Matt Damon, a Hollywood film star and mogul known for his sensitivity in matters of diverse representation, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that his role in the upcoming film “The Great Wall” became the subject of critical stories because “people click on it.”

Damon responded to backlash against the film’s alleged white-savior narrative and casting, in which he plays a heroic figure in a predominantly Chinese tale, by emphasizing that his character is not an instance of whitewashing.

“That whole idea of whitewashing, I take that very seriously,” he said. He commented that his character in “The Great Wall” had been written as white from the beginning of the process, and so he believed the controversy was misdirected. “I didn’t take a role away from a Chinese actor,” he told the AP. “It wasn’t altered because of me in any way.” 

According to the AP, he attributed the outrage to news outlets using the whitewashing accusation as clickbait:

Damon questioned whether the critical stories on online news sites based on “a 30-second teaser trailer” would have existed before the era of fake news and headlines designed to make people click on them.

“It suddenly becomes a story because people click on it, versus the traditional ways that a story would get vetted before it would get to that point,” said the star of the “Bourne” franchise.

Directed by acclaimed director Zhang Yimou and co-produced by Hollywood and Chinese companies, the English-language film features Damon as a mercenary fighter in a tale about ancient monsters doing battle with the Chinese army. He stars alongside Andy Lau, Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal and Willem Dafoe. The concept was conceived and written by Hollywood talent; the story credits go to Marshall Herskovitz, Edward Zwick and World War Z author Max Brooks, though Zhang told the AP that nonetheless he “felt there was room for me to play and put many elements of Chinese culture into it.”

The film is slated for stateside release in February 2017, but audiences have gotten glimpses of what’s to come through trailers, the first of which was released in July. Actress Constance Wu, best known for her breakout role in “Fresh Off the Boat,” and other critics have since assailed “The Great Wall” based on the narrative presented in the trailers, which features Damon as a swashbuckling archer whose skills are so staggering the Chinese military accepts his help in their age-old battle against the monsters, even though they’d initially thought he was a thief.

“Our heroes don’t look like Matt Damon,” tweeted Wu after the first trailer came out. “We have to stop perpetuating the racist myth that [only a] white man can save the world.” 

While Damon and, to some extent, Zhang have pushed back on the grounds that Damon’s character was always intended to be white, Wu and others argue that this misses the point. Many headlines on the dust-up relied on the term “whitewashing,” despite the fact that many critics intentionally specified their concern with “The Great Wall” being a white-savior narrative, not whitewashed. 

Writer Shaun Lau, who hosts the podcast “No, Totally!”, went into more detail:

In August, shortly after the initial firestorm began, Zhang defended the film in a statement to EW that also noted, “There are five major heroes in our story and he is one of them — the other four are all Chinese. The collective struggle and sacrifice of these heroes are the emotional heart of our film.” Though Damon’s heroics certainly take center stage in trailers geared to the American public, it’s possible that the film itself will be an ensemble show with no single hero. 

Still, inserting a white heroic figure into a story set in 11th-century China, surrounding a battle against ancient Chinese monsters, is a tortured contrivance to add an element of white salvation to a film that could have been a thrilling (if slightly bonkers) supernatural adventure movie starring an entirely Chinese cast. 

Damon’s deflection to the issue of fake news might raise an eyebrow, but the way the whole controversy has played out thus far should also be instructive for the media: specificity matters. Activists of color have elevated the issue of whitewashing and made it easy to reference, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only problem when it comes to representation of their groups onscreen. Shoehorning in a white savior, as when a leak this fall led many to fear that the live-action “Mulan” would feature a white love interest and hero, brings with it its own set of troublesome implications and consequences.

To recap: Did Matt Damon take a job from a Chinese actor? No, and he wants us to be very clear on that. Does that make “The Great Wall” unimpeachable in every way related to Asian representation? Not necessarily.

Should Damon take a long break from commenting on race in Hollywood? Almost definitely.

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“Gilmore Girls” recently made a welcome return, with Netflix releasing new episodes that you’ve likely already watched or at least heard about given the endless media coverage. Perhaps you’re even one of the many people who’ve expressed a desire to move to Stars Hollow.

For certain obsessives, the most exciting thing to happen in the reboot wasn’t Rory writing for the New Yorker or sleeping with a Wookie, it was that the greatest living space-themed cover band of our generation reunited. Yes, thankfully, Hep Alien made a triumphant return in the reboot.

But even if you’d happily become a Hep Alien groupie and follow Lane, Zack, Brian and Gil across the country if they’d ever agree to tour, there’s an unfortunate reason that dream could never be fully realized.

Hep Alien shares tragic similarities with the famous fakers Milli Vanilli ...

Despite being a real-life rock star, the former lead singer of Skid Row who plays Gil ― Sebastian Bach ― has been faking his guitar parts for Hep Alien.

”Well, I’m an excellent air guitarist,” Bach said with a laugh while talking to The Huffington Post about his new book, 18 and Life on Skid Row. “I can win any air guitar with my moves and my style, but no I’m not a guitar player. I play one on TV.”

Last year, HuffPost spoke to other members of Hep Alien ― Keiko Agena (Lane), Todd Lowe (Zack) and John Cabrera (Brian) ― who originally mentioned the fakery.

And at the time of the original series, Cabrera’s bass parts were also a fraud. Only Agena and Lowe could play their instruments, while musicians off screen played the parts for Cabrera and Bach. 

As Lowe said of Bach at the time, “For all of his rock ‘n’ roll charisma, [he] barely knows how to hold a guitar. When he’d be faking it and tapping on the fretboard — it was just so funny to watch him do that.”

“I can do a couple chords here and there, but on the show, I would do it kind of air guitar style and make it look real,” explained Bach. 

All members of Hep Alien did still sing their respective parts though, so your obsessive fandom for this great American rock band wasn’t entirely based on trickery.

Cabrera did eventually learn how to play bass and he does now occasionally play with Agena and Lowe in unofficial reunions. The group of three played the ATX Television Festival in 2015.

Now, you should go back and rewatch the Hep Alien parts to see if you can spot that air guitar.

Does it change your love for the band? Can you ever become emotionally invested in another cover band on television again?

And if you want to read more about Bach’s new book, here is our article about his time as a rock star outside of Stars Hollow. 

“Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life” is now on Netflix. 

