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"content": "\u003cp>When we asked our trusty \u003cem>Pop Culture Happy Hour\u003c/em> listeners to vote for the Best Muppet, we knew they’d come through. Over 18,000 votes were cast; over 150 different Muppets received votes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes. Some brave, beautiful, misguided soul voted for \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKSGF4Ufso8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">H. Ross Parrot\u003c/a>. As \u003cem>Best \u003c/em>Muppet. That is a thing that happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Someone else—you can always count on PCHH listeners to bring the deep, \u003cem>deep \u003c/em>cuts—cast a single vote for\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bfdaR4xMeU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Delbert the La Choy Dragon\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But naturally enough, votes accreted around the Muppets with greater notoriety. (Sorry, Ma Otter, it’s not your time.) On Friday’s episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour, we reveal the top ten vote-getters, so stop reading now if you want to listen and be surprised.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here, though, we’ll tick off your top 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We established some ground rules, of course. Which made our daily PCHH Zoom call a place where the thorniest philosophical questions of our time were pondered: Should Statler and Waldorf be considered separately, or as a pair? What about Bert and Ernie? Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s where we landed:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Any Muppet from any property or era was eligible, including \u003cem>The Muppet Show, Muppet Babies, Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street, Labyrinth\u003c/em>, etc.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>We counted all variations of a Muppet character in a group. Thus, Gonzo the Great and Gonzo from \u003cem>Muppet Babies\u003c/em> both count as Gonzo.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Some Muppets were counted as a set, like Statler and Waldorf.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Others were counted individually, most notably Beaker and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, as well as Bert and Ernie. The Fraggles of \u003cem>Fraggle Rock\u003c/em> were also counted individually.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>We disqualified other puppets that are NOT Muppets, including Yoda (he’s really, really not a Muppet, guys, look it up) and the cast of \u003cem>Avenue Q\u003c/em>.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>We also disqualified human actors in Muppet movies, like Jason Segel, Tim Curry, Michael Caine, and Charles Grodin.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>So here they are, the Top 25 Best Muppets, according to the discerning, and impassioned, Pop Culture Happy Hour audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>25. Count von Count\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ultimate Order Muppet. Nice to see the Count showing up here, repping \u003cem>Sesame Street \u003c/em>(he’s one of only 10 \u003cem>Sesame Street\u003c/em> Muppets to make the top 25, surprisingly enough). (Justice for Prairie Dawn, by the way.) He always scared the hell out of me — I didn’t care for those bats forever flitting around his widow’s peak, or for his ability to call forth thunder and lightning—but if you were a kid prone to obsessive behavior, you likely saw, in his compulsion to apportion the chaotic world around him into neat, quantitative chunks, a kindred spirit. — \u003cem>Glen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>24. Dr. Teeth \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It pleases me that this talented musician, he of the brightly decorated tour bus and the funkiest and furriest band, made it onto the list. Honestly, it took a while for me, as a young person, to truly appreciate the groovy greatness of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem (one of the great band names). There’s a way in which the group calls gently to hippies, cool cats, and maybe even (gasp) stoners, that doesn’t matter to little kids but is a little bit funny when you’re older. Plus, particularly in \u003cem>The Muppet Movie\u003c/em>, Dr. Teeth is a key part of the winking, knowing, audience-acknowledging part of Muppet lore. He leads the band. He provides the hot tunes. The doctor is always in. —\u003cem> Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>23. Bert \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His saddle shoes. His paperclip collection. His love of pigeons, and of the letter W. His bold, if defiantly out-of-step sartorial sensibility (a turtleneck under a v-neck? Why not?) His embrace of rules and order. His simultaneous fondness for, and exasperation with, his less uptight other half. Let’s face it—Bert was the very first nerd millions of us ever encountered. With a thunderbolt of recognition, we saw ourselves in his pained glares, heard ourselves in his monotone staccato laughter. He showed millions the path to fully embrace—nay, to positively \u003cem>exalt \u003c/em>in—our dorkiest, most basic selves. Other nerds in mass media would come later, of course. But he was our first. — \u003cem>Glen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biAMh-xdvJc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>22. Elmo \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elmo gets a bad rap for the same reasons Barney the Dinosaur did at the height of his fame: Parents find him overly cloying and oversaturated. Ground Zero for this animosity has to be \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/12/25/573365529/remembering-that-must-have-toy-from-past-christmases\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tickle Me Elmo\u003c/a>, of course. By the mid-’90s, I had graduated from the streets of sesame to the green slime of Nickelodeon, so I was a bit too old to get wrapped up in the craze, but I have vivid memories of the parodies and news reports of grown adults fighting each other to get their hands on the toy. And for a time, I had to live with one of those bad boys, courtesy of my little sister. (It was just as annoying and creepy as a toy can get.) Then came The Takeover a.k.a. the recurring segment “Elmo’s World,” and this furry monster—who refers to himself in the third Muppet—became inescapable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And yet… here he is, sliding into the Top 25 on this list, presumably voted on by adults rather than 5-year-olds who wouldn’t know any better. There are two reasons for this, I think. For one, if you were a millennial like myself, you probably have fewer negative memories of him than those who were exasperated parents or childcare workers at the time of Peak Elmo. But also, in this era of social media, Elmo remains one of the\u003ca href=\"https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/elmo-rise\"> most\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://giphy.com/search/elmo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> memeable\u003c/a> of all Muppets. In fact, he’s transcended \u003cem>Sesame Street \u003c/em>to become arguably\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/TheDillonOne/status/1376323244828024837\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> at his best\u003c/a> in meme form. That’s gotta count for something, I guess! — \u003cem>Aisha\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>21. Scooter \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A late-’70s shortstop whose batting average generally hovered around .200, Mario Mendoza provides the origin point for the term “The Mendoza Line,” which refers to that hazy boundary separating “just good enough to stay employed” from “not good enough.” From this moment forward, let that line be renamed “The Scooter Line,” which separates the great Muppets—your Ernies, your Sams the Eagle, your Snuffleupagii—from, well, Elmo. (Note: This analogy falls apart when you scroll further up, because Bert, Dr. Teeth, and the Count are all awesome.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seriously, how did Scooter come in at No. 21? \u003cem>Scooter\u003c/em>?! The guy who only got his job at The Muppet Theatre because his uncle J.P. Grosse owned the venue? The guy whose signature catchphrase involved the number of seconds before actual entertainment was to take place? Is it because Scooter’s glasses double as his actual eyeballs? Is \u003cem>that\u003c/em> how we’re measuring quality these days? \u003cem>—Stephen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>20. Snuffleupagus\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Painfully shy. Soulful and sweet. With an eyelash game that Bianca Del Rio would envy. Snuffy began life as Big Bird’s best friend, whom the adults of Sesame Street considered imaginary. This frustrated Big Bird, but in their defense, Snuffy did tend to ditch Big Bird, suddenly, repeatedly, like Big Bird was Commissioner Gordon and Snuffy some kind of fuzzy pachydermic Batman. Eventually, the folks at Children’s Television Workshop realized that having adults roll their eyes at Big Bird’s stories of Snuffy maybe wasn’t sending kids, you know, the \u003cem>best \u003c/em>message? On YouTube you can watch the moment, in 1985, when the adults finally see Snuffy, and it? Is weird. And not a little sinister: Big Bird and Elmo conspire to trap Snuffy, forcing him to stick around (trigger warning: Elmo abuse), and when the adults finally apologize to Big Bird for doubting him all these years, he’s … kind of a jerk about it. — \u003cem>Glen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BtemfoJ-WI\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>19. Sweetums\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People sometimes forget about Sweetums, which is consistent with the way he’s left behind in \u003cem>The Muppet Movie \u003c/em>and has to chase the group all the way to Hollywood. All he wants is to be included! All he wants is to be in the movie! He’s fundamentally a big lug with a heart of gold, and he could also protect you in the event of a bar fight. It seems only right that he and Snuffy are next to each other on this list, because they’re both big and furry, but Sweetums, for all his might of body and mildness of soul, plays a unique role in Muppet World. He represents the idea of the benevolent super-monster: the scary thing that’s less scary once you look at it up close. — \u003cem>Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>18. Ernie \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quite simply, Ernie should be much higher than this. “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh85R-S-dh8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rubber Duckie\u003c/a>“! “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIq8jLj5TzU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon\u003c/a>“! The\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pigcahytIH8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> innocent chaos\u003c/a> he wields upon the uptight Bert! He’s a wild one, but he’s also incredibly endearing; why else would Bert put up with this madness for so many years? Surely he’s earned enough \u003cem>Sesame Street \u003c/em>royalties at this point to be able to afford a studio apartment for himself, yet he knows—and we all know—that Ernie is a lovable sweetheart who just wants to enjoy life. #JusticeforErnie. — \u003cem>Aisha\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>17. Sam the Eagle\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d have liked to see Sam roosting in a higher perch on this list, but apparently not all of us so deeply empathize with the big, dour lug. It’s not his politics we identify with, necessarily, nor his default moral outrage. No, some of us just respond to his whole vibe, which I will herewith attempt to distill to its essence: I never know what’s going on, and I never understand what anyone’s talking about, but if I did? I wouldn’t like it. —\u003cem> Glen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>16. Pepe the King Prawn \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some might scoff at the presence of Pepe on any list of Greatest Muppets. Not me, though I’m admittedly surprised this Spanish lothario was able to find his way into the Top 25, and above the likes of Bert and Ernie to boot. Maybe it’s all those years serving as the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VPu841BmOs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">spokes-shrimp\u003c/a>” for the fast-food chain Long John Silver’s? Or perhaps it’s because he was\u003ca href=\"https://slate.com/culture/2015/11/pepe-the-king-prawn-on-the-muppets-is-the-best-part-of-the-disappointing-new-show-video.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> the best thing\u003c/a> about that ill-advised primetime sitcom \u003cem>The Muppets\u003c/em>? — \u003cem>Aisha\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>15. Janice \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fer sure, yes, this ranking makes sense. I’m convinced we all wish we could be just a little bit like Janice: kind of aloof to everything going on around her, and thus eternally chill. — \u003cem>Aisha\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRgNW1Xp-JI\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>14. Big Bird \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a lot of us—especially if we were pre-Elmo kids—Big Bird was one of the founding Muppets of our minds, even though unlike most of the group, he walked around on two legs. There’s something about his name, Big Bird, that speaks profoundly to how sweet and simple the connection is between little kids and this naive, sometimes confused soul. He’s just this… really Big Bird. He walked a lot of kids through their first \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxlj4Tk83xQ&ab_channel=TVBumpersCommercials\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">experience with death\u003c/a> when Mr. Hooper died, and he eventually demonstrated that he had been right all along about his very real, very mammoth friend Snuffy. Trust in Big Bird. —\u003cem> Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>13. Oscar the Grouch \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of what happened on \u003cem>Sesame Street \u003c/em>was upbeat and colorful. So there’s something so delightfully rebellious and brilliant about the inclusion of a grungy, curmudgeonly green monster who literally lives in a garbage can and sings \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxgWHzMvXOY&ab_channel=SesameStreet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“I Love Trash.”\u003c/a> It’s great to show the power of hugs, but it might be just as important to underscore that not everyone is a hugger, and you can make a guy part of your community even though he doesn’t give you a lot to work with. —\u003cem> Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxgWHzMvXOY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>12. Rizzo the Rat \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I suspect that Rizzo landed this high—above Big Bird!—thanks to millennials whose Muppet references are more about the later films like \u003cem>Muppet Treasure Island \u003c/em>and \u003cem>The Muppet Christmas Carol\u003c/em> than they are about \u003cem>The Muppet Show\u003c/em>, where Rizzo showed up fairly late in the series run as the leader of a gang of rats running wild in the theater. Rizzo started out small but went on to pop up in several of the films, always retaining his identity as a somewhat sketchy but basically decent pal, especially to Gonzo. I’m not so much a Rizzo girl myself, but to all of you who are: I respect your dedication to this little rat. —\u003cem> Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>11. Cookie Monster\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The amazing thing about Cookie Monster is that he never ate a cookie. All Cookie Monster does is mouth the cookie until it flies into pieces. What Cookie Monster is about is the \u003cem>desire\u003c/em> for the cookie. The \u003cem>passion\u003c/em> for the cookie. The \u003cem>thrill\u003c/em> of the cookie. In this way, Cookie Monster is a perfect encapsulation of the preschool id: hungry, needy, hyper, and eternally hopeful that this time, there will be a snack. He should really be in the top ten, you guys. Even if only for \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye8mB6VsUHw&ab_channel=SesameStreet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“C Is For Cookie.”\u003c/a> — \u003cem>Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>10. Statler and Waldorf\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was inevitable so many would vote for this curmudgeonly duo because they represent the viewer’s id so explicitly.\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mreHiXkWB-s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Why do they always come here\u003c/a>? I guess we’ll never know. But we are all Statler & Waldorf—sitting in that balcony while cracking wise at all those corny puns—and Statler & Waldorf are us. — \u003cem>Aisha\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14njUwJUg1I\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>9. Swedish Chef \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many Muppets contain multitudes; Swedish Chef does not. He’s your classic Chaos Muppet—all \u003cem>hurr-guh-durr\u003c/em> and knives sticking into walls and fish flying to and fro, with human hands, no less, and without your romantic subplots or hazy origin stories or bittersweet pining for adventure and meaning. He’s the hilarious, Muppety, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN1hL9cn7s0&ab_channel=TheGilsonStation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“Bork! Bork! Bork!”\u003c/a> embodiment of what every little kid wants to be doing in the kitchen at all times. \u003cem>— Stephen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>8. Miss Piggy\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Who among the Muppets can say that they’ve been presented with an award for being a feminist trailblazer while being \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biyv8kmKwEE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">interviewed by Gloria Steinem\u003c/a>? Heck, who among us \u003cem>humans \u003c/em>can say they’ve been so honored? Well, Miss Piggy can. Because she is the epitome of chutzpah, glamour, and narciss\u003cem>—\u003c/em>er, self-confidence. I truly hope this most fabulous swine doesn’t get wind of our list, because the last thing we’d want is an angry email (or\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkFHdbpVpC8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> karate chop\u003c/a>) from her publicist for not having ranked her higher. Piggy should at least crack the top five of Greatest Muppets, “\u003cem>moi\u003c/em>” who has given us one of culture’s most storied\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2DELDQAXT8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> on-again/off-again romances\u003c/a>; this\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbbNHyjgjw4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> amazingly awkward Larry King interview\u003c/a>; and “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK52qGcpdzo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Snackersize\u003c/a>.” — \u003cem>Aisha\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>7. Fozzie Bear \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fozzie Bear’s dreams of comedic greatness are unattainable, his optimism smacks of desperation and delusion, his jokes (such as they are) exist mostly to provide opportunities for Statler and Waldorf to perform windmill dunks at his expense, and his signature catchphrase (“wocka wocka wocka!”) is a tragic cry for validation. He’s all sweaty effort, all the time, in that way that so many of us get when we’re pursuing the acceptance of others. So how do you make Fozzie lovable without also making him… deeply sad?