A powerful PSA is shedding light on the challenges so many kids with autism navigate every day.

To promote understanding during Autism Awareness Month, the U.K. organization, The National Autistic Society, released a video called “Make It Stop.” The video follows a 12-year-old girl named Holly, who has autism. As she goes about an ordinary day, viewers see the way many seemingly simple interactions and sensory experiences can overwhelm her mind.

“I’m autistic, and sometimes I get too much information,” Holly explains in a voiceover. The video description on YouTube expands the message. “It’s as if my brain is too crowded ― and about to explode. But by taking a minute, you can give an autistic person like me the time they need. Understand autism, the person, and the change you can make.”

“Make It Stop” is part of the organization’s “Too Much Information” campaign which kicked off with a similar video last year. 

For Holly, the campaign has even more personal meaning. She used the PSA to tell her classmates about her experience with autism for the first time and educate them about the disorder.

“If just one person sees the film and is more understanding to autistic people, I’ll be happy,” Holly explained. “Sometimes I get really upset that people do not understand autism. But I hope this campaign will help improve understanding and make other people who are autistic feel more accepted.”

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Anne of Green Gables fans are truly blessed: In addition to the beloved CBC miniseries adaptation of the beloved book, about an impulsive young dreamer, it’s also getting the new prestige treatment.

“Anne,” spelled with an “e,” is coming to Netflix on May 12, and a new trailer gives us just a taste of what we’re in for.

We can glimpse iconic scenes ― most importantly, Anne thwacking her girlhood rival and eventual lover, Gilbert Blythe, over the head with her slate in the middle of school ― and sequences of Anne’s imaginative raptures.

It seems that Anne is ostracized at school, save for her loving friend Diana, and her outcast status even separates her from Gilbert in a Romeo and Juliet-style drama. Here’s L.M. Montgomery’s actual description of Anne’s first day of school:

There are a lot of nice girls in school and we had scrumptious fun playing at dinnertime. [...] Ruby Gillis gave me an apple and Sophia Sloane lent me a lovely pink card with “May I see you home?” on it. I’m to give it back to her tomorrow. And Tillie Boulter let me wear her bead ring all the afternoon.

The actress portraying Anne, Amybeth McNulty, brings the perfect mixture of coltish enthusiasm and dreamy romanticism to the scenes shown in the trailer. The aesthetic and slight tweaks to the book material in the trailer hints at the tone the series will take ― moody and gray-washed as opposed to the book’s scrubbed and sprightly atmosphere. There’s even the de rigueur prestige adaptation shot of the heroine standing, tousled and windswept, on a cliff overlooking the sea. 

The Netflix series looks to be using Montgomery’s clean, optimistic story as material for a darker, more melodramatic retelling. Anne Shirley, who never met a fictional princess she wouldn’t want to have tragically die on the last page, would definitely have approved.

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“Billions” star Asia Kate Dillon continues to blaze Hollywood trails. Dillon, who is the first gender non-binary character on a mainstream television show, just helped clarify the Television Academy’s submission rules for Emmy Awards consideration, Variety reported Wednesday.

The “Orange is the New Black” veteran, who also identifies as gender non-binary offscreen and uses the pronoun “they” for identification, has received almost universal praise since joining “Billions” in its second season. But they encountered an issue when the Showtime asked them how they would like their work to be submitted for Emmys consideration. 

Unable to find a suitable answer, they wrote an impassioned letter to the Television Academy, which was excerpted by Variety. It read in part: 

I’d like to know if in your eyes ‘actor’ and ‘actress’ denote anatomy or identity and why it is necessary to denote either in the first place? The reason I’m hoping to engage you in a conversation about this is because if the categories of ‘actor’ and ‘actress’ are in fact supposed to represent ‘best performance by a person who identifies as a woman’ and ‘best performance by a person who identifies as a man’ then there is no room for my identity within that award system binary.

Furthermore, if the categories of ‘actor’ and ‘actress’ are meant to denote assigned sex I ask, respectfully, why is that necessary?” 

Much to Dillon’s surprise, the Academy responded to their letter promptly, and said they would be “free to choose the category they wish to enter.”

A Television Academy spokesperson confirmed to Variety that it had conducted a “productive dialogue” with Dillon. “The Television Academy celebrates inclusiveness, and as we discussed with Asia, there is no gender requirement for the various performer categories,” the spokesperson said. “Asia is free to choose the category they wish to enter.”

Dillon, who ultimately chose to submit their work for supporting actor consideration, was pleased with the response. On Thursday, they tweeted their praise.  

Dillon, who hails from Ithaca, New York, told The Huffington Post in December that they were here to “change the game” in regard to portrayals of gender non-binary folk in popular culture. “As someone who is non-binary gender identifying, I feel a particular responsibility to portray members of my community on stage and on screen,” they said, “not only as fully fleshed-out characters who are integral to the plot, but as characters whose gender identity is just one of many parts that make up the whole person.” 

Thrilled to see you fulfilling that vow, Asia! 

Want more? Check out the Queer Voices newsletter.

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If you didn’t catch any cherry blossoms this year, never fear: Japan’s wisteria season is nearly here, and there’s still enough time to plan a trip before the big bloom.

Japanese wisteria is a flowering plant with cascading blossoms that can grow up to three feet or longer. The flowers bloom between April and May each year, turning gardens and parks into the technicolor Instagram scene of your dreams:

In Japan, there are two wisteria wonderlands travelers adore: Ashikaga Flower Park, reachable by train from Tokyo, will feature more than 350 wisteria trees in full bloom during this year’s Great Wisteria Festival from April 15 to May 22.Be sure to stick around until nighttime for light-up wisteria displays and a plate of wisteria-flavored noodles at Ashikaga’s onsite cafe.

