For the past month or so, ever since a powerful piece was published in the New York Times, we've been talking an awful lot about Harvey Weinstein. And that's because dozens and dozens of women have come forward to accuse Harvey of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape . A-listers like Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow have spoken out against Weinstein, and actresses like Rose McGowan and Paz de la Huerta have claimed that he raped them . These are just a few examples of the women who have told their stories. And now it's Uma Thurman's turn … well, almost. In an amazing little clip that's gone viral this weekend, Uma spoke to Access Hollywood at a press event for a Broadway show she's starring in called The Parisian Woman. The reporter asked her, as “a powerful woman in film,” what she thought about “women speaking out about inappropriate behavior in the work place.” While she's being asked this, you can sort of see the rage build up — it's pretty intense, to say the least. “I think it's commendable,” Uma began, then she paused for a moment before telling the reporter that she didn't have “a tidy soundbite” for her. “I have learned … I am not a child, and I have learned that when I've spoken in anger, I usually regret the way I express myself,” she said. “So I've been waiting to feel less angry. And when I'm ready, I'll say what I have to say.” It sounds like a pretty tame statement, seeing it in text, but you have to watch the way she delivers it — it's clear that she really is very, very angry, and that she definitely has a story of her own to tell. It makes sense that her story would be about Weinstein, too — he's acted as producer on several films of hers, including Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill movies. And it also makes sense that people really want to hear her story, because really, she just sounds furious even when alluding to it. Actress Asia Argento, one of those many women who have accused Weinstein of sexual assault , tweeted this video of Uma, and she wrote “Dear #UmaThurman may peace be with you and your soul. We need your strong voice, it truly is commanding.” The rest of Twitter loved Uma's statement just as much. “God once spoke through the burning bush,” one person wrote. “This time it's through Uma Thurman.” Another speculated that “If you haven't seen this yet it seems Uma Thurman not only knows where the bodies are buried, but has neatly organized all the shovels.” “Ok let's be real that Uma Thurman video — she's getting a Hanzo sword made and is going to cut up the perverts isn't she,” one person said. And hey, if she did, would anyone be surprised? Check out Uma being completely amazing in the video below:
Hope you’re prepared to get in a good cry this evening, because one is coming your way real fast. Patton Oswalt has married Meredith Salenger! Patton announced the news first, sharing that sincerely adorable photo above on Twitter of the happy couple along with his daughter, Alice. “What’d you guys do yesterday?” he asked. Ha ha, see, because it’s a chill caption for what was obviously a big event? Don’t worry though, because Meredith came through with some details. She shared the same photo on her Instagram account, and in her caption she wrote “True love. True happiness . Forever and Always. The Oswalts.” She revealed that the ceremony and the reception took place at Jim Henson Studios in L.A., and that “the uber talented and most geniunely marvelous woman” Martha Plimpton acted as the officiant. Martha Plimpton. Was the officiant. It already sounds like the best wedding ever, right?! As if this whole thing wasn’t sweet enough already, Meredith made sure to share several photos of her new stepdaughter — the daughter Patton had with his late wife, Michelel McNamara. In one she called her a “pretty girl,” and in a photo of Alice with Patton she simply wrote “My family.” Perhaps the sweetest of all though was a photo of Alice by herself — for that caption, she wrote “This little girl is MINE!!!!!!!!”, along with the hashtags “happiest auntie is now happiest MOM,” “I love Alice,” and “freckled face muppet.” Or wait, what actually could be sweeter than even that was the way people reacted to the whole wedding — with so much positivity! Patton and Meredith both received a whole, whole lot of hate when they announced their engagement back in July because people thought he’d moved on too quickly after his wife’s passing. Michelle McNamara died in April of 2016 , so there were just 15 months between her death and the proposal. It’s not really fair to judge him for moving on though, especially if we’ve never been in a similar situation. After getting all that backlash , Meredith wrote a sweet little note on Instagram, explaining that “Everyone has been so lovely to us… all of Patton’s family… ALL of Michelle’s siblings and friends and family… a few trolls have strong opinions.” “But I think for Patton, having met and found love after over a year of intense therapy and openly grieving and dealing with his pain… I am grateful to be the one who helps him climb out of the depths of grief and find some joy again.” “And most of all,” she added, “Alice is happy and feels loved. I have waited 47 years to find true love.” She also wrote that “Creating our family unit while honoring the brilliant gift Michelle has given me will be my life’s goal and happiness.” “I am deeply in love with both Patton and Alice and very much looking forward to a beautful happy life having adventures together.” Just from that, it seemed obvious that these two people deeply loved one another, and all this wedding loveliness? View Slideshow: 23 Surprising Celebrity Weddings It just further proves that point. Congrats, Oswalts!