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The secret lies, at least in part, in the aforementioned optimism: Fozzie is a dreamer, and a sweetly soulful one at that. If you can’t be great, being liked is a hell of a consolation prize. \u003cem>— Stephen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. Grover \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d have thought everyone’s lovable furry pal would have made the Top 5 easy, but this is still a perfectly respectable showing. What’s not to love? He’s cute and he knows it, but there’s so much more to him than that. He’s put in time in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIucCUyZF0g&ab_channel=SesameStreet\">food-service industry\u003c/a> (relatable!), he’s gotten his cardio in teaching us the difference between near and far (selfless!), and he’s also, not for nothing, a superhero. And if all that weren’t enough, his masterwork, \u003cem>The Monster at the End of This Book\u003c/em>, introduced successive generations to poststructuralist metanarrative; he’s a li’l fuzzy blue Michel Foucault, is what he is. — \u003cem>Glen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIucCUyZF0g\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. Rowlf\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The people have spoken; the people are wrong. Both of these things can be true. Come on, Rowlf in \u003cem>fifth \u003c/em>place? Below the jamoke at No. 4? The one-note placeholder at No. 3? Pshaw. Rowlf belongs atop this chart, bestriding it like a fuzzy brown floppy-eared Colossus, for several(!) manifold(!) \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/03/29/982279931/our-favorite-muppets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reasons I enumerated on our “Favorite Muppets” \u003c/a>episode, but essentially: He rejects and transcends the reductive Chaos Muppet/Order Muppet binary. He can often seem like the only adult in the room (and when Kermit is in said room, that’s saying something), but his vibe is different from that of the frog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where Kermit is always a real Dr. Buzzkill, a square, a narc, Rowlf is part of the game. He’s preternaturally chill; he can hang. Add that to the fact that \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ7nowJ87HU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">with numbers like “You and I and George,” in which he mixes humorous stories with song\u003c/a>, he’s bringing cabaret to the children. That’s iconic, that’s queer energy; Rowlf is the best Muppet, hands down, paws up. — \u003cem>Glen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. Beaker \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Yiddish words \u003cem>schlemiel\u003c/em> and \u003cem>schlimazel\u003c/em> aren’t just colorful language we remember from \u003cem>Laverne & Shirley\u003c/em> reruns; they’re also deeply useful phrases used to signify oafish incompetence and a tendency to encounter misfortune, respectively. The general device folks use to tell the words apart is that a schlemiel is the waiter spilling the soup in your lap (Grover, perhaps?) and a schlimazel is the unfortunate soul onto whom that soup is spilled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poor, pitiful, shrieking Beaker is \u003cem>The Muppet Show\u003c/em>‘s great schlimazel—and thus a vessel through which we could compartmentalize the most put-upon moments of our youth. We’d come home from a school day in which our lunch tray got knocked out of our hands, or maybe we racked ourselves sliding down that awful rope in gym class, and there was Beaker, embodying our awkwardness, our victimhood and our pain alongside Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, himself an avatar for an unfeeling God. \u003cem>—Stephen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. Animal \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No Muppet captures pure Muppet-ness quite like Animal. The drummer for the Electric Mayhem is really just a skinny body topped with a head like a pink firework, the long hair (fur?) blossoming from his head above a single heavy, dark, fluttering eyebrow. All he has to work with is his giant mouth and that line of eyebrows, and yet you can tell when he’s happy or excited (which is usually) or disappointed (sometimes) or exhausted (he’s the Muppet most likely to pant). Given to phrases like “That’s my kind of woman” and “eat drums,” Animal can’t really be called a sophisticate. But perhaps his function is to remind us that there is a place for a pure, growling… well, animal. And if you’ve never seen him accompany \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_IpgKzy75E&ab_channel=till90s\">Rita Moreno’s rendition of “Fever,”\u003c/a> I have to tell you that you’re really missing out. —\u003cem> Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_IpgKzy75E\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Gonzo\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anyone who’s ever felt like a weirdo or an “other”—or, to quote \u003cem>The Great Muppet Caper\u003c/em>, a “whatever”—knows where Gonzo is coming from, even if his own origin story has been circuitous and slow to unfold. A dapper Chaos Muppet capable of bearing serious emotional weight, Gonzo is an entertainer \u003cem>and\u003c/em> an artiste: an avant-garde daredevil whose act might cite poetry or shoot him out of a cannon, or somehow combine the two. He’s also, like our listeners’ No. 1 Muppet, a serious romantic leading man—just ask the chickens. \u003cem>—Stephen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. Kermit\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Look, it’s hard—and uncouth—to rank our friends. But if one of your friends ran a hit TV show, starred in a string of successful movies, stormed the pop charts with a song \u003ca href=\"https://www.nme.com/news/music/library-of-congress-to-add-kermit-the-frogs-the-rainbow-connection-to-archives-of-important-recordings-2907621\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">so indelible\u003c/a> it just got named to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, and launched memes that came to signify everything from unbridled enthusiasm to \u003ca href=\"https://www.bustle.com/p/what-is-the-kermit-sipping-tea-meme-a-history-of-this-muppets-shade-69015\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">staying above the fray\u003c/a>, you’d be pretty psyched about that friend, no?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A model of spare and efficient design, Kermit the Frog is a wonder of unadorned expressiveness, with a face that can speak volumes and spark laughter through the simple clenching and curling of fingers. The guy has it all: He’s a leading man and lust object (to Miss Piggy, at least), an exasperated workhorse who toils to keep the lights on, an earnest striver who pines for a place in the world. He’s an avatar of gentle grace; of goodness; of weary bafflement. He’s our friend. \u003cem>—Stephen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13895141\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13895141\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/1634675a_wide-484c99bff19d9c85263dab0f0b46a73539252fec-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Kermit the Frog in 'The Muppets Take Manhattan.' Kermit has been in a class of his own since many of us were itty bitty babies. Maybe even longer.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Seen here in ‘The Muppets Take Manhattan,’ Kermit the Frog has been in a class of his own since many of us were itty bitty babies. Maybe even longer. \u003ccite>(Moviestore/Shutterstock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Ruthless+Ranking+Of+The+25+Best+Muppets%2C+According+To+Listeners&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When we asked our trusty \u003cem>Pop Culture Happy Hour\u003c/em> listeners to vote for the Best Muppet, we knew they’d come through. Over 18,000 votes were cast; over 150 different Muppets received votes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes. Some brave, beautiful, misguided soul voted for \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKSGF4Ufso8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">H. Ross Parrot\u003c/a>. As \u003cem>Best \u003c/em>Muppet. That is a thing that happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Someone else—you can always count on PCHH listeners to bring the deep, \u003cem>deep \u003c/em>cuts—cast a single vote for\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bfdaR4xMeU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Delbert the La Choy Dragon\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But naturally enough, votes accreted around the Muppets with greater notoriety. (Sorry, Ma Otter, it’s not your time.) On Friday’s episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour, we reveal the top ten vote-getters, so stop reading now if you want to listen and be surprised.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here, though, we’ll tick off your top 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We established some ground rules, of course. Which made our daily PCHH Zoom call a place where the thorniest philosophical questions of our time were pondered: Should Statler and Waldorf be considered separately, or as a pair? What about Bert and Ernie? Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s where we landed:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Any Muppet from any property or era was eligible, including \u003cem>The Muppet Show, Muppet Babies, Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street, Labyrinth\u003c/em>, etc.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>We counted all variations of a Muppet character in a group. Thus, Gonzo the Great and Gonzo from \u003cem>Muppet Babies\u003c/em> both count as Gonzo.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Some Muppets were counted as a set, like Statler and Waldorf.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Others were counted individually, most notably Beaker and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, as well as Bert and Ernie. The Fraggles of \u003cem>Fraggle Rock\u003c/em> were also counted individually.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>We disqualified other puppets that are NOT Muppets, including Yoda (he’s really, really not a Muppet, guys, look it up) and the cast of \u003cem>Avenue Q\u003c/em>.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>We also disqualified human actors in Muppet movies, like Jason Segel, Tim Curry, Michael Caine, and Charles Grodin.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>So here they are, the Top 25 Best Muppets, according to the discerning, and impassioned, Pop Culture Happy Hour audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>25. Count von Count\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ultimate Order Muppet. Nice to see the Count showing up here, repping \u003cem>Sesame Street \u003c/em>(he’s one of only 10 \u003cem>Sesame Street\u003c/em> Muppets to make the top 25, surprisingly enough). (Justice for Prairie Dawn, by the way.) He always scared the hell out of me — I didn’t care for those bats forever flitting around his widow’s peak, or for his ability to call forth thunder and lightning—but if you were a kid prone to obsessive behavior, you likely saw, in his compulsion to apportion the chaotic world around him into neat, quantitative chunks, a kindred spirit. — \u003cem>Glen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>24. Dr. Teeth \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It pleases me that this talented musician, he of the brightly decorated tour bus and the funkiest and furriest band, made it onto the list. Honestly, it took a while for me, as a young person, to truly appreciate the groovy greatness of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem (one of the great band names). There’s a way in which the group calls gently to hippies, cool cats, and maybe even (gasp) stoners, that doesn’t matter to little kids but is a little bit funny when you’re older. Plus, particularly in \u003cem>The Muppet Movie\u003c/em>, Dr. Teeth is a key part of the winking, knowing, audience-acknowledging part of Muppet lore. He leads the band. He provides the hot tunes. The doctor is always in. —\u003cem> Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>23. Bert \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His saddle shoes. His paperclip collection. His love of pigeons, and of the letter W. His bold, if defiantly out-of-step sartorial sensibility (a turtleneck under a v-neck? Why not?) His embrace of rules and order. His simultaneous fondness for, and exasperation with, his less uptight other half. Let’s face it—Bert was the very first nerd millions of us ever encountered. With a thunderbolt of recognition, we saw ourselves in his pained glares, heard ourselves in his monotone staccato laughter. He showed millions the path to fully embrace—nay, to positively \u003cem>exalt \u003c/em>in—our dorkiest, most basic selves. Other nerds in mass media would come later, of course. But he was our first. — \u003cem>Glen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/biAMh-xdvJc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/biAMh-xdvJc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>22. Elmo \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elmo gets a bad rap for the same reasons Barney the Dinosaur did at the height of his fame: Parents find him overly cloying and oversaturated. Ground Zero for this animosity has to be \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/12/25/573365529/remembering-that-must-have-toy-from-past-christmases\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tickle Me Elmo\u003c/a>, of course. By the mid-’90s, I had graduated from the streets of sesame to the green slime of Nickelodeon, so I was a bit too old to get wrapped up in the craze, but I have vivid memories of the parodies and news reports of grown adults fighting each other to get their hands on the toy. And for a time, I had to live with one of those bad boys, courtesy of my little sister. (It was just as annoying and creepy as a toy can get.) Then came The Takeover a.k.a. the recurring segment “Elmo’s World,” and this furry monster—who refers to himself in the third Muppet—became inescapable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And yet… here he is, sliding into the Top 25 on this list, presumably voted on by adults rather than 5-year-olds who wouldn’t know any better. There are two reasons for this, I think. For one, if you were a millennial like myself, you probably have fewer negative memories of him than those who were exasperated parents or childcare workers at the time of Peak Elmo. But also, in this era of social media, Elmo remains one of the\u003ca href=\"https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/elmo-rise\"> most\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://giphy.com/search/elmo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> memeable\u003c/a> of all Muppets. In fact, he’s transcended \u003cem>Sesame Street \u003c/em>to become arguably\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/TheDillonOne/status/1376323244828024837\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> at his best\u003c/a> in meme form. That’s gotta count for something, I guess! — \u003cem>Aisha\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>21. Scooter \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A late-’70s shortstop whose batting average generally hovered around .200, Mario Mendoza provides the origin point for the term “The Mendoza Line,” which refers to that hazy boundary separating “just good enough to stay employed” from “not good enough.” From this moment forward, let that line be renamed “The Scooter Line,” which separates the great Muppets—your Ernies, your Sams the Eagle, your Snuffleupagii—from, well, Elmo. (Note: This analogy falls apart when you scroll further up, because Bert, Dr. Teeth, and the Count are all awesome.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seriously, how did Scooter come in at No. 21? \u003cem>Scooter\u003c/em>?! The guy who only got his job at The Muppet Theatre because his uncle J.P. Grosse owned the venue? The guy whose signature catchphrase involved the number of seconds before actual entertainment was to take place? Is it because Scooter’s glasses double as his actual eyeballs? Is \u003cem>that\u003c/em> how we’re measuring quality these days? \u003cem>—Stephen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>20. Snuffleupagus\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Painfully shy. Soulful and sweet. With an eyelash game that Bianca Del Rio would envy. Snuffy began life as Big Bird’s best friend, whom the adults of Sesame Street considered imaginary. This frustrated Big Bird, but in their defense, Snuffy did tend to ditch Big Bird, suddenly, repeatedly, like Big Bird was Commissioner Gordon and Snuffy some kind of fuzzy pachydermic Batman. Eventually, the folks at Children’s Television Workshop realized that having adults roll their eyes at Big Bird’s stories of Snuffy maybe wasn’t sending kids, you know, the \u003cem>best \u003c/em>message? On YouTube you can watch the moment, in 1985, when the adults finally see Snuffy, and it? Is weird. And not a little sinister: Big Bird and Elmo conspire to trap Snuffy, forcing him to stick around (trigger warning: Elmo abuse), and when the adults finally apologize to Big Bird for doubting him all these years, he’s … kind of a jerk about it. — \u003cem>Glen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/_BtemfoJ-WI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/_BtemfoJ-WI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>19. Sweetums\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People sometimes forget about Sweetums, which is consistent with the way he’s left behind in \u003cem>The Muppet Movie \u003c/em>and has to chase the group all the way to Hollywood. All he wants is to be included! All he wants is to be in the movie! He’s fundamentally a big lug with a heart of gold, and he could also protect you in the event of a bar fight. It seems only right that he and Snuffy are next to each other on this list, because they’re both big and furry, but Sweetums, for all his might of body and mildness of soul, plays a unique role in Muppet World. He represents the idea of the benevolent super-monster: the scary thing that’s less scary once you look at it up close. — \u003cem>Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>18. Ernie \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quite simply, Ernie should be much higher than this. “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh85R-S-dh8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rubber Duckie\u003c/a>“! “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIq8jLj5TzU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon\u003c/a>“! The\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pigcahytIH8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> innocent chaos\u003c/a> he wields upon the uptight Bert! He’s a wild one, but he’s also incredibly endearing; why else would Bert put up with this madness for so many years? Surely he’s earned enough \u003cem>Sesame Street \u003c/em>royalties at this point to be able to afford a studio apartment for himself, yet he knows—and we all know—that Ernie is a lovable sweetheart who just wants to enjoy life. #JusticeforErnie. — \u003cem>Aisha\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>17. Sam the Eagle\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d have liked to see Sam roosting in a higher perch on this list, but apparently not all of us so deeply empathize with the big, dour lug. It’s not his politics we identify with, necessarily, nor his default moral outrage. No, some of us just respond to his whole vibe, which I will herewith attempt to distill to its essence: I never know what’s going on, and I never understand what anyone’s talking about, but if I did? I wouldn’t like it. —\u003cem> Glen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>16. Pepe the King Prawn \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some might scoff at the presence of Pepe on any list of Greatest Muppets. Not me, though I’m admittedly surprised this Spanish lothario was able to find his way into the Top 25, and above the likes of Bert and Ernie to boot. Maybe it’s all those years serving as the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VPu841BmOs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">spokes-shrimp\u003c/a>” for the fast-food chain Long John Silver’s? Or perhaps it’s because he was\u003ca href=\"https://slate.com/culture/2015/11/pepe-the-king-prawn-on-the-muppets-is-the-best-part-of-the-disappointing-new-show-video.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> the best thing\u003c/a> about that ill-advised primetime sitcom \u003cem>The Muppets\u003c/em>? — \u003cem>Aisha\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>15. Janice \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fer sure, yes, this ranking makes sense. I’m convinced we all wish we could be just a little bit like Janice: kind of aloof to everything going on around her, and thus eternally chill. — \u003cem>Aisha\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/zRgNW1Xp-JI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/zRgNW1Xp-JI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>14. Big Bird \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a lot of us—especially if we were pre-Elmo kids—Big Bird was one of the founding Muppets of our minds, even though unlike most of the group, he walked around on two legs. There’s something about his name, Big Bird, that speaks profoundly to how sweet and simple the connection is between little kids and this naive, sometimes confused soul. He’s just this… really Big Bird. He walked a lot of kids through their first \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxlj4Tk83xQ&ab_channel=TVBumpersCommercials\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">experience with death\u003c/a> when Mr. Hooper died, and he eventually demonstrated that he had been right all along about his very real, very mammoth friend Snuffy. Trust in Big Bird. —\u003cem> Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>13. Oscar the Grouch \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of what happened on \u003cem>Sesame Street \u003c/em>was upbeat and colorful. So there’s something so delightfully rebellious and brilliant about the inclusion of a grungy, curmudgeonly green monster who literally lives in a garbage can and sings \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxgWHzMvXOY&ab_channel=SesameStreet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“I Love Trash.”\u003c/a> It’s great to show the power of hugs, but it might be just as important to underscore that not everyone is a hugger, and you can make a guy part of your community even though he doesn’t give you a lot to work with. —\u003cem> Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/rxgWHzMvXOY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/rxgWHzMvXOY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>12. Rizzo the Rat \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I suspect that Rizzo landed this high—above Big Bird!—thanks to millennials whose Muppet references are more about the later films like \u003cem>Muppet Treasure Island \u003c/em>and \u003cem>The Muppet Christmas Carol\u003c/em> than they are about \u003cem>The Muppet Show\u003c/em>, where Rizzo showed up fairly late in the series run as the leader of a gang of rats running wild in the theater. Rizzo started out small but went on to pop up in several of the films, always retaining his identity as a somewhat sketchy but basically decent pal, especially to Gonzo. I’m not so much a Rizzo girl myself, but to all of you who are: I respect your dedication to this little rat. —\u003cem> Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>11. Cookie Monster\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The amazing thing about Cookie Monster is that he never ate a cookie. All Cookie Monster does is mouth the cookie until it flies into pieces. What Cookie Monster is about is the \u003cem>desire\u003c/em> for the cookie. The \u003cem>passion\u003c/em> for the cookie. The \u003cem>thrill\u003c/em> of the cookie. In this way, Cookie Monster is a perfect encapsulation of the preschool id: hungry, needy, hyper, and eternally hopeful that this time, there will be a snack. He should really be in the top ten, you guys. Even if only for \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye8mB6VsUHw&ab_channel=SesameStreet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“C Is For Cookie.”\u003c/a> — \u003cem>Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>10. Statler and Waldorf\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was inevitable so many would vote for this curmudgeonly duo because they represent the viewer’s id so explicitly.