We can probably all agree that “Tangled” is one of Disney’s best animated movies from the past decade. Well, the Disney Channel is releasing an entire original cartoon series called “Tangled: Ever After” in March to keep the story going for fans of the movie.

From the looks of the trailer, the new show will include plenty of action-packed fun, including Eugene’s infamous smolder, and even Pascal and Maximus. What’s not to love?

Some fans are torn because this “Tangled” sequel is a made-for-TV cartoon, rather than an animated blockbuster hit like its original. But if it’s any consolation, at least Mandy Moore will still be voicing Rapunzel and the trailer looks very promising. We have no doubt this show will be all the rage when it premieres. Take note, parents. 

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Tuesday marks First Lady Michelle Obama’s 53rd birthday. And what better way to recognize it than marvel at her magical evolution, as evidenced in the gif below: 

From her days as a pint-sized toddler to her role as a statuesque and dazzling first lady, Obama has always carried a certain charm that helps to make her so special. 

Take a look at the gif above, provided to us by Company Reviews, to watch how she has grown over the years and revel in all the back girl magic she epitomizes.

Happy birthday, FLOTUS! 

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One bearded hunk, 30 lovely (mostly brunette) ladies, and four chances at love: It must be Nick Viall’s season as The Bachelor. 

This week, Claire Fallon and Emma Gray, along with guest Jada Yuan of New York Magazine, talk Nickathlons, planned dancing, bouncy castle hook-ups and other lowlights from episode three of the most shocking season in “Bachelor” history. Get your lemon salad and sliced cucumber ready: There are Backstreet Boys serenades and rose ceremony naps to discuss.

Do people love “The Bachelor,” “The Bachelorette” and “Bachelor in Paradise,” or do they love to hate these shows? It’s unclear. But here at “Here to Make Friends,” we both love and love to hate them — and we love to snarkily dissect each episode in vivid detail. Podcast edited by Nick Offenberg.

Follow Claire Fallon, Emma Gray, and guest Jada Yuan on Twitter. 

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Another week, another glorious episode of “The Bachelor” ― complete with nanny talk, bouncy castle seductions, vomiting and the Backstreet Boys.

Below are 34 tweets that capture the beauty and pain and general “WTF??” that accompany being a fan of this hallowed reality show.

For more on “The Bachelor,” check out HuffPost’s Here To Make Friends podcast below:

Do people love “The Bachelor,” “The Bachelorette” and “Bachelor in Paradise,” or do they love to hate these shows? It’s unclear. But here at “Here to Make Friends,” we both love and love to hate them — and we love to snarkily dissect each episode in vivid detail. Podcast edited by Nick Offenberg.

Want more “Bachelor” stories in your life? Sign up for HuffPost’s Entertainment email for extra hot goss about The Bachelor, his 30 bachelorettes, and the most dramatic rose ceremonies ever. The newsletter will also serve you up some juicy celeb news, hilarious late-night bits, awards coverage and more. Sign up for the newsletter here.

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Jackie Evancho may be “excited” to perform at President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, but one group is hoping that the 16-year-old classical crossover singer will change her mind. 

Six transgender people from across the country joined forces to create the above video, “Dear Jackie...,” with the aim of getting “America’s Got Talent” veteran to reconsider her Jan. 20 performance. In recent weeks, media outlets have been quick to point out that Evancho’s sister, Juliet, identifies as transgender and is one of three trans students suing a Pennsylvania school district over their right to use restrooms that best correspond with their gender identity.

In the weeks since Evancho committed to the performance, she’s faced a barrage of criticism on social media for her apparent support of Trump, particularly given the fact that her sister is trans. (Never mind that she’s not yet legally able to vote.) But as the video’s participants explain, Evancho would be in a unique position to make a bold statement on behalf of the transgender community by bowing out of the show. It would be likely to sting Trump, who ran on an explicitly anti-LGBTQ platform and has voiced support for North Carolina’s House Bill 2, which prohibits trans people from using the appropriate restroom. 

The video’s co-writer and co-producer, Christina A. DiEdoardo, told The Huffington Post that while Evancho has defended her sister in interviews, her inauguration performance still shows “support for laws that would disenfranchise” the transgender community. 

“To be blunt, transphobia has a body count, and those who aid and abet transphobia like Trump have the blood of our wounded and murdered sisters, brothers and kindred on their hands,” she said. “For that reason, there’s no way for someone to sing for Trump, stand with him or otherwise support him without some of that blood sticking to them.”

