Lewis Black is not known to be a calm man.

The comedian has made a living through ranting, which eventually led him to voice Anger in “Inside Out” and create his Audible series, “The Rant is Due.” He kept that going during Aasif Mandvi’s All-Star Deportation Jamboree, which was held in support of the International Rescue Committee and the American Civil Liberties Union. While onstage, Black unloaded on President Donald Trump’s administration.

“I feel like we’re living in fictional times,” said Black at the event. “If this was in a book, you go, ‘Fuck, this is a great book.’” 

He continued, “Who could imagine these, the people that are around him, who could imagine those as characters? I mean, I find it hard. I look at Kellyanne Conway, but is she real? I’m not sure. Alternative facts? Who the fuck says that?”

(FYI, that whole quote could probably be in all caps.)

With such a reputation for ranting, HuffPost asked Black what angers him most about the results of the presidential election.

His answer: The White House’s stunning lack of grown-ups.

“There are no adults in the room. I don’t care which side you’re on in terms of the legislature, there are no adults,” said Black.

Perhaps it’s that lack of parental supervision that’s taking a toll on the comedian’s patience.

Black also gave us his thoughts on Trump’s first 100 days, saying it’s all blurred into years in his mind. 

“Two and a half years is what it feels like. That’s my assessment. That’s all you need to know. For all the bitching, he did make time seem longer. You can yell all you want, but it’s literally like, ‘Really? It’s only day 79? Really!?’ Because all of a sudden three and a half years seems like forever. It didn’t used to before. It used to go like that!” said Black.

Hang in there, Lewis. There’s still a long way to go.

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For over six years, photographer Tricia Messeroux has been recreating iconic style moments with adorable kids through a project she calls Toddlewood. Her latest photo shoot brilliantly tackles the incredible fashion at the 2017 Met Gala.

“I was excited but nervous to give the Met Gala the Toddlewood treatment,” Messeroux told HuffPost. “The Met Gala is the gold standard for high fashion and creative costumes by some of the most amazing designers.” 

Messeroux make-up artist Shameika Simmons, hair stylist Peta-Gaye Antoine and wardrobe designers Mo Glover and Quianna Mercurius to transform a group of kids, ages 3 to 6 into the standout stars of the Met Gala red carpet. 

The photographer said it took 48 hours to make the designs, and for the first time ever, she put her camera down to work on the costumes ― along with some help from Michaels craft stores and her daughters, Skylar and Sunday.

“Mini Rihanna’s dress was the biggest challenge, so I did it myself,” Messeroux said. “It was the best arts and crafts project my daughters and I have ever done.” Photos of “mini Rihanna” quickly went viral on Twitter.

Messeroux was excited to pay homage to Rei Kawakubo and Comme des Garçons, especially because she plans to launch her own line of high fashion costumes called “Toddlewood Red Carpet Stars” just before Halloween.

“The line features costumes inspired by this year’s award season (Golden Globes, Grammys and The Oscars) as well as the mega event for fashionable costumes, The Met Gala,” she told HuffPost.

Messeroux said the kids had a blast wearing the costumes and posing for pictures. 

“The Migos boys were on cloud nine,” she told HuffPost. “We even put on the song ‘Bad and Boujee’ to keep their swagger going. Mini-Anna Wintour loved knowing that she was the queen of the night. Mini Janelle Monae loved the feathers.” 

Though the girl who dressed as Rihanna loved her outfit, she was admittedly happy to get out of it by the end of the shoot, as it wasn’t the easiest to walk in.

“All the kids had funny one liners and silliness like kids do,” said Messeroux. “Great day for dress up.”

Keep scrolling and visit the Toddlewood Instagram to see more of the Met Gala series and some behind-the-scenes photos. 

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Zosia Mamet inaugurated her post-”Girls” career at last month’s Tribeca Film Festival, where her new movie, “The Boy Downstairs,” premiered one week after her HBO series concluded its six-season run. 

Mamet ended “Girls” as the voice of reason: Her garrulous Shoshanna declared it time to move on from the “exhausting and narcissistic and ultimately boring” dynamic that had seized the central characters’ relationships. She begins “The Boy Downstairs” as the voice rattling around her own head: Her drifting Diana stands shivering outside a New York apartment building, returning a sweater to an ex-boyfriend. 

Even though she’s anxious about moving forward without the security that multiple seasons of television provide, Mamet is off to a fine start. “The Boy Downstairs,” written and directed by newcomer Sophie Brooks, is a romantic comedy about the aftermath of first love. Because Diana is a creative type ambling through New York in her 20s, the movie can seem one with the “Girls” universe. But Mamet insists it’s a world removed ― she took the role because Brooks’ script massaged the gender roles of a “classic setup.” 

“We fall in love sometimes when we’re younger in this way that feels so epic and all-encompassing, but you’re sort of too young to experience the true depth that love as an adult is,” Mamet said, reflecting on her character’s experiences. “And when you have that and you might not be ready for it, I think it’s really paralyzing to some humans. I think Sophie wrote this character who just isn’t ready for what all of that is.”

Diana has just returned to New York after a creative stint in London. A writer who can’t find a spark upon moving home, Diana is working at a bridal boutique and asking her best friend (Diana Irvine) for leads on finding an apartment. She quickly lands a unit in a Manhattan brownstone where, conveniently, the ex-boyfriend (Matthew Shear) she left three years earlier resides. Bumbling encounters and self-conscious exchanges conjure up bittersweet memories of their time together, depicted in flashbacks. Amid professional aimlessness, Diana realizes she still isn’t over this nice, vulnerable guy whose commitment once frightened her.

That’s where “The Boy Downstairs” diverges most from “Girls”: It chronicles the evolution of a single relationship and its emotional tolls, and its primary male character is sensitive and approachable. “Those are the types of guys I dated,” Brooks said. “I like nice guys. I’m not trying to date a fratty douche” ― or a “frouche,” per Mamet’s abbreviation.

For the record, Mamet liked the “Girls” series finale, even though Shoshanna’s send-off came in the penultimate episode. “As an observer, I thought it was amazing, but as a human who was on the show for six years, I have lots of emotions about it,” she said. “It’s hard. It’s hard to watch the last episode of something you spent so much time on.”

Even if Mamet wants to avoid parallels between “Boy Downstairs” and “Girls,” the movie functions as a nice bookend for the show. It lets the 29-year-old actress shine, propelling her toward more left-of-center roles. She recently wrapped “Under the Silver Lake,” a crime noir from “It Follows” director David Robert Mitchell, and she is set to play Patti Smith in a biopic about iconoclastic photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. As her career progresses, she says she has time to be “picky” about jobs.

“I think we’re in this interesting place and time in our industry, and I think the scales are still quite uneven when it comes to truly well-rounded characters for women, I think particularly for people of my age,” she said. “I’m often sent scripts where I say the female role is sort of like a piece of furniture. You need to have a couch in the room, so she’s there, but that’s kind of the purpose she serves, which is one of the reasons I was so, so drawn to Sophie’s script. Not only was this an amazing opportunity to play a leading role, but I felt like Sophie was really saying something with the story that she was telling. It was very multi-dimensional, and that’s rare, sadly.”

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Richard Simmons is suing the National Enquirer, Radar Online and American Media, Inc. for their “cruel” coverage of false claims.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court and accuses the defendants of libel and invasion of privacy-false light, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The publications allegedly used Mauro Oliveira ― a former assistant who has apparently stalked, harassed and blackmailed Simmons ― as their source for stories about the “real reason he disappeared” between June 2016 and March 2017.

The Enquirer and Radar Online claimed Simmons underwent gender confirmation surgery, which his rep called a “complete fabrication,” in a series of “cruel and malicious” articles. 