\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mreHiXkWB-s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Why do they always come here\u003c/a>? I guess we’ll never know. But we are all Statler & Waldorf—sitting in that balcony while cracking wise at all those corny puns—and Statler & Waldorf are us. — \u003cem>Aisha\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/14njUwJUg1I'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/14njUwJUg1I'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>9. Swedish Chef \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many Muppets contain multitudes; Swedish Chef does not. He’s your classic Chaos Muppet—all \u003cem>hurr-guh-durr\u003c/em> and knives sticking into walls and fish flying to and fro, with human hands, no less, and without your romantic subplots or hazy origin stories or bittersweet pining for adventure and meaning. He’s the hilarious, Muppety, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN1hL9cn7s0&ab_channel=TheGilsonStation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“Bork! Bork! Bork!”\u003c/a> embodiment of what every little kid wants to be doing in the kitchen at all times. \u003cem>— Stephen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>8. Miss Piggy\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Who among the Muppets can say that they’ve been presented with an award for being a feminist trailblazer while being \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biyv8kmKwEE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">interviewed by Gloria Steinem\u003c/a>? Heck, who among us \u003cem>humans \u003c/em>can say they’ve been so honored? Well, Miss Piggy can. Because she is the epitome of chutzpah, glamour, and narciss\u003cem>—\u003c/em>er, self-confidence. I truly hope this most fabulous swine doesn’t get wind of our list, because the last thing we’d want is an angry email (or\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkFHdbpVpC8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> karate chop\u003c/a>) from her publicist for not having ranked her higher. Piggy should at least crack the top five of Greatest Muppets, “\u003cem>moi\u003c/em>” who has given us one of culture’s most storied\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2DELDQAXT8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> on-again/off-again romances\u003c/a>; this\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbbNHyjgjw4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> amazingly awkward Larry King interview\u003c/a>; and “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK52qGcpdzo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Snackersize\u003c/a>.” — \u003cem>Aisha\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>7. Fozzie Bear \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fozzie Bear’s dreams of comedic greatness are unattainable, his optimism smacks of desperation and delusion, his jokes (such as they are) exist mostly to provide opportunities for Statler and Waldorf to perform windmill dunks at his expense, and his signature catchphrase (“wocka wocka wocka!”) is a tragic cry for validation. He’s all sweaty effort, all the time, in that way that so many of us get when we’re pursuing the acceptance of others. So how do you make Fozzie lovable without also making him… deeply sad?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The secret lies, at least in part, in the aforementioned optimism: Fozzie is a dreamer, and a sweetly soulful one at that. If you can’t be great, being liked is a hell of a consolation prize. \u003cem>— Stephen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. Grover \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d have thought everyone’s lovable furry pal would have made the Top 5 easy, but this is still a perfectly respectable showing. What’s not to love? He’s cute and he knows it, but there’s so much more to him than that. He’s put in time in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIucCUyZF0g&ab_channel=SesameStreet\">food-service industry\u003c/a> (relatable!), he’s gotten his cardio in teaching us the difference between near and far (selfless!), and he’s also, not for nothing, a superhero. And if all that weren’t enough, his masterwork, \u003cem>The Monster at the End of This Book\u003c/em>, introduced successive generations to poststructuralist metanarrative; he’s a li’l fuzzy blue Michel Foucault, is what he is. — \u003cem>Glen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/sIucCUyZF0g'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/sIucCUyZF0g'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. Rowlf\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The people have spoken; the people are wrong. Both of these things can be true. Come on, Rowlf in \u003cem>fifth \u003c/em>place? Below the jamoke at No. 4? The one-note placeholder at No. 3? Pshaw. Rowlf belongs atop this chart, bestriding it like a fuzzy brown floppy-eared Colossus, for several(!) manifold(!) \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/03/29/982279931/our-favorite-muppets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reasons I enumerated on our “Favorite Muppets” \u003c/a>episode, but essentially: He rejects and transcends the reductive Chaos Muppet/Order Muppet binary. He can often seem like the only adult in the room (and when Kermit is in said room, that’s saying something), but his vibe is different from that of the frog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where Kermit is always a real Dr. Buzzkill, a square, a narc, Rowlf is part of the game. He’s preternaturally chill; he can hang. Add that to the fact that \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ7nowJ87HU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">with numbers like “You and I and George,” in which he mixes humorous stories with song\u003c/a>, he’s bringing cabaret to the children. That’s iconic, that’s queer energy; Rowlf is the best Muppet, hands down, paws up. — \u003cem>Glen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. Beaker \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Yiddish words \u003cem>schlemiel\u003c/em> and \u003cem>schlimazel\u003c/em> aren’t just colorful language we remember from \u003cem>Laverne & Shirley\u003c/em> reruns; they’re also deeply useful phrases used to signify oafish incompetence and a tendency to encounter misfortune, respectively. The general device folks use to tell the words apart is that a schlemiel is the waiter spilling the soup in your lap (Grover, perhaps?) and a schlimazel is the unfortunate soul onto whom that soup is spilled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poor, pitiful, shrieking Beaker is \u003cem>The Muppet Show\u003c/em>‘s great schlimazel—and thus a vessel through which we could compartmentalize the most put-upon moments of our youth. We’d come home from a school day in which our lunch tray got knocked out of our hands, or maybe we racked ourselves sliding down that awful rope in gym class, and there was Beaker, embodying our awkwardness, our victimhood and our pain alongside Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, himself an avatar for an unfeeling God. \u003cem>—Stephen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. Animal \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No Muppet captures pure Muppet-ness quite like Animal. The drummer for the Electric Mayhem is really just a skinny body topped with a head like a pink firework, the long hair (fur?) blossoming from his head above a single heavy, dark, fluttering eyebrow. All he has to work with is his giant mouth and that line of eyebrows, and yet you can tell when he’s happy or excited (which is usually) or disappointed (sometimes) or exhausted (he’s the Muppet most likely to pant). Given to phrases like “That’s my kind of woman” and “eat drums,” Animal can’t really be called a sophisticate. But perhaps his function is to remind us that there is a place for a pure, growling… well, animal. And if you’ve never seen him accompany \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_IpgKzy75E&ab_channel=till90s\">Rita Moreno’s rendition of “Fever,”\u003c/a> I have to tell you that you’re really missing out. —\u003cem> Linda\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/b_IpgKzy75E'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/b_IpgKzy75E'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Gonzo\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anyone who’s ever felt like a weirdo or an “other”—or, to quote \u003cem>The Great Muppet Caper\u003c/em>, a “whatever”—knows where Gonzo is coming from, even if his own origin story has been circuitous and slow to unfold. A dapper Chaos Muppet capable of bearing serious emotional weight, Gonzo is an entertainer \u003cem>and\u003c/em> an artiste: an avant-garde daredevil whose act might cite poetry or shoot him out of a cannon, or somehow combine the two. He’s also, like our listeners’ No. 1 Muppet, a serious romantic leading man—just ask the chickens. \u003cem>—Stephen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. Kermit\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Look, it’s hard—and uncouth—to rank our friends. But if one of your friends ran a hit TV show, starred in a string of successful movies, stormed the pop charts with a song \u003ca href=\"https://www.nme.com/news/music/library-of-congress-to-add-kermit-the-frogs-the-rainbow-connection-to-archives-of-important-recordings-2907621\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">so indelible\u003c/a> it just got named to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, and launched memes that came to signify everything from unbridled enthusiasm to \u003ca href=\"https://www.bustle.com/p/what-is-the-kermit-sipping-tea-meme-a-history-of-this-muppets-shade-69015\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">staying above the fray\u003c/a>, you’d be pretty psyched about that friend, no?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A model of spare and efficient design, Kermit the Frog is a wonder of unadorned expressiveness, with a face that can speak volumes and spark laughter through the simple clenching and curling of fingers. The guy has it all: He’s a leading man and lust object (to Miss Piggy, at least), an exasperated workhorse who toils to keep the lights on, an earnest striver who pines for a place in the world. He’s an avatar of gentle grace; of goodness; of weary bafflement. He’s our friend. \u003cem>—Stephen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13895141\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13895141\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/1634675a_wide-484c99bff19d9c85263dab0f0b46a73539252fec-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Kermit the Frog in 'The Muppets Take Manhattan.' Kermit has been in a class of his own since many of us were itty bitty babies. Maybe even longer.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Seen here in ‘The Muppets Take Manhattan,’ Kermit the Frog has been in a class of his own since many of us were itty bitty babies. Maybe even longer. \u003ccite>(Moviestore/Shutterstock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Ruthless+Ranking+Of+The+25+Best+Muppets%2C+According+To+Listeners&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Filmmakers Call Out PBS for a Lack of Diversity, Over-Reliance on Ken Burns",
"headTitle": "Filmmakers Call Out PBS for a Lack of Diversity, Over-Reliance on Ken Burns | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Nearly 140 documentary filmmakers have signed onto a letter given to PBS executives, suggesting the service may provide an unfair level of support to white creators, facing a “systemic failure to fulfill (its) mandate for a diversity of voices.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Titled “A Letter to PBS From Viewers Like Us,” the missive references Ken Burns, arguably one of PBS’ biggest non-fiction stars and creator of popular projects like \u003cem>Baseball, Jazz, The Civil War\u003c/em> and an upcoming six-hour program called \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13894863/ken-burns-hemingway-docuseries-dives-into-the-writers-complicated-life\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hemingway\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> Citing data from the filmmaker’s website, it says Burns has created about 211 hours of programming for PBS over 40 years, through an exclusive relationship with the service that will last until at least 2022. [aside postid='arts_13894863']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such an arrangement leaves less room for filmmakers of color, who may struggle to gain similar funding or promotional support. And while PBS has created an initiative to elevate newly emerging filmmakers of color, such initiatives can also create a false narrative that non-white artists are predominantly lacking in experience, the text adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How many other ‘independent’ filmmakers have a decades-long exclusive relationship with a publicly-funded entity?” the text asks. “Public television supporting this level of uninvestigated privilege is troubling not just for us as filmmakers but as tax-paying Americans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The letter, sent to PBS President Paula Kerger and former ombudsman Michael Getler on Tuesday, was co-signed by several high-profile filmmakers—some of whom produce programs for PBS—including Oscar-nominated director Garrett Bradley (\u003cem>Time\u003c/em>), Oscar-winning director Laura Poitras (\u003cem>Citizenfour\u003c/em>) and Emmy winning editor and director Sam Pollard (\u003cem>MLK/FBI\u003c/em>). (Note: Getler died in 2018, and PBS now has a public editor, Ricardo Sandoval-Palos.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond Inclusion, a collective of non-fiction creators, executives and industry figures led by individuals who are Black Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), drafted the letter and collected the signatures. A version of it is available \u003ca href=\"https://www.bipocmakers.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">on the group’s website\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PBS has released a statement with data pushing back on the letter’s assertions, saying 35 percent of the 200 hours of non-fiction programming planned for primetime this year was produced by diverse filmmakers. According to a spokesman, over the past five years, PBS has aired 58 hours of programming from Burns and 74 hours of projects by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., an African American scholar, director, executive producer and host of programs like \u003cem>The Black Church\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Finding Your Roots\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Kerger agrees that PBS should examine where its funding and resources are going to ensure that BIPOC filmmakers are being treated equitably. [aside postid='arts_13866441']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is an important moment for all of us to really take a hard look at what we’re doing and make sure that we are pursuing all opportunities,” says PBS’ president, adding that she hopes to meet with the group and discuss their concerns. “What is it going to take … particularly for those mid-career filmmakers, so there is a solid place (for them) in public broadcasting?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Complicating matters is the fragmented nature of PBS, where some shows are developed by affiliate stations, like the science program \u003cem>Nova\u003c/em>, which is produced by WGBH in Boston.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The letter asks for data from PBS, including its staff diversity and figures over the past ten years for how many hours of non-fiction programming have been directed or produced by BIPOC filmmakers and how much funding has gone to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Filmmaker Grace Lee, a member of Beyond Inclusion who signed the letter, wrote about these issues in an attention-getting essay for the Ford Foundation that was \u003ca href=\"https://current.org/2020/10/to-truly-reflect-diversity-pbs-must-end-its-overreliance-on-ken-burns-as-americas-storyteller/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reprinted in \u003cem>Current \u003c/em>magazine\u003c/a>, noting, “PBS must end its overreliance on Ken Burns as ‘America’s storyteller.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Kerger was asked about the essay \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/ken-burns-pbs-diversity-d687d59a9c46584f0ed6f3364ac0ed0f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">at a press conference in February\u003c/a>, she struck a slightly different tone, saying she had to “respectfully disagree” with Lee’s piece. Earlier, she had cited PBS’ work with Black filmmakers like Gates and Emmy winning director Stanley Nelson (\u003cem>Freedom Riders, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool\u003c/em>); the reaction prompted members of the group to put together the letter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Lee, a producer for the PBS series \u003cem>Asian Americans\u003c/em>, says the issue reaches beyond any individual filmmaker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not about Ken Burns, it’s about this public television system living up to its mandate,” she adds. “On \u003cem>Asian Americans\u003c/em>, we got five hours to tell 150 years of American history. Ernest Hemingway, one man, gets six hours of documentary in prime time … This kind of disparity is something that I wanted to call attention to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though his work appears regularly on PBS, Stanley Nelson signed the letter, hoping to help start a conversation that could help BIPOC documentarians. [aside postid='arts_13888079']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think PBS might be surprised themselves, if they start looking at what they’ve put into certain films and certain filmmakers,” says Nelson, who says he still has to occasionally remind white filmmakers he collaborates with to hire experienced Black technicians. “We have to be aware that race is a part of everything in America.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PBS is already touting several diversity-focused initiatives, including a program to support the next generation of “emerging” BIPOC filmmakers and a collaboration with Nelson to create a two-hour film for \u003cem>Nova\u003c/em> in 2022 on the impact of racism on the health of Black Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And how does Kerger feel, seeing filmmakers who often work with PBS co-sign a letter suggesting the service may shortchange filmmakers of color?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If people come together and feel this is a way to get attention around an issue, it’s OK,” she says. “The important thing, is we should sit down and really talk about what it’s going to take to move even more voices forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was edited for radio by Petra Mayer and adapted for the web by Petra Mayer and Eric Deggans.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Filmmakers+Call+Out+PBS+For+A+Lack+Of+Diversity%2C+Over-Reliance+On+Ken+Burns&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Nearly 140 documentary filmmakers have signed onto a letter given to PBS executives, suggesting the service may provide an unfair level of support to white creators, facing a “systemic failure to fulfill (its) mandate for a diversity of voices.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Titled “A Letter to PBS From Viewers Like Us,” the missive references Ken Burns, arguably one of PBS’ biggest non-fiction stars and creator of popular projects like \u003cem>Baseball, Jazz, The Civil War\u003c/em> and an upcoming six-hour program called \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13894863/ken-burns-hemingway-docuseries-dives-into-the-writers-complicated-life\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hemingway\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> Citing data from the filmmaker’s website, it says Burns has created about 211 hours of programming for PBS over 40 years, through an exclusive relationship with the service that will last until at least 2022. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such an arrangement leaves less room for filmmakers of color, who may struggle to gain similar funding or promotional support. And while PBS has created an initiative to elevate newly emerging filmmakers of color, such initiatives can also create a false narrative that non-white artists are predominantly lacking in experience, the text adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How many other ‘independent’ filmmakers have a decades-long exclusive relationship with a publicly-funded entity?” the text asks. “Public television supporting this level of uninvestigated privilege is troubling not just for us as filmmakers but as tax-paying Americans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The letter, sent to PBS President Paula Kerger and former ombudsman Michael Getler on Tuesday, was co-signed by several high-profile filmmakers—some of whom produce programs for PBS—including Oscar-nominated director Garrett Bradley (\u003cem>Time\u003c/em>), Oscar-winning director Laura Poitras (\u003cem>Citizenfour\u003c/em>) and Emmy winning editor and director Sam Pollard (\u003cem>MLK/FBI\u003c/em>). (Note: Getler died in 2018, and PBS now has a public editor, Ricardo Sandoval-Palos.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond Inclusion, a collective of non-fiction creators, executives and industry figures led by individuals who are Black Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), drafted the letter and collected the signatures. A version of it is available \u003ca href=\"https://www.bipocmakers.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">on the group’s website\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PBS has released a statement with data pushing back on the letter’s assertions, saying 35 percent of the 200 hours of non-fiction programming planned for primetime this year was produced by diverse filmmakers. According to a spokesman, over the past five years, PBS has aired 58 hours of programming from Burns and 74 hours of projects by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., an African American scholar, director, executive producer and host of programs like \u003cem>The Black Church\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Finding Your Roots\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Kerger agrees that PBS should examine where its funding and resources are going to ensure that BIPOC filmmakers are being treated equitably. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is an important moment for all of us to really take a hard look at what we’re doing and make sure that we are pursuing all opportunities,” says PBS’ president, adding that she hopes to meet with the group and discuss their concerns. “What is it going to take … particularly for those mid-career filmmakers, so there is a solid place (for them) in public broadcasting?