While not every lady spends her days gazing forlornly out the window, hoping that a dashing man will come by and sweep her off her feet, that’s still a perfectly acceptable way of finding your happiness. And it looks like happiness has found Lady Gaga. Remember reports that Christian Carino asked Lady Gaga’s father for his blessing to marry Lady Gaga? Well, guess what?! Us Weekly reports that Lady Gaga and Christian Carino are engaged ! So, as we told you back in July, Christian Carino was spending time with Lady Gaga and her family. Not every boyfriend — even serious ones — gets along with his girlfriend’s family, but apparently Christian didn’t have a hard time getting along with Gaga’s family. We were admittedly feeling less than comfortable with the report that he asked Lady Gaga’s father for his blessing to propose to her. There’s a lot about that antiquated custom that speaks of unequal gender dynamics. Basically, we tend to associate that sort of thing with, say, the Duggar fertility cult, where daughters are the property of their father until he agrees to transfer that property to an approved husband. (Gross) But it may be that Christian Carino was just testing the waters and making sure that he wasn’t going to upset Lady Gaga’s relatives and that they didn’t think that he was taking advantage of her somehow. After all, Christian Carino and Lady Gaga started dating back in February. That is not a long time to be in a relationship. Whatever it was, it apparently went over well — because they apparently got engaged over the summer. We hope that news about that breaking didn’t spoil whatever surprise Christian Carino had planned. Us reports that the couple’s current focus is, of course, on Lady Gaga’s health . Lady Gaga has fibromyalgia, which you’ve probably heard about through commercials for prescription medicines if nowhere else. Fibromyalgia is an agonizing illness that causes widespread muscle pain and tenderness. Other symptoms can include fatigue, memory problems, and mood shifts and disorders. Fibromyalgia is a chronic ailment, meaning that it can come and go with flare-ups that are difficult if not impossible to predict. Chronic illnesses absolutely suck, folks. We don’t know how many symptoms Lady Gaga is experiencing with fibromyalgia. Every patient is different. She’s currently focused upon recovery. Honestly, we think that it’s great that Christian Carino and Lady Gaga are engaged even with this knowledge. Unfortunately, a lot of people — whether they’re dating or married — seem to step back when their partner develops an illness. Chronic ailments, in particular, seem to send some loved ones running for the hills. It’s sad, but true. Just look at the suspicious timing of The Weeknd ending things with Selena Gomez . Reports say that he started to lose interest right around when she got her kidney transplant. We’re really rooting for Lady Gaga and Christian Carino, though. Maybe they’ll take that whole “in sickness and in health” thing seriously. Lady Gaga has done so much good for the world. We don’t just mean her music, though good music makes the world a better place just by spreading passion, art, inspiration, and joy. She’s been a prominent proponent of LGBT+ rights from day one, using her voice and platform to stand up for minority rights has done an incalculable amount of good for the world. She deserves good in her life and she deserves love. We just look forward to when she and Christian confirm this with an announcement. But that will come at a time of their choosing. View Slideshow: 27 Celebrities Who Suffer From Mental Illness
A few years ago, if you saw a name of a beloved celebrity trending, you clicked because you worried that they might be dead. These days, in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal , you see their name pop up, and you worry that they might have committed sexual assault. Just today, it came out that director Brett Ratner was accused of sexual assault by multiple actresses. Well, Dustin Hoffman’s name is trending right now … and, well, he’s still alive.. We might think of Dustin Hoffman, these days, as a living legend. He’s a veteran actor and, up until today, was widely respected. Once upon a time, though, he was a young actor at the top of his game. Anna Graham Hunter has come forward with her story, accusing Dustin Hoffman of sexually harassing her when she was only 17. She shared her story in The Hollywood Reporter . Just because this happened in 1985 does not make this okay, folks. “When I was a senior in high school in New York City, interning