“The National Enquirer and Radar Online have cheaply and crassly commercialized and sensationalized an issue that ought to be treated with respect and sensitivity,” the suit says. “Principles of freedom of speech and press may protect their prerogative to mock and degrade the LGBTQ community. But freedom to speak is not freedom to defame. Mr. Simmons, like every person in this nation, has a legal right to insist that he not be portrayed as someone he is not. Even the most ardent supporter of sexual autonomy and LGBTQ rights is entitled to be portrayed in a manner that is truthful.”

People magazine spoke with AMI about the filing. 

“We stand by our reporting about him, all of which was based on solid sourcing and material evidence,” the company responded. “Should he choose to proceed with his lawsuit, we will defend it vigorously, and we look forward to the public vindication of our reports.”

Simmons stepped out of the spotlight back in 2014, which has led to much speculation about his absence, an LAPD drop-by and even a podcast titled “Missing Richard Simmons.” In April, the exercise guru released his first public statement in three years, insisting he was never “missing” and that he had been dealing with some health concerns. 

“This has reminded me that when you need help you can’t be afraid to reach out and ask for it,” he said. “We all think we should always be able to solve our problems all by ourselves and sometimes it’s just bigger than we are.”

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In the American Declaration of Independence some of the most historic and lasting words are “all men are created equal” and that those are endowed the unalienable rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

But what about those two tiny, seemingly unassuming words? All men.

If all men have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it begs the question: What about a woman’s right to pursue all three, specifically happiness? Feminist writer and author Jill Filipovic explores just that in her new book The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit Of Happiness.

“What I was interested in exploring in the book is not just how do we make women equal to men in a system that men have built for themselves, but what does the female pursuit of happiness look like?” Filipovic told HuffPost. “If women were writing that founding document, what kind of system and institutions would we build around it to make that promise possible for women as well?” 

What I was interested in exploring in the book is not just how do we make women equal to men in a system that men have built for themselves, but what does the female pursuit of happiness look like?
Jill Filipovic

In your chapter “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions” you talk about how the concept of happiness, as written into the Declaration of Independence, wasn’t made for women. Can you talk to me a little bit about the history of happiness and how women were ― for lack of a better term ― written out of it?

When the founders were writing that all were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the only people that were actually entitled to those things at the time were land-owning white men. So it wasn’t even just men, it was a small subsection of the American male population at the time. The reality is that while men may not have been able to achieve happiness, they’ve had the ability to pursue it on the backs of free and invisible labor of women and people of color. The way that this system has been constructed, with this subgroup at the top of it, couldn’t exist unless you had the rest of us doing the legwork to make it happen.

What I was interested in exploring in the book is not just how do we make women equal to men in a system that men have built for themselves, but what does the female pursuit of happiness look like? If women were writing that founding document, what kind of system and institutions would we build around it to make that promise possible for women as well? 

In your introduction you write: “Women today live in a world of unfinished feminism, where we’re told we’re equal but see our basic rights up for grabs, where we’re told to push harder at work, or recognize we can’t have it all, or marry Mr. Good Enough.” Can you expand on this notion of “unfinished feminism” and how it impacts women’s happiness?

Obviously, the feminist movement has done incredible things for American women and women around the world, and it’s had massive victories. It’s obviously valuable to show how far we’ve come in such a short period of time, especially in the grand scheme of human history. But, it’s not complete yet. We’re living at this intersection of old cultural values that are really butting up against a more feminist world.

Most women do work outside of the home, most of us work for pay, we go to college and graduate college in greater numbers than young men. But our laws and policies ― not only have they not caught up ― but we have lawmakers who have intentionally blocked them from catching up as a way to essentially make it almost impossible for women to succeed in the modern world. And a lot of this becomes very individualized: If I feel overwhelmed by trying to raise children and have a job that must be my problem and my problem to solve. Rather than making it a collective, societal problem and creating collective mechanisms to actually make a more feminist life livable.

Women today live in a world of unfinished feminism, where we’re told we’re equal but see our basic rights up for grabs, where we’re told to push harder at work, or recognize we can’t have it all.
Jill Filipovic

You discuss the cultural definition of being a woman as always defining yourself in relation to others ― “she’s someone’s mother, sister, wife.” You coined this the “cult of female sacrifice,” which I really love. What are the consequences of this sacrifice?

I think what you see is that women are pushed into putting others before themselves, in terms of their sex lives, in terms of their relationships ― whether that’s a romantic relationship or a parental relationship or even a friendship ― I think it’s just ingrained in us. It’s almost an inability to get up in the morning and think ‘OK what is it that I want?’ It’s not just internal either, there’s this cultural expectation that women will do this. When women break that mold it can have really negative consequences. There’s been a lot of great studies that say that women don’t negotiate for more money and therefore they get paid less. But one of the reasons women don’t negotiate for more money is because when they do they’re perceived as pushy and aggressive and unlikable and they’re penalized for it. That to me is a pretty good encapsulation of a woman putting herself and her own needs and desires for fair compensation ahead of somebody else’s comfort. And we see women face financial consequences for doing that.

Another example is the advice young college women get about how to avoid sexual assault. Usually they’re told to not drink, to not go out ― basically, don’t do the normal things that everyone in your peer group is doing and that young men always do. If you don’t forgo this kind of pleasure, you may be punished for it. The punishment may be you get raped and the further cultural punishment is that everybody looks at you and says “What did she think was going to happen?” The consequences of this idea that women should always sacrifice their own pleasure or their own needs are pretty far-reaching and pervasive.

In your chapter about female pleasure and happiness you discuss sacrifice as a “central part of womanhood” that leads to a missing “road map for basic female demands.” How do you think this lack of guidance to demanding self-pleasure coupled with the “cult of female sacrifice” informs women’s happiness?

Obviously, one of the ways to be happy and to feel happy is through basic hedonistic pleasure ― stimulated in the five senses. Whether that’s eating a great meal or having a good sexual experience, all of these things are the kind of small things that add up to a life that feels good and happy and pleasurable.

Of course this does not apply to every single person, but for most people sex is one of the most pleasurable things that we do. For many women, sex is also a locus of fear and sometimes a locus of violence, and that obviously undercuts our ability to have happy and healthy sex lives. So does this idea of performative female sexuality and the idea that we’re sexual objects to be enjoyed by someone else. Women are told we’re not sexual actors to figure out what our enjoyment even looks and feels like.

You discuss how traditional “women’s work” remains undervalued and underpaid. How do you think this gap affects women’s happiness and pleasure?

One thing we know is that although money doesn’t buy happiness, economic instability does decrease people’s happiness. It’s only true that money doesn’t make you happy above a certain level. So when the work that women have traditionally done is both underpaid and undervalued the following happens: A) It makes someone economically insecure, which is a very quick route to unhappiness; and B) It means that women are less likely to derive the kind of identity and sense of purpose from their work that men long have. Certainly, for a lot of people care work can feel quite meaningful, but it becomes an issue when we send the message that that kind of work is not particularly valuable and is not valuable in part because women do it. We really undercut not only women’s paychecks but also our psychological and emotional health as it relates to our jobs.

Women are funneled towards certain options because our choices are constrained and then we’re told that we’re the ones doing the choosing and so it’s our responsibility. That’s the path that needs to be upended.
Jill Filipovic

In your chapter “Summer Sisters: Women And The Power Of Female Friendships” you write about the effects platonic female friendship have on women’s happiness and how, often times, they’re more integral to personal growth than romantic relationships.