Ultimately, DiEdoardo hopes the clip’s inclusive message resounds beyond Inauguration Day. “Our goal in making the video is to show that declarations of support, to be really meaningful, require action on the part of those making them,” she said. 

While President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremonies drew the likes of Aretha Franklin and Beyoncé, Trump’s officials have struggled to secure a lineup. On Saturday, Broadway singer-actress Jennifer Holliday cited her longtime support of the LGBTQ community in her decision to back out of the inauguration festivities just days after her performance was announced. On Monday, the B Street Band, a Bruce Springsteen cover band, followed suit, saying that playing the inauguration isn’t something Springsteen, who endorsed Hillary Clinton, would approve of.  

At least we still have Toby Keith and 3 Doors Down to look forward to. 

For the latest in LGBTQ entertainment, don’t miss the Queer Voices newsletter.

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Major PG-13 films are often at least as likely as R-rated films to depict gun violence, according to a new analysis published in Pediatrics, the official peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. And increasingly often, they are more likely to do so.

What led to this phenomenon? Researchers behind the study believe that the reason for the rise of gun violence in PG-13 films is best attributed to the recent popularity of superhero movies, which scrape by with a PG-13 rating because they exist in fantastical worlds that make violence seem less serious.

But troublingly, academics still aren’t sure how any violence portrayed in this kind of film might influence a child’s behavior when compared to the more realistic violence that earns a film an R rating.

The analysis, which was performed at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, is an update to a previous look into gun violence in film. For the study, the researchers dissected top-grossing films, determining the rate of gun violence per hour in each of them. They found that in six of the last 10 years, the rate of gun violence in PG-13 films exceeded the rate in R-rated films. 

“We were interested in seeing if the trend might have stalled or even reversed,” Dan Romer, research director of the center and lead author of the article, said in a release.

Instead, “that trend now seems to be getting worse,” he told The Huffington Post. 

A PG-13 rating, which, unlike a R rating, means minors can watch without an adult ― was first introduced in the mid-1980s after Steven Spielberg’s suggestion. The ratings step between PG and R was meant to signal a film that wasn’t explicitly violent or lewd but wasn’t exactly “family friendly,” either. In the three decades since then, the percentage of hit films with a PG-13 rating has skyrocketed. The study found that from 1985–1987, 29 percent of the top-30 domestic grossing films were rated PG-13. Today that number has risen to 51 percent. 

At the same time, PG-13 films have consistently involved higher and higher levels of gun violence as well, according to the study. The below chart from APPC graphs the rise of gun violence in PG-13 films between 1985 and 2015 against the average amount of gun violence in R-rated films over the same period. 

The steady rise of gun violence in PG-13 films over the past decade, researchers believe, is due to the ever-increasing number of superhero- and comic book-based films. According to Romer, such films often earn a PG-13 rating not only because events depicted therein often exist within fantasy worlds, but also because these films tend to gloss over the actual consequences of shooting a gun, like “blood and suffering.”

The primary question, from a policy perspective, then becomes: Can gun violence affect children’s behavior regardless of whether it occurs in superhero movies?

Joan Graves, who heads the Motion Picture Association of America’s ratings board, has implied in the past that violence within these more fantastical PG-13 films is less likely to influence children’s behavior because they are unrealistic. But little research has actually been completed to support such a hypothesis.

“As a result, moviegoing families are now undergoing an experiment in which children of any age can enter a theater to watch a PG-13 film in which the protagonists gain power, settle conflicts, and kill or are killed by lethal weapons,” the APPC researchers note in their analysis.

While little research has been done to compare fantastical violence to more realistic depictions of violence in movies, significant amounts of research have been done on the link between media violence and child aggression. A 2016 review of hundreds of studies (also published in Pediatrics) found “a significant association between exposure to media violence and aggressive behavior.” 

When asked about the correlation between media violence and violent behavior, the MPAA referred HuffPost to Jonathan Freedman. A professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, Freedman received funding from the MPAA for a book that once argued there was little evidence that media violence caused more aggressive behavior in children.

Over the phone, Freedman argued there was evidence of a small correlation ― rather than causation ― between the consumption of media violence and a child’s aggressive behavior. But he also admitted he did not know of any research that backed up the hypothesis that fantastical depictions of violence in movies were less affecting than more realistic depictions in R-rated films or the news.

