Depending on how you look at it, Anne of Green Gables is either a heartwarming, funny tale about a spunky girl coming of age, or it’s a dark saga about a child repeatedly submerging her own trauma in order to survive. The former has long been the popular perception of L.M. Montgomery’s beloved book, but the latter lends itself better to prestige drama ― so, naturally, the new Netflix/CBC series “Anne with an E” sets about excavating the tragedy at the heart of Anne, mostly obliterating the joyous comedy of the original tale along the way. 

In truth, the Anne books have always been a delicate blend of both aspects. Anne’s wild imagination and penchant for chattering her way into various scrapes draws attention from her truly tragic childhood and its ongoing reverberations, a current of real pain and darkness that is masked by her tendency toward fictional melodrama.

Orphaned as a baby, Anne Shirley winds up in an asylum, with occasional stints as live-in help in homes. She has never known her parents, and her care has been institutional at best and abusive at worst. When she arrives at Green Gables, at the age of about 11, and discovers that her new guardians ― Marilla Cuthbert and her brother Matthew ― had instead wanted a boy to help around the farm, she performs her disappointment in an unconventionally theatrical way.

The child raised her head quickly, revealing a tear-stained face and trembling lips. “You would cry, too, if you were an orphan and had come to a place you thought was going to be home and found that they didn’t want you because you weren’t a boy. Oh, this is the most tragical thing that ever happened to me!”

Something like a reluctant smile, rather rusty from long disuse, mellowed Marilla’s grim expression.

This is how comfortably tragedy and comedy intermingle in Anne of Green Gables: Crusty old Marilla actually smiles because she is so amused by a child’s accurate description of a traumatizing thing she is experiencing at that very moment. A pint-sized version of the sad clown, Anne puts on a whimsical show to express but also distract from her pain ― a depth and breadth of personal tragedy that she’s far too young to grapple with directly. You could almost believe that she’s actually OK, if you read quickly enough.

Over 100 years after Montgomery began the series, society and children’s fiction have grown far more solicitous of young people, more interested in the darker side of childhood traumas like abuse, parental loss and bullying. Looking back, Anne’s relentless perkiness seems repressed, even callous. So it’s welcome to see an adaptation that not only acknowledges the undeniable melancholy of Anne’s story, but looks directly at it.

What’s uncomfortable is how much the series seems, at times, to revel in it. Her tribulations as an orphan, a girl who has been shuttled between menial live-in roles and an asylum all her life, and a young woman who is painfully aware of the distance between classical beauty norms and her own flawed appearance, constitute insufficient suffering for the protagonist of a serious TV series today.

In the show, her difficult early childhood is revealed vividly, not just in Anne’s anecdotes but through nightmarish flashbacks in which she’s screamed at, whipped, taunted and insulted. It heaps on new trials: The father of a family she worked for dies suddenly while he’s actually in the process of beating her with a strap; other girls at the asylum torture her with dead mice; the sweet middle-class town of Avonlea from Montgomery’s books has transformed into a Stepford-esque country club peopled by sinister Englishmen in light-colored leisure suits and their sneering children. All this suffering is gorgeously, sensuously shot, and her sobbing and panicked breathing lingered upon. 

In the book, while Anne does struggle for acceptance thanks to her unconventional background and more unconventional imagination, her winning personality quickly makes her popular with the other children at school. “I think I’m going to like school here,” she tells Marilla. “There are a lot of nice girls in school and we had scrumptious fun playing at dinnertime.” But a prestige drama’s adolescent heroine today stands little chance of such easy acceptance. In the show, ann older boy barks at her like a dog, while the other girls quickly deem her “trash” and give her the cold shoulder. Anne, played with tremulous vivacity by Amybeth McNulty, can’t simply win inclusion through a combination of human goodness and her own sparkling personality, but scrabble for it through gritty acts of heroism. Her pathway to the popular clique ends up going through ― believe it or not ― a burning building.

“Anne” also distinguishes itself from a classic public television adaptation by amping up the focus on hot-button issues (like the above-mentioned bullying). The creators have transformed Anne into a story for today set 100 years ago, rather than a recreation of a story of and for 100 years ago, with mixed success. The script, which blends actual text from the book with original scenes and lines, reflects the difficulties caused by using a century-old tale to examine issues that we’ve begun to talk about relatively recently. While McNulty, Geraldine James and R.H. Thomson (who portray her guardians Marilla and Matthew) handle their roles with subtlety, much of the cast is not so surefooted. Characters waffle between sometimes stilted delivery of period dialogue and breezily tossing off anachronistic phrases, exchanging offhand greetings of “how’s it going?” and assuring each other, “no worries.” (Sure, that’s how Canadian farmpeople addressed each other in 1908.)

