If you thought you knew Ludacris, you were abs-olutely wrong.
For many, he was the rapper who turned into the tech guy in the “Fast and the Furious” franchise, where he and Tyrese fight over which dude gets to take the actress from “Game of Thrones” on a date.
But get back. Get back. You don’t know him like that.
In Ludacris’ new music video for “Vitamin D,” clearly a song about people who just need to be out in the sun more, the rapper shows up with the-most-CGI-of-CGI abs possible. And the internet was more brutal than an ab-workout regimen.
so....... ludacris is just gonna CGI himself with abs using sega dreamcast graphics ??? it's rough out here. pic.twitter.com/BnAettIvd3
I need like a mental health vacation to deal with all of the evils in the world as well as #Ludacris and his air brushed abs pic.twitter.com/eecyJMhTho
Still, the real problem may be that people forgot Ludacris used to do these weird body transformations in his music videos all the time.
His last album, “Ludaversal,” came out in 2015, and “Battle of the Sexes” was released in 2010. In that time, he’s been busy on the “Fast and Furious” movies, with the latest installment, “The Fate of the Furious,” debuting this week.
With the attention span of the internet, people might be actin’ a fool because they just don’t remember Luda’s ways.
Everybody clowning Ludacris for his fake chest and abs like he didn't have fake biceps in his Get Back video. pic.twitter.com/CEKNdoVFxU
Also, the fake abs seem like an intentional joke. After showing off his god-like muscles and teaming up with Ty Dolla $ign to be some sort of proctologists who exclusively work on models (and seem inadequate at providing proper medical care), it’s revealed that everything was a dream.
Or perhaps Luda was just paying homage to “Rollout.” That’s possible, too.
Ludacris has fake CGI abs in his new video and people compared them to dinner rolls. pic.twitter.com/NnqUFt5yGA
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In a time of crisis, the best-case scenario involves Oscar Isaac grabbing your face and whispering, “It’s all right. I’m getting us out of here.”
You can now hold those fantasies nearer and dearer thanks to this exclusive clip from “The Promise,” in which Isaac plays a medical student evading the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian genocide, which lasted from 1915 to 1923.
“The Promise” opens April 21. Watch the clip above.
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Although most of America may not be familiar with the name Awol Erizku, they likely know his work. Specifically, they know the photograph of Beyoncé Erizku took in February 2017, which she then posted on Instagram to announce her pregnancy. The dreamy image of Bey covered in a gauzy mint veil, bulging belly exposed, turned iconic in a matter of minutes, quickly becoming the most liked Instagram photo of all time.
In his post-(Beyoncé’s)-baby glow, Erizku is turning his attention to a less glamorous but just as talked-about topic: the current state of American politics. The Los Angeles-based artist’s upcoming show ― titled “Make America Great Again” ― combines political symbology, urban iconography and ready-made objects with deep personal significance to conjure a potent appraisal of our uncertain times.
The presence looming over the politically-charged show is, of course, President Donald Trump, whose “Make America Great Again” baseball cap Erizku updates by adding the Black Panther Party logo atop it. Erizku has never shied away from being direct, even obvious, in his imagery, showing how art does not have to be esoteric to be effective.
In another piece titled “How That Make You Feel?” the same panther image is printed on an American flag turned sideways. The image recalls Dred Scott’s “What is the Proper Way to Display a US Flag?” ― hinting at the extreme reaction it’s bound to elicit.
“I’m putting it out there because I’m black and I’m Muslim and this is everything Trump has tried to stand against,” Erizku, who was born in Ethiopia and raised in the Bronx, told The New York Times. “I don’t think this show is anti-American, but it is definitely anti-Trump. All the people he’s hating on do make America great.”
Other works fold Erizku’s personal experience as a black man in America into an abstract, artistic language. For example, the piece “Wave Brake” features a slab of corrugated metal painted blue, the number “12” spray-painted over and over around it ― a slang term for the police.
“It’s a little Cy Twombly-ish, but if you go to any kid on the street they will know what it means,” he told The New York Times. Next to it rests a yellow, plastic bucket and mop, alluding to the artist’s father, who worked as a janitor.
