One little girl just had every Asian on the interwebs saying “SAME.” 

Korra Lam, a 4-year-old Vietnamese-American from California, takes her Barbies’ shoes off before they’re allowed to enter her Barbie Dreamhouse. Because it’s only right she keep with Asian household tradition.

Her half-sister Ivy Ho recently shared photos on Twitter of the tiny shoes gathered just outside the dollhouse, along with Korra’s barefoot dolls. And of course, they went viral with thousands of retweets because we Asians on Twitter Had. No. Chill. 

Like none.

Ho told The Huffington Post that Korra insists on making her dolls keep with tradition because it’s simply what their family does. Plus, the very strict Korra believes the dolls “have to be clean.”

If that’s not adorable enough for you, the 4-year-old also ensures the dolls have shoes on their feet before they “leave” the house. 

Though Ho didn’t expect her post to get so much traction, she’s ecstatic to see it’s resonated with so many Asians ― and others who just really love a clean floor. 

H/T: Buzzfeed 

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Dozens of people on Twitter are writing digital and handwritten love letters for Valentine’s Day, and they’re signing them with #ToImmigrantsWithLove.

The letter writing campaign was first launched in December by Define American, a non-profit pro-immigrant organization, and Welcome.us’ I Am An Immigrant movement. On Tuesday, the campaign revived their hashtag for what they’re calling a Day of Action. 

The organizations asked supporters to show solidarity with immigrants by recording a video on their website or by writing letters and sharing them on social media using the hashtag #ToImmigrantsWithLove.

“There’s never been a more important time in modern U.S. history to stand in solidarity with immigrants across our country,” undocumented activist Jose Antonio Vargas, founder and CEO of Define American, said in a press release. “This campaign comes at a crucial time not only for millions of immigrants who call America home but for the millions of American citizens and permanent residents whose lives are connected to ours. We are an immigrant nation and we love our immigrants. Let’s show it.”

Immigrants have become increasingly vulnerable under the Trump administration with undocumented immigrants being targeted by a recent uptick of Immigration And Customs Enforcement raids across the country. In January, the president also attempted to limit the number of travelers and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries with an executive order, which has since been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.

Politicians, celebrities, activists and more shared their messages of love for immigrants on Tuesday, including Russell Simmons, Constance Wu, Debra Messing, George Takei, singer Estelle, U.S. Representative Judy Chu and U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin.

Take a look at some of our favorite photos and letters #ToImmigrantsWithLove below. 

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

The drama surrounding the confirmation of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos won’t stop.

A political cartoon published Monday in Illinois outlet the Belleville News-Democrat appears to draw parallels between DeVos and civil rights activist Ruby Bridges. In 1960, at the age of 6, Bridges became the first black child to integrate a segregated, all-white elementary school. Federal marshals had to escort the child into the school while crowds of people taunted her. 

Her story was documented in a famous Norman Rockwell painting, called “The Problem We All Live With.” The painting looks similar to the cartoon drawn by conservative artist Glenn McCoy, which depicts Betsy DeVos instead of Bridges. 

Protesters blocked Devos from entering a Washington D.C. public school last week. Security guards helped escort her through the crowd. She eventually got in through a different entrance.

Twitter users responded with outrage to the cartoon, with prominent figures like Chelsea Clinton sounding off. 

McCoy declined requests for an interview.

DeVos ― who comes from a billionaire Michigan family ― faced an especially contentious confirmation process. After 50 senators voted against her, Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote in her favor. It was the first time ever that a vice president has cast a tie-breaking vote for a Cabinet nominee.

DeVos’ nomination inspired protests around the country, with critics asserting that she was unfamiliar with basic education policy and intent on dismantling the traditional education system. DeVos has been an education reform activist for many years.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

American Vogue’s March issue ― with its cover featuring a cast of multiracial and body-positive models ― was supposed to be a celebration of diversity and inclusion, according to a blog post promoting it.

But photos apparently leaked from the issue allude to quite the opposite, and have a lot of people wondering: This, again?

The problematic photos, which found their way to the internet Tuesday, show supermodel Karlie Kloss dressed as a Japanese geisha posing throughout Japan’s Ise-Shima National Park in an article titled, “Spirited Away.”

In the photo spread, reportedly photographed by Mikael Jansson and styled by Phyllis Posnick, Kloss’s signature blonde hair is replaced with thick, long black locks done up in the Japanese Shimada stye, and her skin, appearing more pale than usual, is draped in traditional Japanese patterns and kimonos.

Janssen appeared to confirm the authenticity of Kloss’s geisha-inspired shoot on Tuesday when he posted to Instagram a similar photo of the model in painted whiteface with red lips, soaking in a tub. New York magazine published photos of what appears to be a hard copy of Vogue’s March issue. 

“Karlie Kloss in Japan, 2017,” Janssen, a frequent Vogue photographer, captioned his photo of Kloss. “Vogue Magazine, unpublished.”

Mire Koikari, a professor of women’s studies and affiliate of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Hawaii, said it’s hard to judge the photos outside of their full context in the magazine. But the images alone, she said, raise questions.

“It strikes me as an example of ‘Asian face’ or ‘Yellow Face,’ a problematic practice long existent in the history of racism in the U.S., where white men and women alter their facial features to ‘pass’ as ‘Orientals,’” Koikari said in an email to The Huffington Post.