as a production assistant on the set of the Death of a Salesman TV film, he asked me to give him a foot massage my first day on set; I did.” Massaging can be entirely non-sexual or pretty explicitly sexual and everything in-between. Because of that ambiguity, we’d say that if you’re going to ask a 17-year-old for a massage, you should probably be their peer — like, say, a classmate. If not, you should be a trustworthy family member. Based upon this, there was no ambiguity about how Dustin Hoffman regarded Anna Graham. “He was openly flirtatious, he grabbed my ass, he talked about sex to me and in front of me.” That’s not appropriate around a 17-year-old or in a workplace. And the butt-grabbing might be the worst part of it. “One morning I went to his dressing room to take his breakfast order; he looked at me and grinned, taking his time. Then he said, ‘I’ll have a hard-boiled egg … and a soft-boiled clitoris.'” Even if he were saying that to a lover, that would be super weird . Speaking to another woman, especially in a work setting and especially a minor, that crosses some serious lines. So how did the other people respond? And how did Anna Graham? “His entourage burst out laughing. I left, speechless. Then I went to the bathroom and cried.” That is heartbreaking. Reflecting back on it all, she summarizes things pretty honestly. “I loved the attention from Dustin Hoffman. Until I didn’t.” Anna Graham brought up letters that she had written to her sister at the time, detailing her life on the set. “When I was walking Dustin to his limo, he felt my ass four times. I hit him each time, hard, and told him he was a dirty old man. He took off his hat and pointed to his head (shaved for the part) and said, ‘No, I’m a dirty young man, I have a full head of hair.'” On February fourth of 1985, her letter details how things got worse … but also better. “Today this business got scarier. Or at least less appealing. This morning when I asked Dustin what he wanted for breakfast, he said something that beat even his lows. It was worse than anything anyone has ever said to me on the street.” Well, we know what he said — the “soft-boiled” line. Creepy. “It was so gross I couldn’t say anything. I just turned around and walked out.” That’s a very understandable reaction. “Then later I tried to get into a serious conversation with Frankie about why Dustin is like that. I don’t know how Dustin knew what we were talking about, but he shouted, ‘Anna! Are you badmouthing me? Anna! Get over here, Anna!’ The whole crew was cracking up, and I ducked behind a set.” There was more fallout. But maybe it was worth it. “Later, I was delivering lunches when John, Stephen, and Dustin came down the hall and he shouted, ‘Anna! So you think I’m a sexist pig, huh? Anna!’ The whole fucking studio heard him. So I told him that I didn’t appreciate his wandering hands or his comments. He apologized and said he would stop.” She said that he did in fact stop, and that he started acting towards her the way that he acted when his wife was around. Gentlemanly, for the most part. On February 20th of 1985, she reached her conclusion about him. “No one is 100 percent good or bad. Dustin’s a pig, but I like him a lot.” The actor has responded. In a statement to the Associated Pres s, Dustin Hoffman issued a sincere-sounding apology. “I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation.” It’s not clear if he read her account, but he clearly got the gist of it. “I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am.” This is one of those semi-apologies that we so often see in Hollywood. It could mean that he’s not sorry at all … but it more likely means that he’s genuinely sorry about it, now that he’s 30 years older and wiser, but still doesn’t want to admit explicitly to anything. Lawsuits are real things, folks. This is complicated. The time at which this took place and the act that Anna Graham appreciated his attention — up to a point — doesn’t mean anything. After all, there’s no statute of limitations on something being bad. Sexual harassment isn’t excusable just because it happened a long time ago. It’s possible that Dustin Hoffman misread some things (a lot of men take friendliness as genuine flirtation), but again, that’s an explanation and not an excuse. Like Anna Graham, we find it hard to hate Dustin Hoffman for this — after all, what she describes is much more good-natured than the menacing predatory accounts that we’ve heard from actresses like Selma Blair or in Lupita Nyong’o’s Weinstein story . Those were stories about calculated predators who lured women under the guise of work and then repeatedly tried to pressure them into unwanted sex. But let’s be very clear — this story about Dustin Hoffman is the story of an older man sexually harassing a minor. It’s a story about other people ignoring it. Everything that she describes is part of the same toxic, predatory problem that pervades every #MeToo story that we’ve read.. View Slideshow: #MeToo: Stars Share Stories of Sexual Harassment, Assault