Kawachi Fujien Wisteria Garden, in the city of Kitakyushu, offers ticketed admission from April 22 to May 7.

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Admitting you have anxiety can be difficult, but doing so can also help you take control of it.

A recent Humans of New York subject is the perfect case in point. The anonymous young woman, who was featured as part of HONY’s Colombia series, candidly shared how acknowledging her anxiety helped her manage it better.

“I used to try to hide it. I would log off social media. I wouldn’t answer calls,” she told HONY photographer Brandon Stanton. “I thought that if nobody knew, it didn’t exist. But the more I talk about my problem, the more I realize that other people experience similar things. So I’m trying to express it more.”

The woman also explained that the pressure she felt to perform well in school led to anxiety and panic attacks, which held her back creatively and academically. An instructor then offered her some sage wisdom after admitting she was dealing with the mental health issue.

“I had a great teacher who told me: ‘Instead of letting anxiety keep you from doing your art, let it be the thing that motivates your art,’” she said.

In typical HONY feel-good fashion, the post got an overwhelmingly positive response. Commenters left messages of support for the woman, encouraging her to continue seeking professional help and applauding her openness about mental health.

“Anxiety can be so debilitating and misunderstood,” Facebook user Meg Wallick wrote on the photo. “Thank you for sharing your experiences. It helps the rest of us know we aren’t alone.”

Nearly 18 percent of Americans are living with an anxiety disorder. The mental health issue is an incredibly common medical problem. Yet research shows there’s a good deal of judgment and shame surrounding it ― which is both self-inflicted and comes from people in society who don’t understand.

It’s this stigma that often keeps those experiencing the condition from speaking up about what they’re going through. However, advocates stress that talking about it is vital in eliminating negative perceptions around mental health.

We commend this HONY subject for doing just that. Can we get more of this?

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NEW YORK ― In her first sit-down interview since the presidential election at Tina Brown’s Women in the World Summit, Hillary Clinton told New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof about the plans she has for her forthcoming book.

Kristof asked Clinton how she felt about the role that misogyny played in the election ― especially considering that a majority of white women voters for President Trump, regardless of his admitted sexual assault, allegations of abuse, and comments he’s made about women.

“Im currently writing a book where I spend a lot of time wrestling with this,” Clinton said.

She continued: 

As you might guess, I’ve thought about it more than once. I don’t know that there is one answer. It is fair to say that certainly misogyny played a role. That just has to be admitted.

What the underlying reasons were, I’m trying to parse out myself. There is a constant struggle in a time of rapid change, like one we are living through, between something that is different, that may hold out even possible positive consequences, and something that is familiar and really is first and foremost about security of what you have right now. In this election, there was a very real struggle between what is viewed as change that is welcomed and exciting to so many Americans and change which is worrisome and threatening to so many others.

And you layer on the first woman president over all of that change, and some people, women included, had very real problems.

During the Q&A, Kristoff also asked who Clinton considers to be at blame for her shocking loss. 

“How much time do we have?” she responded. “You’ll have to interview me after my book comes out.” 

She plans on discussing the role of FBI Director James Comey and his October 28th letter about her emails, as well as Wikileaks and Russia’s involvement in the election. “I want to give as clear and as credible an explanation of these factors as I can,” she said.  

Plans for Clinton’s book were initially announced in February, and it’s slated to be released by Simon & Schuster in September of this year.

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NEW YORK ― It’s been five months since Hillary Clinton lost the presidency in a divisive election against now-President Donald J. Trump. She spent the weeks after the 2016 election doing some self-reflection, taking long walks in the woods and staying largely out of the public eye. 

But judging from her first post-election interview, she’s back ― and with gusto. 

Clinton, who has largely focused her speaking engagements on the empowerment of women and the structural barriers that women face since she lost the presidential election, sat down for a candid conversation with Nick Kristof of the New York Times at Tina Brown’s Women in the World Summit. She was razor-sharp, honest and spoke movingly about everything from health care to Syria to women’s rights around the world. (”The more we support women, the more we support democracy,” she said in a particularly strong moment.)

But while she was delivering these impactful remarks, she also managed to sneak in some pretty sharp jabs at President Trump, Putin and the exhausting reality of being a woman in the public eye. Spoiler alert: A Hillary Clinton who has nothing to lose is a delightful Hillary Clinton. 

On men ― cough Putin cough Trump ―  who can’t handle powerful women:

“[Putin] wasn’t fond of strong women... though he did shake my hand.” 

On right-wing men who question why they should have to pay for maternity care:

“The things that come out of some of these men’s mouths ― like why do we have to cover maternity care? Oh I don’t know, maybe you were dropped by immaculate conception?”

On the double-edged sword of female likability ― loved when you’re doing a job, hated when you ask for one:

“When they were done with me, I was Typhoid Mary. And poor Mary. She didn’t deserve it either, if you look back at the history.” 

On Trump’s all-male photo ops:

“All of the men sitting around the table deciding how they were going to defund Planned Parenthood, end maternity care and access to contraception ― looking at that picture, you just think it’s got to be from a skit on ‘Saturday Night Live.’” 

On the caveat you just have to include if you’re talking about Hillary Clinton (even if you are Hillary Clinton): 

“I’m not perfect ― everybody knows that by now.”

On Republicans who said “repeal and replace” for seven years and then failed spectacularly to do so: 

“I will confess to this. Having listened to them talk about ‘repeal and replace’ for seven years.... I don’t know that any of them had ever read the bill or understood how it worked... I do admit that was gratifying.”

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One hundred years ago, a man named Marcel Duchamp changed the course of art. All it took was a pseudonym, a urinal and a penchant for sticking it to the man. But mostly, the urinal. 