“The images also recirculate the overly sexualized understandings of ‘Asian women,’” she added.

Neither Vogue nor Kloss’s representatives returned The Huffington Post’s requests for comment.

In an issue that supposedly promotes the beauty of diversity, it’s odd to see a white woman in a setting that hinges entirely on Japanese cultural elements playing the role of a geisha ― an ancient and traditionally Japanese profession.

Why not just use a Japanese model?

The decision to feature Kloss as a geisha is especially troubling after last year’s widely covered controversies in which white actresses were cast for roles originally written for Asian characters in two big-budget films: Scarlett Johansson in “Ghost in the Shell,” and Tilda Swinton in “Doctor Strange.” It also follows criticism of supermodel Gigi Hadid for appearing to mock Asians in a video posted to social media.

As New York magazine pointed out, the Vogue brand is no stranger to racial insensitivity (read: Netherlands and French Vogue in blackface, and Vogue’s “slave earrings”).

In this case, if Vogue runs Kloss’s spread, the magazine is choosing to ignore its own celebration of diversity (and Japanese models), and is using yellowface and cultural appropriation instead.

If the internet’s reaction to the photo shoot is any indication, it’s safe to say that people won’t be happy with Vogue’s definition of diversity.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Donald Lau has been writing the messages on America’s fortune cookies for the past 30 years, but a severe case of writer’s block has caused him to pass his pen.

The chief fortune writer at Brooklyn-based Wonton Food Inc., the largest manufacturer of noodles, wrappers, and fortune cookies in the United States, has been training his successor for the past six months, according to Time magazine.

“I used to write 100 a year, but I’ve only written two or three a month over the past year,” he told the magazine.

Lau also serves as the company’s chief financial officer, so he will continue to work in that capacity when the new writer takes over.

The history of fortune cookies in America is quite murky, as both Chinese and Japanese immigrant populations have claimed ownership, writes Smithsonian Magazine’s Jesse Rhodes. Author Jennifer 8. Lee investigated the popular biscuit in her book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, and found that the cookies are likely of Japanese origin, but they became associated with Chinese cultures after World War II.

“When Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps, their bakeries that produced the cookies were shuttered,” Rhodes writes of Lee’s findings. “Chinese entrepreneurs stepped in to fill the void and by the end of the war they were indelibly associated with fortune cookies, whose popularity had spread nationwide.” 

Lau tells NBC News in the video above that when he arrived working at the company, his English was best among the group, so he was given the job of writing the cookies’ fortunes.

“I guess I got the job by default,” he said.

Over the years, Lau said he wanted his fortune messages to make diners happy, a sentiment he’s passed onto his successor, James Wong. Diners can always take matters into their own hands ― Wonton Food Inc. offers custom fortune cookies that allow customers to write their own fortunes.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Pope Francis is asking victims and their families for forgiveness for the “horrible sin” of clerical sexual abuse. 

Francis’ statement comes in the form of a preface for I Forgive You, Father, a book written by Daniel Pittet, a survivor of clergy abuse. 

In the preface, Francis writes that Pittet’s testimony is “necessary, treasured and courageous” and calls abuse by Catholic priests an “absolute monstrosity.” 

“How can someone who devoted their life to lead children to God, end up instead to devour them in what I called ‘a diabolical sacrifice’ that destroys both the victim and the life of the Church?” says Francis, according to a translation that the Italian news website La Stampa posted Monday. “Some of the victims have been driven to suicide. These deaths weigh on my heart, on my conscience and that of the whole Church. To their families, I offer my feelings of love and pain and humbly, I ask forgiveness.” 

The pope has met with victims and created a pontifical commission for the protection of minors to address the issue of clergy sexual abuse. However, some critics say he hasn’t done enough to keep bishops who covered up pedophile priest scandals accountable.

During Francis’ papacy, the Vatican defrocked and arrested a Vatican ambassador accused of abuse. But under Francis, the Holy See, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, has promoted a Chilean bishop whom victims claim actually witnessed a priest sexually abusing people. 

The church’s failures on this issue has recently drawn attention in Australia. About 7 percent of the country’s Catholic priests had been accused of abusing children between 1950 and 2015, a study based on years of research for a formal public inquiry into abuse allegations revealed this month.

In his book, Pittet writes that his own abuse began when he was 8 years old. His parish priest in Switzerland raped him over a four-year period, before the church transferred the abuser to France, where Pittet says the man attacked other children.

The author, now aged 57, has forgiven the priest, with whom he met last year, according to America Magazine. The priest never asked for forgiveness and “didn’t seem to repent of the evil he had done,” Pittet said.

In his preface, Francis commends Pittet for his courage in coming forward with his story.

“I thank Daniel, because testimony like his break down the wall of silence that covered scandals and suffering, shedding light on a terrible dark area in the life of the Church,” the pope writes.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

In the face of prejudice, New York’s museums are not remaining silent.

The Museum of the City of New York is the latest cultural institution using art to challenge President Trump’s travel ban ― which targets citizens of seven majority-Muslim nations ― with the photography exhibition “Muslim in New York.” The show communicates in no uncertain terms that Muslim life is an essential aspect of New York’s culture.

