Photographer Mary Maloney says she started off 2017 in “a perfect way.” On the second day of the year, she snapped photos of a proud mom holding her rainbow baby. 

In October, Mary, the woman behind Pebbles and Polka Dots Photography, teamed up with JoAnn Marrero of From Labor to Love Photography for a stunning maternity photo of Jessica Mahoney. Jessica faced infertility issues after having her first child, but after six miscarriages she became pregnant with her rainbow baby, a child that is born following a miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death or infant loss. To celebrate, Jessica was the star in a viral photo that included rainbow smoke bombs. 

Jessica has since welcomed her rainbow baby, and Mary had the chance to photograph the proud mom and her daughter. The photographer is working on a breastfeeding series and learned that Jessica wanted to be a part of it. Mary wanted to highlight that Jessica’s daughter is a rainbow baby, so she provided the mom with a rainbow dress and a veil for the infant. Mary told The Huffington Post that the photo shoot was quick because of the cold weather in Massachusetts, and according to her, Jessica’s daughter was a natural.

“Her daughter did perfect,” she said. “Not a peep. A complete angel.”

Mary told HuffPost that though the shoot was short, taking photos of Jessica and her daughter was an emotional experience. 

“For me, sitting back 20 feet with camera in hand and taking the photographs, looking at Jessa in her rainbow dress and holding her new baby she had awaited for so long, it was the most peaceful wave of emotion that came over me,” she said.

She also has a touching way of describing Jessica’s daughter. She calls her “the rainbow after the storm.”

To see more of Mary’s work at Pebbles and Polka Dots Photography, head to her site. 

H/T Today

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What’s an Alexis Bledel for?

The actress made famous for her portrayal of Rory Gilmore tends to be typecast in roles defined by youthful naivety: Winnie Foster in “Tuck Everlasting,” Lena in “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.” In a “Mad Men” appearance, she’s involved in an affair with Pete Campbell, who seems to like that her spontaneity foils his wife’s orderliness.

Thursday, Vulture wrote that she’s been cast in a part that strays from her norm. She’ll play Ofglen, opposite Elisabeth Moss, whose starring as Offred, in Netflix’s adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale.

The story follows Offred as she navigates an oppressive society, where women are forced to adhere to a chaste dress code and mate with the men to whom they’re assigned. Offred is separated from her husband and daughter, and she confides in Ofglen about the memories of her past.

Ofglen’s character is no shrinking violet. She finds her subservient role in the Republic of Gilead suffocating, and acts out accordingly. The part will either be a refreshing change for Bledel, who, in the “Gilmore Girls” revival plays a character with little agency, or a missed opportunity for the show. 

(It’s worth noting that Bledel’s tried out more subversive roles before; In “Sin City” she plays Becky, a member of a woman-led clan that eventually traps and kills a wayward cop.)

Regardless of your thoughts on the casting choice, The Handmaid’s Tale may be worth watching for its relevancy alone. Earlier this week, the book’s author, Margaret Atwood, released a statement about the similarities between the fictional world she created and the current political climate.

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Police groups are urging lawmakers to remove a contest-winning painting from the U.S. Capitol, saying its portrayal of a protest that depicts officers and a demonstrator as animals is anti-law enforcement.

In a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) this week, a coalition of California police unions called Missouri teenager David Pulphus’ artwork “reprehensible and repugnant” for representing police officers as “Pigs intent on gunning down innocent people.” Other police groups have also criticized it, saying it doesn’t belong in the Capitol.

Pulphus submitted his painting, “Untitled #1,” to the 16th Congressional Art Competition as a constituent of Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) last year. Clay gave it top honors and commended Pulphus’ “colorful landscape of symbolic characters representing social injustice, the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri and the lingering elements of inequality in modern American society” in a May statement. 

The acrylic painting now hangs on the wall of a tunnel beneath the Capitol, alongside hundreds of other works submitted to the annual competition.

But Pulphus’ politically charged imagery struck a nerve with police unions, which have been highly critical of protests for police reform. Most of their outrage focuses on the painting’s supposed depiction of officers as “pigs,” a derogatory term for police officers.

One of the characters does appear to have tusks, making it look more like a warthog or wild boar than a pig. The other officers look even less porcine, and one appears to have the face of a bulldog. A protester also has an animal head.

The work features signs that read “racism kills” and “stop kill,” a slogan that appears to be cut off by the protester in the foreground. Slogans like this have been regular features at demonstrations since an officer killed black teenager Michael Brown in 2014.

But some law enforcement officials say the image itself could incite violence against cops.

“They’re basically saying that all police officers who wear the uniform are racist and kill African-Americans, and that’s not the truth,” Paul Kelly, president of the San Jose Police Officers Association, told the Bay Area News Group. “It absolutely may trigger someone else to say, ‘I’m done with this. I’m going to take action. I’m going to kill a cop.’”

Ryan, asked about the painting at a press conference on Thursday, said he hadn’t seen or heard about it.

So far, Clay has resisted calls to take “Untitled #1” down. He’s gotten a number of angry phone calls and discussed the controversy with Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), a former sheriff, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Although the two congressmen interpret the work differently, neither has plans to pursue its removal.

Asked how he’s defended the painting to its detractors, Clay told the Post-Dispatch that he simply invoked the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

“I said, ‘Look now, we cannot be selective about people’s constitutional rights,” said Clay. “The Supreme Court has said artistic expression is a form of speech, and we cannot abridge freedom of speech.’”

Clarification: Language in this story has been amended to more accurately describe the location of the painting.

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With her new children’s book, Ginny Heenan aims to help kids with food allergies by making one the main character.

In Avril Knows, Heenan writes about a girl named Avril who has a nut allergy. Her parents ask an artist named Jophiel, who is also their neighbor, to paint a portrait of her. Jophiel learns about the precautions Avril must take because of her allergy and discovers that some kids get mad at her at school because they can’t have certain food in the classroom. In the end, Jophiel uses her portrait of Avril to show her how powerful and special she is ― food allergy and all.

The story is especially personal for Heenan. Avril is based on a now 10-year-girl girl named Abby who also has a nut allergy. Heenan became friends with Abby’s mom through their mothers’ group, and two years ago she painted a 36-inch by 36-inch oil portrait of Abby (the same one from her story) on canvas. The portrait is hanging in the family’s home, just like in the book.

Heenan told The Huffington Post that she decided to write Avril Knows to provide a positive message for Abby and other kids with food allergies. Watching Abby grow up, Heenan has seen what she must do day-to-day to ensure her safety.

“Since my daughter is in her class, I know there are very strict rules and a sign outside the classroom door forbidding any nut products to even enter the room,” Heenan said. 