Erizku, born in 1988, has been gaining momentum in the art world since before his brush with Beyoncé. His early works, made while a photography student at Yale, featured black subjects assuming the poses of art history’s iconic muses ― his sister, for example, was appointed a 21st-century “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” with golden heart hoops instead of the traditional pearl studs. The series highlighted the lack of black bodies represented in the art historical canon, yielding enchanting portraits with one foot in the past, the other in the present.
While his current work veers away from photography into the realms of painting and sculpture, Erizku remains focused on issues that confront black youth in America, ensuring they are not overlooked by an art scene that is often insular, elitist and out of touch. We’re sure Beyoncé would be proud.
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Yes, Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Joey and Pheobe will be there for you, singing their hearts out, as they “navigate the pitfalls of work, life and love in 1990s Manhattan.”
Written by pop culture parody masters Bob and Tobly McSmith ― the brains behind previous off-Broadway hits “90210! The Musical!,” “Katdashians! The Musical!” and the “Saved by the Bell” parody “Bayside! The Musical!” ― “Friends!” is sure to be just as wonderful, snarky and over-the-top as the duo’s past shows.
Judging from the song titles, the musical promises to highlight the sitcom’s best, most memorable and most absurd moments:
“The Only Coffee Shop in New York City”
“45 Grove Street – How Can We Afford This Place?”
“How you Doing, Ladies?”
“Hey Ugly Naked Guy Who Lives Across the Street!”
“We were on a Break!”
“I’m Gonna Hump U”
“Oh. My. God. It’s Janice!”
“Will They or Wont They”
“The Ballad of Fat Monica”
“Could I BE Anymore…..in Love with Monica”
“The One Where We Make a Million Dollars An Episode”
“We’ll Always Be There For You”
In some of their past productions, the McSmiths have convinced former cast members to guest star for a show or two. We don’t expect to see anyone making cameos this time around, but who knows?
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Illustrator and designer Loryn Brantz had been trying to think of a children’s story she could tell that would make a positive impact. So one day while looking for a baby book to buy for a friend’s shower, she conceived of Feminist Baby.
“I wanted to write a book that I would want to give to my friends’ babies, and to my own possible future babies,” she told The Huffington Post.
Brantz created a board book that could expose babies to the word “feminism” and serve as a jumping-off point for parents to talk to their children about feminism. (”Feminist baby likes pink and blue,” one page reads.)
“I’d like to think that if a child loves Feminist Baby, it will help them have a positive association with feminism later on in life,” she says.
While waiting for her book to come out, Brantz missed drawing the character, and started drawing comics aimed at adults that feature the baby.
In the comics, Feminist Baby serves as an underage heroine bent on smashing the patriarchy and subverting tired traditions like the “gender reveal.” The panels provide both political commentary (she punches Steve Bannon who is dressed as a Nazi) and silly comic relief. But while they’re aimed at different audiences, both the comics and the book express the same basic message.
“Feminism is for everyone ― including babies!” Brantz says.
Scroll down to see more of Brantz’s Feminist Baby comics, and buy the book here.
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There’s no denying that Hollywood has a representation problem when it comes to Asian actors. According to a 2016 diversity study, Asian actors nabbed only 3.9 percent of speaking roles in film ― a stark contrast from the 73.7 percent white actors received.
It always has, too. From the silent era onward, the film industry has a long history of whitewashing, or, casting white actors in stories about Asians or Asian Americans.
Still, actual Asians were working in Hollywood at the time, paving the way for the likes of present-day actors like Constance Wu and John Cho.
Below, we remember 11 badass old-school Asian actors that you should know about ― if you don’t already.
CORRECTION: This article misstated that Umeki’s character was married to Marlon Brando’s character in “Sayonara.” She married the character played by Red Buttons.
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On Monday, the American Library Association released its annual report of the most-challenged books and articles nationwide.
Among the 10 titles that parents and other gatekeepers challenged or banned are coming-of-age graphic novel This One Summer and Drama, an illustrated story with an LGBTQ character. In fact, LGBTQ stories made up the bulk of this year’s top 10 list, with novels such as David Levithan’s Two Boys Kissing and Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings’ I Am Jazz, about a transgender character, also making appearances.
An ALA challenge is broadly defined; it can mean a person or group lodged a request to remove a title from a library or from a school’s curriculum. In a video timed with the release of the list, the ALA writes, “Most threats are unsuccessful thanks to the teachers, librarians, authors and even kids who rise up against censorship in libraries.”