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Stick teenagers into any off-kilter cultural niche and you have a coming-of-age story ripe with self-discovery. Enter “Slash,” the charming new movie about a 15-year-old introvert (Michael Johnston) with a penchant for homoerotic fan fiction. Teased at school, he finds a kindred spirit in a slightly older classmate (Hannah Marks) who encourages him to delve into his racy desires. 

The Huffington Post has an exclusive clip in which the pair first meet and our protagonist starts to come out of his shell. Watch below, and catch Clay Liford’s movie on iTunes now or in select theaters Friday.

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The pop culture landscape is littered with lazy images of black women ― the nurturer, the hussy, the angry bitch. Hovering around the all-encompassing myth of the “strong black woman,” those paper-thin characterizations fail to represent real women in all their complexity and vulnerability.

Despite the monolithic representations that appear so often in TV series, advertisements, films and the imaginations of those who digest them, artists have long worked to provide images that speak to the depth and sweet fallibility of all human beings ― black women included. 

An exhibition at the Alexandria Museum of Art, titled “Beyond Mammy, Jezebel, & Sapphire: Reclaiming Images of Black Women,” deconstructs the limiting categorizations mainstream culture allows black women. The artists on view reveal the shoddy nature of the stereotypes in favor of challenging, poetic and thorough visualizations of black culture ― the myth, the archetype, the self-portrait and beyond. 

Characterizations commonly ascribed to black women in America are both historical and insidious. The Mammy ― a big-bosomed, jolly mother figure ― was written fictitiously into history to make slavery appear more humane. Her illusory existence suggested that there could, in fact, be such a thing as a happy slave. Today, the Mammy is often framed as a sexless, selfless nurturer.

Then there’s the Jezebel ― an overly sexualized, promiscuous black woman ― with a similarly atrocious origin story: her image was used to justify the sexual violence systematically inflicted upon black women in the antebellum South. Its influence persists to this day, making it more difficult for rape allegations by black women to be taken seriously. 

And finally, the show addresses the image of Sapphire, named for the one-dimensional character on the radio and TV show “Amos ‘n’ Andy” ― an angry black woman. This cultural generalization, too, is a corollary of slavery and oppression. It calls back to a time when history overlooked the atrocities committed against black families and suggests instead that black women are inherently hostile, a foil to the delicate femininity of white women. 

Though their roots trace back centuries, all of these generalizations still exist today ― from the image of Aunt Jemima on syrup bottles to the sexualized backup dancers in hip-hop videos. Such caricatured representations leave no space for complexity or deviation for black women and girls. And, being so often further simplified, lumped into images of the “strong black woman,” they leave especially little room for weakness, vulnerability, and the most human of all experiences, failure.

The artists on view at the Alexandria Museum of Art depict black women in pen, paper and paint. Women who are soft and glamorous. Women who are shy, poised, silly, broken and struggling. Women flattened into sharp-edged shapes, collaged from butterfly wings, carved coarsely into a woodcut print, decked out in glitter. Women as warriors and ingenues and free spirits ― women who occupy multitudes, not single definitions. 

One work on view is Lorna Simpson’s 1991 “C-Rations,” which combines text and black-and-white imagery to expose the gross prejudice dolled up in a visual language usually associated with elegance and luxury. On one side, a white plate floats against a black backdrop, the words “not good enough” filling up the empty space.

The surreal depiction of the domestic object hovers between an advertisement and a warning. On the right, the cropped image of a black woman’s neck appears alongside the words “but good enough to serve.” Simpson focuses on women’s necks throughout her series “Necklines,” body parts that immediately recall beauty and sensuality, yet echo a brutal history of racism and violence by stopping short of the face. 

And then there’s the work of Allison Saar ― daughter of iconic assemblage artist Betye Saar. Her blunt yet cryptic woodcuts blend the self-portrait and the mythical archetype. Sprinkling Afro-Caribbean and Christian symbols into minimalist carvings of black women in domestic spaces, Saar connects the personal and the universal, alluding to the cosmic potential embedded within the home and the woman. 

In “Cotton Eater,” a 2014 woodcut on a found sugar sack quilt, Saar renders a black woman in a cotton field, her nude figure barely concealed by her gauzy, sheer dress. The work hints at the lack of black female bodies represented in art history, offering a depiction that is at once strong and soft. Immersed in a dreamlike cotton field wrought with a painful history, the subject’s eye sockets remain empty ― suggesting, perhaps, the objectification of women who are seen without seeing themselves. Or even evoking a greater understanding of seeing ― one that is clairvoyant, transcendent.

This necessary exhibition is one of many recent shows attempting to overwrite the stale stereotypes that restrict black women in media and culture. In the U.K., an exhibition called “Unmasked Women” investigated the relationship between black women and mental health, specifically how the hackneyed idea of the “strong black woman” prevents women from seeking help for physical and mental maladies.

One artist featured in the exhibition, Heather Agyepong, described her hope that art could help black women exist, lifted of stigmas and ignorant expectations. “We need to dig ourselves out of these boxes as black women,” she told The Huffington Post earlier this year, “because, as someone who has come out from the other side of mental health issues, I feel that I owe it to them to speak up for the women who are still suffering in silence. I just want to leave the viewer empowered in whatever way I can; to feel release, ease, a sigh of relief.”

Kerry James Marshall’s stellar retrospective, now on view at The Met, also works to repair art history’s longstanding racial bias, filling the storied museum’s halls with depictions of black women ― naked, powerful and in love ― as well as black women artists.

Artist Simone Leigh’s “The Waiting Room,” on view this summer at The New Museum, offered black women remedies for the oppression they are forced to endure on a daily basis, imagining a reworked healthcare system modeled off black women’s historic means of survival.

These are just some of the recent museum shows working to undo years of discriminatory practices in the art world and far beyond, illuminating the pressing necessity of our culture to do better. 

The Alexandria Museum of Art gathered the most gifted artists of our time to challenge and celebrate the image of the black woman. Its exhibition is comprised entirely of work from the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation ― including images by Kara Walker, Wangechi Mutu, Romare Bearden, Lorna Simpson, Alison Saar, Ellen Gallagher, Robert H. Colescott and Mickalene Thomas.

Ultimately, the show underscores the fallacious nature of stereotyped images ― and the thunderous power of myth, archetype, detail, metaphor, self-portrait, collage, and, most importantly, black women artists, to overcome them. 