Jeremy Roloff is a changed man. He’s only been a father for a handful of weeks, but the Little People, Big World star says he can tell something is different. And that something is centered around his faith. Earlier this week, the new father of a precious baby named Ember Jean shared the above photo on Instagram and included with it the caption below: Yesterday I had a dying to self moment. The realization that my life is not about me. This baby is a part of the continual dying-to-self process that is nescessary to pursue holiness over happiness. That’s profound stuff. Typically, Jeremy leaves this kind of religious talk to his wife, as Audrey Roloff has been known to often gush over Jesus Christ and His teachings. But having Ember has clearly brought something out in Jeremy. If you pursue happiness over holiness, you may lose both , he continued, adding: But if we pursue holiness, happiness may get thrown in. There is a selfishness deep down that I’m ashamed to say, almost resented the freedom and time that I am about to lose. However, as it’s been said, nothing can truly be yours until you’ve fully given it away. After an admittedly challenging opening few weeks as parents, Audrey and Jeremy have been sharing more and more pictures of their daughter, while also taking her on mini road trips. Or stroller trips , we guess we should say. In concluding his latest post regarding Ember and what he’s come to believe/realize, Jeremy wrote: Jesus said it best, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” I want to live for the truth of holiness, not the facade of happiness. I want to find my life and find it in the fullness and freedom of Christ. Amen, right? Whether or not you believe with absolutely everything Jeremy writes here or believes in general, his sentiment is that being a father has made him more selfless. Isn’t that how it ought to be for everyone? View Slideshow: Little People, Big World Secrets Exposed: What the Roloffs Won’t Tell You
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Fats Domino , the amiable rock ‘n’ roll pioneer whose steady, pounding piano and easy baritone helped change popular music while honoring the traditions of the Crescent City, died Tuesday. He was 89. Mark Bone, chief investigator with the Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, coroner’s office, said Domino died of natural causes at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday. In appearance, he was no Elvis Presley. He stood 5-feet-5 and weighed more than 200 pounds, with a wide, boyish smile and a haircut as flat as an album cover. But Domino sold more than 110 million records, with hits including “Blueberry Hill,” ”Ain’t It a Shame” and other standards of rock ‘n’ roll. He was one of the first 10 honorees named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Rolling Stone Record Guide likened him to Benjamin Franklin, the beloved old man of a revolutionary movement. His dynamic performance style and warm vocals drew crowds for five decades. One of his show-stopping stunts was playing the piano while standing, throwing his body against it with the beat of the music and bumping the grand piano across the stage. Domino’s 1956 version of “Blueberry Hill” was selected for the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry of historic sound recordings worthy of preservation. The preservation board noted that Domino insisted on performing the song despite his producer’s doubts, adding that Domino’s “New Orleans roots are evident in the Creole inflected cadences that add richness and depth to the performance.” Domino became a global star but stayed true to his hometown, where his fate was initially unknown after Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. It turned out that he and his family were rescued by boat from his home, where he lost three pianos and dozens of gold and platinum records, along with other memorabilia. Many wondered if he would ever return to the stage. Scheduled to perform at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2006, he simply tipped his hat to thousands of