On April 9, 1917, the French-born Duchamp anonymously submitted an artwork for consideration to an exhibition hosted by the so-called Society of Independent Artists in New York. Being an open show without a jury, the expectation was that his work, whatever it may be, would be accepted as long as the artist paid the exhibition’s entrance fee. So Duchamp, a historic prankster, sent “Fountain,” a white porcelain urinal purchased from a store that sold plumbing fixtures, on which he’d scribbled the name “R. Mutt” and a date.

The Society, of which Duchamp was a member, promptly rejected the work. “The ‘Fountain’ may be a very useful object in its place, but its place is not in an art exhibition and it is, by no definition, a work of art,” the group wrote in a statement issued to press at the time. Duchamp, disgusted by the Society’s decision, resigned in protest. 

“Duchamp didn’t make ‘Fountain,’” Matthew Affron, a curator of modern art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, reiterated in a conversation with The Huffington Post. “It was a manufactured object ― an ordinary urinal purchased in a hardware store.”

But it was this ordinary urinal that would spark a global conversation about the meaning of the word “art.”

A few days after the rejection, the great Alfred Stieglitz photographed Duchamp’s urinal, creating the image that would live on in an avant-garde magazine named The Blind Man, published by Duchamp and his friends. In its May issue, the magazine featured unsigned essays defending the work and deriding the Society, with one particularly adamant series of lines reading: “Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view — created a new thought for that object.”

A century later, replicas and photos of “Fountain” are among the most studied objets d’art. Decades after his death in 1968, Duchamp, dishonored by a group of artists he saw as hypocritical, was once dubbed “the 20th century’s cleverest artist.” His urinal is considered by many to be “the most influential piece of modern art.”

The Philadelphia Museum, which houses the world’s largest collection of works by Duchamp, is one of the many art havens celebrating the 100th anniversary of “Fountain,” undoubtedly the most famous piece of rejected art.

Yet one particular aspect of the centenary celebrations aroused suspicion. It was announced, via a curious press release, that museums including the Philadelphia Museum, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin and several other famous institutions would allow access ― free of charge, for one hour, on April 9 ― to anyone with the secret password.

News of the celebration spread across the internet, and so did doubt. Representatives from a few museums including the Museum of Modern Art told Artnet News that they couldn’t confirm their institution’s participation. (In a later email to HuffPost, the museum was clear: “MoMA is not participating in the Duchamp ticket offer.”)

“I kind of like the idea that this is being conceived of as some sort of meta prank, where it’s not even clear if this is going to be happening on April 9,” Thomas Girst, the man behind the press release in question, explained to HuffPost over the phone. “But I am happy to confirm that after many months of dialogues and conversations with these cultural institutions worldwide, they really openly embrace and support the idea of celebrating [’Fountain’].”

Girst is BMW’s head of cultural engagement, as well as the author of the 2014 book The Duchamp Dictionary. “I write my Duchamp books at night,” he explained. “It’s been a fascination for over 20 years and it just doesn’t go away.”

MoMA’s statement surprised Girst, as he’s the man who’s taken months to reach out to a hefty list of museums to organize the global celebration.

The password, he says, is real.

It’s “R. Mutt” or “Richard Mutt,” the pseudonymous name Duchamp signed to “Fountain.” Whisper it to certain museum attendants on April 9 from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. in their respective time zones, and you’ll be able to stroll past free of charge. All in the name of Duchamp.

(See a complete list of museums below. And, despite Girst’s claims that MoMA had signed on to participate, the museum is no longer included.)

Beyond the password, Girst and a slew of museums have scheduled accompanying programming meant to honor the 100-year-old urinal that shocked the art world. The Philadelphia Museum, for one, opened an exhibition titled “Marcel Duchamp and the ‘Fountain’ Scandal” on April 1.

“He called this type of work readymade, borrowing a term for clothing sold ready-to-wear rather than made-to-order,” curator Affron told HuffPost. “Working with manufactured objects allowed him to remake the rules of artistic creation and to overturn prevailing ideas about the value of original works.”

Duchamp had reason to detest prevailing ideas. He never truly explained his decision to test the Society in 1917, but many scholars, like those at the Tate Modern, speculate that it had to do with his experience with the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, before he made his move to the United States. When, in 1912, he submitted an artwork called “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2,” Salon organizers unhappy with the subject and title succeeded in convincing Duchamp to withdraw his painting. Duchamp had felt censored then, and censored once again by the independents of New York.

“Art history has consistently decided upon the virtues of a work of art through considerations completely divorced from the rationalized explanations of art,” Duchamp declared in a quote included in Girst’s Duchamp Dictionary. 

Both Affron and Girst confirm that “Fountain,” long thought to have been tossed in the garbage sometime after its debut, changed the course of art, “for the better and for the worse,” Girst noted. 

“For the better, he seems today as a patron saint who was going up against the Western canon,” Girst said. “I think he embodies the revolutionary spirit unlike any other. I think he can be a really encouraging and liberating figure for young artists, if they decide not to walk in his shadow. Not to replicate what he has already done.” He cited Jeff Koons and Robert Rauschenberg as artists who’ve successfully followed suit.

For the worse, according to Girst, artists nowadays “think they can do anything and get away with it. What was an iconoclastic gesture by Marcel Duchamp in 1917, has slowly become an icon of modern art. To sign a mass-produced object these days is just a shallow gesture, basically not taking into account the radiating intelligence of Duchamp when it comes to creating works of art.”

One hundred years later, the art world takes the good with the bad, though Girst wasn’t about to name any offending names. And if the good includes one hour’s worth of free art, courtesy of museums across the globe, we can’t complain.

While all institutions of modern and contemporary art around the world are encouraged to take part in Girst’s initiative, he confirmed the following museums will afford patrons free entry on April 9 from 3 to 4 p.m. with use of the password “R. Mutt” or “Richard Mutt”: The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Serpentine Galleries, London; Tate Modern, London; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Staedel Museum, Frankfurt; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Kunsthalle Basel, Basel; Lenbachhaus, Munich; Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart; Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Schwerin; Museum Ludwig, Cologne.