A news story from last year also inspired Avril Knows. In February 2016, a mother said flight passengers applauded when her son was removed from the plane because of his allergies.

“That story broke my heart,” Heenan said.

It was then that Heenan realized there were no “mainstream positive messages” for kids with food allergies, something she hopes her book will provide. The author, who has since been asked to read the book at a local library, told HuffPost she wanted to use her artistic ability to show a different side of food allergies.

“Artists often see the world differently, and if we take the time to see things through another perspective, perhaps we can learn something or see something new. That is one of the roles of the artist,” she said. “And I thought perhaps I can help some of these kids and their families to see these allergies from a whole different perspective.”

But Heenan’s ultimate goal is show kids with food allergies how strong they are and raise awareness for the sacrifices they make.

“My hope is to help others like Abby.”

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There’s no real answer as to why someone would walk into a gay nightclub and viciously slaughter 49 innocent people. There is an answer, however, as to how to react to such visceral violence: love.

That’s what Love Is Love, a new comic anthology released Dec. 28 and put together by indie comic publisher IDW in collaboration with DC Comics, sets out to remind readers.

The anthology, an ambitious undertaking that includes more than 300 writers and illustrators, is both a tribute to the victims of last year’s Pulse nightclub shooting in Florida ― the worst mass shooting in U.S. history ― and a therapeutic outlet for those living in its aftermath.

The 144-page comic offers vignettes ranging from personal essays and poems sharing grief, to more lighthearted strips reminding readers that being in the LGBTQ community is something worth celebrating. In one comic, writer Teddy Tenebaum makes the case that LGBTQ love is in fact different from straight love ― not because it’s less than it ― but because despite hatred that the LGBTQ community faces, their love endures. It’s “super-love.” 

Mark Andreyko, who came up with the initial idea for Love Is Love, said his first instinct after the shooting was to make a comic.

“My body just clenched and I was ill,” Andreyko told The Guardian last September. “I knew I had to do something, anything.”

The author said most of the writers and artists he reached out to said yes before he could finish asking.

“It has been profoundly moving to see such a diverse, and often really busy, group take the time to be a part of this,” he told the publication.

Superheroes must also find a way to cope with the tragedy in Love Is Love. In a comic written by Marc Guggenheim, Batman goes to investigate the scene of the shooting, searching for answers. He finds none.

In another, written by Taran Killam, Deathstroke reacts to the news by doing away with his guns. 

The anthology touches on subjects including gun control, acceptance of different lifestyles, and the enduring love that lets humans keep going in the face of unspeakable tragedy. The inside front cover of the anthology is perhaps the most touching page of all ― it gives the names and ages of all 49 victims who lost their lives that night. 

All proceeds will go to Equality Florida, an advocacy group for Florida’s LGBTQ community. You can pick up a copy at your local comic book store for $9.99.

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Gabriel Ramirez is not mincing words when it comes to calling out those who don’t recognize their white privilege. 

The New York-based poet and teaching artist was featured in a We are mitú Facebook video on Wednesday. Ramirez, who is of Dominican descent, performed his poem “White Privilege” as illustrations and text appeared around him. 

“Excuse me, you dropped your white privilege,” Ramirez says in the poem. “Must be real hard, you know? Not being discriminated against. What was that? You got every job you applied for because your name didn’t sound black. With all that money you could buy the same clothes I wear and not be called a thug.”

In his verses, he also touches upon “Stop and Frisk,” gentrification and the high number of black deaths there have been in recent months. 

“The entire poem was spoken from the ‘I’ perspective, I was responding directly to things that white people have said to me that I didn’t have the answers or the language to speak against at the moment,” Ramirez told The Huffington Post. 

The response to the video has been mixed, according to the poet, who says he’s received plenty of hateful messages on Facebook. But Ramirez says none of those negative reactions take away the real purpose of his poem.  

“There are some white people who are like ‘yo, that poem is having me see the error of my ways, it’s having me think about the way I move throughout the world” and that’s all the poem is suppose to do,” he told HuffPost. “If it makes you uncomfortable, then it makes you uncomfortable. And if it makes you uncomfortable that means you have some things to work on. If you get angry it’s because you feel attacked, which means it relates to you. And if you think there’s a problem with the poem more than there is problem with racism, you’re wrong.”

Watch the Ramirez’s poem above. 

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Tyrus Wong, the historically unrenowned artist who created the lyrical, elegiac aesthetic for Walt Disney’s “Bambi,” got his artistic start in the 1920s by dipping a brush in newspaper ink because he couldn’t afford art supplies.

Wong, who died Friday, Dec. 30 at the age of 106, was a Chinese immigrant artist who unofficially served as the lead illustrator for “Bambi.” The muted hues and sparse forest imagery that critics praised in the 1942 film represent Wong’s invocation of Song (Sung) Dynasty in his work. Wong has said the golden era of Chinese painting and pottery ― which lasted from 960-1279 and features landscapes, birds and flowers created from short, minimal brushstrokes ― inspired his work on the film. 

Yet Wong was only credited as a “Bambi” background artist by Disney, where he started working in 1938. He finally received the recognition critics say he deserved in his 90s when he was named a a “Disney Legend” in 2001.  

Fine artists, filmmakers, Asian-Americans and people of color say he was truly a luminary. 

“Tyrus is not a footnote by any means,” Pamela Tom, director of the award-winning documentary “Tyrus,” told The Huffington Post. 

“He had a lot of dignity, but he also felt the pangs of racism."

“In the ‘20s and ‘30s in Chinese-American communities, what could you hope to achieve?” the documentary “Tyrus” queries. “You could become a laundromat, a houseboy or work in a restaurant. To be an artist was not a remote possibility.”

Wong himself had expressed that he was on the receiving end of racism, detailing how he was called a “chink” by his art director at Republic Pictures, a production company that closed in 1959. 

“He had a lot of dignity, but he also felt the pangs of racism,” Tom told HuffPost. “I think Tyrus represents success. He represents someone who’s a survivor, who broke these racial barriers.” 

Wong left his mother and sister in China at the age of 9 to move to America with his father. They emigrated to the San Francisco Bay in 1920, hoping for a better life. After arriving at Angel Island Immigration Center, Wong would never see his mother and sister again.

“There were no other kids besides myself, so no playmates,” Wong said in an Angel Island profile. He traveled as a “paper son,” using false documents that claimed he had relatives who were U.S. citizens, the “Tyrus” documentary recounts. He was forced to wait in barracks on the island for interrogation and was separated from his father for two weeks.