The lack of an answer to that exact question is why Romer argues in his analysis that additional research is necessary.

“We have a gun violence problem in this country. It’s a major public health problem. And we spend virtually nothing to study it,” he said. “And this is one of the things we should be studying: What’s the impact on kids [when] a 5-year-old goes to see a PG-13 movie with ‘harmless’ gun violence? What are they going to do when they see a gun lying around in the house?”

In a statement provided to HuffPost, MPAA spokesperson Chris Ortman noted that the purpose of the MPAA’s ratings system is not “to prescribe social policy ... but instead to reflect the current values of the majority of American parents.”

“This system has withstood the test of time because, as American parents’ sensitivities change, so too does the rating system,” he added. “Elements such as violence, language, drug use, and sexuality are continually re-evaluated through surveys and focus groups to mirror contemporary concern and to better assist parents in making the right family viewing choices.”

So unless the violence in PG-13 rated films begins to bother parents so much that they start calling up the MPAA to complain, it is likely there to stay. 

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If you tend to spend your vacations reading, then this is the spot for you.

The Literary Man hotel in Óbidos, Portugal is home to about 50,000 books and counting, a manager told The Huffington Post. Some titles are available for purchase, and others are reserved for reading only in the historic hotel’s massive lounge, which is pretty much the book lover’s equivalent of a Caribbean island:

The Literary Man is nestled just outside the walls of the historic center of Óbidos, a charming medieval town that’s recently started embracing bookishness with the addition of new bookshops and a literary festival.

Guests at the hotel can savor their reads ― which range from vintage titles to best-selling fiction to cookbooks ― at the in-house gin bar, in the cellar during a massage or in a variety of cozy, simple hotel rooms. Prices start at about $90 per night, but we have a feeling we wouldn’t sleep a wink here.  

H/T Travel + Leisure

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How could photos of cute dogs swimming get any better?

When they’re shelter dogs learning pool safety, duh.

Photographer and animal advocate Seth Casteel released a new set of photos this week from from a January swimming lesson he held with dogs up for adoption at animal rescue group spcaLA.

TV network Z Living took their own photos of the lesson to promote Casteel’s new show, “Finding Fido,”  which focuses on “matchmaking” people with adoptable dogs. Though Casteel does swim with dogs on the show, this particular lesson isn’t featured in the series.

Casteel, who has been photographing pets since around 2007, rocketed to fame in 2012, when his captivating shots of dogs swimming underwater went viral online. Through taking photos of dogs in the water, Casteel came to realize that though most dogs instinctively know how to “doggie paddle” when they get in the water, many canines still need some instruction in water safety. In particular, dogs can be confused by swimming pools, since they’re more difficult to exit than say, a lake.

“The dog has to understand that it’s not a natural body of water,” Casteel told The Huffington Post. “They see a pool and they don’t get it … they can’t just swim to the side and get out. They have to find the exit.”

Casteel also works with dogs who may not be used to swimming to get them more comfortable with the water.

“I love to see when a dog makes that transition, from ‘What’s going on?’ to, ‘Hey, we’re having fun,’” he said.

At his lesson for spcaLA, he also enlisted the help of Ricochet, an acclaimed surfing therapy dog. Ricochet’s calm and confident nature made her the perfect “role model” for dogs who might have felt a bit bewildered by the water at first, Casteel said.

Three of the dogs who participated in the spcaLA swim lesson have already been adopted, but three of them — Cloud, Salem and Harrod — are still looking for homes. You can find more information about those dogs and spcaLA here.

NOTE: This post was updated to reflect the fact that this particular swimming lesson does not appear in “Finding Fido.”

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Former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner delivered a moving speech on Saturday that reminded us we’re more than capable of overcoming the impending shift in the nation’s socio-political climate. 

In just a matter of five minutes, the former senator ― who spoke on behalf of Bernie Sanders at the National Civil Rights March in Washington D.C. last weekend ― delivered some much-needed inspiration to attendees of the National Action Network’s daylong rally. Invoking the resilient spirit of Martin Luther King Jr., Turner, who frequently delivers soul-stirring commentary, said there is strength in solidarity and that history is a testament to our ability to overcome. 

Here are some of the most compelling moments from Turner’s call to action:

1. Her call to unity.

Whether black, latinx or asian, if anything is central to overcoming the present circumstances, it’s solidarity, Turner said.