Additional programming for #Fountain100 includes: “The Fountain Archives,“ at Centre Pompidou in Paris, “Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and “Fountain: 1917-2017“ at the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto.

Every Friday, HuffPost’s Culture Shift newsletter helps you figure out which books you should read, art you should check out, movies you should watch and music should listen to. Sign up here.

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Richard Gere has done consistently interesting, out-of-the-box work over the past few years, but most of his movies haven’t found long shelf lives. His latest eclectic performance is “Norman,” in which Gere plays a busybody New York fixer who unwittingly befriends the future Israeli prime minister ― a connection that proves complicated when international political schemes find Norman in over his head. 

The Huffington Post has an exclusive clip from “Norman,” which opens April 14. Gere shares the scene with Charlotte Gainsbourg, who plays a embassy official to whom Norman runs his mouth during a train ride, invoking suspicions. 

Watch the clip above.

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The ladies of Twitter never fail to brighten our days with their brilliant ― but succinct ― wisdom. Each week, HuffPost Women rounds up hilarious 140-character musings. For this week’s great tweets from women, scroll through the list below. Then visit our Funniest Tweets From Women page for our past collections.

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In a world where memes run amok, it makes perfect sense that even Hillary Clinton has a favorite.

It also makes perfect sense that the one she loves involves women’s health.

At the Women in the World Summit in New York on Thursday, Clinton was interviewed by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and talked about what it’s like to be an ambitious woman in today’s cultural climate, running for office and, naturally, the internet.

Clinton said her favorite thing on the wondrous wasteland that is the World Wide Web is the “GIF” where dogs are sitting around a table at a meeting.

The “GIF” she’s referring to is actually a meme (we forgive you, Hil) and it’s an image that’s become a jab at the White House’s photograph of a bunch of men surrounding President Donald Trump as he signs an executive order reinstating an anti-abortion policy known as the global gag rule.

The canine iteration of the meme involves the dogs discussing “feline health.” 

The image, created by Brian Eckert but meme-ified by Justin Shanes, shows the absurdity of the Trump photo in clear, uh, cats and dogs.

That wasn’t Clinton’s only piece of biting commentary on men in government. During another part of the interview with Kristof, Clinton remarked that she was incredulous that men questioned why they should cover maternity care.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you were dropped by immaculate conception,” she quipped.

Oh, Hil. Thanks for being a badass.

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“The Boss Baby” hit theaters late last month and surged to the top of box-office charts soon after. Not only has the animated film about a particularly high-handed infant dominated ticket sales, though, it’s managed to wiggle its way into headlines the way most news does these days: by relating to President Donald Trump.

“Is ‘The Boss Baby’ Really a Cartoon About an Infant Donald Trump?” Vanity Fair asked. “The latest DreamWorks animation is the first movie to nod to Donald Trump’s childish antics,” The Guardian proclaimed. The parallel was clear. Critics couldn’t themselves from comparing a dictatorial baby, serendipitously voiced by Trump impersonator Alec Baldwin, to our current commander in chief.

The story of an imperious, suit-wearing baby, who in the film seems to abhor happiness in the form of adorable puppies, actually began with Marla Frazee, the children’s book author who wrote and illustrated Boss Baby in 2010. What began with a sketch long hanging in her studio, based on a conversation she’d had about a friend’s problematic boss, morphed into a light-hearted picture book that, seven years later, is capturing the hearts of Trump dissenters.

Well, in an interview with The Huffington Post over the phone on Thursday, Frazee admitted the comparisons make a lot of sense:

When did you learn that DreamWorks wanted to turn The Boss Baby into a movie? 

Right before Boss Baby was released in the fall of 2010, my agent Steve Malk received word from Damon Ross, who works at DreamWorks animation. Damon had seen the book and was interested in optioning it for a possible feature-length animated movie, which was incredibly exciting. Although it was tempered by what I knew, which was that many books are optioned and they never actually get made into movies. So I was cautiously excited, I guess. 

What has your reaction to the film been like?

Oh, it’s just unbelievable. I was lucky enough to see the film in certain phases of its process over all these years, because DreamWorks has been very generous in inviting me to the studio to see things at various points. I saw it finished finished at the wrap party probably two weeks before it was released. I was just so blown away. The difference between it being almost finished to being finished was huge. It just came together in a way that was so much tighter, with the music. Things that I don’t really know how to describe, they offered a completely different experience than what I had seen before. I think it’s just been exciting, start to finish.

Did you ever imagine, while writing the book, that it would one day become the No. 1 film at the box office?

No. [Laughs] Not to put too fine a point on it, but no. I could not have imagined that. And not only that, but the synchronicity of the fact that, you know, where we are in terms of politics. We have the “Boss Baby” character being voiced by Alec Baldwin, who is impersonating Trump on “Saturday Night Live.” And Trump being in the Oval Office, acting like, many people think, the Boss Baby. So, it’s just a circular, incredible thing that’s not something that was planned.

Were you at all surprised by these comparisons between Boss Baby and Trump? Does it make sense to you?

In a strange way, yes, it does make sense to me. Saying that, it was completely surprising. Absolutely surprising. Part of what makes sense to me is that ― and I’ve thought about this quite a bit ― when I was writing the book and sort of envisioning this character, I thought of the Boss Baby character as a white, stereotypical male boss. Mainly because it was funnier. I couldn’t understand why it was funnier, but it was.