There are currently approximately 270,000 Muslim people living in New York, across all five boroughs, according to MCNY. That’s about 3 percent of the city’s population. The photography show, featuring work by Alexander Alland, Ed Grazda, Robert Gerhardt and Mel Rosenthal, pays tribute to this diverse community ― part of New York’s fabric since the city’s origins as New Amsterdam ― and the impact it’s had on New York’s legacy, energy and heart.

“This special installation comes at a time when the place of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries is being scrutinized, and even challenged, on a national level,” MCNY director Whitney Donhauser explained in a statement. At a time when fear and ignorance threaten to uproot the values that serve as America’s foundation, the subtle exhibition shows some of the men, women and children who call this country home. 

Featuring photographs dating from 1940 to present day, the show objects to the fallacious stereotyping of Muslims through the simple yet radical act of showing them as they really are. The artists depict immigrant and American-born Muslims from multiple racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, including Arabs, Turks, Afghans, African-Americans and Latinos, showing there is no single representation of Muslim life. 

One photographer included in the show is Robert Gerhardt, who, since 2010, has chronicled individuals worshipping at mosques in various cities throughout the U.S. He began the project following the massive outcry that followed the Muslim American Society’s proposal to convert a convent into a mosque and community center on Staten Island. 

The heated hostility toward the idea prompted Gerhardt to examine the nation’s assumptions and prejudices toward the Muslim community. “I was hearing all of these stories about what goes on in mosques, but no one had actually been in them,” he told The Huffington Post. 

Beginning during Ramadan in 2010, Gerhardt documented daily life at a mosque in Brooklyn. “I was mostly a fly on the wall,” he explained. “I would go out to this mosque two or three times a week, go hang with the kids playing basketball in the park, attend youth meetings, karate classes, all over the place.”

Initially Gerhardt expected the project to last approximately a year, but, over six years later, he’s still going. “Originally my plan was to do this one mosque in Brooklyn,” he said. “But you can’t tell the story of Muslim Americans around the country with one mosque.” He has since visited places of worship in cities including Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Falls Church, Virginia; Bridgeview, Illinois; and Fort Wayne, Indiana. 

One standout photo Gerhardt recalls is an image of a Muslim policeman praying at Park51, the Manhattan Islamic community center often billed as the “Ground Zero mosque.” The image captures the officer kneeling in a moment of peaceful worship, a jarring contrast to the Islamophobic narrative that dominated pushback against the building’s location. “I was the first photographer allowed to photograph that mosque,” Gerhardt said, “mostly because I was the only one who had ever asked.”

Gerhardt’s photos convey the belief that people often fear what they do not understand, or what they have not seen. Then, even a simple photo can shed light on individuals, revealing them as human beings rather than anonymous threats.

“I realize that people looking at my photographs isn’t going to alter someone’s beliefs just like that,” Gerhardt said. “But if they can start a conversation and make people think about what is actually going on in the world, instead of what they’re told is going on, then they are doing some good.” 

Personally, Gerhardt leans toward creating images of mundane, relatable moments in Muslim-Americans everyday life, rupturing the understanding of Muslims as other. “I’m looking for the day-to-day moments,” he said, “the little nuances. People in prayer, kids playing basketball. Those little, universal moments that are the same for everyone, whether you are Muslim or not. We are all doing the basically the same thing.”

Another New York–based museum, the Museum of Modern Art, responded to Trump’s executive order by hanging the work of artists from majority-Muslim nations on its walls. Additionally, British nonprofit publisher Comma resolved to forgo American titles in favor of Arabic writers, writers of Muslim heritage and refugees. As the fate of Trump’s ban remains uncertain, we look forward to more cultural institutions letting the president know where they stand. 

“Muslim in New York” opens on Feb. 18 at The Museum of the City of New York and will continue throughout the summer.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

For HuffPost’s #LoveTakesAction series, we’re telling stories of how people are standing up to hate and supporting those most threatened. What will you stand up for? Tell us with #LoveTakesAction.

The concept of political art may elicit thoughts of carefully designed protest signs, upside-down flags and other distorted emblems of patriotism. And rightly so: artists, now more than ever, are using their craft to comment on the state of the union and to encourage progress.

For Fatimah Asghar, poet and creator of a new web series called “Brown Girls,” political acts aren’t always so overt. Her show, which premieres this month on OpenTV, is a comedy about two friends, Leila and Patricia, navigating dating, sexuality, personal finances and other millennial woes. But the show, while personal, is also political, Asghar says.

“If this show, or other comedic projects, provide spaces of joy and resistance during a political upheaval, I think that is amazing,” she told The Huffington Post.

The project, which she calls a love letter to the myriad communities she belongs to, was borne of her friendship with her best friend, singer Jamila Woods. The two live in Chicago and provide one another with emotional and creative support.

The trailer for “Brown Girls” shows a similar connection between Leila and Patricia, as the women drink beers in bed, talk with their mothers about feminism, and vow their commitment to “single girls club forever.” A willingness to show life’s more private moments on screen has earned the show comparisons to “Insecure” and “Atlanta,” two series Asghar watched and loved after writing her own.

Below, Asghar talked with HuffPost about her new series:

When and why did you start writing “Brown Girls”?