cheering fans. But in May 2007, he was back, performing at Tipitina’s music club in New Orleans. Fans cheered — and some cried — as Domino played “I’m Walkin’,” ”Ain’t It a Shame,” ”Shake, Rattle and Roll,” ”Blueberry Hill” and a host of other hits. That performance was a highlight during several rough years. After losing their home and almost all their belongings to the floods, his wife of more than 50 years, Rosemary, died in April 2008. Domino moved to the New Orleans suburb of Harvey after the storm but would often visit his publishing house, an extension of his old home in the Lower 9th Ward, inspiring many with his determination to stay in the city he loved. “Fats embodies everything good about New Orleans,” his friend David Lind said in a 2008 interview. “He’s warm, fun-loving, spiritual, creative and humble. You don’t get more New Orleans than that.” The son of a violin player, Antoine Domino Jr. was born on Feb. 26, 1928, to a family that grew to include nine children. As a youth, he taught himself popular piano styles — ragtime, blues, and boogie-woogie — after his cousin left an old upright in the house. Fats Waller and Albert Ammons were early influences. He quit school at age 14 and worked days in a factory while playing and singing in local juke joints at night. In 1949, Domino was playing at the Hideaway Club for $3 a week when he was signed by the Imperial record company. He recorded his first song, “The Fat Man,” in the back of a tiny French Quarter recording studio. “They call me the Fat Man because I weigh 200 pounds,” he sang. “All the girls, they love me, ’cause I know my way around.” In 1955, he broke into the white pop charts with “Ain’t it a Shame” — but actually sang the lyrics as “ain’t that a shame.” The song was covered blandly by Pat Boone as “Ain’t That a Shame” and rocked out years later by Cheap Trick. Domino enjoyed a parade of successes through the early 1960s, including “Be My Guest” and “I’m Ready.” Another hit, “I’m Walkin,’” became the debut single for Ricky Nelson. Domino appeared in the rock ‘n’ roll film “The Girl Can’t Help It” and was among the first black performers to be featured in popular music shows, starring with Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers . He also helped bridge rock ‘n’ roll and other styles — even country/western, recording Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya” and Bobby Charles’ “Walkin’ to New Orleans.” Like many of his peers, Domino’s popularity tapered off in the 1960s as British and psychedelic rock held sway. Domino told Ebony magazine that he stopped recording because companies wanted him to update his style. “I refused to change,” he said. “I had to stick to my own style that I’ve always used or it just wouldn’t be me.” Antoine and Rosemary Domino raised eight children in the same ramshackle neighborhood where he grew up, but they did it in style — in a white mansion, trimmed in pink, yellow and lavender. The front double doors opened into an atrium with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and ivory dominos set in a white marble floor. In 1988, all of New Orleans seemed to be talking about him after he reportedly paid in cash for two Cadillacs and a $130,000 Rolls-Royce. When the salesman asked if he wanted to call his bank about financing, Domino smiled and said, “I am the bank.” In 1998, he became the first purely rock ‘n’ roll musician to be awarded the National Medal for the Arts. But he cited his age and didn’t make the trip to the White House to get the medal from President Clinton. That was typical. Aside from rare appearances in New Orleans, he dodged the spotlight in his later years, refusing to appear in public or even to give interviews. Like BlackAmericaWeb.com on Facebook . Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Sign Up For Our Newsletter! Close Thank you for subscribing! Please be sure to open and click your first newsletter so we can confirm your subscription. Email Submit (AP Photo/Doug Parker, File & AP Photo/Richard Drew & AP Photo/Cheryl Gerber & AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
WENN.com Robert Guillaume Dead At 89 A famed actor who appeared in two 70s sitcoms has died. Robert Guillaume died Tuesday from complications of prostate cancer according to his wife who spoke with The Associated Press. Guillaume is best known for his role as butler Benson Du Bois in 1977 series “Soap,” and its accompanying spinoff. Guillaume won two Emmys for his role as Benson, was also known as the the voice of Rafiki in “The Lion King.” He was 89-years-old.
