Tag: entertainment
The Summer Of 'Barbie' Couldn't Come Too Soon

The Summer Of 'Barbie' Couldn't Come Too Soon

Every summer has an obsession. The best ones are inconsequential.

Way back in 2013, we were "arguing" over Robin Thicke's song Blurred Lines, also featuring Pharrell Williams. The song came under attack for allegedly reinforcing rape myths. The suspect line — "I know you want it" — was oft repeated. Frankly, that sounded to me like an observation, accurate or not, but hardly forced sex.

Rolling Stone laughed it off. "Thanks to its lascivious, Pharrell-spun hook," the magazine smirked, "it held the whole world in its slightly skeevy grasp all summer long."

This summer the talk is of Barbie. Finding any controversy over the renewed fascination with the 64-year-old Mattel doll will be quite a stretch. The inspiration is Greta Gerwig's upcoming movie Barbie, about what happens when the doll enters the human world. Due perhaps to the lack of anything else that's fun, bubblegum Barbie pink is now everywhere, even on the cover of Businessweek.

Now I haven't seen the movie. But it should be a happy trip in Gerwig's imaginative hands. And Ken is with her.

Though I don't know much about Barbie the movie, I know a whole lot about Barbie the doll, having been handed an early version some years back. I recall being intimidated by the "mature" figure, particularly her generous bazoom and freakishly tiny waist. Up until then, our dolls took the form of babies or young children. Suddenly we went from roller skates to pink Corvettes. Mattel reproportioned Barbie a few years later to reflect the human female a bit more realistically.

The Barbie wardrobe was always flashy. There's Barbie in slinky cocktail dresses. There's Barbie the foxy stewardess from the Pan Am days. Even Barbie Rodeo Cowgirl! had a come-on look, with her low-slung bell bottoms and cropped red sparkly vest.

I recall an eight-year-old who came to visit carrying her "box of Barbies." It was a shoebox containing heads, legs, naked torsos and tiny hip boots made of gold Mylar. The young visitor saw nothing macabre about the contents. I think she planned to assemble a whole Barbie — or most of a Barbie — as the afternoon went on.

An aunt in Houston, fearful of leaving her house, would sit all day at her sewing machine and make spectacular sun dresses for my cousin's Barbie. Nowadays, home seamstresses and foreign sweatshops alike churn out Barbie outfits.

The French took to the doll but not to the American brash styling. And so, some years ago, a French fashion designer created tailored tweed suits for Barbie.

As an international phenomenon, Barbie was not free of controversy. In 1994, Kuwait's College of Sharia and Islamic Studies supported a fatwa against the she-devil doll, joining Iran's ayatollahs, who had long banned her.

In 1998, sensitive souls in Puerto Rico objected to the Puerto Rican Barbie as too Anglo. This took Mattel by surprise. The toymaker had proudly presented one of the dolls, in a traditional white ruffled dress, to the wife of the Puerto Rican governor. Whatever. Come Christmas, Puerto Rican Barbies flew off the store shelves in San Juan and environs.

This summer's Barbiecore craze has spawned parties for which grownup women dress in the pink spandex and platform shoes covered in glitter. Has anyone found a pink Corvette?

In a 1977 interview, Barbie's creator Ruth Handler explained why she felt girls should have a sexy doll with puckered lips and thick eyeliner: "Every little girl needed a doll through which to project herself into her dream of her future." If she says so.

Anyhow, it's nice to color our world pink, if just for a few summer weeks.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

'Fill The Silence': Grammy Artists Welcome Zelensky Speech With Music (VIDEO)

'Fill The Silence': Grammy Artists Welcome Zelensky Speech With Music (VIDEO)

Las Vegas (AFP) - Industry watchers had tipped pop superstars as the likely big winners at Sunday's Grammys -- but jazzman Jon Batiste instead was crowned king, taking home five awards including the prestigious Album of the Year prize.

At the star-studded gala, held for the first time in Las Vegas, Silk Sonic -- the 70s revival project of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak -- won all four of their potential prizes, including both Record and Song of The Year for their single Leave The Door Open.

Olivia Rodrigo didn't win as many awards as predicted -- but the Filipino-American pop phenom did scoop the coveted prize for Best New Artist, and two trophies in the pop category.

That meant the winners of all four top Grammys were people of color -- a milestone for the Recording Academy, which for years has faced criticism that it disproportionately honored white men.

The night was heavy on performances but also held a number of somber moments -- most notably when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a pre-taped plea for support.

Zelensky's message led into a performance by John Legend of the song Free, with the help of Ukrainian singer Mika Newton, musician Siuzanna Iglidan and poet Lyuba Yakimchuk.

"On our land, we are fighting Russia, which brings horrible silence with its bombs. The dead silence," Zelensky said.

"Fill the silence with your music, fill it today to tell our story."

Despite being among the night's most nominated artists, pop juggernauts Billie Eilish, Justin Bieber and Lil Nas X were shut out completely.

But they all staged impressive performances: Eilish belted out "Happier Than Ever" in a lightning-backed downpour, Bieber delivered a crooned-up version of "Peaches," and Lil Nas X hosted an unabashed celebration of sexuality and queerness set to a medley of his songs including "MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)."

Rodrigo also gave an impressive rendition of her viral teen breakup hit "drivers license," showcasing her impressive vocals against a set mimicking a gloomy night in suburbia.

"This is my biggest dream come true," the 19-year-old said as she accepted the gramophone for Best New Artist.

Big winner Batiste also performed, showcasing his elasticity as an artist by starting at the piano for a classical piece before transitioning to a rhythmic dance number.

The night's leading nominee with 11 nods, Batiste had already scooped four ahead of his big sleeper win for the year's best album.