I started writing “Brown Girls” in the fall of 2015. I started writing it because I love film and TV and have always thought of it as an intimidating form, but it was something that I always wanted to try. So I kind of just was like, fuck it ― I’m going to do this. And I wrote a story that was loosely based on the life of me and my best friend, because I don’t often see women of color from different racial backgrounds being friends in TV or film. When they are portrayed I feel like they are often in competition with each other, and I don’t like that. That’s not true to my life.

You’ve described the show in other interviews as personal, or as a love letter. How much of the show is drawn from your own life?

The two main characters, Leila and Patricia, hold the same identity traits as me and my best friend, Jamila Woods. However, they are by no means identical representations of us, nor are all the events autobiographical. What I wanted to make sure to capture was the texture of our friendship, that was my biggest priority. In some ways, I think both Leila and Patricia have personality elements from me and Jamila in them and are kind of alter-egos.

The series is a comedy. What do you think is the role of comedy when there’s so much serious political upheaval?

I believe that joy can be our greatest weapon during tough political times. When I protest, when I fight against things that I don’t believe in, it’s all out of love. It’s based on my love for the people who are affected by said issue or political turbulence. That’s what I hoped the show would be ― a love letter for the different communities of color that I am a part of, and a joyous celebration of friendship and identity. If this show, or other comedic projects, provide spaces of joy and resistance during a political upheaval, I think that is amazing.

In a statement you recently issued on your Facebook page, you noted that the majority of your crew are people of color, women or queer. Why was it important to you to be representative down to the people behind the camera?

I think that diversity in the crew is incredibly important. The crew controls the mechanics of how the show is shot and seen. And when I worked in theater, even if there was a racially diverse show onstage, that diversity was rarely represented by the crew. The excuse I heard over and over again was, “Oh we can’t find talented enough people from diverse backgrounds.” That’s just completely false. What we wanted to do was create an amazing crew, all masters in their own craft, on this show. We wanted to have a crew that reflected the diversity of the cast and story, as well as the people creating art from various communities in Chicago. And so we did. And I think it’s a real testament to how amazing the crew is that they were able to work on a limited budget to create such a high-end project.

What TV shows or web series are you loving right now?

I love “How to Get Away with Murder” and “Scandal.” I’ve been a big Shonda [Rhimes] fan for a long time. I also recently watched and loved “Atlanta” and “Insecure.” I love the friendships in “Atlanta,” the way that the show followed the relationships between these three men. I also think that show was doing such interesting things formally. Issa Rae has always been a huge inspiration, especially her journey from web series to network. I also love this web series called “Ladies Room,” which is hilarious.

Know a story from your community of people fighting hate and supporting groups who need it? Send news tips to lovetips@huffingtonpost.com.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

For HuffPost’s #LoveTakesAction series, we’re telling stories of how people are standing up to hate and supporting those most threatened now. Tell us what you stand up for, with #LoveTakesAction.

Part of the perks of being a woman of color are the unique bonds we form with one another. 

As a homage to these sisterhoods, Brooklynites, social activists and best friends Mickey Ferrera and Brittany Brathwaite created The Homegirl Box. The quarterly gift box contains items inspired by revolutionary women of color like Frida Kahlo and Assata Shakur. Each box includes four to five clothing, beauty, decorative, health and wellness or home items as well as a staple herstory card which informs on the legacy of the historic women who inspired the box. 

The box was created not only as a means of celebrating iconic women, but also as a means for women to remind their friends ― or themselves ― of their power and purpose. 

“The love that homegirls show for each other and realness of how they show up is what we wanted to invoke with the naming of this box,” the co-founders told The Huffington Post. 

“It’s a proclamation to homegirls - women who never called what they were doing (i.e sending flowers to someone’s job or making sure someone is fed, checking in and sending affirmation of worth) sisterhood but it is ― and it’s radical and transformative.”

But the co-founders said the box serves more than one purpose.

“[It’s meant to] to celebrate and acknowledge women business owners,” they continued. (All of the box’s items are from businesses owned by women).

“To tell other women in your life: I see all of you and I want you to stay fueled and ready for the revolution -whether that revolution is internal or fighting the racist heteronormative patriarchy or whatever; to help you get or stay inspired for the revolution,” they said. 

The inaugural Homegirl Box was named The Frida Box in honor of the legendary Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. It debuted as part of their soft launch in December and sold out in 24 hours. 

“We started with Frida because we thought it was important to re-write and re-shape how she was being portrayed. The unibrow-less Frida who wears Daft Punk shirts and flower crowns isn’t the Frida that we know - [she is] a radical and political activist who transformed her illness and physical disability into art that begged to be seen and felt,” they said. 

“Frida painted herself because she didn’t see herself reflected, she made space for herself in a male-dominated industry [and] she loved hard.”

While Brathwaite and Ferrera acknowledged that love in itself isn't the answer to all of society's ailments, they do believe there is “space for radical love, radical hope, and joy” ― with an emphasis on black joy -- in the resistance movement. 

“We both know from our experience as organizers, youth workers, movement builders, and trap scholars that keeping ourselves and our sisters fueled must be part of our work,” they said.