Female friendships have always factored into the lives of women, but especially now when women are getting married later than ever before; when we live so much more of our lives outside of the nuclear family structure. Many of us leave our homes at 17 or 18 to go off to college or to go into the workforce and the average age of marriage for women now is 27. The average woman has a decade in there where she’s living at least semi-independently and where a romantic partner is not her primary outlet into the rest of the world. Even after we marry, women are much more likely to work outside of the home now than we used to. We have far more connection and especially in those formative years when we’re becoming full human beings in our 20s ― for a lot of women that happens surrounded by other women. 

And while female friendships are not new, the length of time that women spend single, living with other women and having them be our primary outlets is new. And that’s something we haven’t really caught up with policy-wise: how to recognize that often the chief person in your life is not a romantic partner.

It’s raised the bar for romantic relationships, as well. Most of my adult life I’ve lived with other women, so I know it’s perfectly possible to split doing the dishes and both take out the garbage. To be able to share space with somebody and have an equal division of labor, to love somebody and not only love them because you’re romantically attached to them, because you do have this enduring connection to both share the chores and share the emotional labor of the relationship: I think all of that leads to better romantic relationships later in life if that’s the path that you go down. It’s frankly one of the reasons you see women who marry after the age of 25 having longer-lasting, happier, more stable marriages. We learn a lot of these really valuable relationship skills from our female friends.

So, what does the female pursuit of happiness look like?

It looks like a policy landscape that opens up opportunity for women and doesn’t constrain our options and then tell us everything is about individual choice. I think by now our politics rely quite a bit on “choice” language ― it’s a choice to work or stay home, it’s a choice to have kids or not have kids, it’s a choice to eat what you want. This is all very individualistic. But because of certain policy decisions we’ve made, many parts of women’s lives don’t feel like much of a choice.

Women are funneled towards certain options because our choices are constrained and then we’re told that we’re the ones doing the choosing and so it’s our responsibility. That’s the path that needs to be upended. We need a policy landscape that makes real choices available for women. It has to be a collective, social and political effort to say that female happiness matters ― and male happiness matters, too ― and that one of the roles of government is to make people’s lives better. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Many Americans would have imagined that reality TV star Donald Trump would become the President of the United States on the day pigs fly.

Well, Trump is the president. And thanks to an upcoming project by Chicago-based architectural firm New World Design Ltd., for one day this summer, pigs will fly.

The firm, led by Jeffrey Roberts, plans to install four gold pig balloons in front of the facade of Trump Tower, for a one-day public installation titled “Flying Pigs On Parade.” Four golden swine balloons will float in mid-air, effectively concealing Trump’s name from public view. The goal is to provide passersby a brief yet glorious reprieve from seeing the omnipresent name of you-know-who, thus continuing to resist his normalization at all costs. 

Visually, the installation is inspired by the album art for Pink Floyd’s 1977 “Animals,” which itself is a tribute to George Orwell’s Animal Farm. The 1945 allegory and classic middle school read follows a barn full of farm animals to symbolize a totalitarian dictatorship built upon a cult of personality ― a scenario bearing some alarming similarities to our current political state. 

Roberts’ vision incorporates elements of Pink Floyd and George Orwell with a few additional digs at our nation’s leader. As he explained in a statement: “The references are many, from flying pigs and Miss Piggy comments to a taste for gold embellished interiors. Ultimately, this is a very rational design and is in direct contrast to the chaotic nature and bizarre antics of our current leadership.”

Roberts announced his idea for the piece in November 2016, shortly after Trump won the presidency. Recently, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters himself approved the idea, a necessity since the musician owns the image rights to his 1977 album cover.

Now Roberts’ final challenge, aside from actually building the four 30-by-15-foot golden pig balloons, is fundraising. The architects are currently collecting donations to help pay for costs including balloon fabrication, technical specialists, barge rental, rigging, prep costs, security and permitting fees. If interested, you can donate here. 

Roberts has not yet confirmed when his piece will be installed, but hopes that pigs will fly (for one day only) come late summer. The goal is to then take the pigs on the road, traveling from city to city, blocking other Trump Tower facades one day at a time.

That’ll do, pigs, that’ll do. 

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Al Madrigal is returning to his politically driven comedy in his newest stand-up special.

“Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy,” which premiered Friday on Showtime, begins with the former senior Latino correspondent for “The Daily Show” unearthing a “cilantro plot” against Donald Trump before delving into other bits about parenting, anger and a real-life revenge story involving shrimp.

The Mexican-American comedian recently spoke with HuffPost about the special and Latinos’ responsibility in putting Trump in the White House. During what Madrigal jokingly described as “the heaviest comedy interview of all time,” the 45-year-old star also discussed his role in Showtime’s upcoming dark comedy “I’m Dying Up Here,” and how he’s hoping to nurture future Latino stand-up comics. 

You start the special going in on Trump and discussing a cilantro-inspired revenge plot against him from Mexico. Jokes aside, what’s your take on where Latinos stand in U.S. politics right now?

I think a lot of Latinos in the United States, by all means, should be Republicans. They are super hardworking and religious. My dad and mom, they voted for both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush because they felt they earned all their money. My mom used to clean houses. My dad was a warehouse worker and had zero to start with and then started a company and sort of built this fortune. They had this ridiculous rags-to-riches story and a lot of Latinos who have had success in the United States find themselves leaning that way, where they’re fiscally conservative and think everyone should be able to pick themselves up by the bootstrap because they did. But the fact is that they feel so villainized by the right, and especially the far right, that they can’t help but side with the Democrats even though their values scream that they should be Republicans.

In that first bit, you also mention that you thought the moment Trump called Mexican immigrants “rapists” would be the end of his campaign.

Oh yeah, I really did think that! The other thing I brought up in that same bit was when Trump told Jorge Ramos to go back to Univision. I was like, “What?! The Latino people will not stand for this! You will not get elected because we decide who gets elected.” And then it happened.

I [went] on Anthony Bourdain’s show and I think I said that [Latinos] may not be one of the next presidents but we will certainly decide who gets elected as president. So there might not be a Latino in the White House in the near future but we, the Latinos in the United States, will determine who gets elected.

And yeah, I think we did: Donald Trump.

You think Latinos elected Donald Trump?

Oh, absolutely, you look at Florida. They put Florida over the top. 

While experts have certainly debated that, don’t you think it was more of a lack of unity within the community? Your Fusion special “Half Like Me” touched upon how divided Latinos can be and how it stops the community from progressing. 

Yeah, the crabs in the bucket analogy. Absolutely. But it’s not just a Latino problem. A lot of people use that analogy. And this is something that I sort of covered on “The Daily Show” constantly: When people try to lump all Latinos together, it’s just impossible. You can’t do that. There is no spokesperson for all Latinos. There is no unifying Latinos. Puerto Ricans don’t give a shit about immigration. I mean there’s [Puerto Ricans], the same as anyone else, who may feel like having an opinion on the issue but they’re not just naturally inclined to [care just] because they fall into that Latino category.

I mean, I think it’s fair to say immigration isn’t an inherently Latino issue, but then what about someone like you? You’re Mexican-American with several generations in the U.S.; is immigration at the top of your list as an issue?

Oh yeah, exactly. So that’s what I’m saying. But I’ve seen fellow Mexicans being so mistreated and we have a lot of employers that are taking advantage of this cheap labor and mistreating these employees. I definitely, I always side with the Mexicans even though I’m established in the United States. But just as a human. That’s something I try to address in the special.

Shifting off politics, you’re also in Showtime’s upcoming dramedy, “I’m Dying Up Here,” about a group of stand-up comedians struggling to make it in 1970s Los Angeles. Can you tell us about your character, Edgar Martinez? 

That was a desperate time for a lot of people, so we really do show that desperation really well. My character is sort of a mash-up of a couple of different Latino comedians. I think there’s some Freddie Prinze in there, there’s some Cheech in there, there’s some Carlos Mencia in there. I was fortunate enough to be able to be in the writers room for the entire time on this thing, and I couldn’t be more proud of the product.