“Beyond Mammy, Jezebel, & Sapphire: Reclaiming Images of Black Women” runs from Dec. 2 until Feb. 18 at the Alexandria Museum of Art.

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December is upon us. Which means the season of anxiously scouring Etsy, Amazon and your favorite purveyors of indie goods for ~the perfect gift~ has arrived. 

Need some help divining which book or book-related item your feminist literati–credentialed pal might want? Great, there’s a list for that. And that list is here. From Kathleen Collins’ Whatever Happened To Interracial Love? to a very necessary “I’m with Her(mione)” T-shirt, these are the 35 things any book lover (who is also into, you know, equality for everyone) would be happy to receive.

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The Japanese city of Nara has long been known to be overrun by deer. 

The wild sika deer wander about Nara Park, a public park in the city, and also appear to have free range throughout the city. Nara was Japan’s capital in the 700’s, but now the city is arguably best known around the world for the herds of oddly polite ruminants.

Photographer Yoko Ishii found these deer to be fascinating when she encountered and fed some cookies on a school trip to Nara as a child.

She has since been taking photographs of the deer as they walk freely through the town. The results are quite mesmerizing.

“I imagined a [whole] world where human beings disappeared and deer dominate... or men metamorphosed suddenly [in]to deer in a morning,” she told The Huffington Post.

She also used the word “Kafkaesque” to describe the photos and we couldn’t agree more. They are a dream come to life.

The people of the region traditionally considered as deer servants of the gods, called “Shin-Roku.” The number of deer continues to grow in the country, with numbers reaching nearly 2.5 million.

Ishii’s book of photographs, “Dear Deer” is available here.

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If you want the Frida Kahlo fan in your life to look at you like maybe you’re magic, try giving them a gift inspired by the iconic Mexican artist herself.

From hand-crafted notebooks to beautiful accessories and home accents, here are 18 creative gift ideas to get you started. 

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Every year, Pope Francis digs into the Catholic church’s centuries-old treasure trove of religious art and chooses an image for the front of his Christmas card. 

For Christmas 2016, Francis has chosen a scene from a fourteenth-century fresco painted by the artist Giotto di Bondone inside a church in Assisi, Italy.

The image has all the usual hallmarks of a modern-day nativity scene ― shepherds, angels, animals, and the Virgin Mary. But take a closer look and you’ll realize that there’s something a little odd about this Christmas tableau.

There are two baby Jesuses ― one held by Mary and another held by a midwife sitting underneath her. 

According to the National Catholic Register, this 1313 fresco unique in that it uses two little children to represent Jesus, whom Christians believe is the son of God. The Catholic site reports that Giotto painted Jesus twice to illustrate two sides of his nature ― the human and the divine.

The two midwives at Mary’s feet are embracing and supporting one of the babies. A representative for the church’s convent, Enzo Fortunato, said in a statement that this emphasizes the idea that Jesus is not a stranger to the world, but “part of the humanity to which we belong,” according to an NCR translation. 

Both babies are wrapped tightly in swaddling clothes, which Fortunato said recalls the need to “alleviate the suffering of others.” 

It’s also significant that the fresco is located at Assisi, the same town where the pope’s namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi, was born. Fortunato told Ansa that Pope Francis chose the painting from Assisi because “St. Francis was the one who invented the Nativity scene.”

In fact, according to an early biography, St. Francis of Assisi staged the very first nativity scene in 1223, as a way to share the message of Christmas with his neighbors. Catholic worship services were only said in Latin during that time, which most laypeople didn’t understand. So St. Francis set up a manger with hay and live animals, and invited people to come take a look while he shared the story of Jesus’ birth.

Fortunata suggested that the nativity practice started by St. Francis was part of the saint’s vision to reach all levels of society ― the rich and poor, literate and illiterate.

In the end, Giotto’s Nativity isn’t a surprising art choice for Pope Francis ― a leader who has made it his mission to find ways to reach out to the margins of his church.

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How much do we love Lin-Manuel Miranda? We’ve counted the ways here on HuffPost Arts & Culture before.

Now, at the end of 2016, let’s look back at what has indisputably been the Time of Lin. He’s been a recurring bright spot in a year that, by most accounts, has been a veritable dumpster fire. During a drawn-out, mudslinging presidential campaign and an election that showed us we need outspoken artists more than ever, Miranda’s work and words have been both a call to arms and an entertaining refuge.

From the many awards his historical hip-hop show “Hamilton” earned to his delightful, unmatchable freestyling skills, Miranda provided light in a trying year. GIPHY put together a list of some of the star’s most shining moments in 2016:

If that wasn’t enough, he also gave us this highly relevant freakout:

Lin, you’re just the best.

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Tarot decks comprise 78 cards, each representing a different archetype or experience. For centuries, people have turned to the cards for guidance and divination, employing a combination of intuition, self-reflection, and good old-fashioned magic to help navigate and make sense of the chaotic landscape of everyday life. 

Many Tarot cards conjure associations with real people, whether intimate friends, historical figures, or fictional characters. This is, in part, how the images speak with relevance to our daily lives. Kings, for example, often refer to father figures or other masculine, dominant influences. Some Tarot readers, when describing The Hermit, a figure who removes himself from the outside world to seek enlightenment, compare him to Luke Skywalker.

Georgia-based artist and mental health counseling student Sarah Shipman began making connections between Tarot cards and people they seemed to represent ― specifically, badass women. A longtime devotee of The Tarot, Shipman had been binging on history-centric podcasts when she first started making the associations, jotting down the women’s names that popped into her head when she drew certain cards. 

At first these women were the few iconic heroines to make it into the male-dominated, mainstream history books ― figures like Joan of Arc, Emily Dickinson, and Harriet Tubman. But the more obsessed Shipman became with women-centric history, the more lesser-known sheroes she discovered, women who embodied in spirit and passion certain qualities valued in the Tarot.

These women include Hildegard of Bingen, a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, and Christian mystic; and Maria Tallchief, considered by many to be America’s first major prima ballerina, herself a Native American. “Learning about them really became a vehicle for me to process and appreciate my own emotions, and myself in general, really, in a new and fresh way,” Shipman explained to The Huffington Post. 