That’s the thing about stereotypes, they’re kind of hard to untangle. In order to riff on them, there has to be some sort of buy-in, that this is an absurd character. For me, when I was thinking about the book, I was reflecting on the sitcoms or TV shows of the ‘60s ― whether it was “The Dick Van Dyke Show” or “Father Knows Best.” I sort of set the book, in my head, not only in that time period but in that fictional TV world. And so when I first started doing the sketches, I had the book cover looking like a vintage TV screen, and I had Boss Baby walking into his house for the first time with a TV jingle kind of going on. There was a sort of artifice about the world it was set in. 

For what we’re kind of living through now, the sense of what’s happening in the White House, there’s a lot of similarities there ― with the artifice of it. When Alec Baldwin started to be all over the place with his impression of Trump, it did seem like there were going to be all these connections that would be made. And they have been. 

I believe it was Vulture who came down definitively on the comparison. [Emily Yoshida wrote an article titled “Stop Saying Every Piece of Art Is About Trump. Only Boss Baby Is About Trump.”]

It’s uncanny. I would say that.

You’ve mentioned that your book is based on your son’s reaction to a particularly havoc-wreaking new kitten in your home. Did you base Boss Baby’s experiences on your actual son or your life as a mother?

Absolutely, when I had my first son ― we have three and they’re now grown-ups ― but when I had the first baby, my predominant feeling was, “Why didn’t anyone tell me this was going to be so insane?” I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t warned. Then, when my youngest son was 15, he wanted a kitten for Christmas. So we went ahead and we got this little kitten. We had no idea what cats were capable of. The kitten was adorable, but it was pooping under our bed and under our Christmas tree and in the fireplace. My 15-year-old came up to me after about two weeks, really upset, and said, “I kind of think we should take this cat back to the cat adoption place.” I’m like, “Why?” “Because he’s stressing everybody out.” I said, “This is nothing! Nothing. You should have seen what it was like when you guys were babies. We’ll be fine. We’ll learn how to love this cat. Really. Trust me.”

But then I thought, you know, he’s sort of reacting the way new parents do ― the way I felt ― when babies come into your house and start bossing. They become the boss of you. They just come in and take over. So that feeling, somehow, watching [my son] experience it was a really instructive thing for me to see and channel. I don’t know if I would have launched off to work on the book with my own memories of watching it [...] It was a hard book to go from the concept of to anything that was working, more so than other book I had worked on.

Why do you think that is?

I wanted it to be funny, and funny books are hard. When I started, I had too many characters. There were friends and relatives who the baby had as part-time employees, there was a dog the baby fired. There was more. And I had to take a lot of that out. And maybe he wasn’t as abrasive as he needed to be. So to get some distance as him as a real baby and focus on him more as a crazy boss, that was a line that was a little tough to find.

What was it like, in turn, seeing this pared-down story turned into a feature-length film? Did the filmmakers incorporate some of the details you’d originally wanted to include?

A lot of them are there, and that has been interesting. I knew from the very beginning that this 32-page picture book being turned into a feature-length film was going to be a very different animal. It just is. I think what the book focuses on is when a baby comes into a family and really is the boss of the parents ― there are no siblings in the first book. [Editor’s Note: Frazee did write a second book, The Bossier Baby, last fall, in which the Boss Baby is demoted by little sister CEO.] But in the movie, [older brother] Tim Templeton is the unreliable narrator and so it is about his displacement.

But what I think is the same, is just how a baby just changes a family’s life. In the film, I was amazed by how a lot of the lines that are narrated by Toby Maguire as adult Tim Templeton are almost verbatim the text of the book. So it sets up the film and the memory almost line for line. 

Obviously The Boss Baby is a children’s book and, now, a kid’s movie. But it’s doing very well, largely because, I would assume, adults also enjoy the story. As a writer of children’s stories, how do you balance the desire to make a plot resonate with kids, yet entertain adults, too?

For me, the reason I love doing picture books so much is that I know that the picture-book-aged child ― who is the audience for the book ― they are the best picture-readers of all of us. Once we learn how to read words, we sort of lose that ability to read the picture narrative as expertly as we do. I worry about how to keep their attention and not make mistakes, because they’ll find them if I put them in there by accident. Once I feel like I’ve locked that into place and it’s saying what I want it to, the words, for me, they accompany the pictures and hopefully bounce off of them in interesting ways that build to something more. I feel like I’m going to get the child reader with the picture story and keep the adult reader there with the words. But I’m not as interested in that as I am the picture-book-age child who’s going to read the book over and over again and live with it in a way an adult never will.

When you started out as an illustrator and author, were you influenced by any artists or writers who came before you? 

So many. One of the books that made me want to grow up and do this was Where the Wild Things Are. Specifically, the place where Max’s room turns into a forest, just blew me away. I found it to be one of the most miraculous, magical things I had ever seen. I just wanted to learn how to do that ― that sort of page-turn magic. I was very much into the idea of becoming a children’s book author because of that book.

And the other book was Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey, because I loved Sal so much. She was such a quirky, specific child, so much so that I wanted to be her. I didn’t just want to look at her in a book. I wished she was me and I was her. I felt so attached to her. Later, when I went to school and took art classes, and eventually went to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and studied illustration, I would always think about the way he drew her, which was so specific and detailed and so full of life. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

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These days, the #followmeto vacation pic trend is ubiquitous on Instagram. The trend took off in 2013, when photographer Murad Osmann began posting images of his girlfriend-turned wife Natalia Zakharova holding his hand in breathtaking locations all around the world. Here’s one of them in Jordan:

Now, a ton of couples do it: 

The photos look effortlessly beautiful but as two best friends from Montreal are proving in a viral Instagram post, a lot of hard work goes into staging one.

In the first pic, 19-year-old Instagrammer Claudia Tihan gives us the classic #followmeto pose:

In the next photo, the perspective is flipped and we see Tihan’s bestie Elisabeth Rioux, also 19, really struggling to get that perfect, Instagram-worthy shot:

If that’s not the ultimate look of concentration, we don’t know what is. 