Turner quoted Dr. King to emphasize the importance of embracing other races, sexual orientations, etc., saying “we may not have gotten here in the same ship, but we are in the same boat right now.” 

2. Her reminder that “we’ve been here before.”

Oppression and injustice are nothing new to people of color.  We’ve made strides to overcome them before and we can do it again, which Turner references by saying “the mountain might be higher, but we’ve been here before.”

She also threw in a declaration of black women’s collective frustrations with the gender wage gap by saying “sisters, we want our whole damn dollar.” 

3. Her powerful reference to her southern grandma. 

The goosebumps arose when Turner cited her southern grandma: “When I asked my grandma what does it take to be successful in life, she said all you need are the three bones: the wishbone, the jawbone and the backbone.” 

Turner even referred to the backbone as the most powerful bone because it’ll prevent us from succumbing through tough times (and you know its the truth if its coming from a southern grandma). 

4. Her encouragement to keep fighting. 

With life, comes challenges and with challenges, comes strength. Turner acknowledged that the obstacles we face may be challenging but will inevitably bring out our fortitude. 

“We can’t have testimony without a test,” she proclaimed, “ and we are being tested right now for whether or not we’ve got courage enough, hope enough, fight enough and love enough to do what is necessary.” 

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Dating in the LGBTQ community can be tough ― even if you’re the host of a smash comedy series who’s experiencing a pop cultural moment like Billy Eichner. 

In a New York magazine interview, the “Billy on the Street” comedian got candid about his off-screen life, telling writer E. Alex Jung that he longs for the days when gay men didn’t rely on technology to hook up. 

“I’m on all the apps. Tinder, Grindr, Bumble, Scruff. I have no shame about that. And to be honest — not to sound holier than thou — I do miss the days before Grindr,” he said. “I had about five years as a gay guy in New York after college before the whole Grindr explosion happened, where people were still going out to meet each other. It was social. It was sexually charged. And it was more fun.”

The 38-year-old said it was a “no-brainer” for him to be open about his sexuality on his TV series, though he acknowledged that his view of whether or not other stars and public figures should do the same is “skewed” because of his New York upbringing. 

“Everyone’s life experience is different. I do take for granted, probably, the fact that I grew up in New York City, one of the most liberal places on earth, with bleeding-heart, liberal parents who took me to see ‘Rent’ and Terrence McNally plays from a very young age,” he said. “I personally think it’s the right thing to do... My personal life is too important to me and it informs too much of my work for me to have ever considered making any other decision.”

As an openly gay man, Eichner said that his show’s breakthrough success has felt “very powerful,” adding, “The mainstream needs Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell. The mainstream needs RuPaul. The mainstream needs all of us.” When Jung suggested that LGBTQ media was late to the “Billy on the Street” party, Eichner quipped, “My friend Guy Branum... tweeted the other day that one day this country will have its first gay president, and the cover of Out magazine will be Nick Jonas talking about how he once saw a gay porn [film]. This is one of the funniest and most truthful things I’ve read in a long time.” 

Read the full New York magazine interview with Billy Eichner here. 

For the latest in LGBTQ entertainment, don’t miss the Queer Voices newsletter.

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Certain places exist where one simply shouldn’t go to fulfill one’s yen for egalitarian, socially conscious television.

For example, “The Bachelor.” Yet on Monday night’s episode of Nick Viall’s season, telltale signs emerged that the franchise has been infected by something antithetical to its very nature: feminism.

For 21 seasons, the entire concept of the show has been to exploit women’s social conditioning to compete with each other for male approval and attention, translating the resulting tension into high ratings. At the end, an appropriately feminine, beautiful, and (ideally) demure lady wins the man’s hand in marriage. (Sure, “The Bachelorette” exists, and flipping the roles is great, but it simply doesn’t play off the same long-entrenched gender scripts that the original show does.)

Many feminist viewers, including myself, have argued that this rigidly traditional lens is part of the allure of the show: It allows us to critique real gender norms and dating-world absurdities in a comically overblown setting. Though we critique the show’s sexist flaws, I, at least, have never dreamed of a feminist “Bachelor.” By its very nature, the show is anti-feminist; it’s coded into the franchise DNA. A feminist “Bachelor” would be no “Bachelor” at all. (Maybe it would be “Coupled.”)