“My process consists of researching hundreds of women, reading about their lives, and even reaching out to them if they’re still living,” she continued. “Usually, the more I learn, it becomes really clear which Tarot card they should be. Sometimes it feels like they ‘tell’ me. I don’t really believe that’s what’s going on, but there are moments when I suddenly know, with great certainty, which card goes with a particular person, and I definitely didn’t know a second before.”   

Shipman doesn’t quite remember the moment she decided to combine her interests in Tarot and women’s history, her artistic talent providing the link between them. However, the taxing climate of the presidential campaign was the final push she needed. Incensed by the misogyny and mediocrity displayed by President-elect Donald Trump and his supporters, Shipman resolved to channel her energy into a deck that celebrated the power of women, a deck she called “Our Tarot.”

“Expecting Clinton to win the election, I was planning on launching Our Tarot as a kind of celebration of the big strides women were making in general ― not to say Clinton being elected would’ve undone or resolved bigotry,” Shipman said. “But then Nov. 8 happened. I felt, and maybe still feel, like it doesn’t matter how hard women work. If there’s some guy screaming over us, we won’t achieve our dreams.”

Combining her interests in art, history, Tarot, and feminism, and using her anger as a creative spark, Shipman created a singular Tarot deck that doubles as a work of art. Each card pays homage to an influential feminist hero ― whether a religious figure or a contemporary artist ― speaking to the magic that bubbles within a powerful woman. 

The stunning deck ― created through a multidisciplinary process combining drawing, painting, and collage ― honors a wide range of intersectional feminist champions. 

For the Queen of Wands ― a symbol of fire, power, feminine energy, and magic ― she selected Josephine Baker. For The Sun ― which represents warmth, joy, and optimism ― she chose Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a gospel singer dubbed “the godmother of rock ‘n’ roll.” 

The single feature uniting all Shipman’s chosen subjects is that they all identify as women. She stressed the importance of including a wide range of ethnicities, cultures, ages, abilities, careers, and sexualities within the deck, her only regret being that older generations could not freely associate with the gender they identified with. 

The most commonly used Tarot Deck, the Rider-Waite deck, was created by illustrator Pamela Colman Smith in the early 20th century. Her artwork was radical in its ability to embody the divine properties the cards were believed to possess, expressed through symbols and enchanting forms.

The cards’ magical meanings were not hidden beneath the surface, out of reach for the average layman ― everything anyone needed to know about Tarot was right there, plainly enunciated through the images themselves.

Shipman’s “Our Tarot” deck operates similarly; for those familiar with the women on the cards, their magical powers and the properties they possess match up pretty seamlessly with the historical symbolism of the cards. If you don’t recognize the woman you chose, well, then the fun part begins. 

“Making Our Tarot is how I can remind myself―and others―of the lives of 78 women who wouldn’t go unnoticed and unheard,” Shipman said. “In the wake of 2016, I need to get to know the strengths, achievements, weaknesses, and aspirations of these women, so I can better know my own. Researching these ladies, making the cards, and writing about the cards just feels like this big huge act of love for them and for myself, really.”

Shipman is currently raising funds for “Our Tarot” on Kickstarter, hoping to meet her $18,000 goal by Dec. 27, 2016. Support her project and get a deck of your own here. 

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It’s been nearly a year since Netflix ordered a 13-episode straight-to-series for the Latino family reboot of “One Day At A Time.” The wait is almost over.

The streaming company gave fans a first look at the series, set to premiere Jan. 6, in a 2-minute trailer released Wednesday. The remake of Norman Lear’s 1970s sitcom stars Rita Moreno, Justina Machado and was written by Gloria Calderon Kellett, who's written and produced for "How I Met Your Mother," "iZombie," and "Devious Maids." 

Much like the original, the 2017 version will center on a single mother’s struggles (Machado) to raise her children with the help of her mother (Moreno). But in this case, the family is Cuban-American and Machado’s character is a former military mom raising a daughter and a son. 

Moreno briefly described the series during an interview with The Huffington Post in July.

“It’s a very authentically Latino-oriented show,” she told HuffPost. “Hilarious, but every episode deals with an issue relating to the world-at-large.”

Watch the trailer above.

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A Canadian filmmaker is hoping to explore the plight of the LGBTQ community in the southern U.S. as part of a new documentary. 

In 2017, director Malcolm Ingram will travel to Biloxi, Mississippi to start work on “Southern Pride.” A follow-up of sorts to Ingram’s award-winning 2006 film, “Small Town Gay Bar,” “Southern Pride” will stress the significance of safe spaces for the LGBTQ community, focusing on Biloxi’s Just Us Lounge and its owner, Lynn Koval.

“Lately, with what’s going on in the world today, it feels like there’s no time better than now to pack our bags and head down south,” Ingram said in a teaser for the video, which can be viewed above. In the wake of the June 12 shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, he added, “Right now, I think safe places are more important than ever.” 

In a video chat with Ingram, Koval said that “threat” against the LGBTQ community and other minority groups is “very real” following Donald Trump’s surprise ascension to the U.S. presidency. Lately, she said, her clientele has expanded far beyond LGBTQ patrons, too. “Minorities are starting to seek us out, and it’s just a basic safety feature,” she said. “They feel safer at the gay bar.” 

To raise money for “Southern Pride,” Ingram has launched an online fundraising campaign. Check out that campaign here. 

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For years, people thought it couldn’t be done. Previous generations would scoff at its very possibility. Virtually weightless, visually compelling and utterly cool, the latest release from Apple visionary Steve Jobs is ... an opera.

OK, Jobs didn’t write it. But we wouldn’t be in this predicament without him.

Truly, but strangely, a piece titled “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs” is headed to the Santa Fe Opera in July, The Wall Street Journal reports. Songs that most certainly will not, but should, be featured include “Get Your Head Out Of The Cloud, Baby Steve,”  “iAm Steve, Steve iAm,” and “LBT: Little Black Turtleneck.”

If you, like us, are wondering what in the world a Steve Jobs opera would look like and why anyone would possibly make it, the minds behind the show are coming together to discuss the work’s progress and process at The Guggenheim in New York City in April.

Composer Mason Bates, librettist Mark Campbell and director Kevin Newbury will discuss the “electro-acoustic,” “non-linear,” “impressionist” work, which, according to the opera’s website, delves into Jobs’ “spiritual evolution ... as he discovers the universe beyond technology within himself.”

