selma
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Luke Cage: When Representation Isn’t Enough
This show’s true strength is its diverse portrayal of African-American subjectivity and morality, amongst both the male and female characters.
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What I’ll Tell My Children: On Being ‘F***Able’ under the Regime of President-elect
It’s time to take responsibility for compliancy.
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He Doth Protest Too Much
I’ve begun to question my place in society, my place in a country that wants me to remain silent. Mostly, I question my choice to remain silent.
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The Rumpus Interview with LaShonda Katrice Barnett
Novelist LaShonda Katrice Barnett discusses her debut novel, Jam on the Vine, how becoming a historian taught her about plot, Muslims living in Texas in the 19th century, and the Missouri State Penitentiary, also known as “the bloodiest 47 acres…
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Getting It Right
People have been writing about civil rights for years, but it’s taken Hollywood until now to warm up to the subject (of course, not enough). Bill Morris traces the history of the movement’s cinematic representations leading up to Ava DuVernay’s…
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Hollywood History and the Truth
In The New York Review of Books, Francine Prose analyzes “the recent controversies about the accuracy of ‘historical’ films” in Hollywood, concluding that maybe “the real source of controversy isn’t the question of truth in historical films, but rather the…
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Speechmaker
Over at the NYRB, Darryl Pinckney deconstructs Ava DuVernay’s Selma, starting from seat of a laymen cinema-goer, and then tying it all back to what actually happened.