The organization continues, “Each request to remove a book eliminates the voices of storytellers and dismisses the needs of readers who find themselves in those pages.”
It’s worth noting that while the ALA keeps close tabs on reported book challenges, not all challenges are reported. Even so, if the list is to be taken more as an overview, a clear trend emerges: Stories about sex, and LGBTQ sex in particular, are among the most challenged, and therefore in the most need of vocalized support.
9. “Little Bill Books” series by Bill Cosby, illustrated by Varnette P. Honeywood
Why it was challenged: “Because of criminal sexual allegations against the author.”
Ed. note: We’ve chosen not to link to sites selling Cosby’s titles in light of the comedian’s sexual assault charges. You can still buy them on Amazon or a local indie bookstore.
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A nurse at a children’s hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, is cheering up kids and normalizing their environment through his dry-erase art.
Edgar Palomo, a nurse on the hematology/oncology floor at Cook Children’s Medical Center, leaves works of art on the floor’s dry-erase board. He’s drawn scenes from movies like “Beauty and the Beast,” “Star Wars,” “Inside Out” and more. Palomo told The Huffington Post that each drawing takes a week or two.
”I work at night, and sometimes there’s a little bit of downtime, so I’ll work on it a little at a time, maybe like 15 minutes at a time,” he said. “I definitely don’t finish them all in one night. It takes like a week or two weeks to finally get it all done, but definitely work comes first.”
Palomo started sharing his art around the hospital about three years ago. He said he wants to “liven it up” in the unit with his drawings.
“From what I’ve seen, it tends to make the kids and even the parents really happy,” he said. “Anything to normalize the environment and cheer them up.”
The creative nurse takes requests from kids, parents and his fellow employees. The most difficult request he’s received? The Mona Lisa.
“I tried my best,” he joked.
Palomo also sometimes uses colored pencils or pens to do personalized drawings for patients. On April 5, Cook Children’s Medical Center shared photos of his work on its Facebook page, prompting people to share comments about their experience with Palomo and include photos of the drawings he gave to their kids.
Kim Griffith, media relations specialist at the hospital, told HuffPost that the kids who get to interact with Palomo adore him and enjoy seeing his drawings as well as playing Xbox with him.
“He’s just a really crucial part of our H/O department,” she said.
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When discussing black women’s history, activists like Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks are often quick to come to mind for many.
Yet while their resilience and advocacy is noteworthy, they’re certainly not the only famous black activists we should know.
Now, a recently digitized collection of rare photos at the Library of Congress shows similarly socially active but lesser-known black women throughout the 19th century. The images, which are mostly striking black-and-white portraits, once belonged to William Henry Richards, a professor who taught at Howard University Law School for nearly four decades before his death in 1951. Richards was “active in several organizations that promoted civil rights and civil liberties for African Americans at the end of the nineteenth century,” Beverly Brannan, the curator of Photography, Prints & Photographs Division at the Library of Congress wrote in a post published last week.
The library acquired the collection in 2013 and recently digitized the images to bring visibility to more obscure black women who were active in civil rights, education and journalism in the decades following the Civil War. They include pictures of women like writer Hallie Quinn Brown, who helped to launch the Colored Women’s League of Washington, DC and educator Josephine A. Silone Yates, who was trained in chemistry and was one of the first black teachers at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.
Below you’ll find the entire collection of images.
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The new “Power Rangers” movie subtly fights the “model minority” stereotype by shedding light on a rarely discussed Asian-American issue.
While the minority group is often seen as financially well-off, the Asian character Zack, the black Power Ranger in the film, comes from a low-income family who lives in a trailer home.
Though Zack’s story is not uncommon, the lives of disadvantaged Asians are often missing from the big screen, making his presence all the more important.
“Even we [as Asians] get sucked into this belief sometimes that as long as [we] work hard, we can push through, but a lot of Asians are disadvantaged,” Ludi Lin, who plays Zack, explained to the Angry Asian Man blog regarding the character’s significance.
In the movie, a bilingual Zack cares for his ailing mother, played by Fiona Fu, in their mobile home. The mother, who appears to be the sole parental figure in his life, is confined to her bed. There are no mentions of attending prestigious colleges, nor does school appear to be his priority as he skips class.