It stars baritone Edward Parks as Jobs and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as his wife, Lauren Powell Jobs.

You might be thinking that the world doesn’t need a Steve Jobs opera ― that the Walter Isaacson biography, Aaron Sorkin biopic and that other one with Ashton Kutcher would suffice. You, apparently, would be wrong. But these are pressing questions you can discuss with Bates, Campbell and Newbury on April 9 and 10 as part of The Guggenheim’s Works & Process series.

If this is something that interests you, it is also something that exists. We’ll leave it at that. 

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We can’t leaf this tree alone!

A historic tree featured in the fifth “Harry Potter” film, “Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix,” is in danger of toppling over.

The aged cedar of Lebanon tree, located in the grounds of Blenheim Palace, is 55 feet tall and has a massive hole in the trunk. The hole makes it so that the tree could tip over at any moment. But a rescue plan is in the works.

Tree surgeons ― yes, this is a thing ― are using “climbers and a cherry picker to fix cables to its larger upper branches and attach them to nearby trees” to reduce the chances of collapse.

Potter fans will remember the tree from a scene in “Order of the Phoenix” when Snape has a flashback of being bullied by James Potter and Sirius Black, during which Snape is held upside down from the top of the tree.

Of the massive effort to save the tree, Roy Cox, head of estates at Blenheim Palace, told The Sun that it’s because the tree “could live for many more decades.”

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When Sarah Nelson’s son Parker missed class in November, she had to provide an excuse to his school. What she came up with is pretty magical.

Nelson took her son to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in the middle of November. Because 9-year-old Parker missed three days of schoolwork, Nelson had to fill out a “student attendance behavior improvement plan” for his school, which is in Texas. The excuse she wrote is one even Hermione would approve.

On the form, which Nelson’s brother shared on Reddit, Nelson wrote that Parker was attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to learn defense against the dark arts. She also shared the fantastic news that Parker passed his O.W.L.s (Ordinary Wizarding Level) and his N.E.W.T.s (Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Test). 

Nelson told The Huffington Post that Parker’s school has not reached out about the absence form. She also noted that the Harry Potter adventure was a “well-earned trip” for her son. 

“About a year and a half ago, my son learned that there was a Harry Potter theme park and begged me to take him,” she told HuffPost. “He’s never had a great love of reading, and I saw this as a chance to teach him how wonderful books could be. I told him if he read all seven books, I would take him.”

Parker accepted his mom’s challenge and finally got to see Harry Potter’s world up close. Nelson said he was “mesmerized” by the entire park and had a ton of fun.

“He summed up his entire experience in one word: epic,” she said. 

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It’s almost too easy to applaud “La La Land” for its nostalgic twinkle. A luminous callback to the MGM musicals that pervaded the 1940s and ‘50s, Damien Chazelle’s new movie romanticizes a genre that has largely atrophied. Hollywood is forever a fiend for self-homage, and cinema’s legacy forms this film’s blueprint. But a genre revival is hardly the most interesting thing about it.

Many have called “La La Land” the “Singin’ in the Rain” of 2016. They’re not wrong. Yet the endeavor does more than resurrect a dormant filmmaking style. It invokes our collective envy of life as it appears on the big screen, pondering the wish fulfillment that stems from a century of going to the movies. We all want to live in a storybook. We’d like showtunes to accompany milestones and choreographed dances to punctuate moments of whimsy. 

In “La La Land,” they do, and for good reason. Early in the film, when the roommates of aspiring actress Mia Dolan (Emma Stone) drag her to a party to shake off a foul audition experience, they wheedle her with a song-and-dance number proclaiming that “someone in the crowd could be the one you need to know / the one to finally lift you off the ground.” Mia is convinced. The ditty continues well into their arrival at the swank shindig, where its premonition proves true, sort of: Mia abandons the gala and, strolling through the Los Angeles streets solo, finds herself lured into a nightclub where a pianist (Ryan Gosling) plucks at the soundtrack’s signature song, the dreamlike “City of Stars.” It’s the second time she’s seen him. The first encounter came in the dynamite opening scene, when they flipped each other the bird at end of a traffic jam in which drivers turned their stalled treks into a dance spectacle.

This prolonged meet-cute resurfaces again at a pool party where said pianist, named Sebastian, plays in a mediocre cover band that no one pays much attention to. Mia and Sebastian banter sardonically and wind up leaving at the same time, igniting a spark that sends them jittering through a highland overlooking the starry Hollywood Hills.

If the idea of toiling artists reencountering each other in a sprawling city and romancing their way to contentment sounds corny, that’s the point. “La La Land” is a tale of artifice. Spotlights enshrine characters’ solos, onlookers join their hyperstylized dance numbers, and Mia and Sebastian concoct a reverie through Griffith Observatory, where they literally soar across the planetarium’s stars. But this pair, and the movie itself, are too self-aware to be reduced to emblems of a pat romantic comedy. They foster the contrivances as though waltzing through a dream, having spent their lives aspiring to the same storybooks we all do. Mia’s hopes would take her from slinging coffee on the Warner Bros. studio lot to becoming a star actress, and Sebastian’s would carry him from low-rent gigs to the ownership of his own jazz club. If courtship aids in fleeing the doldrums of unfulfilled dreams, why shouldn’t it be grand? Why shouldn’t it be the stuff that old movies are made of? 

As “La La Land” progresses, and as Sebastian and Mia face more career hurdles, the artifice dissolves. Musical numbers become less frequent, and the strain of the characters’ twin aspirations sets in. Sebastian lands a spot in his friend’s (John Legend) band, sending him out on the road for long stretches. Mia shells out a hefty penny to mount a one-woman show. Reality intervenes. The storybook isn’t as tidy as the movies taught us to expect. 

Through it all, Chazelle remains in love with the world his film inhabits. Like most vintage musicals, it’s art-directed to a T, shot by Linus Sandgren to emphasize the vibrant color patterns of any given sequence. During the party Mia attends in the first act, when a reveler leaps from a balcony into a pool, the camera plunges into the crisp blue water with him. It bobs in and out of the waves, creating a swirl of charisma that crackles as dancers’ wardrobes shimmer. Later, during the film’s highlight, Mia tells a melancholy story of her aunt diving into the Seine River in Paris. The lights around her fade, and it is just Stone singing an ode “to the ones who dream, foolish as they may seem.” 