But he looked shocked when presenter Lenny Kravitz declared him the night's big hit.

"I really don't do it for the awards," the 35-year-old Batiste told journalists backstage. "Music is something that's so subjective."

Earlier onstage, the artist born into a prominent New Orleans musical dynasty told a cheering audience: "I believe this to my core: there is no best musician, best artist, best dancer, best actor."

"I just put my head down and work on the craft every day," he continued. "It's more than entertainment for me -- it's a spiritual practice."

Diverse field

The timing of the Grammys just one week after Will Smith stunned the world by slapping Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars added an extra layer of unpredictability to what is already usually one of the edgier nights on the showbiz awards circuit.

That fiasco prompted some gentle zings over the course of the night Sunday, but antics were virtually non-existent at what ultimately proved to be a heavily scripted show.

Music's chaos agent Kanye West stayed home even as he won two Grammys, one of which he shared with Jay Z.

Among the diverse crop of winners was Doja Cat, who took home her first ever Grammy in the pop category -- which she had to sprint back to accept after dipping out of the gala for a bathroom break.

The Brooklyn-based Pakistani vocalist Arooj Aftab, who won her first Grammy for Best Global Music Performance for "Mohabbat," and had also been in the running for Best New Artist, told journalists the win left her "beyond thrilled."

And it was a special night for folk icon Joni Mitchell, who won the prize for Best Historical Album days after being honored at a moving tribute gala Friday.

She made a rare public appearance onstage, looking fly in a red leather beret, sunglasses and floral pants, her long blonde hair in pigtails.

When Science Fiction Becomes Fact, Start To Worry

When Science Fiction Becomes Fact, Start To Worry

How did you spend your holiday? If you’re like me, one guilty pleasure was devouring TV marathons, designed to offer relief from the stresses of the season. Reliable favorites include back-to-back episodes of The Twilight Zone and, on Turner Classic Movies, one whole day devoted to science fiction, imaginings both cautionary and consoling of what the future holds for our world.

But usual escapes didn’t quite work this year, not when fact is scarier than anything Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling might have dreamed up, though the serious Serling who introduced each episode of his iconic series, all furrowed brow and cigarette in hand, did signal he suspected what was coming if mankind didn’t shape up.

Hint: Mankind did not listen to that sober sage.

Let’s list just some of the gloom and doom greeting the world at the start of a new decade.

The end of the year brought surprising news from the Trump administration’s own experts — you know, those folks hired to replace scientists from the previous administration, presumably to more closely reflect the views of the boss and because of their ties to industry.

They showed some independence, with members of the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board posting draft letters laying out the disconnect between policies they are tasked with adjusting and real science. The statements criticized the administration’s proposed overhaul of Obama-era regulation of waterways, efforts to curb vehicle tailpipe emissions to fight climate change and plans to limit scientific data when drawing up health regulations.

That news coincidentally paired with the umpteenth showing of the 1973 movie Soylent Green, featuring one of Charlton Heston’s less wooden performances and a future world devastated by pollution, global warming, too many people and too few resources, where the privileged use their riches to escape harm and where — spoiler alert – “Soylent Green is people!”

The start of January brought a preview, reported in The New York Times, of proposed changes to the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act that would mean “federal agencies would no longer have to take climate change into account when they assess the environmental impacts of highways, pipelines and other major infrastructure projects.”

Those supportive of the move contend economic and employment opportunities must be considered, while environmentalists worry about the future of air, water and wildlife. The public and courts will get the chance to weigh in on the changes to the law, expected to be formally announced this week.

Caring about air, water and wildlife is inescapable when every day brings new pictures of a continent and country burning. Man has certainly helped pull the trigger in Australia, with dozens of arrests of those charged with intentionally setting fires. But scientists and researchers have said that climate change has worsened the effects of the wildfires, which have killed many, destroyed thousands of homes and devastated flora and fauna.Climate change activists take to the streets to demand action.

“Climate change is increasing bushfire risk in Australia by lengthening the fire season, decreasing precipitation and increasing temperature,” according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology

Australia’s leaders, including its prime minister, remain largely unmoved, insisting that despite drought and bushfires, the country does not need to cut carbon emissions. Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor told Reuters, “When it comes to reducing global emissions, Australia must and is doing its bit, but bushfires are a time when communities must unite, not divide.”

To be fair, Serling’s brainchild series remains iconic, in part, because it was prescient in its view of the dark side of humanity, of the greed and xenophobia that trump good sense and charity when the going gets a little bit tough. He shone a light on contentious family dynamics and neighbors turning against neighbors, proving only too well his fictional alien force’s informed hunch that when it comes to defeating the human race, no outside aggression is necessary. We will do it to ourselves every time.

His science was never truly fiction.

Still, what once seemed ironic and clever comes as a shock as the fantastical scenarios increasingly play out in real time. The writing is smart, the concepts clever — and all of it is frightening.

In the 1960 film The Time Machine — not exactly H.G. Wells’ 1895 vision, but entertaining nonetheless — Rod Taylor’s character returns to his Victorian present, chastened and woeful after his “machine” offers a glimpse into the future, full of passive citizens cut off from the knowledge of the past and content to be happy and entertained, and ultimately unable to confront danger.

When I watched this time around, I sympathized with those trapped underground, perhaps more in line with Wells’ sentiment about the plight of the working class during industrialization, though they serve as the movie’s villains. That allows for a last act that contains hope for a new day.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to imagine any sort of happy ending when the future is now.Thunberg: ‘Don’t listen to me, listen to the scientists.

Mary C. Curtis has worked at The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Charlotte Observer, as national correspondent for Politics Daily, and is a senior facilitator with The OpEd Project. Follow her on Twitter @mcurtisnc3.