings (and in one case, marshmallow tower), as well as their non-holiday, but still innocently crude designs. Others are still sharing hilariously inappropriate kid art in visitor posts to the page.


Keep scrolling for a sample of the art and visit The Unmumsy Mom Facebook page for even more off-color creativity.























H/T BuzzFeed


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29 Hilarious Cards Guaranteed To Get You In The Holiday Spirit

Murakami's Teenage Library Records Revealed By Japanese Paper

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If everyone could see your youthful library checkout records, how would you feel?


A debate over library privacy is raging in Japan after newspaper Kobe Shimbun revealed several of the books internationally famous novelist Haruki Murakami checked out of Kobe High School's library during his time as a student. The report sparked outcry from Japanese librarians, who decry the publication of the records as a violation of privacy.


The Japanese Library Association stated in a report, "Disclosing the records of what books were read by a user, without the individual’s consent, violates the person’s privacy."


But The Kobe Shimbun insists the information falls within the realm of public interest, as Murakami's influences as a writer will interest scholars and fans alike. "Mr. Murakami is a person whose work and how he developed his literature is a subject for scholarly study," commented Hideaki Ono, the paper's assistant managing editor.







The information revealed by the leak, however, is quite limited. The newspaper, according to The Telegraph, obtained the information from a volunteer at Kobe High School, who saw Murakami's name on checkout cards attached to several books by the French writer Joseph Kessel. The Guardian reports that the books were a three-volume set of Kessel's complete works, the most well-known of which would be his novel Belle du Jour, about a housewife who works as a prostitute by day.


The Shimbun's Ono argued that these records "showed he also explored French literature in his younger days," in addition to the British and American literature also known to be a significant influence on the author. But three books checked out from a library decades ago give scholars little to go on. A library record is no guarantee Murakami ever read or even dipped into any of the books, and even if so, just three volumes are far too few to indicate a trend. (A three-volume sample of my own high school reading might suggest my sole interests were Agatha Christie, P.G. Wodehouse, and The Princess Diaries series, for example.)


The debate that's broken out in Japan shows a library system that's been allowed to maintain more independence and discretion than our own. These revelations may seem like small potatoes in the United States, where checking out a Quran or a book on explosives could theoretically land one on a terrorist watchlist without any warning. All but two states have legislation in place protecting the privacy of library users, but the Patriot Act not only empowers the federal government to obtain records from institutions including libraries, even well outside of a traditional criminal investigation, it compels these institutions to remain silent about the disclosures. As a result, we can't really know how often, if ever, this power is invoked to seize our library records, even in situations where citizens have no idea they're under investigation.


The American Library Association has been fighting for the Patriot Act to be amended to protect library freedom for over a decade, but in the wake of the phone records debate, library circulation disclosures may seem almost quaint to jaded American citizens. Meanwhile, in Japan, even a famous author's early records leaking is cause for dismay. 


Murakami, a perennial Nobel favorite and genuine literary superstar, likely won't suffer due to this small slip in library privacy, for which the school has already apologized, according to The Telegraph. But Japanese librarians' passionate defense of individual privacy for readers is still, somehow, an inspiring example in a time when Americans seem to be wavering on whether privacy even matters. 


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The Radical Potential Of A Woman Crying In Public

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When a woman cries on screen, she frequently does so in a manner that's dignified, soft and controlled. A single, crystalline tear trickling down an unblemished cheek, only to be wiped away with a handkerchief and a smile. Unless, of course, she's crazy or something, and frantically blows her nose on the sleeve of the cool man who just rejected her.


When a woman cries in her bedroom, however, the experience is worlds apart. For example, when I lock the door for a good cry, my face is soon swarmed with red splotches, my eyelids well up to form pillowy Venus Flytraps. I can't breathe. I can't stop sweating. Indeterminate goo flows from my eyes, nose and mouth. 


"Crying can be gross," artist Dora Moutot explained in an interview with The Huffington Post. She should know. Moutot is the brain behind "Webcam Tears," a project that crowdsources webcam videos of people, mostly girls, crying real, human tears.


"It doesn't look 'pretty' or romantic," she says. "Crying is raw, there are fluids, and gaspings, it's very organic. It's a natural thing that your body does. It doesn't ask you if you feel like it, you can't hold or control it. In a way crying is a very animal, mammal thing to do. Apparently, from what I've read, some animals have tears of relief or sadness too."





Moutot, based in Paris, began "Webcam Tears" four years ago, by accident. She filmed herself crying one day and posted the video to Tumblr and Facebook, just to see what happened. It felt good.