Since sharing the hilarious comparison pics two weeks ago, Tihan’s post has received over 183,000 “likes.” In an interview with The Huffington Post, the 19-year-old model said the pics were taken all in good fun on a recent vacation in Hawaii.

“When Elisabeth was taking the pics, all I could see was her bending in crazy angles to get the perfect shot,” she said. “It was so great, I needed to snap it. It shows what nobody sees on Instagram in all these stunning shots!”

Yep, clearly, behind every great Instagram is a friend or S.O. willing to contort, squat and bend to make it happen. 

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For a long time, Niki Caro didn’t want to talk about being a female director. She would decline invitations to address Hollywood’s gender gap. With a 25-year résumé that includes “Whale Rider,” “North Country” and “McFarland, USA,” Caro just wanted to focus on the work itself. And then she realized how minimally statistics surrounding female filmmakers had improved since she began making movies. (Last year, women directed a mere 7 percent of the 250 highest-grossing releases.)

Now, Caro is ready to do something about it, first by focusing on female-centric projects, and secondly by using her voice as a megaphone for the many talented women not granted the opportunities to prove themselves on the big screen. 

That brings us to “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” which opened in limited release March 31 and expands to additional theaters this weekend. The true story of Antonina Żabińska, a Polish animal lover who hid Jews in her zoo during the Holocaust, was first told by Diane Ackerman in a 2007 book of the same name based on Żabińska’s unpublished diary. Think of Żabińska, who is portrayed by Jessica Chastain, as another of history’s hidden figures ― the people Caro expects Hollywood to shine a light on now that studios are more focused on women’s stories. 

It’s fair that Caro wanted to let her work speak for itself. After all, the New Zealand native’s breakout moment was 2002’s “Whale Rider,” a coming-of-age story about a Polynesian girl (Keisha Castle-Hughes, who earned an Oscar nomination) battling the patriarchal structures dictating that only men become chiefs of their tribes. Next came Caro’s first proper Hollywood production, 2005’s “North Country,” a dramatized account of a landmark sexual harassment case, starring Charlize Theron. Even her 2015 Kevin Costner vehicle “McFarland, USA” ― an emotive drama about a football coach who relocates to a predominately Latino high school ― had a delicate, almost feminine quality to its sensitivity. 

Along the way, Caro realized that male directors with one or two revered festival movies under their belts were being plucked for studio-driven blockbusters. Gareth Edwards went from “Monsters” to “Godzilla,” Colin Trevorrow went from “Safety Not Guaranteed” to “Jurassic World,” Marc Webb went from “(500) Days of Summer” to “The Amazing Spider-Man,” Rupert Wyatt went from “The Escapist” to “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” But until recently, no women were at the helm of any major franchise properties, not even the ones who’d struck gold at Sundance and Cannes. That’ll change in June when Patty Jenkins takes the leap from “Monster” to “Wonder Woman,” and again next year when Caro herself directs Disney’s live-action “Mulan” reboot.

“It was less ‘Why can’t I?’ and more ‘What the fuck is going on here? Why can’t we? Why are we not being invited?’” Caro said, reflecting on the past several years’ trends. “My gender should have absolutely nothing to do with it, at least in discussing the quality of my work, in which case I’m very proud to be working in a feminine way. But now that [The Zookeeper’s Wife] is out, I look at the statistics on female directors, and now it’s time for me to speak up. I’ve been silent for personal reasons, but now I’m very happy to say publicly that it’s a shameful statistic. Just the sheer ignoring of 50 percent of the available skill and talent and vision and tenacity and ambition appalls me.”

Caro points to Disney hiring her for “Mulan” and Ava DuVernay for “A Wrinkle in Time” as proof that the studio is progressing toward better inclusivity. And Caro understands what will come with that responsibility: She’s already fielded heated questions about whether she’ll cast a Chinese actress in the title role (affirmative) and whether the movie will feature the animated original’s songs (TBD). 

Ultimately, Caro, who was spirited and upbeat during our phone conversation last week, remains optimistic about the future of Hollywood. 

“This is extremely exciting because I know that there are going to be so many stories that will be coming out of the woodwork, stories to be discovered about extraordinary female achievement,” she said. “I’d like to think there are legions of female filmmakers ready to step up and tell them and audiences are going to love them.”

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If you’d heard nothing about “Big Little Lies” beyond blurbs and snippets singing its praises, you might be aware that the HBO show (adapted from a book by Liane Moriarty) poignantly portrays the nuances of domestic abuse. You might know that it’s a smart meditation on school bullying, on the group-think of parenting communities, on relationships between adult women. You might know that it centers on first-world problems, but does so in a way that’s full of feeling.

What you might not know about “Big Little Lies,” unless you’ve seen it or read about it at length, is that the central event that weaves these stories together is a murder, and a police investigation into who committed it. After its satisfying conclusion, the whodunnit aspect of the show is seldom commented on; it’s the quieter, more personal storylines that seem to resonate.

A New York Times review of the recently wrapped-up drama argues that “the show’s empathy was its strength.” Another review on Vox praises the story, writing that its “most riveting moments are the silent ones between women.” HuffPost’s Emma Gray wrote that “at its core, ‘Big Little Lies’ is about the deep, complex and protective connections that can form between women in the face of buried trauma.”

Members of the show’s cast seem to agree. In an interview with Vogue, Nicole Kidman spoke at length about her character’s domestic abuse, and the emotional difficulty of filming those scenes. When asked about the show’s appeal, Kidman complemented the author’s ability to write moving, fully realized characters. “She writes these novels and then she threads in these deeply painful and topical and real emotions and relationships that you get pulled into,” Kidman said.