Some embellishments succeed with flair: Its mischievous addition of how Anne might have reacted to her first period ― naturally, she’s convinced that she’s dying a quite tragical death ― adds a funny yet meaningful modern layer to the more buttoned-up Montgomery tale. Menstruation, as the other girls tell Anne in hushed tones at school the next day, simply wasn’t to be spoken of openly at that time. “That’s just the way it is,” says Diana ruefully.

Elsewhere, Anne serves as a projection screen for popular anxieties about children today: Bullying, sexual harassment and exploitation, differing treatment between the genders. Always a bit of a proto-feminist, Anne has sprouted into a full-blown crusader, never missing an opportunity to bring up gender equality. When told that girls keep their menstruation hidden, she retorts, “We can make a whole person, where’s the shame in that?” Besides, she adds, “Do boys have to contend with anything like this?” While true, these sentiments seem retrofitted from another era ― our current one, for example.

With these on-the-nose additions, “Anne” risks telling when showing would be more resonant. Montgomery could be didactic, to be sure, but the ongoing power of Green Gables has been that Anne’s story in itself speaks to generations of girls. Her academic aspirations and disregard for convention allow readers today to see, as McNulty put it in a recent interview, an “accidental feminist” in Anne. Other generations could make the case that she was a wild child carefully reared by good Christians into a domestic goddess ― also, to an extent, true. This nuance and real, human texture provides more scope for conversation than squeezing an old story into a narrow modern mold. 

Overemphasizing Anne’s painful childhood, too, seems counterproductive, not because such things don’t happen but because it serves no purpose. Her original story serves as ample basis for the series’ most interesting angle: Teasing out how vital Anne’s performative conversationalism and outsized imagination are to her psychological survival. Instead, this poignant interplay is frequently drowned out by melodrama. 

A very good adaptation of Anne is buried within the Jane Eyre–esque Gothicism of “Anne with an E.” The cinematography is exquisite, the lead actress is bewitching, and the interplay between Anne’s dark and light sides makes for a fascinating update. But the bonus pain and social issues make the series seem almost cartoonishly HBO-ified, what would result if showrunners fed Anne page by page into a prestige-drama machine that screwed on gratuitous violence and social issues haphazardly.

After all she’s been through, Anne deserves more than that.

“Anne with an E” is now available on Netflix.

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

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You’re probably already aware that Cate Blanchett can do anything.

“Anything” now includes playing 13 characters in one movie. 

HuffPost has an exclusive clip from “Manifesto,” a collection of vignettes that channel 20th-century art movements like Dadaism, Surrealism, Pop Art and Dogme 95. Each incorporates famous artistic and political texts, brought to life by Blanchett, who portrays a schoolteacher, a puppeteer, a garbage-incineration employee, a conservative mother, a funeral orator, an avant-garde choreographer, a punk rocker, a stockbroker, a CEO, a homeless man, a scientist, a news anchor and a field reporter. 

The above clip features Blanchett in the news-anchor role, reciting a treatise by the late American artist Elaine Sturtevant. 

“Manifesto,” directed by Julian Rosefeldt, started as an installation at Manhattan’s famous Park Avenue Armory. The movie version is now open in select theaters.

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The Kardashians aren’t exactly known for their political activism, but we’re living in crazy times. 

Kim, Kourtney and Khloe were spotted holding hands as they walked into a Planned Parenthood clinic in West Los Angeles on Thursday.

Sources told TMZ that the reality stars met with the organization’s leaders and discussed the health care services offered by the nonprofit and how President Trump’s administration is affecting them. 

According to TMZ’s sources, the goal of the Kardashians’ visit, which was taped for their E! series “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” was to find out how the family can raise awareness for Planned Parenthood and how they can contribute in the future. 

No word as to why the Kardashians decided to pick this moment to get involved, but it may have something to do with the fact that earlier this month, the House of Representatives voted to defund Planned Parenthood as part of the GOP’s American Health Care Act. The bill, which still has to go through the Senate before its passed, would prevent Medicaid from reimbursing Planned Parenthood for preventive health services such as birth control, Pap smears and sexually transmitted infection screenings. 

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Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan clearly have a funny little girl on their hands. 

During an interview with HuffPost on Build Series Friday, Dewan told a funny story about the first time the couple’s almost 4-year-old daughter, Everly, watched “Step Up.” It was accidental, and it didn’t go over too well. 

As the “World of Dance” host and mentor explains it, the family was vacationing in Mexico when they turned on the TV and “Step Up” came on. 

“It was so funny, we were like, ‘Everly, Everly, look! It’s mommy and daddy!’ At first she didn’t think it was us,” Dewan said. “She’s like, ‘That’s not you guys.’ And I’m like, ‘No, it’s us, Evie, it’s me!’ And then she goes, ‘Can we watch something good?’ Just like that, and we were humbled. One day she’ll maybe appreciate it on a different level, but yeah, she’s not so into it.”