Check out more on Zack in NBC’s video interview above.
Zack’s story is reflective of the lives of a growing population of Asian-Americans. The National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD) points out that Asian-American and Pacific Islanders living in poverty is one of the fastest growing populations. Between 2007 to 2011, the AAPI population living in poverty increased by 38 percent ― the second fastest growing poverty rate in the U.S., behind the Hispanic population.
Disadvantaged Asian-Americans are concentrated in the Western region of the country, as well as in New York. In fact, the minority group has the highest poverty rate in New York City, according to the Mayor’s Office of Operations’ Social Indicators Report.
“The fact that few poverty studies have included the Asian American population also has contributed to the invisibility of Asian Americans in poverty,” the organization’s own report on poverty said.
What’s more, when Asian-Americans are examined in data, the group is often treated as a monolith, though their needs are diverse. A report from the Center of American Progress notes that there’s enormous wealth inequality within the Asian-American community, with some sub-groups like those from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos more likely to fare far less well than those from China or India. And averages don’t illustrate this disparity.
“By only looking at averages, you’re papering over the substantial struggles of a huge chunk of lower-income, less wealthy Asian Americans,” Christian E. Weller, a senior fellow at the Center For American Progress who penned the report with economist Jeffrey Thompson, told The Washington Post.
“Power Rangers” might have received mixed reviews, but the praise for its three-dimensional representation of minority characters is well-deserved, some viewers say.
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Katy Perry delivered a powerful speech at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual gala in Los Angeles last month, where she opened up about her sexuality and recalled her early years in a conservative Christian environment in which “homosexuality was synonymous with the word abomination.”
Picking up HRC’s National Equality Award, the singer nodded to the real-life experience that inspired one of her biggest hits, noting, “I kissed a girl and I liked it. Truth be told, I did more than that.” At first, she attempted to “pray the gay away at my Jesus camps,” but eventually discovered that the LGBTQ community was made up of “the most free, strong, kind and inclusive people I have ever met.”
Perry’s candid remarks have drawn national praise, but one former Colorado legislator believes the singer’s speech is evidence that she is “ruled by Satan.”
“You don’t just need more of your Jesus camps, more of the Bible, more of what your parents told you,” Klingenschmitt said on his program, a clip of which can be viewed above. “You need to get the devil out of you.” He then offered a prayer for Perry, noting, “We pray that she will be saved, that she will be born again, that she will repent of her sin and stop promoting sin to young people.”
As far as anti-LGBTQ statements are concerned, however, Klingenschmitt is a repeat offender. In December, he cited an inclusive Zales Jewelers holiday commercial as evidence of a “demonic spirit” who had inhabited the advertising executives who had created the ad.
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In honor of National Poetry Month, we gathered haiku from parents that sum up the lives of toddlers, the messes that kids leave behind and the struggle of not getting enough sleep.
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Stephen Wiltshire isn’t your average artist ― he can draw cityscapes entirely from memory.
Wiltshire, who was diagnosed with autism at age 3, would sketch images of the wilderness and caricatures of his teachers as a young boy. After one teacher began to take notice of his capabilities, she entered his work in art competitions, which garnered him local recognition. At just 8 years old, he was commissioned by the British prime minister to draw the Salisbury Cathedral, according to a profile by National Geographic last week.
The London-based artist has since been recognized by neurologist Oliver Sacks ― whose entire home Wiltshire was able to draw after a quick visit ― and Prince Charles, who honored Wiltshire with the title of Member of the Order of the British Empire.
But the elite aren’t the only ones who have been following Wiltshire’s work.
In October 2009, he completed a panoramic drawing of the New York City skyline on a 19-foot canvas in six days, after viewing the city for just 20 minutes during a helicopter ride. Segments of that process and a number of Wiltshire’s other panoramic drawings like those of Houston and Sydney are available as videos on his YouTube page and his website.
His sister Annette Wiltshire told The New York Times that he delights in others’ enjoyment of his work.
“That he has a gift makes no sense at all to Stephen,” she told NYT in 2009. “He knows that he draws very well, but he picks that up from other people — he sees the warmth on their faces, they tell him how much they like his work, and that makes him very happy. He loves the attention.”