(Jason Mitchell, director Dee Rees, Rob Morgan, Carey Mulligan, Mary J. Blige and Garrett Hedlund attend the ‘Mudbound’ Premiere on day 3 of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival at Eccles Center Theatre on January 21, 2017 in Park City, Utah. Source: Nicholas Hunt / Getty) Writer/director Dee Rees has been anything but predictable. She became a household name in 2011 with her first feature-length film Pariah , a gutting coming-of-age narrative about a young woman grappling with her sexuality. Then she turned around and took the small screen by storm with the triumphant story of iconic blues singer Bessie Smith in Bessie —which racked up more than one million viewers in its premiere. She even managed to helm a few documentary films and grace the director’s chair of the hit FOX series Empire in between projects. But even though her projects run the gamut, there is one recognizable theme that connects each of them, something we rarely see from other filmmakers. Rees boldly dismantles our most uncomfortable truths and interrogates why they remain hidden. Her latest drama, Mudbound , is no different. Set along an indistinct American South after World War II, the movie tells the story of a black family and a white family, whose disparate vantage points illuminate a racist society that has affected them both in deeply profound ways. They’re given equal agency and layers, and are written with the same level of compassion that seeps through each of the performances. So much so that the question is no longer about who is oppressed and who is the oppressor. It presents a more complex narrative that explores the effects of war across racial lines—through these two families whose steadfast hope is destroyed once they’re shown how little their world has changed when their loved ones return from battle and are unable to navigate the harsh realities they once could. The story opens with the McAllan family, Laura (Carey Mulligan) and Henry (Jason Clarke), a young couple who have recently arrived from Memphis with dreams of more land and a better life for his growing family. But as soon as they get there, with his spiteful father Pappy (Jonathan Banks) in tow, both husband and wife learn that they haven’t moved any further away from struggle. They have to get the house out of the clutches of the swindler they bought it from; their once promising land is actually infertile; and Laura is stuck in a house with a dutiful yet loveless man and his oppressive father. They can only anticipate that the return of Henry’s brother, Jamie (Garrett Hedlund), and the conclusion of the war, will help them realize a new reality for themselves. Just miles down the road is the Jackson family, headed by Florence and Hap (Mary J. Blige and Rob Morgan). They’re sharecroppers on the McAllan land who become the white family’s natural default for any extra support they need—for the land or otherwise. Florence takes care of the little McAllan kids when they get whopping cough. Hap has to help out with labor on the land. And their young boys are often beckoned for additional sets of hands. But they have their own aspirations to consider, keeping a happy home in the midst of racial hierarchal, buying their own property, and paving the way for their children to have a freer life than they have. Inversely from the McAllans, their struggle is dictated by everything and everyone around them, and their home is filled with joy and the security of love. So when their oldest son Ronsel (Jason Mitchell) goes off to fight in the war, they are comforted by the hope they’ve instilled in his heart, and that he’ll come back to a more possible future for himself. The core of the film is what happens when both men return home to a society that has remained remarkably stagnant, and try to navigate the overwhelming desire to be the face of change in a world that wants anything but. Rees, along with the heartbreaking performances of Hedlund and Mitchell, delivers a searing portrayal of post-traumatic stress in a society that failed (and still fails) to acknowledge. The sleepless nights, the alarming recognition that despite the lives they saw wasted on the battlefield—their own just merely escaping—they are still an N-word and a white drifter; a man who can’t even walk through the front door of an establishment without putting his life at risk and the other who tries to drink the memories of war out of his mind every day. Rarely in the black community do we see images of mental health, and even more rarely do we see it in male characters, who are more often portrayed like Hap—who’d rather walk around on a broken leg than have his wife take his place out in the field. It’s the film’s audacity to portray black male vulnerability especially in a historical context that admonished it which makes Mudbound that much more impactful. That and how director/co-writer Rees refuses to back down on present either family’s narrative as a deficit to the other—despite how easy it would have been to do so. Compelling, heartbreaking, and bold, Mudbound is an absolute must-see. DON’T MISS: ‘The Real’ Host Jeannie Mai Is Divorcing Her Husband Mississippi School To Swap Confederate Leader’s Name For Barack Obama’s Did Wendy Williams Fire Staff Who Leaked Cheating Rumors About Her Husband?