To be honest, both Channing and Jenna are a little iffy about watching their on-screen performances in the 2006 film, which launched their careers and their relationship. 

“We both cringe because ... we’re just so baby new ― our acting, we’re like, ‘What are we doing there?!’ Dewan joked. “It’s so sweet. We were talking about it the other day, like, ‘Do we remember that routine at the end?’ I think when it was the 10-year anniversary we did the lift outside in our yard just to prove that we could still do it!” (They can still do it — watch the video above.) 

As for that other dance movie her dad’s in, Everly will “have a lot of questions” when she finally gets to see it, Dewan says. 

“We got to show [’Magic Mike’] to her before one of her friends at school is like, ‘I saw this movie your dad’s in...’ She’s been at rehearsals so there’s a part of her that probably gets it.”

For more with Jenna Dewan Tatum, watch the full Build Series interview below. 

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In this crazy-daisy, loop-de-loop, upside-down world in which there’s been a sharp rise in Gwen Stefani impressions, we’d guess, if such a thing could be known, there are still people out there in entertainment media who don’t care whether their work is relevant to the day’s news cycle starring President Donald Trump. 

“Master of None” co-creator Aziz Ansari is one such human being. At the Netflix show’s Season 2 premiere Thursday night, Ansari explained how nothing about the new season changed after the 2016 presidential election ― even though it was written a while before the results came in. The comedian, who stars as Dev on the show, and co-creator Alan Yang discussed the possibility but ultimately decided to leave it be, Variety reported. 

“I personally didn’t ever want to do it. I liked what we wrote and I didn’t want to have him be a part of it,” Ansari said, referring to Trump.

A good fit might’ve been the third episode of the season, titled “Religion,” which addresses Dev’s identity as a Muslim and Indian-American who likes eating pork a lot, among related identity issues. But as Yang noted, “We felt like we didn’t want it to warp the episode, and we liked how it existed so we didn’t specifically address him.”

The first season structured each installment around a theme reflected in the title; other Season 2 episodes include “The Thief,” “First Date,” “New York, I Love You” and “Thanksgiving.” No Trump in those, either.

Ansari is, for the record, publicly and extremely anti-Trump in his political views, having written a heartfelt opinion piece about Trump’s comments on Muslims during the campaign last summer, and having delivered a scorching monologue on “Saturday Night Live” immediately after January’s inauguration ceremony. (“Pretty cool to know he’s probably at home right now watching a brown guy make fun of him, right?”) We can assume the same of Yang, and the show’s writing staff.

But for anyone in need of a news break, “Master of None” is already on Netflix. Catch the trailer below.

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Just when you thought you had your fill of innuendo-heavy, food-related pop songs, Katy Perry’s “Bon Appetit” arrived on the scene to make you feel confused, hungry (in a confused way) and wondering how much she actually knows about the Michelin star system.

On Friday, Perry released a very literal visual interpretation of her single. In her new music video, the pop star is first lifted out of plastic wrap by a team of chefs. They then proceed to rub flour on her very elastic limbs, cover her in carrots and onions, boil her, and do some other stuff. Migos arrives, Perry is laid out on a platter for some very fancy cannibals to consume, and then a pole emerges from the center of the dinner table.

At the end of it all, Perry is left alone, knife and fork in hand, in front of a pie made of human body parts.

We feel ... things, but we don’t have the words for them just yet.

Watch the video above. 

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Move over, MTV. The BAFTAs red carpet is here and looking more exciting than ever.  

Celebrities attended the Virgin TV British Academy Television Awards in London on Sunday. While BBC’s programming beating out Netflix’s “The Crown” in multiple categories made headlines, the red carpet caught our attention. 

There were umbrellas (so British!), splendidly spiked hair, the fullest of full skirts and Joan Collins in some serious sleeves.

Check out our picks for wildest looks of the night below.  

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We’re guessing he didn’t take requests.

Russian President Vladimir Putin showed off his piano skills in Beijing Sunday, playing a few tunes while waiting for Chinese President Xi Jinping at a state guesthouse, The New York Times reported.

Putin tickled the ivories with a pair of 1950s, Soviet-era tunes, Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi’s “Evening Song” and Tikhon Khrennikov’s “Moscow Windows,” the Times noted.

He’s played the piano before in public ― and his performance shouldn’t be too surprising. The Russian leader isn’t shy about displaying himself as a macho renaissance man, also participating in judo, ice hockey and horseback riding ― the latter sometimes shirtless.

Putin was in Beijing to discuss a $1 billion economic plan called “One Belt, One Road” that is intended to benefit dozens of countries, according to news outlets.