In July 2014, Singapore Press Holdings commissioned Wiltshire to draw a panorama of the city-state. The art was gifted to President Tony Tan Keng Yam for the 50th anniversary of Singapore. The time-lapse video of Wiltshire drawing a panoramic view of Singapore has received nearly 180,000 views on YouTube. Wiltshire’s most recent work was a drawing of Mexico City in October.
Those looking to commission Wiltshire may be placed on a four- to eight-month waiting list.
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The American Civil Liberties Union is sending a powerful, multilingual message to President Donald Trump about civil rights by postingthe First Amendment in English, Spanish and Arabic on billboards across the country.
The goal of its “We the People” campaign is to send a message to Trump that Americans’ rights ― particularly those of immigrants, Latinx and Muslims ― are protected by the Constitution.
“Trump came to power on a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, and it was particularly bad when it came to Muslims,” ACLU communications staffer Stacy Sullivan told The Huffington Post. “We thought this would be a good time to remind the public ― and Trump ― that the First Amendment applies to Muslims and Latinos, and everyone else in this country, too.”
The First Amendment protects people’s right to practice their religion without facing discrimination. It also protects free speech, a free press and the right to protest.
The signs simply write out the language of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
The first signs went up last week in Times Square in New York, as well as at 30 bus stops in Washington, D.C. Another billboard went up in Los Angeles on Tuesday. The group is aiming to put up more signs in other cities and in other languages in the coming months, Sullivan said.
We launched #WeThePeople to remind the public of its First Amendment rights & reassure immigrants they too are protected by the Constitution pic.twitter.com/o1jiQmB4sW
The ACLU chose to post the signs in Spanish and Arabic specifically because American and immigrant communities that speak those languages ― particularly the Muslim and Latinx communities ― are not only numerous in the U.S. but also are “most under threat,” said Sullivan.
“It’s a way for us to state our solidarity with those communities under threat,” Sullivan told HuffPost, “and to say what [Trump is] doing is really un-American.”
While the signs are a pointed response to Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, they are also a commentary on the president’s attacks on the other First Amendment freedoms: of the press, speech and protest.
Trump has also criticized people who exercise their right to free speech and protest by suggesting that anyone who burns an American flag as a form of protest should lose citizenship.
“From his attempted Muslim ban to his calls for media suppression to his remarks endorsing the use of violence against those who protest against him, President Trump has shown disdain for the rights and freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment,” ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a news release. “We thought it was a good time to remind people of these rights.”
The “We the People” campaign, developed by ad agency Emergence Creative for the ACLU, is simply about sending a message to Trump that people’s rights need to be upheld and to all people in America that their rights are protected by law.
“This campaign is intended to remind people that the Constitution is for all of us. It doesn’t matter who you are or what language you speak,” Romero said in the release. “‘We the People’ means everyone.”
For HuffPost’s #LoveTakesAction series, we’re telling stories of how people are standing up to hate and supporting those most threatened. Know a story from your community? Send news tips to lovetips@huffingtonpost.com.
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Knowing how dangerous a trip to the Swedish superstore can be for couples, comedian Jeff Wysaski recently set up some handy “relationship-saving stations” in the store’s Burbank, California location.
“Shopping can be stressful,” the sign reads. “Here are 5 quick ways to ease tension with a loved one.”
Strategies include taking your Ikea-motivated anger out on a mini horse:
And starring at a photo of a puppy in a cup, as a reminder that joy exists:
Wysaski, who tweeted photos of the hilarious project on Monday, told The Huffington Post that he and his wife have been lucky enough to avoid arguments at Ikea.
“We both agree that getting in and out as fast as possible is the key to success,” he said.
Smart man. See more of Wysaski’s relationship-saving stations below:
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Having already exhibited a dead shark in a vitrine of formaldehyde, a severed cow’s head on which live maggots feasted, and an 18th-century skull covered in platinum with over 8,000 diamonds, you might wonder just how, exactly, Hirst plans on living up to his own hype.