The men and women who compete on the show, however, can change with the times. Last season on “The Bachelorette,” contestant Derek Peth chided villain Chad Johnson for his “misogynistic comments” ― using a word almost unheard-of on the franchise, though the concept is everywhere in evidence. Even this season on “The Bachelor,” usually the format wherein producers are best able to play women against each other for male approval and TV gold, the women have been fairly supportive of each other.

Of course, there’s the necessary villain. Corinne, the 24-year-old self-described business owner with a nanny, has carved out a classic arc as the “slutty” femme fatale who demands all of Nick’s attention at the expense of the other women. The first couple of episodes, her tactics ― making out with him during their first conversation, taking her top off during a photo shoot with Nick ― drew some dismissive and slut-shaming comments from other contestants. Corinne, for her part, has plenty of misogynistic comments for other women in the house, and even herself. (It was pretty sad, for me, to hear how convinced she is that approaching a man naked with whipped cream on her breasts is the only way she could truly capture his attention.)

During the third episode, however, the contestants mostly chose to handle the kerfuffle surrounding this storyline with female solidarity. Jasmine watched the younger woman pout through a date featuring the Backstreet Boys, then learned she has a nanny named Raquel who makes her bed and prepares her lunches. Finally, Jasmine announced to the camera that she’d slap Nick if he gave Corinne a rose after how she’d behaved. Violence isn’t the most enlightened response (for the record, no such slap occurred), but it’s somewhat heartening to see the women question their potential partner’s behavior and dating preferences rather than directly turning on their so-called competition. 

Later, Corinne and Nick hooked up in a bouncy castle (really) while the other women were nearby enjoying a pool party, and his antics became known. A bouncy castle isn’t exactly a private spot. The tipping point had been reached, and one by one, women began initiating confrontations ― not with Corinne, as often happens with “Bachelor” villains, but with Nick. Vanessa made the issue most explicit, telling him, “I’m not judging Corinne. I’m judging your actions.” It had left her questioning whether he just wanted to fool around, and she put that on him, not on another woman. It sounds simple, but it’s deeply ingrained in women to blame other women, not men, for their infidelity or wandering eyes. 

While we’ve seen bromances before on “The Bachelorette,” and a few close female friendships, the general atmosphere in Nick’s house of bachelorettes seems unusually and admirably supportive. Aside from Corinne, the women appear to get along ― they even appear to be pleasant to Corinne. On the second episode, she attempts to goad 23-year-old mental health counselor Taylor into a spat over time spent with Nick on a group date, but Taylor calmly refuses to get upset. (In previews, we see that this will start to devolve, but a gallant effort at staying friendly was made.) 

On Episode 3, Dominique realizes she’s failed to garner much attention from the Bachelor, and on her group date, she becomes emotional. Rachel, a frontrunner, pulls her aside and comforts her, giving her solid advice on calming down and making the most of her time with the man they’re supposedly competing for. Dominique then stumbles upon Rachel making out with Nick ― and despite her clearly rampant insecurity and envy, she doesn’t succumb to an impulse to trash her rival. Instead, she says that it’s hard to see, but she’s happy for Rachel.

At least part of this is likely just the individual crop of women. It’s a kind, classy bunch! But in Vanessa’s pointed remark that she’s not judging Corinne, but is looking to see whether Nick wants the same things she does, there’s a clear consciousness of what female solidarity means.

The mutually supportive, empowering spirit among the women remaining in the house (well, most of them) suggests she’s not alone. Whether these bachelorettes came here to make friends or not, they’re not here to hurt other women. That’s pretty refreshing.

For more on “The Bachelor,” listen to HuffPost’s podcast “Here to Make Friends” below:

Do people love “The Bachelor,” “The Bachelorette” and “Bachelor in Paradise,” or do they love to hate these shows? It’s unclear. But here at “Here to Make Friends,” we both love and love to hate them — and we love to snarkily dissect each episode in vivid detail. Podcast edited by Nick Offenberg.

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If it wasn’t already clear that everything we see Instagram is a lie, then let fitness blogger Sara Puhto remind you.

The Finnish Instagrammer with over 65,000 followers posted a photo last week that proves those chiseled, model bodies you see on your feed aren’t always real. They’re simply the result of angles, proper lighting, and serious flexing.  

In a side-by-side photo, Puhto shows how she looks just existing and how she looks posing ― something you’ve undoubtedly seen a thousand times over and thought, “Damn, I wish I could look like that.” Her goal is to show fans that bodies can look drastically different in just a moment.