Twitter was amused by the president’s performance.

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Deshauna Barber made a touching statement as she took one final walk as Miss USA in Las Vegas on Sunday night ― and she did it without saying a word.   

The Army reserve officer looked stunning in a form-fitting yellow gown, but all eyes were on her hair, which she wore in its natural state. In a pre-recorded segment, Barber revealed that she wore her hair in honor of her mother, who recently died, AZ Central reported.  

It didn’t take long for Twitter to send words of praise and support Barber’s way. 

As if the moment weren’t inspiring enough, Barber passed the crown to Kara McCullough ― also from District of Columbia, also a black woman, also wearing her natural hair. 

McCullough told Refinery29 she made the choice to reflect the traditional pageant’s changing and modernizing ideals. “I decided to embrace what made me feel comfortable, embrace what makes me feel the best and brightest onstage,” she said. “But also embrace what other people can relate to, so that typical, traditional sleek hair, big tease, not to say it’s gone out the window, but it’s transitioning a lot.”

The powerful visual of these two women sharing the special moment onstage garnered even more celebration on social media.   

Tonight made history, indeed. 

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When it comes to spinoff shows, “Game of Thrones” doesn’t want to be spokes on a wheel. It wants to break the wheel!  

Series author George R.R. Martin cleared up news about the development of HBO’s four “Game of Thrones” spinoffs on his Not A Blog Sunday, revealing that a fifth show is now in the works with a secret writer. Surprise!

We had four scripts in development when I arrived in LA last week, but by the time I left we had five. We have added a fifth writer to the original four. No, I will not reveal the name here. HBO announced the names of the first four, and will no doubt announce the fifth as well, once his deal has closed. He’s a really terrific addition, however, a great guy and a fine writer, and aside from me and maybe Elio and Linda, I don’t know anyone who knows and loves Westeros as well as he does.

If there are five spinoffs on the way, HBO might be in need of some of that Lannister gold to pay for them. But Martin himself thinks it’s unlikely that five new shows will be making it on-air.

For now, the author wants us to know that there is an order for five pilot scripts and he is working with all the writers, not just two as previously reported.

Also, the spinoffs aren’t going to be spinoffs like we usually think of them. They’re all going to be prequels from stories we likely haven’t heard before:

So all of you who were hoping for the further adventures of Hot Pie are doomed to disappointment. Every one of the concepts under discussion is a prequel, rather than a sequel. Some may not even be set on Westeros. Rather than ‘spinoff’ or ‘prequel,’ however, I prefer the term ‘successor show.’ That’s what I’ve been calling them.

But there won’t be any Robert’s Rebellion or Dunk and Egg prequels as of now. Sorry, everyone.

And for those who are wondering, Martin reiterated that he’s still working on his next book in the “Song of Ice and Fire” series, The Winds of Winter. But, oh sweet summer child, you probably shouldn’t expect it to come anytime soon.

At least we have the possibility of five new “Game of Thrones” shows on the way.

Open that wine, Tyrion. It’s time to turn up.

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“I knew that Dee Dee was murdered, but that wasn’t the most interesting thing,” director Erin Lee Carr told HuffPost about her latest documentary, “Mommy Dead and Dearest.” “It was about why.”

On the surface, Dee Dee Blanchard and her daughter, Gypsy Blanchard, seemed to be the textbook example of mother-daughter BFFs. Gypsy, who used a wheelchair and received treatment for several conditions, was always at her mother’s side, sporting a huge grin. The two made appearances at Relay for Life events, went on Make-A-Wish trips together, and even received a house through charity upon leaving their home state of Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

Yet, when Dee Dee was found murdered in her Missouri home in June 2015, a different story began to emerge. Gypsy wasn’t sick at all — in fact, she could walk. Authorities discovered her in Wisconsin, on the run with a boyfriend she met online. Later, he would confess to stabbing Dee Dee at Gypsy’s request.

This explosive case spread like wildfire around the internet after Michelle Dean’s comprehensive, chilling BuzzFeed article that detailed the abuse and the grisly end for Gypsy’s mother.

Now, Carr’s film further explores the incident, featuring interviews with family members, medical professionals, law enforcement and Gypsy herself, who is now serving out a 10-year prison sentence. And while there are no tantalizing uncertainties in the way of “Making a Murderer” or “Serial,” the sheer facts of what happened are enough to get you hooked.

“It’s really important that it starts off big and bold and scary and weird, for me,” Carr explained, saying that her previous film, “Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop,” unfurled in a similar way, where social media and the internet are the catalyst for revealing darker truths. 

Gypsy, the film shows, was a victim of Munchausen by proxy, in which a caretaker exaggerates or induces illness in a child for sympathy or attention. 