After a 10-year hiatus from making art, Hirst has made his best bid, in the form of an underwater art show depicting the remains of a fictional shipwreck. The show is called “Treasures From the Wreck of the Unbelievable,” and in typical Hirst fashion, it’s not cheap. According to The New York Times, “Treasures” cost the artist millions of dollars to produce and Parisian collector François Pinault millions to present. (Neither gave exact figures.) In turn, the cheaper works on view will cost potential buyers around $500,000 each, with the big-ticket items costing a cool $5 million.
The exhibition revolves around a mythical story of a shipwreck that, according to Hirst’s story, was discovered off the coast of eastern Africa in 2008. The wreckage allegedly contained a bounty of treasure once belonging to a freed Turkish slave who rose to riches during his lifetime between the first and second centuries. When his ship, the “Unbelievable,” went down, his trove of sculptural objects were lost for centuries.
Until recently, that is, when divers salvaged some of the barnacle-encrusted pieces from the debris. To add to the mystique of his self-spun mythology, Hirst actually filmed people recovering the sunken goodies from the sea. The shipwrecked treasures ― now on view in Venice ― include massive, kitsch carvings depicting pharaohs, mythical figures, sea beasts and goddesses ― many of which curiously resemble contemporary pop figures like Rihanna and Pharrell.
For Hirst, who has long been obsessed with mythology, the exhibition is a very elaborate exercise in the importance of imagination.
“Believing, it’s different from religion,” the artist told the Times, reportedly over and over. “It’s what we need to do today. When you’re an artist, everything you do you think is about the world we are living in today. And now with all the liars running our governments, it’s far easier to believe in the past than it is in the future.”
For some, Hirst is the ultimate maximalist, his exorbitant visions transcending both good taste and bad in their sheer enormity. His work aims to literally take the viewer’s breath away, showing that art can be as spectacular as a blockbuster film, without the mediation of a screen.
As The Guardian put it: “It takes a kind of genius to push kitsch to the point where it becomes sublime.”
For others, however, Hirst’s show resembles nothing more than a shock artist’s attempt at a comeback, generated less through ingenuity than through obscene amounts of money. The Telegraph called the show “a spectacular, bloated folly, an enormity that may prove the shipwreck of Hirst’s career,” adding that it was “characterised by lifeless surfaces, lurid emotions, and vile, excessive details, such as a couple of toadstools growing on the base. Ugh.”
When overblown excess and unabashed grandiosity so viscerally conjure associations with the current U.S. president, Hirst’s longstanding eye for opulence feels, at best, tone deaf and, at worst, emetic. Although optimism and imagination are clearly the aims of Hirst’s under-the-sea adventure, the end result feels more like a last-gasp display of extravagance as gaudy as Trump Tower.
Hirst’s work will be on view at the Palazzo Grassi until Dec. 3.
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”Zero Dark Thirty” director Kathryn Bigelow’s first movie after Jessica Chastain was robbed of her Oscar for that project depicts the deadly five-day 1967 Detroit riot, which started after police raided an unlicensed bar.
Titled “Detroit,” the movie’s trailer debuted Wednesday. It is a who’s who of bright young talent: John Boyega, Jason Mitchell, John Krasinski, Anthony Mackie, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, Hannah Murray and Jacob Latimore all appear.
The first film distributed by Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures, “Detroit” is opting for a surprising release strategy. Given its star director and topical subject, the movie has Oscar potential, yet the studio has slated it for an Aug. 4 debut, ahead of the typical awards season window. With positive reviews and a decent box office result, it could carry over. After all, Bigelow’s previous collaborations with screenwriter Mark Boal, who penned “Detroit,” “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Hurt Locker,” have proven fruitful with the Academy.
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On the cover of Lana Del Rey’s upcoming album “Lust for Life,” the singer is pictured in front of a dusty blue pickup truck, wearing a white lace dress and her signature 1960s winged eye liner, white daisies in her long, dark tresses. For the most part, the sun-bleached image conforms to the aesthetic Del Rey is known for ― dreamy, vaguely retro, Californian and a bit too consciously curated to be classically cool.
And yet there is something different about this image: Del Rey’s big, toothy smile.
There are few contemporary pop stars who opt to smile on their album covers. Reigning queens like Beyoncé, Rihanna and Taylor Swift most often assume “fierce,” serious poses, all pursed lips and knowing gazes, that ooze a bankable combination of sexuality and control. Looking back to icons like Stevie Nicks, Patti Smith and Kate Bush, they, too, assumed dramatic yet stern-faced postures that were theatrical, absurd and always achingly cool.