“Women carry much of the work in visioning and creating revolution and yet, who is looking out for us? Who is making sure we are fed and that we can cover rent? Who has our backs? Our Homegirls.”

The Homegirl Box officially launches on March 3rd. Their next box will be dedicated to civil rights activist Assata Shakur. 

Know a story from your community of people fighting hate and supporting groups who need it? Send news tips to lovetips@huffingtonpost.com.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

We are 26 days into Donald Trump’s presidency, and there’s already a miniseries about the 2016 election on the horizon.

That’s right, you can soon channel your crippling panic about America’s federal horror show via an eight- to 10-hour drama from “Zero Dark Thirty” scribe Mark Boal and producer Megan Ellison, according to Deadline. Boal, who won an Oscar for writing “The Hurt Locker,” is expected to make his directorial debut and pen part of the series.

Boal and Ellison will work with Hugo Lindgren, the former New York Times and Hollywood Reporter editor who in 2014 launched Page 1, a company that develops movies and TV series based on recent news stories. Lindgren is reportedly compiling a team of investigative journalists in New York and Washington, D.C., to work on the project. 

Whether or not a few months provides enough distance to process the nutty election we just endured is yet to be seen. It seems like this endeavor most closely resembles Game Change, the meticulously reported behind-the-scenes account of the 2008 election. Game Change started as a 2010 book and became an Emmy-winning HBO movie in 2012. 

There’s no network attached to Boal and Ellison’s series yet. Showtime has already contributed to the election postmortem with “Trumped: Inside the Greatest Political Upset of All Time,” a documentary that aired Feb. 3. PBS also dedicated a January episode of “Frontline” to chronicling how the hell Trump made it all the way to the White House. It’s almost like the whole thing is so dreadful that no one can think of anything else! Fire up your Hillary Clinton casting wish list now.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Designer Mara Hoffman used her platform at New York Fashion Week to amplify the voices of the Women’s March on Washington organizers. 

Activists Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, Bob Bland and Carmen Perez gave a passionate speech before Hoffman’s show about their inclusive Women’s March movement, and the importance of empowering marginalized women.

“We stand together in solidarity, recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country,” Perez says in the video. 

After the show, Sarsour spoke to AFP about the importance of using your platform to get political. 

“No matter where you are,” she said, “whether you’re a model, whether you’re a fashion designer, a singer, a performer, or even an activist like me, we all have a responsibility to stand up for the most marginalized.”

Hoffman is by no means the first designer to use NYFW as an avenue for making political statements. On Monday, Mexican-American designer Raul Solis had models walk the runway in underwear that read, “Fuck your wall” and “No Ban No Wall.”

 The resistance: so hot right now.

H/T Jezebel

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

It’s safe to assume “La La Land” will win the Oscar for Best Original Score this month. It is a musical, after all. But you owe it to yourself to learn the name of a promising composer whose work is competing against that illustrious city of stars: Mica Levi. 

Every now and then, the music used in a movie is evocative enough to transcend or reshape the plot. In “Jackie,” Levi’s strings score plays like a phantom haunting its title character, the newly widowed Jacqueline Kennedy (played by Natalie Portman). Before any images appear, Levi’s orchestra announces itself as though a horror movie will follow. When a close-up of Portman’s face illuminates the screen, the ambiance softens, a nip of hope sandwiched between numbing terror.

“Jackie” uses Levi’s score sparingly. Many of its cues are unexpected. The music steers the story through the dread of JFK’s 1963 assassination, the turmoil of Jackie’s public grieving, and the personal reckoning she faced in defining her husband’s legacy despite his truncated political achievements. Without losing faith, it treats this chapter of Jackie Kennedy’s history as a buffet of tragedies. 

“I was thinking more about her and her life than I was the story of what was happening because I didn’t really know what the film was going to be,” Levi told The Huffington Post in November. “So I tried to write music that I thought she’d like or that she would listen to.” Think of classical artists like Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Casals, whom the Kennedys hosted at the White House. 

Levi’s score has been exalted as a hallmark of “Jackie.” This is her first Oscar nomination, but she didn’t emerge from nowhere. The classically trained 29-year-old Brit, who DJ’d in London and dropped her first mixtape on MySpace, has been releasing experimental indie pop since 2008, under the stage name Micachu. While ostensibly happier, elements of her personal catalog sound similar to “Jackie”: odd, dissonant, haunting, beautiful. 

If there’s a purer parallel with “Jackie,” it’s “Under the Skin.” Director Jonathan Glazer chose Levi to compose the music for his 2013 sci-fi oddity starring Scarlett Johansson after hearing “Chopped & Screwed,” the LP that Levi’s band, Micachu and The Shapes, recorded with the London Sinfonietta, a chamber orchestra. From the opening notes, the “Under the Skin” soundtrack sounds appropriately alien. Lacking distinct melodies, the tracks are all swelling tremolos, screeching strings and pulsating percussion. Reviews of “Under the Skin” praised Levi’s contributions, comparing them fondly to an “otherworldly hornet’s nest” and “static emanating from another galaxy.”