Her caption reads that it’s “not a transformation photo” and that the photos were indeed taken “a few seconds apart.”

”The photo on the left is what I look like relaxed and not posing, basically how I look 99% of the time in a bikini! And the one on the right is how I look in good lighting, flexed and posing,” she writes.

“I wanted to share this because I know how it feels to go through Instagram and see photos of people looking amazing on the beach—which are usually planned and not candid, that’s why they look so good.”

She goes on to remind fans to not get so wrapped up in how they look and to “love the body you have in all its forms.”

This photo comes after Puhto’s posting a few months ago regarding “booty pop” photos and how easy it is to fake it.

Keep up the body positivity posts, Sara, you’re an inspiration to us all.

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Donald Trump is having a tough time securing performers for his inauguration.

Earlier this week, the Bruce Springsteen cover band slated to play an inauguration gala nixed its plans; before that, Broadway singer Jennifer Holliday withdrew her initial commitment to perform the night before, issuing an apology to frustrated fans.

If celebrities are boycotting the event, will the president-elect risk the same rejection by trying to secure an inaugural poet? Professional authors have been among the most vocal decriers of Trump, beginning with a strongly worded open letter to voters last spring.

But today, The Independent reported ― in a post initially headlined, “Donald Trump inauguration poem calls Barack Obama a ‘tyrant’” ― that a poem has been decided on, written specifically for the event by Joseph Charles MacKenzie, an American poet whose website looks confusingly like a fundraising page, requesting donations on several separate tabs. 

“Like receiving discounts on MacKenziePoet products?,” the site’s contact page reads. “Enjoy seeing how your support helps grow my lyric verses? Maybe you just want to stay in touch with a fellow traveler in the kingdom of truth and beauty.”

Twitter caught on, percolating the news, which, it turns out, was untrue. MacKenzie’s poem — written to celebrate Trump’s Scottish roots, and including the line, “With purpose and strength he came down from his tower/ To snatch from a tyrant his ill-gotten power” ― is not a confirmed inaugural reading.

Earlier today, the Society of Classical Poets, the small literary organization that initially published the poem, posted on Facebook that Trump’s team “should” have it read at the inauguration.

The post points out that Trump would be the first Republican president to have an inaugural poet. Indeed, only John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have featured poetry readings at their respective inaugurations, a tradition that wasn’t established until 1961.

Why the Society of Classical Poets, an organization that’s at least established enough to have a contest advertised on Poets & Writers, would tout a clumsily arranged work by a writer whose chief concern seems to be personal promotion befuddled writers on Twitter. But for now, MacKenzie’s “Pibroch of the Domhnall” remains nothing more than a puzzling ode. 

In lieu of reading it, take a look at a list of poems we compiled after the election.

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You could try to get through one of Nicki Diaz’s videos without laughing, but you’d surely fail.

The 20-year-old makeup artist from Malverne, New York, has created a character on her Snapchat named “Donna,” who is the epitome of Long Island moms everywhere. (Editor’s note: I’m from Long Island, so I can affirm this.)

Diaz told The Huffington Post, “Donna is a middle aged mother to her daughter Adriana, and loving wife to her husband of 25 years, Bobby, from the one and only Strong Island. She don’t take nothing from nobody.”

Using one of Snapchat’s many face-mushing filters, Diaz uploaded her first “Donna” Snapchat video on her Facebook Wednesday, Jan. 11.

Since then, the videos have taken off ― garnering thousands of views.

The videos include “Donna” giving dating advice (”He comes from a good family? They’re Italian?!”), talking about karma (”If you spit up in the air, it’s gonna come back down in your face”), talking about guilt (”When I’m dead, you’re going to miss me”), trying to have some quality family bonding time (”Come talk to your mother. I never see you no more ... I’m no good unless I’m doing for you”), and so, so much more.

Diaz told us that the videos were inspired by conversations she would have with her sister, Jackie, where they would make fun of the things their my mother (and other family members) would say.

“I never in my life expected the videos to blow up like they have, it’s absolutely insane,” Diaz said of the feedback she’s received on the videos.

We can only hope there’s more where these came from, Nicki.

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A new animated short video tells the story of Planned Parenthood’s first 100 years of existence. 