Again, in an interview with Vulture, Kidman described the complexity of her relationship with Alexander Skarsgård’s character, his “dominance” and “fragility.”

While the conversations around the show ― by viewers and critics and the actors themselves ― have been remarkably nuanced and functioned as jumping-off points for broader conversations about abuse and the stereotype of female pettiness, these themes rarely appear on so-called prestige television. It’s the other, more superficially central aspects of “Big Little Lies” ― the murder, the suspense, the sun-lapped gun in the opening sequence ― that align it with other widely praised shows. And, while those elements of the story are arguably the least interesting, it seems unlikely that the show would’ve been embraced without them.

It’s not accurate to say all prestige TV is the same; you wouldn’t recommend “Westworld” to a “Transparent” fan. But there are tenants to the genre that reappear more than others. In a recent list poking fun at the concept of prestige TV, Vulture lists out the signs you know you’re watching a highly regarded show, including “Darkness,” “What the hell is even happening right now?” “Breasts,” and “The sad man.” A mash-up of these qualities appear in “Game of Thrones,” “True Detective,” “Better Call Saul,” “House of Cards,” and the original prestige show, “The Sopranos.”

So, if a production company were to take a gamble on a show that could be an awards season contender, a brooding and violent male protagonist would be a safe bet. But recently, a woman-centered riff on that storyline ― a vengeful woman with a plan, and a gun ― has emerged. In the last year, two films about women seeking revenge for sexual violence or emotional manipulation committed against them ― “Elle” and “The Girl on the Train” ― predicted audiences’ interest in “Big Little Lies.”

There is, it seems, an interest in stories about sexual abuse. But, perhaps due to the proven success of more clamorous approaches to storytelling, these stories are being stuffed into the revenge genre arc, the character’s abuse a jumping-off point for outward action. In “Elle” and “The Girl on the Train,” abuse itself isn’t the dramatic focal point ― the identity of the abuser is. But, as with “Big Little Lies,” critics seem less impressed with the deftly written mystery plot than they are with the portrayals of issues such as gaslighting.

Because it’s a miniseries, and afforded more space than a movie, “Big Little Lies” manages to achieve both things ― to comment on abuse as it unfolds, and to satisfy the apparent commercial need for a noir-like overtone. That audiences and critics both found Celeste’s personal struggles more resonant than Jane’s thoughts of revenge bodes well for the future of these stories; perhaps now production companies will be more likely to take a risk on complex depictions of abuse, rather than coming at the issue slantwise.

Imagine, for a moment, the plot of “Big Little Lies” sans murder. A woman, overcome with listless feelings, cheats on her caring second husband; another struggles to parse out her feelings for her husband from his abusive actions; another moves to a new town, and, due in part to class differences, struggles to defend her son against bullying accusations; another feels spurned for balancing work with parenting, and behaves defensively as a result; another is trying to gingerly encourage her stepdaughter’s activism, while remaining cordial with her husband’s overbearing ex.

There are ample opportunities for tension, for high stakes, for the things that make stories interesting. But, in the past, this type of story ― one centered on the earnest dramas and ennui of parenthood and domesticity ― has been written off as “Hallmark”-worthy, as unimportant.

Maybe we needed to simultaneously experience both ― a gun-slinging mystery and an all-too-real commentary on the dramas women experience daily ― to appreciate the value of the latter.

Fortunately, HBO ― the gatekeeper of must-watch smart shows ― seems to have recognized the salience of these stories. The network recently announced that it will adapt Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, which, like “Big Little Lies,” focuses more on its friendships, and its domestic tragedies, than on the violence that surrounds them.

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

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Queen Latifah is giving fans a glimpse at how celebrities experience the world’s most beautiful destinations with her new Travel Channel mini-series, “The Best Place To Be.”

Executive produced by Latifah and business partner Shakim Compere’s production company Flavor Unit, each one-hour episode follows a noted personality sharing the hidden hot spots of their favorite international destinations, including Anthony Anderson (Barcelona), Jason Biggs and Jenny Mollen (Hong Kong), Mary-Louise Parker (Kenya), and Latifah herself (Rio de Janeiro).

The multifaceted media maven told The Huffington Post that she wants viewers to experience travel through the lens of a celebrity.

“The premise of it was something that Shakim came up with based on my life,” she said. “When I go on vacations I travel to different places around the world and oftentimes I’m with friends of mine who hip me to the cool places to be and things to go to. And for a lot of celebrities, this is our only little break to escape and kind of be normal without the spotlight.”

“And so, we want to share that place with the world and tell them about their secret spots, because we want to see it through their lens,” she added. 

The show couldn’t have come at a better moment for the production duo.

In recent years, travel research group MMGY Global has found a surge in African Americans’ intent to travel internationally, which some have argued was previously overlooked and undocumented by mass media. Reports credit travel websites targeting people of color and social media influencers as contributing factors for the supposed increase. 

With reports of the “black travel movement” being on the rise, Latifah wants the mini-series to inspire even more people to broaden their international horizons.

“Sometimes it takes the media a minute to catch up and actually care about what we’re doing,” she said. “But we know what we do, and we know we love to take a vacation and get away and just enjoy life. But I’m hoping the show will just give them more places to go and stretch their horizons even further. I love to be in a land where I don’t speak the native language, but people are people no matter where you go.”

As for the best way to maximize one’s travel experience, the award-winning actress-rapper recommends travelers venture off the “beaten path” of where tourists traditionally visit for a more cultured experience.

“You’ll have a much more richer experience when you travel like that,” she said. “If you really want an experience that’s gonna stay with you for your life and you can come home, tell people who maybe can’t get there at that time. It’s so much more rich and deep and fulfilling than what you would do if you hung around the pool all day.”

Check out an all-new episode of “The Best Place To Be” on April 11 at 12 p.m. / 11 a.m. Central on the Travel Channel.