Dee Dee tightly controlled Gypsy’s interactions with the outside world. From a young age, we find, Gypsy was told she suffered from epilepsy, muscular dystrophy, intellectual disabilities and more. Scenes from Gypsy and Dee Dee’s house show an entire hall closet full of medications. Elsewhere, in a scene where Gypsy’s father and stepmother meet with her attorney, stacks of medical records detailing doctor and hospital visits through the years surround them. Oftentimes, Gypsy wasn’t certain of her actual age.

“Sometimes, my mouth drops,” Gypsy’s stepmother, Kristy Blanchard, told HuffPost. “You know, when I think I’ve heard it all, and then you get hit again with something.” 

Dee Dee and Gypsy’s father, Rod Blanchard, were young when they married. They separated before Gypsy was born. Rod then remarried, and he and Kristy saw Gypsy often as a young girl in their home state of Louisiana. But after the mother and daughter’s move to Missouri, the distance allowed Dee Dee’s control over Gypsy to grow even greater.

“Most of the times, I would call to talk to [Gypsy], she told me, ‘I’ll call back in a little while and have her ready,’” Rod said of Dee Dee. “To me, I’m thinking, OK, she’s gonna get her by the wheelchair, wake her up, or do whatever. But looking back now, she was telling her what to say or kind of coaching her along. ‘Don’t talk about this, talk about this.’ So there was never a time that I felt like she wasn’t being coached.”

In the documentary, we see a different Gypsy from the version shown in news stories about the case. There’s no wheelchair, no feeding tube. Her hair has grown out more. She’s able to speak for herself.

“Gypsy kind of changed almost every time I saw her or talked to her,” said Carr. “She was in the process of growing up, she’s in the process of configuring sort of who she was.”

Carr still stays in touch with Gypsy. “I hope that I’m one of many women that will just be like, ‘Hey, you have a voice. You deserve to be listened to,’” she said of their relationship.

“Mommy Dead and Dearest” succeeds in navigating the complications that come with true crime, highlighting what Carr called the “WTF factor” of the murder without feeling exploitative or sensational. By the film’s end, it’s impossible not to feel for Gypsy’s plight, even if she isn’t the one who ended up dead.

“From a New Yorker’s perspective, it felt totally unconscionable that this wasn’t seen quicker,” said Carr. “But as we dove into investigating this story, it was like, [Rod] lived in a different state, Dee Dee literally kept Gypsy from him. She monitored everything that they said to each other. Rod would send her Christmas gifts and Dee Dee would say that she had bought them. There was no shot that he was going to be able to see what was happening here.”

While watching, your heart goes out to Rod and Kristy, who reunite with Gypsy in the courtroom in an emotional scene near the end of the film. The couple represent a kind of silver lining in this sad story — without Dee Dee’s overwhelming presence, Rod and Kristy can finally establish a real relationship with his daughter. Kristy said they now speak all the time on the phone, and showed HuffPost a photo of the three during a recent visit to Gypsy around Easter.

“I was so nervous about it at the time,” Rod said of their initial meeting shown in the film. “Now, when I watch it, now I get more emotional watching it ... It was scary, I mean, for a long time I didn’t know if she hated me or what Dee Dee told her about me, so this was the first time I got really face-to-face with her and rejoin with her.”

Carr said she sympathizes with Rod. “He lost years of a life with his child, he almost lost his kid, and what’s gonna happen to Gypsy while she’s in prison? That is a difficult road ahead of her. But they are there for her, and that is a very rare thing.”

”Mommy Dead and Dearest” airs May 15 at 10 p.m. on HBO.

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Scrabble is a word game, perfect for those with silver tongues and vast vocabularies. It’s also a game the characters in “The Handmaid’s Tale” do not play properly.

The new Hulu TV show, adapted from Margaret Atwood’s novel of the same name, frequently features two of its main characters partaking in games of Scrabble. Offred, played by Elisabeth Moss, faces off in tense, albeit brief, word games with the Commander, played by Joseph Fiennes.

These scenes are meant to be serious. The commander regularly invites Offred, disallowed from fraternizing with men otherwise, to secretly spar with him in his study at night. The meetings could be described as intimate, illicit and revealing.

But fans and viewers of the series have been harping on a different aspect of the Scrabble scenes: Offred and the Commander don’t play by the rules.

They also seem to have inordinately high scores ...

Some have said they’re just making up their own methods as they go ...

Others can’t believe these two players are getting such great letters every round ...

The lesson here is simple: Hulu, if you’re going to film people playing Scrabble, expect to get served.

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Brad Grey, a former talent manager and producer of some of your favorite movies, died following a battle with cancer Sunday night in his home in Holmby Hills, California, according to Deadline. He was 59.