Levi had seen a cut of “Under the Skin” before writing, and then she and Glazer worked together in an “incredibly immersive” spell. With “Jackie,” Levi conceived pieces based on Noah Oppenheim’s script and her own interpretations of the former first lady. The process was, comparatively speaking, instinctual. Levi sent her compositions to director Pablo Larraín, who then showed her select scenes and asked her to fill in a few gaps by channeling certain feelings, “like when Jackie needs to be more tender or when there’s madness.” Levi and Larraín were two artists constructing their puzzle of a tone poem in separate quarters. And yet that tandem operates in a beautiful discordance that more conventional Oscar-nominated scores do not achieve. (In addition to “La La Land,” “Jackie” is competing against “Lion,” “Moonlight” and “Passengers.”)

“I remember Pablo saying he didn’t want to hold back on showing how surreal it must have been,” Levi said, referring to Jackie’s struggles. “I suppose there is horror in it as well, but I think it’s more the trippiness of that situation, especially because she was in such an official capacity.”

When I talked to Levi, “Jackie” hadn’t opened yet. One week before the movie hit theaters in December, Levi released her next album. More symphonic than some of her previous outings, “Remain Calm” was a collaboration with Oliver Coates, a cellist who also performed on “Under the Skin” and helped to mold Radiohead’s “A Moon Shaped Pool.” Less than two months later, Levi’s third cinematic endeavor, the sci-fi drama “Marjorie Prime,” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The next morning, Levi became one of the few female composers nominated in the Oscars’ 89-year history. And a couple of weeks later, The Film Stage reported that she will score “Vox Lux,” a drama featuring Rooney Mara as a pop star. It’s all happening. 

“What I do think is really cool about the experience of working in film is how collaborative it is,” Levi said. “I know that sounds very corny, but what I mean is that it’s a lot of different kinds of forms coming together. It’s actually quite satisfying because everyone is working for a common goal that isn’t much to do with one’s own thing. You’ve got to do what’s right for the picture.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Warning: This post contains images of erotic artwork. Very, very, very erotic artwork that may not be suitable for your workplace.

For the first time in its nearly 275-year-long existence, Sotheby’s is hosting an exclusively erotic art sale.

Taking place just two days after Valentine’s Day in London, the unprecedented sale will showcase works from artists like Pablo Picasso, Egon Schiele, Camille Bombois and Ettore Sottsass. Chock-full of recognizable Cubist nudes, decadent topless Renaissance scenes and the occasional phallic sculpture, the collection set to hit the auction block serves as a wild survey of the naughtiest depths of art history not often seen in the halls of such a storied institution.

The sale, it turns out, is also a rousing lesson on the alleged sexual proclivities of Catherine the Great. 

Yes, included among the 107 artworks in Sotheby’s “Erotic: Passion and Desire” sale ― many of which come from the West, though a selection have origins in Asia ― lot No. 74 is a copy of a table adorned with penises, vaginas and breasts, a bizarre artifact that was allegedly delivered to Catherine II during her reign in Russia. The iconic leader, rumored to have had a soft spot for erotic decor, purportedly stashed the explicit piece of furniture in a private apartment that was later destroyed in a palace bombing. Or so the tall tales go.

Its modern replica is available now for a cool $18,000 to $25,000.

Other notable, non-Western selections from the sale include a series of shunga ― erotic prints from Japan’s Edo period ― and a number of NSFW Turkish and Indian images from the 1700s.

Much of the sale’s offerings put naked women at the forefront, a trend not uncommon to, well, all of art history. From a 17th-century painting of Jupiter-disguised-as-Diana seducing Callisto to a pin-up portrait from 1969, only one of the works below features a nude man ― though a few disembodied phalluses appear along with men engaging in sexual acts with women. The selection of images below represents but a fraction of the actual sale, though the broader gender imbalance remains. Few works on sale were created by women.

One significant exception is a work by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, a London-based artist of Ghanaian descent. The painting features a figure of ambiguous gender who stares defiantly at the viewer amidst a sea of red pigment, which can be seen on Sotheby’s website.

To get a preview of Sotheby’s historic erotic sale, check out the images below. 

Items in “Erotic: Passion & Desire” will go on sale at Sotheby’s in London on Feb. 16.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

As if Valentine’s Day weren’t anxiety-inducing enough, an image of President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin in love ― and expecting! ― gave New Yorkers something else to complain about on the romantic holiday. 

The image of Putin and Trump in the buff, with the American president boasting a hefty baby bump, was projected onto buildings in the New York neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Chelsea on Tuesday night alongside the hashtag #LoveThroughHate.

It is not easy to unsee.

The public installation seems to be part of a viral ad campaign by a dating app called Hater, which matches up potential lovers according to their mutual dislikes. But surely, many a dater would hate a marketing ploy so desperate as this one. 

When asked for a comment about the project, a representative for Hater told The Huffington Post over Twitter: “There’s a lot of animosity out there, regardless of what side you’re on. We’re just trying to make people laugh. Through humor, hate can turn into love.”

It’s an interesting sentiment, given the huge role humor played in Trump’s election. 

The ad employs an odd choice of imagery for a dating app on Valentine’s Day, considering few people might kill the mood these days quite like Trump. And like some of the other Trump-centric artworks that have graced New York over the past year, the projection unfortunately relies on shock factor and bizarre, body-shaming tactics instead of legitimate critique. 