That electric charm distracts from a slight sag in the middle of “La La Land,” once the template is established but before the movie shifts into its culminating sentiments. Though Gosling and Stone are not especially remarkable singers, they boast a modernity that feels more appropriate than their ability to belt notes. As Sebastian and Mia, they are naturalistic and beguiling, particularly Stone. Between affectionate snipes, they ease into songs, controlled by the delicate crescendoes of Chazelle, who used the tempo of drumbeats to steer the rumbling “Whiplash” and tap-dancing to anchor the jazz musical “Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench.”

Chazelle has crafted a 20-minute finale so note-perfect that it justifies every flourish of the film’s breezy first half. It’s a twirl of bittersweet magic, a dream ballet worth equal parts cheers and tears. Most significantly, It’s a dynamo celebration of the dreams we’ve invented by going to the movies, where life feels limitless. Sometimes it’s OK for the movie to end.

“La La Land” opens in limited release Dec. 9. It expands to additional theaters throughout December.

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“Party People” opens on a young man ― a Panther Cub ― practicing a monologue before a propped-up camera. His words cut through the audience as he recounts his Black Panther father, or more accurately, the absence of his long-imprisoned Black Panther father. The speech is partly a recognition of the paternal greatness that came before the Cub, but more so an indictment of the recklessness and abandonment of a generation of activism that he feels hasn’t paid off yet.

At least, not for the generation coming of age today, still fighting against police brutality and other forms of institutionalized racism. 

The music-infused play, created by the theater ensemble Universes and developed by “Eclipsed” director Liesl Tommy, eventually culminates in a reunion between these generations. Facilitated by artists-slash-activists Malik (the Cub) and Jimmy, the confrontational gathering pits an older group of people, profoundly proud of their struggle to provide health benefits to a community so often denied them, against a youthful contingent, resentful of the fact that their parents sacrificed so much ― namely, their families ― to start a revolution with no end in sight. A generation confused as to what their role in fighting injustice should be.

Jimmy isn’t a descendent of Panthers, though. Jimmy is the nephew of a member of the Young Lords, which, according to the Bronx Museum, was “a radical social organization led by poor and working-class Puerto Rican youth in the 1960s.” History books have been unkind to the Black Panthers, often misrepresenting their role in instituting necessary social programs across the U.S., but the Young Lords have largely been denied a story entirely. Very few students learn about the Young Lords’ activism, advocating for affordable housing, higher employment, and police reform. 

“If you truly do your research on the Black Panthers [...] they were about coalition building,” Steven Sapp, Universes co-founder, explained to The Huffington Post. He cited Fred Hampton’s Rainbow Coalition, consisting of the Black Panthers, Young Lords, Young Patriots, members of the American Indian Movement, Brown Berets, I Wor Kuen, and even the White Panther Party. “It is important for us to see this type of unity that existed then and should continue now. It is this type of effort that should cross color lines, to show that liberation is a human struggle that can crush white supremacy, and will fight it as a coalition.”

“Party People” is currently running at the Public Theater in New York City. Ahead of the show’s closing this month, we spoke to the director, Tommy, to discuss the power of coalition-building, the gaping divides between generations, and the legacy of activism people in the Black Lives Matter movement are coming to terms with today.

What initially drew you to the subject matter of “Party People” ― the history of the Black Panthers as well as the Young Lords?

Well, you know, I’m originally from South Africa. I grew up there during the apartheid era. I come from an activist world. And when my family immigrated to the states, my father was someone who made sure that I had heard a lot about freedom struggles around the world. So I thought when I came to this country that I was in some ways more familiar with this slice of American history than the average American was. That’s not really something that they taught in school. But revolutionary movements, that was just something that I grew up being aware of because we were in the midst of a revolutionary struggle ourselves. 

Obviously, a lot of Black Panthers’ history has been unfortunately censored or distorted throughout the years; it’s barely taught in most schools. But the history of the Young Lords is probably even less visible to a lot of people.

Oh my gosh, some […] have no idea there was even a movement called the Young Lords.

I mean, to be quite honest, I didn’t either. So I was wondering, was it important for you and the production team to not only pay homage to 50 years of the Black Panthers but to also pay tribute to these lesser-known allies who were also fighting the liberation?

Oh, 100 percent. Because Universes, the writers, they’re all from New York. They are Puerto Rican and African-American, and they grew up sort of as the beneficiary of some of the Young Lords’ social programs. When they came up with the idea to do the show, the Young Lords and the Black Panthers were very, very much for them equally potent and important.

What kind of research went into this production for you? How closely did you work with Universes?

Well, Universes, they got the commission from OSF [Oregon Shakespeare Festival]. OSF does this American Revolution series where they commission writers to write on certain topics. And Universes, they were the ones who said, we want write about the ‘60s and the revolutionary movement of that time. That was, for them, the world of the Black Panthers.

And then they got a grant and they were able to travel all around the country and interview Young Lords and Black Panthers. After they had done that for a year and they had all of this material it was time to pick a director. That’s when they reached out to me and I was brought on board. Before there was a play, they had written a lot of songs and poems and kind of spoken-word pieces in response to their interviews. They had a massive amount of writing. But what they wanted for this particular show is different than anything that they’ve done before. What they wanted was a narrative ― you know, characters ― and they wanted a story arc. And because I did a lot of play developments, they felt like I’d be able to help them unpack it.

And also because of my background and the kind of work that I’ve done. You know, I’m a person who’s done Shakespeare, I’ve done political work. And that’s what they do. Their work was really language-based. It’s new. It’s political. There’s a lot of movement and there’s a lot of music. They wanted someone who could speak all of those languages.

Are the primary characters sort of just amalgams of historical figures?

Yes. The thing that’s really interesting to me about this kind of work is that with “Eclipsed,” that also came from a lot of interviews that Danai Gurira did. You know, I do a lot of work that involves a tremendous amount of historical and political research. And what happens with every single one of these projects is you fall in love with people and you fall in love with stories. And so you make connections and that’s where you build the narrative. And the hardest part was figuring out which of these incredibly moving and incredibly powerful and incredibly inspiring and incredibly tragic and incredibly funny stories makes it into the play. There’s just so much carving and sculpting that has to happen.

All of the characters in the play are a composite of many, many people. And many, many stories.