Do you think the show truly captures that real-life struggle? How have things changed or stayed the same?

Well, you still have to sort of start the same way [in comedy]. When you start doing stand-up comedy you need to take the leap. I left a job, a lot of people have done that. Howie Mandel was a carpet salesman whose friends pushed him to do an open mic and everyone has their origin story. We see a lot of that on the show.

But then as people pass others and you climb up this ladder of the stand-up world there’s backstabbing, stealing, fights, accusations flying around, the competitiveness of being a sort of independent contractor in this world where you sacrificed a lot on the hopes that you might make it as a comedian. It’s crazy.

Are you describing the show or your experiences in real-life?

Both. That’s everyone’s experience. We’re all surrounded by it. Everyone is not standing around slapping each other on the back. I mean, there’s a great community of comedians that I’m very good friends with but we all have the same stories. That’s why when we get together, we love talking about, “OMG, have you ever done this gig?” So we’ve all sort of gone to war together and most of the big comics have paid all of the same dues.

It’s also nice to see Latinos represented in the cast, because honestly it feels like there aren’t enough Latinos in stand-up.

There’s certainly not a lot of popular Latino comics right now. I mean there’s George Lopez, Gabriel Iglesias ― now you tell me who the others are.

Louis C.K. is part Mexican?

Yeah. Louis C.K. is half Mexican. OK, we’ll take him. But he doesn’t have a lot of material about it. But I’m just saying, where are all the others? There’s just not enough. I’m starting the Latino Comedy Festival so we can actually do sort of TED-style talks for people in Los Angeles about careers in comedy because I feel we’re so underserved.

I got yelled at when I told my dad I was going to be a stand-up comic. I was trying to work a job and do comedy at the same time, and he thought I was a crazy person. So I actually just started a scholarship at my high school [St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco] that will be given to a junior Latino, ideally but not exclusively, who shows some sort of proficiency in comedy. Then I’ll meet with them and pay for a chunk of their tuition for the next year just so their parents see that their child has a future in comedy and don’t give them a hard time trying to make them a lawyer or a doctor.

Watch “Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy” on Showtime’s streaming services and “I’m Dying Up Here” when it premieres Sunday, June 4. 

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An Ohio mom’s viral Facebook post is shedding light on the reality of postpartum depression. 

On May 1, Kathy DiVincenzo shared two photos taken by her friend, photographer Danielle Fantis. While one picture shows the mom dressed up and smiling with her children in their clean house, the other shows DiVincenzo looking tired and unhappy with a classic messy bun and cluttered home.

DiVincenzo explained in the caption that May is National Maternal Depression Awareness Month. Because she has struggled with postpartum depression, anxiety and OCD, she decided to speak out and show people what the experience can look like ― and “not just the side of me that’s ‘Facebook worthy.’”

The two pictures DiVincenzo posted represent her life, “depending on the day,” she wrote.

“I would only ever comfortably share one of these realities though and that’s the problem. The only thing more exhausting than having these conditions is pretending daily that I don’t,” she explained, adding that she works hard to hide the harsh reality from the social media world because she’s worried it would make people feel uncomfortable. 

“I’m afraid you’ll think I’m weak, crazy, a terrible mother, or the other million things my mind convinces me of, and I know I’m not alone in those thoughts,” she wrote. “We need to stop assuming that the postpartum period is always euphoric, because for 1 in 7 it’s not. We need to start asking new parents how they’re doing in a deeper way than the normal, “so how are you doing?” that triggers the knee jerk, “everything’s great!” response. We need to learn the signs, symptoms, risk factors, and support plans for postpartum conditions.”

DiVincenzo called upon parents to smash the stigma and #EndTheSilence around PPD by sharing their stories and letting others know they are not alone in their struggles. 

Addressing her fellow moms, she concluded, “In case no one has told you, you’re doing an amazing job. You are loved and you are worthy. You’re not alone. Information to local and national support will be in the comment section. I know how unbelievably hard it is to reach out, but I promise you it is worth it. YOU’RE worth it.”

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May typically marks the start of summer blockbuster season and lately that means two things: Get ready for some superhero movies, and get ready to mix up some Chrises. 

One such Chris, Chris Pine, took the stage to host “Saturday Night Live” this weekend with a clear message: Although there are many men like him, he is, in fact, unique. 

And as far as classically handsome hero types in recent Hollywood blockbusters go, he’s definitely got the first part right. 

Unfortunately for him, however, Pine bears a strong resemblance to the white, male stars of other comic-book adaptions, and, through a coincidence that says a lot about the state of on-screen diversity, they also share a first name. Although individually talented human beings, Chris Evans, Chris Pratt and Chris Hemsworth all too easily illustrate the continuing problem of on-screen representation ― particularly among superhero movies.

On Saturday night, “SNL” cast members gleefully confused the four Chrises, who star in various Marvel and DC Comics franchise installments, throughout Pine’s opening monologue. 

(”Thank you, Thor,” Leslie Jones says after snapping a selfie. Thor, an “Avengers” character, is played by Hemsworth.)

While their other look-alikes are taking a break for the moment, you’ve likely seen Pratt, who recently embarked on a press tour for “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” now in theaters. Pine’s “Wonder Woman” is out June 2. As the actor, who also plays Captain Kirk in the “Star Trek” movies, pointed out himself, superheroes, like Star-Lord, all have the same look ― white, male and as inoffensive as possible. Or, as Kate McKinnon phrased it, “you’re all kind of scruffy and squinty and jacked but in a sweet way.”

A change in optics hoped for by fans of “Wonder Woman,” starring Gal Gadot ― who is, yes, a woman ― seems to be coming at a glacial pace keenly illustrated by the way that film languished in various stages of production from the 1980s. Given our knowledge of how on-screen representation affects viewers’ self-worth, the pace is unfortunate. A few other breaks from the norm will arrive over the next three years: “Black Panther,” starring Chadwick Boseman, will be out in 2018, “Captain Marvel,” starring Brie Larson, in 2019, and a stand-alone Cyborg film in 2020. 

At least it’s something. For decades, superhero movies have served as a genre that celebrates white male achievement like no other, emblematic of the widespread Hollywood diversity issues that inspired #OscarsSoWhite. Studios may have wizened up to public perception, featuring women and people of color in roles that get less screen time in films such as “Deadpool,” “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” “Captain America: Civil War,” “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “X-Men: Apocalypse.” But you’ll notice the figures at the front of promotional posters are not women, black actors, Asian actors, gay actors or anyone beyond people who’d feel easily at home in the Chris Quartet. 

Or this Venn diagram:

While the Oscars offered wider diversity in its nominations this year, it’s the most pervasive, biggest moneymaking titles ― the movies that won’t take home prestigious awards but will nonetheless be known to every household in America by September ― that seem to need the most work.

Most recent statistics on representation among film leads continue to find gross inequality; 2015’s top films showed minorities underrepresented 3 to 1 and women underrepresented 2 to 1, according to the UCLA’s Bunche Center. The problem is even worse among the people leading production of top films: the study found that their directors continue to skew white (90 percent) and male (92 percent). Among the people ultimately responsible for getting these movies made and shipped out to massive screens nationwide ― studio executives ― the majority are, again, white men.

This summer’s “Wonder Woman” will offer some respite from the onslaught of white guys in movies wearing shiny, tight-fitting suits, who look like white guys in directors’ chairs wearing T-shirts, who look like white guys in board rooms wearing normal suits. (And it’s directed by one Patty Jenkins! Huzzah!)

