Every week, With a Little Help from Our Friends highlights the best pieces of writing on film, television, and literature published around the Internet. Check out the links, and feel free to share more good stories in the comment section.
For your reading enjoyment …
“The Great Naked Celebrity Photo Leak of 2014 is just the beginning” by Roxane Gay
“The Great Celebrity Naked Photo Leak of 2014 – or perhaps we should call it The Great Celebrity Naked Photo Leak of August 2014, given that this happens so often that there won’t be only one this year – is meant to remind women of their place. Don’t get too high and mighty, ladies. Don’t step out of line. Don’t do anything to upset or disappoint men who feel entitled to your time, bodies, affection or attention. Your bared body can always be used as a weapon against you. You bared body can always be used to shame and humiliate you. Your bared body is at once desired and loathed.”
“Video Games, Misogyny, And Terrorism: A Guide To Assholes” by Andrew Todd
“There is no justification for this behaviour. Even if there was some journalistic slight committed, there is no world in which taking over people’s accounts or websites, publishing their personal information, and swamping them with personal attacks is an appropriate, proportional response. The only explanation is hate.”
“Jill Soloway and what it takes to change the way we make pop culture” by Alyssa Rosenberg
“Changing the balance of representation in the media industry requires thinking about diversity every time you make every one of these choices on every single project. And given that this is a project-based industry, you can make all of these choices one year, only for the movie to be over or the TV show canceled the next.”
“Werner Herzog Has a Lot of Time for Wrestlemania” by Nathalie Olah
“Kids who get in touch with me are very often around 15, 16, 17. Whatever you call this generation, I don’t know. I don’t care how you call them. One thing I find missing is the culture of reading. I mean, reading books. And this is one of the things I demand from the students at the rogue film school. There’s a mandatory reading list.”
“The Liberation of Lizzy Caplan” by Stephen Rodrick
“Caplan picked the sausage-making class for our meeting, and I joke that I felt a tad uncomfortable writing about a female kneading pork. ‘I’m making it difficult for you because you’re going to have to figure out clever ways not to make innuendos about sausages,’ says Caplan.”
“Terry Gilliam on 13 of the Most Difficult Scenes He Ever Shot” by Bilge Ebiri
“Sometimes his job is difficult because he sets impossible challenges for himself. Sometimes it’s difficult because fate doesn’t cooperate: His attempted filming of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was famously scuttled due to horrid weather and an ill lead, as depicted in the brilliant documentary Lost in La Mancha.”
“Pitching noir” by Noel Murray
“The posters for these movies are startlingly brazen. None of the artists and designers working in the studios’ advertising and promotions departments tried to hide what film noir was all about, because that would’ve defeated the purpose. The whole idea was to advertise seductive women in form-fitting dresses, rough-hewn men holding smoking guns, and underlit neighborhoods far from the local Bijou.”
“Misty Copeland makes a point of sharing her art with unlikely ballet fans” by Gwen Ifill
“I took a free ballet class at a Boys and Girls Club surrounded by other kids that had similar backgrounds to me that were all older. And I was selected to come to my teacher’s school on a full scholarship. It was the first time in my life that that had been presented to me, that I had no limits and that I could dream. That wasn’t something I grew up in my home atmosphere having.”
“Typically, the fear is that they will be trapped and not be able to get out. And that they will have panic attacks and lose control, which will either be embarrassing or might be harmful.”
“Amid Choruses of Despair, an Aria of Hope” by Adam Nagourney
“’I think the rescue of the San Diego Opera was a galvanizing event,’ said Marc A. Scorca, president of Opera America, an advocacy organization. ‘In a year that has been so difficult, the fact that an opera company faced with closure was rescued is very much a good news story.’”