“I’m wondering most of the time about my father. I said, ‘What happened to my father?’ All of the sudden I don’t see him. I ask the guard what happened, and I don’t speak English, so I just suffered,” he said in the Angel Island video.

“The Angel Island experience is a very painful chapter in Chinese American history, a hidden chapter,” Eddie Wong, executive director of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, told The Los Angeles Times. 

Wong and his father would later be reunited and go on to live in a vermin-infested apartment in Chinatown in Los Angeles. While in junior high, the aspiring artist attended Otis College of Art and Design on a scholarship. He was so talented that he left his public school altogether for the institute after his father pulled together the necessary $90 tuition fee.

I think that we would not have Tyrus Wong and his art had he not gone through the kind of struggle that he had.

Critics have pointed out similarities between Wong’s artwork and his own life, such as the plot in “Bambi” and his own separation from his mother.

“I think that we would not have Tyrus Wong and his art had he not gone through the kind of struggle that he had,” Tom told HuffPost. “There’s a loneliness to his work. That’s totally reflective of the losses he experienced early in his life.”

Wong got his big break when he was working at Disney as an “in-betweener,” or someone who drew the images that helped bring the animation to life. When he heard that “Bambi” was in pre-production, he went home, read the book, and developed sample paintings evocative of the mood and tone. 

At the time, Disney was attempting to emulate the finely tuned background detail used in “Snow White,” a style that rendered the deer in “Bambi” completely camouflaged, The New York Times reported. When Walt Disney himself got ahold of Wong’s subtle watercolor images, he personally selected him as the unofficial inspirational sketch artist for the film. This meant everyone working on the animated movie took his vision as art direction. 

“Walt Disney went crazy over them,” animation historian John Canemaker told The Times. “He said, ‘I love this indefinite quality, the mysterious quality of the forest.’”

In this day and age of strong anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric, had Tyrus been sent back to China ... we would have no Bambi.

Besides Wong’s personal influence on the film, Tom points out that his life provides other critical lessons that resonate today.

“In this day and age of strong anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric, had Tyrus been sent back to China ... we would have no Bambi.” 

The documentary “Tyrus” will air on PBS this summer. 

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The BBC comedy show “Revolting” turned out to be a bit ... revolting for many viewers who watched its spoof reality skit “The Real Housewives of ISIS.”

Hijab-wearing glamorista characters in “luxury homes” of bombed-out apartment complexes was just the beginning. One of the giggly housewives wonders what to wear to a beheading, and two others shows off twin suicide vests to their pals (“Awkward,” says one embarrassed character, referring to the surprise matching outfits. “Hashtag matchymatchy.”) Another “housewife” talks about how “Abdul seduced me online ... he had me at free health care.” One boasts about her new chain: “Ali bought me a new chain, which is eight feet long. So I can almost get outside, which is great!”

Some viewers didn’t find the satirical sketch funny. The United Kingdom’s broadcasting watchdog Ofcom confirmed it was investigating 39 complaints from viewers, The Times newspaper reported Friday. Others lashed out at the show on social media, calling it insensitive, racist and sexist.

But others gushed about it.

Some didn’t know what to think.

The skit creators defended the spoof, saying they were deliberately addressing the Islamic State militant group’s targeting of young women.

“It’s important not to pull your punches in satire. You have to be fearless or it undermines your credibility,” comedian Heydon Prowse told the British newspaper i.

You “can’t go after” former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron for five years like the comedians had on a previous show and not target the Islamic State, Prowse added.

The target is online grooming of girls and young women, co-creator Jolyon Rubinstein said. “It’s about people who are vulnerable to these kind of approaches,” he told i.

The two-minute clip was viewed more than 21 million times by Thursday, night after its posting on Facebook on Tuesday.

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Warning: if you haven’t watched “The OA” but plan to, we don’t recommend spoiling it by reading this post.

When Andy Weir first self-published The Martian ― a book that troubles itself with scientific accuracy, but not, say, the color of its protagonist’s hair ― it was a quick hit. His 99-cent ebook sold 35,000 copies before publishers took notice and Crown Publishing bought the rights. The rest is history. Or a version of it, starring Matt Damon.

The book made it to The New York Times’ bestseller list, an impressive feat for a title belonging to the thought-to-be esoteric subgenre of “hard” sci-fi, or sci-fi concerned more with the “sci” half of the mashup. Readers reveled in Weir’s technical proficiency (his dad’s a particle physicist). Reviews were mixed, but leaned positive. A “B” review from Entertainment Weekly laments, “The men and women we see in action on the ship and at NASA are brainy but dour. Still, the technical details keep the story relentlessly precise and the suspense ramped up.”

As readers, and viewers, it seems we can be more willing to overlook these character-centered shortcomings, more so than we’re able to suspend our belief for the unreal, or the accurate-ish. Just look at “The OA,” the surprise show that debuted at the tail end of last year, controversial for its ending ― called out as off-color by critics ― but also for its ethereal message.

The eight-episode Netflix project follows a girl who’s returned to her hometown after a long disappearance. When she left, she was blind; now, inexplicably, she can see. The girl’s adoptive parents named her Prairie, but after her presumed abduction she calls herself “the OA,” a title that remains cryptic for much of the season.

We learn that the OA had a near-death experience, or NDE, as a child in Russia, where she was the sole survivor of a sinking bus crash. Before the accident, she had ominous dreams that predicted it in flashes, and she always woke up with a nosebleed, a quirk that led reviewers to draw comparisons between “The OA” and Eleven from “Stranger Things.” (The connection is mostly superficial.)

During her NDE, the OA tells a sort of goddess-guardian-oracle named Khatun that she wishes to return to Earth. And she’s able to, but at the cost of her sight. She’s then shipped off to America, where she lives with her absent, extended family until she’s adopted by the Johnsons, a kindly couple that raises her in the suburbs. 

The OA ― who’s still going by Prairie Johnson at this point ― is tormented most nights by her nosebleed-inducing dreams, which she interprets as premonitions. The Johnsons view her behavior as problematic and seek to medicate her; whether she’s experiencing psychotic breaks or truly supernatural phenomena is left ambiguous on purpose. Eschewing empirical evidence in favor of an individual’s lived experiences, the show’s portrayal of Prairie ― and later, the OA ― is one of acceptance and imagination. When we’re asked to consider that her premonitions might have real, physical consequences somewhere beyond her reeling, traumatized brain, we’re forced to take them seriously. She’s more than just crazy; empathy is born. 

This idea is threaded through as the story builds. We eventually learn that, during her absence, Prairie was held captive by Hap, a man doing research on NDEs, along with a rotating cycle of fellow abductees. He’s researching where they go when they nearly die ― what happens to their minds, or spirits ― by drugging them and drowning them over and over.