"It actually felt very good," Moutot said in an interview with Dazed Digital. "It felt like saying 'Look I'm sad, tears are rolling on my cheeks and I'm not ashamed. Why the fuck should I hide and try to not cry in front of you? What is it about? Not making you feel uncomfortable? Deal with it, sometimes I'm weak, people are sad and this is human and it's fine.'"


Furthermore, the presence of the camera warped the experience of crying itself. "It felt and it still feels disembodied," Moutot said of the understandably surreal experience of watching your own face while tears roll down it. "It kind of takes away the pain from you. At least, it does for me." 



Dutch artist Melanie Bonajo expressed a similar sentiment regarding her "Anti-Selfie" series, in which she photographs herself mid-cry. "I started to take the pictures of myself crying as a way of putting myself outside of the situation of sadness and looking at myself from the point of view of an observer," Bonajo said. "As soon as you point the camera to yourself, you take yourself out of the moment and look at the situation from the perspective of an observer."


After posting her video, Moutot invited people from her Tumblr community to post their own webcam weeping sessions. Over the course of four years she's collected over 100 videos, most of girls with a few boys sprinkled in. "I think a lot of women cry very easily," she said. "I guess it must be in our nature or in our gender culture. A little girl is expected to cry, but we're expected to hide ourselves when we cry once we grow up. 'Come on don't cry in public, you make me ashamed, you're not four [years old] anymore.'"





Moutot's artistic venture can be viewed as therapeutic, but there's also an element of shock. Mostly this is experienced by the viewer, witnessing an aggressively private and personal act performed on the public stage of the Internet. There is an immense gap between what sex looks like on screen and what it looks like in real life; watching "Webcam Tears" is like finding Xtube after a lifetime of rom-coms.


Moutot sometimes refers to her series as an "emotional porn channel," accentuating the discomfort viewers experience at watching a stranger cry. She says in our contemporary culture it's more jarring than watching porn. I don't disagree.


Sex and sexuality have become crucial sites of rebellion for fourth wave feminists. Expressing your desires, exposing yourself, doing whatever the hell you want with your body because it's yours. This separates many young feminists from their predecessors, who condemn brazen promiscuity, up-talking, hair flipping, boob flaunting and the like.


Not so surprisingly, the same phantom pressure for modesty that governs women's bodies extends to their emotions. Many strong, successful women driven to embody a traditional (patriarchal) ideal of success would panic at the thought of crying at work. "Modesty in clothes, modesty in sexuality, modesty in emotions," Moutot said. "When we get emotional, we are immediately classified as hysteric or depressed."


"But I don't see why crying should be considered childish, it's not. We're supposed to be 'moderate' in whatever we do, and it's unfair. Some girls are naturally moderate, some aren't. I want to cry in front of everyone if I feel sad, and not feel ashamed. Sadness or despair are not emotions to feel ashamed about."



Put a girl in front of a webcam and association with pornography is almost eminent. Reference pornography in your description of it, and the affiliation will mushroom. The Daily Mail's piece on Moutot's work is titled "Is Crying The New Porn?" while The Daily Star's is "Crying Porn: Hot Woman Starts the Creepiest Sex Trend Ever." It's nearly impossible for a woman's online image to avoid being objectified, sexualized, even if there is snot spewing out of her nostrils. 


There are those who get off on the image of women crying. The proper name for the fetish is dacryphilia. When Moutot posted her first video she found it reblogged hundreds of times on various BDSM sites. She tried to delete the original but the Internet had reblogged it into apparent infinity. 


"I was finding the video of myself in between images of bondage and girls being whipped. Guys were commenting on the video and saying very shocking stuff. I couldn't sleep," she said. Most women with an online persona can attest that almost any image or video uploaded to the web can and will result in discomfort or trolling or harassment. Again, even a video of a snotty sad girl.


Eventually, Moutot begged Tumblr to remove this particular video from their server and they obliged. "I don't understand why this video got so much success but I never uploaded it again. There was obviously something very exciting and sexual about it that I was not aware of. After this episode, I got used to seeing videos from 'Webcam Tears' being reblogged on weird blogs on Tumblr, but it was always moderate and not as scary, it never got the success from the one I erased. Now when I cry, I sometimes wonder, 'Was this cry a sexy one, or not?'" 



Moutot's project provides another example of the selfie operating not as a meaningless, narcissistic fix that will destroy the future of the universe, but as a radical, feminist, creative weapon. With a flip of the camera phone (and lots of bravery and skill, of course) marginalized and too often invisible communities, from genderqueer teens to young artists of color, can project their own image on their own terms. 


This is not to say the majority of Instagram is not teeming with envy-inducing images of glamorous, carefree, flawless lives. "It sucks," Moutot responds. "People are alienated, they criticize the world of corporate advertisement cause they are selling them fake plastic dreams but when they have the freedom and the power to show something else, they do exactly the same thing and they become an advertisement themselves!"