The video, which was produced by Lena Dunham in partnership with director J.J. Abrams, tells the story of the groundbreaking women who sacrificed to give American women safe and accessible reproductive health care. The short is narrated by big-name stars such as Gina Rodriguez, Mindy Kaling, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence and Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards.

Margaret Sanger, a nurse and sex educate who later created the birth control pill, opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. in 1916. By 1942, Sanger’s clinic became the official Planned Parenthood. Although Sanger is a problematic icon -- she aligned herself with the eugenics movement of her time ― she nonetheless paved the way for reproductive freedom for women in the U.S. 

The video goes on to tell the story of other iconic women who were integral to the creation of Planned Parenthood, including the former Connecticut Planned Parenthood director Estelle Griswold, Faye Wattleton, who was the youngest president of the women’s health organization and first woman of color to hold the position, and current president of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards. 

“For 100 years, women and families have counted on Planned Parenthood,” Richards said in a press release. “Politicians may try to shut us down, but we will fight to keep our doors open ― while continuing to provide expert, affordable health care to millions of people each year. We will not rest until access to health care and rights is a reality for all people.”

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On the occasion of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, an Oregon bookstore is celebrating “new beginnings and new challenges” the best way it knows how: by giving away free copies of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists.

Broadway Books, a Portland, Oregon-based bookstore, announced in its January newsletter that it will distribute copies of the 2014 book/essay on Jan. 20 ― one per customer, while supplies last. Why? Because the owners of the store want to “kick off the new year by celebrating the power of women to do great things.”

“As the owners of a bookstore founded by women, and still women-owned after almost 25 years, we appreciate strong women, and we rejoice in the men who respectfully support and stand alongside them,” they wrote in the newsletter. Adding:

We chose Inauguration Day for this giveaway because when we inaugurate a new president and bring in a new administration it’s a time of new beginnings and new challenges, a chance to reflect on where we are as a country, where we want to go, and how we want to get there. We found the words of this international voice to be particularly inspiring and wanted to share them with our customers. We encourage you to come early to get a copy!

We Should All Be Feminists is based on a popular TEDx talk Adichie gave in 2012. “Some people ask: ‘Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?’” the Nigerian author writes in the essay. “Because that would be [...] a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.”

The work is so influential that a Women’s Lobby wanted to give every 16-year-old in Sweden a copy and Beyoncé sampled the TEDx talk on “Flawless.”

Oregonian reporter Casey Parks alerted us to Broadway Books’ plans on Twitter. Kim Bissell, co-owner of Broadway Books, added her own take on the decision in the newsletter: “We believe that all our voices matter and hope to inspire our children to reach for their goals based on their desires and abilities and not their gender.”

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Taran Killam has moved well beyond 30 Rock to the Richard Rogers Theatre.

The longtime “SNL” star, who was ousted from the late-night sketch show in August 2016, will take on the role of King George III in Broadway’s “Hamilton” starting Jan. 17.

The actor posted a shot of his royal getup on Instagram, pronouncing that the forecast for his premiere night would be “Reign.” Yasss. His wardrobe and wig are giving us major flashbacks to Killam’s crotchety “Weekend Update” character, Jebidiah Atkinson. 

Only one question remains: What would ol’ Jeb think of the Lin-Manuel Miranda–penned musical? We know he’s not, um, generally a fan of the genre.

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Junot Díaz was one of five novelists President Barack Obama had lunch with last week, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author recently described the meeting as “surreal.”

In a New York Times profile published Monday, Obama discusses the authors he admired and the books that shaped his presidency. Díaz was one of them.

The Dominican-American author took to his personal Facebook page to share the NYT profile and recount his experience breaking bread with the President of the United States.

“I had lunch with President Obama on Friday, which was surreal and extraordinary to say the least,” Díaz wrote in a post on Monday. “I figured after all my criticism of his policies I wouldn’t be high on his list for anything but clearly there’s room at his lunch table for dissent, something we won’t be seeing a lot of with the next president.”

And Díaz’s criticism of the president in the past has been very public. He’s condemned Obama’s record number of deportations. In a 2010 New Yorker piece, he also said POTUS’ lacked presidential storytelling prowess; though he did admit he was an “Obama man all the way.” 

But after his lunch meeting with Obama, Díaz had nothing but praise for the president. 