We also learn that Khatun gifted Prairie a bird from the afterlife, which she swallowed, granting her the ability to dance or move in a specific way that feels, to her, important. It sounds like mumbo-jumbo belonging to the same family as healing crystals, but one of the other captives, Homer, is on board with her theory that they each must complete these coordinated movements together in order to escape. Over the course of years, the “movements” are born, these jerky gestures that look like either rituals from a far-off ancient land, or a trendy new workout fusing yoga with Zumba. (The OA, it’s worth noting, looks like she’s scoured the sale room at Urban Outfitters, further imbuing the show with this decade’s particular brand of New Ageiness.)

When she’s set free, the OA makes her way back to the Johnsons, but yearns to return to Homer and the captives she left behind. She scrounges up a crew of high school students and one teacher, who for their own varied reasons are intrigued by the OA’s story and wish to help her. There’s Betty, a teacher who’s mourning her twin brother; Alfonso, a promising student-athlete who piles on responsibilities at home; Buck, a transgender teen; Jesse, a soft-spoken orphan; and Steve, whose violent tendencies could land him in military school. They become the OA’s captive audience, stand-ins for the family she lost in Hap’s damp basement prison.

They learn the movements, not knowing when or why they’ll need to perform them in the future. Then, in the final scene of the final episode, it becomes clear: the OA’s crew performs their dance in the midst of a school shooting, and it’s so bizarrely distracting that the shooter pauses long enough to be taken out. The plot choice has been criticized and defended. Tasteful or not, it casts off the idea that it matters whether or not the OA’s premonitions are real or in her head. The effect is real, and that’s what counts.

Not everyone agrees. Writing for Gizmodo, in a post titled “The OA Is Bullshit, But It’s Beautiful Bullshit,” Evan Narcisse says, “the lack of closure feels like a calculated ploy to avoid delivering a concrete answer to its central mystery.”

But it would seem that the lack of closure ― of clarity about the OA’s true backstory ― is the point. The imagination, the show posits, is as real as the real world. And before you dismiss such a takeaway as wishy-washy, remember that it’s the crux of so many beloved stories.

In the final installment of Harry Potter, Dumbledore upholds the realness of the imagination by reminding Harry, “of course it is happening inside your head [...] but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”; in Where the Wild Things Are, Max’s wild rumpus matters not because it was or wasn’t a dream, but because of what the hero gleans from his adventures. In William freakin’ Shakespeare’s plays, the substantiality of false worlds is celebrated again and again. It’s arguable that the concept has helped shaped storytelling as we know it. Depending on who you ask, the concept is timeless or hackneyed. But it certainly isn’t cheap. 

In a Facebook chat with The Huffington Post, writer Lidia Yuknavitch — whose Chronology of Water explores the fluidity of our bodies, our genders, and the stories we tell, and whose forthcoming novel, The Book of Joan, approaches sci-fi anthropologically ― praised “The OA” as a show about “desire toward meaning-making kissing desire of the body.”

“I have a gigantic crush on the creative mind of Brit Marling,” she said. “I think we are in DIRE need of redefining what we mean by ‘spiritual’ today, away from old theologies and dead myths that relied on god the father. I think new paradigms are being born like new stars, bringing us closer to ourselves, and new forms and themes in storytelling are emerging. Thank the night sky.”

She added that criticisms of the show as wishy-washy pseudoscience are unfounded. “I think it’s a little reductive to call ‘the OA’ a ‘spiritual’ show without adding to that the helix made of spirituality and astrophysics ... you know, hard science. The many worlds theory, string theory, the ‘music’ made from Saturn’s rings,” Yuknavitch said.

It’s true that “The OA” is a new kind of science fiction, at least for mainstream audiences. But its heavy reliance on bald emotions, occasionally corny mantras and theories that could’ve been plucked from college dorm rooms doesn’t mean that it isn’t also rooted in the fascinating facts of the universe. Like its heroine, the show has a foot in reality, a foot in unreality. Asking it to commit to one or the other would only rid it of its wonder.

Every Friday, HuffPost’s Culture Shift newsletter helps you figure out which books you should read, art you should check out, movies you should watch and music should listen to. Sign up here.

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You can be highbrow. You can be lowbrow. But can you ever just be brow? Welcome to Middlebrow, a weekly examination of pop culture.

Last week, when film icon Debbie Reynolds died at 84, her New York Times obituary headline dubbed her a “Wholesome Ingénue in 1950s Films.” Quickly, lookups for the etymologically French term soared, according to Merriam- Webster.

As those curious readers likely found, the Times was being slightly redundant in its description of the one-time starlet. The term “ingénue” itself ― which usually describes a wide-eyed, innocent young woman, a stage or film role depicting such a young woman, or an actress typecast as playing these roles ― denotes wholesomeness, sexual purity and naiveté, and sweetness. 

When Reynolds broke into Hollywood as a teenager, she starred as girl-next-door sweethearts opposite the male matinée idols of the day in films like “Singing in the Rain” and “Bundle of Joy.” She filled a classic role at the time, guileless lead or foil to the femme fatale. Judy Garland, Joan Leslie, Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly ― the bright-eyed young innocent has been a relative constant in the film industry, as established before in opera and musical theater. 

In the years since Reynolds umbrella-danced with Gene Kelly, it seems American readers have forgotten about the ingénue. (Or maybe they just wanted a quick dictionary refresher.) The French word was introduced into the English vocabulary in the mid-19th century, possibly by William Makepeace Thackeray’s massive novel about a classic femme fatale who poses, when convenient, as an ingénue, Vanity Fair. Though pronounced in the French manner, the word shares its roots with “disingenuous,” a not-uncommon English term for a calculated, dissembling quality, and “ingenuous,” a less-common word for a naive, frank quality.

Entertainment writers haven’t given up on the word; it still shows up in profiles and reviews aplenty these days. But the definition has become diffuse and slippery. Vampy sexpot Megan Fox is an ingénue. Accomplished 31-year-old actress Lupita Nyong’o, upon her breakout performance after 10 years of hard, patient work, is an ingénue. Sexed-up schoolgirl Britney Spears is an ingénue. Famously surly Kristen Stewart, whose celebrity romance with Robert Pattinson was ended by a fling with an older, married director, is an ingénue. An ingénue is fresh-faced and gorgeous, but we rarely pay much mind to the connotations of innocence ― the very same LA Times article that called Fox an ingénue also dubbed her a “screen siren” and a “femme fatale,” traditionally the photo negative of an ingénue.