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Complicating matters is the fragmented nature of PBS, where some shows are developed by affiliate stations, like the science program \u003cem>Nova\u003c/em>, which is produced by WGBH in Boston.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The letter asks for data from PBS, including its staff diversity and figures over the past ten years for how many hours of non-fiction programming have been directed or produced by BIPOC filmmakers and how much funding has gone to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Filmmaker Grace Lee, a member of Beyond Inclusion who signed the letter, wrote about these issues in an attention-getting essay for the Ford Foundation that was \u003ca href=\"https://current.org/2020/10/to-truly-reflect-diversity-pbs-must-end-its-overreliance-on-ken-burns-as-americas-storyteller/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reprinted in \u003cem>Current \u003c/em>magazine\u003c/a>, noting, “PBS must end its overreliance on Ken Burns as ‘America’s storyteller.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Kerger was asked about the essay \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/ken-burns-pbs-diversity-d687d59a9c46584f0ed6f3364ac0ed0f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">at a press conference in February\u003c/a>, she struck a slightly different tone, saying she had to “respectfully disagree” with Lee’s piece. Earlier, she had cited PBS’ work with Black filmmakers like Gates and Emmy winning director Stanley Nelson (\u003cem>Freedom Riders, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool\u003c/em>); the reaction prompted members of the group to put together the letter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Lee, a producer for the PBS series \u003cem>Asian Americans\u003c/em>, says the issue reaches beyond any individual filmmaker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not about Ken Burns, it’s about this public television system living up to its mandate,” she adds. “On \u003cem>Asian Americans\u003c/em>, we got five hours to tell 150 years of American history. Ernest Hemingway, one man, gets six hours of documentary in prime time … This kind of disparity is something that I wanted to call attention to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though his work appears regularly on PBS, Stanley Nelson signed the letter, hoping to help start a conversation that could help BIPOC documentarians. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Hemingway\u003c/em>, the latest PBS documentary series from Ken Burns and company, has several names attached who have become a sort of repertory group. Lynn Novick, Burns’ frequent co-director, is back. So is writer Geoffrey C. Ward, who helped make Burns a PBS phenomenon with the landmark non-fiction mini-series \u003cem>The Civil War\u003c/em>. And the narrator, who has lent his voice to so many past productions, is Peter Coyote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As always, Coyote calmly and clearly sets the table for everything to come—and why you might be interested. “The world saw him as a man’s man,” Coyote says, to quote one early example. “But all his life, he would privately be intrigued by the blurred lines between male and female, men and women. There were so many sides to him, the first of his four wives remembered, that he defied geometry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this new \u003cem>Hemingway\u003c/em> documentary, the women around the author are as illuminating as the author himself. Each of his four wives has something revelatory to say—and these spouses are given voice by a quartet of wonderful actresses, who bring the women’s private letters and other writings to vivid life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2016/08/10/489464731/meryl-streep-embodies-the-pull-of-music-in-florence-foster-jenkins\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Meryl Streep\u003c/a> has the meatiest part as war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway’s third wife. Her dispatches during the Normandy invasion rivaled, and arguably exceeded, his own. But the other wives are given voice by Keri Russell, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/11/16/779719536/i-m-a-purist-mary-louise-parker-returns-to-broadway-for-a-new-challenge\">Mary-Louise Parker\u003c/a> and Patricia Clarkson. And Jeff Daniels supplies the voice of Ernest Hemingway, reading from his private letters as well as his published short stories and other writings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp7Lhdc4-vw\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s so much to deal with regarding Hemingway. Professionally, there’s the way he wrote, what he wrote, and the impact his writing had on modern literature. Personally, there’s the relationships with women, the misogyny, the alcoholism, the depression—all of which found their way into his stories as well. [aside postid='arts_13866441']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This new PBS biography doesn’t shy away from any of it. It doesn’t avoid or excuse Hemingway’s excesses and betrayals and failures. Instead it enhances our understanding of the man by probing deeply into both his life and his writings. And whenever Daniels reads from Hemingway, as Hemingway, he does so in an understated tone as unadorned as the writer’s own prose style.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burns and Novick not only bring literary moments to life, using just the right sounds and images and voices, but also dive into Hemingway’s complicated personal life: The suicide of his father. The upbringing by his mother, who dressed him in girl’s clothes and encouraged his imagination. His experiences in several wars, and finding glory in such macho activities as hunting, deep-sea fishing and attending bullfights. From Paris to Spain, from Key West to Cuba, Ernest Hemingway lived in exotic locales during turbulent times—and wrote about all of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whatever you already know, or don’t know, about Ernest Hemingway and his work—and his life—the new PBS documentary \u003cem>Hemingway\u003c/em> is certain to add more to that body of knowledge. And, very likely, it will make you reassess much of it. As a Ken Burns and company literary biography, \u003cem>Hemingway\u003c/em> is even better than their previous documentary on Mark Twain. And my levels of praise don’t get much higher than that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 Fresh Air. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fresh Air\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Ken+Burns%27+%27Hemingway%27+Docuseries+Dives+Into+The+Writer%27s+Complicated+Life+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>The HBO series \u003cem>Lovecraft Country\u003c/em> takes the real horrors of the Black experience in the 1950s and adds to it the supernatural terrors of the horror genre.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Series creator Misha Green says she sees the show—and the novel by Matt Ruff upon which it is based—as a chance to reclaim “the genre space for people of color and for people who had usually been left out of it.” [aside postid='arts_13884889']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Horror, which is my favorite genre, works best for me when there’s a metaphor,” Green says. “One of my themes I keep coming back to is: What are people willing to do for metaphorical and physical survival? And that’s always the stuff that scares me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One episode explores the theme of white privilege through the lens of Ruby, a Black woman who becomes white after taking a potion. After some discussion of what Ruby would do as a white woman, the writers decided that she would enjoy a mundane day at the park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is really what part of the privilege of being white is: You get to live your life uninterrupted,” Green says. “A person of color in America has so many moments daily where they’re interrupted because of their skin color.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We don’t know yet if there will be a second season of \u003cem>Lovecraft Country\u003c/em>, but if there is, Green knows what she’d call it: “This would be the title of it—\u003cem>Lovecraft Country: Supremacy\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEvK1Zwi9XY\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Interview highlights \u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On why she loves horror \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I just like to be scared. I think it’s also one of the reasons I feel like we go to drama in the first place, to live vicariously through something. So you get to live your fears on screen and then you go, “OK, I can tackle that, maybe.” You get a little braver in life. … When I was a kid, like watching \u003cem>It,\u003c/em> watching \u003cem>Alien\u003c/em>, watching those kinds of movies, I was like, “OK, I’m terrified. But now I feel a little braver.” Afterwards, I feel like I can go and tackle the real horrors a little bit more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On Black representation in genre fiction \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I feel like one of my absolute favorites is the original \u003cem>Night of the Living Dead\u003c/em> and then \u003cem>The People Under the Stairs \u003c/em>[and]\u003cem> Candyman\u003c/em>. So there [were] spaces for Black horror, they just weren’t rampant. I feel like that’s all of Black art right now. People are like, “We’re in this huge renaissance!” and I’m like, “I remember in the ’90s I could go on TV and see more all-Black casts than I can see now.” So I feel like it’s always been there, but you have to seek it out. And the mainstream—definitely when it comes to horror, sci-fi and all of these genre fantasy spaces—are all white in a way. And so that was exciting to me, to have this kind of show that could jump to all the places and be like, “Yeah, we can be here and we don’t have to die first, guys.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On developing the sound for \u003c/strong>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Lovecraft Country,\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003cstrong> which sources audio from different moments in culture, like a Nike Ad or the poem “Whitey on the Moon”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I wanted to do something different than I had done on \u003cem>Underground\u003c/em> with sound. We used contemporary music on [the WGN America show] \u003cem>Underground\u003c/em> [which Green co-created] and it was very successful in kind of bringing the past into the present and I wanted to build on that. I want to come in with an audio viewpoint on the show. [aside postid='arts_13853443']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the things that we were talking a lot about with the show was this idea of it being out of time, that they’re going and doing things, they’re going to space, they’re going back in the past, so how do we break that up? And then that idea of “scource” as we called it, which is source and score, came to me of using these pieces. I had been soaking in things like Beyoncé’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2016/04/26/475629479/close-to-home-a-conversation-about-beyonc-s-lemonade\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Lemonade\u003c/em> \u003c/a>and \u003cem>I Am Not Your Negro\u003c/em>. And it was hearing those voices in those poems and [James] Baldwin’s voice. And I was going, “Oh, can we do that in \u003cem>Lovecraft Country\u003c/em>?” So that was kind of our big audio swing, was this idea of taking found footage audio and placing it wholesale over scenes and using it as [a] score.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On her priorities for developing her own writer’s room \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diversity and younger writers, I think that it was important to me. It’s one of the things that I said to HBO is that I don’t want upper-level writers. They were really pushing upper-level writers, which was understandable, because it’s a very big, ambitious show, an intricate show. But for me, I was like, I want new voices. Hollywood is the biggest storytelling machine there is and we all live our lives through stories, so it is giving us a story on how to live our lives, and right now it’s a monolith of white men. And I think it’s very important to change that. So when I had my own room, I knew that it was not going to look like the rooms I had been in before and that it was going to be a struggle, too, because I think in a lot of rooms, the minority voices are not there to actually be heard. So figuring out how to encourage everybody to be like, “You have a platform here, speak up! Speak up! Let’s talk. Let’s figure it out.” [That] was also an interesting new turn for me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Heidi Saman and Kayla Lattimore produced and edited the audio of this interview. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the Web.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 Fresh Air. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fresh Air\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27Lovecraft+Country%27+Creator+Aims+To+Reclaim+The+Horror+Genre+For+People+Of+Color+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The HBO series \u003cem>Lovecraft Country\u003c/em> takes the real horrors of the Black experience in the 1950s and adds to it the supernatural terrors of the horror genre.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Series creator Misha Green says she sees the show—and the novel by Matt Ruff upon which it is based—as a chance to reclaim “the genre space for people of color and for people who had usually been left out of it.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Horror, which is my favorite genre, works best for me when there’s a metaphor,” Green says. “One of my themes I keep coming back to is: What are people willing to do for metaphorical and physical survival? And that’s always the stuff that scares me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One episode explores the theme of white privilege through the lens of Ruby, a Black woman who becomes white after taking a potion. After some discussion of what Ruby would do as a white woman, the writers decided that she would enjoy a mundane day at the park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is really what part of the privilege of being white is: You get to live your life uninterrupted,” Green says. “A person of color in America has so many moments daily where they’re interrupted because of their skin color.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We don’t know yet if there will be a second season of \u003cem>Lovecraft Country\u003c/em>, but if there is, Green knows what she’d call it: “This would be the title of it—\u003cem>Lovecraft Country: Supremacy\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/eEvK1Zwi9XY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/eEvK1Zwi9XY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003chr>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Interview highlights \u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On why she loves horror \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I just like to be scared. I think it’s also one of the reasons I feel like we go to drama in the first place, to live vicariously through something. So you get to live your fears on screen and then you go, “OK, I can tackle that, maybe.” You get a little braver in life. … When I was a kid, like watching \u003cem>It,\u003c/em> watching \u003cem>Alien\u003c/em>, watching those kinds of movies, I was like, “OK, I’m terrified. But now I feel a little braver.” Afterwards, I feel like I can go and tackle the real horrors a little bit more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On Black representation in genre fiction \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I feel like one of my absolute favorites is the original \u003cem>Night of the Living Dead\u003c/em> and then \u003cem>The People Under the Stairs \u003c/em>[and]\u003cem> Candyman\u003c/em>. So there [were] spaces for Black horror, they just weren’t rampant. I feel like that’s all of Black art right now. People are like, “We’re in this huge renaissance!” and I’m like, “I remember in the ’90s I could go on TV and see more all-Black casts than I can see now.” So I feel like it’s always been there, but you have to seek it out. And the mainstream—definitely when it comes to horror, sci-fi and all of these genre fantasy spaces—are all white in a way. And so that was exciting to me, to have this kind of show that could jump to all the places and be like, “Yeah, we can be here and we don’t have to die first, guys.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On developing the sound for \u003c/strong>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Lovecraft Country,\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003cstrong> which sources audio from different moments in culture, like a Nike Ad or the poem “Whitey on the Moon”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I wanted to do something different than I had done on \u003cem>Underground\u003c/em> with sound. We used contemporary music on [the WGN America show] \u003cem>Underground\u003c/em> [which Green co-created] and it was very successful in kind of bringing the past into the present and I wanted to build on that. I want to come in with an audio viewpoint on the show. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the things that we were talking a lot about with the show was this idea of it being out of time, that they’re going and doing things, they’re going to space, they’re going back in the past, so how do we break that up? And then that idea of “scource” as we called it, which is source and score, came to me of using these pieces. I had been soaking in things like Beyoncé’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2016/04/26/475629479/close-to-home-a-conversation-about-beyonc-s-lemonade\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Lemonade\u003c/em> \u003c/a>and \u003cem>I Am Not Your Negro\u003c/em>. And it was hearing those voices in those poems and [James] Baldwin’s voice. And I was going, “Oh, can we do that in \u003cem>Lovecraft Country\u003c/em>?” So that was kind of our big audio swing, was this idea of taking found footage audio and placing it wholesale over scenes and using it as [a] score.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On her priorities for developing her own writer’s room \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diversity and younger writers, I think that it was important to me. It’s one of the things that I said to HBO is that I don’t want upper-level writers. They were really pushing upper-level writers, which was understandable, because it’s a very big, ambitious show, an intricate show. But for me, I was like, I want new voices. Hollywood is the biggest storytelling machine there is and we all live our lives through stories, so it is giving us a story on how to live our lives, and right now it’s a monolith of white men. And I think it’s very important to change that. So when I had my own room, I knew that it was not going to look like the rooms I had been in before and that it was going to be a struggle, too, because I think in a lot of rooms, the minority voices are not there to actually be heard. So figuring out how to encourage everybody to be like, “You have a platform here, speak up! Speak up! Let’s talk. Let’s figure it out.” [That] was also an interesting new turn for me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>George R.R. Martin has entered into a five year deal with HBO to develop content for both HBO and HBO Max, the network said in a statement on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The best-selling fantasy author and four-time Emmy award winner, best known for his book series \u003cem>A Song of Ice and Fire \u003c/em>and its television adaptation \u003cem>Game of Thrones\u003c/em>, is attached to multiple projects in the pipeline for the media company and streaming service. [aside postid='arts_13654506']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>Game of Thrones \u003c/em>television series followed powerful families aiming for the iron throne in the continent of Westeros. It ran for eight years on HBO, with the final season wrapping in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martin has a new drama series in the works, \u003cem>House of the Dragon\u003c/em>, which is based on his \u003cem>Fire & Blood \u003c/em>book. The \u003cem>Game of Thrones\u003c/em> prequel follows House Targaryen and is set 300 years before the events of \u003cem>Game of Thrones\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show has been given a ten episode order. Paddy Considine, Olivia Cooke, Matt Smith, and Emma D’Arcy have joined the series, with additional cast members to be announced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show is co-created by Martin and Ryan Condal, whose prior work includes \u003cem>Colony, Rampage, \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Hercules.\u003c/em> Condal and Miguel Sapochnik (\u003cem>Game of Thrones, Altered Carbon\u003c/em>) serve as showrunners and producers with Martin and Vince Gerardis (\u003cem>Game of Thrones\u003c/em>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martin is also set to executive produce HBO’s \u003cem>Who Fears Death, \u003c/em>a fantasy post-apocalyptic series with Tessa Thompson attached to star, and adapted from the novel by Nnedi Okorafor; and \u003cem>Roadmarks, \u003c/em>an adaptation of the sci-fi novel from Roger Zelazny.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=George+R.R.+Martin+Signs+New+Five+Year+Deal+With+HBO+And+HBO+Max&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>George R.R. Martin has entered into a five year deal with HBO to develop content for both HBO and HBO Max, the network said in a statement on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The best-selling fantasy author and four-time Emmy award winner, best known for his book series \u003cem>A Song of Ice and Fire \u003c/em>and its television adaptation \u003cem>Game of Thrones\u003c/em>, is attached to multiple projects in the pipeline for the media company and streaming service. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>Game of Thrones \u003c/em>television series followed powerful families aiming for the iron throne in the continent of Westeros. It ran for eight years on HBO, with the final season wrapping in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martin has a new drama series in the works, \u003cem>House of the Dragon\u003c/em>, which is based on his \u003cem>Fire & Blood \u003c/em>book. The \u003cem>Game of Thrones\u003c/em> prequel follows House Targaryen and is set 300 years before the events of \u003cem>Game of Thrones\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show has been given a ten episode order. Paddy Considine, Olivia Cooke, Matt Smith, and Emma D’Arcy have joined the series, with additional cast members to be announced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show is co-created by Martin and Ryan Condal, whose prior work includes \u003cem>Colony, Rampage, \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Hercules.\u003c/em> Condal and Miguel Sapochnik (\u003cem>Game of Thrones, Altered Carbon\u003c/em>) serve as showrunners and producers with Martin and Vince Gerardis (\u003cem>Game of Thrones\u003c/em>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martin is also set to executive produce HBO’s \u003cem>Who Fears Death, \u003c/em>a fantasy post-apocalyptic series with Tessa Thompson attached to star, and adapted from the novel by Nnedi Okorafor; and \u003cem>Roadmarks, \u003c/em>an adaptation of the sci-fi novel from Roger Zelazny.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=George+R.R.+Martin+Signs+New+Five+Year+Deal+With+HBO+And+HBO+Max&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>One way to think about the new Apple TV+ drama series \u003cem>Calls\u003c/em> is as a podcast. Specifically, a podcast that’s a descendant of the suspenseful radio drama, only it’s played through your TV. A mix of science fiction, thriller and mystery, \u003cem>Calls\u003c/em> is made up of a series of phone calls you listen to, accompanied by minimal graphics on screen: dots and names to represent people, sound waveforms to represent their voices, running captions of everything they say. The general visual feel will be familiar to anyone who watched swirling, bending curves in bright colors dance and bounce on a dark background in the age of the screensaver. There’s not a lot to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mystery begins at the end—a common tactic—with a baffling and frightening occurrence, and then it doubles back to explore what exactly has happened to get us there. There are nine episodes total, each in the 15-20 minute range, and the cast is big and impressive: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Rosario Dawson, Mark Duplass, Aubrey Plaza, Nick Jonas, and Pedro Pascal are just a few of the folks who show up. The episodes are standalone short stories that gradually reveal a larger tale. A guy on the phone with his girlfriend, a doctor on the phone with her sister, a man on the phone with a neighbor—all experiencing a baffling anomaly that disrupts their lives in different ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Calls \u003c/em>comes by its unconventional format honestly—this was always an audio project. It began with a ten-minute short film with the barest visuals by writer and director Timothée Hochet, who posted it to YouTube and then wrote and directed a French television series based on it. This version is, in turn, based on the French show, and was written and directed by Fede Álvarez, who made \u003cem>Don’t Breathe \u003c/em>as well and \u003cem>The Girl in the Spider’s Web\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfpzdSJlv6o\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What makes this an interesting effort arises out of the fact that it’s very different to write for audio drama than for television or film. There are a bunch of reasons that’s true, but one is that audiences need more and different signposting—voices that are different enough, characters calling each other by name, other cues that audio writers develop the ability to add seamlessly—to keep track of what’s going on. If you’ve ever listened to just the sound of a scene from a show or a film you’re not familiar with, you’ve probably noticed that you can lose your way very quickly, and if people are talking over each other or raising or lowering their voices, the complications can increase. (This is also why, for instance, if a news report on television plays the audio of a taped phone call, they’ll caption and label who’s talking and what they’re saying.) Audio writing is not just TV writing without the screen, and it requires tackling a different set of challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This represents one way to approach some of those challenges. Even though the visuals in \u003cem>Calls \u003c/em>are minimal, they’re meaningful and thoughtfully chosen. They help orient the listener so that one voice can drop in and another can drop out with a different kind of fluidity. When a person is represented by a name and a dot, connected to another name and another dot by a waveform, sometimes they’ll both stay in place on the screen. But sometimes they move, gliding closer to each other, sliding farther apart, or being joined by someone who can barely be heard in the background, whose name and dot may be fuzzy or distorted. A name might appear next to a dot only once the person on the other end of the call learns who they’re talking to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It helps—it helps give information, certainly, but it also gives a fullness to the show that this audio alone wouldn’t quite carry. In the same way music enriches a scene on film, these visuals enrich a scene done with audio. You certainly don’t always need them to follow the action, but they complement the storytelling quite well, and they may be a helpful assist for people who don’t have a lot of practice listening to audio drama and would prefer to try it with training wheels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apple itself seems to be treating this as if it were a podcast—they didn’t offer any photos as part of their press materials, as they normally would with a TV show. That’s a shame, because while the audio is the focus of the production, what’s intriguing about this otherwise good-but-not-great story is that it has some of the charm and simplicity of audio-only storytelling, with some of the advantages of visual cues. There’s nothing new under the sun, and certainly some podcast dramas continue to wrestle with things radio dramas have been playing with for decades. But where there’s a proliferation of TV projects that look increasingly similar to each other sprawled across streaming services of which you could say the same, it’s appealing to see anything that’s different. And in different ways, \u003cem>Calls \u003c/em>is the most familiar, and the most unusual, piece of TV I’ve seen in a while.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27Calls%27+Is+A+Suspenseful+Audio+Drama+With+An+Effective+Visual+Boost&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>One way to think about the new Apple TV+ drama series \u003cem>Calls\u003c/em> is as a podcast. Specifically, a podcast that’s a descendant of the suspenseful radio drama, only it’s played through your TV. A mix of science fiction, thriller and mystery, \u003cem>Calls\u003c/em> is made up of a series of phone calls you listen to, accompanied by minimal graphics on screen: dots and names to represent people, sound waveforms to represent their voices, running captions of everything they say. The general visual feel will be familiar to anyone who watched swirling, bending curves in bright colors dance and bounce on a dark background in the age of the screensaver. There’s not a lot to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mystery begins at the end—a common tactic—with a baffling and frightening occurrence, and then it doubles back to explore what exactly has happened to get us there. There are nine episodes total, each in the 15-20 minute range, and the cast is big and impressive: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Rosario Dawson, Mark Duplass, Aubrey Plaza, Nick Jonas, and Pedro Pascal are just a few of the folks who show up. The episodes are standalone short stories that gradually reveal a larger tale. A guy on the phone with his girlfriend, a doctor on the phone with her sister, a man on the phone with a neighbor—all experiencing a baffling anomaly that disrupts their lives in different ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Calls \u003c/em>comes by its unconventional format honestly—this was always an audio project. It began with a ten-minute short film with the barest visuals by writer and director Timothée Hochet, who posted it to YouTube and then wrote and directed a French television series based on it. This version is, in turn, based on the French show, and was written and directed by Fede Álvarez, who made \u003cem>Don’t Breathe \u003c/em>as well and \u003cem>The Girl in the Spider’s Web\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/RfpzdSJlv6o'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/RfpzdSJlv6o'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>What makes this an interesting effort arises out of the fact that it’s very different to write for audio drama than for television or film. There are a bunch of reasons that’s true, but one is that audiences need more and different signposting—voices that are different enough, characters calling each other by name, other cues that audio writers develop the ability to add seamlessly—to keep track of what’s going on. If you’ve ever listened to just the sound of a scene from a show or a film you’re not familiar with, you’ve probably noticed that you can lose your way very quickly, and if people are talking over each other or raising or lowering their voices, the complications can increase. (This is also why, for instance, if a news report on television plays the audio of a taped phone call, they’ll caption and label who’s talking and what they’re saying.) Audio writing is not just TV writing without the screen, and it requires tackling a different set of challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This represents one way to approach some of those challenges. Even though the visuals in \u003cem>Calls \u003c/em>are minimal, they’re meaningful and thoughtfully chosen. They help orient the listener so that one voice can drop in and another can drop out with a different kind of fluidity. When a person is represented by a name and a dot, connected to another name and another dot by a waveform, sometimes they’ll both stay in place on the screen. But sometimes they move, gliding closer to each other, sliding farther apart, or being joined by someone who can barely be heard in the background, whose name and dot may be fuzzy or distorted. A name might appear next to a dot only once the person on the other end of the call learns who they’re talking to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It helps—it helps give information, certainly, but it also gives a fullness to the show that this audio alone wouldn’t quite carry. In the same way music enriches a scene on film, these visuals enrich a scene done with audio. You certainly don’t always need them to follow the action, but they complement the storytelling quite well, and they may be a helpful assist for people who don’t have a lot of practice listening to audio drama and would prefer to try it with training wheels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apple itself seems to be treating this as if it were a podcast—they didn’t offer any photos as part of their press materials, as they normally would with a TV show. That’s a shame, because while the audio is the focus of the production, what’s intriguing about this otherwise good-but-not-great story is that it has some of the charm and simplicity of audio-only storytelling, with some of the advantages of visual cues. There’s nothing new under the sun, and certainly some podcast dramas continue to wrestle with things radio dramas have been playing with for decades. But where there’s a proliferation of TV projects that look increasingly similar to each other sprawled across streaming services of which you could say the same, it’s appealing to see anything that’s different. And in different ways, \u003cem>Calls \u003c/em>is the most familiar, and the most unusual, piece of TV I’ve seen in a while.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27Calls%27+Is+A+Suspenseful+Audio+Drama+With+An+Effective+Visual+Boost&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Reel Talk: Cheryl Dunye on Inventing a Film Genre",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Over 4 weeks, Rightnowish is looking at filmmaking in the Bay Area. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13893541/reel-talk-filmmaking-in-the-bay-area-rightnowish\">Learn more about the series here\u003c/a>. \u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC3233437392&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Filmmaker \u003ca href=\"http://cheryldunye.com/services\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cheryl Dunye\u003c/a> is a legend. She’s best known for her seminal film, \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118125/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Watermelon Woman\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, an innovative depiction of Black women in cinema; 2021 marks 25 years since it debuted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In making that film, Dunye, a graduate of Temple University and Rutgers University, created her own style of filmmaking known as “Dunyementary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiTBGPmL2mo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, Dunye has put multiple films under her belt. Most of them do the work that Hollywood hasn’t: putting Black women and queer and trans people in leading roles. She’s also working on TV shows, directing episodes of \u003cem>Lovecraft Country\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Queen Sugar\u003c/em>, to name a few.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dunye, a proud product of Philadelphia, has made Oakland her chosen home for over a decade. She’s even named her production company after a neighborhood in East Oakland, \u003ca href=\"https://www.jingletownfilms.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jingletown Films,\u003c/a> and has produced a film set in Oakland, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3593320/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Black is Blue\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Below are lightly edited excerpts of my conversation with Cheryl Dunye.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Pen: Wondering just how you feel about that film [The Watermelon Woman] being twenty five years into its success?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: At the time when I made it, back in 94/95… I had been doing a lot of work as an art curator and was on that path to make art. Ostensibly, The Watermelon Woman is a piece of art, and sort of lives in both worlds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: Something that was sort of biting at me as an African-American lesbian and seeing all these new queer films coming out — It’s been labeled as the Queer New Wave — Also at that time period was the culture wars — So we’re talking about looking at culture, looking at representation, looking at intersectionality. It’s about me. It’s about my community. I wanted to put people in the film that I saw in my world. Audre Lorde was alive around that time. So I was just doing my work, as Audre Lorde would say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: So [I made] the first African-American lesbian feature because there was none… It took a while for people to understand and accept and see all that… It’s only now in retrospect where people are like, ‘oh my God, that’s groundbreaking.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Pen: What’s Dunyementery and how do you wish they would teach it in classes?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: So, the Dunyementary is Do-Your-Own-Mentary… If you are living in the margins and you’re invisible… you can do anything. So marginality is my strength in that sense. It allowed me to have my own sense of visibility, it help me create my own world, make my own cinema. So the Dunyementary is basically putting myself in my own picture with my own truth, using documentary elements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: I was calling it the theory of 3’s, where you see me talking to you, in sort of a talking head style.. you see a vignette… and then you see text that says something, or is poetic or whatnot on a title card.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: And if you didn’t understand who I was, or what I’m talking about at that point, then bye bye!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Pen: [laughs] I like the break down.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: I really wanted to kind of put the truth of what my life was like. I’ve always been out. I was never in the closet or anything, so I really wanted to [show] a life that was my life, not coming out, lived, a little bit damaged, functional, dreaming, stuck on traffic, whatever I was doing. I had to put those real elements that people don’t really include in film, but makes it much more authentic…. you see people picking up on that style, later on… The \u003cem>40 Year Old Version\u003c/em> sorta used that style in a good way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Pen: The realness and intimacy. How did that influence or inform the direction that you did for Lovecraft Country: Strange Case?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: I had just, you know, ran crazily to \u003cem>Lovecraft Country\u003c/em> with all my visions… I’m queer, I know cinema, I know Blackness. And in my first film, \u003cem>Janine\u003c/em>, it talks about my relationships with a white young girl in high school and having a crush on her… and desire questioning whiteness and blackness and skin and stuff like that. So I brought all that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: And then most of the cinematic visuals in it are from my family… My father worked at Polaroid. We had tons of cameras around the house. My mom had pictures from the forties and fifties and thirties. And I would just look at these things. I just dipped into myself again using my own stuff and putting that on top of some wonderful writing by [Misha Green], Sonya [Winton] and [Jonathan] Kidd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Pen: I love it. It’s like this thread of you being a scholar, a scholar of yourself, a scholar of art, a scholar of Philly… Your production company Jingletown Films is obviously influenced by Oakland. I’m wondering, how was the history of Oakland, of Jingletown specifically, influenced you and your filmmaking?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: I was living in Jingletown! Which is a section of Oakland in the Fruitvale area, I could see Fruitvale Station from my loft window.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: Jingletown was named Jingletown because there were workers there who, back in the early 20th century, when they got paid, they had money in their pocket and it would jingle. And that’s sort of where that came from. So I thought it was a wonderful way to name the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: And then, lo and behold, people are on the street just running into Boots Riley, right. Running into Natalie Baszile, who wrote Queen Sugar the book and just running to a variety of other filmmakers and artists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: Oakland is historically, one of the most powerful Black places and woman spaces and queer spaces in the world. And to be at the epicenter of all that, that was a choice for me to move to Oakland. Some people were lucky, to magically be able to be from there. Which I wasn’t. I moved [to Oakland] full time in about 2010… I was living in L.A. I was like, I’m done with L.A. This is where I want to be. I feel complete. I feel agency. And that’s why the company is called Jingletown, because it’s the possibility and agency that we must give ourselves…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Rightnowish is an arts and culture podcast produced at KQED. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts or click the play button at the top of this page and subscribe to the show on \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/721590300/rightnowish\">NPR One\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/show/7kEJuafTzTVan7B78ttz1I\">Spotify\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rightnowish/id1482187648\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://tunein.com/podcasts/Arts--Culture-Podcasts/Rightnowish-p1258245/\">TuneIn\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/rightnowish\">Stitcher\u003c/a> or wherever you get your podcasts. \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Queer Black cinema legend Cheryl Dunye has made Oakland her home since 2010. She talks about making film in the margins and how that led to the Dunyementary style.",