There are, thankfully, artists and institutions who have approached Trump’s presidency in more productive ways. An exhibition called “Muslim in New York” responds to Trump’s travel ban with a subtle tribute to the legacy of Muslim life in the city’s five boroughs. And the Museum of Modern Art hung work by artists from majority-Muslim nations on its walls.

Additionally, illustrators have stepped up to the plate, exchanging their work for donations to the ACLU. Certain illustrators like Shing Yin Khor and Abigail Gray Swartz have rendered powerful, constructive pieces that communicate the values and mission of resistance.

Exploitative attempts at edginess, like Hater’s, pale in comparison to the work of these activist artists. If anyone else feels the same, well, we should go out. 

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

There’s a “Love Actually” reunion coming, which will inevitably provide an excuse to debate the movie’s merits outside the annual Christmas mudslinging. How great for all of us. 

Some of the cast from the Yuletide love-it-or-hate-it romance has convened to make a short film for Red Nose Day, the biennial event that supports the British charity Comic Relief, which “Love Actually” director Richard Curtis co-founded in 1985. Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Colin Firth, Bill Nighy, Liam Neeson, Andrew Lincoln, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Rowan Atkinson and others are reprising their characters for a mini-sequel set in 2017. (Missing from the list: Emma Thompson, Martin Freeman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Laura Linney, Rodrigo Santoro and, of course, the late Alan Rickman.) 

Titled “Red Nose Day Actually” and currently in production, the short film is part of the charity telethon that will air March 24 on BBC One and May 25 on NBC. 

“I would never have dreamt of writing a sequel to ‘Love Actually,’ but I thought it might be fun to do 10 minutes to see what everyone is now up to” Curtis said in a statement obtained by Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. He continued:

Who has aged best? ― I guess that’s the big question ... or is it so obviously Liam? We’ve been delighted and grateful that so many of the cast are around and able to take part ― and it’ll certainly be a nostalgic moment getting back together and recreating their characters 14 years later. We hope to make something that’ll be fun ― very much in the spirit of the original film and of Red Nose Day ― and which we hope will help bring lots of viewers and cash to the Red Nose Day shows.

“Love Actually” made $247 million worldwide when it opened in 2003.

Now we can find out whether Christmas is still all around us. 

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Desperate for a new anti-totalitarian dystopia to channel your Trump-era anxieties? Philip Pullman has you covered.

Pullman, the acclaimed British author of the fantasy series “His Dark Materials,” recently announced that he will be publishing The Book of Dust, the first installment in a planned trilogy, in October.

The book will feature Lyra Belacqua, the protagonist of “His Dark Materials,” though the events of The Book of Dust will take place when Lyra is still an infant. He has described the book as revolving around “the struggle between a despotic and totalitarian organization, which wants to stifle speculation and inquiry, and those who believe thought and speech should be free.”

The apparent parallels between contemporary political concerns and the events of The Book of Dust are not mere coincidence, according to Pullman. “I might not be writing about Donald Trump or Brexit or Nigel Farage directly in ‘The Book of Dust,’” he stated in an interview with the Associated Press.

Nonetheless, he said, the “questions they pose and the situations they set up are very much part of the world that I’m writing about.”

Readers familiar with Pullman’s wildly popular “His Dark Materials” trilogy won’t be surprised by his inclusion of provocative, politically charged themes. The Golden Compass (published as The Northern Lights in the U.K.), The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass saw young, street-smart Lyra drawn into a massive conspiracy engineered by a corrupt and repressive religious order, the Magisterium, that strongly resembles the Catholic Church. Lyra, who lives in a parallel universe where each human’s soul is housed in an external daemon companion and where witches are real, crossed paths with Will Parry, who stumbled over from our dimension in pursuit of his lost father. 

The series blends earnest fascination with physics, metaphysics and spirituality with a critique of organized religion. (Pullman, who has openly stated that he wishes the “wretched” Catholic Church “will vanish entirely,” has identified himself as an atheist.) Despite occasional controversy surrounding the book’s anti-organized religion bent, the series has sold 18 million books worldwide and spawned a 2007 film starring Nicole Kidman as malevolent Magisterium authority Mrs. Coulter.

The new series, which Pullman describes not as a prequel or sequel but an “equel” to “His Dark Materials,” will focus on inquiries into the nature of “Dust,” a mysteriously powerful substance much feared by religious leaders in the original series. 

As copies of George Orwell’s 1984 sell out on Amazon and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale hover at the top of the site’s best-seller list, there’s no denying that our collective appetite for tales of dystopian worlds ruled by theocratic and totalitarian oppression is at a peak. In an era when terms like “fake news” are being bandied about to discredit objective journalism and science, there’s no one better than Pullman to infuse our stacks of anti-authoritarian reading with a fresh saga about free speech and inquiry.

The only downside? American and British reader have to wait until Oct. 19 to read the first book. We’ll be counting the days.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Bangalore-based student Priyanka Shah’s striking photo series “Perspectives” has captured the internet’s attention since the 19-year-old artist shared the project on Facebook earlier this week. The straight-forward and powerful images communicate the judgment, scrutiny and harassment young women in India face for wearing certain clothing in public.  