Not that we should be troubled by the decline of the “ingénue,” which likely has less to do with our generation’s illiteracy than with the blurring of the once-clear Madonna/whore dichotomy. If a woman can be perceived as good and wholesome despite sexual experience, the vamp vs. ingénue conflict collapses in on itself ― and these days, even most rom-com heroines know their way around a partner’s sexy bits. Depictions of women on-screen, and coverage of women in the spotlight, have progressed enough to celebrate women who speak their minds, take care of themselves, and have experience in the ways of the world. Reynolds’ own daughter, Carrie Fisher, was most famous for her role as a beautiful princess, but a space rebel warrior princess. 

The ingénue isn’t just a throwback to old-school feminine values, but a reminder of something still more sinister: the racism bound up in those restrictive gender roles. While white women were expected to carefully guard their fragile virtues, presenting a pure and feminine package to their future husbands, women of color ― especially black women ― were generally treated as sexually knowing and available from a young age, regardless of their actual experience.

“Because the ingénue is implicitly white, she represents a model of respectability that is harder to achieve for girls of color,” musicologist Alexandra Apolloni argues. “As scholars, including Patricia Hill Collins, Kyra Gaunt, Beverly Skeggs, and others have argued, the sexual maturity of girls of color is assumed.”

Non-white stars were not ingénues, though they might be divas or vamps, like Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong. Even today, any white starlet will find it easier to be viewed as a vulnerable ingénue than a woman of color, who is more likely to be presumed sexually predatory or brassy if she doesn’t carefully craft a flawless image. No degree of acting out precludes a white woman from the label ― Miley Cyrus can gyrate against a man onstage in pasties and later be dubbed one ― but for a black woman to attract that appellation, she must be as dewy, classically beautiful, demure and unimpeachable in reputation as Lupita Nyong’o. No one is calling Nicki Minaj an ingénue. 

Ingénue, as a concept and a word, has lost its power because the constructs it upheld have been vigorously undermined for decades. But the fact that it lingers at all, not just in obituaries of film stars like Reynolds ― who played numerous other roles throughout the rest of her career, anyway ― suggests that its problematic power hasn’t vanished. Perhaps we can forgive a woman, nowadays, for being sexually experienced, but the idea of a fresh, virginal girl still bears an aura of desirability that an unpracticed boy does not.

By labeling young female performers “ingénues,” we’re revealing that we associate their ability to conform to an archetype of traditional white femininity, as well as their youth and relative inexperience (real or perceived), with their star power, which we certainly still do. Two years ago, Russell Crowe rather nastily commented that older actresses should give up on expecting “play the ingénue” ― neither acknowledging the dearth of roles for women over 35 nor the heightened status granted to it girls and ingénues compared to more mature women in the spotlight.

The ingénue hasn’t gone extinct yet, despite the term’s relative rarity in 21st-century America. The concept lingers in early Taylor Swift songs about pining over a boy who prefers another, sexier girl; and in Woody Allen movies in which a bright-eyed young woman is shown the way of things by an older gentleman. The decline of the ingénue reveals only positive developments for women in and around Hollywood: That they’ve inhabited more complex roles, that they’ve been allowed to sympathetically portray sexual maturity, that women of color have fought to be viewed as innocents, and that women have made progress in being viewed as people, not as two-dimensional Madonnas or whores.

That the word, with its vaguely kittenish allure, still floats around gossip and style columns ― well, that just reveals how far we still have to go. 

Follow Claire on Twitter: @claireefallon

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Cher has been an outspoken critic of Gov. Rick Snyder for his handling of the nearly three-year-long water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Now she will star in a Lifetime movie about the lead-contamination disaster.

Cher is set to play a local whose family suffers through the crisis, according to Deadline. Titled “Flint,” the movie will chronicle the events that caused the water’s toxicity and the political maneuvers that fostered dangerous living conditions for the town’s roughly 100,000 residents. No air date has been announced, but production is expected to begin this spring. Bruce Beresford (”Driving Miss Daisy,” “Crimes of the Heart”) is directing, with a script written by Barbara Stepansky and inspired by Time magazine’s 2016 cover story headlined “The Poisoning Of An American City.”

“Flint” marks Cher’s first live-action acting gig since the 2010 musical masterpiece “Burlesque,” co-starring Christina Aguilera. (In 2011, the actress voiced a lion in the Kevin James dud “Zookeeper.” Let’s leave that one in the past.) Before that, she hadn’t appeared in a movie since portraying herself in the 2003 Farrelly brothers comedy “Stuck on You.” Cher will also produce “Flint” alongside Katie Couric and frequent Oscar producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron.

It makes sense that Cher would choose this project to grace the screen once again: In addition to tweets excoriating Snyder (in her typical all-caps, pro-emoji style), the 70-year-old Oscar winner partnered with Icelandic Glacial last year to donate more than 180,000 bottles of water to Flint’s residents. Deadline reported that it was Cher who reached out to the “Flint” producers after reading an announcement about the film. 

This will mark Cher’s second TV movie. The first was the 1996 HBO abortion drama “If These Walls Could Talk,” for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination. Here’s hoping her “Flint” character marches up to Snyder, smacks him across the face and yells, “Snap out of it!” You know, to turn back time and all.

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This speech oughta really hit home for any Asian who’s received hate just because of their identity. 

Sophia Chang, a Korean-Canadian and music industry veteran, concluded a lecture about her career at Boston’s Berklee College of Music by shutting down people who have shown bigotry towards her. 

While her words, which were captured in a recently released clip, might be based on Chang’s personal experiences, they also illustrate everything we Asians have wanted to say to those who’ve discriminated against us. 

“With every ‘chink’ spat my way, I was prompted to crush the box. With every ‘jap,’ I was prompted to pursue my passion. And with every ‘gook’ I was pushed to tell my story.”

“With every ‘chink’ spat my way, I was prompted to crush the box. With every ‘jap,’ I was prompted to pursue my passion. And with every ‘gook’ I was pushed to tell my story,” Chang powerfully proclaims in the clip titled “Shoutout to All My Racists.” “Know this ― your small-mindedness fuels my prodigiousness.”

In her speech, Chang lays out the many ignorant remarks she’s received, addressing anyone from those who’ve made fun of her parents’ names to people who’ve ridiculed her culture’s food. 

“To anyone ever asked me, ‘is your pussy sideways?’ ‘Can you see when you smile?’ ‘Are you a tiger mom?’” she recalled. “To every man who greeted me with a ‘konichiwa’ or a ‘nihao ma,’ or told me your girlfriend was Asian like I give a f**k”

But in the face of adversity, she says, she only became more resilient. 