But it remains symbolic that Pine is seen promoting the film on the set of “SNL”― not Wonder Woman herself.

For now, we’re still living in the Age of the Many Chrises. 

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Yes, Mr. President, he’s talking to you.

Actor Robert De Niro on Monday blasted President Donald Trump’s proposal to slash the federal arts budget.

The actor, receiving the Chaplin Award from the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City, told the audience that movies go through a voting process of sorts by critics and film goers before posterity decides if they are art.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because of our government’s hostility towards art,” he said, per Deadline. “The budget proposal, among its other draconian cuts to life-saving and life-enhancing programs, eliminates the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. For their own divisive political purposes, the administration suggests that the money for these all-inclusive programs goes to rich liberal elites. This is what they now call an ‘alternative fact,’ but I call it bullshit.”

De Niro wasn’t done. “I don’t make movies for ‘rich liberal elites,’ “ he said, per the Hollywood Reporter.  “I’ve got my restaurants for that. I – and all of us speaking here tonight — make them for you.”

De Niro, a frequent critic of the president, also worked in a slap at the administration’s immigration policies, Indiewire wrote. He noted that Chaplin was “an immigrant who probably wouldn’t pass today’s ‘extreme vetting.’”

“I hope we’re not keeping out the next Chaplin,” he said.

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It’s hard to decide when Kirsten Dunst officially become one of our most interesting actresses. Was it when lightning spewed from her fingertips in “Melancholia”? When she snorted coke and ripped Rebel Wilson’s wedding dress in “Bachelorette”? Maybe it was her naïve Midwestern enlightenment on “Fargo”? 

If you’re not already convinced, the new “Woodshock” trailer should do the trick. Dunst plays a grieving woman fleeing her mangled emotions and paranoia with the help of a trippy cannabinoid drug. “Woodshock” marks the directorial debut of sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, friends of Dunst who founded the fashion label Rodarte. 

This is one of two fascinating projects Dunst has coming this year. The first is next month’s “The Beguiled,” her latest collaboration with “Virgin Suicides” and “Marie Antoinette” director Sofia Coppola. In addition to “Woodshock” and “The Beguiled,” Dunst is working on the AMC dark-comedy series “On Becoming a God in Central Florida,” directed by “The Lobster” and “Dogtooth” mastermind Yorgos Lanthimos.

“Woodshock” opens Sept. 15. Watch the trailer above, and see A24’s poster below.

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Jessica Lewis’ daughter Elisa has always loved “The Golden Girls” ― though as a toddler, she hardly understands anything that happens in the show. 

“I would watch them every time I nursed her so I think the sounds of their voices and that iconic theme song comforted her,” Lewis told HuffPost. “In fact, the only way I could often calm her down would be singing the theme song for her or playing an episode from our DVR. Her favorite to listen to would be the episode where they sing ‘Mr Sandman.’ One time, she woke herself from a deep sleep to dance to the theme song.”

So when it came time to plan Elisa’s second birthday party, the mom had the perfect theme in mind.

The toddler’s “Golden Girls” birthday party took place last October at their home in Arizona. 

Lewis tried to incorporate elements of the show in almost every part of the celebration ― from the invitations to the cheesecake desserts. The mom printed photos of the four ladies and even added Elisa’s picture and name to a banner with the opening credits. 

“I had pictures of each Golden Girl with the food that would describe them,” Lewis said. “For instance, we had ‘Better than Mama Celeste’s Pizza’ for Sophia. I even found a website featuring food Rose Nylund would make from St. Olaf. We had Sparhearven Crispies. They were delicious.”

The party colors were mint green and pale pink to reflect Blanche’s bedroom wallpaper. There was a photo area with a frame that said “Picture it: Elisa’s party 2016.”

The mom also found “the most 80s piece of artwork” in her parents’ house and added the words “Thank you for being a friend” to display at the party. And she made shirts for all of their family members with different quotes from the show.

Lewis’ shirt said “Back In St. Olaf” while Elisa’s said, “Shady Pines, Ma!” 

Lewis said the party guests enjoyed the unconventional theme and the fact that Elisa was such a fan of the show.  

“Elisa is loving, feisty, knows what she wants, whimsical, and funny!” the mom told HuffPost “She is quite like Sophia Petrillo herself. I always say she is like a little old lady. She loves to have fun and wants the world to know she is here.  She is talkative. She loves to dance. She completes our family in every way possible.”

Lewis hopes people who read about Elisa’s party think it’s funny and charming. She also hopes it encourages people to think outside the box with birthday themes.  

“Anything can be turned into a party!” the mom said. “If your child loves something, no matter how random it is, it should be celebrated. We should cherish the uniqueness in our kids and I hope that people see that is what I tried to do.”

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As family photographers, Aimee and Jenna Hobbs noticed a trend developing in recent years.

“More and more mamas either were choosing not to participate in their family pictures or were participating in the session, but when it came time to select images, they weren’t choosing any with them in the frame,” Aimee told HuffPost. “It broke our hearts to see moms effectively removing themselves from the visual narrative of their family, whether intentionally or unintentionally.”

In response to this phenomenon, the photographers created a mom-focused series called “A Mother’s Beauty,” which showcases women in a raw and vulnerable yet empowering state. 

“We wanted to capture a real mother’s beauty,” Jenna told HuffPost. “So often portrayed in media is the pressure for mothers to ‘get their pre-baby bodies back.’ We wanted to stop and celebrate women, as they were ― whether they had a baby four weeks prior to the photo sessions or 14 years prior.”

She added, “Childbirth and motherhood change us, physically and emotionally. It leaves scars and changes our shapes and mindsets. We wanted to not only capture that, but celebrate it, because it really is an amazing thing mothers are.”

Aimee and Jenna are sisters-in-law, and both have children. Aimee has a 7-year-old and 8-year-old son, as well as two adult stepchildren. Jenna has 2-year-old boy-and-girl twins, two daughters ages 7 and 4, and is currently pregnant with her fifth child. 

To find subjects for A Mother’s Beauty, the photographers put out a call for volunteers. Each summer, they photograph about 15 mothers ― some on their own and some with their children or older female relatives. They also interview the moms and share their stories when they post the photos online.

“When we’re photographing these sessions, we’ve learned that yes, the experience of being photographed from a place of love and empowerment in a way that really shows your vulnerability and strength definitely has a direct impact for the mamas who participate,” Aimee told HuffPost. “That was what we hoped to accomplish when we set out ― that we would be able to show a handful of women the beauty in their ‘imperfections’ and help them in some small way.”

Aimee added that she hopes the series touches other moms and inspires a sense of self-love in them. As for other people who see the photos, she hopes they broaden their perspective on what “beautiful” is and embrace the many shapes and sizes of women.

“The more people see something, the more normal it becomes,” she said.

Jenna echoed Aimee’s sentiments. She told HuffPost she wants the photos to make the participants feel beautiful and empowered in their own skin.

“I hope they know that motherhood has changed them for the better ― that they are enough,” she said.

“For those that see the photos, I hope that they see true beauty in these women, and see themselves,” she added. “Possibly the same shape, the same scars, the way they kiss and hold their babies. If they can see beauty in the mother in the photograph, perhaps they can see beauty in themselves, too. A mother’s beauty.”

Keep scrolling to see more of A Mother’s Beauty and follow their work at the Hobbs Photography website, Facebook page and Instagram. 

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Pepe the Frog, a fictional amphibian both beloved and abhorred by Americans of varying political persuasions, has died. Drawn into creation in 2005, he passed away tragically at the hands of his creator, artist Matt Furie, on Saturday.

Birthed in Microsoft Paint, and printed at a local Kinko’s shortly after, he has been described by those who knew him personally as chill, peaceful and often stoned. Yet by his time of death, the “Boy’s Club” zine star was virtually unrecognizable. He’d, unfortunately, become a darling symbol of the alt-right. 