For Moutot, however, the Internet is not the impetus for this particular brand of projected perfection. She mentions net presences like So Sad Today and artist Audrey Wollen, the force behind "Sad Girl Theory," as spaces and people subverting the platform as potential sites of sadness. "I personally like to be even more real on the Internet that I am in real life," Moutot expressed. "I think it's a great medium that can help you to be true and honest, because there is a security wall that doesn't exist in real life."


Watch the women of "Webcam Tears" and you may giggle nervously. You may feel a pit in your stomach at the sight of another's unabashed pain. You may be turned on, if you're into that. You may be impressed at the rawness, unnerved at the intensity, inspired to turn your next PMS deluge into a work of art. You'll almost certainly feel a little less alone. 



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'Jessica Jones' Is Why We Need More Relatable Female Superheroes

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It's been over a decade since Hollywood figured out that superhero comic adaptions were the secret to a multibillion-dollar revenue stream that doesn't look like it'll run dry anytime soon. But here's a confession: I haven't seen any of them. Oops! 


Well, no, OK, I saw half of "Batman Begins" in someone's dorm room in college. But that's it. Never watched "The Avengers." Never seen "Thor," although that one Hemsworth brother is something to look at. Never cared enough about Superman's double life to catch "Man of Steel," or to step into any of the other male-dominated DC or Marvel universes. They are immensely popular, with women as well as men, sure. And thousands of words have been spent ruminating over the space that hero figures occupy in our cultural consciousness -- why people want to hold onto them and never let go. I simply find most superhero comics deeply uninteresting. Another story where a quasi-tragic male hero prevails in his quest to save [fill-in-the-blank]? Seen it. Heard it. Hard pass.


But this week, I started watching "Jessica Jones." Whereas other DC and Marvel flicks recycle old tales that might be more palatable had it not been for the fact that their heroes' human attributes seem to vary only in their taste in nylon, "Jessica Jones" feels -- finally -- new. It's fantastic.







Our hero is a messy, hard-drinking, bluntly spoken private eye working out of a shitty apartment in a dark Hell's Kitchen landscape. A glass pane typed with "Alias Investigations" completes the neue noir picture -- one we've seen before, with the one game-changing exception being that this show stars a woman (!) called Jessica Jones. Our hero was adapted from Marvel Comics for the screen by the woman who wrote all of the "Twilight" movies, Melissa Rosenberg, and played by Krysten Ritter. She's not apologetic or wrapped in skin-tight fabric, but she's also no "other"-ized Amazonian warrior princess or alien species. Instead, Jones is a complex, relatable human woman who does excellent work despite her many flaws. Like any male star, she casts aside questions of likability. She has sexual agency. She gets action scenes. It's awesome -- especially for mass media.


Television and movies are culturally demonstrative. At their best, they inform us how it is OK and not OK to behave in our world, reflecting our morals and values. But they also have the power to shape them -- whether that's by perpetuating imagery often associated with subjects, or by allowing those subjects to be characterized in new ways. 


What Jessica Jones gives us is a superhero that reflects a reality not often seen on screen: A woman crime-drama lead with the same depth and agency as a man. It's rewarding to see someone relatable, who looks like you, fighting for good against evil onscreen. Everyone wants to play the hero. It's fun. What's more, the show's "evil" is completely grounded in what is, for many women, a real danger: harmful manipulation and emotional control by a male partner, disturbingly fictionalized via mind control. Of course, big-budget productions have included other female superheroes -- Black Widow, some of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. -- but none of these are allowed to shine so brightly as our perma-grumpy sleuth. (Although it looks like there's a little hope for Wonder Woman in the upcoming "Batman v Superman.")







For some reason, studios operate under an assumption that "white male" is a kind of default representative of human experience, and other characters won't sell tickets to or win high ratings from mass audiences. Yes, Hollywood is a risk-averse creature. Once it finds something that works -- like male superheroes (or female superheroes working hand-in-hand with an even or greater number of male associates) -- the big studios will follow that formula until it's no longer useful. Fine. But stories told from an alternate perspective are thriving, if only just on the small screen. CBS's woman-led "Supergirl" just got picked up for a full season, not to mention the popularity of racially diverse shows like ABC's "How to Get Away with Murder," Netflix's "Master of None," or anything Shonda Rhimes touches.


Perhaps these can help show the industry another formula that works: One where different types of people get to see a hero's tale told by someone they can identify with. I'm not the only one who can't wait to see what Jessica Jones gets up to next season. 


You can be highbrow. You can be lowbrow. But can you ever just be brow? Welcome to Middlebrow, a weekly examination of pop culture. Sign up to receive it in your inbox weekly.


Follow Sara Boboltz on Twitter: @sara_bee


 


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