“You see, we have to understand that with each of those micro-aggressions, it just added a plate to my suit of armor,” she said. “And you created this warrior who is impervious to your bullshit bigotry.”

Seriously ― can we get a “hell yeah?”

Chang has been outspoken about the discrimination she’s received in the past. She mentioned in an interview with NPR that she’s no stranger to being labeled the stereotypes often pinned on Asians ― especially women who have been fetishized in the hip-hop industry and beyond. 

However, she mentioned, her life’s been about destroying these stereotypes. 

“You think I’m just going to be your submissive little girl that goes and runs your errands for you and I keep my mouth shut when daddy is talking at the table or at a party,” she said. “F**k you, man. I’m not the one for you. You go find somebody else then.” 

Keep slaying, girl.

H/T Angry Asian Man

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Marvel can’t keep it “Loki” anymore. The studio has finally released a synopsis for the upcoming “Thor: Ragnarok,” and it turns out the rumors are true: Thor will fight The Hulk.

The summary reveals that Thor (Chris Hemsworth) will become imprisoned without his hammer and will have to race back to Asgard to save it from being destroyed by new villain Hela. The problem is that first he’s got to go through a “deadly gladiatorial contest” and face off against his buddy The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo):

In Marvel Studios’ Thor: Ragnarok, Thor is imprisoned on the other side of the universe without his mighty hammer and finds himself in a race against time to get back to Asgard to stop Ragnarok — the destruction of his homeworld and the end of Asgardian civilization — at the hands of an all-powerful new threat, the ruthless Hela. But first he must survive a deadly gladiatorial contest that pits him against his former ally and fellow Avenger — the Incredible Hulk!

The crazy thing is we actually knew about this a year ago.

Rumors that Thor would face The Hulk were circulating in January 2016, and in an interview with The Huffington Post, Chris Hemsworth told us if Thor didn’t have his hammer, he’d want the Hulk-busting suit. 

“That would come in handy, wouldn’t it?” said Hemsworth.

It turns out, yeah, that would come in hella handy.

Marvel also released a first look at the movie, showing Hemsworth with director Taika Waititi. 

Drink it in, Hemsworth fans. If Thor is facing off against The Hulk, it may be the last time you see him in one piece.

“Thor: Ragnarok” hits theaters November 3, 2017.

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America Ferrera is set to chair an Artists’ Committee for the upcoming Women’s March on Washington, march leader Bob Bland told BuzzFeed News.

The march is planned for Saturday, Jan. 21, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, and organizers hope to “send a bold message to our new government on their first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights.” 

Ferrera will work with fellow organizers for the event on unspecified activities.

Ferrera’s inclusion falls in line with the program’s catalogue of “nationally recognized advocates, artists, entertainers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders,” which currently includes the likes of Gloria Steinem and Harry Belafonte.

A spokesperson for Ferrera told BuzzFeed that the decision to join the march was the actress’ own and that she arranged it all on her own.

The Latina actress hasn’t been quiet about her political stance or her desire for fellow Latinos to get out to the polls. She has spoken out against Trump on a few occasions ― most notably in a 2015 open letter to the President-elect.

If you want to get involved in the Women’s March on Washington, you can learn more about it here.

(h/t BuzzFeed)

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Many people consider music to be one of life’s greatest pleasures. Others find it... meh.

An aversion to music of any kind might seem on par with disliking puppies, ice cream or sunshine, but not everyone gets a kick from jamming out to the radio. In fact, the inability to derive pleasure from music can stem from a real neurological condition known as specific musical anhedonia.

People with musical anhedonia lack the typical emotional responses that most people show when listening to Beyoncé or The Beatles (or any other music, for that matter). 

New research sheds light on the causes of the condition, and suggests it is rooted in differences in how the brain’s auditory processing and reward centers are connected. The brains of people with musical anhedonia show less-than-average connectivity between these two areas, according to a study published in a recent issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Due to the lack of interaction between these two parts of the brain, a person with musical anhedonia can listen to an extremely emotionally charged song and not feel anything at all ― even if they show completely normal emotional responses in every other way. 

“People with musical anhedonia will say, ‘No, music doesn’t provoke emotions,’ and ‘No, I never really want to dance when I hear music,’” Dr. Robert Zatorre, a neurologist at McGill University and one of the study’s authors, told The Huffington Post. “We found some of these individuals, there’s not very many of them but they do exist. ... They’re just indifferent to the music.” 

Zatorre and his colleagues discovered the phenomenon just a few years ago. They first identified musical anhedonia in a 2014 study, showing that some people can’t derive pleasure from music despite having a normal ability to enjoy other pleasurable things.

And it wasn’t just a matter of personal preference. Researchers identified a basic physiological difference between people with musical anhedonia and people who enjoyed listening to songs. 

The other participants reported chills when listening to music. With our anhedonic group, they had no chills. They had no real response to music.
Dr. Josep Marco-Pallares

“The other participants reported chills when listening to music,” study co-author Dr. Josep Marco-Pallares of the University of Barcelona told NPR in 2014. “With our anhedonic group, they had no chills. They had no real response to music.” 

The next step for the research team was to determine what caused this inability to find pleasure in music. For the new study, 45 healthy participants answered questions about their level of sensitivity to music, and were divided into three groups based on their responses. (If you’re curious, you can test your own musical responsiveness using this quiz from the University of Barcelona team.) 

Then, the participants’ brains were scanned while they listened to music and recorded their pleasure levels in real time. To make sure that the brain’s reward response was unique to music ― and not simply dampened overall ― the participants also had their brains scanned while they played a game in which they could win or lose real money.  

The brain scans revealed that musical anhedonics showed less activity in the nucleus accumbens, a key structure in the brain’s reward network, when listening to music. But their reward areas were normally activated when they won money. 

In the musical anhedonics, the nucleus accumbens also seemed to be disconnected from brain regions involved in auditory processing. People with a high sensitivity to music, on the other hand, showed a high level of connectivity between these two parts of the brain. The more the participants enjoyed music, the more connected were their brain’s pleasure and music-processing circuits. 

Although musical anhedonia is very real, Zatorre notes that the condition shouldn’t be pathologized or seen as some sort of mental illness. 

“I try to be careful not to call it a disorder,” he said. “The people I’ve spoken to who have musical anhedonia actually say they’re really grateful to the research. They’ve said to me, ‘All my life I thought I was weird, but now you’ve shown me that there are other people like me.’” 

Anhedoniacs, you’re not alone. 

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Sisters before misters. 