Grey spent 12 years as chairman/CEO of Paramount Pictures before reportedly being forced out this year due to “five years of dismal results at the film studio.” His death comes only months after leaving the company and is a surprise to many.

The CEO’s successes at Paramount included strong showings from the “Transformers,” “Mission: Impossible” and “Paranormal Activity” franchises, as well as Oscar winners “The Big Short” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.” However, some undeniable flops led to big losses, such as “Ben-Hur,” “Zoolander 2” and the bad idea on wheels, “Monster Trucks.”

Grey previously founded Brillstein-Grey Entertainment with Bernie Brillstein, where he became executive producer of shows like “The Sopranos” and “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

He also co-founded Plan B Entertainment with Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. Grey reportedly left Plan B before production began on “The Departed,” which would take home the Oscar for Best Picture in 2007. The company was also behind “Troy” while he was still there.

Plan B teamed up with Paramount for a while, reportedly having a first look deal until 2013. The company then went to New Regency and recently to Annapurna.

According to Deadline, Grey is survived by a number of family members, including his wife, Cassandra Grey, their son, Jules, three grown children from a previous marriage, his mother, Barbara Schumsky, his brother, Michael Grey, and his sister, Robin Grey.

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The New York Public Library has joined the growing ranks of public library systems contemplating the end of overdue fines for children, according to a WNYC report. 

A fifth of NYPL accounts held by children have been blocked due to unpaid fines, but the library president, Tony Marx, would like to motivate kids to be good library users without charging them for failures. 

“We’ve heard stories of parents saying to their kids, ‘We don’t want you to borrow books because you might be late with them and then you’ll have fines to worry about,’” he told WNYC. In fact, overdue fines can end up keeping thousands of kids from accessing library resources, just because they’re unable to pay what they owe.

Library fines may be small ― NYPL charges children just 10 cents a day for an overdue book ― but many of us live in disproportionate terror of them, a terror forged in our tender, formative years.

“When you’re younger, one of the first or the only external pressures that’s put on you, that’s punitive, could easily be from a library setting,” American Library Association President Julie Todaro explained to HuffPost. Outside of library fines, “Young people really do not have the credit fears that adults do.”

Those childhood fears retain significant space in our consciousnesses, even years after, effectively demonstrated by the highly on-point “Seinfeld” episode, “The Library,” in which Jerry is tracked down by a library detective still searching for a book he failed to return decades before. 

Despite this effect, libraries did not institute fines in order to shame, punish or make money off of patrons, Todaro emphasized. Rather, a fine is “supposed to maximize use of the material” by providing a small but sharp reminder to return what we’ve borrowed.

“People want those books,” she told HuffPost, “and there’s not enough.” What’s more, she explained, replacing a lost or stolen book eats up more library resources than delinquent borrowers may realize ― not just in the price of the new book, but in costly human labor to acquire and process it. Fines provide a classic economic motivation for cardholders to avoid those negative externalities.

In times when government funding for libraries dwindles, some argue that libraries can succumb to the temptation to depend on fines, along with fees for library services, to supplement their operating costs. At most libraries, the proceeds are reinvested in the library in some form, though sometimes the money is allocated to the city’s general fund. Fines and fees are dwarfed by a public library’s overall budget, however ― according to Library Journal, fines often make up less than one percent of funding, and enforcing fines itself requires funding.

Aside from the impracticality of funding a library based on fines, Todaro argued that depending on these nominal fees undermines a library’s essential mission. “We don’t want to run a for-profit business, or even a break-even business that’s based on income,” she said. “It’s something that would not return a great deal of money for us and would create an adversarial role.” Once a public library is funded by use rather than by taxpayer funds, she added, the question arises: “What’s different from a bookstore?”

The NYPL would be far from the first library system to dump fines for children. New York’s Rochester Public Library made the move earlier this year, as did Pikes Peak Library District in Colorado. Others, like Oak Park Public Library in Illinois and Worthington Libraries in Ohio, already have or plan to eliminate fines for all residents. The key to this experiment, as Todaro explained, is finding ways to maximize access and positive relationships between libraries and patrons.

“Technology was a huge boon for us,” she said. Not only can libraries send out automatic return reminders, a significant percentage of books checked out today (about 20 percent, according to Todaro) are eBooks. When an eBook’s due date arrives, a library need not depend on the patron to bring it back; instead, it can simply disappear the eBook from a patron’s device. 

As alternatives to fines, she suggested allowing patrons to pay via food donations, working off their debt in the library, or simply excluding certain vulnerable populations from fines. Suspending accounts until books are returned, rather than involving fines, was one measure Marx floated as an option for NYPL’s young readers, though Todaro notes that “[libraries] do it grudgingly, because we don’t want to limit access.”