There are many explanations for the predilection to pout on camera. Quite simply, smiling isn’t cool. Tourists smile, class presidents smile, families of four dressed up in matching denim for a studio portrait smile. The learned gesture is not always genuine ― it can be too indicative of an eagerness to please.
But there are additional dangers when it comes to a woman smiling, specifically on the cover of an album ― her album ― signifying her art and work and self. The expression can be read as infantilizing, pandering, a visual manifestation of the societal pressures women are forced to endure on a daily basis. Smiling is to indulge the catcaller who hollers, “How ‘bout a smile, pretty lady,” or to assuage the unease of any and all men who pass by and take a gander.
There is a power in refusing to smile, instead assuming the serious countenance of an artist. To know that millions of eyeballs are destined to graze each plastic album cover and you will not appease the owner of each single pair. To deny a smile can be a form of success, of transcending the societal mandate that women live to please, of owning your own power and becoming an icon.
Until recently, the freedom to pose seriously for photos was granted to celebrities and few others. To assume that position without earning the status made one appear self-serious and vain. However, the rise of social media, selfies and one family of reverse-camera aficionados has encouraged women to embrace a good duck face now and then.
Posing is a mode of performance and play, of testing your boundaries in a space both private and public. Young feminist artists have embraced the technique’s exorcism of the male gaze, instead placing a woman as both subject and object of a photo, refusing to privilege one role over the other. By their own hands and cameras, women were permitted to embrace their seriousness and vanity and become icons in their own bedrooms.
A pioneer in the field is Audrey Wollen, who grew a massive following on Instagram by posting self-portraits that embraced her vulnerability, sexuality and artificiality. “I like the idea of Audrey Wollen performing Audrey Wollen without the space of a clearly artificial title or stage,” she told former HuffPost writer Tricia Tongco. “Everyone that exists online is part of a performance or is being performative. I don’t think [a strict version] of authenticity exists — we are mediated by technology and language.”
Wollen is also known for what she’s dubbed “Sad Girl Theory,” which Tongco described as “the proposal that the sadness of girls should be witnessed and reframed as an act of political protest rather than a personal failure.” At the top of the list of history’s most iconic sad girls is no other than Miss Del Rey.
Del Rey’s lyrics are often woozy, melodramatic and fatalistic. She appears eternally exhausted by the mere prospect of being alive. Or being alive as a woman. She is unapologetic in her malaise, though not entirely consistent. Like, you know, all people, she has swings in her selves and moods, both of which have been criticized since the dawn of her career.
When Del Rey dropped her first single, “Video Games,” in 2011, seemingly out of nowhere it garnered Pitchfork’s coveted Best New Track label. Following the release of her album “Born to Die” word got out that the mysterious songstress with the Instagram-worthy flower crown had a former life as Lizzie Grant, Fordham graduate, and daughter of an internet entrepreneur, who had released a lackluster EP titled “Kill Kill” in 2007.
The backlash to Del Rey’s origins was swift and brutal. “Yep, it was a pose,” The New York Times’ Jon Caramanica wrote, “cut from existing, densely patterned cloth. Just like all the other poses. And all the other cloths.” Caramanica did mention the absurdity (and sexism) built into the widespread outcry over a pop musician having (gasp!) a persona. He also mentioned her “fuller lips” twice.
How is a woman supposed to pose in a photograph, without appearing either childish, silly, pretentious, conceited or vain? How is a woman supposed to be, in a world where she’s always seen and always already on some sort of stage?
There is something striking about Lana’s easy smile for “Lust for Life,” which doesn’t appear to gratify anyone but herself. The fact that a female photographer (and Del Rey’s little sister) Chuck Grant took the photo might help with that conclusion. The image doesn’t subscribe to the typical women-musician formula demanding they appear “iconic,” or more than human, to garner respect.
The overall style of Del Rey’s photo is highly mediated, cropped into a softened square, faded into a hazy palette straight out of Instagram. Her look is 1960s California dreamer babe ― not the woman who Lizzie Grant was born, but the one that Lana Del Rey became.
And her smile? It might be genuine, it might be posed.