I don’t think that it’s explicitly stated whether or not Malik and Jimmy are sort of representatives of the Black Lives Matter movement. But was that sort of part of the intention, of drawing a line from the Black Panthers and the Young Lords to today’s activist environment, which I think in many ways is probably grounded by the Black Lives Matter movement?

That’s a very interesting question. I think what I was actually interested in was Jimmy and Malik being a parallel for Universes. Because Universes, as artists, have been activists their whole lives. They started off as activists and artists, and that’s what I am as well. So the question, when you are an artist and you also believe in having a political point of view in your work, is that question of, Are you doing enough? Have you gone far enough? Is it really political? You know, it’s always there.

But what you are identifying is absolutely true. What we all cared a lot about is the evolution of activism among youth today. Because when we started doing this ― we did this the first production in 2012, our second production in 2014, and now in 2016 ― youth and activism has changed so much over the last six years. When we did the play the first time there was no Black Lives Matter movement. But when we did it at Berkeley in 2014, we were living through ― Ferguson had just happened, Trayvon. Things were so potent. So we thought we had to address what was going on. We did a rewrite for the end of this production because, you know, the conversation between this generation of activists and the earlier generation of activists is very much alive and evolving.

I want to get to a question that I have about the end of the production. But first I wanted to talk about the pains of the generational divides that you guys are painting in “Party People” that are just incredibly visceral. One of the ways that you do that is that you have all these nods to technology. I loved how the older generation was talking about archives and tapes and collections and then the younger generation was, you know, streaming on Facebook Live. Do you see technology as a primary driver of generational dissonance?

I absolutely do. Sometimes I think about my parents ― my father in the ‘70s. And then I think about him using his iPad [today]. The violence with which he puts his fingers on the screen. I’m like, Dad, you don’t need to be that rough with it. Just gently tap it, it will respond to a gentle touch. It’s crazy how fast things are changing in terms of technology. That moment you’re referring to in the play, when the younger generation talks about the power of clicking “Share,” in terms of activism. And how shut down the older generation is about that being a real thing. The real thing for them was being in the community and making change, right? The question I think this generation is grappling with is the meaning of being in the community and making change and technology and clicking “Share.” How do you marry the two objectives?

At the end of the production, there’s a semblance of resolution in terms of the fact that the two generations come to what seems like a temporary détente. But it doesn’t feel entirely complete. So do you feel like the dialogue between generations, it’s just something that’s continuously ongoing and incomplete?

I like the kinds of questions you’re asking me because I recently got into a really vigorous argument with friends of mine about the so-called millennials. Two of them are professors. And I was listening to them going on and on about millennials. This is crazy to me […] there’s always ridiculous articles in Time magazine about this generation or that generation. Why do we do this? As a culture? It happens all the time. So that’s something that I find endlessly fascinating. It happens with every single generation, where you have to name the generation coming up. And then you have to tear them apart. Why?

Do you find any sort of benefit in that friction? Like, is that sort of necessary to move us forward?

I think that as long as there is dialogue and there’s some knowledge there. What’s exciting to me about working on this play is that the younger generation slaps back. So that it’s not just the older generation telling them all the ways that they were wrong. They fight for their point of view because a younger generation challenging the status quo is the only way that change happens.

And I feel passionately about this because I come from a culture where it was always youth movements that propelled political unrest in Africa during the struggle, you know, because the leaders were always arrested and banned and exiled and murdered. So the demonstrations often came out of high school student movements. I understand the necessity for youthful challenge of status quo. It’s essential to the growth of society.

To be woke is very emotionally, psychically, physically taxing.

One of the other characters that I was really interested in was Clara, because through her we sort of witness this desire to opt out of politics completely.

Yes.

You know, while Malik and Jimmy are trying to be advocates for change in a different way than their parents, Clara initially feels burdened by the idea that she’s required to fight for change in any way.  

Correct.

Why was it important for you and the team to explore this stance?

I feel that this is very real stance. Universes spent a lot of time with what are called Panther Cubs. These are the children of activists and we spend a lot of time in the show talking about that generation and the rejection that they felt and the inadequacy that they felt when they have these towering influences in their lives.

How do you be the next generation? It’s very difficult. There’s a potent inadequacy that these young people felt. And one way of dealing with it is to just completely distance yourself from it because you know it’s very draining to live a life of activism. It is very, very taxing. It’s why the majority of people in this world just you know do their job and then do their families. You know I mean? To be woke is very emotionally, psychically, physically taxing. 

And I have to say that I really connect with Clara, because when I came to this country I used to give speeches about divestment. And then I went to college and I felt really sick of the sound of my own voice. I was always so outspoken and I was always telling people what to think, because that was the world I was raised in. When I got to college, I was like, I’m going to be a new me. [...] That didn’t last very long, unfortunately. That’s not really how I was meant to roll in this world.

I think that Clara having grown up with so much turmoil and passionate people fighting for their lives and fighting for the lives of everyone around them, she just wants peace and quiet. And I totally relate to that on some level. And also, you don’t have to feel inadequate if you’re not putting yourself out there. So I think she’s a really important voice in terms of legacy. Because that’s the other thing we’re dealing with in this show is the legacy of these activists. 

I really like this description that Playbill used when describing you. They said that you are a person driven to make political work that is also entertaining. So I just wanted to ask you how you, in all of your shows, toe this line between wanting to create something that’s politically aware but also striving to keep audiences simply entertained.

Yeah, I mean, I would be a journalist if I wasn’t interested in entertaining. You know what I mean? Or I would write pamphlets or I would be a college professor, if it was really just about making political statements. I really love it when audiences laugh and I love it when audiences cry and I love it when audiences get angry. Because that is the point for me of theater. It’s about a communal discussion.

It’s vital as an artist to create an environment where we get to look at ourselves together and laugh together and cry together and challenge ourselves together. That is the purpose of theater and a live experience. So for me I’m always asking: Is this thing funny enough? Is this dangerous enough? Is this scary enough? How do you make it as engaging as possible for the audience? Because that’s my job.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

“Party People” is running at the Public Theater in New York City until Dec. 11, 2016.

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“Dear Ivanka,” reads a letter to President-elect Donald Trump’s daughter, published in Artforum earlier this week. “We need to talk about your Dad.”

The letter was written by Alissa Bennett, Alison Gingeras and Jamieson Webster, members of Halt Action Group, the organization behind this Instagram account and this protest in Manhattan. 