For the project, Shah photographed her friend Aishwarya in various public spaces around Bangalore in a comfortable and unassuming outfit ― shorts and a T-shirt. The most compelling aspect of the photos, however, is not Aishwarya herself but the harsh reaction of the bystanders in her midst.

“I have been living in Bangalore alone for a while and ... being a girl our clothes have always mattered so much,” Shah wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. “Whether we wear shorts or are fully clothed we are looked at in the most negative way possible. Whenever I told people, most of them didn’t take it too seriously.”

”I really wanted to show people what kind of looks we got,” Shah continued, “how intimidating and horrifying they could be. How getting on the streets every day is like an emotional battle and how we have to think twice before wearing something we are most comfortable in.”

Shah captures with undeniable clarity how passersby ― both men and women ― stared at Aishwarya with unabashed contempt, to a degree that would make most anyone uncomfortable. The photos reveal the grave reality many young women in India live with: that simply existing in public yields uneasiness, scorn and sometimes abuse. 

While photographing, Shah hid herself behind trees or in bushes to ensure the bystanders’ reactions she captured were authentic and not a result of being on film. She described the shoot as one of the most intimidating experiences of her life.

”People said things like, ‘Yeh kaise insaan hai, shee,’” Shah said, which translates roughly to “Yuck, what kind of people are they?” After spending 30 minutes in a flower market, Shah said she and her friend were forced to leave when “people got rude and rowdy and the situation could have gone out of hand.”

Since completing the project, Shah has received positive feedback from both men and women, who felt the series was both relatable and courageous. The photographer hopes her work illuminates the very real problems of misogyny, body shaming and street harassment, which continue to plague young women in many corners of the world.

As Shah said in a statement: “Through this project I wanted to show how brutal people’s judgements could be, how just one look could speak a thousand words. Specially with women.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

For HuffPost’s #LoveTakesAction series, we’re telling stories of how people are standing up to hate and supporting those most threatened. What will you stand up for? Tell us with #LoveTakesAction.

This Valentine’s Day, in addition to the usual barrage of couple photos and “single life” memes, another theme emerged on social media: love as a radical, political act.

On Feb. 14, the Women’s March and other groups launched the hashtag #RevolutionaryLove, asking followers “to fight for social justice through the ethic of love” and post love letters on social media written to others, to themselves and even to their opponents. On the same day, The Huffington Post launched the hashtag #LoveTakesAction, asking people what issues they’ll stand up for. 

The hashtags seemed to resonate with people online ― #RevolutionaryLove trended on Twitter at various times throughout the day ― at a time when most Americans are stressed about the country’s future, and waves of protesters are taking to the streets to oppose everything from President Donald Trump’s executive order on refugees and immigrants, to the Dakota Access Pipeline, to recent immigration enforcement raids.

Here are 19 tweets from people declaring that, in the face of hateful acts and discriminatory policies, love can be a powerful act of resistance.

People showed love means standing up to hate and bigotry 

People spread love to those most affected by hate and injustice

People practiced self-love in the face of hate

People showed love of country means pushing America to be better

Know a story from your community of people fighting hate and supporting groups who need it? Send news tips to lovetips@huffingtonpost.com.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Hunter McGrady is dedicating her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition shoot to any woman who has ever felt “uncomfortable or insecure” because of certain body issues. 

The gorgeous model, who People magazine says is the curviest woman to ever shoot for the issue, spoke about her experience on set and what it meant for all women. 

“Women, for anyone who has ever felt uncomfortable or insecure because of rolls, or stretch marks, or cellulite, or acne, or felt like you didn’t measure up because you weren’t represented in the magazines ―THIS IS FOR YOU! You are beautiful,” McGrady wrote. “You are STRONG. You are powerful and together we need to lift each other up and inspire one another. There’s too much going on on this world to let each other fall by the [wayside].” 

McGrady released photos from her shoot on her social media accounts Wednesday. In the pictures, she’s wearing a hand-painted suit that took a team of people 12 hours to produce: 

In a video accompanying the shoot, McGrady spoke about what it was like to be featured in the iconic issue. 

“The fact that they’re using a curvy model for one of the model searches is beyond my wildest dream,” she said. “I’m doing this not only for me, but for every woman out there who has ever felt uncomfortable in their body and who wants and needs to know that you are sexy.” 

The HuffPost Lifestyle newsletter will make you happier and healthier, one email at a time. Sign up here.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Halima Aden already broke barriers by being the first Miss Minnesota contestant to compete in a hijab and burkini, but she’s only just begun.

The 19-year-old just signed a modeling contract with IMG Models, according to Business of Fashion.

Aden, a Somali-American born in a Kenyan refugee camp, will debut on the runway on Wednesday night at the Yeezy Season 5 show and is slated to appear in the March issue of CR Fashion Book.

She also shared her exciting news in fierce Instagram posts, including photographs that will appear in her CR Fashion Book spread.

President of IMG Models, Ivan Bart, told Business of Fashion that he found the model “brave” and is excited to see “how the industry reacts” to her. 

“By representing Halima, I would hope that the next 10-year-old girl wearing her hajib right now will feel included in the experience of fashion, and know that she could do that too,” Bart told the publication. “We need to reflect in fashion who we are, as a human race.”

Keep kicking ass, Halima, and we can’t wait to see you on newsstands.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.