Pepe had a happy upbringing. He spent his early 20s ― in frog years, that is ― doing what he loved: chugging pop, snarfing pizza and getting high with his roommates Andy, Brett and Landwolf. Furie gave him a simple life full of simple pleasures, like surfing the web for sick videos and eating so much you barf it all back up. For a few years, at least.

Things got complicated, however, in a seemingly fleeting moment that would prove to be fatal. One day, Pepe’s roommate caught the frog in a compromising position: peeing, with his pants dropped all the way down to his ankles. His entire butt was exposed, for no reason. It was weird. When Landwolf called Pepe out for it, Pepe responded: “Feels good man.” The altercation, memorialized in zine, would forever alter the course of Pepe’s life. 

In 2008, a cartoon depicting Pepe’s smarmy “feels good man” smile popped up on the message board 4chan. There was something contagious about Pepe’s indulgent joie de vivre that made internet users share the image again and again and again. It soon went viral, gaining particular traction in, of all places, a bodybuilding forum.

That year, Pepe went from mere image to meme ― a humorous cultural touchstone, that, like a human gene, could mutate and replicate in strange ways. The more popular a meme Pepe became, the more he began to change, adopting alternate personas like Batman Pepe, Nu Pepe and Borat Pepe, which spread wildly across Reddit, Tumblr, Facebook and Instagram. Each iteration featured the frog’s classic mug, his unctuous expression warped this way and that to appear sleepy, dazed, sad and angry. 

Pepe’s internet acclaim continued to grow. Katy Perry shared a bleary-eyed and crying Pepe in 2014, along with the caption “Australian jet lag got me like.” Nicki Minaj followed suit, posting an image of Pepe showing off his juicy behind in a pair of tight, peach-colored booty shorts. 

“I’ve realized that Pepe is beyond my control,” artist Furie told New York Magazine in 2016. “He’s like a kid, he grew up and now I have to set him free to live his life. It’s all good.”

Pepe’s future was irreparably thrown off course a year before that, when, in 2015, an online community of white nationalists developed a soft spot for Pepe’s droopy eyelids and self-satisfied smirk. The dark pockets of the internet launched a campaign to adopt Pepe as their own personal symbol, using the cartoon’s absurd and somewhat adorable aesthetic to make hateful messages appear playful and benign. 

In 2015 and 2016, very different versions of Pepe began proliferating online: Pepe reading Mein Kampf, Pepe sipping from a swastika teacup, an anti-Semitic caricature of Pepe hinting at his involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. In style, the green critter still resembled a harmless joke, a stoner cartoon meant to elicit a blazed chuckle or two. Yet Pepe’s zany cuteness now served to make palatable grossly discriminatory views. As Emily Nussbaum put it: “The joke protected the non-joke.”

The goal of Pepe’s makeover, as alt-right internet user @JaredTSwift explained to Olivia Nuzzi in 2016, was to use the unassuming frog to usher white nationalism into the mainstream. And it worked. “People have adopted our rhetoric, sometimes without even realizing it,” Swift said. “We’re setting up for a massive cultural shift.” Pretty soon, Pepe the racist and antisemitic frog far out-shined Pepe the stoner frog in visibility and recognition. Few remembered his glory days as a “Boy’s Club” bro, instead understanding Pepe to be the creation of spiteful internet trolls. 

During the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump and Pepe forged an unlikely alliance when a Trump-esque Pepe adaptation, complete with yellow floppy hair, appeared to be policing the U.S. Mexican border and operating a gas chamber. To most of the internet, Pepe was now synonymous with hate, bigotry and Trump. Some even credit the frog with helping Trump win the election. (According to Furie, Pepe would not be the type to even vote.)

Pepe madness reached a surreal peak in September 2016, when the Anti-Defamation League declared Pepe an official hate symbol, much to Furie’s confusion and disappointment. “In my mind, frogs are one of the most peaceful creatures,” he told HuffPost. “They just chill on lily pads and eat. You never really feel threatened by frogs in nature. I think that’s why they’re so popular in fairy-tales. They’re just ... chill.”

Furie did his best to alter Pepe’s fate, spearheading a social media campaign to #SavePepe. The artist also began to speak out, post-Pepe, against anti-Semitism and online hate at conferences and panels hosted by the ADL. He also collaborated with Save the Frogs! on a line of Pepe-centric goods, with all proceeds benefitting a wildlife organization devoted to protecting endangered frog species. 

The artist made a valiant effort to protect Pepe from the garbage forces of the internet. But alas, something about Pepe had changed. And on May 6, 2017, Furie made the executive decision to say goodbye to his little green friend for good. He drew Pepe into death, featuring the frog in an open casket, his buddies toasting him farewell with a bottle of whiskey, which they then proceeded to spill on his face. Furie created the single-page comic for Fantagraphics’ “World’s Greatest Comics,” sordidly marking Free Comic Book Day.

Pepe’s life was a strange one, perhaps even the first of its kind. While no artwork is immune to possible interpretations that diverge from the artist’s intention, few images have taken as long, winding and bizarre a journey as little Pepe.

Born a humble character in a cult stoner zine, the benevolent frog was forever altered by internet fame. When Pepe died, he left this world a nationally recognized symbol for white supremacy. Who controls an image? Who can verify its true meaning? A cute, mellow frog became a harbinger of fascism, in part because the whole progression was too weird and kind of funny to take seriously. Kind of like the story of Trump himself. 

Now, we believe, Pepe is in a better place. Hopefully he’s living the dream: drinking pop with one hand and helping to pee it out with the other. Fare thee well, sweet Pepe. You were too chill for this world. May you rest without fear of being appropriated by trolls for all of eternity. 

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Mother’s Day is a joyous occasion to honor moms and all that they do for their families.

But for many women, it can be an incredibly difficult day. If you’ve struggled to conceive, experienced a miscarriage or lost a child, Mother’s Day can serve as a painful reminder of that heartache.

Here are 15 cards that find the words to say to someone who may be struggling on Mother’s Day.

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Latinx graduates are giving us a major case of the feels for a second year in a row. 

As the class of 2017 celebrates the end of a chapter, dozens of Latino students have used Instagram to give a shoutout to their hard work, heritage, parents and persistence via some incredibly crafty and inspiring graduation caps. 

The #LatinxGradCaps hashtag was started last year by Latina Rebels founder Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez as a way to celebrate what it means “to be young, brown and woke.”

“THIS is our future,” she told HuffPost last May. “They are the ones who will pave the way.” 

Now it seems the 30-year-old Nicaraguan’s idea could become an annual tradition. Check out 30 spectacular Latinx grad caps from the class of 2017:

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“Just don’t worship anything.”

Such was the unsolicited advice I received from a grinning night guard at the American Museum of Natural History last Friday night. I was standing in the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians hours past the institution’s normal 5:45 p.m. closing time, gazing up at a Kwakwaka’wakw mask squeezed between a sprawling display of totem poles. The lights were dim and I didn’t see him coming.

“No, for real,” the guard added as he trotted back into the darkness, leaving me once again unmonitored in one of New York City’s most cavernous attractions.

His counsel was questionable, for sure, but not off-brand. That night, I was one of approximately 200 adults who voluntarily crammed themselves onto very small and uncomfortable cots beneath the museum’s suspended Giant Blue Whale. VIP lanyards around our necks, we were making nerdy tweenage dreams come true by spending an actual night at the museum.