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"description": "Queer Black cinema legend Cheryl Dunye has made Oakland her home since 2010. She talks about making film in the margins and how that led to the Dunyementary style.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Over 4 weeks, Rightnowish is looking at filmmaking in the Bay Area. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13893541/reel-talk-filmmaking-in-the-bay-area-rightnowish\">Learn more about the series here\u003c/a>. \u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC3233437392&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Filmmaker \u003ca href=\"http://cheryldunye.com/services\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cheryl Dunye\u003c/a> is a legend. She’s best known for her seminal film, \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118125/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Watermelon Woman\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, an innovative depiction of Black women in cinema; 2021 marks 25 years since it debuted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In making that film, Dunye, a graduate of Temple University and Rutgers University, created her own style of filmmaking known as “Dunyementary.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/OiTBGPmL2mo'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/OiTBGPmL2mo'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Since then, Dunye has put multiple films under her belt. Most of them do the work that Hollywood hasn’t: putting Black women and queer and trans people in leading roles. She’s also working on TV shows, directing episodes of \u003cem>Lovecraft Country\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Queen Sugar\u003c/em>, to name a few.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dunye, a proud product of Philadelphia, has made Oakland her chosen home for over a decade. She’s even named her production company after a neighborhood in East Oakland, \u003ca href=\"https://www.jingletownfilms.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jingletown Films,\u003c/a> and has produced a film set in Oakland, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3593320/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Black is Blue\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Below are lightly edited excerpts of my conversation with Cheryl Dunye.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Pen: Wondering just how you feel about that film [The Watermelon Woman] being twenty five years into its success?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: At the time when I made it, back in 94/95… I had been doing a lot of work as an art curator and was on that path to make art. Ostensibly, The Watermelon Woman is a piece of art, and sort of lives in both worlds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: Something that was sort of biting at me as an African-American lesbian and seeing all these new queer films coming out — It’s been labeled as the Queer New Wave — Also at that time period was the culture wars — So we’re talking about looking at culture, looking at representation, looking at intersectionality. It’s about me. It’s about my community. I wanted to put people in the film that I saw in my world. Audre Lorde was alive around that time. So I was just doing my work, as Audre Lorde would say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: So [I made] the first African-American lesbian feature because there was none… It took a while for people to understand and accept and see all that… It’s only now in retrospect where people are like, ‘oh my God, that’s groundbreaking.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Pen: What’s Dunyementery and how do you wish they would teach it in classes?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: So, the Dunyementary is Do-Your-Own-Mentary… If you are living in the margins and you’re invisible… you can do anything. So marginality is my strength in that sense. It allowed me to have my own sense of visibility, it help me create my own world, make my own cinema. So the Dunyementary is basically putting myself in my own picture with my own truth, using documentary elements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: I was calling it the theory of 3’s, where you see me talking to you, in sort of a talking head style.. you see a vignette… and then you see text that says something, or is poetic or whatnot on a title card.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: And if you didn’t understand who I was, or what I’m talking about at that point, then bye bye!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Pen: [laughs] I like the break down.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: I really wanted to kind of put the truth of what my life was like. I’ve always been out. I was never in the closet or anything, so I really wanted to [show] a life that was my life, not coming out, lived, a little bit damaged, functional, dreaming, stuck on traffic, whatever I was doing. I had to put those real elements that people don’t really include in film, but makes it much more authentic…. you see people picking up on that style, later on… The \u003cem>40 Year Old Version\u003c/em> sorta used that style in a good way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Pen: The realness and intimacy. How did that influence or inform the direction that you did for Lovecraft Country: Strange Case?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: I had just, you know, ran crazily to \u003cem>Lovecraft Country\u003c/em> with all my visions… I’m queer, I know cinema, I know Blackness. And in my first film, \u003cem>Janine\u003c/em>, it talks about my relationships with a white young girl in high school and having a crush on her… and desire questioning whiteness and blackness and skin and stuff like that. So I brought all that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: And then most of the cinematic visuals in it are from my family… My father worked at Polaroid. We had tons of cameras around the house. My mom had pictures from the forties and fifties and thirties. And I would just look at these things. I just dipped into myself again using my own stuff and putting that on top of some wonderful writing by [Misha Green], Sonya [Winton] and [Jonathan] Kidd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Pen: I love it. It’s like this thread of you being a scholar, a scholar of yourself, a scholar of art, a scholar of Philly… Your production company Jingletown Films is obviously influenced by Oakland. I’m wondering, how was the history of Oakland, of Jingletown specifically, influenced you and your filmmaking?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: I was living in Jingletown! Which is a section of Oakland in the Fruitvale area, I could see Fruitvale Station from my loft window.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: Jingletown was named Jingletown because there were workers there who, back in the early 20th century, when they got paid, they had money in their pocket and it would jingle. And that’s sort of where that came from. So I thought it was a wonderful way to name the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: And then, lo and behold, people are on the street just running into Boots Riley, right. Running into Natalie Baszile, who wrote Queen Sugar the book and just running to a variety of other filmmakers and artists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheryl: Oakland is historically, one of the most powerful Black places and woman spaces and queer spaces in the world. And to be at the epicenter of all that, that was a choice for me to move to Oakland. Some people were lucky, to magically be able to be from there. Which I wasn’t. I moved [to Oakland] full time in about 2010… I was living in L.A. I was like, I’m done with L.A. This is where I want to be. I feel complete. I feel agency. And that’s why the company is called Jingletown, because it’s the possibility and agency that we must give ourselves…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Rightnowish is an arts and culture podcast produced at KQED. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts or click the play button at the top of this page and subscribe to the show on \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/721590300/rightnowish\">NPR One\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/show/7kEJuafTzTVan7B78ttz1I\">Spotify\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rightnowish/id1482187648\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://tunein.com/podcasts/Arts--Culture-Podcasts/Rightnowish-p1258245/\">TuneIn\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/rightnowish\">Stitcher\u003c/a> or wherever you get your podcasts. \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "HBO’s ‘TINA’ Raises Questions About How We Treat Famous Survivors of Abuse",
"headTitle": "HBO’s ‘TINA’ Raises Questions About How We Treat Famous Survivors of Abuse | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>There’s plenty of disturbing content that stays with you long after watching \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/tina\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">TINA\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, HBO’s new documentary about Tina Turner’s life and career. There’s the searing descriptions of the violence inflicted on her by her first husband and collaborator, Ike Turner. There’s the eyewitness accounts of the abuse, including a particularly heartbreaking story from Tina’s late son, Craig. And there’s Tina’s own recounting of both her suicide attempt and ultimate escape, carrying only 34 cents and a Mobile gas card in her pocket. It all makes for extremely tough viewing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But something unexpected in \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> is, in some ways, even harder to tolerate. And it’s the sound of a woman being forced to repeatedly—and reluctantly—recount the worst things that have ever happened to her. It’s the sound of a woman being defined throughout the decades not by her own talents or worldwide fame, but rather by the monster she escaped before the most successful portion of her career had even begun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is, of course, joy in the two-hour film. It’s in stunning live performances, TV appearances, and the sweet relationship Turner has with her current husband, Erwin Bach. It’s also present in the inspiration Tina Turner has provided to other survivors of domestic violence throughout the decades. But \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> ultimately leaves the viewer with a serious moral conundrum. Are we willing to sacrifice the emotional and mental well-being of our musical icons for the sake of our own comfort and—even more uncomfortably—entertainment?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9IkVtLvflU\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story of how the press and public has demanded Turner endlessly revisit her past weaves throughout \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em>. We hear clips from her very first interview about Ike’s abuse, for a story originally printed in the Dec. 7, 1981 edition of \u003cem>People\u003c/em> magazine. “I was living a life of death,” she told then-music editor, Carl Arrington. “I didn’t exist. But I survived it. And when I walked out, I walked. And I didn’t look back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arrington recalls in \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> that “she wanted to just tell it and then forget it. It didn’t quite work out that way.” [aside postid='arts_13890087']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arrington’s understatement is writ large throughout the rest of the film, as we see Turner tolerate—and politely answer—question after (often inane) question about her ex-husband. She often laughs when his name comes up, but the interviews are transparently, consistently painful for her. Her grace and patience under fire is thoroughly impressive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> explains that Turner’s tell-all book, \u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/568429.I_Tina\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>I, Tina\u003c/em>\u003c/a> (co-written by Kurt Loder) came about as part of the ongoing effort to preempt questions about Ike. As her success exploded after the 1984 album \u003cem>Private Dancer\u003c/em>, Turner was besieged once more with queries about her abuser. “They’d bring up the same old stuff, over and over in every interview,” Turner’s manager Roger Davies recalls in the film. “We couldn’t stop it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Turner remembers, “Out of all the success I was having, why are they talking about Ike and Tina? I said to Roger, ‘I’m beginning to get really very depressed.’ And he said, ‘Well the only thing you can do is write a book.’ … I wasn’t interested in telling that ridiculously embarrassing story of my life. But I felt that’s one way I could get the journalists off my back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>I, Tina\u003c/em> was an instant worldwide best seller. But it did the opposite of end the chatter. Nowhere is this more obvious in \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> than during a clip from a 1993 Venice Film Festival press conference for \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108551/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>What’s Love Got to Do With It?\u003c/em>\u003c/a>—the biopic based on the book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a journalist asks Turner what she thinks of the movie, she replies that she hasn’t yet seen it. When subsequently asked, “Why not?” Turner visibly stiffens, awkwardly fiddles with her microphone, and replies:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>I am not so thrilled thinking about the past and how I lived my life. The story was actually written so I would no longer have to discuss the issue. I don’t love that it’s always talked about, you see … This constant reminder is not so good, you know. I’m not so happy about it. So, do I want to sit at a screen and watch the violence and all the brutality? No. That’s why I haven’t seen it.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Turner’s husband, Erwin Bach, does not sugarcoat matters when talking about the effect these kinds of questions have had on his wife during their 33 years together. “When you talk to journalists over and over and over, for 20, or 30, or 40 years,” Bach says, “memories come back. She has, partly, dreams about it. They’re not pleasant. So I think these are the things that come back to her when she opens that book. It’s like when soldiers come back from the war.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ironically, Turner has to re-state her position on the matter at the start of \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em>. “It wasn’t a good life,” she says. “It was in some areas, but the goodness didn’t balance the bad. So it’s not wanting to be reminded. You want to just leave that in the past. I don’t like to pull out old clothes. It’s old memories. You want to just leave that in the past and be done with it.” [aside postid='arts_13892800']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> is careful to give focus to the good that’s resulted from Turner’s lifetime spent reliving her trauma for the public. Fans are seen expressing gratitude for it. Playwright Katori Hall says of Turner’s life, “That story reached so many people who felt like they had to keep their secrets locked away, deep down.” And Turner’s friend Oprah Winfrey notes, “Nobody talked about sexual abuse, physical abuse, domestic abuse—abuse, period. Our generation is the generation that started to break the silence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no doubt that the insights Turner offers here, via old interviews, do offer revelations about how people become trapped in domestic abuse situations. “I felt obligated to stay there and I was afraid,” Turner says of her marriage and early career. “I felt very loyal to Ike and I didn’t want to hurt him. Sometimes after he’d beat me up, I’d end up feeling sorry for him. I was 23 years old or something like that. Early 20s. I was brainwashed. I was afraid of him. And I cared what happened to him. I knew that if I left, there was no one to sing. So I was caught up on guilt and fear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in the end, it’s impossible to leave \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> without a sense of enthralled awe. That’s not just because of Tina Turner’s personal resilience, it’s because of the sheer power of her vocals, her dancing, her talent, her focus and her unerring self-belief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the movie is also an important reminder that, as a public, we must learn to honor the struggle of survivors without primarily defining them by it—especially if they’re asking over and over again to be allowed to move on. \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> reminds us that being inspired by other people’s battles shouldn’t require those sources of inspiration to repeatedly re-live their darkest days. Doing so doesn’t just ask that they live in the past, it denies them the autonomy they have fought so hard to get back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cem>‘TINA’ premieres on Saturday, March 27, on HBO. \u003ca href=\"https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/tina\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>There’s plenty of disturbing content that stays with you long after watching \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/tina\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">TINA\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, HBO’s new documentary about Tina Turner’s life and career. There’s the searing descriptions of the violence inflicted on her by her first husband and collaborator, Ike Turner. There’s the eyewitness accounts of the abuse, including a particularly heartbreaking story from Tina’s late son, Craig. And there’s Tina’s own recounting of both her suicide attempt and ultimate escape, carrying only 34 cents and a Mobile gas card in her pocket. It all makes for extremely tough viewing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But something unexpected in \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> is, in some ways, even harder to tolerate. And it’s the sound of a woman being forced to repeatedly—and reluctantly—recount the worst things that have ever happened to her. It’s the sound of a woman being defined throughout the decades not by her own talents or worldwide fame, but rather by the monster she escaped before the most successful portion of her career had even begun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is, of course, joy in the two-hour film. It’s in stunning live performances, TV appearances, and the sweet relationship Turner has with her current husband, Erwin Bach. It’s also present in the inspiration Tina Turner has provided to other survivors of domestic violence throughout the decades. But \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> ultimately leaves the viewer with a serious moral conundrum. Are we willing to sacrifice the emotional and mental well-being of our musical icons for the sake of our own comfort and—even more uncomfortably—entertainment?\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/w9IkVtLvflU'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/w9IkVtLvflU'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The story of how the press and public has demanded Turner endlessly revisit her past weaves throughout \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em>. We hear clips from her very first interview about Ike’s abuse, for a story originally printed in the Dec. 7, 1981 edition of \u003cem>People\u003c/em> magazine. “I was living a life of death,” she told then-music editor, Carl Arrington. “I didn’t exist. But I survived it. And when I walked out, I walked. And I didn’t look back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arrington recalls in \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> that “she wanted to just tell it and then forget it. It didn’t quite work out that way.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arrington’s understatement is writ large throughout the rest of the film, as we see Turner tolerate—and politely answer—question after (often inane) question about her ex-husband. She often laughs when his name comes up, but the interviews are transparently, consistently painful for her. Her grace and patience under fire is thoroughly impressive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> explains that Turner’s tell-all book, \u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/568429.I_Tina\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>I, Tina\u003c/em>\u003c/a> (co-written by Kurt Loder) came about as part of the ongoing effort to preempt questions about Ike. As her success exploded after the 1984 album \u003cem>Private Dancer\u003c/em>, Turner was besieged once more with queries about her abuser. “They’d bring up the same old stuff, over and over in every interview,” Turner’s manager Roger Davies recalls in the film. “We couldn’t stop it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Turner remembers, “Out of all the success I was having, why are they talking about Ike and Tina? I said to Roger, ‘I’m beginning to get really very depressed.’ And he said, ‘Well the only thing you can do is write a book.’ … I wasn’t interested in telling that ridiculously embarrassing story of my life. But I felt that’s one way I could get the journalists off my back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>I, Tina\u003c/em> was an instant worldwide best seller. But it did the opposite of end the chatter. Nowhere is this more obvious in \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> than during a clip from a 1993 Venice Film Festival press conference for \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108551/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>What’s Love Got to Do With It?\u003c/em>\u003c/a>—the biopic based on the book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a journalist asks Turner what she thinks of the movie, she replies that she hasn’t yet seen it. When subsequently asked, “Why not?” Turner visibly stiffens, awkwardly fiddles with her microphone, and replies:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>I am not so thrilled thinking about the past and how I lived my life. The story was actually written so I would no longer have to discuss the issue. I don’t love that it’s always talked about, you see … This constant reminder is not so good, you know. I’m not so happy about it. So, do I want to sit at a screen and watch the violence and all the brutality? No. That’s why I haven’t seen it.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Turner’s husband, Erwin Bach, does not sugarcoat matters when talking about the effect these kinds of questions have had on his wife during their 33 years together. “When you talk to journalists over and over and over, for 20, or 30, or 40 years,” Bach says, “memories come back. She has, partly, dreams about it. They’re not pleasant. So I think these are the things that come back to her when she opens that book. It’s like when soldiers come back from the war.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ironically, Turner has to re-state her position on the matter at the start of \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em>. “It wasn’t a good life,” she says. “It was in some areas, but the goodness didn’t balance the bad. So it’s not wanting to be reminded. You want to just leave that in the past. I don’t like to pull out old clothes. It’s old memories. You want to just leave that in the past and be done with it.