“What surprised me was how completely unbowed President Obama was, how certain he was that the country would find its way,” the author wrote on Facebook. “He burned with optimism and faith invincible. If President Obama could still be positive after all the Republican bullshit he’d been through―that gave me hope. He was certainly one of the most complete man I’d ever met. With only a few days left before he leaves office I find myself, more than anything, overwhelmed by the knowledge that over the next four years we’re going to be missing Obama something awful.”

And the admiration is certainly mutual. Obama told the New York Times that Díaz’s writing, and that of Jhumpa Lahiri, gave him perspective by touching upon “a very particular contemporary immigration experience” with stories about “longing for this better place but also feeling displaced.” 

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One thoughtful boyfriend planned a proposal fit for a princess for his “Beauty and the Beast”-loving girlfriend. 

Joel Lynch, a graduate student at Iowa State University, popped the question to Cara Szymanski on Jan. 14 in the periodical room of the campus library ― a location a bookworm like Belle would no doubt have approved of. 

But it wasn’t just the location that made the proposal so romantic.  

“[Cara] grew up admiring Belle from ‘Beauty and the Beast,’” Joel wrote in an Imgur post on Sunday. “Wanting to recreate the famous scene, I decided to make her the dress to coincide with my proposal.”

So armed with a cheap sewing machine and lots of coffee, Joel hand-made Belle’s signature yellow ball gown.

And though you’d never know it by looking at the finished product, he told The Huffington Post he has “never sewn anything before in [his] life, actually.”

Joel began sewing the dress in October and finally finished last weekend, an hour before Cara arrived for a visit from Wisconsin (the two are living in separate states for now and take turns visiting each other every other weekend). Over winter break, he sometimes spent up to 14 hours a day on the dress.

“[It was] a lot of trial and error,” he said. “I ended up making three corsets before I got one I liked.”

On the day of the proposal, while the couple was walking around the library looking at books, Joel’s sister Leah put the gown on a dress form and set it up in an adjacent room. It was time for the big reveal. 

“When I opened the door to the side room, she saw the dress and, as you might expect, burst into tears,” Joel told HuffPost. “After I helped her get it on, I told her to wait for the music to start.”

That’s when “Tale As Old As Time” began to play and the couple shared a beautiful dance in the periodical room among the journals and magazines. 

The couple first met at a wedding when they were both members of the bridal party. 

Below, more photos from the fairytale proposal: 

H/T Cosmopolitan

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Fresh Off the Boat author Eddie Huang wants immigrants to stop undervaluing their work. 

The Baohaus owner gave a speech last month at the National Immigration Integration Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, where he recalled how his father ― who immigrated from Taiwan and opened restaurants in the U.S. ― told him that “immigrants can’t sell anything full price in America.”

But Huang said he was unwilling to cave to the unfair expectations put on his parents and so many other immigrants and minorities. 

I sell Taiwanese gua bao for a full f**king price in America.

“My name is Eddie Huang. I was born in America, my ancestors are from China, and my parents were born in Taiwan,” he says in the speech. “I sell Taiwanese gua bao for a full f**king price in America.”

In his speech, Huang emphasized that immigrants like his father, Louis Huang, felt indebted to the U.S. And though they often worked several times harder just to achieve the same pay as non-immigrants, they thought it was worth it.

“Those were days when he thought being a fragmented human in America was still better than being a whole human in Taiwan,” Huang said. 

While his father knows better now, Huang says the fact still remains ― immigrants and minorities still aren’t seen as completely American. Immigrants have proven themselves to be worthy of top schools and their achievements just as admirable as white people in America, he continued. The coupons, however, haven’t disappeared. And neither has the difficulty to be accepted. 

Huang’s speech illustrates the immigrant and minority experience. People truly do place less value on certain ethnic foods due to biases toward those cultures, Krishnendu Ray, a professor of food studies at New York University, told Voice Of America. He explained that there’s an inverse relationship between poor immigrants who migrate to the U.S. and the respect their culture and cuisine receives.   

The inequality doesn’t stop at food ― it’s also seen in pay. Even in skilled jobs like those in the high-tech industry, people of color get paid less for doing the same amount of work. 

But in spite of all these barriers, Huang said that people who are marginalized should not stay silent. Especially in a time with growing anti-immigrant sentiment, the Baohaus owner believes the only way to be “accepted at market value” is to shed light on the immigrant narrative. 

“I hope that one day America will acknowledge my identity and accept that I am a yellow-blooded whole American entitled to equal rights, because nowhere in our creation story is whiteness tied to the definition of an American,” Huang said. 

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