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On Season 5 of “Scandal,” protagonist Olivia Pope has an abortion. The scene is minimal, short (about a minute long) and a revelation. Viewers saw Pope dressed in a hospital gown, laying on a doctor’s table with her feet in stirrups. It’s clear that she is having an abortion ― and yet no words are used to describe it, only images.
The scenewas widelypraised for portraying abortion as the minimally invasive medical procedure that it is; a health care decision women make for themselves. But in the Hollywood Reporter’s new oral history of the show, pegged to “Scandal’s” 100th episode, Shonda Rhimes and Bellamy Young (who plays Mellie) revealed that some people at ABC didn’t want Pope’s abortion scene to happen at all.
“[ABC’s] Standards and Practices wanted to cut Olivia’s abortion,” Young told The Hollywood Reporter. (Watch the iconic scene below, beginning at the 2-minute mark.)
Rhimes made it clear to the magazine that she told ABC she wasn’t going to back down.
“I said, ‘Go ahead, alter the scene. We’ll just have a lot of articles about how you altered the scene,’” she said. “We had done an abortion on a military woman who had been raped earlier on, and we were doing nothing different than we did in that scene — they just didn’t like that it was happening to Olivia.”
“I don’t think abortion had ever been presented as an emancipated woman’s option before,” added Young. “And it’s set to ‘Silent Night.’ The balls to pick that song.”
Anyone who watches “Scandal” knows how this ended. Rhimes stood her ground, and the world got to see abortion treated as something that isn’t shameful, but a fact of life for many American women.
As NARAL President Ilyse Hogue said at the time in an interview with Variety: “The impact of popular culture on public opinion and on taking what are thought of as ‘taboo’ issues and putting them front-and-center and giving permission to talk about them, that is a very significant impact and can’t be overstated.”
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The tumultuous marriage between Sylvia Plath and British poet Ted Hughes is the stuff of literary legend. Now evidence has surfaced suggesting that the union’s problems went far deeper than infidelity and heartbreak.
The letters, dated between February 1960 and February 1963, span the turbulent end of her marriage. In 1962, Plath discovered that Hughes had been carrying on an affair with Assia Wevill, a friend of theirs. The couple separated by the end of 1962, while Wevill and Hughes continued their romance more openly. On February 11, 1963, Plath died by suicide.
Though the couple had been separated, Plath’s death left her husband in control of her literary legacy. He oversaw the publication of her poetry, including her famous and searing collection Ariel, much of which was written in the final years of her life. Scholars have been left to pick through her raw, impassioned verses for clues as to her psychological state, as more personal descriptions of her later years have been elusive. Hughes claimed her journals from the years immediately preceding her death had been lost, later telling The Paris Review that he did destroy “one journal that covered maybe two or three months, the last months. And it was just sad. I just didn’t want her children to see it, no. Particularly her last days.”
Dr. Barnhouse also claimed, before her death, that she had destroyed her letters from Plath. Instead, says feminist scholar Harriet Rosenstein, Barnhouse gave them to her as material for a never-completed biography of the poet. Last month, Rosenstein put them up for sale, via bookseller Ken Lopez, as part of a large archive, priced at $875,000, assembled during her research for the nascent book. The letters to Dr. Barnhouse run to 45 pages, Lopez told The Telegraph, and contain “very dramatic and very personal” revelations.
Though the exact content of the letters remain unpublished, several Plath scholars told The Guardian that they’re eager to unpack these long-lost personal writings. “These letters look as though they could fill certain gaps in our knowledge,” biographer Andrew Wilson said.
Carol Hughes, the widow of Ted Hughes, stated to The Guardian that “The claims allegedly made by Sylvia Plath [...] are as absurd as they are shocking to anyone who knew Ted well.”
Many Plath fans, however, have long held Hughes culpable in his wife’s emotional deterioration and eventual suicide. Hughes, who died in 1998, took pains to obscure or downplay his late wife’s more shocking journals and verses, telling The Paris Review that “[s]he thought of her journals as working notes for some ultimate novel” rather than faithful accounts of her life. The allegations contained in her letters to her former psychiatrist, which reportedly detail physical as well as emotional abuse, only stand to deepen the long-standing antagonism of feminist readers toward Hughes.
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