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> is careful to give focus to the good that’s resulted from Turner’s lifetime spent reliving her trauma for the public. Fans are seen expressing gratitude for it. Playwright Katori Hall says of Turner’s life, “That story reached so many people who felt like they had to keep their secrets locked away, deep down.” And Turner’s friend Oprah Winfrey notes, “Nobody talked about sexual abuse, physical abuse, domestic abuse—abuse, period. Our generation is the generation that started to break the silence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no doubt that the insights Turner offers here, via old interviews, do offer revelations about how people become trapped in domestic abuse situations. “I felt obligated to stay there and I was afraid,” Turner says of her marriage and early career. “I felt very loyal to Ike and I didn’t want to hurt him. Sometimes after he’d beat me up, I’d end up feeling sorry for him. I was 23 years old or something like that. Early 20s. I was brainwashed. I was afraid of him. And I cared what happened to him. I knew that if I left, there was no one to sing. So I was caught up on guilt and fear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in the end, it’s impossible to leave \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> without a sense of enthralled awe. That’s not just because of Tina Turner’s personal resilience, it’s because of the sheer power of her vocals, her dancing, her talent, her focus and her unerring self-belief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the movie is also an important reminder that, as a public, we must learn to honor the struggle of survivors without primarily defining them by it—especially if they’re asking over and over again to be allowed to move on. \u003cem>TINA\u003c/em> reminds us that being inspired by other people’s battles shouldn’t require those sources of inspiration to repeatedly re-live their darkest days. Doing so doesn’t just ask that they live in the past, it denies them the autonomy they have fought so hard to get back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Soul legend \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15662553/aretha-franklin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aretha Franklin\u003c/a> received the television-miniseries treatment with \u003cem>Genius: Aretha\u003c/em>, a project that works best when it lets her music do the talking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cynthia Erivo plays Aretha who, moments into the start of \u003cem>Genius\u003c/em>, makes it clear that they found the right woman for this job. Recreating the tumultuous life of Aretha Franklin requires more, however, than just singing her classic hits with power and excitement. It requires revisiting a life filled with trauma and challenges, as foreshadowed by journalists questioning Franklin on who “calls the shots,” her father or her husband, at a press conference (to which she responds, “I think you’ve all been reading a few too many gossip columns”).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She learns to free herself from the men in her life determined to dominate her, beginning with her father, renowned Baptist preacher and civil rights activist the Rev. C.L. Franklin. Courtney B. Vance is magnetic as the elder Franklin, a preacher who, one character says, “loved Sunday morning \u003cem>and\u003c/em> Saturday night.” In one scene, he’s urging a tween-age Aretha to sing at a house party before \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15196957/art-tatum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Art Tatum\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15404991/dinah-washington\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dinah Washington\u003c/a>. But the Rev. Franklin is also shown as a compulsive womanizer, confronted by his girlfriend—who Aretha had grown to love, hoping she would become her stepmom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fight over infidelity followed by violence is a cycle we see repeated with Aretha and her husband Ted, after he ruins a recording session by fighting in the studio. “You were supposed to be good as gold,” Aretha says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjw3-JMm5Sc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite crackling performances from Erivo, Vance and the actress who plays young Aretha, Shaian Jordan, \u003cem>Genius: Aretha\u003c/em> too often unfolds like a predictable biopic burdened by ham-handed storytelling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the third installment of National Geographic’s \u003cem>Genius\u003c/em> anthology series, but the first about a woman or a non-white person, following seasons on Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso. So, some may be disappointed in how it presents a succession of Black men who take advantage of Franklin, from her philandering father, to her philandering husband, to a man who left her pregnant at age 12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The best moments involve showing how Franklin transitioned from gospel star to soul diva. That includes a scene where producer, songwriter and performer Curtis Mayfield urges her to channel her tribulations into her vocals in the studio: “You move people; you take the heaviness of life and you make it beautiful. We need \u003cem>that\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aretha sings again, but this time pouring herself out over a swaying track called “Something He Can Feel.” If more moments in \u003cem>Genius: Aretha\u003c/em> matched this one, it would truly be the triumph Erivo and the Queen of Soul deserve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Genius: Aretha\u003cem> debuts this Sunday, March 21, on the National Geographic channel.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Aretha+Franklin+Shines+In%2C+And+Despite%2C+The+New+Miniseries%2C+%27Genius%3A+Aretha%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Soul legend \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15662553/aretha-franklin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aretha Franklin\u003c/a> received the television-miniseries treatment with \u003cem>Genius: Aretha\u003c/em>, a project that works best when it lets her music do the talking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cynthia Erivo plays Aretha who, moments into the start of \u003cem>Genius\u003c/em>, makes it clear that they found the right woman for this job. Recreating the tumultuous life of Aretha Franklin requires more, however, than just singing her classic hits with power and excitement. It requires revisiting a life filled with trauma and challenges, as foreshadowed by journalists questioning Franklin on who “calls the shots,” her father or her husband, at a press conference (to which she responds, “I think you’ve all been reading a few too many gossip columns”).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She learns to free herself from the men in her life determined to dominate her, beginning with her father, renowned Baptist preacher and civil rights activist the Rev. C.L. Franklin. Courtney B. Vance is magnetic as the elder Franklin, a preacher who, one character says, “loved Sunday morning \u003cem>and\u003c/em> Saturday night.” In one scene, he’s urging a tween-age Aretha to sing at a house party before \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15196957/art-tatum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Art Tatum\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15404991/dinah-washington\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dinah Washington\u003c/a>. But the Rev. Franklin is also shown as a compulsive womanizer, confronted by his girlfriend—who Aretha had grown to love, hoping she would become her stepmom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fight over infidelity followed by violence is a cycle we see repeated with Aretha and her husband Ted, after he ruins a recording session by fighting in the studio. “You were supposed to be good as gold,” Aretha says.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/qjw3-JMm5Sc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/qjw3-JMm5Sc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite crackling performances from Erivo, Vance and the actress who plays young Aretha, Shaian Jordan, \u003cem>Genius: Aretha\u003c/em> too often unfolds like a predictable biopic burdened by ham-handed storytelling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the third installment of National Geographic’s \u003cem>Genius\u003c/em> anthology series, but the first about a woman or a non-white person, following seasons on Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso. So, some may be disappointed in how it presents a succession of Black men who take advantage of Franklin, from her philandering father, to her philandering husband, to a man who left her pregnant at age 12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The best moments involve showing how Franklin transitioned from gospel star to soul diva. That includes a scene where producer, songwriter and performer Curtis Mayfield urges her to channel her tribulations into her vocals in the studio: “You move people; you take the heaviness of life and you make it beautiful. We need \u003cem>that\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aretha sings again, but this time pouring herself out over a swaying track called “Something He Can Feel.” If more moments in \u003cem>Genius: Aretha\u003c/em> matched this one, it would truly be the triumph Erivo and the Queen of Soul deserve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Genius: Aretha\u003cem> debuts this Sunday, March 21, on the National Geographic channel.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Aretha+Franklin+Shines+In%2C+And+Despite%2C+The+New+Miniseries%2C+%27Genius%3A+Aretha%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Here at Long (Really Long) Last, 'Zack Snyder's Justice League' is ... Pretty Good?",
"headTitle": "Here at Long (Really Long) Last, ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ is … Pretty Good? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Let’s get this out of the way, first. Yes, \u003cem>Zack Snyder’s Justice League\u003c/em> is just over four hours long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four. Hours. Long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, somehow, it feels like the right length for a film that has moved mountains—and \u003ca href=\"https://www.thewrap.com/justice-league-snyder-additional-shooting/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reportedly spent around $70 million beyond its original, blockbuster budget\u003c/a>—to reinvent one of the biggest superhero movie bombs in recent memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And here’s the thing: It actually succeeds. In more ways than I ever expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By now, the backstory is a bit of superhero film legend. Director Zack Snyder fought a lot of second-guessing by the film studio while making \u003cem>Justice League\u003c/em>, an important movie in building out the universe of superhero characters from DC Comics. Perhaps the disappointing public response to Snyder’s take on Superman in 2013’s \u003cem>Man of Steel \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice\u003c/em> in 2016 had spooked the corporate suits at Warner Bros. Pictures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Snyder’s daughter died in early 2017, the director left \u003cem>Justice League\u003c/em>‘s production and let Joss Whedon, director of Marvel’s first two \u003cem>Avengers\u003c/em> movies, take over. Judging by Snyder’s version, Whedon must have completely retooled the film, creating a schizophrenic two-hour cut with loads of additional scenes which sometimes felt like two different movies playing at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With an avalanche of terrible reviews and a reported $300 million budget, the film lost many millions for Warner Bros. But passionate fans and some stars from the film kept hope alive—yes, there were billboards, social media campaigns and signs towed by airplanes—convincing Warner Media that releasing Snyder’s mega-version would bring a badly-needed superhero event to its corporate kin, streaming service HBO Max.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I may sound like the biggest of comic book/superhero story geeks, but it must be said: \u003cem>Zack Snyder’s Justice League\u003c/em> is a much better movie. Especially since there are some critics—and film fans—who would likely prefer a bullet in the head than to sit through four hours of CGI-augmented fist fights and flying sequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Understand, I’m usually quite cynical about director’s cuts and expanded versions of theatrical releases. As much as I love James Cameron’s \u003cem>Aliens\u003c/em> and the extra scenes he added in his director’s cut, the original theatrical release was a much leaner and focused story. After watching the new director’s cut of Francis Ford Coppola’s \u003cem>Godfather III\u003c/em>, I wondered why he even bothered—none of its narrative problems were cured by Coppola’s new take.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most theatrical releases contain the movie’s best scenes, regardless of what else gets tossed in through a director’s cut. But not so with \u003cem>Zack Snyder’s Justice League\u003c/em>, which offers an entirely different narrative, different beginning, different ending and wider scope, to give a glimpse of the larger story he was driving towards all along. All this, married with the kind of dazzling visual sequences that once made Snyder the perfect custodian of the DC Extended Universe in film.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gone is a lot of the hokey humor that Whedon seemed to insert to offset criticisms of Snyder’s relentlessly dark vision (Whedon’s name has also disappeared from this new film’s credits, suggesting they exorcised every bit of his material).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Superman and Cyborg don’t joke about getting knocked on their behinds at the film’s finish. Jason Momoa’s Aquaman and Batfleck—I mean, Ben Affleck’s Batman—don’t trade quips about how a son of Atlantis talks to fish. And, mercifully, a scene where Flash lands on Wonder Woman’s breasts after saving her from falling debris—an awkward bit of sexualization that star Gal Gadot \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/GraceRandolph/status/1278402984716705794?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reportedly refused to film\u003c/a>, forcing Whedon to use a stunt double—has also been cut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Snyder’s take is also an R-rated version. There is more blood and gore than typical big-budget superhero stories; Batman and other characters use the f-word and there is a scene where more than one hero actually murders a villain. Welcome to the Snyderverse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM-Bja2Gy04\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It makes sense that a movie which exists because of the fans would work so hard to please them. So there are depictions of cool characters from the comics we haven’t yet seen on the big screen. Martian Manhunter and Deathstroke pop up, along with extended footage of supreme bad guy Darkseid and his lieutenants, like Granny Goodness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steppenwolf, the major villain of \u003cem>Justice League\u003c/em>, is given a deadlier, less human look, and his mission to prepare Earth for Darkseid’s conquest—inspired by comic book legend Jack Kirby’s \u003cem>New Gods\u003c/em> stories—is made more clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also expanded backstories on Ezra Miller’s Flash and Ray Fisher’s Cyborg; Fisher in particular gets to shine as we learn more about why Cyborg hates the father who used an alien machine to save his life after a horrific car accident, grafting unknown technology to his body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, of course, there’s a newly-filmed epilogue that leans toward the story of the \u003cem>Injustice\u003c/em> graphic novel series. There’s a few surprises for fans, so I won’t detail much here; but it helps clarify a head-scratching moment from \u003cem>Batman v. Superman\u003c/em> and includes a cameo from a character who remains a bit of a disappointment in the Snyder era of DC superhero films.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are other problems here, too. This new \u003cem>Justice League\u003c/em> is still packed with a lot of computer-generated effects that make the action feel unreal. Aside from Gadot’s Wonder Woman and the Amazons at the film’s start, the female characters here are mostly mopey and have little purpose beyond supporting the men.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The essential story—a group of misfit heroes must get out of their own way to team up and defeat a world-threatening villain backed by another, badder villain—is also the story from Marvel’s first \u003cem>Avengers\u003c/em>‘ movie in 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it is four. Hours. Long. Frankly, this should have been a streaming project all along, given how much story Snyder wanted to cram into a theatrical feature. It’s tough to imagine audiences sitting in a theater for a movie this long, so you can’t help wondering what Snyder was thinking when he shot this much material in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joss Whedon’s reputation has taken a hit since the original \u003cem>Justice League\u003c/em> was released, with Fisher in particular alleging that Whedon was abusive on set and oversaw story changes which reduced or eliminated the roles of non-white characters in the film. (Indeed, Black characters like Cyborg’s parents and Flash’s love interest Iris West reappear or get more screen time in \u003cem>Zack Snyder’s Justice League\u003c/em>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warner Bros. has denied Fisher’s allegations that executives there hindered an investigation into studio executives’ role in enabling Whedon. WarnerMedia \u003ca href=\"https://deadline.com/2020/12/ray-fisher-justice-league-probe-ends-remedial-action-warnermedia-joss-whedon-1234655411/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced in December\u003c/a> that its investigation had concluded and unspecified “remedial action” had been taken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s tough not to see \u003cem>Zack Snyder’s Justice League\u003c/em> as a last-ditch attempt to rescue the film and its characters from the vortex of failure, toxic rumors and offscreen intrigue which seemed to surround the project for many years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along the way, it gives fans a tantalizing look at a world that could have been—the best iteration of Snyder’s vision for the DC universe in film, capitalizing on the kind of second chance which rarely comes around in Hollywood anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Here+At+Long+%28Really+Long%29+Last%2C+%27Zack+Snyder%27s+Justice+League%27+Is+...+Not+Bad%3F&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Let’s get this out of the way, first. Yes, \u003cem>Zack Snyder’s Justice League\u003c/em> is just over four hours long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four. Hours. Long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, somehow, it feels like the right length for a film that has moved mountains—and \u003ca href=\"https://www.thewrap.com/justice-league-snyder-additional-shooting/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reportedly spent around $70 million beyond its original, blockbuster budget\u003c/a>—to reinvent one of the biggest superhero movie bombs in recent memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And here’s the thing: It actually succeeds. In more ways than I ever expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By now, the backstory is a bit of superhero film legend. Director Zack Snyder fought a lot of second-guessing by the film studio while making \u003cem>Justice League\u003c/em>, an important movie in building out the universe of superhero characters from DC Comics. Perhaps the disappointing public response to Snyder’s take on Superman in 2013’s \u003cem>Man of Steel \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice\u003c/em> in 2016 had spooked the corporate suits at Warner Bros. Pictures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Snyder’s daughter died in early 2017, the director left \u003cem>Justice League\u003c/em>‘s production and let Joss Whedon, director of Marvel’s first two \u003cem>Avengers\u003c/em> movies, take over. Judging by Snyder’s version, Whedon must have completely retooled the film, creating a schizophrenic two-hour cut with loads of additional scenes which sometimes felt like two different movies playing at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With an avalanche of terrible reviews and a reported $300 million budget, the film lost many millions for Warner Bros. But passionate fans and some stars from the film kept hope alive—yes, there were billboards, social media campaigns and signs towed by airplanes—convincing Warner Media that releasing Snyder’s mega-version would bring a badly-needed superhero event to its corporate kin, streaming service HBO Max.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I may sound like the biggest of comic book/superhero story geeks, but it must be said: \u003cem>Zack Snyder’s Justice League\u003c/em> is a much better movie. Especially since there are some critics—and film fans—who would likely prefer a bullet in the head than to sit through four hours of CGI-augmented fist fights and flying sequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Understand, I’m usually quite cynical about director’s cuts and expanded versions of theatrical releases. As much as I love James Cameron’s \u003cem>Aliens\u003c/em> and the extra scenes he added in his director’s cut, the original theatrical release was a much leaner and focused story. After watching the new director’s cut of Francis Ford Coppola’s \u003cem>Godfather III\u003c/em>, I wondered why he even bothered—none of its narrative problems were cured by Coppola’s new take.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most theatrical releases contain the movie’s best scenes, regardless of what else gets tossed in through a director’s cut. But not so with \u003cem>Zack Snyder’s Justice League\u003c/em>, which offers an entirely different narrative, different beginning, different ending and wider scope, to give a glimpse of the larger story he was driving towards all along. All this, married with the kind of dazzling visual sequences that once made Snyder the perfect custodian of the DC Extended Universe in film.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gone is a lot of the hokey humor that Whedon seemed to insert to offset criticisms of Snyder’s relentlessly dark vision (Whedon’s name has also disappeared from this new film’s credits, suggesting they exorcised every bit of his material).