(Jason Mitchell, director Dee Rees, Rob Morgan, Carey Mulligan, Mary J. Blige and Garrett Hedlund attend the ‘Mudbound’ Premiere on day 3 of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival at Eccles Center Theatre on January 21, 2017 in Park City, Utah. Source: Nicholas Hunt / Getty) Writer/director Dee Rees has been anything but predictable. She became a household name in 2011 with her first feature-length film Pariah , a gutting coming-of-age narrative about a young woman grappling with her sexuality. Then she turned around and took the small screen by storm with the triumphant story of iconic blues singer Bessie Smith in Bessie —which racked up more than one million viewers in its premiere. She even managed to helm a few documentary films and grace the director’s chair of the hit FOX series Empire in between projects. But even though her projects run the gamut, there is one recognizable theme that connects each of them, something we rarely see from other filmmakers. Rees boldly dismantles our most uncomfortable truths and interrogates why they remain hidden. Her latest drama, Mudbound , is no different. Set along an indistinct American South after World War II, the movie tells the story of a black family and a white family, whose disparate vantage points illuminate a racist society that has affected them both in deeply profound ways. They’re given equal agency and layers, and are written with the same level of compassion that seeps through each of the performances. So much so that the question is no longer about who is oppressed and who is the oppressor. It presents a more complex narrative that explores the effects of war across racial lines—through these two families whose steadfast hope is destroyed once they’re shown how little their world has changed when their loved ones return from battle and are unable to navigate the harsh realities they once could. The story opens with the McAllan family, Laura (Carey Mulligan) and Henry (Jason Clarke), a young couple who have recently arrived from Memphis with dreams of more land and a better life for his growing family. But as soon as they get there, with his spiteful father Pappy (Jonathan Banks) in tow, both husband and wife learn that they haven’t moved any further away from struggle. They have to get the house out of the clutches of the swindler they bought it from; their once promising land is actually infertile; and Laura is stuck in a house with a dutiful yet loveless man and his oppressive father. They can only anticipate that the return of Henry’s brother, Jamie (Garrett Hedlund), and the conclusion of the war, will help them realize a new reality for themselves. Just miles down the road is the Jackson family, headed by Florence and Hap (Mary J. Blige and Rob Morgan). They’re sharecroppers on the McAllan land who become the white family’s natural default for any extra support they need—for the land or otherwise. Florence takes care of the little McAllan kids when they get whopping cough. Hap has to help out with labor on the land. And their young boys are often beckoned for additional sets of hands. But they have their own aspirations to consider, keeping a happy home in the midst of racial hierarchal, buying their own property, and paving the way for their children to have a freer life than they have. Inversely from the McAllans, their struggle is dictated by everything and everyone around them, and their home is filled with joy and the security of love. So when their oldest son Ronsel (Jason Mitchell) goes off to fight in the war, they are comforted by the hope they’ve instilled in his heart, and that he’ll come back to a more possible future for himself. The core of the film is what happens when both men return home to a society that has remained remarkably stagnant, and try to navigate the overwhelming desire to be the face of change in a world that wants anything but. Rees, along with the heartbreaking performances of Hedlund and Mitchell, delivers a searing portrayal of post-traumatic stress in a society that failed (and still fails) to acknowledge. The sleepless nights, the alarming recognition that despite the lives they saw wasted on the battlefield—their own just merely escaping—they are still an N-word and a white drifter; a man who can’t even walk through the front door of an establishment without putting his life at risk and the other who tries to drink the memories of war out of his mind every day. Rarely in the black community do we see images of mental health, and even more rarely do we see it in male characters, who are more often portrayed like Hap—who’d rather walk around on a broken leg than have his wife take his place out in the field. It’s the film’s audacity to portray black male vulnerability especially in a historical context that admonished it which makes Mudbound that much more impactful. That and how director/co-writer Rees refuses to back down on present either family’s narrative as a deficit to the other—despite how easy it would have been to do so. Compelling, heartbreaking, and bold, Mudbound is an absolute must-see. DON’T MISS: ‘The Real’ Host Jeannie Mai Is Divorcing Her Husband Mississippi School To Swap Confederate Leader’s Name For Barack Obama’s Did Wendy Williams Fire Staff Who Leaked Cheating Rumors About Her Husband?
(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Did Trump Use A Melania Stunt Double? You know how we can tell that this is the wildest presidential administration of all time? Because a theory can spread that Y’all President is running around with a stunt double of his wife and the whole internet just runs with it. That’s right, rumors are spreading that Trump had a stand-in for Melania at his presser yesterday..take a look… This is not Melania. To think they would go this far & try & make us think its her on TV is mind blowing. Makes me wonder what else is a lie pic.twitter.com/JhPVmXdGit — BuyLegalMeds.com (@JoeVargas) October 18, 2017 That’s pretty convincing evidence, right? Well, there are more images of Melania there that seem to indicate it was really her, but who cares? The jokes and memes are flying so let them! hello it's me, FLOTUS Melania pic.twitter.com/VK5OQprFev — Ashley (@ashcech) October 18, 2017