The ladies of “Pitch Perfect” are back and ready to start singing for the third installment of the box-office hit. Photos of their reunion surfaced on Instagram Thursday, showing Anna Kendrick (Beca), Anna Camp (Aubrey), Rebel Wilson (Fat Amy), Chrissie Fit (Flo), Shelley Regner (Ashley), Ester Dean (Cynthia Rose), Hana Mae Lee (Lilly), Brittany Snow (Chloe) and Kelley Jakle (Jessica) together again.

Even co-star and “Pitch Perfect 2” director Elizabeth Banks got in on the fun. 

“Pitch Perfect 3” will be directed by Trish Sie and is set to hit theaters Dec. 22, 2017, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Pitch Perfect,” released in 2012, grossed $115 million globally, and was followed by the smash-hit second installment in 2015, which grossed $287.5 million worldwide. 

While the plot is still under wraps, Kendrick joked about the possibilities.

“We’re filming in January. I still haven’t seen a script a year later, but I am very excited to begin shooting it,” she told Entertainment Tonight. “I would really love it if we were in space. I personally would love to do one of those anti-gravity scenes. That’s my dream!”

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On Jan. 2, 2017, Memphis’ Collage Dance Collective wished its fans and followers a happy New Year on Instagram, posting a stunning photograph of five of the company’s ballerinas on Instagram. 

The image was re-shared by Taji Magazine two days later and promptly went viral. You can see why. 

The world of ballet has long been defined by an allegiance to classical, European tradition. Uniformity is prized ― if not outright worshipped ― and as such, dancers of color have to work twice as hard as their white counterparts to land a job at a dance company or score a coveted role simply because they stand out. 

The company’s portrait, however, boldly projects a new model for ballet’s future, one in which skin isn’t automatically presumed to be white. The photo depicts, from left to right, ballerinas Brandye Lee, Daphne Lee, Kimberly Ho-Tsai, Nikki Taylor, and Luisa Cardoso ― dancers of African-American, French Guianese, and Brazilian descent. The image envisions an environment where dancers are evaluated by their skill and style, regardless of skin tone, gender identity, or socioeconomic background. 

The image’s photographer, Andrew J. Breig, embedded subtle nods to ballet’s outdated racial biases throughout his image. Each dancer, an “original swan of color,” dons white apparel that was specially dyed to match the tone of her skin. The gesture alludes to the fact that, in the realm of ballet gear, “nude” leotards, tights, and toe shoes are made to match to a white skin tone ― framing brown dancers as anomalies.

In an interview with Yahoo! Beauty, the company’s marketing director Shalishah Franklin explained the crucial necessity of diverse representation in the dance scene in 2017 and beyond.

“We are deeply concerned by the underrepresentation of black ballerinas, not only in mainstream media, but in professional companies and ballet schools worldwide,” she said.

“This pervasive lack of representation within our industry and our media is a continued call to action for our company, to inspire the growth and diversity of ballet through a repertoire of relevant choreography and world-class dancers representative of our community.”

For too long, ballerinas of color have been relegated to the sidelines because of antiquated traditions that unquestionably dilute the quality of professional dance.

But luckily, there are signs of change. In an interview with Mashable, Virginia Johnson, a founding member and artistic director of New York City’s famed Dance Theatre of Harlem, predicted that race in ballet would no longer be a topic of discussion in just three to five years.

Let’s hope 2017 takes us way closer to that goal.  

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Singer-songwriter Brandon Stansell is kicking off 2017 by dropping a new music video, and The Huffington Post got an exclusive first look.

The Los Angeles-based “California country” performer is haunted by an unrequited love in “Never Know,” which is the follow-up to his 2016 single, “Slow Down.” Directed by Trent Atkinson, the video shows Stansell sulking in a bathtub and tossing in bed, tormented by memories of a hunky love interest (played by Frank Sweeney). Things may or may not end up on an upbeat note, however, depending on your interpretation of the video’s ambiguous conclusion. 

Stansell, who originally hails from Tennessee, teamed up with Nashville-based musicians JD Shuff and Erik Halbig for the mid-tempo ballad, which he wrote “from my vantage point of wanting to explore a new relationship.” That romance was short-lived, driving Stansell to write even more. “I didn’t get the guy,” he told The Huffington Post, “but I got a great song out of it.” 

“Never Know” is the second track from Stansell’s three-song “Slow Down” EP, which was released in September. Next, he’ll collaborate with Atkinson once more for a video for the EP’s third (and final) song, “Spare Change,” which he described as a “direct response to the fear members of the LGBTQ community and the majority of the country are feeling” in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory in November. “So many of us were looking around, trying to figure out what we could do in the wake of the election results, and producing this video is going to be one of my very first steps,” he said. 

Stansell plans to head back to the studio to record his first full-length album, slated for release in the fall. He’s also written material for another EP, “Hometown,” in which he’ll specifically address his struggles coming out as gay while growing up in Tennessee. Turning those “deeply personal” memories into music, he said, was a bigger challenge than he expected. 

“I had a tumultuous coming out, and if sharing my story can save one person from having to go through what I went through, then that is something I am passionate about pursuing,” he told HuffPost. “Now, more than ever, I think younger members of the LGBTQ community ― especially in the South ― need to know there is light at the end of the tunnel.” 

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Once upon a time, two childhood friends began to play music and lay traps ― and, sometimes, both at once. 

Now 17 and 18 years old, respectively, Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth are Let’s Eat Grandma, a psychedelic pop group whose sound resembles a molten lullaby that’s spawned hallucinatory properties.

The band’s uncanny name stems from an old grammar joke about the importance of commas ― they save lives! But, after listening to their music, a different image comes to mind: one of two fairy-tale children (think Gretel or Little Red Riding Hood) who, after finding their way to grandmother’s house, as fairy-tale children often do, decide to derail their sugary narrative with a cannibalistic twist.

As Hollingworth told The Huffington Post, “It’s more complicated than ‘happily ever after.’”

Walton and Hollingworth grew up in Norwich, which Hollingworth described as a “quite classic English town.” The two met in school when they were 4 years old. In the other, each recognized a familiar macabre sense of humor and a taste for mischief. In those formative years before one reaches double digits, Walton and Hollingworth enjoyed climbing onto rooftops and building tree houses. Also, playing pranks.

“We used to have this fake package we attached to a string and left on the street,” Walton recalled. “When people would try to pick up the package, we’d yank the string and make them jump.” They cackled at the recollection. “It’s kind of what we do onstage ― get reactions out of people.”

At 13 years old, Walton and Hollingworth began making music together, picking up a motley range of instruments including keyboard, guitar, drums, saxophone, harmonica, mandolin, cello, recorder, glockenspiel and ukulele. While many girls have experience escaping, within their own circles, into fantastical worlds of their own making, few execute their imagination-fueled undertakings with such skill and nuance. 