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On Thursday, a hashtag swept the “Star Wars” Twittersphere alerting fans that an announcement was on the horizon. That announcement, per the Del Rey Star Wars Twitter account, was to have something to do with a much-anticipated book code-named #OperationBlueMilk.

On Friday, Del Ray spilled the denta beans, revealing that the book in question, Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View, is due out October 2017.

The book involves more than 40 authors telling 40 stories that center around the background characters of “A New Hope.” (Think “X-wing pilots who helped Luke destroy the Death Star,” according to the Star Wars website, and “stormtroopers who never quite could find the droids they were looking for.” And most definitely everyone in the that cantina.)

From a Certain Point of View will celebrate the 40th anniversary of “Star Wars: A New Hope,” which was released in 1977. But instead of honoring those staple characters ― you know, like Princess Leia and C3PO ― the book will pay tribute to those “really weird background characters” that help make the “Star Wars” universe so rich.

So far, the public lineup of authors includes 28 men and women, some of whom have written “Star Wars”-related books and stories before, and others who’ve yet to dabble in the galaxy, but have demonstrated writing chops as mainstream authors elsewhere. Most notably, none of the authors will receive compensation for their work on the book, as their earnings are being donated to First Book, a nonprofit social enterprise that provides books and learning materials to children in need. Publisher Penguin Random House has also pledged $100,000 to the charity, while Disney/Lucasfilm reportedly donated approximately $1 million in books.

From a Certain Point of View ― which you can preorder here, using this clandestine listing ― is not the first “Star Wars” book (you can check out several here), but it is the latest. And if we’re finally going to figure out what “Fiery” Figrin D’an is all about, we’re there for it.

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A spoken-word poem has gone viral for its refreshing look at how difficult it is for many moms to be seen as more than mothers.

In a video of her spoken-word poem that the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 News posted on March 30, poet Hollie McNish explains that she only feels like an individual at night in the few hours she gets before she goes to sleep and wakes up to do it all over again. 

“Cinderella’s clock strikes at midnight each time. My clock strikes loudly at nine,” she said in her poem, which has been viewed more than 5.8 million times as of Friday.

McNish rhythmically described the feelings of being described as “so-and-so’s mum” and the idea of mothers being “underpaid, overworked” as “snot rags” and “milk makers.” She also emphasized the strength of mothers, but stressed that crying every once in a while isn’t a sign of weakness.

“Someone said that moms are the rocks that never crumble,” she said. “I don’t think that’s true ‘cause I do.”

At the end of her poem, McNish reminds her fellow mothers that their “stories are many.” And the poem in its entirety proves that their stories are worth telling. 

The HuffPost Parents newsletter, So You Want To Raise A Feminist, offers the latest stories and news in progressive parenting. 

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Massachusetts teacher and singer Lovely Hoffman heard some of the female students at her predominantly black middle school bemoan their appearance. Aware of the damaging impact of constantly trying to measure up to European beauty standards, Hoffman created a music video titled “My Black Is Beautiful.”

Hoffman made the song as a testament to the beauty of young girls of color, who are sometimes insecure about their hair, weight and skin tone. 

The video, which includes Hoffman and her actual students from Helen Y. Davis Leadership Academy in Dorchester, follows a young girl who doubts her beauty as Hoffman sings words of affirmation:

Who are you to say that I’m not beautiful

It’s your own insecurity

Because I know and believe

My black is beautiful

In one of the video’s most poignant scenes, the young girl is seen looking at an OK! Magazine cover with mostly white celebrities. But a thoughtful peer hands her an issue of Essence magazine featuring Viola Davis on the cover.  

By the end of the video, all of the young ladies are evidently more self-confident and are shown embracing one another. 

In a press release for the music video, which came out this January but has only recently been making headlines, Hoffman said a student’s self-esteem can impact their academic performance.  

“There is a strong correlation between self-esteem and student achievement,” Hoffman said. “As an educator, I believe it is my duty to not only ensure students are reaching their potential academically, but that they are also comfortable and confident in their own skin. It’s about educating the whole child.”

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Photographer Mikaela Bodkin wants moms to feel comfortable nourishing their babies ― whenever, wherever and however is best for their families. 

That’s the idea behind her series “Fed Is Best,” which features photos of women breastfeeding and bottle-feeding their babies.

Though she does not yet have children herself, the Canada-based photographer said she drew inspiration from her personal life and observations about the world.

“The fact that mom shaming still exists, as I recently witnessed it, was a huge factor. I think shaming of any kind shouldn’t happen, period ― which happened when my sister got pregnant,” Bodkin told The Huffington Post. “I also am inspired by being an orphan and relying on bottle-feedings to survive.”

”Fed Is Best” currently showcases breastfeeding and bottle-feeding, but the photographer hopes to incorporate other ways of nourishing in the future. The project is the latest in a slew of “fed is best”-themed series photographers have produced over the past few years.

Through the course of photographing moms feeding their babies, Bodkin also expanded her project and launched a series called “Love Your Postpartum,” which focuses more generally on mothers’ bodies.

Ultimately, the photographer’s message is simple.

“I hope people look at my photos and just say, ‘Hey, what a pretty photo of a mom feeding her child. It’s so nice they can get photographs sharing that moment,’” she said, adding that she’s disheartened to hear and see comments in this day and age saying women shouldn’t nurse in public or that bottle-feeding is bad. 

“My work was published somewhere, and the battle started. So I witnessed it right then and there that as much as we’ve grown, there’s still stuff to work on and talk about,” she said. “My work tells stories, and starts conversation.”

Bodkin says her late grandmother offered some great wisdom about this conflict. “One of the best things I ever heard was when she would say, ‘When you get to kindergarten, nobody asks you if you were breast or bottle fed.’” 

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