The AMNH has been sporadically hosting sleepovers since 2006, the year the first Ben Stiller-fronted film “Night at the Museum” debuted, introducing audiences to sophisticated characters like Rexy the animated T. Rex skeleton and a series of otherwise lifeless artifacts that rouse after dark. Unsurprisingly, the sleepovers are more often targeted toward children, but every once in a while, there’s an adult version that, according to Michael Walker, manager of media relations at the museum, almost always sells out.

The cinematic schtick was one even the security guards agreed to act out that night, to the utter delight of the grown-ups who paid a whopping $350 per ticket to be there. (Disclosure: I had a comped press ticket to cover the event.) Just to get the FAQ out of the way: Did we have free reign of the museum? Yes. (The public halls, at least.) Was there alcohol at the sleepover? Yes. Did we physically sleep? Yes. Did anything move as if empowered by an ancient Egyptian tablet? No.

To best illuminate what happens during one of these adult sleepovers, here’s a rough retelling of my itinerary. Behold, a night at the American Museum of Natural History:

7 p.m.

I checked into the sleepover a bit late (doors opened at 6:30 p.m.) due to dramatically massive amounts of rain deterring subway travel. After heading in through the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial entrance in the back of the museum like I owned the place, I was greeted by Walker, who walked me to the check-in table to retrieve my itinerary, maps and the very official lanyard badge I’d wear all night.

After making sure I was aware of the T-shirts and activity books that came free with a ticket, Walker escorted me to the impressive Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, where the Giant Blue Whale hovered above hundreds of very closely positioned cots. He suggested I pick out a sleeping spot sooner rather than later. Since the cots on the edges were all taken by then, I settled for one sandwiched in the back, slowly acknowledging the fact that I would literally be sleeping next to strangers, hospital ward-style.

Really, at this point, I was just amazed by how industrious people were, with their inflatable pillows, certified sleeping bags and slippers. I asked Walker if any of these incredibly prepared individuals were returning slumber party guests, but he was unsure. 

7:15 p.m.

With over a half hour until dinner, I headed straight for the well-stocked champagne station on the Milstein balcony. Access to most of the museum’s first, second, third and fourth galleries began the moment we got our hands on our badges. In fact, those who wanted to stray from the makeshift bar already could request a plastic cup to take their booze to go. By the whale, a few musicians called the 12th Night Trio played a selection of jazz covers of Britney Spears and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The evening became gradually more surreal as time wore on.

7:30 p.m.

Orientation was relatively painless. Brad Harris, the museum’s senior director of visitor services, went over the itinerary and a basic set of rules. (No outside food, no smoking, lights out at 2 a.m.) When I asked Harris if there were any off-menu attractions he’d suggest I check out, he preferred to stick to the schedule ― the 122-foot Titanosaur was a must-see. I’d need a flashlight, Walker added. I felt like I was at camp and I did not hate it.

8:15 p.m.

After spending some quality time in the Hall of North American Mammals (where champagne-tipsy people were already snapping selfies with bears, mountain goats, big cats, etc.), Walker summoned me for dinner. We ventured to the second floor and stood in line for a pretty substantial buffet: chicken and fish, rice, asparagus, salad, rolls, mini puff pastries, after-dinner coffee. There was a final bar with to-go cups, of which many, many people took advantage. Some fraternizing occurred, and I learned this was the first adult sleepover for most. People were pretty eager to start exploring. Some actually ran out of the dining area once they’d indulged in their last opportunity for booze.

Note: If you are wondering, at this point, whether or not people were consuming mind-altering substances beyond alcohol, my best professional guess would be: Yes, definitely. 

9 p.m.

I bid Walker goodnight and my self-made tour began. I opted to first visit the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians, where I was mostly alone save for that secret security guard, until the 9:15 showing of “Humpback Whales” in 3D at the Lefrak Omnimax Theater. Then I watched 40 minutes worth of Ewan McGregor-narrated whale hagiography. The sheer gravity of this night at the museum was starting to be felt.

9:45 p.m.

Here’s when the bulk of my exploration began. I rounded out the first floor: Hall of Human Origins, Hall of Meteorites, Hall of Gems and Minerals. Guided by the sweet sounds of climate change advocacy playing on a few gallery screens, I went on to spend about half an hour staring at rocks while simultaneously contemplating the horrors of overpopulation. Nearly everyone I passed rightly made a whispery joke about jewelry heists.

If I’ve yet to fully illustrate this, most of the museum’s lights were dimmed to pleasantly shady levels throughout the night, so I did indeed use my cellphone’s flashlight to navigate. Next: T. Rex, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, the massive Titanosaur on special exhibition. Were rogue grown-ups trying to touch the massive bones? Yes. Were there guards around to police the shenanigans? Yes, but they were surprisingly kind and lenient. 

Onto the mummies. To locate the fourth floor gallery that housed them, one needed only listen for the hushed sounds of a diverse 21-and-older crowd having the collective time of their life. If anything was going to rise from their sarcophagi, 20th Century Fox-style, they were going to do it there. Spoiler alert: They didn’t. At around this point, I noticed two standout sleepover attendees ― an emotional support dog who had more than a few accidents throughout the night and a 20-something in Superman pajamas with a full cape.

11:20 p.m.

Knowing that there was a live animal demonstration at 11:30 p.m. that no adult in their right mind would miss, I took the opportunity to stop by the so-called Lunar Lounge where we were advised to go if we were in need of snacks, beverages, outlets for charging our phones, or just a place to chat. It was pretty packed. The cookies and hot chocolate were OK. 

I also stopped by my cot, where people were already napping. (A visibly drunk woman was sprawled partially on my blanket, and when I went to snatch it from her, she resisted.) I soon learned that snorers were being corralled in separate areas away from the primary smattering of beds. Pro tip: Claim your disease and you’ll get an isolated spot on the Milstein balcony. Worth the shame, people.

11:30 p.m.

Up until this point, everyone had been behaving, for the most part. Faced with the prospect of live animals, though, the adults began to unravel. After a staffer took too long introducing the live animal show in Kaufmann Theater, a man in the audience began speaking over him, claiming that the staffer was hindering his ability to get to the proceeding space show. “Give me live animals or give me death,” was the general sentiment. After the agonizing revolt, an older gentleman finally took the stage with a parade of small creatures ― an owl, an eagle, an alligator.

Highlight: When he noted that the frantically flapping eagle had imprinted on him, which explained the loving sounds heard emanating from the bird’s box anytime our guide spoke aloud for the rest of the demonstration. He also scared us into believing that New Jerseyans are really irresponsible when it comes to gator-as-pet ownership. Quit it, New Jersey.

12:15 a.m.

I need only say a few things about the “Dark Universe” space show that took place in the Rose Center for Earth and Space ― the pièce de résistance of the night, if you will. When the gorgeous expanse of our known universe took over the rounded screen, and Neil deGrasse Tyson’s bellowing voice filled the Hayden Planetarium, alerting the audience to recent advancements in space exploration, there were audible gasps. Someone actually ran out of the theater, but I think her reasoning had more to do with alcohol than being overwhelmed by the sublime.

1 a.m.

The excitement levels were dwindling. Many of the special exhibitions had closed at this point, so I lingered in some nearby first floor halls: Biodiversity and North American Forests, and back to the mammals. Several groups were rushing, nearly sprinting, to see bits of the museum before our curfew. I overheard a group of people from Pennsylvania remarking on how similar this night was to elementary school field trips, except this was better because they had access to alcohol and drugs. Fair enough.

2 a.m.

Second stop by the Lunar Lounge. Some old public domain films were playing on a projection screen. I caught the 1902 silent movie “A Trip to the Moon.” People were already beginning to fall asleep on the floor as they charged their phones. “I was a kid tonight,” a man said to his female companion.

2:30 a.m.

