02/12/21
This week: Tearjerkers, justice for Britney, and a cure for FOMO.TRENDS THIS WEEK
☞ YouTube: I Am Not A Cat
☞ Letterboxd: Malcolm & Marie
☞ TikTok: #WomeninSTEM
☞ Spotify: drivers license - Olivia Rodrigo
☞ Netflix: iCarly
☞ Twitter: #claptrap
Life & Culture
Between March 20 and August 5 of 2020, Stop AAPI Hate received 2,583 reports of incidents of violence against Asian Americans across the country. Recently, there’s been an uptick in this violence, directly specifically at seniors. An 84-year-old Thai American man was assaulted in the street in San Francisco, and died in the hospital a few days later. A 61-year-old Filipino American man was slashed across the face with a knife, on the New York subway. And until this week, there’s been very little media attention on any of these acts of hate and violence.
But thanks to a handful of viral videos on social media—like Amanda Nguyen’s detailed video here, or David So’s video here,—and a flurry of attention around actors Daniel Dae Kim and Daniel Wu offering a reward for any info leading to the arrest of the person who assaulted three people in Oakland, that’s starting to change. It’s nice to see social media create positive change every once in a while.
In other social media news, I joined Clubhouse a few weeks ago. I don’t think you need me to tell you that the audio-only app is blowing up right now. The latest bit of buzz comes after Elon Musk announced that he’ll be appearing on the app with Kanye West soon. Film industry stars—and especially Black creatives—like Ava DuVernay, Barry Jenkins, Tiffany Haddish, and our own BORDERLANDS star Kevin Hart, were among the early adopters of the platform, and have hosted conversations about their art and craft. The platform is still invite-only, but it’s added over 2M users since January—and now boasts a valuation of $1B—so I’m curious to see how conversations change as more entertainment industry peeps join in.
News of Mindy Kaling’s new Scooby Doo spin-off series VELMA released on Wednesday, and someone quote-tweeted the announcement with a gif of Michael Scott from The Office screaming “NOOO”. Mindy iconicly replied saying “I wrote the episode of The Office this gif is from,” which prompted the original Tweeter to delete his entire account. As Kelly Kapoor would say, “How dare you?!”.
And as for my two favorite TikToks of the week, check out this video documenting high school gym class in the most accurate way, and this video, which depicts the beautiful moment in which a woman sang with her family for the last time. That second one is guaranteed to give you chills.
—Darlene Kenney, Marketing Assistant
Filmmaker
I have an inkling that Stefon Bristol is on the brink of a big break. His feature debut on Netflix SEE YOU YESTERDAY is a heart- wrenching and relevant story about two genius scientist prodigies on the brink of a major time travel discovery. When one of their older brothers dies in a police shooting, they must put their experiment to the test to go back in time and save their beloved. Stefon’s next sci-fi feature is in the works and it sounds just as innovative as the first!
—Shuyu Cao, Development Assistant
Film
I feel like every film I’ve loved in the past few months has been a tearjerker, and the latest addition to the list is no exception. Chad Hartigan’s LITTLE FISH, which is now streaming and in theatres, is a love story set during a pandemic. It’s not Covid-19, but rather a mysterious disease causing memory loss around the world. We jump around in the story of our two lovers, played by the always wonderful Jack O’Connell and Olivia Cooke. We first watch their friends and family members lose their memories, and then inevitably, we watch Jack’s character Jude lose his memory as well. There are certainly a few gut-punch moments, but overall it’s a beautiful, heartfelt film about the power of relationships and how we form our sense of self. If you're ready to cry, check it out this weekend.
—Julia Hammer, Creative Executive
TV
I’m still getting chills thinking about the “Framing Britney Spears” episode of the NY Times documentary series on Hulu. I don’t think my opinion has changed about a celebrity so drastically since I saw the Paris Hilton documentary—which is actually a great companion piece to this. Now that I think of it, you should also watch that one immediately. Seriously, even if you first chuckled at the thought of #FreeBritney, you will be a die-hard activist by the end of this thoughtful and earth-shatteringly disturbing hour-long special. No joke, it gave me nightmares.
—Kauveh Khozein Carrera, Creative Executive
Theater
One of the recent theater productions I’ve had the most FOMO about missing is 2018’s ANGELS IN AMERICA starring Andrew Garfield as Prior Walter and Nathan Lane as Roy Cohn. I am VERY happy to announce that if you also suffer from this particular type of FOMO, there is finally a cure! The National Theatre (where the production originated before transferring to Broadway) has just added both parts of the production to its National Theatre at Home rental service. What better way to spend your long-weekend Monday than by bingeing eight hours of this Olivier- and Tony-winning production?
—Julia Hammer, Creative Executive
Book
Since it was published last month, Torrey Peters’ DETRANSITION, BABY has steadily been racking up critical and popular attention, and I am here to tell you that it is 1,000% deserved! Peters tells the story of a trans woman named Reese who is approached by her ex, Ames (who formerly lived as a trans woman named Amy) after Ames’ boss-and-secret-girlfriend Katrina gets pregnant. Ames is uneasy about the prospect of fatherhood and asks Reese if she would raise the child alongside Ames and Katrina. Reese, having always wanted to be a mother, hesitantly agrees. As the story unfolds from both Reese and Ames’ POVs, Peters dives headfirst into messy questions about desire, family, and of course gender. DETRANSITION, BABY is the sort of book you read and immediately want to discuss with everyone you know, so please, read it so I can talk about it more!!
—Julia Hammer, Creative Executive
Tiny History Lesson
For more #TinyHistoryLessons, check out @picturestart on Instagram. We’re dropping a new installment every Wednesday.