In June of 2016 they dropped their debut album, “I, Gemini,” a dark, dreamlike thing that balances childish folksiness with baroque experimentalism. Their lyrics spin tales of skipping school, chimpanzees, lucid dreams and the enchanting luminescence of shiitake mushrooms ― sometimes sung, rapped in a baby animal’s chirrup or chanted in the dazed tenor of a possessed youth chorus. Words are layered atop textured soundscapes that will make you dance while easing you into a trance.

The women of LEG are well aware of the preconceptions that come along with being a musical group of teenage girls. Rather than objecting, they toy with their audience’s assumptions, amping up their innocent girlishness while hinting at the depraved underbelly beneath the surface. On stage, the ladies often shield their faces with their waist-length tresses, until they resemble witchy, pre-Raphaelite twins. They’ve been known to disarm crowds by performing secret handshakes and screaming in tandem during shows, promptly shattering any expectations casting female musicians as demure, ladylike songstresses. 

In their recent video “Sax in the City,” the two dress up as overgrown babies, crawling on city streets in frilly, pink bonnets and sucking pacifiers. At one point, they play Crayola-colored toy instruments while reclining in an overflowing ball pit, a nod to those who refuse to see them as anything other than little girls playing with the boys’ toys.

“Sometimes we almost do experiments to see what people think,” Hollingworth said of the video. “It’s interesting, assuming how you think people will react and then seeing how they actually do. I’m not sure if they entirely got that one.”

Walton and Hollingworth are quick to describe themselves as “witches” and “freaks,” labels that speak to something true about themselves while simultaneously messing with preconceptions. In part, they believe others’ judgments stem from a deep-seeded fear of girls and female friendships.

“People have all these presumptions about female friendship like there is something dangerous about it,” Hollingworth said. “It’s almost like they can’t imagine women having the same drive to create things as men ― which is utter crap.”

The widespread fiction that young women aren’t capable, creatively or intellectually, is nothing new, as evidenced by the uproar over a political Teen Vogue article last month. LEG uses this falsehood as a springboard for fantasy, putting on a creepy-cute freak show that reflects their audience’s fears and fantasies back at them.

In a stellar piece for MTV, writer Hazel Cills paid tribute to the contemporary women musicians who, in their music videos, subvert the horror genre ― long used to symbolize and dramatize violence against women ― to express feminine perspectives of aggression and desire. LEG falls into this genre, disrupting normative gender stereotypes through jarring imagery that lingers in the memory like a discombobulating nightmare. They play, however, not the roles of sexy vampires à la Jenny Hval or blood-soaked brides like Bat for Lashes, but the ever-eerie role of the creepy twins, seen everywhere from “The Shining” to Diane Arbus’ work.

The idea of twin-ness extends beyond LEG’s persona to their music and visuals, which always tackle their subject matter in doublespeak, whole-heartedly and with a mischievous wink.

“Sometimes our lyrics are true, but the video is the other way around,” Walton put it. Hollingworth chimed in: “We try to express two different sides of the same song. Maybe we’re making fun of something, but there is something else behind it.” 

Along with horror, LEG draws heavily from fairy tales and folktales in their work. One song, “Rapunzel,” mashes up elements of the classic narrative with the horrific real-life story of Genie, a feral child who was abused and kept in captivity by her father for 13 years. In LEG’s world, the age-old tales meant to serve as women’s fantasies often frame their female protagonists as silent and still ― yielding more frightful a fate than the most heinous news clippings.  

My cat is dead, my father hit me
I ran away, I’m really hungry
That wicked witch, in all her power
She cast a spell and locked me in this tower
I can’t look down, I’m claustrophobic
Please, let me out, I can’t deserve this
I hate my name, I’m not that Rapunzel
My hair’s not blonde, and I’m not having fun ...

In part, the lyrics mimic a child’s spinning mind, being lulled to sleep with a bedtime story while very real fears gurgle beneath the drafted happy ending.

“The idea of being kidnapped always freaked me out when I was kid,” Walton said. “It’s something I was always worried about ― someone coming into the house and stealing me.” 

But the song also gets at just how much fairy tales have been censored and sanitized by injecting Rapunzel’s tale with some fangs and claws. Today, fairy tales are often thought to be the puritanical and patriarchal stuff of Brothers Grimm collections and Disney films. But before they were catalogued by men in the 16th century, the myths lived on the tongues and in the ears of women. And rather than reiterating tired tales of pretty princesses waiting for their prince, the timeless legends addressed the vital journeys and desires of a woman’s life ― often expressed through haunting tales dense with blood, flesh and food. 

With dark humor and boundless imagination, the young women of LEG return folktales to their original, oral habitats. Their first album and its accompanying visuals artfully balance innocence and know-how ― seriousness and make-believe ― slashing gendered preconceptions of fairy tales and their contemporary counterpoint: pop music.

And the artists are, still, only teenagers.

“We’ve got quite a lot of energy, and a lot of time ahead of us,” Walton said.

“Hopefully,” she added, with a smirk. 

Every Friday, HuffPost’s Culture Shift newsletter helps you figure out which books you should read, art you should check out, movies you should watch and music should listen to. Sign up here.

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A United Kingdom-based teacher is making the doll industry even more inclusive with the world’s first Jamaican Patois-speaking doll line.

Saffron Jackson told the Jamaica Star that she was inspired to create Zuree Dolls when she tried looking for black dolls that represented her culture for her first daughter. She came up empty-handed.

“All the black dolls I have seen were from America, and most of them were either ugly or not to my liking,” the Bog Walk, St. Catherine native said. “I thought, why not create my own doll?”

 The first doll in her Zuree line is Toya, a Jamaica Patois-speaking cutie with dark skin and curly hair. Toya greets you with a prideful “Wah gwaan? Weh yaa seh?” when her torso is squeezed. 

 “The idea behind this is to show little girls that regardless of their skin tone or hair texture, they’re indeed beautiful. Hence, the name Zuree. It come[s] from Swahili, and it means beautiful,” Jackson told the outlet.

The 38-year-old said Toya has been in high demand since she officially launched in November with customers from around the world.

“People love that it speaks Jamaican. I’ve been getting sales from Australia, Estonia, Amsterdam, Germany, and all these places, which show there is a massive demand for our culture,” she said. She said she currently has an order from Miami for 50 dolls.

Jackson said she plans on launching an accompanying doll clothing line created by a Jamaican designer and eventually a Zuree Girls book series. In March, she said she’ll be releasing a Rasta-talking bear.

The doll is currently available online for £50 ($79.17), but Jackson plans on making it more affordable in the future.

H/T Atlanta Black Star

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