Or, libraries can just drop fines altogether and depend on residents to bring back books in a timely fashion without punitive measures. In February, Slate’s Ruth Graham looked at the aftermath of a Colorado library district’s elimination of overdue fines in 2015 and found that the financial loss was manageable and the boost to morale ― for both patrons and librarians ― was striking. Perhaps most notable: “95 percent of materials are returned within a week of their due date.”

Such a simple move might seem too good to be true, but perhaps sometimes the simplest solution really is also the best for all concerned.

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What constitutes an act of self-care? The internet is full of suggestions on how to prioritize oneself, ranging from meditation to hot tea, prayer to yoga, face masks to nap time. Although such rituals are often enticing, they are not always feasible ― not when there is dirty laundry all over the floor or a pile of dishes in the sink. 

London-based occupational therapist and illustrator Hannah Daisy had this very tension in mind when she was creating illustrations that celebrate the more banal accomplishments that can go uncelebrated, from going grocery shopping to simply getting out of bed. 

The illustrations resemble DIY badges honoring achievements that require dedication, energy and resilience, even if they aren’t traditionally valued as such. One commemorates cooking and eating a nourishing meal, another changing the sheets or going outside. Such undertakings can seem simple, but for those dealing with illness, disability, depression, anxiety or fatigue, they can be revolutionary.

The conception of self-care as a radical act has roots in the civil rights movement, when women of color created spaces and ceremonies to put their health and bodies first. Self-care was, as Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, an assistant professor at the New School, explained to Slate, “a claiming [of] autonomy over the body as a political act against institutional, technocratic, very racist, and sexist medicine.”

In 2017, as a patriarchal government threatens the well-being and survival of marginalized American citizens, self-care is a crucial way for individuals to emphasize their mental and physical health. Yet some of the rhetoric surrounding self-care can over-emphasize rituals like shopping or beauty routines and can subsequently alienate those people who can’t afford to spend the money or time required to partake in them.

As an occupational therapist, Daisy helps people grappling with illness, disability or neurodiversity to accomplish daily tasks, sometimes helping them to readjust to former habits after a physical or mental transformation, other times helping them find completely new approaches and tactics. As she explained in an email to HuffPost: “Really, when we become ill, the biggest problem is ― how the hell am I going to do X task?” Daisy helps her clients figure that out.

In the realm of occupational therapy, self-care refers to a wide range of “occupations,” or “things you have to do every day” ― a somewhat different understanding than most contemporary self-help guides prescribe.

“I started noticing that online, self-care was talked about in a very different way,” Daisy explained to HuffPost, “often only about nice or lovely things you can do for yourself, like a bubble bath, a massage, buying nice crystals, etc. ... I started to feel that conversations online about self-care often alienated people [who thought], ‘I can’t go and do this nice thing for myself because I have this huge pile of washing up and my house is a tip.’”

Daisy began to illustrate some of the lesser-acknowledged actions that help bring people clarity and peace of mind. She uploaded the drawings on Instagram along with the hashtag #boringselfcare. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with many grateful to see responsibilities that can feel burdensome if not impossible framed as triumphs, instead of givens. 

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a time to educate oneself about the importance of mental health and the various illnesses and disorders that should not be stigmatized or silenced, but explored. Daisy’s illustrations, revolutionary in their everydayness, offer a perfect place to start. 

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This post contains “Get Out” spoilers.

The white family’s comeuppance at the end of “Get Out” is part of what made the movie a cultural phenomenon. It was the horrific-race-satire version of “We’re All in This Together.” But writer/director Jordan Peele scripted at least three much darker endings.

On Sunday’s episode of “Talking with Chris Hadwick,” Peele revealed he considered having Chris’ TSA pal, Rod, try to save the day by breaking into the gated community where Chris’ girlfriend, Rose, lives. Alas, Rod was too late: Chris was already in the Sunken Place. “He’s looking for Chris and he sees Chris looking in a window on Main Street, and he goes ‘Chris!’ and Chris turns to him and goes, ‘I assure you, I don’t know who you’re talking about,’” Peele said, according to Yahoo. 

That creepier alternative is the second nixed ending that Peele has divulged. He first talked about one in March, about a week after “Get Out” opened. In that version, cops arrest Chris for slaughtering his girlfriend and her family.  

Additionally, Peele said on “Talking with Chris Hardwick” that there’s another ending he hasn’t yet disclosed. Unlike the others, which were mere ideas, this version was filmed and will appear on the DVD/Blu-ray’s special features. That’s presumably the one that tested poorly among early audiences, prompting Peele to exchange it for a more hopeful culmination ― something producer Jason Blum encouraged, according to a recent New York Times profile.