“It seems that some of us Americans wanted a big, white powerful Daddy,” they wrote. “Help us Ivanka,” they entreat further down. “Because if 46 percent of the country wanted a Daddy, then it is from you that we need to hear what we are in for ― the First Daughter, his true and only beloved.”

Halt started posting to Instagram under the name “Dear Ivanka” two weeks ago, sharing portraits of the future First Daughter in impossibly chic gowns or posing with her picturesque family. The images were affixed with scathing captions that point to what they have deemed a hypocritical value system.

“Do you believe in anything?” they recently wrote beneath a shot of Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner.

On Nov. 28, Halt took to the streets, protesting in front of the Puck Building, owned by Kushner’s family. Artists like Cecily Brown, Rob Pruitt, and Marilyn Minter were in attendance. The crowds reportedly amassed 500 people in total.

Dear Ivanka described the protest as “a candlelight vigil to collectively voice the anxieties and concerns of fellow citizens in the wake of the Trump administration’s cabinet appointments and announced/expected plans.” They voiced these anxieties, very deliberately, in a demonstration directed at Ivanka, not her father, the actual president-elect, or her step-mother, our country’s future First Lady. 

The letter was directed at her, too.

“There are a number of reasons for this, but most specifically the letter was addressed to her because it has been made very clear to the public that she will fulfill the role of the First Lady,” Bennett wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. “Melania has been a relatively silent figure throughout the campaign and post-election period, while Ivanka has not only been the female face of this family, but has also been granted certain privileges of access that Melania has either declined or not been offered.”

For artists in particular, Ivanka is a curious access point into the Trump administration. She is, as the three professional women and mothers behind the Artforum letter point out, a fellow #womanwhoworks. Ivanka also has a history of collecting art, rubbing elbows with gallerists and artists, occupying the same spaces as Bennett (Team Gallery director), Gingeras (curator) and Webster (psychoanalyst and cultural writer).

In their letter, which Bennett emphasized was a statement from Halt at large, the three point specifically to the problems associated with thinking of Trump as a “Daddy” president.

The family is sick. It’s not just your family, Ivanka. It’s the family! We live in an age where we know deep down that the mythos of the family is over. It just doesn’t work. But despite this painful truth — our divorce rates, the spike in single parenting, the ossification of the concept that marriage is a viable mechanism for policing reproductive and social morality — some of America still wants a Daddy. And you and your Dad are the last dying breath of our collective phantasy.

Perhaps, more to the point, the two of you epitomize the Family’s death: the final nail in the coffin. Daddy is three wives in. Ivanka, your mother, is hidden away like a withered, Prada-clad Miss Havisham while you and Melania — would-be sisters in a bad porn — are trotted out for the cameras like fancy prize-winning cats.

Writers across the internet have emphasized that critics can be anti-Trump without resorting to slut-shaming the women involved in his administration. The letter seems to imply that the unfavorable picture of Ivanka and Melania described above is a result of the “Daddy” president ideal.

“The father is symbolic of provision, protection, security, hope, the alleviation of anxiety, a new sense of what is possible,” Bennett wrote to HuffPost. “These are things that we all want and are perfectly reasonable expectations and desires in life, but not necessarily from a president and certainly not from this president, whose profiteering has largely been constructed around ethical loopholes and legal uncertainties.”

Families, she added, no longer function as springboards to success for most of America. “We think this return of that longing for a paternalistic leader fits up neatly with this fact,” she added. “The outcome of this election is a clear indicator that 46 percent of America is angry and feels that something significant is ‘broken,’ that we have lost our grounding. That grounding is, in the most familiar sense, The Family.”

The letter concludes:

We will grow louder. More vigilant, more hysterical. We can’t stop pleading with you, like a Rosary with the beads repeating, no, Daddy, no, Daddy, no, Daddy, stop, Daddy, please, Daddy, no. 

You can read the entire letter to Ivanka here.

And you can check out more from the Dear Ivanka Instagram below:

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Pantone has released its color of the year for 2017.

After nine months of exhaustive research in the realms of art, fashion, architecture, travel and more, color experts have determined that the color we’ll see everywhere next year is ... green.

Or Greenery, to be more specific. Say hello to what experts call the “zesty yellow-green” tone of 2017:

After what many would call one of the most disastrous years in modern history, this “reassuring” color will “provide us with the hope we collectively yearn for,” according to a Pantone press release.

And no, the color was not chosen in response to the election results. The New York Times reports that Pantone experts noticed a proliferation of green before the election ended, originally pegging it as a symbol of new beginnings under our presumed first female president.

Politics aside, Pantone recommends working Greenery into your home, whether it’s with a Greenery-colored couch:

...or a Keurig, one of the most notoriously un-”green” inventions of our time:

Or maybe a hanging orb in the shade of “Greenery” is more your style:

No matter how you choose to incorporate Greenery into your life next year (or not), just remember that this color is here for YOU. As Pantone puts it, “Greenery offers us self-assurance and boldness to live life on our own terms, during a time when we are redefining what makes us successful and happy.”

Greenery for president.

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Beer is a good time as it is, but what if it was also glow-in-the-dark? 

Awesome. It would be totally awesome.

Former NASA biologist Josiah Zayner made this awesomeness a reality by launching a kit that lets home brewers craft beverages that glow.

Zayner kissed a job in synthetic biology goodbye to launch The Odin, a company devoted to increasing the accessibility of science and technology research, according to Gizmodo.

With The Odin, Zayner has created kits for curious minds to conduct their own science experiments ― one of which is for bioluminescent beer.

The bright green coloring is ridiculously intriguing in its own right, but there’s something even more fascinating about it: It’s from a jellyfish gene.

According to the kit’s guide, “a plasmid DNA” was added to “the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae so that it turns a fluorescent green color.”

So, when you use this fluorescent yeast in a batch of home brew, it’ll glow under a blacklight. How is that for a damn party?!

The fluorescent yeast kit retails for $199 and will take about 10 hours of work over the course of two days before any actual brewing takes place. But, if you’re committed to the glow, it’s worth the effort.

Of the green brew, Zayner hopes “that the ability to produce something cool and tangible will get more people interested in not just learning about but actually doing genetic engineering,” according to Gizmodo.

We’re sold, Josiah. Who wants to make some brewskis? 

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