I strolled back to the big whale, impressed with my newfound navigation skills. Feeling pretty tired from walking what I imagined were miles through the museum, I decided to give sleep a try. I laid on my back and stared up at the belly of a beast, attempting to be as zen as possible, because when else was I going to be able to meditate underneath a giant sea creature? I was passed out by 3 a.m. I did not brush my teeth.

7 a.m.

Eyes open, it didn’t take long to realize the magic had faded. (This, despite the fact that somewhat loud whale sounds played me into consciousness.) Breakfast was not in the upstairs dining hall, but in the downstairs children’s cafeteria, consisting of a few pieces of fruit, yogurt and muffins. The galleries weren’t open to us like they were the night before. I wanted to leave quickly, in order to maintain the sanctity of my sleepover and not taint it with the disappointing break of day. I rushed out the same way I came in.

The next AMNH sleepover, should you be curious, happens on June 30.

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Warning: Some of the below images may be considered upsetting or triggering to those who have struggled with addiction or experienced trauma.

We like to think Disney princesses live happily ever after. But what if they were confronted with some of the uglier aspects of reality?

Shannon Dermody, a 20-year-old photographer who lives in upstate New York, decided to explore the issues characters like Belle, Ariel and Tiana could face if they lived in modern times, like domestic violence or pollution.  

“Each photo shows a different problem that is going on in the world,” Dermody told HuffPost. “I want people to not look away from these problems. They do exist.”

There is also a reason why Dermody decided to merge these two worlds. “I tied in fantasy with real issues to show that these can happen to anyone,” she said.

Dermody, who initially shot the images for a project in a photography class, posted the photos to her Facebook page in April and they’ve since gone viral — receiving 106,000 likes and 118,000 shares as of Tuesday afternoon.

“People need to realize this is happening in the world,” Dermody said.  “Even if it doesn’t affect you.”

Check out some of Dermody’s work below.

Domestic Violence

Pollution

Police Brutality

Alcoholism

Rape

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British artist Damien Hirst’s exhibition “Treasures From the Wreck of the Unbelievable” opened in Venice last month, featuring a variety of sculptures, meant to be viewed as debris rescued from a shipwreck that never was. 

Amid the rubble lies a barnacle-encrusted sculpture of Mickey Mouse, a bust of a pharaoh with a peculiar resemblance to Pharrell, and a golden sculpted head, aptly titled “Golden heads (Female).” 

It was the latter piece that Nigerian artist Victor Ehikhamenor noticed while perusing Hirst’s exhibition, which he passed by daily while setting up for his own exhibition at the Venice Biennale. The bust appealed to Ehikhamenor because of its near exact resemblance to an iconic Nigerian artwork, known as the “Bronze Head from Ife,” or “Ife Head.” Made around the 14th century, it was unearthed in 1938 in Ife, Nigeria.

The piece, believed to represent a king of the Yoruba people, is notable in its naturalism and sophistication, especially given its 14th-century origins. Made before Britain colonized Nigeria, or Europe had any contact with or imprint on African culture, the piece displays the talent and technique of a civilization untouched by Western practices. 

“This is part of our cultural and artistic heritage,” Ehikhamenor wrote in an email to HuffPost. “It plays exactly the same role other important art or sculptures from a certain era play in other communities and countries of their origin, especially the classics. This is a well-known piece of very important work, easily identifiable by many Nigerians and art historians round the world.”

And yet for the many visitors flocking to Hirst’s blockbuster show, where the time-honored statue is stripped of its historical context, the piece appears as part of Hirst’s own vision. Ehikhamenor expressed his frustration with the act of appropriation on Instagram:

For the thousands of viewers seeing this for the first time, they won’t think Ife, they won’t think Nigeria. Their young ones will grow up to know this work as Damien Hirst’s. As time passes it will pass for a Damien Hirst regardless of his small print caption. The narrative will shift and the young Ife or Nigerian contemporary artist will someday be told by a long nose critic “Your work reminds me of Damien Hirst’s Golden Head”. We need more biographers for our forgotten.

Artists often blur the line that separates inspiration and appropriation, adopting images from other artists and cultures for their own creative fodder. While Hirst is not unique in co-opting traditional imagery for his own artistic purposes, his status as one of the richest living artists, whose works yield up to $5 million each, make the act of cultural poaching feel especially exploitative.

“I am not particularly against getting inspiration from other iconic works like this,” Ehikhamenor said, “but don’t weave a warp narrative around it and commercialize it to your own benefit. This was an outright copy with very minimal alterations. Don’t copy it outrightly and fictionalize what is a well-known fact. It borders on the line of broad daylight robbery. One must also be mindful of the past relationship Nigeria has with Britain in regards to carting away some of our best works during the Benin punitive expedition of 1897.”

From Ehikhamenor’s perspective, Hirst’s co-opting of traditional Nigerian imagery rehashes the power dynamics of British colonialism, under which British forces looted Nigerian cities in the late 19th century, plundering and seizing much of the native artwork. To ignore that historical event, or worse, unintentionally repeat it, seems less stimulating than ignorant. 

Intensifying the power imbalance is the fact that Hirst is one of the most well-known living contemporary artists in the world. As Ehikhamenor put it: “People will think he is the original creator of such an important artwork. He has a bigger PR machine and probably a wider reach, and the narrative can quickly change in his favor.”

In another caption posted on Instagram, Ehikhamenor writes: “I have read many reviews of ‘Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable’ and yet to see the words ‘primitive’ or ‘ethnographic’. These are two of the frequently used words to describe classic art from Africa.” He signed off on all the posts with hashtags including #abiographyoftheforgotten, #madeinnigeria, #lestweforget and #myforefathersdidit. 

Hirst is just the latest artist to find himself in the middle of a debate over what happens when artists create work from experiences and sources that are not their own. 

Hirst has long worked to collapse the boundaries separating past and present, high- and lowbrow, mythology and pop culture, fact and fiction. But given his wildly privileged position, Hirst’s interest in mixing up categories doesn’t justify his erasure of an image’s centuries-long history. 

The question isn’t can Hirst adopt traditional Nigerian imagery for his own artistic purposes, but why should he? Is the work interesting? Radical? Or does the work simply reaffirm the imbalanced power structures inside the art world and beyond it? 

“I understand he is fictionalizing his ideas, but sleep should not be comparable to death, as my people would say,” Ehikhamenor concluded. The artist expressed his wish that Hirst credit the sculpture properly, paying homage to its origins in Ife, Nigeria. He also advised that the work not be sold. 

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You may not think of NPR as a kid’s first choice in the argument over what to listen to in the car, but that could be changing. Because for the first time in NPR’s 47-year history, on May 15, the network will release a children’s program.

“Wow in the World” with the tagline, “a podcast for curious kids & their grown-ups,” will be aimed at kids ages 5-12 and focused on science, technology, discovery and inventions. It will be hosted by NPR’s Guy Raz and Sirius XM’s Mindy Thomas, who previously hosted an award-winning segment on Sirius XM’s Kids Place Live channel together. 

“Wow in the World is a place where we can tap into the crazy cool things that are happening all around us, every day!” says Thomas in a press release from NPR. “We want to help spark conversations between kids and other kids and also with their grown-ups that will ultimately lead to their own big discoveries.”

Upcoming episodes include a mix of information from the hosts and interviews with real kids, and will tackle such questions as “How did we Homo sapiens come to dominate the planet?” and “How do astronauts poop in space?” Some of the content areas explored will include space, dinosaurs, animals, technology and human origins. 

“As parents and caregivers, many of us grapple with screen-time,” says Raz. “This show is not just an alternative to screens but a show about celebrating the spirit of inquiry and encouraging kids to ask even more questions.” 

Perhaps this show will be the “Serial” for the grade school set. 

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