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Superman and Cyborg don’t joke about getting knocked on their behinds at the film’s finish. Jason Momoa’s Aquaman and Batfleck—I mean, Ben Affleck’s Batman—don’t trade quips about how a son of Atlantis talks to fish. And, mercifully, a scene where Flash lands on Wonder Woman’s breasts after saving her from falling debris—an awkward bit of sexualization that star Gal Gadot \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/GraceRandolph/status/1278402984716705794?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reportedly refused to film\u003c/a>, forcing Whedon to use a stunt double—has also been cut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Snyder’s take is also an R-rated version. There is more blood and gore than typical big-budget superhero stories; Batman and other characters use the f-word and there is a scene where more than one hero actually murders a villain. Welcome to the Snyderverse.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/vM-Bja2Gy04'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/vM-Bja2Gy04'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>It makes sense that a movie which exists because of the fans would work so hard to please them. So there are depictions of cool characters from the comics we haven’t yet seen on the big screen. Martian Manhunter and Deathstroke pop up, along with extended footage of supreme bad guy Darkseid and his lieutenants, like Granny Goodness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steppenwolf, the major villain of \u003cem>Justice League\u003c/em>, is given a deadlier, less human look, and his mission to prepare Earth for Darkseid’s conquest—inspired by comic book legend Jack Kirby’s \u003cem>New Gods\u003c/em> stories—is made more clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also expanded backstories on Ezra Miller’s Flash and Ray Fisher’s Cyborg; Fisher in particular gets to shine as we learn more about why Cyborg hates the father who used an alien machine to save his life after a horrific car accident, grafting unknown technology to his body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, of course, there’s a newly-filmed epilogue that leans toward the story of the \u003cem>Injustice\u003c/em> graphic novel series. There’s a few surprises for fans, so I won’t detail much here; but it helps clarify a head-scratching moment from \u003cem>Batman v. Superman\u003c/em> and includes a cameo from a character who remains a bit of a disappointment in the Snyder era of DC superhero films.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are other problems here, too. This new \u003cem>Justice League\u003c/em> is still packed with a lot of computer-generated effects that make the action feel unreal. Aside from Gadot’s Wonder Woman and the Amazons at the film’s start, the female characters here are mostly mopey and have little purpose beyond supporting the men.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The essential story—a group of misfit heroes must get out of their own way to team up and defeat a world-threatening villain backed by another, badder villain—is also the story from Marvel’s first \u003cem>Avengers\u003c/em>‘ movie in 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it is four. Hours. Long. Frankly, this should have been a streaming project all along, given how much story Snyder wanted to cram into a theatrical feature. It’s tough to imagine audiences sitting in a theater for a movie this long, so you can’t help wondering what Snyder was thinking when he shot this much material in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joss Whedon’s reputation has taken a hit since the original \u003cem>Justice League\u003c/em> was released, with Fisher in particular alleging that Whedon was abusive on set and oversaw story changes which reduced or eliminated the roles of non-white characters in the film. (Indeed, Black characters like Cyborg’s parents and Flash’s love interest Iris West reappear or get more screen time in \u003cem>Zack Snyder’s Justice League\u003c/em>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warner Bros. has denied Fisher’s allegations that executives there hindered an investigation into studio executives’ role in enabling Whedon. WarnerMedia \u003ca href=\"https://deadline.com/2020/12/ray-fisher-justice-league-probe-ends-remedial-action-warnermedia-joss-whedon-1234655411/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced in December\u003c/a> that its investigation had concluded and unspecified “remedial action” had been taken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s tough not to see \u003cem>Zack Snyder’s Justice League\u003c/em> as a last-ditch attempt to rescue the film and its characters from the vortex of failure, toxic rumors and offscreen intrigue which seemed to surround the project for many years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>It’s a safe bet this wasn’t the conversation producers of \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> expected would cap Matt James’ season when they named him as the unscripted dating show’s first Black star.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the tense, emotional exchange Monday night between James and former girlfriend Rachael Kirkconnell—where he revealed why he broke off their relationship after photos of her at an Antebellum South-themed party surfaced on social media—is the kind of conversation about race and white cluelessness that \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> has been avoiding for far too long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rachael might not understand what it means to be Black in America,” James told host Emmanuel Acho during the show’s \u003cem>After the Final Rose\u003c/em> special Monday, dropping a line that felt like the understatement of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, the show’s refusal to appreciate what it means to be Black on \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> is what made this moment. [aside postid='pop_27797']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It led producers to stumble into a roiling, race-centered controversy that has sidelined the show’s longtime host Chris Harrison, obliterated the storybook romance set up by months of pre-taped episodes, and forced the white woman James selected from a field of nearly 40 contestants to tearfully explain herself on national television.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I see someone who was living in this ignorance, without thinking who it might be hurting,” Kirkconnell said, looking at a photo of herself hanging with friends at that fraternity party in 2018, decked out in frilly dresses, celebrating the spectacle of a bygone era.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Civil rights activists have criticized these kinds of parties for many years, noting that they elevate the beauty of the Old South’s plantations while erasing their roots in the bondage and brutal oppression of Black slaves. It’s similar to the denialism among some who seek to honor symbols of the Confederacy while downplaying or ignoring its role in fighting to maintain slavery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kirkconnell admitted as much on Monday, noting some supporters told her they didn’t think attending such parties were racist because they personally were not racist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I did get a lot of people saying, ‘This is normal where I grew up,'” she said. “People need to realize that just saying ‘This is normal where I came from’ … that doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t make it okay.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> stumbled into this mess because the show has refused to face how deeply centered on white culture the whole enterprise truly is—naming James as its first Black star in 25 seasons, after years of criticism for the omission. It has seemingly shown little regard for the extra pressure non-white people face in trying to compete on the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Worst of all, the show seems to have no clue how deeply embedded racism is in the fabric of American life—and how dating, especially across racial lines, can bring out those issues in ways that are explosive and damaging if not handled well. [aside postid='arts_13893077']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Acho, a former pro football linebacker who wrote the book and hosts a webcast called \u003cem>Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man\u003c/em>, led Monday’s discussion with the deft charm of a man used to untangling complex racial dynamics for clueless white people. He explained thorny concepts and sympathized with James, who spoke about the extra burden of avoiding stereotypes while starring on the show. (“It’s just what we’re conditioned to do as Black men,” James said. “Making people comfortable with your Blackness.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Acho stepped up when longtime host Chris Harrison announced he would step away from the program—a move which came after Harrison tried to defend Kirkconnell by suggesting Antebellum parties weren’t considered offensive in 2018, criticizing the “woke police” for targeting her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a clumsy attempt at damage control that only made the controversy worse. Now Harrison’s future with the franchise is in doubt—he won’t be hosting the next two seasons of \u003cem>The Bachelorette\u003c/em> airing this summer and fall—even as his dismissive attitude seemed completely in tune with how producers have shrugged off past criticisms regarding race on the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rachel Lindsay, who became the first Black woman to star in the spin off series \u003cem>The Bachelorette \u003c/em>in 2017, found her season marred by the antics of a white man who antagonized many of the show’s Black male contestants and had a history of inflammatory social media posts. Lindsay, who was interviewing Harrison for the TV show \u003cem>Extra\u003c/em> when he dropped his “woke police” comments, \u003ca href=\"https://extratv.com/2021/02/15/rachel-lindsay-reacts-to-chris-harrison-stepping-aside-after-her-headline-making-interview/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">has emerged as a consistent critic\u003c/a> of the franchise’s handling of race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why doesn’t the show do a better job of screening its white contestants’ backgrounds? And why did it take so long for the show to name a Black man to star in \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> in the first place? These are questions that are tough to answer for another reason; the show’s producers don’t talk openly about what they do or why they do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>James has perfected the show’s style of speaking in vague platitudes. So it was tough to discern from his answers Monday exactly what happened between him and Kirkconnell when the pictures surfaced; they both implied that she didn’t take the controversy seriously enough at first. [aside postid='pop_104953']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was in the context of you not fully understanding my Blackness … and what it would mean for our kids when I saw these things floating around the internet,” James told Kirkconnell about his decision to end their relationship. “I didn’t sign up to have this conversation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That may also be part of the problem. Because \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> is basically a princess fantasy—a soap opera featuring non-actors centered on a hunky guy choosing a romantic partner in the most idealized settings possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But talking about and understanding how race works in America is the opposite of fantasy. It’s a difficult, challenging process, which often requires facing uncomfortable truths. And James admitted \u003ca href=\"https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/culture/video/matt-james-opens-final-rose-special-76484182\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in an interview on ABC’s \u003cem>Good Morning America\u003c/em>\u003c/a> Tuesday that he didn’t discuss race or the challenge of dating across racial lines with Kirkconnell before the controversy emerged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s tough to know whether a franchise as manipulative and problematic as \u003cem>The Bachelor/Bachelorette\u003c/em> can ever correct itself enough to consistently handle racial issues well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with another Black woman scheduled to star in a future season of \u003cem>The Bachelorette\u003c/em>—Michelle Young, the runner-up in James’ season, \u003ca href=\"https://abc.com/shows/the-bachelorette/news/updates/whos-the-next-bachelorette-2021-two-seasons-katie-thurston-summer-michelle-young-fall\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">was announced as star of the show’s 18th season Monday\u003c/a>—ABC’s high-profile franchise better raise its game in a hurry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or it won’t be long before another season goes down in flames, felled by its ignorance of race in a world which will no longer tolerate white cluelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27The+Bachelor%27s+Cluelessness+About+Race+Comes+To+A+Head+In+Season+Finale&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s a safe bet this wasn’t the conversation producers of \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> expected would cap Matt James’ season when they named him as the unscripted dating show’s first Black star.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the tense, emotional exchange Monday night between James and former girlfriend Rachael Kirkconnell—where he revealed why he broke off their relationship after photos of her at an Antebellum South-themed party surfaced on social media—is the kind of conversation about race and white cluelessness that \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> has been avoiding for far too long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rachael might not understand what it means to be Black in America,” James told host Emmanuel Acho during the show’s \u003cem>After the Final Rose\u003c/em> special Monday, dropping a line that felt like the understatement of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, the show’s refusal to appreciate what it means to be Black on \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> is what made this moment. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I see someone who was living in this ignorance, without thinking who it might be hurting,” Kirkconnell said, looking at a photo of herself hanging with friends at that fraternity party in 2018, decked out in frilly dresses, celebrating the spectacle of a bygone era.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Civil rights activists have criticized these kinds of parties for many years, noting that they elevate the beauty of the Old South’s plantations while erasing their roots in the bondage and brutal oppression of Black slaves. It’s similar to the denialism among some who seek to honor symbols of the Confederacy while downplaying or ignoring its role in fighting to maintain slavery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kirkconnell admitted as much on Monday, noting some supporters told her they didn’t think attending such parties were racist because they personally were not racist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I did get a lot of people saying, ‘This is normal where I grew up,'” she said. “People need to realize that just saying ‘This is normal where I came from’ … that doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t make it okay.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> stumbled into this mess because the show has refused to face how deeply centered on white culture the whole enterprise truly is—naming James as its first Black star in 25 seasons, after years of criticism for the omission. It has seemingly shown little regard for the extra pressure non-white people face in trying to compete on the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Worst of all, the show seems to have no clue how deeply embedded racism is in the fabric of American life—and how dating, especially across racial lines, can bring out those issues in ways that are explosive and damaging if not handled well. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Acho, a former pro football linebacker who wrote the book and hosts a webcast called \u003cem>Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man\u003c/em>, led Monday’s discussion with the deft charm of a man used to untangling complex racial dynamics for clueless white people. He explained thorny concepts and sympathized with James, who spoke about the extra burden of avoiding stereotypes while starring on the show. (“It’s just what we’re conditioned to do as Black men,” James said. “Making people comfortable with your Blackness.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Acho stepped up when longtime host Chris Harrison announced he would step away from the program—a move which came after Harrison tried to defend Kirkconnell by suggesting Antebellum parties weren’t considered offensive in 2018, criticizing the “woke police” for targeting her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a clumsy attempt at damage control that only made the controversy worse. Now Harrison’s future with the franchise is in doubt—he won’t be hosting the next two seasons of \u003cem>The Bachelorette\u003c/em> airing this summer and fall—even as his dismissive attitude seemed completely in tune with how producers have shrugged off past criticisms regarding race on the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rachel Lindsay, who became the first Black woman to star in the spin off series \u003cem>The Bachelorette \u003c/em>in 2017, found her season marred by the antics of a white man who antagonized many of the show’s Black male contestants and had a history of inflammatory social media posts. Lindsay, who was interviewing Harrison for the TV show \u003cem>Extra\u003c/em> when he dropped his “woke police” comments, \u003ca href=\"https://extratv.com/2021/02/15/rachel-lindsay-reacts-to-chris-harrison-stepping-aside-after-her-headline-making-interview/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">has emerged as a consistent critic\u003c/a> of the franchise’s handling of race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why doesn’t the show do a better job of screening its white contestants’ backgrounds? And why did it take so long for the show to name a Black man to star in \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> in the first place? These are questions that are tough to answer for another reason; the show’s producers don’t talk openly about what they do or why they do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>James has perfected the show’s style of speaking in vague platitudes. So it was tough to discern from his answers Monday exactly what happened between him and Kirkconnell when the pictures surfaced; they both implied that she didn’t take the controversy seriously enough at first. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was in the context of you not fully understanding my Blackness … and what it would mean for our kids when I saw these things floating around the internet,” James told Kirkconnell about his decision to end their relationship. “I didn’t sign up to have this conversation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That may also be part of the problem. Because \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> is basically a princess fantasy—a soap opera featuring non-actors centered on a hunky guy choosing a romantic partner in the most idealized settings possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But talking about and understanding how race works in America is the opposite of fantasy. It’s a difficult, challenging process, which often requires facing uncomfortable truths. And James admitted \u003ca href=\"https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/culture/video/matt-james-opens-final-rose-special-76484182\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in an interview on ABC’s \u003cem>Good Morning America\u003c/em>\u003c/a> Tuesday that he didn’t discuss race or the challenge of dating across racial lines with Kirkconnell before the controversy emerged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s tough to know whether a franchise as manipulative and problematic as \u003cem>The Bachelor/Bachelorette\u003c/em> can ever correct itself enough to consistently handle racial issues well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with another Black woman scheduled to star in a future season of \u003cem>The Bachelorette\u003c/em>—Michelle Young, the runner-up in James’ season, \u003ca href=\"https://abc.com/shows/the-bachelorette/news/updates/whos-the-next-bachelorette-2021-two-seasons-katie-thurston-summer-michelle-young-fall\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">was announced as star of the show’s 18th season Monday\u003c/a>—ABC’s high-profile franchise better raise its game in a hurry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or it won’t be long before another season goes down in flames, felled by its ignorance of race in a world which will no longer tolerate white cluelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27The+Bachelor%27s+Cluelessness+About+Race+Comes+To+A+Head+In+Season+Finale&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
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},
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"id": "californiareportmagazine",
"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
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"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
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"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"order": 1
},
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"meta": {
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio"
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"here-and-now": {
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
"id": "how-i-built-this",
"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/6c3dd23c-93fb-4aab-97ba-1725fa6315f1/hyphenaci%C3%B3n",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC2275451163"
}
},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
}
},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
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