Ultimately, Peele and Blum decided the movie needed a heroic sendoff, so Rod saves Chris and lets Rose die. “ ‘Buddy, buddy — you gotta do the happy ending! Give the people what they want!’” Peele said, imitating Blum. “That’s what Jason does. He lets you do your thing, lets you be an artist, then gently reminds you: ‘Buddy, it’s entertainment. We’re in the entertainment business.’ ”

“Get Out” is available on DVD May 23.

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If you’ve ever wondered what Disney princesses might be like IRL, you need to follow this Instagram account.

In her comics, 15-year-old illustrator Imane takes classic Disney movies and makes them a little more realistic and relatable. 

Aurora from “Sleeping Beauty,” for instance, takes naps that last way too long because she has no self-control. (Sounds like us on the weekend.)

And all the royal single ladies skip Valentine’s Day in favor of girls’ night at the bar:

Imane, who lives in the Netherlands, told HuffPost that she looks for funny plot devices in Disney movies and then tries to put her own spin on them. 

Her favorite comic so far? Her comic alter ego as Mulan, inappropriately bursting into song in the middle of a work meeting.

”That song ― ‘I’ll Make A Man Out Of You’ ― is always in my head and it’s something that would totally happen to me,” she said.

See Imane’s other Disney-inspired comics below and head to her Instagram for even more:

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Having a preemie in the hospital can be an emotional rollercoaster for parents. That’s why Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City decided to bring a little joy to the NICU.

In honor of Mother’s Day, the hospital teamed up with March of Dimes to give moms of preemies professional photos with their babies. 

For the photo shoots, the mothers engaged in skin-to-skin bonding with their babies ― a practice that has many benefits for both parties. The photographers were also moms, some of whom previously had preemies in the NICU.

“Finding ways to spend quality time is sometimes hard to do in the NICU, where babies who are premature or critically ill are often fragile and under constant care,” notes a press release for the initiative. “Skin-to-skin care, also called kangaroo care, or holding a diapered baby against a bare chest, is recommended by the March of Dimes and health experts worldwide.”

Keep scrolling to see some sweet Mother’s Day photos of strong NICU mamas and their little fighters. 

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The sister of Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old woman who was found dead in her Texas jail cell in July 2015, is furious over the “gut-wrenching” ways she says a criminal justice reform bill created in Bland’s honor has been drastically weakened by law enforcement groups and Republicans. 

The latest version of the legislation, which unanimously passed the Texas Senate last week, has been stripped of provisions that would require a higher burden of proof for stopping and searching vehicles, as well as those that would ban arrests over offenses that are punishable by a fine. An earlier version of the bill also required officers who have racially profiled drivers to undergo training and included language to make personal bonds more easily attainable for nonviolent arrestees.

Instead the bill, which Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire (D) essentially described to The Associated Press as “a mental health and awareness piece of legislation,” has been slimmed down to focus on providing mental health and de-escalation training for jailers. It will also provide mental health care access to and increased supervision of inmates. 

“What the bill does in its current state renders Sandy invisible,” Sharon Cooper, Bland’s sister, told the AP. “It’s frustrating and gut-wrenching.”

Bland’s family was hopeful that the bill would bring comprehensive and sweeping changes to policing in Texas, but loved ones are now outraged over the ways the bill has been altered. They say it will now do little to prevent similar instances with the police like that which Bland experienced. 

“It’s a complete oversight of the root causes of why she was jailed in the first place,” Cooper told The Texas Tribune, calling the bill a “missed opportunity.”

Police said Bland, who is black, was found hanged in a Waller County jail cell three days after being arrested by trooper Brian Encinia, who is white, after she failed to signal a lane change. Bland’s family does not believe her death was the result of suicide. This, along with video of her arrest ― which shows Bland being forcibly removed from her car ― and the ongoing deaths of black men and women in police custody, has further amplified the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Since Bland’s death, family members and activists have relentlessly fought to help bring justice in her name. However, despite their best efforts, activists who have supported this bill, like organizer Fatima Mann, don’t even believe the revised legislation is worthy of having Bland’s name attached to it. “It should be a bill that actually takes away the issue that caused her death,” Mann told the AP. “Not this.”

Critics like Charley Wilkison, the executive director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, believed the original bill was a “straight-out attack on all law enforcement over a tragic suicide in a county jail,” according to the AP, and felt that crafting it to focus on mental health was a more appropriate measure. 

In April, Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, traveled to Texas to testify before state lawmakers and push for changes in policing that were outlined in the Sandra Bland Act at the time, the Houston Chronicle reported.  

“I need this bill to move forward so that it will prove to people who say that Texas is the most awful state to live in,” she told lawmakers. “And to me that’s true, because Texas is a place of pain for me.” 

The revised bill will now head to the House, where it has until May 29, when the legislature adjourns, to be signed into law. 

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